News Happy 50th Birthday to Walt Disney World!

[TP2000]

You know, just riffing and thinking out loud here...

WDW's 50th Celebration messaging is a mess and it's insulting. It's full of corporate drivel trying to get you to book a vacation NOW without any nostalgia for the past 50 years or previous family memories there. It feels hollow and fake and achingly corporate.

But...

Covid was the biggest deal America (and the world) has dealt with since World War II. We all know it impacted everything. So instead of WDW pretending everything was fine and this was how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, why not tweak the messaging and script a bit?

Make WDW's 50th not about going to see the place NOW! because of "dreams" and "magic" and "immersive storytelling" (puke!).

Instead make the 50th about a great American icon that has come through the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months with all of us, and is a happy place that can't wait to have you come back and enjoy it again! (Show the closed theme park gates, along with closed barber shops and diners in small towns, empty streets in big cities, kids going to school via Zoom, etc.) Make the 50th a celebration of Americans coming through hardship, like we have often done in the past, and being a place that still exists to bring happiness to your family and be thankful for what we all have. Don't shy away from nostalgia, show it! (so much awesome 70's and 80's footage to use!) But also make it obvious this place is ready to host your family for the next 50 years too!

Make WDW's 50th a story of America at its best, coming out of adversity stronger and ready to have some fun with family again!

That idea needs some tweaking, obviously. And you'd need to allude to much of that through imagery instead of spoken words. A delicate, tasteful touch of patriotism and family and imagery, like the most successful Super Bowl commercials use, but something that inspires and is filled with optimism and fun.

It seems to me that would have worked better than just meaningless corporate pablum about "magic" and upgrading your ticket to Genie+.

 

[SuddenStorm]

You know, just riffing and thinking out loud here...

WDW's 50th Celebration messaging is a mess and it's insulting. It's full of corporate drivel trying to get you to book a vacation NOW without any nostalgia for the past 50 years or previous family memories there. It feels hollow and fake and achingly corporate.

But...

Covid was the biggest deal America (and the world) has dealt with since World War II. We all know it impacted everything. So instead of WDW pretending everything was fine and this was how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, why not tweak the messaging and script a bit?

Make WDW's 50th not about going to see the place NOW! because of "dreams" and "magic" and "immersive storytelling" (puke!).

Instead make the 50th about a great American icon that has come through the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months with all of us, and is a happy place that can't wait to have you come back and enjoy it again! (Show the closed theme park gates, along with closed barber shops and diners in small towns, empty streets in big cities, kids going to school via Zoom, etc.) Make the 50th a celebration of Americans coming through hardship, like we have often done in the past, and being a place that still exists to bring happiness to your family and be thankful for what we all have. Don't shy away from nostalgia, show it! (so much awesome 70's and 80's footage to use!) But also make it obvious this place is ready to host your family for the next 50 years too!

Make WDW's 50th a story of America at its best, coming out of adversity stronger and ready to have some fun with family again!

That idea needs some tweaking, obviously. And you'd need to allude to much of that through imagery instead of literal words. A delicate touch of patriotism and family and imagery, like the most successful Super Bowl commercials use, but something that inspires and is filled with optimism and fun.

It seems to me that would have worked better than just meaningless corporate pablum about "magic" and buying Genie+.

Well, maybe if your corporate ally Zenia hadn't stepped down you could have gotten your thoughts straight to the top.

Heck, you were able to bring down Eisner- I'm sure revamping the WDW 50 would be nothing in comparison

 

[Californian Elitist]

You know, just riffing and thinking out loud here...

WDW's 50th Celebration messaging is a mess and it's insulting. It's full of corporate drivel trying to get you to book a vacation NOW without any nostalgia for the past 50 years or previous family memories there. It feels hollow and fake and achingly corporate.

But...

Covid was the biggest deal America (and the world) has dealt with since World War II. We all know it impacted everything. So instead of WDW pretending everything was fine and this was how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, why not tweak the messaging and script a bit?

Make WDW's 50th not about going to see the place NOW! because of "dreams" and "magic" and "immersive storytelling" (puke!).

