Disney confirms 'Frozen' makeover coming to Epcot's Norway Pavilion

[Mike S]

You get to immerse yourself in Wait Disney World.

Immersion is taking twice as long to get through the turnstiles, three times as long to pay for anything while the cashier calls the manager for a band fail override, and five times as long to get into the hotel room because the band stopped working as a key and you have to go to the front desk, not to mention the extra standby line lengths you get to immerse yourself in.

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty immersive to me.

You've had a band stop working as your hotel key? Man that sucks.

 

[BrerJon]

They still wont care about Norway and its history or culture. They will be there ONLY because there is a Frozen ride, nothing else. After they ride, they will leave.

And on the flipside, the more mature and cultured kids may enjoy the ride but they're not going to enjoy the pavilion any more just because of Frozen. You only have to spend a few minutes in the shop watching kids talk to the giant troll or play with Viking swords and helmets to see that Norway is pretty captivating for little kids as it is.

 

[Mr Anderson]

You've had a band stop working as your hotel key? Man that sucks.

Happened to my wife and me on our last trip, too. Took us quite a while to get into our room; around an hour, I believe.

 

[BrerJon]

Avatar was announced almost exactly 3 years ago (September 2011) and has only just this year begun moving dirt (with still no vertical construction I gather and not opening until 2017 at the earliest, and Iger initially claimed it would be finished in 2015).

Wow, happy 3rd anniversary Avatar land! That means we're only three months away from the the 3rd anniversary of Harry Potter: Diagon Alley being announced too! Happy 3rd anniversary Diagon Alley! Oh, and happy 6 months of being already open for guests too!

 

[BigTxEars]

You get to immerse yourself in Wait Disney World.

Immersion is taking twice as long to get through the turnstiles, three times as long to pay for anything while the cashier calls the manager for a band fail override, and five times as long to get into the hotel room because the band stopped working as a key and you have to go to the front desk, not to mention the extra standby line lengths you get to immerse yourself in.

I don't know about you, but that sounds pretty immersive to me.

We had zero problems in June of this year for the week we were there. A party of 5, room on property, DDP, FP+, Photo Pass, park hoopers used daily and lots of merchandise in the stores purchase and no issues with the bands at all. We found them very immersive. I love the what they added to our trip.

 

[lazyboy97o]

We had zero problems in June of this year for the week we were there. A party of 5, room on property, DDP, FP+, Photo Pass, park hoopers used daily and lots of merchandise in the stores purchase and no issues with the bands at all. We found them very immersive. I love the what they added to our trip.

None of that has to do with immersion...

 

[PhotoDave219]

Happened to my wife and me on our last trip, too. Took us quite a while to get into our room; around an hour, I believe.

I'm sorry, I don't follow… You did what with your wife in a hotel room?

 

[BrerJon]

Hell, Maelstrom would probably be the only other big Epcot candidate I could see translating into another medium well because Norse-inspired fantasy crap is always popular and that's probably never gonna happen now.

I would laugh like a drain if in the next year or two there is a big Game Of Thrones/Walking Dead level of popularity show set in the time of Vikings and Norse culture, with Disney kicking itself that it has just bulldozed all that stuff out of its park.

That would just be so typical of TDO's luck.

 

[BrerJon]

Plus by focusing on kids and families they are building future guest in effect, both the kids that grow up and return as adults and their kids they bring with them. At least that is how it happened to our family....

But in your family the first set of kids visited when WDW was a far superior offering. There's no doubt many people, many of the posters here, grew up loving the parks and now bring kids, but that doesn't follow that those who are kids now will grow up to have the same passion for the declined parks we have today as the parks those kids are experiencing doesn't come close to what we did.

I would bet good money a 7 year old at Epcot today will not grow up to be passionately defending the park of 2014 on a WDW forum in the year 2034 the way people here do about Epcot in the early 90s.

 

[Next Big Thing]

When you think about it, it's not surprising how slow they have been. Even had they expected the film to be a success and prepared, they still probably would drag their feet. While a much more ambitious project, Avatar was announced almost exactly 3 years ago (September 2011) and has only just this year begun moving dirt (with still no vertical construction I gather and not opening until 2017 at the earliest, and Iger initially claimed it would be finished in 2015).

I don't recall him ever announcing it to open in 2015 and if he did it was one time and then they realized that wasn't going to be possible. You guys have to realize it was announced with literally no R&D work done on the attraction at all. It was as much of a spur of the moment, "Surprise!", type announcement as you can get from a company as large as TWDC.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

I don't recall him ever announcing it to open in 2015 and if he did it was one time and then they realized that wasn't going to be possible. You guys have to realize it was announced with literally no R&D work done on the attraction at all. It was as much of a spur of the moment, "Surprise!", type announcement as you can get from a company as large as TWDC.

