The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[TP2000]

Josh D'Amaro regarding the Galactic StarCruiser:


Um... difficult to explain? Nah dog, we got it.

I have now decided that my short-term goal for this week is to use the phrase "Nah, dog" at least once in conversation. I think I'll start with the bro-ish yet very friendly bag boy at my local supermarket, he'd get a kick out of that from me I imagine.

You overestimated the number of people interested in your niche product. This was never going to be financially sustainable. All you needed to do was create a Star Wars-themed resort (no LARPing, no mortgage-sized room rate).

No kidding. Then they cheaped out wherever they could; put the CM's in cheap dental assistant uniforms, tried to make lobby line dancing lessons and galactic bingo a thing worth $1,000 per night, and made the cheaped out dining room where key events take place look like your local Lutheran Church basement on Youth Group Sci-Fi Nite.

None of it looked anything like the artwork. And no one knew or cared for any of the HR approved characters like Captain Karen or that two dimensional lounge singer, etc.

Where's Han and Luke and Leia and Vader and R2 and C3PO?!? Where is Star Wars in this?!?

Gotta love the Disney exec blaming the failure of their flawed product on the guest.

Isn't it great? Their failure was obviously because we, their customers, are too stupid to comprehend their sheer brilliance.

This all gives me pause on how much praise we heaped on D'Amaro five years ago. He's one of the better looking Disney suits to come along in a few decades, but he doesn't seem to be all that different from charmless dolts like Jay Rasulo or Bob Chapek, or the "oddly waifish man of anemic personality" as the Wall Street Journal described Tom Staggs.

What's next on your parks agenda, Mr. D'Amaro?

 

[truecoat]

It's now quite apparent that they do not. Or, the band director went rogue.

Those kids seemed to be having the time of their lives though. I swear, for a childless old bachelor with a heart made of burnt coal, it's surprising how much I love seeing high school marching bands in Disney parks. They all just look so fresh-faced, so cute, so proud, so American. It makes me smile the whole time they march by, regardless of their skill or talent.

And I always applaud.

That said, it does make you wonder what the music approval process is like. What if some high school band, with a wild sense of humor, as they rounded the corner into the Central Plaza crashed into playing The Stripper by David Rose?
Would they let that performance progress down Main Street USA, I wonder?

You send a video of your band along with what you are playing.

 

[truecoat]

Since I'm going down memory lane, here's where the buses park and the kids have space to change into their uniforms. Then the chaperones are walked out and dumped into the park by Pirates of the Caribbean.

 

[TP2000]

Since I'm going down memory lane, here's where the buses park and the kids have space to change into their uniforms. Then the chaperones are walked out and dumped into the park by Pirates of the Caribbean.

View attachment 777853

Very interesting! As a chaperone, did you ever consider just going over to the bar at the Contemporary instead?

It's always impressive to see how much land and space they have around the WDW parks. And yet...

So many things inside the WDW parks turned out odd, or just dumb. For example, that 8 minute long WDW version of Pirates is simply tragic. And in a park that desperately needed more rides, they put the park's 3rd (3!) spinner attraction in the middle of Adventureland, which Google hilariously explains is a "Gently spinning ride based on a movie." I couldn't have said it better myself, Google!

 

[DrAlice]

Jiminy Crickets! This made me giggle. Enjoy.

 

[TP2000]

Ha! We played this in band when I was in junior high. It was a fun one if you were in the trumpet section.

At the time, did you understand the context of the song? Regardless, I'd like to shake that band directors hand for having a sense of slightly subversive humor.

 

[TP2000]

How was the eclipse in SoCal, gang? Did Disneyland do anything for it, I wonder? We only got about a 50% darkening here, but it was still fun and eery to see. The song birds in my yard were freaking out and chirping constantly, that's for sure.

I remember the total eclipse in SoCal in 2017, and that was very impressive.

 

[Consumer]

I’m just outside of the range for totality, but wouldn’t have mattered with all this cloud coverage. I feel vindicated that I just stayed home.

 

[𝕴𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖊𝖗97]

I’m just outside of the range for totality, but wouldn’t have mattered with all this cloud coverage. I feel vindicated that I just stayed home.
View attachment 777874

I work at a high school, so we just took everyone out to the football stadium to look at it for a few minutes. We were at 94% coverage, so about the same as Consumer's photo. It's not nearly as cool as complete totality, but I did notice it was darker than usual.

