My sister passed away last September. We used to love going to Disney World together. Every time we were there was amazing. Each journey was special, but I think my favorite was the 25th anniversary of the park. We had saved up for a year for that trip, and we went nuts. We stayed in a few places, including the tower in the Contemporary facing the Magic Kingdom so we could watch the fireworks from the balcony. We even ate at Victoria and Alberts that trip, which was bonkers. Unfortunately it’s been many years since she had been able to make the journey, and I didn’t want to go without her. But now that she has passed, I’ll be going again this September. But until then I just got this on my forearm a few weeks ago:

F1374B51-3BE5-4727-A9B2-868669F9A4D8 (resized).jpeg

But you can have a second day for only $10,000. So buying it is like putting 2 grand into your savings account.

Getting rid of fastpass like that would not help profits. Right now, I have a chance at 3 fastpasses (plus in the app). If I have to pay $10,000 for two people to have them for a day, I won’t do it. So the only thing I could do is stand in the long line for every ride. I wouldn’t want to even go at that point. So yes, it would cut down on the lines, but all the money I would spend there would also be gone.

Unfortunately the price hikes are not cutting down the number of people going, so really there is no solution for them. Insanely popular, and insanely expensive (I always stay in a Disney hotel, and take the magic express, which means every dime I spend on the vacation goes to them).

That is my time frame this year, September. As long as it isn't still a total construction zone. This is a special trip this year, so I'm hoping for the best.

I did that years ago when I was going two years in a row. It ended up being a lot cheaper than all the tickets we would have needed, and the added benefit of not having to worry about spending every minute in the park to get all the value out of it. Great suggestion.

Disneyland just closed through the end of the month. I'm assuming the World will follow.

DisneylandClosed (resized).jpg

Just saw that. It stinks, but totally the right move.

I want to hear them.

Every business like that is going to be losing money right now. They are based on guests, and there are no guests right now. Every hotel, every vacation destination if hemorrhaging money right now.

I'm think Disney is in a better spot to get through it. They make millions of dollars a month on Disney+, and I'd guess the number of subscriptions has gone up like crazy in the last week or two as schools were closed. If you have seen the parks in the last couple of years, they have been packed almost every day. Each person there has been paying a ton of money to be there, and the hotels have made buckets of money. They will be fine once the world gets back to normal... provided they don't go back to "normal" too early. Because the last thing they want is the story of the guest that stays there, and then shows up with the virus. That was the reason they closed when they did.

I don't think any thoughts about them reopening would be valid right now. We just don't have a handle on this thing yet. And at the rate Florida is going with no shelter-in-place order from the Governor, I'd expect Florida to get a lot worse before it gets better. I've already cancelled my September trip.

The (very) soft launch is scheduled a week from now for Disney Springs (formerly Downtown Disney for any old timers).

“a limited number of shopping and dining experiences that are owned by third-party operating participants will begin to open during this initial phase. The rest of Walt Disney World Resort will remain closed, including theme parks and Disney Resort hotels.“

https://www.disneysprings.com/reopening/

Opinion: I’m fascinated by it being third party places. It’s an interesting way to be on both sides of the fence. However I don’t think I’m ready to eat sitting in a restaurant yet.

Oh this scares me. Senior facilities are perfect for spreading the virus through the most vulnerable population. My girlfriend works in a SNF, and once the virus gets in the door, people die. You say people want to see their family so bad that hey don’t care about the virus, but I ask how will 15-20% of them feel after their parents died? How will you feel when your wife gets it? How will your wife feel when a staff member dies? How will she feel as 2-3 patients a day die from it?

None of that is hyperbole. None of that is rumor. None of that is political. I’m stunned people don’t understand how serious this is in places where the most vulnerable people live. Does it suck that people can’t directly visit their loved ones? Yup. But it is a lot better than watching them die while you still can’t be there. It’s really important to remember why they closed the doors to visitors.

I cancelled my September trip months ago. It was for something very special to me, and I didn’t want to risk it being messed up. I realize that no trip works out perfectly. You plan, but then just go have fun. If it rains, you wear a poncho eating a Mickey bar while laughing. But the risks of this one were too high. I really hope I can do it next year.

informal : a decision or choice that is very easy to make and requires very little thought.

I wish that were true in this case. Unfortunately, that isn't how pandemics work.

If you are going to make up numbers to make the math look better, you may as well multiply the infection rate by 100 instead of just 10. That would make your final mortality rate ten times lower and convince more people...

That is just discounting the other side of the discussion by referring to them as people that don't think.

