unkadug
Follower of "Saget"The Cult
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Do we lose track of the fact that WDW is really (in essence) for kids?
- Thread starter copcarguyp71
- Start date
Matt_Black
Well-Known Member
Yes, because the kids today listen to bands like The Pointer Sisters and Everclear!
(They really SHOULD be listening to them instead of One Dividend of Summer or whatever, but that's beside the point.)
The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
No? Just when I had finally grown up to appreciate antique shops, beautiful mosaics, silent era b&w cinema and 1800's vaudeville, they were gone from the MK. But there are now toons all over Tomorrowland (just when I began to understand space age mid century modern design).
*yes, yes...technically the mosaics are still there. But they are inaccessible between the permanently locked door for the Mickey show and the tart-up-your-toddler salon
216bruce
Well-Known Member
You speak much truth and that is frowned on in these here parts.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Somehow I don't think you are remembering WDW in the 70's and early 80's. It was all kids. It had Peter Pan, Small World, Country Bears, Haunted Mansion, Mr. Toad, Snow White, Mickey Mouse Review, Characters wandering around, Jungle Cruise, Pirates, eventually, and Skyway. Plus others of course, like the Tree-house. Because Adults were able to enjoy them as well was the difference between Disney and other places. There were very few that were more mature oriented. Like BTMR, HoP and CoP they were not always a place where it was advisable to take a small child on or into. The others like Space Mtn. and Splash came later when the adults became more vocal about having something to make them giggly.
Epcot didn't exist until 1982 and does anyone going there as an adult able to seriously state that they learned so many things at Epcot that they didn't already know. You won't find many, so the original set up was for a place that kids could take their parents and without them knowing it, the kids could learn something. The real adult focus didn't really happen full force until Disney/MGM came into existence and then almost nothing was geared to kids that much. Peripheral things only!
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
All of those attractions are Family focused not kids.
Recently (last 20 years) Disney have focused either on adults or kids or girls or boys. The classic rides you mention are suitable for everyone all at the same time.
Chef Mickey
Well-Known Member
Kids aren't smart enough to know what's good. (Kidding, sort of).
Raineman
Well-Known Member
There are two things I'd like to add to this discussion:
- For the most park, even if the parks have not necessarily been designed for children, they have been designed to make you feel like a kid if you aren't already one. If you walk through the gates at MK and get a glimpse of the castle and don't feel the same as you did when you were a child, then maybe it is time to find some alternate form of entertainment, because WDW may not be something you should be spending your entertainment $ on.
- As much as many of us wouldn't want to admit it, WDW is essentially still a business. I think many of us can agree that there may be too much emphasis put on profits recently, but...if you look at it as a business, revenue and profits are the largest part of what drives a business' decisions. And, currently, what is the segment of the population that WDW can make the most additional profit from, after profit made from resorts, park tickets, etc? Visitors who purchase on-site merchandise. What age bracket ultimately drives the most merch purchases? Children. Therefore, why wouldn't WDW target children more heavily? Mom and Dad pay for the resort, park tickets and food-and all the toys/clothes/etc. that little Johnny and Susie want. If this was not true, why is there a gift shop/merch stand every 20 feet at every park in WDW?
- For the most park, even if the parks have not necessarily been designed for children, they have been designed to make you feel like a kid if you aren't already one. If you walk through the gates at MK and get a glimpse of the castle and don't feel the same as you did when you were a child, then maybe it is time to find some alternate form of entertainment, because WDW may not be something you should be spending your entertainment $ on.
- As much as many of us wouldn't want to admit it, WDW is essentially still a business. I think many of us can agree that there may be too much emphasis put on profits recently, but...if you look at it as a business, revenue and profits are the largest part of what drives a business' decisions. And, currently, what is the segment of the population that WDW can make the most additional profit from, after profit made from resorts, park tickets, etc? Visitors who purchase on-site merchandise. What age bracket ultimately drives the most merch purchases? Children. Therefore, why wouldn't WDW target children more heavily? Mom and Dad pay for the resort, park tickets and food-and all the toys/clothes/etc. that little Johnny and Susie want. If this was not true, why is there a gift shop/merch stand every 20 feet at every park in WDW?
EnergyKing
Well-Known Member
Uh...nevermind.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
I believe that is what I said, but the main draw is for the kids and it was designed in such a way to make it possible for adults to go as well. When you look at the new rides that everyone is demanding, they are not kid friendly and therefore are not family friendly... they are what? Altogether now... Adult friendly. Boy vs. Girls focus I agree with you on, but that is really more of a cultural definition. There is no reason why girls cannot enjoy the pirate stuff or the jedi stuff and they do. Culture is a little more demanding when it comes to boys obsessing about princesses... but, that is also changing, just more slowly.
Yes, and I also wonder what effect blogs and boards would have had on the memories and moods of people back in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Had there been a forum for whining back then, many guests would likely have found themselves suddenly seeing more flaws, and asking why so much was coming up short. Just think of the titles to the threads that could've been written:
1. Who's the idiot that transformed the castle into a giant cake?
2. Why is Epcot so boring, especially for kids?
3. Why does studios only have 3 attractions? What a ripoff.
4. The animals at Animal Kingdom sleep all the time.
5. Why didn't they build a monorail to studios? Or AK? Or Downtown Disney?
6. Why is Eisner paid so much?
7. Why (pre-Little Mermaid) can't Disney make good movies anymore?
8. Why don't they have more hotels, especially for families on a budget?
9. Why don't they have waterparks? River Country is lame.
10. Why are there such big gaps in world showcase?
Yeah, whining galore, and I would assume that chipped paint, burnt out bulbs, smelly bathrooms, rude cast members and ride breakdowns even happened back then too.