Instead make the 50th about a great American icon that has come through the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months with all of us, and is a happy place that can't wait to have you come back and enjoy it again! (Show the closed theme park gates, along with closed barber shops and diners in small towns, empty streets in big cities, kids going to school via Zoom, etc.) Make the 50th a celebration of Americans coming through hardship, like we have often done in the past, and being a place that still exists to bring happiness to your family and be thankful for what we all have. Don't shy away from nostalgia, show it! (so much awesome 70's and 80's footage to use!) But also make it obvious this place is ready to host your family for the next 50 years too!

Make WDW's 50th a story of America at its best, coming out of adversity stronger and ready to have some fun with family again!

That idea needs some tweaking, obviously. And you'd need to allude to much of that through imagery instead of literal words. A delicate touch of patriotism and family and imagery, like the most successful Super Bowl commercials use, but something that inspires and is filled with optimism and fun.

It seems to me that would have worked better than just meaningless corporate pablum about "magic" and buying Genie+.

Americans coming through hardship won’t generate money.

Do better, TP.

 

[TP2000]

Well, maybe if your corporate ally Zenia hadn't stepped down you could have gotten your thoughts straight to the top.

Heck, you were able to bring down Eisner- I'm sure revamping the WDW 50 would be nothing in comparison

I switched carriers in 2020 and forgot to set up my voicemail. I missed a lot of calls.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

WDW's 50th is a party hosted by Bob Chapek. And who would want to go to one of his parties?!?

"Due to UNPRECEDENTED DEMAND, guests will now be required to provide their own cupcakes at BOBBY CHAPEK'S BIG 50 BASH for that one place we own... uhhh.... ya know, the one with all the theme parks."

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

Even with a botched Kite Tails, Animal Kingdom is a pretty good park! (I'm in the process of writing day by day trip reports. Disney Springs, the Studios, and our first day at Epcot are on the blog. But not Animal Kingdom yet.)It does need some love and at least 3 more great attractions of variety to bring some balance. A dark ride or two would help, and The Nav'i River Journey was a nice addition. Love those indoor Disney boat rides. All said, Animal Kingdom is now my second favorite Florida park...

 

[brb1006]

The kites are getting a lot of buzz but if you want my biggest complaint from Animal Kingdom, it's the destruction of the Festival of the Lion King. It was butchered down to 20? minutes. All the stunt work is gone and some of the songs too. The birds dance on stage but no flying which is kinda awkward. The monkeys are gone also. It's a shell of what it used to be and very disappointing. I wouldn't go again until they restore the show.

I loved the original format of Festival of the Lion King, because I remember when I first seen it during the Fall of 2006. Timon ran up to me in fear during the sequence involving monkeys. I'll never forgot that experience, but since I hadn't seen the show since 2006. Can somebody correct me which sequence had Timon ran around the theater and suddenly sat at a random guest?

 

[brb1006]

I hadn't been to Epcot for 10 years so here's my impressions. I went on Oct 1st hoping I wasn't making a mistake due to crowds.

Every ride was a walk-on except Frozen and the Rat.

As everyone knows, old Epcot is gone and things like Ratatouille, Beauty and the Beast sing along, Frozen and 3 Amigo Mexicana (one of the worst) drive that point home. They still show Impressions de France....starting at 8:30 pm.

They also have a big problem with stores and pavilions empty or just closed until 1pm. In the old days, people might mill about future world for awhile and then filter on back to the countries. This is no longer the case with Frozen and now Ratatouille. My boarding group was 22. We went on Soarin a couple times since it was a walk on and by the time we got out, we were called to the Rat. France is packed with people because of the ride but after that, you start circling the World Showcase and some things are empty or closed. The Japanese store didn't open until 1pm. Morocco has nothing but empty space to look around, it looks authentic but there's nothing there. It's like Epcot is going out of business.

The Skyliner is barely visible in the parks and a non factor in ruining the view.

Harmonious looks really good but it says nothing about Epcot. Brave? That's Irish, throw that in there, use some green fireworks. And what's with the octopus arms, I don't get it. It looks like a mechanical octopus. Epcot of the past is gone, Epcot of the future in full force, IP inclusion even if you have to force it in there.

