Breaking Points

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I think you've hit the nail on the head 100%. I am 21 years old, so I'll assume that I am a bit younger than most of the users on this forum. Disney is trying to appeal to my generation and they are doing it successfully (for the most part). Just like Disney has tried to appeal to every previous generation before mine. A lot of changes that have caused unhappiness among users here have been positively received by my peers. I can only speak for myself and my friends, but the additions of Galaxy's Edge and Avengers Campus have caused tons of excitement. I flew across the country to visit Disneyland in June with a full list of gift requests (exclusively from Galaxy's Edge & Avengers Campus) from my friends. Marvel is rabidly popular in my age range and Star Wars is pretty popular as well. The upcoming change to Splash Mountain has also been well received, people my age grew up watching The Princess and the Frog and they are very excited for it to finally get a proper attraction. No one that I know feels strong connection with the Song of the South music and characters - even in the context of the ride.

I am not trying to start any arguments with this post. Just wanted to share the my outlook as well as the views of people I know. Disney is working to appeal to younger people because that's how this works. I am sure that changes made in the 80s & 90s weren't always well received by guests that visited in the 50s and 60s. This is part of life when you have something that continually changes over the decades. Darwin said something along the lines of: 'adapt or die'. Disney is adapting.

Very well said!

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I think my breaking point will be price. So far as much as I dislike a lot of the new changes to DCA, I can still find classic Disneyland. Of course, l will want to see the latest thing, but I won’t immediately go if it’s mediocre. Or if it doesn’t appeal to me. I’ll just postpone a trip until they come up with something I just have to see.

 

[josh2000]

I think my breaking point will be price. So far as much as I dislike a lot of the new changes to DCA, I can still find classic Disneyland. Of course, l will want to see the latest thing, but I won’t immediately go if it’s mediocre. Or if it doesn’t appeal to me. I’ll just postpone a trip until they come up with something I just have to see.

The price increases are definitely one of the most pressing issues with Disney Parks. Certain groups of people are already priced out, and the problem is only going to get worse and worse. I think I agree with you on that. My breaking point is price. At a certain point it will stop being worth the money, and you could argue that it's almost there right now.

I find it really interesting that it's a problem that is pretty much exclusive to the US parks. I'm planning a trip to Disneyland Paris and it's absolutely shocking how cheap it is compared to our parks here.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

The price increases are definitely one of the most pressing issues with Disney Parks. Certain groups of people are already priced out, and the problem is only going to get worse and worse. I think I agree with you on that. My breaking point is price. At a certain point it will stop being worth the money, and you could argue that it's almost there right now.

I find it really interesting that it's a problem that is pretty much exclusive to the US parks. I'm planning a trip to Disneyland Paris and it's absolutely shocking how cheap it is compared to our parks here.

You should love DLP. It's stunning in its old school Imagineering! Maybe the best castle park ever.

 

[mickEblu]

Wait a moment, are they actually calling guests "friend" now? The idea of a stranger calling me that, especially if they're likely to be giving an unsolicited direction, is disingenuous to the point it makes me cringe. I may have found my breaking point!

Yeah I agree. To remove “ladies and gentlemen…” to cater to .001 percent of the population is so unnecessary, asinine, off the charts ridiculous that it may just be the straw that broke the camels back for me.

 

[Tony the Tigger]

I think I can speak for a few of us when I say we’ve been pretty disappointed with how the DLR has been managed over the years. Pirates’ auction scene change, Pixar Pier, Guardians, Splash, lack of quality with Avengers Campus, SW:GE (I’m aware I’m in the minority here), etc. And now there’s a rumor that DLP’s Premiere Pass thingy may be coming here, which is gross.

I realized that I hit my breaking point a few years ago. By that, I mean I’ve scaled back my visits significantly and have prioritized doing other things. I went once in 2020 and before that, I went once or twice in 2019, and now I currently have no desire to return anytime soon, not even next year. A breaking point doesn’t have to equate to never returning again, though if that Premiere stuff comes here, I for sure won’t be returning on my own will for a long time. A breaking point in this case could mean a significant change in how frequently you visit the parks due to whatever disappointment you have with the parks.

To those who have been disappointed and have yet to hit their breaking point, what will it take for that to happen? Or maybe nothing will get you to scale back your visits.

Share your thoughts.

If anything happened to the Chase Disney Visa points program, I’d scale back a ton.

 

[SuddenStorm]

Yeah I agree. To remove “ladies and gentlemen…” to cater to .001 percent of the population is so unnecessary, asinine, off the charts ridiculous that it may just be the straw that broke the camels back for me.

