Just yesterday, Walt Disney World began a two-day press event—not something you see often out of Team Disney Orlando. The second day is yet to occur as of this writing, but speculation runs rampant that the focus will be on announcing the details of the NextGen initiative (and even wilder rumors about Microsoft being interested in the Wonders of Life pavilion, which is where the second day’s press event will be held). We’ll have to wait and see what they announce there.
On the first day (held at ESPN Wild World of Sports), Disney billed the event as part of “Give a Day, Get a Day” but rolled out some bona fide news:
- Tower of Terror would get enhanced effects, 3-D sound, and a new drop sequence
- New fireworks show in the Magic Kingdom, for this summer only. Some reports say it’s unnamed, others call it “Magic, Music, and Mayhem” (which was the name of the fireworks from Pirate and Princess Party—which by the way were stupendous, the best I’ve seen at WDW)
- Main Street Electrical Parade (MSEP), direct from DCA, displacing Spectromagic. It will have the familiar music, but upgraded sound systems and lighting.
- New summer-time only tag to Illuminations
They’re calling this “Nightastic!” and clearly riffing off the success of the word (and show) Fantasmic. It’s said to be for this summer only, the idea obviously being to generate some real interest in traveling RIGHT NOW to WDW.
At first blush, this has some fans panting. I’ll join them in welcoming any show that takes the place of Wishes (sorry, East coast fans, it just doesn’t hold a candle to Remember or even to Believe over at Disneyland).
But for the rest? Sorry, I’m a little underwhelmed. Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but I prefer the music of SpectroMagic to MESP. New lighting effects sound nifty, but then again the same thing was promised for Light Magic back in 1999, and we all know how that worked out.
Perhaps I’m the only one perplexed by this news of Tower of Terror. Wouldn’t “a new drop sequence” mean that everyone gets the same drop sequence, and now it will be changed? Because at present, the drop sequence is randomized and different every time; it’s ALREADY optimized for a repeat audience. To make a new drop sequence rings a little phony. In fact, it almost implies a kind of backpedaling.
I do like the sound of “new effects”, whatever that ends up meaning. And the addition of 3-D sound (think the new stretching gallery at the Haunted Mansion in Orlando) sounds promising indeed. But this is the sort of thing they ought to be doing anyway. Did the new Mansion require a press event of this magnitude?
I am kind of glad they are not ditching Reflections of Earth (the Illuminations show) and only adding “tags” to the end of it, like we see now with the holiday show. This adds newness without taking away a fan favorite. But to make too big a deal of this would be doing a disservice to what Disney used to do all the time: just refresh, reinvent, and rejuvenate stuff all the time. This is what Disney does (or rather, what it used to do).
I certainly celebrate a return to “what was” like everyone else. Disney has gone on this slide for long enough. Though a tiny portion of me wonders if it’s too cynical to point out that a return to “what was” doesn’t have to literally mean the exact things that used to be here. I mean, an enhancement to a ride (they used to do that all the time), a revised fireworks show (that was par for the course back in the day), a replacement fireworks show (this was hardly news in the 80s and 90s), and a return of a parade from 1972, albeit with new effects. This is progress?
What it is, I suspect, is a last-second effort to divert attention away from Universal, where this summer brings the world the Harry Potter expansion, a fantastically popular themed area and a new E-Ticket ride. Disney has no new ride to counter Potter—Fantasyland has just now broken ground—so they had to come up with something.
I’m aware that sounds a bit bitter. I do like change, and wish Disney would give us even more change. But more than anything else, the news on Wednesday was just confirmation that competition ultimately benefits the consumer. Without the threat of Potter, I’m not sure we’d have seen ANY of these changes. Now let’s see what the Thursday press event brings.
Spring Cleaning
They started power-washing the beam for the Monorail last week, in the area around Test Track at Epcot. It is amazing to look at pictures of the "before and after"—there really had been a lot of grime there. This is a pretty good example of Declining by Degrees in action. No one (including me!) had particularly noticed the shabby state of the beams and complained about them. The passage of time caused all of us to simply assume "this is the way it looks," and it's not until something is cleaned up that it looks suddenly so different. This is the way it used to look, and it declined by such small degrees that no one paid attention, like the proverbial frog perishing in water that inches its way toward the boiling point.