EnergyKing
Well-Known Member
Calling everyone a whiner is a cop-out. If one has no interest in discussing creative decisions they should just find a conversation that won't annoy them.
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
Absolutely, if we allow people to call others whiners then we might run out of space to call them rubes or pixie dusters or lifestylers or, god forbid, apologists. There's no room for any other opinions except the ultimate downfall and destruction of what we think we remember about a Disney Park.
EnergyKing
Well-Known Member
Well, report those people then if they insulted you. I haven't said anything personal about anyone.
There's no running out of room for opinions here. And like I said, if you're not getting any enjoyment from a specific thread, there are others to participate in. Or you can just start your own.
UpAllNight
Well-Known Member
The problem is is that things that used to be amazing for EVERYONE is now dated to this current generation. I love the nostalgia involved in some classic rides, but it takes more to impress people these days.
Example, and this won't go down well here....children (height permitting) will come off a ride like Transformers now and be far more impressed than they will be looking at dated animatronics in POTC. This is where Disney can't win; they change the classics too much and fans are in uproar. Pirates is great, but could be sooooo much better if brought into the 21st century....and I don't just mean the use of screens.
Journey into Imagination .... Pure embarrassing. Literally one of the worst rides I've ever rode. So poor it put made us question what we were doing in Disney that day. I struggle to imagine even kids would come off it feeling anything positive. It's not a question of Disney being for kids it's a problem of not moving with the times.
Example, and this won't go down well here....children (height permitting) will come off a ride like Transformers now and be far more impressed than they will be looking at dated animatronics in POTC. This is where Disney can't win; they change the classics too much and fans are in uproar. Pirates is great, but could be sooooo much better if brought into the 21st century....and I don't just mean the use of screens.
Journey into Imagination .... Pure embarrassing. Literally one of the worst rides I've ever rode. So poor it put made us question what we were doing in Disney that day. I struggle to imagine even kids would come off it feeling anything positive. It's not a question of Disney being for kids it's a problem of not moving with the times.
EnergyKing
Well-Known Member
I can get behind this. Another problem with today is that things have an incredibly short shelf life. And not to keep harping on the same string, but once celebrities invade an attraction, the clock immediately starts ticking.
I 100 percent agree that Disney has to up their game at least sometime relatively soon, because at this point for many I talk to, the place is getting by mostly on nostalgia. They haven't exactly delivered anything with 'wow" since EE. And the newest dark ride (Mermaid) is pretty basic as far as dark rides go.
The basic problem for many institutions is the difficulty of offending your steady traditional customers while trying to stay vital to new customers. The classic example is in Churches. If you update the Sunday service with guitars and drums, ol' man Peabody and his wife will throw a fit, and write the Church out of their Will and stop dropping their big check in the collection plate every week. But if you stay with the old traditional, no one under 50 shows up.
WDW is an institution, and they've built new parks about every 10 years to keep the new guests interested while maintaining the comforting nostalgia in the old parks (with the occasional new attraction thrown in). The problem is that no new park has been added since the 90s to get cutting-edge guests excited, and new attractions within the old parks indeed have a short shelf life because of the blurring pace of technology.
In the meantime, who has a billion dollars every year to spend on constant upgrades with a shelf life of maybe 10 years? How many new guests will pay more or walk through the gate to make that billion dollar a year investment worthwhile? And can the existing parks handle the additional capacity?
Bottom line: The "whiners" tend to gloss over the above realities. Yeah, brainstorming solutions is fun, but it ends in frustration if the dollars aren't there to make them a reality.
Solution: New gate, and I have to think that it will be Hero-land or Marvel-land once Disney gets the east coast theme park rights to characters. That will bring cutting edge and take in a whole big bunch of paying guests, thus making it economically viable. That's not whining, that's fun brainstorming with a big dose of plausibility.
WDW is an institution, and they've built new parks about every 10 years to keep the new guests interested while maintaining the comforting nostalgia in the old parks (with the occasional new attraction thrown in). The problem is that no new park has been added since the 90s to get cutting-edge guests excited, and new attractions within the old parks indeed have a short shelf life because of the blurring pace of technology.
In the meantime, who has a billion dollars every year to spend on constant upgrades with a shelf life of maybe 10 years? How many new guests will pay more or walk through the gate to make that billion dollar a year investment worthwhile? And can the existing parks handle the additional capacity?
Bottom line: The "whiners" tend to gloss over the above realities. Yeah, brainstorming solutions is fun, but it ends in frustration if the dollars aren't there to make them a reality.
Solution: New gate, and I have to think that it will be Hero-land or Marvel-land once Disney gets the east coast theme park rights to characters. That will bring cutting edge and take in a whole big bunch of paying guests, thus making it economically viable. That's not whining, that's fun brainstorming with a big dose of plausibility.
daisyduckie
Well-Known Member
Chef Mickey
Well-Known Member
1) The trouble with your point is that Disney IS winning, right now. You're wrong about Pirates. People are still impressed with Pirates even 50 years after its original design and I completely disagree that it needs to be changed to be "more appealing." It IS appealing right now, as is.
2) Transformers might be cool and awesome right now, but there is room for classics. Classics work. Haunted Mansion, Pirates, Classic Fantasyland, etc. Transformers can't stand the test of time like classics and it won't.
3) You make it sound like Universal has the right model and Disney is playing catchup. You have that backwards. Disney is in control and Universal is playing catch up.
I understand your point and Disney can do better and more to present their ideas, but starting with POTC is the wrong place to start.
Imagination is not as awful as you make it sound, although it was better before. They did exactly what you said they should be doing and it bombed. The old ride as a classic with updated technology where possible would have been a better option.
Brand new does NOT always mean better, despite what a kid might say. As a kid, my favorite rides ever were Haunted Mansion and POTC and they were already "old."