A Spirited Perfect Ten

[WDW1974]

Planning a DLR trip for next Jan, haven't been since 2001 so I have a question. Seems like a good amount of rides went down for refurb this past Jan 12, is this something that occurs annually or are more closed than usual to prep for the 60th?

Much more than normal closed now, but DLR actually refurbs things regularly. They don't ... what's that Walt phrase? ... sit on their laurels watching things rot and fall apart like in the swamps.

I would guess (that's all it is) that far less will be down next winter than is normal.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[Nemo14]

I believe that it is. The question I have is who is tracking it and why can I see it now? BTW, if someone was tracking me, I'd guess that MAGICal Steve would have a legal responsibility to tell me. But we are now at 347 and since this is a Spirited thread with many thousands of posts, I'd bet that I have likely dropped 347 posts in here.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

If you go back to the News and Rumors category page and hover over your avatar in front of the Title of this thread it will tell you how many posts you have in this thread (if that's any help). Not sure why it would be appearing on your posts now though.

 

[ford91exploder]

who set up the bomb?
what a weird cascade collapse.

All your base, are belong to US...

 

[WDW1974]

Well when one of your Shanghai E-Tickets is Tron-based, it'd probably help to remind that market of it. Also, it's popular enough I suppose.

How many people (who aren't from outside of China) in Shanghai today know what a Tron even is?

The ride was created in the run-up to Leagacy's release when it was also a possibility for DL and MK. This isn't UNI, Disney needs 7-8 years to dream new things up and build them.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[ford91exploder]

Nah. I am sure it's simply tinfoil hat stuff. No billion dollar international media conglomerate could possibly ever track someone and get inside their systems.

Let's talk about the annual 24-hour day (nightmare for anyone not a Lifestyler?) that I told you was now an annual event a year ago or so. Or maybe that Disney's answer to having NO NEW PRODUCT in its Florida flagship resort this summer at all is to simply hope no one is tired of Frozen yet. ...Well, you can talk about those things, but I am in to harder news content.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

Like Sony installing rootkits as part of playing a Sony music CD in a computer, No a major corporation would NEVER compromise their customers systems...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

 

[FrankLapidus]

Disney doesn't create anymore. It buys the IP of others (who can). And relies on the knowledge of past characters.
I just want to know if Burton and Disney are using the elephants that Ringling Bros is retiring?

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

Agree completely. Animation is the only division that interests and excites me these days.

Marvel, Lucasfilm, sequels and remakes. The company will go on making plenty of money with that strategy but they're just flushing Walt Disney's legacy further and further down the toilet by implementing it. The sad thing is that no one at the company really seems to care that it is happening. Then again, maybe the ones that do have been flushed out and forced to make way for the spawn of strategic planning.

 

[WDW1974]

Trying to stay away from the old "Disney is a business blah blah ..." But if your version of the Disney store went away from stocking more adult products I assume it's because it was not profitable. And we all know by now that money is king for the modern TWDC. I know little about the store's financials so I can't comment on whether they are doing better with their new approach.

The store at the mall back home in Ohio closed long ago. But I rarely found myself in it because not much really interested me. I wasn't in the market for a Simba plush, or a Hunchback print.

Now, I've become a fan of the parks, so I find myself at the OTown outlets every couple of months picking up the discounted merch.

I just can't stomach paying $30 for a T-shirt at the parks. Like I've said before, I'm part of the problem when it comes to WDW hating their APs.

ETA: sorry to drag this up from a few pages ago. Seems I've bounced around thread a bit.

All I can say to that is BRANDS can destroy themselves or reinvent themselves. Whether Disney is special or unique anymore is a whole other topic, although I do believe that was part of Roy E. Disney's impassioned speech during the Save Disney movement. It sure appears that he lost that one by quite a bit, even if Disney CEO Robert A. Iger allowed him a ceremonial position in the four plus years before his death.

What Disney is doing now isn't readily apparent. But it does seem more and more to be a company that wants to segment audiences and grab them that way.

That would be why someone decided that making Disney Stores largely targeted at the 2-11 crowd was the way to go. Considering how much I once spent in them all I can say is my credit card statements thank them for this very smart choice.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[WDW1974]

Well it's already set in a world where China has taken over, hence the Bank of China (or whatever it was) ATMs in the middle of Texas in that movie.

There is nothing quite like standing in an office in the Bank of China or on their observation level in Hong Kong. Do you know what you look down on?

The Bank of America Tower!

