50 MAGICal Enhancements for the 50th ...

[Bacon]

Peter Pan's Flight = General Enhancements
The Haunted Mansion = Hatbox Ghost
The American Adventure = Unknown
Spaceship Earth = General Enhancements/Fixes/Additions (Maybe a new sponsor or Disney Owned 100%)
The Seas with Nemo and Friends = General Enhancements/Additions
Expedition Everest = Rebuild/Repairing structure.
Hall Of Presidents (Only if trump doesn't get a 2nd term |please don't get political|)

 

[nor'easter]

As Marcel Proust said, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” It's rather clear that the nostalgia expressed here is for a place that never existed. Thomas Wolfe said it best, "You can't go home again".

Rant all you want about how things were better at WDW in the 70's, 80's or 90's. Fact of the matter is WDW is better now than ever.

And as W.C. Fields said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls***."

 

[rushtest4echo]

Ill update the theme park count later as we march to WDW's 50 parks, but I've forgotten a few easy ones-

The World of Avatar Theme Park
The New Fantasyland Theme Park
The Star Wars Theme Park
The Toy Story Theme Park

 

[tirian]

As Marcel Proust said, “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” It's rather clear that the nostalgia expressed here is for a place that never existed. Thomas Wolfe said it best, "You can't go home again".

Rant all you want about how things were better at WDW in the 70's, 80's or 90's. Fact of the matter is WDW is better now than ever.

It's true that placemaking and theming are more advanced, and the attraction and resort technology are better than ever before. But that's not the same thing as the mindset that gave us the MK—far superior to DL at its opening—EPCOT Center, the Studios, Pleasure Island, the waterparks, DAK, Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea, DL Paris, etc.

At least the pendulum is finally swinging back.

 

[tirian]

EPCOT Center was a fantastic park that needed some thrills to balance its collection of "Slow Moving Rides Through..." But every single one of those omnimovers was a AAA, exemplary achievement.

Gutting the place and destroying its potential were not the answers to Epcot's needs. There's now much less to do than during the park's golden age in the late 80s/early 90s. I can't deny that Disney lost track of the park's purpose, and the lowercase "epcot '94" was boring. Every iteration that followed was worse than its predecessor (who can forget Journey into Your Imagination?)

Maybe the upcoming additions will bring back the spirit of EPCOT Center.

Well... parts of it are... parts of it are not. If you never went to the Magic Kingdom when they had the skyway and the submarines, then you really missed something that can't be explained.. 20,000 leagues was more than the sum of it's parts. Visually spectacular from every angle, it was as much a beautiful backdrop piece as it was completely unique ride experience. NOTHING new in the Magic Kingdom can compare with that alone. EPCOT was a world of the same. Crazy long experience headliner rides...all of which are pretty much gone now... No, EPCOT today is not at all better than it was then... DHS is more than half shuttered currently after having a good percentage of it's attractions closed... No, it is not at all better than it was...Hopefully it will be when it is finished...
so anyway, no you are completely wrong... it is not better now than it has ever been in the parks.
Different maybe,,,but not better.

 

[SJN1279]

Pirates 5 screened at CinemaCon in Vegas last night and is getting very favorable reviews. Now I'm even more excited for Memorial Day.

 

[Casper Gutman]

EPCOT Center was a fantastic park that needed some thrills to balance its collection of "Slow Moving Rides Through..." But every single one of those omnimovers was a AAA, exemplary achievement.

Gutting the place and destroying its potential were not the answers to Epcot's needs. There's now much less to do than during the park's golden age in the late 80s/early 90s. I can't deny that Disney lost track of the park's purpose, and the lowercase "epcot '94" was boring. Every iteration that followed was worse than its predecessor (who can forget Journey into Your Imagination?)

Maybe the upcoming additions will bring back the spirit of EPCOT Center.

