But if you hang out at Disney forums, you would know that many have been basically saying Imagineering, Management, DVC, etc, etc has ruined everything for years......years.....day in and day out about everything that Disney does stinks. How long would your favorite team have to trade away all the good players and screw with the stadiums and logos and come in last place year in and year out before you would just lose interest. That doesn't happen on these forums. You also see the daily 'Disney is ruining it and no ones going to go anymore' yet it never transpires. Never. If all the complaints were valid, WDW would have closed shop a long time ago. So basically all the complaints and how they are worded then are just plain bogus. The threats are never followed through with, the predictions never materialize.
And many of the complaints are just downright ridiculous.
I see that you’ve never been a long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan.
The Cubs have been mostly a bunch of “losers” for 100 years. Millions still follow them anyway, with a couple of million paying serious money every year just to see them blow another game. Their fandom in ingrained into them. Fans simply cannot walk away, no matter how bad the team. I spent many years in Chicago and listened to sports talk radio from time-to-time. Year-after-year, it was the same fans calling in, complaining how bad the team was this year, threatening to start following another team next year. Every year, they came back for more.
WDW is no different. In fact, WDW’s fans are spoiled. Until 15 years ago, WDW was the undisputed champion. As recently as about 5 years ago, WDW had no serious challengers, even if their best years were in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
Suddenly, Universal gets its act together and scores a major victory with WWOHP. (A victory, by the way, that WDW had won and then lost on a last-second buzzer beater.) Suddenly, DLR takes care of that big gigantic wart that was called DCA and scores a major victory with Carsland. Suddenly, SeaWorld has a major new renovation in progress and looks like it will be better than ever. Suddenly (it feels), everyone is talking about how much nicer Disneyland Tokyo and Disneyland Paris are than WDW. All within the last few years, it feels as if WDW is falling behind everyone else. (OK, they’re still ahead of Six Flags. Whoopee!)
I’ve been a WDW fan for decades and I’m not ready to throw in the towel. I want TDO to get its act to get and make WDW the undisputed champion once again.
Before you ask why do I read the posts then....I have to filter through all the whining to get to the posts that do provide an interest to me.
Filtering through a lot of posts to get to the ones you like is similar to what you have to do for pretty much everything in life. Do you always read every article in the newspaper? Do you always watch every channel and every show on TV? Do you always like every meal at every restaurant you eat at? I’m not sure why you think a discussion forum is any different. I’m sure there will be those reading our posts wishing the two of us never had this discussion, even though this is supposed to be an open forum.
If there are people who post things you don’t want to read, use the “ignore” button. I’ve never used it because I like reading a lot of posts but maybe it will help you. In my view, a lot of people have a lot of interesting things to write, both good and bad, about WDW. Sure, I’d prefer less thread drift (like we’re doing now!) and I strongly dislike the personal attacks (“I disagree with you so you are stupid”) but, otherwise, I enjoy most posts. The only button I don’t use enough is the “like” button.
Its obvious though that it isn't Disney, it is our culture. Everything is wrong, it is everyone else's fault. It was Obama's fault that I was living beyond my means. It is Obama's fault that healthcare costs are going up and it has nothing to do with everyone solving their weight related issues with perscription drugs, etc, etc.
I like to think of myself as a student of history. IMHO, there’s nothing new under the sun and much of what I think you’re blaming on our culture is simply human nature. It allegedly was Socrates who said:
Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.
Are things different today?
Is human nature different? No, people are still the same; natural evolution tends to be a slow process. What has changed? Technology.
In Socrates’ day, I had to jump on my 400 BC equivalent of the soap box to be heard. Today, I can sit at home, type a few lines, and send my thoughts out to millions. With technology, you can choose to read my words or, if you prefer, simply use the “ignore” button.
P.S. I really want to know TDO’s ulterior motives behind FP+. I still believe they are not spending $1.5B out of the kindness of their hearts. See, now I can’t be accused of total thread drift!
