WDW travel article posted on Slate.com

Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Any of you familiar with the travel writing at Slate know that they typically break up trips into individual dated entries. The first of a 5-day WDW trip (Epcot) is up today.

http://www.slate.com/id/2187177/

The author is clearly trying to take the detached, clinical eye, so I assume the five pieces will be full of "I'm too cool for this place even though I'm here" writing.

Cliffs Notes version of Epcot: SSE is boring and Gran Fiesta Tour insults Mexicans. He doesn't seem to have hung around for IllumiNations, which is unfortunate.

Questions immediately occurring to me:

SSE spills into Innoventions? Really? I'm assuming that's a goof and I didn't just miss a name change.

Why rent a car if you're staying on-property and have no intention of leaving (as he says)? If you're really trying to "get" the place in the high-minded way the intro suggests, I'd think riding the monorail over part of Epcot would make more sense than puttering into the parking lot.
 
raven

raven

Well-Known Member
Obviously he didn't let the magic take ahold of him. He looks at the place as he would look at a shopping mall.
 
GenerationX

GenerationX

Well-Known Member
WDW has the ability to conquer the cynic in almost anyone. Let's see how the guy's attitude changes in the next few installments.

Like the author's, our first ride on our first trip was SSE. My wife was thoroughly underwhelmed ("this is it?"). By Day 3, she was helping me plan our trip back the next year.
 
C

coasterphil

Well-Known Member
I'm just glad to see yet another article filled with misinformation and lack of information: SSE spilling into Innoventions, the finger scan is a fingerprint used for security purposes, and no mention of the wonderful E-tickets or nightime spectacular. I don't mind people criticizing Disney, but when writing an article where you're supposedly trying to find the fun and magic of WDW don't leave out the info on the fun stuff in order to replace it with incorrect facts, shots at the average guests, and overall cynicism.
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
GenerationX said:
WDW has the ability to conquer the cynic in almost anyone. Let's see how the guy's attitude changes in the next few installments.
Click to expand...

My thought as well...if nothing else, he'll feel obligated to "find the magic" in some way just to tie it all together at the end and justify having made the trip. :lol:
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 2 (Studios) is up.

Today we get a treatise about how AAs are weird and outdated (can't say I entirely disagree, but it's hard to imagine Disney without 'em...and it's nice to know the hairy-legged pirate on the bridge will never be on a smoke break when your boat passes).

He does give Disney credit for all of the detail poured into ToT while making sure we understand that he understands that it's all completely fake. He referenced the Vinyl Leaves book in the first chapter (an excellent read, by the way) and there's a momentary lapse into dissecting "the fake real" or "the real fake" or whatever it is people decide Disney represents when they're unpeeling 5 layers of meaning from it's a small word. Vinyl Leaves does it a lot better, but to be fair, it does have a whole book's length to work with...and you also get the sense that the author just LIKES Disney, his cynicism and academic approach notwithstanding. (Seriously, go read it.)

One gets the sense that the grudging respect I assumed would be necessary to tie together his narrative is dawning dimly over the horizon.

By the way, I hope he reads the Slate message boards. Plenty of people jumped on him for renting a car while trying to grab the Disney experience, and for apparently seeing about 10% of Epcot before deciding it was totally lame. :lol:
 
wannabeBelle

wannabeBelle

Well-Known Member
Yeah I read this as well. His loss. My opinion is he is one less person in front of all of us in the que at Soarin'!!!!!! Not a problem for me!!!! Have a Zippity Do Da Day!!!! Belle
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I do give him props for the Debbie Does Dallas/Great Movie Ride joke. I'm just bummed I didn't think of it first. :shrug:
 
DisneyMusician2

DisneyMusician2

Well-Known Member
This guy is embarassing.

Forgetting the views on Disney, if I ever turned out my work and only did about 10% of my job, I'd get fired.

See the whole park, THEN write the article.

AA's may be on their way out, though. I don't doubt that they don't connect well to the children of today.
 
E

Eyorefan

Active Member
Do you think this guy will stick around for Wishes when he goes to MK?

It sounds like he made up his mind that he didn't like the place before he left home.
 
wannabeBelle

wannabeBelle

Well-Known Member
This was a response written to the article by this guy. I think it is perfect!!! Belle

""Soulless"? Clearly a child of the deconstructionist/post-modern era rather
than an actual child.

The point behind Disney, the reason why every detail is so meticulously planned,
is that it is supposed to represent imagination. It's supposed to take the
things that aren't true and make them real. But that feat will only achieve
fruition if you take an active part in it. You can't be passive and expect to
have it spoon-fed to you. Of course it's fake. Everybody knows it's fake. In
order for it to come to life, someone has to breathe life into it and that
someone is you. You have to step beyond mere suspension of disbelief and start
actively participating. They've taken care of the details. You need to fill in
the meaning.

If you find it soulless, it's because you have no soul. If you're lost in a sea
of cynicism, you'll never get it. You admit that you are bowled over by the
actualization of the vision...and then seem upset that you were amazed, as if
you were somehow duped.

There's a reason why, as you say, kids are born with a beacon to Orlando. They
haven't had their imaginations removed."
 
Wilt Dasney

Wilt Dasney

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I saw that post, Belle. I think it's probably the best response to the writer so far, because it's not so much condescending as true. Disney makes it very easy to "believe" in what goes on there if you're so inclined, and of course, it's very easy to brush it all aside, too. It really is up to the individual.
 
PhilharMagician

PhilharMagician

Well-Known Member
I was just looking at all the pics that he took and I see that the Osborn Lights are still up. Specifically the light canopy and the light on the building walls.

I haven't been there since December, so are the lights still up now? :confused:
 
ClemsonTigger

ClemsonTigger

Naturally Grumpy
PhilharMagician said:
I was just looking at all the pics that he took and I see that the Osborn Lights are still up. Specifically the light canopy and the light on the building walls.

I haven't been there since December, so are the lights still up now? :confused:
Click to expand...

No all is long gone. Either used a stock photo or the visit time was much earlier in the year.
 
hokielutz

hokielutz

Well-Known Member
I just really think this journal is not written well. You see snipits of some hope that Seth might actually get it... but more often you see a lot of over-analyzing that leads to criticism that may not make sense. I am waiting to see if there is any summary that will tie all the nonsense that he has written together. So far, its just a bunch of disjointed micro-level observations.
 

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