 

[mickEblu]

Some random DCA thoughts from our trip yesterday. Monsters Inc is not a bad dark ride. Hopefully if it gets axed for Avatar land they move it (or it’s part ms that is) to DHS or somewhere else in the park. If that’s even worth the cost I don’t know.

Luigi’s outdoor queue is super charming.

Found myself missing the old area where TOT and Bugs land meet. It used to have so much charm with the canopied entrance to Bugs Land with much more of an intimate feeling on both sides. Now it’s all just wide open and gray. Much less foliage/ trees. Huge downgrade. That back path between Cars Land and Bugs Land was also nicer and more meandering. Aesthetically everything from TOT to Cars Land was a huge downgrade.

 

[Consumer]

I work at a high school, so we just took everyone out to the football stadium to look at it for a few minutes. We were at 94% coverage, so about the same as Consumer's photo. It's not nearly as cool as complete totality, but I did notice it was darker than usual.

Yeah, we reached 97% at the peak of it. I was able to take a quick glance without burning my retinas thanks to the cloud coverage. Really, though, it just made everything look like a rainy day. I'm sure it's a lot more exciting with totality and a clear sky. Maybe in 20 years I'll make the trip out to Theodore Roosevelt NP to see the next eclipse.

 

[Disney Vault]

The website that shall not be named is saying Disney might follow in universals footsteps when it comes to DAS and use a third party that requires a doctor's note.

I personally am all for this. Social media and tiktok has coached people that to say and now way too many abuse the system.

One example when I realized it was a big issue was a day racers was having issues with downtimes. And I asked the racers cm about LL and they said they hadn't sold any for racers for the day because it was having so many issues right from the start of the day. And yet the LL was still packed and backed up. Meaning it was all DAS guests!

 

[SuddenStorm]

The website that shall not be named is saying Disney might follow in universals footsteps when it comes to DAS and use a third party that requires a doctor's note.

I personally am all for this. Social media and tiktok has coached people that to say and now way too many abuse the system.

One example when I realized it was a big issue was a day racers was having issues with downtimes. And I asked the racers cm about LL and they said they hadn't sold any for racers for the day because it was having so many issues right from the start of the day. And yet the LL was still packed and backed up. Meaning it was all DAS guests!

Isn't it disheartening how many people take advantage of a system designed to help those who need it?

I work in hotels- and the amount of fake service animals we see is incredible. People claim their pet is a service dog to bypass the pet cleaning fee.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

Reporting in from Ron Coleman Mining near Hot Springs, Arkansas. The eclipse was utterly spectacular. The sun is quite active right now and several solar prominences were visible to the naked eye during our 4 minutes of totality. The diamond ring seemed particularly spectacular this time around persisting for quite a while.

The difference between 99.9% and totality is life changing, it is a completely different experience.

A close up of the ~6-5 o'clock feature taken about 50 miles north of us-

 

[ParkPeeker]

Reporting in from Ron Coleman Mining near Hot Springs, Arkansas. The eclipse was utterly spectacular. The sun is quite active right now and several solar prominences were visible to the naked eye during our 4 minutes of totality. The diamond ring seemed particularly spectacular this time around persisting for quite a while.

The difference between 99.9% and totality is life changing, it is a completely different experience.

View attachment 778030

A close up of the ~6-5 o'clock feature taken about 50 miles north of us-

View attachment 778037

Saw it in Arkansas as well, visited hot springs but decided to see it about an hour and a half north. It was absolutely wild, a must see in person!

 

[SuddenStorm]

This all gives me pause on how much praise we heaped on D'Amaro five years ago. He's one of the better looking Disney suits to come along in a few decades, but he doesn't seem to be all that different from charmless dolts like Jay Rasulo or Bob Chapek, or the "oddly waifish man of anemic personality" as the Wall Street Journal described Tom Staggs.

What's next on your parks agenda, Mr. D'Amaro?

Man, D'Amaro was Disneyland's golden child. He was loved resort wide, and by the fans as the anti - Chapek.

But honestly, since moving up the ladder I've disagreed with almost everything Disney's done to Disneyland. And a lot of the D'Amaro era changes are going to permanently alter Disneyland for the worse.

 

[CaptinEO]

Man, D'Amaro was Disneyland's golden child. He was loved resort wide, and by the fans as the anti - Chapek.

