Living with the Land Holiday Overlay

Nunu

Wanderluster
Premium Member
Let's not forget that even this decade EPCOT had holiday lights better than your neighbour's front yard. Back when they charged less than half the price.


Now, that makes me feel nostalgic. I loved The Lights of Winter and was sad when it was retired. Apparently, the reason for it's demise was that the technology to operate them became obsolete. I think Disney could've upgraded it with led lights, for one. I miss it. 😔
 

techgeek

Well-Known Member
Let's not forget that even this decade EPCOT had holiday lights better than your neighbour's front yard. Back when they charged less than half the price.



Not only that, we have no holiday fireworks tag this year with the funds from that supposedly diverted to other holiday offerings around the resort. It puts it in an entirely different perspective if this modest display and others like it came at the cost of the tag (to be fair I doubt that in this specific case since there is a history of small seasonal ‘pluses’ to LWTL well before this year... but still.)
 

Kman101

Well-Known Member
The complaints about this overlay are a bit much. It's a theme park attraction, yet it's a boat ride through a greenhouse and decorated appropriately. No one complained before the lights were added? What are people wanting here? Lord. They really can't ever do anything right. We all nitpick things but this is a bit much. Just sit back and enjoy the overlay folks. Stop overthinking everything. Not everything requires a spastic light show that reminds you of the Osborne lights.
 

ToTBellHop

Well-Known Member
The complaints about this overlay are a bit much. It's a theme park attraction, yet it's a boat ride through a greenhouse and decorated appropriately. No one complained before the lights were added? What are people wanting here? Lord. They really can't ever do anything right. We all nitpick things but this is a bit much. Just sit back and enjoy the overlay folks. Stop overthinking everything. Not everything requires a spastic light show that reminds you of the Osborne lights.
Exactly. It wasn’t meant to be jaw-dropping. It’s a minor plus to what most guests view to be a minor attraction. I enjoy the small novelty.
 

FigmentForver96

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The complaints about this overlay are a bit much. It's a theme park attraction, yet it's a boat ride through a greenhouse and decorated appropriately. No one complained before the lights were added? What are people wanting here? Lord. They really can't ever do anything right. We all nitpick things but this is a bit much. Just sit back and enjoy the overlay folks. Stop overthinking everything. Not everything requires a spastic light show that reminds you of the Osborne lights.
My thoughts exactly. The ride doesn’t have a story as much as you are going through a real greenhouse and they put up some lights for the holidays. It doesn’t need to be more
 

Kman101

Well-Known Member
My thoughts exactly. The ride doesn’t have a story as much as you are going through a real greenhouse and they put up some lights for the holidays. It doesn’t need to be more

Exactly this! I think what's there is charming and enjoyable. I'm glad they added a lot more this year. It's fun. It's not meant to be overthought in this case, lol.
 

ToTBellHop

Well-Known Member
While Peace on Earth was fantastic, we had it for years. I appreciate that its removal has allowed for numerous holiday updates resort-wide. And I expect (and understand it to be the plan) holiday fireworks to return to Epcot with HarmoniUs.
 

Disone

Well-Known Member
While Peace on Earth was fantastic, we had it for years. I appreciate that its removal has allowed for numerous holiday updates resort-wide. And I expect (and understand it to be the plan) holiday fireworks to return to Epcot with HarmoniUs.
Fingers crossed the plan does not change. Regarding LWTL, I like it. I kind of felt it was something the operations team did there with limited to know budget, but they didn't because THEY wanted to decorate for the holiday. I have no idea how it came to be but the real point is that its a nice plus. I don't go in expecting much, but just enjoy it for the changes it makes.

Who ever said not everything has to be a grand spectacle, bravo, I agree. This is NOT that. But given the choice of doing this for the holidays or doing nothing at LWTL, I would choose this 100% of the time.
 

MinnieWaffles

Well-Known Member
It really does look like they handed the interns a couple hundred bucks, sent them down to the local lawn & garden center, and gave them 5 hours to pull everything together. It looks cheap and hastily thrown together. None of it relates to the mission of the attraction; it's literally just some strings of lights thrown haphazardly around the greenhouses. Perhaps if they updated the audio to include holiday music and/or new narration if would make sense, but as it is, there's just no rhyme or reason to it.