Iger confirmed back in 2012 during a shareholder meeting that it was set to open in 2015.

http://www.wdwmagic.com/attractions...coming-to-disney's-animal-kingdom-in-2015.htm

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com...20318_1_disney-vacation-club-iger-theme-parks

A particularly interesting comment in the above articles regarding the then 2015 opening date-

There has been some recent speculation around the Internet that the AVATAR land project may be struggling to get off the ground. This news would certainly seem to contradict that notion.

The lack of new information has fueled some Internet speculation that the Walt Disney World project could be in trouble. But Iger's comments suggest it is still on track.

Also in the Orlando Sentinel article was another interesting comment from Iger. Despite having been announced six months before that article was posted, Iger states that design work had only just begun as of that article. That is an absurdly slow reaction for imagineering only to have just begun design after six months of the project being announced (and they likely knew it was in talks to happen before it was formally announced, they should have already had some good ideas on the table to pitch before the deal was set).

Despite the lack of outright confirmation on the matter (and you'll never hear them admit a current project is a mistake such as the canned Hyperion Wharf), it's quite apparent that Avatar Land was having serious problems behind the scenes (perhaps still is behind closed doors). It doesn't even require any comments from our trusted insiders to see that it was troubled from the beginning.

 

[Next Big Thing]

Also in the Orlando Sentinel article was another interesting comment from Iger. Despite having been announced six months before that article was posted, Iger states that design work had only just begun as of that article. That is an absurdly slow reaction for imagineering only to have just begun design after six months of the project being announced (and they likely knew it was in talks to happen before it was formally announced, they should have already had some good ideas on the table to pitch before the deal was set).

To the bolded point, many insiders around here have said that it was top secret. Most of WDI learned about it at the same time as all of us. VERY FEW knew about it beforehand.

 

[MerlinTheGoat]

To the bolded point, many insiders around here have said that it was top secret. Most of WDI learned about it at the same time as all of us. VERY FEW knew about it beforehand.

Even if that were true, that still doesn't address how 6 months after announcement is still absurdly long to just BEGIN preliminary designs.

That being said, according to Lee AND marni1971, WDI did know about Avatar well before it was publicly announced. How many in WDI was never confirmed I believe, Lee/Martin/whoever can confirm any further info they have about just how secretive this was. Thank goodness for search because I wasn't going to sift through a thread to find this-

It was told to me about a month and a half ago....I simply didn't believe it.

I will take this opportunity to apologize to the imagineer who told me. Sorry I didn't believe you and sorry for any four letter words I may have let fly in your direction.

Fact: this project did get out over a month ago. It was dispelled as improbable.

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...ys-animal-kingdom.803695/page-23#post-4749998
http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/...ys-animal-kingdom.803695/page-23#post-4750012

It doesn't sound so much like it was top secret (unlike the Lucasfilm buyout), insiders at the time simply disregarded the emails they got from imagineers about it because they thought it was a practical joke (it still does sound absurd, though now we know it's really happening despite the obvious turmoil the project has been through, hopefully we get something at least half decent out of it but I won't hold my breath).

BTW, nice post from Martin in that link above, especially about nailing Potter 2.0 AND at least another Universal E ticket (Kong) getting done well before Avatar. It's also funny in retrospect to see how a couple of people (won't name names but you can pick them out clear enough) were swooning about how Avatar would end up being a Potter swatter. That was before anyone knew what rides we would be getting for Avatar, a simulator (Soarin 2.0 as i've heard it referred to) and a "C ticket" (labeled as such in the leaked blueprints) boat ride...

 

[Monkee Girl]

Happened to my wife and me on our last trip, too. Took us quite a while to get into our room; around an hour, I believe.

That's a shame. We've been on two separate trips (testing October 2013, and roll out April 2014) and had no problems. I actual don't have a problem with the bands and find them convenient...as long as you don't take them off during your drawing class and accidentally leave it in the art room .

My only gripes is that I am NOT a fan of the 'no standby line.' Magic Bands is a great help/aid but you should also be allowed to spontaneously wait in line if you choose.