But honestly, since moving up the ladder I've disagreed with almost everything Disney's done to Disneyland. And a lot of the D'Amaro era changes are going to permanently alter Disneyland for the worse.

I don't see how he's ever been the anti chapek. I mean he does seem friendly and personal but he hasn't done anything positive from what I've seen.

I think people touted him as an anti chapek on personality and looks but not based on his output. He's another corporate soulless executive just like anyone else in that role will be.

 

[CaptinEO]

I wouldn’t be surprised if “Zip” causally returns to many park music loops once TBA is established and all other references to SotS have been long forgotten. It’s too iconically, perfectly “Disney” to not save and further establish as its own thing, separate from its origin. And it puts guests in a happy, energetic, merch-buying mood to boot!

We’ll never again officially hear the vocal soundtrack version, though.

Once the DEI taskforce is long gone and forgotten I expect to hear it come back as well as staff come and go. The 2020 overreaction Disney had already is looking silly in 2024.

It's pretty sad that the only thing happening in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, the two flagship parks for the Disney company, is retheming a log ride that was already popular.

I'd bet you Bob Iger and Bob Chapek have never even been on Splash Mountain and care more about their own publicity than the guest experience. They saw an opportunity to be seen as "official good guys" based on 5 people on twitter, and made a drastic decision.

I'd much rather they added a Tiana ride to each park to address the capacity issues both parks face.

 

[TP2000]

Man, D'Amaro was Disneyland's golden child. He was loved resort wide, and by the fans as the anti - Chapek.

But honestly, since moving up the ladder I've disagreed with almost everything Disney's done to Disneyland. And a lot of the D'Amaro era changes are going to permanently alter Disneyland for the worse.

I have this growing suspicion we were snowed by D'Amaro, and he seemed great compared to his predecessors.

Bob Chapek was a grumpy, weird, unlikable dolt. And Michael Colglazier was a geeky snob with the most boring and charmless wife in all of Orange County who was oddly even snobbier and more boring than her husband (trust me on that one). So Josh D'Amaro seemed like a huge improvement.

He was personable (and I'm sure he honestly is), he was charming (a true skill that's hard to fake), and he had a lean runner's physique and a winning Pepsodent smile and a Cool Dad skinny jeans wardrobe just as the skinny jeans era was ending (all of that part is just scientific fact).

But now that he's been in the Chairman role for several years, and done multiple big press announcements with vague and unfunded Blue Sky ideas as his vapid schtick, while the actual parks themselves devolve into over-crowded messes with major capacity problems all staffed by tatted up greasy haired carnies or burly-bearded men in dresses, I'm about done with Josh D'Amaro.

And then this past weekend when he blamed the Galactic Starcruiser failure on the audience being too stupid to understand how brilliant it was, I thought "Yup, stick a fork in him, he's done."

 

[CaptinEO]

I have this growing suspicion we were snowed by D'Amaro, and he seemed great compared to his predecessors.

Bob Chapek was a grumpy, weird, unlikable dolt. And Michael Colglazier was a geeky snob with the most boring and charmless wife in all of Orange County who was oddly even snobbier and more boring than her husband (trust me on that one). So Josh D'Amaro seemed like a huge improvement.

He was personable (and I'm sure he honestly is), he was charming (a true skill that's hard to fake), and he had a lean runner's physique and a winning Pepsodent smile and a Cool Dad skinny jeans wardrobe just as the skinny jeans era was ending (all of that part is just scientific fact).

But now that he's been in the Chairman role for several years, and done multiple big press announcements with vague and unfunded Blue Sky ideas as his vapid schtick, while the actual parks themselves devolve into over-crowded messes with major capacity problems all staffed by tatted up greasy haired carnies or burly-bearded men in dresses, I'm about done with Josh D'Amaro.

And then this past weekend when he blamed the Galactic Starcruiser failure on the audience being too stupid to understand how brilliant it was, I thought "Yup, stick a fork in him, he's done."

If Disney's guests were stupid they would chose to pay 2 thousand a night for a hotel that had almost nothing to do with Star Wars. But it turns out the guests in this case were too smart to be conned by this expensive lackluster experience.

These same guests were also likely the ones Disney scared off in 2019 when opening Galaxy's Edge by having a PR team tell the public how crowded it would be. Well they listened and steered clear.

Both these examples prove how disconnected Disney is from its own customers.