It's even more confusing when you consider that, more than any other indoor attraction, the extra lights are useless during daylight hours. And given the average guest's park touring habits and that the attraction typically closes at 7pm, very few guests will actually see this in its full glory (such as it is).

I will give them credit for trying. But for the worldwide theme park industry leader, I think they could try harder.

What were you expecting?
 

tirian

Well-Known Member
While Peace on Earth was fantastic, we had it for years. I appreciate that its removal has allowed for numerous holiday updates resort-wide. And I expect (and understand it to be the plan) holiday fireworks to return to Epcot with HarmoniUs.

That’s not how the budget works. Disney makes cuts to save money, not to redirect the funds. For example, they cut Lights of Winter and blamed the tech despite simultaneously upgrading the dancing lights at the Studios. Then the Osborn lights and their control boxes disappeared with the Streets of America, but the arches never returned. The metal arches were in fine shape and simply needed to be rewired. Reality: Disney didn’t want to spend the money. They also cut Epcot’s nightly tree lighting show and larger Christmas tree decôr.

The good news is, the latest resort updates were (happily enough) coming anyway, regardless of the “Peace on Earth” tag. It’s also true that there were many upgrades this year, although the resort still doesn’t offer as much Christmas cheer as it did around 2009 (when the cuts began).
 

ToTBellHop

Well-Known Member
That’s not how the budget works. Disney makes cuts to save money, not to redirect the funds. For example, they cut Lights of Winter and blamed the tech despite simultaneously upgrading the dancing lights at the Studios. Then the Osborn lights and their control boxes disappeared with the Streets of America, but the arches never returned. The metal arches were in fine shape and simply needed to be rewired. Reality: Disney didn’t want to spend the money. They also cut Epcot’s nightly tree lighting show and larger Christmas tree decôr.

The good news is, the latest resort updates were (happily enough) coming anyway, regardless of the “Peace on Earth” tag. It’s also true that there were many upgrades this year, although the resort still doesn’t offer as much Christmas cheer as it did around 2009 (when the cuts began).
Shrug
 

peter11435

Well-Known Member
That’s not how the budget works. Disney makes cuts to save money, not to redirect the funds. For example, they cut Lights of Winter and blamed the tech despite simultaneously upgrading the dancing lights at the Studios. Then the Osborn lights and their control boxes disappeared with the Streets of America, but the arches never returned. The metal arches were in fine shape and simply needed to be rewired. Reality: Disney didn’t want to spend the money. They also cut Epcot’s nightly tree lighting show and larger Christmas tree decôr.

The good news is, the latest resort updates were (happily enough) coming anyway, regardless of the “Peace on Earth” tag. It’s also true that there were many upgrades this year, although the resort still doesn’t offer as much Christmas cheer as it did around 2009 (when the cuts began).
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t actually know how disney budgets work.

The Lights of Winter were a sad and devastating loss. They could and should have been updated and remained. However it’s incorrect to say that the resort offers less “holiday cheer” today. There are actually more decorations across the resort today than there were in 2009 and while we have certainly loss some great offerings we have gained some new ones.
 

FigmentForver96

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that you don’t actually know how disney budgets work.

The Lights of Winter were a sad and devastating loss. They could and should have been updated and remained. However it’s incorrect to say that the resort offers less “holiday cheer” today. There are actually more decorations across the resort today than there were in 2009 and while we have certainly loss some great offerings we have gained some new ones.
I’m gonna go out and say that Lights of Winter was so ugly during the day. To me the pay off was just not there, especially when you had the lights at Hollywood Studios. That’s my opinion of course, I know lots of people liked them.
 

No Name

Well-Known Member
I remember back fiveish years ago when holiday changes were at their most minimal and everyone was like "ergh Disney's so cheap yada yada." I, on the other hand, was fine with this cheapness because holidays can stay back home; I simply tend to not like holiday changes at the parks. However, I held the opinion that Disney was actually losing out on money, because this kind of stuff gets the locals to come, and gets the bloggers to come, who might buy a hot dog but more importantly might share a video with 100K folks, who might then decide to come as well. And that’s a lot of hot dogs.

Seems Disney’s catching on.
 

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