When I was there a few days ago, the CM that gave the 'this ride broke down' announcement for Indy started with "Ladies and Gentleman", when she could have easily said 'Hello friends...' since it was a live spiel. So I guess the new directive hasn't made its way to the entire park yet.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I think you've hit the nail on the head 100%. I am 21 years old, so I'll assume that I am a bit younger than most of the users on this forum. Disney is trying to appeal to my generation and they are doing it successfully (for the most part). Just like Disney has tried to appeal to every previous generation before mine. A lot of changes that have caused unhappiness among users here have been positively received by my peers. I can only speak for myself and my friends, but the additions of Galaxy's Edge and Avengers Campus have caused tons of excitement. I flew across the country to visit Disneyland in June with a full list of gift requests (exclusively from Galaxy's Edge & Avengers Campus) from my friends. Marvel is rabidly popular in my age range and Star Wars is pretty popular as well. The upcoming change to Splash Mountain has also been well received, people my age grew up watching The Princess and the Frog and they are very excited for it to finally get a proper attraction. No one that I know feels strong connection with the Song of the South music and characters - even in the context of the ride.

I am not trying to start any arguments with this post. Just wanted to share the my outlook as well as the views of people I know. Disney is working to appeal to younger people because that's how this works. I am sure that changes made in the 80s & 90s weren't always well received by guests that visited in the 50s and 60s. This is part of life when you have something that continually changes over the decades. Darwin said something along the lines of: 'adapt or die'. Disney is adapting.

The torch has been passed to the younger folks.

That's fine, the Mouse needs the young folks who will be making the most money going forward.

I will clarify only one of your points. It's not adapt or die. No need for that. DISNEY IS INVINCIBLE. We are seeing it before our own eyes.

The world is coming out of global crippling pandemic. Not only are the theme parks unharmed, they are stronger!!

Prices for everything related to the theme parks will skyrocket in the coming weeks, months, years.

Disney, and their shareholders are Winning.

A word of advice for all the 21 year old Disney fans, BUY DISNEY STOCK NOW. You will be rich when you are my age.

 

[mickEblu]

When I was there a few days ago, the CM that gave the 'this ride broke down' announcement for Indy started with "Ladies and Gentleman", when she could have easily said 'Hello friends...' since it was a live spiel. So I guess the new directive hasn't made its way to the entire park yet.

I’d imagine that’s coming right? Since they not only removed the greeting from the beginning of Mix Magic but actually doubled down and explained why they did it ( if I’m not mistaken)

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Attention, explorers! Your transport has been delayed due to poor maintenance. We appreciate your patience.

 

[KIGhostGuy]

Not at Disneyland, however, the moment that Disney announced they were closing the Great Movie Ride and putting Guardians of the Galaxy into EPCOT was when I realized that these parks just aren’t for me anymore.

 

[CaptinEO]

The torch has been passed to the younger folks.

That's fine, the Mouse needs the young folks who will be making the most money going forward.

I will clarify only one of your points. It's not adapt or die. No need for that. DISNEY IS INVINCIBLE. We are seeing it before our own eyes.

The world is coming out of global crippling pandemic. No only are the theme parks unharmed, they are stronger!!

Prices for everything related to the theme parks will skyrocket in the coming weeks, months, years.

Disney, and their shareholders are Winning.

A word of advice for all the 21 year old Disney fans, BUY DISNEY STOCK NOW. You will be rich when you are my age.

I just don't see what the newer generation has to go off of. Remakes of older Disney movies? Spin offs of a 1977 sci fi franchise? What do they have to call their own?

 

[Curious Constance]

If anything happened to the Chase Disney Visa points program, I’d scale back a ton.

Use my points every trip! And I’ve never paid a cent interest.

 

[SplashGhost]

I agree, I love Spider-Man (my favorite superhero since the Raimi trilogy came out when I was little) but the ride doesn't interest me. Not every ride needs to be a game / interactive like WEB Slingers or the Millenium Falcon. I hate this trend, and I really hope they stop. Disney doesn't need to "compete with video games" by making big video games like they mentioned in their Imagineering Story episode. People don't think to themselves "should I play a game or go to Disneyland. I don't want to go to Disneyland to play a game or even be part of a ride's story, I wanna ride a ride and watch a story unfold around me without having to interact with people, honestly. That's why I love Pirates and Haunted Mansion so much, heck literally any ride aside from newer rides. Everything is an experience and an upcharge, the fact that one of the main "attractions" of SW:GE is a $200 lightsaber building experience, followed by a $100 droid building experience, followed by an overpriced bar you have to hope you can even get a reservation to go spend money in is absurd. Oh and other than that it's a video game ride and a new E-Ticket I haven't ridden / seen yet. I am a massive Star Wars fan and wanna go to the land still and see everything as I haven't been yet but I'm not dying to go because I know how underwhelming it seems to be since I don't want to spend $400+ just in SW:GE on top of the rest of the costs for a trip to Disneyland.