Free photo pass for the 50th! Let's not send a notification on the app for 5 hours so they pass by a bunch of photo pass opportunities.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed myself and was at the park from open to close. Rode almost every ride at least once and scored a last minute reservation to San Angel Inn which came at just the right time. It's just obvious that the Epcot of old is gone and the Epcot of the future will be way different.

Actually Brave is set in Scotland.

 

[brb1006]

What really surprised me was when I realized a few days ago that this KiteTails show is really all they've got for DAK "Spectaculars!". There's no parade, no night show, and their daytime show is... well, it's KiteTails.

They have a Finding Nemo stage show, right? And now a stripped down Chapek version of Lion King?

Because I have absolutely no emotional attachment to blue aliens, and the park already seemed like a beautifully landscaped zoo with some less-impressive clones of Disneyland rides, Animal Kingdom is an easy park for me to skip. A day and a half at Epcot, a day at Magic Kingdom, and I'm happy as a clam.

But this 50th Celebration isn't doing much for me at all. And if I flew out there for KiteTails and it was closed because of "weather" or "Baloo landed on the snack bar and ripped a seam" I would be very angry.

Can you imagine me as the crazy Karen in Guest Relations ranting at the $15 an hour counter girl "I flew 3,000 miles just to see how awful KiteTails was and you cancelled it!"

Animal Kingdom used to it's own daytime parade called "Mickey's Jammin Jungle Parade".

Here's footage of the parade during AK's 15th Anniversary which brought in rare animal Disney characters (such as Thumper and Miss Bunny).


Footage of it's final performance (look at how energetic everybody in the parade was on that day)


The parade was closed on May 2014 to make way for Pandora: The World of Avatar which resulted with the parade route being hard to pull off.

 

[brb1006]

Covid was the biggest deal America (and the world) has dealt with since World War II. We all know it impacted everything. So instead of WDW pretending everything was fine and this was how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, why not tweak the messaging and script a bit?

Make WDW's 50th not about going to see the place NOW! because of "dreams" and "magic" and "immersive storytelling" (puke!).

Instead make the 50th about a great American icon that has come through the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months with all of us, and is a happy place that can't wait to have you come back and enjoy it again! (Show the closed theme park gates, along with closed barber shops and diners in small towns, empty streets in big cities, kids going to school via Zoom, etc.) Make the 50th a celebration of Americans coming through hardship, like we have often done in the past, and being a place that still exists to bring happiness to your family and be thankful for what we all have. Don't shy away from nostalgia, show it! (so much awesome 70's and 80's footage to use!) But also make it obvious this place is ready to host your family for the next 50 years too!

Make WDW's 50th a story of America at its best, coming out of adversity stronger and ready to have some fun with family again!

That idea needs some tweaking, obviously. And you'd need to allude to much of that through imagery instead of spoken words. A delicate, tasteful touch of patriotism and family and imagery, like the most successful Super Bowl commercials use, but something that inspires and is filled with optimism and fun.

It seems to me that would have worked better than just meaningless corporate pablum about "magic" and upgrading your ticket to Genie+.

Now that's the kind of idea Disney of the early to mid 1990s (heck the late 90s and very early 2000s) could had come up with. Especially since The Millennium Celebration (1999-2000) was not only a celebration of entering the 21st Century. But also celebrating humanity's accomplishments and honoring cultures around the world which was very inspirational. Which was a prominent theme for Tapestry of Nations and Iluminations Reflection of Earth.

Even "Celebrate The Future Hand In Hand" was uplifting!





This is the type of thinking and ideas that modern Disney is notably lacking.

 

[Stevek]

What do they do if there are guests in the bleachers where they crash the kites? Or is that section always closes off to guests?

Yeah, it's 100% closed off to guests. I don't have very high expectations of this which is apparently the right frame of mind to go into it with. We'll watch it IF we have time, probably other things that will be a priority though.

 

[britain]

You know, just riffing and thinking out loud here...

WDW's 50th Celebration messaging is a mess and it's insulting. It's full of corporate drivel trying to get you to book a vacation NOW without any nostalgia for the past 50 years or previous family memories there. It feels hollow and fake and achingly corporate.

But...