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[ford91exploder]

There is nothing quite like standing in an office in the Bank of China or on their observation level in Hong Kong. Do you know what you look down on?

The Bank of America Tower!

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

That was deliberate on the BoC's part for the slow...

 

[WDW1974]

It did feel pretty nice outside today, if a little hot. This evening, though, was perfect Florida weather. (But how often is it perfect?!)

87 and sunny (and very humid) my way today. Thankfully, my AC is working again. Way too early for that. It's March not May.

I have to wonder how much WB/Rowling's oversight has kept Universal in line, too. Of course, running your new E-ticket without the pull-away screen in the climactic scene (which is the current state of Gringotts) is very Disney-like of them. The difference, though, is that the screen will be repaired, not abandoned. Many of the effects that weren't working in Potter 2.0 have been more reliable in recent months. WB's pressure is a good thing, I suspect.

It did very much on Hogsmeade at IOA. Much, much less involvement and oversight since. And that screen has been problematic since before the ride debutted.

Ah, you forgot about the revolutionary Disney Springs (coming in 2016? 2017?). I had a chance to wander the area today (oh, and I took approximately 200 photos of the new parking garage. I think I like Disney parking garages better than their restrooms ). The place is a construction zone. Construction walls up as far as the eye can see. I understand it's in transition, but you'd think a slow construction schedule wouldn't be advisable.

The section of the Marketplace Co-Op with the theme-park designed homegoods was interesting. Too much of the merch is designed for Adventureland and the Tiki Room, however. And I wasn't too impressed with the quality of the attraction poster glasses. Something about the image quality felt cheap. There were some nice items -- I came away with a Haunted Mansion mug. But I couldn't help but feel like this was a dirty nostalgia factory. So much of the stuff plays on WDW that doesn't exist anymore or only exists as "retro" attractions...Toad, 20K, Tiki, etc.

Side note, I'd never seen La Nouba before. What an incredible show! I checked, and it debuted in December 1998 (a different time in the life of WDW). Somehow I doubt that Disney Springs is going to impress me as much.

If I may, Eisner's era brought us Cirque du Soleil. Iger's era brought us a tethered hot air balloon that you can ride in for $18 for five minutes.

I prefer toilets to parking garages, myself. I use them more and when you don't have one around, well, you miss them much more than a garage!

The Co-Op has largely crap aimed at the fanbois in the Twitverse. It is cheap. It is Disney Parks designed (having a DL Tiki Birds poster on one side of a glass and a WDW PotC on the other, for instance) so it can (and is) sold all over the place. Disney NEVER lets anything just stay in one place. So, nothing there will ever be exclusive for more than a few weeks. And, yes, it bothers me greatly that Disney wants me to buy stuff from the WDW that I loved and no longer exists, except in memories, photos and fanboi blogs.

 

[WDW1974]

That quote was from the article but describes the approach that Disney takes to make everyone's experience less stressful. Remove choice and the perils of making a decision are eased. It sounds very Orwellian if you ask me.

There was also this quote by Staggs about MagicBands and FP+: “It lets people’s vacations unfold naturally,” Staggs says. “The ability to plan and personalize has given way to spontaneity.”

Thus: planning=spontaneity.

Yes. That truly is Orwellian as is the half-arsed rationale he gives for it.

No, doing a ridiculous amount of planning to perhaps be able to be a little spontaneous (since you've already seen say the four attractions that exist in whatever they will be rebranding their studios park, you can now hop to MK and wait in a 45-minute FP created line for Pirates or Mansion) is the exact opposite of being spontaneous.

It's also why EVERY Disney resort in the world is far more relaxing and enjoyable than the Swamp Thing (oops, trying to be pithy and realized DC owns him and not Marvel .. sorry!)

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[NearTheEars]

All I can say to that is BRANDS can destroy themselves or reinvent themselves. Whether Disney is special or unique anymore is a whole other topic, although I do believe that was part of Roy E. Disney's impassioned speech during the Save Disney movement. It sure appears that he lost that one by quite a bit, even if Disney CEO Robert A. Iger allowed him a ceremonial position in the four plus years before his death.

What Disney is doing now isn't readily apparent. But it does seem more and more to be a company that wants to segment audiences and grab them that way.

That would be why someone decided that making Disney Stores largely targeted at the 2-11 crowd was the way to go. Considering how much I once spent in them all I can say is my credit card statements thank them for this very smart choice.

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

Yep. They certainly seem to have a divide (the consumers) and conquer strategy. It's working at the present, but like you, and many others have asked: is it sustainable?