Plus, Universal proved how great a Spider-Man ride could be with the IOA Spider-Man ride, and there are no interactive elements at all. I am not opposed to a ride being interactive in some ways, but Disney tends to do a very poor job at it so far. From a game design standpoint, Smuggler's Run was very poor. If you are an Engineer, you have to look to the side to be able to press the buttons you need to. That is just poor design. It is also very poor as a ride and Star Tours is far better. Web Slingers has "pay to win" DLC, which is a new low for a Disney ride.

Though I haven't been able to ride Rise of the Resistance yet thanks to the horrible boarding groups process, I'm not much of a fan of Galaxy's Edge since it revolves way too much around upcharges as you mentioned. If one of the core experience of the land requires me to pay 200 dollars on top of admission, then it is a detriment to the land instead of a positive.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if before the final lift hill on Princess and the Frog Mountain, Chapek comes out and asks for 50 dollars to go down the final drop.

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

When I was there a few days ago, the CM that gave the 'this ride broke down' announcement for Indy started with "Ladies and Gentleman", when she could have easily said 'Hello friends...' since it was a live spiel. So I guess the new directive hasn't made its way to the entire park yet.

Well to be fair they are hard to reach there because they are in an ancient temple deep in the jungle. No wifi there.

 

[SuddenStorm]

I just don't see what the newer generation has to go off of. Remakes of older Disney movies? Spin offs of a 1977 sci fi franchise? What do they have to call their own?

There's also an inherent decrease in quality with the newer offerings- The '50s gave us the Matterhorn, Monorail, and Submarine Voyage. The '60s gave us New Orleans Square with Pirates and Mansion and New Tomorrowland. The '70s? Big Thunder and Space Mountain. The '80s? Captain Eo and Star Tours and Splash Mountain and New Fantasyland. The '90s? Fantasmic and Indiana Jones Adventure.

It wasn't until the late '90s that new Disneyland additions actually started to really disappoint the majority of the fanbase with Tomorrowland '98. People lament the loss of the Mine Train- but Big Thunder is as classic as they come. People lament the loss of the Peoplemover, but Rocket rods was closed after a year or two and never really lived up to the hype.

The 2000s were damage control- fixing what had been broken and working on recapturing the magic of vintage Disneyland with the '50th.

The 2010s continued this until late 2015 when they announced Galaxy's Edge and the whole company did a complete 180 on how they approach Disneyland. Which didn't seem to please Disneyland fans or Star Wars fans- it's one of those 'while that was cool I guess' lands that people don't typically want to go back to.

I was genuinely excited for Disneyland going into 2020- both Mansion and Indiana Jones Adventure had refurbishments announced. Snow White, the weakest of the Fantasyland dark rides, was getting the chance at finally being fixed. Tomorrowland's Entrance was going back to a design reminiscent of the '67 version. It looked like the park was starting to course correct after Galaxy's Edge. Covid seems to have derailed that entirely- and 2020 ended up being a very different year for the park with the announced closure of Splash Mountain and a variety of other changes. That Disney now views the work of Marc Davis and Walt Disney and Tony Baxter as 'problematic' and 'negative' is terrifying since it means nothing is safe. Benign elements of Disneyland that have remained the same for decades are now in danger of being altered or outright removed while areas of the park like Tomorrowland that desperately need a creative revival sit and rot.

The assertion that nothing has changed- it's business as usual at WDI and we're just out of touch and that the park is now being catered to 20 year olds is asinine and a vast oversimplification of what's happening at Disneyland.

 

[SplashGhost]

There's also an inherent decrease in quality with the newer offerings- The '50s gave us the Matterhorn, Monorail, and Submarine Voyage. The '60s gave us New Orleans Square with Pirates and Mansion and New Tomorrowland. The '70s? Big Thunder and Space Mountain. The '80s? Captain Eo and Star Tours and Splash Mountain and New Fantasyland. The '90s? Fantasmic and Indiana Jones Adventure.

It wasn't until the late '90s that new Disneyland additions actually started to really disappoint the majority of the fanbase with Tomorrowland '98. People lament the loss of the Mine Train- but Big Thunder is as classic as they come. People lament the loss of the Peoplemover, but Rocket rods was closed after a year or two and never really lived up to the hype.

The 2000s were damage control- fixing what had been broken and working on recapturing the magic of vintage Disneyland with the '50th.

The 2010s continued this until late 2015 when they announced Galaxy's Edge and the whole company did a complete 180 on how they approach Disneyland. Which didn't seem to please Disneyland fans or Star Wars fans- it's one of those 'while that was cool I guess' lands that people don't typically want to go back to.