Epcot is an amazing example of genuine decline. As you suggest, with the possible exception of the Living Seas (and that's very controversial), not a single thing at Epcot has been improved since the early 90s and most things - Communicore, World of Motion, Imagination, Wonders of Life, Horizons, etc., etc. - have been made substantially worse. It's really mind-boggling.

What's even sadder is that, given the current climate within Disney and within American corporate culture at large, there's no conceivable way any of what was lost at EPCOT will ever be recovered. The best we can hope for is that it becomes a pretty good IP-based theme park.

So yeah, I don't believe it's just nostalgia, WDW really was considerably better in the early 90s and before.

 

[ford91exploder]

And as W.C. Fields said, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls***."

He really needs to put down the pixie dust bong

 

[Phil12]

Well... parts of it are... parts of it are not. If you never went to the Magic Kingdom when they had the skyway and the submarines, then you really missed something that can't be explained.. 20,000 leagues was more than the sum of it's parts. Visually spectacular from every angle, it was as much a beautiful backdrop piece as it was completely unique ride experience. NOTHING new in the Magic Kingdom can compare with that alone. EPCOT was a world of the same. Crazy long experience headliner rides...all of which are pretty much gone now... No, EPCOT today is not at all better than it was then... DHS is more than half shuttered currently after having a good percentage of it's attractions closed... No, it is not at all better than it was...Hopefully it will be when it is finished...
so anyway, no you are completely wrong... it is not better now than it has ever been in the parks.
Different maybe,,,but not better.

Actually, I have a lot of experience at both WDW and Disneyland dating back to the 1960's. 20K was a terrible attraction. They were never able to carry off the illusion of a sub diving below the water. The bubbles blowing up past the portholes were ridiculous. All the scenes on the ride looked completely phony and you could see the mono-filament fishing line holding the props. The boats were uncomfortable because the air conditioning systems never worked properly and guests were crammed into subs like sardines. First time I rode 20K my reaction was, "What were they thinking?". The giant squid was just boring. All in all 20K might pass for a kiddie ride.

I've ridden the Skyway at both WDW and Disneyland. The ride was very slow and boring. One good thing about the ride is that you could see some backstage areas and it gave a better perspective of the sizes of buildings in which the attractions were housed. You could walk from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland (and visa versa) faster than those gondolas could travel. I consider it a blessing that they got rid of both the Skyway and 20K. And I'm not even going to bring up the myriad safety issues with the Skyway.

Times have changed. Back when Jungle Cruise was first created, the script was serious. It was like a true life adventure and much the same way Kilimanjaro Safaris is today. After some time, the ride turned into Rodney Dangerfield. Fortunately Disney was smart enough to change the script and push the comedic angle. Something like that might have saved 20K. What did the boy squid say to the girl squid? I want to hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand.

As for EPCOT, one of the big problems was the "Crazy long experience headliner rides". You had four omnimover rides within a short walk of each other. I fully understood why they chose to do this. Each ride had a deep pockets sponsor so Disney was more than willing to take their money and produce "omnimover overload" Disney would still be taking their money and would have kept the rides except that guest boredom (lack of ridership) proved they had made a mistake. Thankfully Disney seems to learn form their mistakes and they take corrective action.

Another aspect of EPCOT is that early on they attempted to show the most modern and up to date technologies. Yet most of the "stuff" they had on display was old news. But as I said, Disney tends to learn from such mistakes and they noticeable backed down from attempting to display cutting edge technology. And that's good because they were never able to stay ahead of the game. The best example of this that comes to mind is at the MK. Grandpa mentions "car phones" as modern technology as guests with their cell phones record his performance!

While I understand your concerns, I don't agree and Disney needs to remove a few more attractions from the MK such as CBJ.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Did Disney's "corrective action" correct anything? Today, Epcot is a mishmash of weak attractions and empty pavilions held together by continual booze festivals.

Also, given Disney World's trajectory over the last couple decades, I'd question the "they learn" idea - in fact, they seem to have forgotten a great deal of what originally worked about Disneyland and to be taking the wrong lessons from things that are working for other theme parks.

