Spirited Hub Thoughts:
No, I haven't experienced it and not sure when I will. Yes, by the pics it looks nicer in some ways than what it replaced. But it in no way looks (and I'm quite sure feels) nicer than the Hub I experienced from 1974-2004 before it was destroyed.
Look, I get that the MK gets crowded. I get that sometimes it is flat out unsafe. But that tells me a few things: too many people are being allowed in or in certain areas at certain times (parade and pyro), crowd control isn't sufficient (the MK is the ONLY theme park on Earth that I have been to that uses masking tape every night as a way to direct crowds ... why not colored chalk since they often pay CMs to play with kids by writing on the walkways?) and allowing Steven Davison, no matter how talented, to run roughshod over OPs has proven to be a disaster.
And if the MK is truly so bad that an area that was fine for WDW's first almost 35 years had to basically be bulldozed, then isn't it time to rip out MSUSA at DL and simply use the open space for people to gather and ooze toward the castle?
And ... let's go back to those fanbois who think they understand themed design and operational realities because many simply are clueless on both (Am I hurting any feelings? Anyone crying yet?)
If you take the Hub on its own merits (meaning in a vacuum), then it certainly looks nice enough.
The thing is, you can't do that. So take the Hub blather down a bit, Bubs, and look at it more realistically, more holistically. Like a good designer would.
The MK was designed by great art directors. Folks who knew how to develop a narrative from a movie and theme park background with DL. The Hub was designed as a reveal. Trees were a natural, no pun intended, part of this reveal. Like a real life curtain. The shade they provided (and they certainly did that as they were real trees, not Florida strip center shrubs like the ones there now) was not only for Guest comfort and beauty, they were to partially obscure the castle, so it looked further away and drew you near, but didn't rush you down Main Street like it had no purpose for being (sadly, sorta what it is now).
It was a transition area. It wasn't part of Fantasyland. Or a pre-show for it.
Now, as soon as you hit Casey's, you are in Fantasyland. It's much like how SDL will look except there they have already removed MSUSA and added a Disney shopping zone, followed by a pre-Fantasyland that even has two staples from behind the castles elsewhere (Dumbo and the Carousel).
Again, it isn't that this new Hub looks bad. Compared to what has been there the last decade, it is a definite improvement, but one in which true theming and design takes a hit for squeezing in as many Guests as possible without actually expanding the park or using dead zones (someone discovered that Aunt Polly's actually was a QSR for decades recently and thought 'why not open this?' Imagine that?!?! Wonder if he/she got stuck on the island one night and wandered into the place and wondered what it was.)
I know we don't have Andy Castro around here, but the same things he was complaining about loudly on Micechat about NOS's recent work -- notably Club 33 -- is true of the Hub redo too: nice enough on its own merits, but absolutely doesn't seem to 'fit' with the design aesthetic from way back in 1971 when most of you weren't even alive (I was, even I was itty bitty!)
This is something you either get or you don't. It's not an opinion.
You can love this, hate it, be ambivalent and it just doesn't matter.
This is why the BAH absolutely didn't belong at TPFKaTD-MGMS and soon to be TPFKaDHS. Whether you liked it isn't important at all. It was all wrong from the most basics of design. It ruined, truly, the look of the park. Just like the giant LED Mouse Ears that some idiot at Disney proposed (no, I am not making this up!) to 'sit' on the castle for WDW's 50th don't belong (don't worry, I'm told this person was laughed down, but considering his level ... well, it never should have come up except as a bad joke!)
I'm a bit scattered right now, but I hope I am making this point crystal clear.
I'm also not one of the Spirits that says ''well, it doesn't s u c k as much as the last version, so it's OK.''
Sure, Not New Anymore Fantasyland looks better than an empty lagoon and the prior three versions of Mickey's Temporary Land, but none of them look as good as a crystal clear lagoon full of replica Nautilus subs circling with a Skyway gliding overheard volcanic rocks.
Change is fine when it improves things fundamentally. I don't think this does. A few puny fountains, fake grass, no shade and an area that will still be like an oven roughly from May until November.