Also, I wish they had reminded us or made the whole 'pin' bit a more prominent part of the instructions since all 3 of us adults bypassed the fact we needed pin numbers. We had pins in October and completely forgot until we arrived April. One person in our family didn't go in October so got a different pin number. We thought that was for ALL of our bands, turned out it wasn't and caused some issues when we went to eat. We got it fixed quickly but that could have used a little more explanation. Other than that I think they work.

It's just that...all the money they spend on that system could have been used to build cool rides to make people want to visit.

 

[Next Big Thing]

Even if that were true, that still doesn't address how 6 months after announcement is still absurdly long to just BEGIN preliminary designs.

That being said, according to Lee AND marni1971, WDI did know about Avatar well before it was publicly announced. How many in WDI was never confirmed I believe, Lee/Martin/whoever can confirm any further info they have about just how secretive this was. Thank goodness for search because I wasn't going to sift through a thread to find this-

OK, so it wasn't top secret, locked in a vault type of stuff, but most passed it off as a joke. I do recall Lee or Martin (or maybe it was Spirit?) saying there were many Imagineers surprised when the announcement was made.

 

[BigTxEars]

But in your family the first set of kids visited when WDW was a far superior offering. There's no doubt many people, many of the posters here, grew up loving the parks and now bring kids, but that doesn't follow that those who are kids now will grow up to have the same passion for the declined parks we have today as the parks those kids are experiencing doesn't come close to what we did.

I would bet good money a 7 year old at Epcot today will not grow up to be passionately defending the park of 2014 on a WDW forum in the year 2034 the way people here do about Epcot in the early 90s.

You could be right, time will tell. But WDW of today marketing is still going to be aimed that way IMO. My kids have pretty much grow up in the current parks and they certainly love them. They very well may have prefer the parks of yesteryear, something we will never know of course. But my kids are different than I was when growing up, what attracts their attention is different than when I was little, technology has seen to that. Now I feel like saying "you know kids today...." but that would make me sound old

 

[danlb_2000]

I couldn't have said it better myself.

 

[flynnibus]

Lots of people enjoyed it that way certainly. They probably still would. However, I feel like Disney created this issue slowly over time.

Characters have been in Epcot going all the way back to Wonders of Life with the Goofy fitness area. Then in 1995 with The Lion King going into The Land. The Epcot Character Spot came in in the late 90's as well I believe. The old character bus in WS.

You say 'all the way back' as if it were a good thing and just part of the journey. No, around 1994 is when the turn was made, heading the wrong direction. All you are doing is pointing back to when they made the turn... down the wrong street. That's the period that brought us innovations, the Imagination fiascos, the loss of sponsors, the lack of refreshes that doomed Horizons and WoL...

Earlier they tried to bring the characters in, but dressed to EPCOT, to address the 'where is Mickey??' problems.. but its not adding of foamheads that broke things.. it was where they were headed.

Now 20 years later we see where it's gotten us... a further stale EPCOT that is now punting all together on it's very premise. So to everyone who says "who cares.. its something new" - fans from the 90s have something for you... a history lesson.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

You say 'all the way back' as if it were a good thing and just part of the journey. No, around 1994 is when the turn was made, heading the wrong direction. All you are doing is pointing back to when they made the turn... down the wrong street. That's the period that brought us innovations, the Imagination fiascos, the loss of sponsors, the lack of refreshes that doomed Horizons and WoL...

Earlier they tried to bring the characters in, but dressed to EPCOT, to address the 'where is Mickey??' problems.. but its not adding of foamheads that broke things.. it was where they were headed.

Now 20 years later we see where it's gotten us... a further stale EPCOT that is now punting all together on it's very premise. So to everyone who says "who cares.. its something new" - fans from the 90s have something for you... a history lesson.

You know... To this point I've had a really hard time caring much about this. I don't know if it's my general malaise toward WDW for the past year or so or what. But I just didn't care much about this change. It was no big deal to me because I didn't find Malestrom to be entertaining in the least. I wasn't necessarily looking forward to the change... I just didn't care. I also didn't mind the Rat in France rumors. And because I didn't really care too much, I certainly wasn't going to catch up reading a 170+ page thread on it. I'd pop in from time to time, but that was it.

But I caught your post and it had me look at it in a way that I hadn't before. I think I get it now. I get why it's a bad thing.

I might add, for the record... I DID have a problem with Donald invading Mexico. I thought that ride was great the way it was and was ticked from the get-go. Losing that music really bothers me still to this day.

 

[Cesar R M]

Jeez, that list... Imagineering really has turned out a load of turds in recent years, hasn't it?

The question is, where these really imagineer projects? or super scaled down projects that were pushed by executive order to satisfactory the top leadership?