Why? Why on earth would I bother? No matter who wins a debate like this, it is meaningless. I'm not going to convince you of anything. You're not going to convince me that people don't die from Covid (BECAUSE I KNOW PEOPLE THAT HAVE DIED FROM COVID!). You will then go into pre-existing conditions they had and will dismiss their deaths, because somehow we are now to the point that the only death that counts is someone who is 100% healthy. Your math was a massive guess from the CDC, because stunningly even the CDC is a political institution now. You expand one side of the equation by an order of magnitude, but if I did the same on the other side I'd hear the tired argument of how hospitals make money from listing deaths as Covid.

And the worst part? Now I'm going to get moderated in a fucking Disney thread, because I love disney and I planned to be in Disney World today for a very special anniversary tomorrow, and instead I'm on Pinside responding to this crap. Ok, there is my response, and I defend the shutdown with 190000 American deaths because we can't deal with responding to a virus. Now I'll quietly take my vacation.

I’m going to just quote that. That way when I get my thread eject it can remain here. The reason is you are now equating unnecessary deaths to the total deaths in America. There’s no reasoning with that. 190000 deaths from this brushed aside as nothing. Pretty sad.

Would you please stop making my point over and over again? It’s like you are reading my rant post and making every tired argument I said you would make. Relax snowflake.

Let me now quote myself...

As I said, useless. If you can brush aside 190000 lives, where will find common ground?

I agree. I started by saying it was a worthless conversation, and nothing he has said has changed that viewpoint.

So, favorite Disney ride! Carousel of Progress for me. I always leave that ride happy. Followed by one that can never be ridden again, which was Horizons. I’m still bummed they took that out.

That is only for the "Disney Premier Passport". It's a pass that is good at both, but if that is not what you bought, it isn't included.

Could you post a link to that video or reference? Thanks.

A huge part of the Disney experience for me is the ambiance. The rides are great, but if I could spend a day just walking around, watching shows, hearing the Dapper Dans, taking in the flavor of the park, I would. That’s why it could never work. I’d gum up the works and end up being unprofitable for them.

The opposite side of that is also true. When I’m in the park, I don’t want to worry about having an E ticket left for a ride. I want to go on whatever I want.

That picture is just awesome! I see a bunch of fun times in those.

People comply because if they don’t, they are ejected from the park. There is a lesson to be learned there.

I LOVE this idea. Obviously for me to buy it the game would have to play great, because I had to stop buying on just theme along a while ago. But this could be a such a great theme. The difficult part is that the park experience is different for us all. And putting it together in a way that I am nostalgic about would be a different game for all the different players. I'd want the whole upper playfield to be the Carousel of Progress, the ball launch to be the "old" opening of Spaceship Earth, and I'd want to hear the Dapper Dans half the time, and "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow" the other half, and the third half would be the background from Horizons (this game needs three halves because it will be STACKED). And of course the backglass will need to be the 25th anniversary Cake Castle.

When I was in elementary school, there was a re-release of Song of the South in theaters. We had a field trip at school to go to the movies and watch it. The world may have changed a bit in the 50 years since then.

It started going downhill on March 23rd 2020 at 10:56:20 pm UTC. It then got progressively worse on October 13th 2020 at 9:20:52 pm UTC. Nobody knows where the bottom is now.

Disney is usually a pretty expensive trip. Are you saying that you didn't look at any rules or information before going? The mask rules, and the changes in the food while walking rules have been broadcast fairly clearly. I'm not even planning a trip until after I have a vaccine, and I knew these ones.

I'd like to keep seeing them (just speaking for myself). I had to cancel my trip last year, and now I'm waiting until the pandemic is over to go back. So seeing stuff from the park is nice.

The Disney thread is no place for political discussions, even when they involve Disney stars. That’s what I think of it. If you feel like that discussion could be had without discussing politics, I think you are mistaken.

For me, my return date will be once they have rehired the entertainers. I love analyzing the rides, and the technology of Disney and how they create their illusions. But the most fun is being entertained all over the place. It was the people that made it all work for me. I think getting up to full speed on that will take some time, so this year is out. Possibly next February, but I'll have to wait and see.

That's ok. I'll wait as long as it takes to get to a proper Disney experience*.

* = Proper in my opinion. The entertainment distinguishes it for me. Others may just like the rides, in which case all that matters is when you can have the shortest lines. I've always thought that was one of the best things about Disney, that different people can have completely different experiences and yet both can think they were wonderful.

Unlike location pinball everywhere?

I ask it like that because an owner of the game is specifically passionate about pinball, location games always suck. They are expensive to maintain, time consuming to work on, and don't bring in much. Even a stuck ball can take a game down until a tech can get on site. I'm actually surprised Disney bothers with pins at all.