We all know this phenomenon from cleaning our own kitchens. Surely you've told yourself "Now I've done it—I made a clean spot and now I have to do the rest!" So in that light it might be forgivable that Disney let this stay dirty for so long. But there's a difference. Unlike your kitchen, Epcot charges for admission. People pay money to be here, so one assumes they want to see things spic and span. Anything less is, well, a Decline.
One might be heartened and cheer that Disney is at last seeing the light, and cleaning something. That could well be the case. But my inner cynic wonders if anything external motivated this. What is it about Future World East that might call for cleaning things up? They aren't planning anything splashy here, are they? Oh wait, they are. There is an enormous and immense press event in the Wonders of Life pavilion planned for February 11, the topic of which isn't disclosed (but is presumably the NextGen initiative we discussed here recently). Could it be that this wonderful "return to Disney quality standards" is really only happening because there is a press event happening here soon? We'll have our answer when we see if they clean the beam in other places AFTER the press event. I have my suspicions.
House Cleaning
Springtime or not, Disney's done some other "cleaning" around the resort. First to go was Tiana's Showboat Jubilee, though officially it's on hiatus and will hopefully return. We shall see. Some things on hiatus (like the Rocket Rods or Light Magic) have yet to return, so "hiatus" can be a long time. I hope it does return—this is a fantastic show with good energy. I'm sure it fits the theming even better in Disneyland, where there is an actual New Orleans Square rather than just Fantasyland, but it works here too.
Perhaps more surprising was the recent announcement that McDonald's would be leaving Downtown Disney. This location offered families with finicky kids a reliable choice for food, and it couldn't be for lack of business that McDonald's is leaving (they had to have good profit margins: it was the most expensive McDonald's I've ever seen—though maybe airport franchises are equally pricey).
If it wasn't profit issues, one assumes something else was at work in the backrooms of the corporate cultures. Presumably, this is just a further souring of the relationship between Disney and McDonald's. If true, that leads one to wonder whether the large, standalone McDonald's over by the All Stars resorts is looking at numbered days as well. One assumes not, since this place just got an extensive refurbishment and re-theming. But anything is possible!
Back at Downtown Disney, the McDonald's replacement will be Pollo Campero, which will have a menu quite a bit like Pollo Tropical (which may be familiar only to Florida residents). For those on the West Coast, think of El Pollo Loco, but instead of southwestern flavors, think of the same menu infused with Caribbean and Cuban flavors.
The more-healthy nature of Pollo Campero also opens up the possibility that Disney is just trying to re-think its reputation as a purveyor of unhealthy kids meals. This is a long-standing attempt to re-brand Disney food as health food—most in-park restaurants, for instance, only mention French fries as a side option in smaller font and off to the side. There have also been pre-packaged meals popping up in supermarkets recently with the familiar Mickey shape that feature healthy food, so there may be something to this.
Fantasyland Cleaning
In the past few weeks, Mrs. Potts Cupboard (an ice-cream stand) in Fantasyland has received a facelift. Normally this would not be cause for too much attention. Such rehabs occur all the time, after all. But this particular event is associated with the massive Fantasyland expansion and retrofitting, part of which calls for a re-theming of the Pooh attraction façade. If Pooh is to change, then it stands to reason that Mrs. Potts would have to change also.
But if you look at the scale of the change—removing a tower window and replacing the slate roof with a thatched roof—then it's easy to start asking questions. It's not a dramatic change; in fact, it's a pretty insignificant change. And that, paradoxically, gives me fresh hope that the Fantasyland makeover will not be a hatchet job. In my opinion, if they are willing to expend significant resources to make a minor theming change, then this will be an expansion/makeover that pays attention to DETAILS, not only major capital improvements (i.e., new buildings). They could have easily left Mrs. Potts alone, and I'm not sure anyone would have noticed. That they didn't is an extremely positive development.
We’ve also heard that the Barnstormer kiddie coaster will be rethemed not only to Dumbo in general, but Dumbo's clowns in particular. I have no clue how large the general population is that is scared of clowns, but I know someone who is (she blames Stephen King's Pennywise), and she's already scared of the clown-eyes-following-you at DCA's Paradise Pier.