Covid was the biggest deal America (and the world) has dealt with since World War II. We all know it impacted everything. So instead of WDW pretending everything was fine and this was how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, why not tweak the messaging and script a bit?

Make WDW's 50th not about going to see the place NOW! because of "dreams" and "magic" and "immersive storytelling" (puke!).

Instead make the 50th about a great American icon that has come through the trials and tribulations of the past 18 months with all of us, and is a happy place that can't wait to have you come back and enjoy it again! (Show the closed theme park gates, along with closed barber shops and diners in small towns, empty streets in big cities, kids going to school via Zoom, etc.) Make the 50th a celebration of Americans coming through hardship, like we have often done in the past, and being a place that still exists to bring happiness to your family and be thankful for what we all have. Don't shy away from nostalgia, show it! (so much awesome 70's and 80's footage to use!) But also make it obvious this place is ready to host your family for the next 50 years too!

Make WDW's 50th a story of America at its best, coming out of adversity stronger and ready to have some fun with family again!

That idea needs some tweaking, obviously. And you'd need to allude to much of that through imagery instead of spoken words. A delicate, tasteful touch of patriotism and family and imagery, like the most successful Super Bowl commercials use, but something that inspires and is filled with optimism and fun.

It seems to me that would have worked better than just meaningless corporate pablum about "magic" and upgrading your ticket to Genie+.

As much as they’d LOVE to say, “Get outta the house, enjoy life, come to WDW!” I think any sort of acknowledgment of the pandemic will discourage as many people as it will attract, no matter how much you emphasize that the danger has been diminished. It’s better to not mention it.

My suspicion: They are keeping their old-footage-nostalgia-powder dry for the company’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2023. (A silly excuse for visiting a theme park, but whatever.) They’ve learned the hard way that they can’t say “Just remember the memories!!!” too many years in a row.

 

[TP2000]

As much as they’d LOVE to say, “Get outta the house, enjoy life, come to WDW!” I think any sort of acknowledgment of the pandemic will discourage as many people as it will attract, no matter how much you emphasize that the danger has been diminished. It’s better to not mention it.

Eh, I get what you are saying, but I still don't know.

They've got to try and get people to spend their vacation at WDW in 2021-22 somehow. I think it would be better to play up the "we're gonna make it!" optimism angle than pretend everything is perfectly normal and this is exactly how they wanted to celebrate the 50th anyway, with KiteTails.

My suspicion: They are keeping their old-footage-nostalgia-powder dry for the company’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2023. (A silly excuse for visiting a theme park, but whatever.) They’ve learned the hard way that they can’t say “Just remember the memories!!!” too many years in a row.

While TDO would probably be thrilled to think someone thought that highly of them, I think the flaw in that argument is that it assumes they have an actual plan that looks more than 180 days into the future. I don't think most of their plans go past the 90 day mark, and 180 days is stretching it.

To assume that their 2021 marketing strategy is based on a broader strategy that looks out to 2023 is giving them an awful lot of credit. Credit for a forward looking plan and sound strategy I simply don't think they have. KiteTails is Example #359 of that.

 

[Figments Friend]

It's apparently a purposely closed section of bleachers. And they've covered the metal bleachers in padding and removed handrails and sharp edges around the area to help the landings go smoother.

They actually thought this through and are doing it all on purpose! And when you realize that, it only makes KiteTails even more fabulous.

Everything about KiteTails is on purpose and was approved by TDO executives!

Well, today's TDO executives already have plenty of experience when it comes to landing themselves against a padded hard surface.



-

 

[Bullseye1967]

As much as they’d LOVE to say, “Get outta the house, enjoy life, come to WDW!” I think any sort of acknowledgment of the pandemic will discourage as many people as it will attract, no matter how much you emphasize that the danger has been diminished. It’s better to not mention it.

My suspicion: They are keeping their old-footage-nostalgia-powder dry for the company’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2023. (A silly excuse for visiting a theme park, but whatever.) They’ve learned the hard way that they can’t say “Just remember the memories!!!” too many years in a row.

Except they originally came out at D23 with 50 new things for the 50th and we got like 16 of those.

 

[Bullseye1967]

I will add if you get a chance to watch the ABC 50th special on Disney+ or Hulu I thought it was very well done.