I was genuinely excited for Disneyland going into 2020- both Mansion and Indiana Jones Adventure had refurbishments announced. Snow White, the weakest of the Fantasyland dark rides, was getting the chance at finally being fixed. Tomorrowland's Entrance was going back to a design reminiscent of the '67 version. It looked like the park was starting to course correct after Galaxy's Edge. Covid seems to have derailed that entirely- and 2020 ended up being a very different year for the park with the announced closure of Splash Mountain and a variety of other changes. That Disney now views the work of Marc Davis and Walt Disney and Tony Baxter as 'problematic' and 'negative' is terrifying since it means nothing is safe. Benign elements of Disneyland that have remained the same for decades are now in danger of being altered or outright removed while areas of the park like Tomorrowland that desperately need a creative revival sit and rot.

The assertion that nothing has changed- it's business as usual at WDI and we're just out of touch and that the park is now being catered to 20 year olds is asinine and a vast oversimplification of what's happening at Disneyland.

I agree with this take, if the new stuff was as good as the old stuff getting replaced and changed then Disneyland fans wouldn't fear change so much. However, pretty much every replacement is worse than whatever came before. Classic WDI would have never approved anything as atrociously poor as the "ten for a hen" auction scene.

The reason Disneyland fans hate change is because the changes are almost always of extremely poor quality.

 

[Californian Elitist]

There's also an inherent decrease in quality with the newer offerings- The '50s gave us the Matterhorn, Monorail, and Submarine Voyage. The '60s gave us New Orleans Square with Pirates and Mansion and New Tomorrowland. The '70s? Big Thunder and Space Mountain. The '80s? Captain Eo and Star Tours and Splash Mountain and New Fantasyland. The '90s? Fantasmic and Indiana Jones Adventure.

It wasn't until the late '90s that new Disneyland additions actually started to really disappoint the majority of the fanbase with Tomorrowland '98. People lament the loss of the Mine Train- but Big Thunder is as classic as they come. People lament the loss of the Peoplemover, but Rocket rods was closed after a year or two and never really lived up to the hype.

The 2000s were damage control- fixing what had been broken and working on recapturing the magic of vintage Disneyland with the '50th.

The 2010s continued this until late 2015 when they announced Galaxy's Edge and the whole company did a complete 180 on how they approach Disneyland. Which didn't seem to please Disneyland fans or Star Wars fans- it's one of those 'while that was cool I guess' lands that people don't typically want to go back to.

I was genuinely excited for Disneyland going into 2020- both Mansion and Indiana Jones Adventure had refurbishments announced. Snow White, the weakest of the Fantasyland dark rides, was getting the chance at finally being fixed. Tomorrowland's Entrance was going back to a design reminiscent of the '67 version. It looked like the park was starting to course correct after Galaxy's Edge. Covid seems to have derailed that entirely- and 2020 ended up being a very different year for the park with the announced closure of Splash Mountain and a variety of other changes. That Disney now views the work of Marc Davis and Walt Disney and Tony Baxter as 'problematic' and 'negative' is terrifying since it means nothing is safe. Benign elements of Disneyland that have remained the same for decades are now in danger of being altered or outright removed while areas of the park like Tomorrowland that desperately need a creative revival sit and rot.

The assertion that nothing has changed- it's business as usual at WDI and we're just out of touch and that the park is now being catered to 20 year olds is asinine and a vast oversimplification of what's happening at Disneyland.

Absolutely, especially your last sentence.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

The reason Disneyland fans hate change is because the changes are almost always of extremely poor quality.

Indeed. I understand the need for newer attractions, but in many cases, Disney does not expand capacity but rather removes classic standbys and more or less replaces them with new crap when they could retain the classics and add new attractions as well. The examples listed earlier at WDW are fairly brutal. The Universe of Energy had been there forever and was always a nice 45 minutes sitting in AC at an otherwise enormous open area of concrete in 98 degrees with 100% humidity and The Great Movie Ride was one of the coolest attractions I'd ever been on anywhere.

Disneyland seems to be "stuck" with the old stuff so WDI has many awful changes in store for them.

 

[CaptinEO]

So glad to see this discussion. I don't like being told I'm out of touch. I am in my 20s so theoretically I should be all about Marvel and rainbow churros and instagram. It's not us that are out of touch, Disney is.

I've never been a Disney company fan. Even as a child the tapes I'd watch most were Snow White, Dumbo, and Pinocchio. I liked Lion King and the first Toy Story, but besides that didnt care for their 90s output.

However since I was a toddler I've always loved Disneyland. I always felt that the park was a separate entity from the film division of the company and was its own thing.

Now the lines are blurred, as a Disneyland fan but not a modern Disney Film/Corporate fan, the additions to the parks diminish my enjoyment of them.