 

[Phil12]

Did Disney's "corrective action" correct anything? Today, Epcot is a mishmash of weak attractions and empty pavilions held together by continual booze festivals.

Also, given Disney World's trajectory over the last couple decades, I'd question the "they learn" idea - in fact, they seem to have forgotten a great deal of what originally worked about Disneyland and to be taking the wrong lessons from things that are working for other theme parks.

That's why MK is the most visited theme park in the world and the other WDW theme parks are among the top ten. I think they know what they're doing. The guests think so.

 

[Casper Gutman]

That's why MK is the most visited theme park in the world and the other WDW theme parks are among the top ten. I think they know what they're doing. The guests think so.

I'm not sure an appeal to popularity proves the quality of the parks... I mean, is McDonald's the best fast food chain?

And how do we know what the guests think? A lot of very frequent guests on these boards would disagree that Disney has improved WDW over the last 20 years.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

Time to break this little gem out again I think-


1989 (well before things started falling in 94 but also well after the park could be considered "new") with no drunkytown events to artificially inflate crowd levels. Epcot today only wishes it could attract that level of attendance without relying on the lure of alcohol.

As for the lack of "thrills", I would have liked to have seen a few sure but it wasn't a desperate need by any means. Regardless, there was plenty planned for subsequent phases after the park was first built. World Showcase was intended to get a Matterhorn and Mt Fuji coaster during the 80s. I don't know what stopped these additions, I suspect there were several factors at play. One at least being that the park was a massive success without any additions for a very long time, it took until the mid 90s for its success to actually begin even cooling off at all. The execs may not have seen a dire need to expand an already massively successful park, especially since it had so much to do as-is. Another is that Eisner and Wells took over soon after EPCOT was finished, they ended up having radically different plans for the park, plans which would later contribute to its ruination.

It would have been great to have seen EPCOT continue down the path it began in its first decade with the same imagineers and leadership who created it in the first place. There is a vault full of wonderful ideas they never went through with. They would be fresh even today if only dusted off and built.

 

[WDW1974]

I have to agree with 1974 on this one. To read about, see pictures, and watch video is still not the same as actually being somewhere and experiencing something. And I was a full grown adult when @WDW1974 was born, so he's still a bit of a young whipper-snapper in my eyes.

Ah, but since you are still so beautiful no one would ever guess you could be older than me (please recall that most people here view me as a 70-something, not a 40-something!)

But it's no different than anything else. You can have a great mind and be well-read and have lots of knowledge on a subject ... but living it is very different. When someone tells me that WDW is great and their first visit was in 2007 or even 1997, I don't discount them as an intelligent person with an opinion deserving a listen. But they are comparing apples and grape Pop-Tarts. It's just not the same. I still have my pre-opening EPCOT Center tickets. I have my opening day Disney-MGM entertainment schedule signed by Michael Eisner and Bob Hope and ... and the dude who played Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heros (yeah, that is one interesting trio!) I even have my vomit-stained press kit from the opening of DCA. And so many other reminders of all of that experience.

BTW, drinks on me at the Top of the World if you're ever around when I am!

 

[WDW1974]

I prefer "Grammy"

OK, Grammy ... when was your first visit to WDW?

 

[WDW1974]

I think a hindrance to the overseas travel for people my age is the cost. I would love to go to the Tokyo parks, but I'm not sure it's in the plans for the next few years. However, I agree that the time to go is without small children (no one wants to travel across oceans with infants) or when they're quite a bit older.

Between a trip to Alaska to visit family this summer and a trip to Disney with friends around Thanksgiving, plus knowing that I'm going to have to start saving for my friend's Disney World wedding in a couple years, Tokyo is very much a distant dream for me.