 

[brb1006]

Except they originally came out at D23 with 50 new things for the 50th and we got like 16 of those.

I completely forgot about the 50 new things until this comment.

 

[Communicora]

I will add if you get a chance to watch the ABC 50th special on Disney+ or Hulu I thought it was very well done.

Thanks for reminding me! I forgot about this.

 

[PiratesMansion]

So after a mostly positive experience at Magic Kingdom yesterday, I figured I may as well share my thoughts on the eve of the month of the 50th:
-Despite heavy crowds and long wait times, the in-park experience was actually pretty good. FAR better than the 2018 visit that was marred by FP+ misery.
-Liberty Tree Tavern is a gem of a restaurant that I would love to see in more places. For the uninitiated, it's a lovely table service restaurant with rooms themed to different early Americans where it's essentially an all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving feast. The food and setting are absolutely perfect (Skipper Canteen, my dinner spot, was also nice, just a bit less perfect).
-Perhaps it was somewhat scaled down because of the anniversary, but Halloween at MK is essentially limited to Main Street.
-The castle paint job looks SIGNIFICANTLY better in person than it does in photos. Only found one completely terrible angle.
-Jungle Cruise, by virtue of its re-imagining, was the most popular thing in the park. I went there immediately at opening and I'm glad I did, because they made us walk the entire queue as if we were doing Peter Pan. Incidentally, I think the changes are a lateral move. If we're being honest, if divorced from its historical legacy, the Jungle Cruise was, by modern standards, an ok ride in 2020. It's still an ok ride in 2021. None of the changes were particularly bothersome or felt like they didn't belong, although they did not shoot the hippos, at least on my trip.
-Maintenance issues, naturally, reared their ugly head from time to time in terms of a broken AA here, the sounds of hydraulics there...
-What I thought was interesting was that even though FP/FP+/Geniewhatever are currently not running, waits still easily crossed the one hour mark for most attractions of interest and most lines were spilling out onto the midways. They weren't distancing either. Heaven help the park when Genie starts up over the next week or so.
-The newly redone and expended confectionary was...fine? It's yet another thing that the internet tells me I'm supposed to be mad at and I'm not really sure why.
-There's really not that much 50th merchandise, it appears. Lots of people walking out with Cinderella Castle anniversary bling playsets, but few other things to spend money on.
~HAUNTED MANSION~I know there are plenty of people on this forum, both those who have and have not experienced the WDW version that still maintain that the DL version is better, and that's their right. But sorry, the WDW version is better, and here's why (it's not just the fact that it's the only Mansion actually open during October, though that helps). The WDW version of the ride just *pops* in a way that the DL version simply does not, and also in a way that the vast majority of WDW attractions do not. There are a lot of attractions at WDW that are neglected, that have stilted audio, hydraulic sounds that aren't quite masked by the music, etc. Mansion has none of this. Everything is working, the audio is crystal clear (no dead speakers in the doom buggies as has often happened to me in California), and it really feels like the one ride at that park that is in HD surround sound vs. SD mono. As a Mansion purist, no version is perfect and I can and have elaborated on any number of things I'd like to see done differently in regards to how WDW runs it...but I simply have not, in my memory as an adult, seen the DL Mansion running so smoothly or as obviously well taken-care of as I saw in Florida yesterday. Half the time it feels like modern DL is burdened by the regular HM and just keeps it around because they feel like they can't get away with running HMH year round. Not so in Florida-it's clearly an attraction that both guests *and* the resort care a great deal about. And it's such a treat to see.
-Oh, and Swiss Family Treehouse. Some of you have forgotten just how much better this is than Tarzan's Treehouse. Simply perfection.

THAT SAID, almost all of this was kind of negated by the horrific walk out of the park yesterday. The park closed at nine, which is stupidly early for right now and the crowd level that was there, but we thought that by waiting until 9:30 and taking the ferry we would be in the clear. Wrong on both counts, and waiting in a giant line to cross the darn lake AND THEN not have the option of taking a tram made me never want to give Disney money again. Disney: RUN. YOUR. TRAMS.