For the rest of the divions, probably, but for P&R, even I, a fan that falls fairly high on the pixie dust scale, can see that more meaningful investments and expansions need done.

Obviously a lot is under construction now, but that should be something that comes in waves. Change and upgrades should be constant.

Not saying a new E-Ticket every year, but something meaningful.

 

[WDW1974]

You want to know how cheap WDW is. It's 87 degrees outside and the have the AC barely running. If my family is spending $80 for lunch at Via Napoli we shouldn't be sitting here sweating. Btw last 3 days at UNI every building was nice and cool. #sweatydisneyside

Something I have been b i tching about for over a decade now.

They truly have the 'tude that 'they're tourists, they expect to sweat in Florida' ... except you know, they're inside massive showbuildings that they've paid thousands of dollars to experience.

 

[WDW1974]

No, Disney didn’t have anything to do with that Wired article. Disney deleted the tweet shortly after.

Did Dr. Blondie Tweet that censored HuffPo piece too?

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

 

[Nemo14]

Something I have been b i tching about for over a decade now.

They truly have the 'tude that 'they're tourists, they expect to sweat in Florida' ... except you know, they're inside massive showbuildings that they've paid thousands of dollars to experience.

I very nearly passed out in the Pirates queue a couple of years ago.

 

[WDW1974]

About to head out for a Faux Top One Percent steak dinner, but first wanted to respond to the moron (of the day, so far) who sent me a note about ''your repugnant and self-serving attacks on Willow Iger'' ...

First of all, I have no power at USC except to offer my opinion when asked. I have done so.

Second, when speaking with Trojan Nation officials, they keep coming back to one fact: they do NOT care whether Willow is guilty or not about what she is accused of. They care about the apperance of it. They feel like this is Example A in why she shouldn't have been hired to start with.

So, if you think she's innocent (she isn't, but that isn't pertinent to this) think about why appearances do matter and do affect the way we handle situations in real life.

Say, for instance, that in your neighborhood lives a quiet loner-type 33-year-old single male. Now, say that guy starts cozying up to all the 11-year-old boys he can. They spend time at his house. He picks them up at school. Maybe he takes them to theme parks or the movies.

Would you be comfortable with that?

Or would the stigma that ''that dude ia a perv, let's blow his balls off!!!'' take over? Seriously, think about what conclusion that 99% of you (maybe more) would jump to.

He couldn't simply be a lonely guy who likes kids and teaching them things (not THOSE things) and seeing the world through their childish innocence. Nope, he's doing all sorts of sick things and putting it on the 'net for fellow pervs to enjoy.

Now, you damn well know there are lonely guys out there who like kids. Who aren't looking to abuse them. But what would you think? Really.

Because, in this case, Willow Bay is like that lonely guy in the 'hood. The mere apperance of impropriety is what matters, not the act itself (although the writer may feel otherwise!)

So, that's why I am like a dog with a bone. I'm going to do whatever I can to see that USC rethinks who should be heading its journalism school.

Whether you (talking to my special 'pal' here although it counts for anyone) like it or not. If you don't, feel free to contact Zenia Mucha at Disney (I have a direct line to her office!)

Now, off for that Faux Top One Percent steak that will likely cost half what a smaller, lower quality steak at Le Cellier would.

See you all a little later ..

 

[lazyboy97o]

Could be. But he appears to be an intelligent fella. People like that are usually savy enough to know that you don't allow yourself to be pulled into court battles when the field is tilted toward the corp (even if you are from a wealthy and powerful family).

Yep. Someone is tracking posts here as that number is now 343. Any explanation how that could be @wdwmagic?

#firewillowbay #disneycensors #IgerfumblesChina

What browser are you using? Is it up to date? It could be as simple as poor rendering of the content. Seeing how often you post in a thread is very easy information to acquire without ever doing any sort of dirty work.

 

[bhg469]

yes if you pay they are, but the vast majority of the people filling up the restaurant most days are on the ddp and the are capped on cost no matter what they order.

Arent they a signature? Even if it's a DDp meal, 2 points is not worth it for that place. sad indeed.

 

[RandySavage]

Anyone see Iger on Mad Money just now? Caught the last bit. A couple "major announcements" coming at the meeting tomorrow...

 

[lazyboy97o]

Anyone see Iger on Mad Money just now? Caught the last bit. A couple "major announcements" coming at the meeting tomorrow...

Shanghai Disney Resort's additional $800 million are going to an Avatar/Frozen boutique park?