Well, Alaska is amazing (until the government decides to destroy it) so no sympathy there. I have been trying to get back there since I was there last in 2003! ... But I will give you a short lecture that @WDWFigment is much better at. And that is a trip to Tokyo is not nearly as pricey as you may think and 'can' (doesn't mean will) be less expensive than a similar visit to WDW.

We are in the midst of finalizing plans for our trip and everything from hotels (4-star caliber) to admission media to food (again, depending on where we eat) is less than what people pay in O-Town. And the flights are quite reasonable now as well ... not the old days where a fare under $1,800 would be considered great. Now, flights from the west coast can often be had for not much more than $500 round trip.

People make a lot of excuses, and some have valid reasons, but the bottom line is a visit to Tokyo may well be less expensive than a visit to the swamps.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Well, Alaska is amazing (until the government decides to destroy it) so no sympathy there. I have been trying to get back there since I was there last in 2003! ... But I will give you a short lecture that @WDWFigment is much better at. And that is a trip to Tokyo is not nearly as pricey as you may think and 'can' (doesn't mean will) be less expensive than a similar visit to WDW.

We are in the midst of finalizing plans for our trip and everything from hotels (4-star caliber) to admission media to food (again, depending on where we eat) is less than what people pay in O-Town. And the flights are quite reasonable now as well ... not the old days where a fare under $1,800 would be considered great. Now, flights from the west coast can often be had for not much more than $500 round trip.

People make a lot of excuses, and some have valid reasons, but the bottom line is a visit to Tokyo may well be less expensive than a visit to the swamps.

Out of curiosity, when are you going that you are finding flights around $500? And any advice on finding cheap flights from the other coast?

 

[tirian]

In 2017, it's tempting to look at videos of the Living Seas, Body Wars (Wonders of Life), and Captain EO and think, "Wow, EPCOT Center was so cheesy."

But look at those crowds! In the 80s and early 90s, Epcot was cutting edge. The park was successful and didn't need to be covered with IP and alcohol fests to gain attendance. (Character meet-and-greets notwithstanding. Guests always want pics with Mickey Mouse!)

Those of us who experienced the golden age of EPCOT Center want Disney to return to the park's original spirit, not the actual attractions themselves. Bring on a Switzerland pavilion with a Matterhorn 2.0 or Mt. Fuji in Japan. Soarin' over the World is a strong addition. Test Track 2.0 feels like Epcot. But bring back some immersive dark rides like Imagination 1.0 and Horizons, because almost 40 years after they opened, they offered unique experiences you still cannot get anywhere else.

Time to break this little gem out again I think-


1989 (well before things started falling in 94 but also well after the park could be considered "new") with no drunkytown events to artificially inflate crowd levels. Epcot today only wishes it could attract that level of attendance without relying on the lure of alcohol.

As for the lack of "thrills", I would have liked to have seen a few sure but it wasn't a desperate need by any means. Regardless, there was plenty planned for subsequent phases after the park was first built. World Showcase was intended to get a Matterhorn and Mt Fuji coaster during the 80s. I don't know what stopped these additions, I suspect there were several factors at play. One at least being that the park was a massive success without any additions for a very long time, it took until the mid 90s for its success to actually begin even cooling off at all. The execs may not have seen a dire need to expand an already massively successful park, especially since it had so much to do as-is. Another is that Eisner and Wells took over soon after EPCOT was finished, they ended up having radically different plans for the park, plans which would later contribute to its ruination.

It would have been great to have seen EPCOT continue down the path it began in its first decade with the same imagineers and leadership who created it in the first place. There is a vault full of wonderful ideas they never went through with. They would be fresh even today if only dusted off and built.

 

[tirian]

So how about that new night parade for the MK's 50th?

 

[Casper Gutman]

In 2017, it's tempting to look at videos of the Living Seas, Body Wars (Wonders of Life), and Captain EO and think, "Wow, EPCOT Center was so cheesy."

To be fair, Body Wars was kinda cheesy from the day it opened. Cranium Command was awesome, though.