So really, better than I expected, but the park (at least) still needs work. It really could have benefitted from the TLC DL got for its 50th, which was nowhere to be seen, but even just opening the park for another hour and/or doing something about the abysmal end-of-the-day situation would have made a huge difference.

 

[Centauri Space Station]

So after a mostly positive experience at Magic Kingdom yesterday, I figured I may as well share my thoughts on the eve of the month of the 50th:
-Despite heavy crowds and long wait times, the actual in-park experience was actually pretty good. FAR better than the 2018 visit that was marred by FP+ misery.
-Liberty Tree Tavern is a gem of a restaurant that I would love to see in more places. For the uninitiated, it's a lovely table service restaurant with rooms themed to different early Americans where it's essentially an all-you-can-eat Thanksgiving feast. The food and setting are absolutely perfect (Skipper Canteen, my dinner spot, was also nice, just a bit less perfect).
-Perhaps it was somewhat scaled down because of the anniversary, but Halloween at MK is essentially limited to Main Street.
-The castle paint job looks SIGNIFICANTLY better in person than it does in photos. Only found one completely terrible angle.
-Jungle Cruise, by virtue of its re-imagining, was the most popular thing in the park. I went there immediately at opening and I'm glad I did, because they made us walk the entire queue as if we were doing Peter Pan. Incidentally, I think the changes are a lateral move. If we're being honest, if divorced from its historical legacy, the Jungle Cruise was, by modern standards, an ok ride in 2020. It's still an ok ride in 2021. None of the changes were particularly bothersome or felt like they didn't belong, although they did not shoot the hippos, at least on my trip.
-Maintenance issues, naturally, reared their ugly head from time to time in terms of a broken AA here, the sounds of hydraulics there...
-What I thought was interesting was that even though FP/FP+/Geniewhatever are currently not running, waits still easily crossed the one hour mark for most attractions of interest and most lines were spilling out onto the midways. They weren't distancing either. Heaven help the park when Genie starts up over the next week or so.
-The newly redone and expended confectionary was...fine? It's yet another thing that the internet tells me I'm supposed to be mad at and I'm not really sure why.
-There's really not that much 50th merchandise, it appears. Lots of people walking out with Cinderella Castle anniversary bling playsets, but few other things to spend money on.
~HAUNTED MANSION~I know there are plenty of people on this forum, both those who have and have not experienced the WDW version that still maintain that the DL version is better, and that's their right. But sorry, the WDW version is better, and here's why (it's not just the fact that it's the only Mansion actually open during October, though that helps). The WDW version of the ride just *pops* in a way that the DL version simply does not, and also in a way that the vast majority of WDW attractions do not. There are a lot of attractions at WDW that are neglected, that have stilted audio, hydraulic sounds that aren't quite masked by the music, etc. Mansion has none of this. Everything is working, the audio is crystal clear (no dead speakers in the doom buggies as has often happened to me in California), and it really feels like the one ride at that park that is in HD surround sound vs. SD mono. As a Mansion purist, no version is perfect and I can and have elaborate on any number of things I'd like to see done differently in regards to how WDW runs it...but I simply have not, in my memory as an adult, seen the DL Mansion running so smoothly or as obviously well taken-care of as I saw in Florida yesterday. Half the time it feels like modern DL is burdened by the regular HM and just keeps it around because they feel like they can't get away with running HMH year round. Not so in Florida-it's clearly an attraction that both guests *and* the resort care a great deal about. And it's such a treat to see.
-Oh, and Swiss Family Treehouse. Some of you have forgotten just how much better this is than Tarzan's Treehouse. Simply perfection.

THAT SAID, almost all of this was kind of negated by the horrific walk out of the park yesterday. The park closed at nine, which is stupidly early for right now and the crowd level that was there, but we thought that by waiting until 9:30 and taking the ferry we would be in the clear. Wrong on both counts, and waiting in a giant line to cross the darn lake AND THEN not have the option of taking a tram made me never want to give Disney money again. Disney: RUN. YOUR. TRAMS.

So really, better than I expected, but the park (at least) still needs work. It really could have benefitted from the TLC DL got for its 50th, which was nowhere to be seen, but even just opening the park for another hour and/or doing something about the abysmal end-of-the-day situation would have made a huge difference.

Great report! Nothing about the people mover?