I think “The Magic” is mostly gone for me…

MagicRat

MagicRat

Well-Known Member
Jrb1979 said:
I was more blown away from rides like World of Motion and Horizons than most of what they have added recently. IMO it's those type of attractions that made Disney different.
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Look Horizons was my favorite ride too, my favorite car I owned was a 1985 Porsche 944 but it is way dated now as well. Do I think the Maelstrom still is superior to the ice princess ride, yes, but WOM and Horizons saw there prime and although it attracts the people like you and me, it wouldn’t be selling new tickets.

Just be glad that some of this new stuff is flailing too as in the Star Wars hotel, it may make these guys to think harder.

Still the magic is there you just can’t dwell in the past. My 944 was the best thing of all time but my Wrangler that is not really a Jeep now but a car has heated seats!
 
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Jrb1979

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
MagicRat said:
Look Horizons was my favorite ride too, my favorite car I owned was a 1985 Porsche 944 but it is way dated now as well. Do I think the Maelstrom still is superior to the ice princess ride, yes, but WOM and Horizons saw there prime and although it attracts the people like you and me, it wouldn’t be selling new tickets.

Just be glad that some of this new stuff is flailing too as in the Star Wars hotel, it may make these guys to think harder.

Still the magic is there you just can’t dwell in the past. My 944 was the best thing of all time but my Wrangler that is not really a Jeep now but a car has heated seats!
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It's not so much dwelling in the past but looking at what Disney excelled at. Which is story driven, animatronic based and well themed dark rides. They have moved away from that and towards a themed thrill ride direction. They can't do it as good as Universal due to them trying to stay family friendly. IMO their last well themed thrill ride was Tower of Terror.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
Jrb1979 said:
I was more blown away from rides like World of Motion and Horizons than most of what they have added recently. IMO it's those type of attractions that made Disney different.
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To some degree I agree, but Horizons bit the dust because it lost it's sponsorship and also lost it's popularity. Both Imagination sponsored by Kodak and WoM sponsored by GM really had that added situation that the sponsors wanted to change it. Imagination was expensive to operate right at the time when Kodak was starting to be left behind technology wise and were hurting for cash. The thing that made the attraction great was also plagued with problems (the turntable with Dreamfinder and Figment) causing Kodaks concern. It would lose the sponsor eventually anyway. Horizon was good, for sure, but had lost it's pulling power. Many people like me that rode Horizon early on, remember the massive full switchback lines at that time down to a walk on by the time it came to an end. Sad, but that is what happened to a lot of Epcot. The general public tired of it. I did too when it came to Horizons, but the first and last things I hit as long as they both were there were SSE and WoM, but had become bored of Horizon.
 
NickMaio

NickMaio

Well-Known Member
Club Cooloholic said:
Eh. They aren't selling burritos for lunch. That one time customer who has saved up all their dough, will eat and stay on site and buy a bunch of trinkets for the kids in one trip might spend the same amount a pass holder living in FL does in 5. They both, and it's a hard balance.
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I am not necessilarly talking about FL people - more so out of towners/staters who used to come once/twice a year.
 
Jrb1979

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
To some degree I agree, but Horizons bit the dust because it lost it's sponsorship and also lost it's popularity. Both Imagination sponsored by Kodak and WoM sponsored by GM really had that added situation that the sponsors wanted to change it. Imagination was expensive to operate right at the time when Kodak was starting to be left behind technology wise and were hurting for cash. The thing that made the attraction great was also plagued with problems (the turntable with Dreamfinder and Figment) causing Kodaks concern. It would lose the sponsor eventually anyway. Horizon was good, for sure, but had lost it's pulling power. Many people like me that rode Horizon early on, remember the massive full switchback lines at that time down to a walk on by the time it came to an end. Sad, but that is what happened to a lot of Epcot. The general public tired of it. I did too when it came to Horizons, but the first and last things I hit as long as they both were there were SSE and WoM, but had become bored of Horizon.
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I don't disagree with any of that. It's those type of attractions that I loved about Disney. They did the highly themed dark rides better than anyone else. As I said earlier they have gone away from what they did best to try to appeal to a market that likes some thrill. IMO they fail in that market solely cause they won't push the limits due to being family oriented. They should stick to what they do best and leave the thrills to SeaWorld and Universal.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
NickMaio said:
Honestly - I believe that there are millions of people who would not only appreciate these types of rides but also ride them again and again.
It set WDW apart from every other theme park in the world. It made learning fun-engaging-and easy to access for almost everyone.