But if someone from Disney wants to hire me as a tech, pays me my current salary, and gives me a guaranteed 10 year contract, I'll be happy to move to Florida and take care of all their pins on property. They would all play great.

I understood what unplayable meant.

My standards are lower than yours. I've dumped multiple quarters into games on location with only one semi-working flipper. For some dumb reason I take it as a challenge to my nudging skills as I try to skillfully direct the ball to the working flipper bat. When I put up a high score like that, I feel like an absolute pinball hero.

I'm worried it might be a while until I'm back in the parks. Not because of pinball, but just because I'm waiting for the full experience. All the little stuff that Disney does that makes it so much fun for me. I hope they can get back to that in the next year or so.

That is such a bummer. I really liked just going to the bus and not worrying about it. We would check into the hotel and then just go exploring for a while. When we finally got to the room, our stuff was sitting there.

I try to not whine about changes at Disney, but at some point there will not be any value staying in a Disney hotel. No extra hours in the park, no worry free express, no real park hopping, reservation systems for which park instead of just following what you feel like doing. Outside hotels look better and better every year.

This was the best. I loved being there with my sister and we would just decide what to do that day. Though most of the time she would wake up before me and have decided where she wanted to go

Of course that was back in the days you would walk to the central hub and read the chalkboard to figure out what had the shortest lines. Now you have to plan everything, which really takes a lot of the magic out of it. We used to go for a week and make 2 dining reservations ahead of time max.

On FastPass, personally I think Disney should go back to the old way. You go to the ride and stick in your park ticket, and it spits back out a sheet of paper with the time window to return. That way you don't have to plan every detail months ahead, and you don't walk around looking down at your phone trying to get something. But of course I know that would never happen.

Hey, how were the fireworks last night? I watched a livestream of them from Magic Kingdom, but that just isn't the same.

I’m surprised they just haven’t closed the pre-show stuff again. I never liked how they packed the stretching room at Haunted Mansion, because you would feel the body heat of the people with you. It was always too close moving to the “Dead Center of the room”. But now it just feels dumb.

Though it doesn’t matter to me right now. I’m not returning until things are back to normal. Entertainment, park hopping, the real normal. The trip I cancelled last year was really special to me. I’m not going there for half an experience.

And if it never returns to normal, so be it. A couple years from now I’ll go for a day, stay offsite, and probably only ride Pirates and walk around the park. I sure as heck won’t get yelled at by a CM.

I’m fine with it. They are basically intending to make the park less appealing, while increasing per person revenue. They are not able to sustain a decent experience with huge crowds, and now the “standard” experience will feel even more “sub-standard”.

I couldn’t agree more. Having to stare at an app the whole time you’re in a park ruins the experience. I’m assuming the Genie will direct people to less crowded areas, almost like a crowd control system. But it’s just more to look down at.

I’m curious which one of these is correct.

Well at least we have common ground somewhere. I'd personally rate Horizons as closer to 1000x better, but that is just a matter of opinion. I've only ridden Mission Space once, and that was plenty. I've never felt a desire to ride it again. But I can't count how many times I rode Horizons. My sister and I used to ride it at the end of the night, and then beg the attendants as the ride closed for one last ride. They would let us back in one last time if there were still people loading. We wouldn't "choose" the return part and let the system just surprise us on the last ride.

EPCOT was always my favorite park. I love MK, but every time I was walking out of EPCOT, I felt inspired. Just the text in the doorway of Horizons proclaiming "If we can dream it, we can do it.". But that was a long time ago. Back even when Innoventions was something fun and interesting.

I'm not going to judge the current reconstruction until I can get back there. But I don't think they will ever get back the spirit they lost over the last few decades. I'm not saying it won't be good, but it won't have that special something they used to have.

It is. And as you said, Chapek is a data guy. So if there was anyone in Imagineering that tries to really stand up, they would be overruled.

The opening of the 50th bugged me a lot. The way they did the rededication ceremony overnight to make sure there were no people in the park to boo him (or Bob Sr.). If you can’t even face your most ardent fans that are there to celebrate with you, you might have identified the problem Bob.

His numbers will be just fine though. So I expect more Bob for quite a while.

This was the perfect FastPass system in my opinion. You had to physically walk to the ride, insert your ticket, and you got a piece of paper telling you when to come back. You were limited in how many you could have at a time, and the paper would tell you when you could get another. Then you could go off and do something else, come back, and pretty much walk in. You didn't have to plan so far in advance, and you didn't walk around staring at a phone.

FastPassOld (resized).jpg

I bring 2 extra pairs packed in separate baggies. A nice pair of dry socks can make your feet feel tons better in the afternoon.

