A Christmas Carol Train Tour

To promote its new film A Christmas Carol, Disney has been conducting a train tour this summer beginning in May in Los Angeles, and ending in New York City Halloween weekend.  The movie is set to debut on November 6 in IMAX and 3D.

The train tour made a Detroit stop over Labor Day weekend at The Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village.  I took my daughter for some alone Daddy and daughter time.  We went opening day at 9:15 am.  The tours were to start at 9:00 and there was already a line.  Because the train was at the back of the Village, there were buses to take us to it.  So after waiting for about 15 minutes or so, we boarded our coach and were taken to the train.

On the bus, heading towards the train

When we got to the train there was yet another line.  While waiting, there was a quartet of carolers singing Christmas songs to the crowd.  Surprisingly, they were wearing the full 19th century holiday regalia.  It was a very warm day and they must have been incredibly hot under their costumes.  It was very cute and added to the ambiance.  Also adding to the ambiance of the festivities was some snow.  Machines at various locations around the tour stop were blowing out snowflakes in which the kids loved to play.

Carolers singing

At last, after about an hour waiting, we were ushered into the train.  Before entering, we were given a train ticket for the exhibit showing the number of “passengers” in our party.  Inside the train we walked through three cars where we were able to see some costumes, artwork, and even miniature models of London that were used to inspire the movie.

Train ticket

The train

 In the last train car the exhibit offered a very unique experience for the visitors.  The movie was shot using performance capture technology which is how they are able to portray actors’ movements and expressions into digital animation.  It was neat to learn more about this during the tour (though it probably bored the young’ins to death).  Well, near the end we were able to use this technology to “morph” ourselves into the movie’s characters.  There were stations set up inside the traincar to take photographs of the visitors.  Each person could then choose to see their face morph into Scrooge, Marley, Tiny Tim, etc.

Me as Ebeneezer Scrooge

Me as Jacob Marley

Me as Tiny Tim

Amandine as Belle, Scrooge’s past love

We had a really good time and before leaving we got to watch an extended trailer of the movie in 3D.