If they brought 1 nostalgic ride back from the dead - - the park would be exploding from interest.
"That's all I have to say about that"
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If you paid attention to the intellectual level of the country right now it would make it easy to understand why so many decided that they "dint need no learnin' from no theme park, no more".
 
MickeyLuv'r

MickeyLuv'r

Well-Known Member
DisneyHead123 said:
My point was that I think Disney has better and more diverse food options now than they did in the 1980s. If you’re claiming that this isn’t the case and the quality / diversity of food options on offer now is different but on par with Disney in the 80s, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Absolutely no comparison in restaurants / snacks / festival food between the 1980s and today. In my opinion.

I’m not sure if that’s what you’re expressing, or if you’re saying food is better now but still gets the same “score” as it would have in the 80s when the “food offerings relative to the era” are considered. As in, food offerings in the average town were much more limited in the 80s so relatively speaking it makes sense that they would have been more limited at Disney too.
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I wasn't quite that absolute, but the MK QS have not evolved all that much over the past 50 years. It is weirdly one of the things I like about MK.

Perhaps we have different definitions of what ='crappy food.' IMO, it is 100% possible to get crappy food in MK.

Outside of WDW, I've seen huge turnover in just the last three years when it comes to QS dining.

Sadly, my beloved Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies are long gone from MK. Does anyone think the Starbucks cookies are an improvement?
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
For those that don't really know what WoM was like here is a link to one of our own Martin's Tribute video's about the ride. Granted the pictures are a little grainy but you get the idea what it was and why it was so unique. I like Test Track and it might be thrilling (even though I drove way faster than that just getting there) but it is no where near as entertaining as WoM. Anyway enjoy!

 
D

DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
MickeyLuv'r said:
I wasn't quite that absolute, but the MK QS have not evolved all that much over the past 50 years. It is weirdly one of the things I like about MK.

Perhaps we have different definitions of what ='crappy food.' IMO, it is 100% possible to get crappy food in MK.

Outside of WDW, I've seen huge turnover in just the last three years when it comes to QS dining.

Sadly, my beloved Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies are long gone from MK. Does anyone think the Starbucks cookies are an improvement?
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Again, will have to agree to disagree on this one. I think Disney has made major progress in the area of food (to be fair I was probably vague when I talked about 'food' - when I say that I'm thinking of the overall 'food' picture in the parks, from snacks to table service restaurants). Also think they have made progress in the areas of:

- Ride offerings
- Technology integration
- Resort offerings
- New experiences in general (cruises, ABD, Magical Extras, Disney Springs, random things to do around the parks, etc.)
- New merchandise.

That's not to say I would give them a 10 out of 10 in each of those areas, just that I think the trend has been overall an upward arc, even if there have been bumps and frustrations along the way. I do think there are areas where they have flatlined or even gone downhill - for me those would be:

- Crowd level (biggest and most obvious issue to my mind)
- Overall customer service (still way better than many places but with exponential size increase comes a customer service dip)
- Park maintenance
- Dark rides (I'd say they have improved greatly in thrill rides but the dark ride offerings have at best neither improved nor declined since the 80s... at best)
- Theming (It does make me sad that something like Mainstreet USA would 100% be a no-go in the current zeitgeist, because that kind of coordinated theming creates such an amazing charm, vs. the "Hey let's stick a random IP wherever we find space" approach.)

