I am not looking forward to it on account, of it being the last lake hotel at a reasonable price atm
Can't wait to have to stay in Santa Fe 
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
MAGICal DLP News, Rumours & Thoughts
- Thread starter Animaniac93-98
- Start date
Can't wait to have to stay in Santa Fe 
Stars On Parade going away for Christmas
Seems they are really cutting down on entertainment during the Christmas season this year!!
I’m hoping this means they can refurb it and it can return with the full Peter Pan float, fire breathing dragon, and a moving Crush again
Last edited:
cjkeating
Well-Known Member
Peter Pan float - I don't know if they deem it worthy to rebuild it if the parade is going to get replaced in a few years anyhow
Dragon - is the fire not back? I assumed it came back with the Dreams! fire
Crush - doubtful, it's not broken they just made all puppeteers redundant during COVID
Crush used to move, I don’t believe it was puppeteers within him. I’m not talking about the Nemo and Dory puppeteers. Watch a video from the parades opening.
I don’t believe the fire came back on the dragon.
Surely with 2 months they can do something to spruce it back up
cjkeating
Well-Known Member
Maybe I am thinking of a Crush from somewhere else but Crush has never moved since he came back after COVID so maybe I just put 2 and 2 together on that one but it was definitely a choice and not something broken.
Anything more than 6 months and it should be made show worthy again.
*laughs in DLP*
UpAllNight
Well-Known Member
Didn’t really know where to put this, but I believe we were discussing Efteling in a Paris thread at the start of the year, and I suppose it’s mildly relevant as European competition.
This year I’ve been to Port Aventura & Disneyland Paris (been many times to both) and had my first visit to Efteling, and I loved it. I’ve added Phantasialand to the list of first time visits, and what can I say other than WOW. I felt I knew the park a fair bit pre visit as I’ve watched some of my favourite YouTubers visit consistently over the past few years, but pics and vids don’t do the place justice.
It’s one of the best themed park I’ve ever been to. If you find yourself near Cologne, please make a slight detour to visit this absolute gem of a park.
I mentioned it’s competition for DLP, but in reality, for attendance, it isn’t. I didn’t see many none locals, and it’s quite small. Small & mighty. I suppose the competition comes from the immersion, which in my opinion was up there with the best I’ve experienced in a theme park.
For anyone interested, I had very high expectations for Taron, & it delivered. It’s absolutely wild & up there with Velocicoaster, which I rate just a little higher but it holds its own. The area surrounding F.L.Y has to be the best themed coaster that isn’t a Disney mountain (we maybe under appreciate that Disney have literally built a mountain around some coasters haha). On that though, Colorado Adventure is the most intense Minetrain I’ve been on, and the best overall in the world that I’ve experienced outside of Thunder Mountain. Great theming too. I’ve heard mystery tower runs 2 cycles and we caught a shorter one but it was the best drop ride outside of Tower of Terror. You’re sat inside and there are 4 drop towers, and you all go up and drop at different times, and it’s genuinely forceful and a little scary ha. Chapas is a Mexican themed log flume with I believe the worlds biggest or steepest drop. It also features a dancing disco monkey, so naturally it’s my favourite log flume, now that Splash is no more.
Food seemed really strong too. Felt a little like a foodie park, I got epcot vibes in that regard.
Only critiques are the size, which is nothing they can do about. I believe the council have blocked future expansion and there’s an ongoing battle over a plot of land they own. There’s a clear difference in the newer parts of the park and the older ones, but that excites me as the future potential of improvements is obvious. I feel on dark rides, Efteling & DLP offered significantly more & this would be my area of focus, if I were the park operators.
Having been to Disney loads, in general, it obviously doesn’t have the new factor for me so I’m trying to remain level headed & treat them through the eyes of a first time visitor. With that, in my experience, I’d rank them
DLP
Efteling
Phantasialand
PortAventura
Competition is VERY tough though. I feel Disney need some big modern rides. Efteling needs like a Hagrids style coaster but has nailed dark rides, and actually contains a few of my favourites. Phantasialand has nailed coasters but needs a change of pace and some slower big immersive dark rides, and PortAventura, whilst wonderfully themed also, need to sack their entire operations team as it’s literally a joke visiting on a busy day. But also, Shambhala is my European number 1, still.