For how much I spend when I’m there, I have no problem spending another $15 even if it just saves me 15 minutes in line. Time is the most precious resource when I’m in the parks. Being able to leisurely walk between things instead of rushing is totally worth it.

Disneyland Hong Kong is closing for at least 2 weeks.

I like how your real personality comes out in these posts.

As you have described it on more than one occasion, any follower of the thread knows what it is. Do YOU understand the context of your comment?

Disney is performing a big squeeze right now to find out where that breaking point is. It is amazing to watch. They take away something, and see if it impacts anything. They raise prices, and see if it impacts anything.

They will continue to take away value while raising prices until they find that line where actual people hit the breaking point. Then they will back off it just a tiny bit and hold there until they need to cut down the crowd a bit more. Fun times.

Because there are hundreds of unvaccinated and unemployed workers dying to join the Disney staff?

You quoted the wrong person Trekkie1978 it was seenev that brought it up. I didn’t even use the word. Man, talk about crap.

Star Tours has an hourly capacity of about 1800 guests. Those people would need something else to do, and I'm not sure increasing the lines at other rides is a good idea. Even if it isn't the greatest, they need rides, so pulling it wouldn't make sense right now.

Me too. Horizons was the ride that made EPCOT what it was for me.

The world could use that kind of optimism right now. Sigh.

I laughed at this:

Bad employees.
Bad rides.
Bad food.
Bad people.
Bad value.
= Massively popular as shown by the crowds (who were bad).

Disney is going to have a huge year no matter how bad the experience is.

But would there be? I can’t honestly answer that. Maybe people would think they could get the “old” park experience if they dropped that thousand dollars, and it would end up just as crowded.

I complete Agree with your main point. Which I interpreted to be that Disney does not have enough capacity for the crowd level. They have continually reduced actual capacity and removed too many “people eaters”. Everyone wants to be doing something in Disney. And if there aren’t enough huge capacity rides, the entire experience suffers. If there is no crowd around a street performer, they are in the way.

I still feel like Disney is in a strange spot where a they are intentionally making the experience both more expensive, and more shitty, to try and improve it. But if they go too far with expense or shittyness, they risk killing it. That’s why they don’t double their prices and cut the experience in half tomorrow. And if they accidentally go too far and it kills the magic, poof, new CEO that will be there to bring the magic back with some minor concessions to the fans.

Disney exists to make the highest profit per dollar spent. They seem to be a victim of too much success right now.

Yes they will. It will take a long time, but it will happen. It will happen as soon as the attendance drops off because people don't like the experience.

As of right now, crowds in Disney World are huge. There is absolutely no need to make the experience better. In fact, they should probably jack the prices more. Maybe start charging for Park Pass Reservations on weekends, nothing crazy, just $20 or $30 per ticket. Every time I've been included at least one weekend day, and usually two... do another 40-60 bucks they could pocket. Maybe add "Early Park Hopping" as an option where you can switch parks at noon for only 10 bucks. In a few months maybe bring back Magical Express for $50 for a round trip ticket.

Chapek has plenty of ways to squeeze more profit out of the parks. And then when he goes too far and kills this goose, the next CEO can walk in and look like a hero to the fans by backing off some very small changes. We fans will cheer the minor improvement. We will proclaim things are better at the parks.

It is NOTHING like Reflections. The sign will read Polynesian. Those two words are spelled completely differently.

That sure sounds like you are advocating beating people up because they are pretending their dog is a support animal.

I usually expect people to save physical violence for when it’s actually needed to protect themselves rather then when they are triggered by someone pretending their dog is a support animal. Normally here I’d say “you do you”, but when you advocate violence because your feelings are hurt, I have to wonder.

Like every other community in America? Yup.

I have to admit, I’m absolutely fascinated by the language used in the Disney thread today. Cavalier advocation of violence? Equating Disney with a cult massacre of over 900 people? I know I’ve turned into a Lib now, but I just laugh at the direction of society when these are the words we use.

Then somehow, I’m a boy. Because I’ll never ride it again. I just don’t enjoy the ride. And if I can use the time to ride Spaceship Earth again, that’s a much better use of my time.

That’s just my opinion. I’m an “old ride” Disney fan. I still miss the days I’d walk out of EPCOT full of wonder and possibilities.

I saw the video of the full speed Tron tests the other day. I know the same ride already exists in Shanghai, but I’ve never been there.

OMG! Just the swoop on the outdoor part looked absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to ride that. I’ll need 3 rides on it to try it from the front, back, and middle. I hope the indoor portion will be as good as that looked.

SpaceXMountain (resized).jpg

Because there were not enough available people to be employees who would follow the old standards.