At Innoventions, the Runtime “human video game” from several months ago has finally been joined by the rest of IBM’s exhibit, SmarterPlanet. It’s mostly some interactive monitors, but it’s nice that the area didn’t remain under construction indefinitely.
Declining by Degrees, According to Joy
Lest any of you think I’m the only one to notice Declines at WDW lately, I offer this email from reader Joy:
I just got back from my 14th Disney World trip and your "Declining" articles were on my mind. Not that I dislike Disney, I am a huge Disney Fan, and I grew up in Southern California and went to Disneyland often in the 1960's and 1970's then moved to Phoenix, where we continued to visit Disneyland at least annually.
When I got married in 1991 and then had my own family throughout the 1990's I continued to take my children to Disneyland at least annually, although we had began to move all over the USA because of my husband's job. In 2000 we realized we actually lived closer to Orlando than Anaheim so maybe we should try WDW, and we started at least annual trips to WDW, along with our annual trips to DLR.
In one decade of traveling to WDW, this last trip January 17-24, 2010 in particular, I noticed startling declines. Not that I will give up going to WDW ever, but unlike all my trips to Disneyland, which always seems to improve in my mind, WDW declines just a bit each year.
For example, I traveled the exact same week in 2009 (MLK) week and stayed at the exact same resort with my two youngest children, Pop, yet the offer last year was a much better value, last year I got buy 4/get 3 free and a $250 gift card, where this year for values it was only 5/2 and no gift cards. Okay, so I will give them that, because this a special offer and I shouldn't "expect" any offers.
Another thing that struck me though was when we originally began going, as a resort guest with tickets vs. room only, we got length of stay ultimate park hopper including the pluses and back then unused days never expired without having to purchase all of the extras. MYW tickets seem more like extra gauging than extra magic.
We didn't even bother with the Disney Dining Plan on this 2010 trip, which was almost too good to be true when we first used it in 2007 when it included the appetizer, entree, dessert and tax & tip; that was a great bargain. Then the next couple of times it decreased by the appetizer and tip, but overall the quality of the dining menus declined as well with the advent of the DDP. So now it would have actually cost me over $350 more had I used it verses not, I kept all of my receipts and purposefully ate 1 CS and 1 TS each day to compare. To be fair, I did eat my sit downs at lunch, which saved me a lot of money, and I didn't order the most expensive thing on the menu which I might have had I been on the DDP. My most expensive meals were Liberty Tree Tavern lunch character (Crystal Palace is in rehab) with tip 3 adults for $86 and a tie with 50’s Prime Time lunch for $86 w/ tip. My other lunches were about $67 and most of my CS were about $30 for the 3 of us. Our snack were usually hot chocolate at Pop or bottle of water for $2.
Because my youngest turned 10 between trips, I really noticed the price difference between DDP for child and adult, which leads me to my last decline. When my 14 and 17 year olds were 10, 11 and 12 they still paid child prices on character dining buffets and able to order off kids menu at sit downs. Not so anymore, a 10 year old pays adult prices. In my experience very rarely does a 10, 11 or 12 year old eat adult size portions. Now I had no problem with a 10 paying adult price theme park admissions because the average 10 year is ready to go on all of the E ticket rides, so that seems fair. Maybe because of my kids ages, I had experienced the times with two kids still paying child prices that it bothers me more, had it always been 10 when all of my children reached that age maybe not as much? I am not sure.
Well, that's my rant to let you know other people notice declines by degree in the parks for what it is worth.
Magic Pursuit – Mark the Date for April 10
As announced previously, I'm hosting a free "scavenger/puzzle" race at Epcot on April 10. Teams of 2-4 are preferred, but individuals can also play solo. Advance registration by email ([email protected]) is required. Visit www.magicpursuit.com for more info and samples of previous games for download.
Your Day at the Magic Kingdom-Finally on Sale
When you self-publish, everything happens in bursts. It takes a bit before Amazon will list the book, and then there's a delay until they start to discount it (as they invariably do). The discount part has finally taken hold; my newest hardcover, full-color book is now available for $13.49 from Amazon. If you've got kids who would like an interactive bedtime story (or older kids who want to read one for themselves), this may be the ideal book for you. |