Again, just my two cents. I'm not a total pixie duster who thinks Disney can do no wrong but I also think there's the "hedonic treadmill" effect where the progress that really has been made quickly starts to seem like the new normal and so is overlooked. I think if a time machine could transport people to the Disney parks circa 1985 they'd really be shocked at how much cooler they are these days - but, again, 100% my opinion.
 
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Kamikaze

Kamikaze

Well-Known Member
yensidtlaw1969 said:
How unappealing to assert. You're not the artiber of anything.

It's one thing to have a different opinion, but it's an ugly thing to insist any other opinion be dismissed.
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This 'you can't tell me I'm wrong because its my opinion' nonsense is absolutely one of the worst things to come out of the ... lets just say ... current era.
 
yensidtlaw1969

yensidtlaw1969

Well-Known Member
Kamikaze said:
This 'you can't tell me I'm wrong because its my opinion' nonsense is absolutely one of the worst things to come out of the ... lets just say ... current era.
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That's when it comes to objective facts, like whether the Earth is flat. Not when it comes to purely and genuinely subjective matters like whether a ride at Disney World can be considered "good".

Such an ugly attitude.
 
John park hopper

John park hopper

Well-Known Member
I've posted this before I grew up with Disney on TV --the original Micky Mouse Club never missed a show as a kid. Then it was the wonderful world of Disney on Sunday night first black and white and then color in 61. Went to all the Disney movies in the theater. When WDW opened in 71 got out of the service in 72 and went to WDW many trips between 72 and 77 when we honeymooned at the Contemporary. Took our 3 sons many times over the years 80- late 90's. I never felt like I was being nickeled and dollared to death like my trips 2000-2019 (last trip). So much has changed like character restaurants (hate them) IMO the food was down graded. Crowds are insane and people in general are less civil. CM are not what they used to be and it's gotten so expensive, many more reasons. I speak only for myself-- yes the magic is gone---if you have the magic enjoy
 
AdventureHasAName

AdventureHasAName

Well-Known Member
CaptainJackNO said:
For years, folks like us have been flamed on these forums. I can go back as far as 2003 when people really started verbalizing the noticeable decline in quality, obscene increase in pricing along with the reduction in offerings with the price increases. Some of us even started, 20 years ago, stating that soon Disney would begin pricing out the middle class fan. Well, it took 20 years, but I think the insane cost (now on par with a trip to Paris,) has initiated the onset of the out pricing and alienation of many of their fans. Now the data shows this. For the first time, Disney Parks are no longer the number one vacation search on search engines, Galactic Starcruiser closing barely after opening, attendance is begining to wane, and park cleanliness and ride condition is bad. Even business analysts are sounding the Disney alarm. We're heading to WDW in a month, but staying off-site for the first time. We're really looking forward to this trip, but I worry how long WDW will make it in its current state. I have hopes in Iger, but like a couple of the above posters, I'm afraid we're in the decline era. It's almost 1982 all over again, and there's no Michael Eisner in sight.
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Put more concisely ... the company spent 50 years building up the most good will and customer loyalty on the planet, then burned through it all over the next 20 years (for very short term gain).
 
NickMaio

NickMaio

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
If you paid attention to the intellectual level of the country right now it would make it easy to understand why so many decided that they "dint need no learnin' from no theme park, no more".
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That's not everybody.
There are many who would appreciate a trip back in time.
Especially return customers.
 
Kamikaze

Kamikaze

Well-Known Member
yensidtlaw1969 said:
That's when it comes to objective facts, like whether the Earth is flat. Not when it comes to purely and genuinely subjective matters like whether a ride at Disney World can be considered "good".

Such an ugly attitude.
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No, a bad attraction is a bad attraction. There isn't any subjectivity.

You can LIKE a bad attraction - thats an opinion. But if its bad, its bad.
 

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