I think it’s relevant to the DLP conversation, as I don’t think a visitor to Phantasialand, would be blown away by the immersion at DLP, as good as it is. F.L.Y whilst 25 years younger, took steampunk theming up several notches to what’s on offer in Discoveryland, for example.
I think the above is why I’ve always been very underwhelmed by Magic Kingdom. I grew up with the beauty of Paris, and it just failed to blow me away. I’ve since visited Anaheim, and that captured me through charm, attraction count, and effort. My expectations were set, and MK fails to deliver.
Excited to visit more parks across the world. I think competition is really important, and should keep Disney on their toes as expectations from theme parks across Europe are obviously high.
Well, except in the UK where I feel they cheapen out a lot. But even on that, curse of Alton Manor, a new dark ride at Alton Towers, upped the dark ride game a bit this year.
It’s interesting to see Efteling target international visitors, and Phantasialand seem to be going down a similar route, recently changing their social language from German to English. Exciting times across Europe - let’s hope it shakes Disney out of complacency when it comes to new additions!
This year I’ve been to Port Aventura & Disneyland Paris (been many times to both) and had my first visit to Efteling, and I loved it. I’ve added Phantasialand to the list of first time visits, and what can I say other than WOW. I felt I knew the park a fair bit pre visit as I’ve watched some of my favourite YouTubers visit consistently over the past few years, but pics and vids don’t do the place justice.
It’s one of the best themed park I’ve ever been to. If you find yourself near Cologne, please make a slight detour to visit this absolute gem of a park.
I mentioned it’s competition for DLP, but in reality, for attendance, it isn’t. I didn’t see many none locals, and it’s quite small. Small & mighty. I suppose the competition comes from the immersion, which in my opinion was up there with the best I’ve experienced in a theme park.
For anyone interested, I had very high expectations for Taron, & it delivered. It’s absolutely wild & up there with Velocicoaster, which I rate just a little higher but it holds its own. The area surrounding F.L.Y has to be the best themed coaster that isn’t a Disney mountain (we maybe under appreciate that Disney have literally built a mountain around some coasters haha). On that though, Colorado Adventure is the most intense Minetrain I’ve been on, and the best overall in the world that I’ve experienced outside of Thunder Mountain. Great theming too. I’ve heard mystery tower runs 2 cycles and we caught a shorter one but it was the best drop ride outside of Tower of Terror. You’re sat inside and there are 4 drop towers, and you all go up and drop at different times, and it’s genuinely forceful and a little scary ha. Chapas is a Mexican themed log flume with I believe the worlds biggest or steepest drop. It also features a dancing disco monkey, so naturally it’s my favourite log flume, now that Splash is no more.
Food seemed really strong too. Felt a little like a foodie park, I got epcot vibes in that regard.
Only critiques are the size, which is nothing they can do about. I believe the council have blocked future expansion and there’s an ongoing battle over a plot of land they own. There’s a clear difference in the newer parts of the park and the older ones, but that excites me as the future potential of improvements is obvious. I feel on dark rides, Efteling & DLP offered significantly more & this would be my area of focus, if I were the park operators.
Having been to Disney loads, in general, it obviously doesn’t have the new factor for me so I’m trying to remain level headed & treat them through the eyes of a first time visitor. With that, in my experience, I’d rank them
DLP
Efteling
Phantasialand
PortAventura
Competition is VERY tough though. I feel Disney need some big modern rides. Efteling needs like a Hagrids style coaster but has nailed dark rides, and actually contains a few of my favourites. Phantasialand has nailed coasters but needs a change of pace and some slower big immersive dark rides, and PortAventura, whilst wonderfully themed also, need to sack their entire operations team as it’s literally a joke visiting on a busy day. But also, Shambhala is my European number 1, still.
I think it’s relevant to the DLP conversation, as I don’t think a visitor to Phantasialand, would be blown away by the immersion at DLP, as good as it is. F.L.Y whilst 25 years younger, took steampunk theming up several notches to what’s on offer in Discoveryland, for example.
I think the above is why I’ve always been very underwhelmed by Magic Kingdom. I grew up with the beauty of Paris, and it just failed to blow me away. I’ve since visited Anaheim, and that captured me through charm, attraction count, and effort. My expectations were set, and MK fails to deliver.
Excited to visit more parks across the world. I think competition is really important, and should keep Disney on their toes as expectations from theme parks across Europe are obviously high.
Well, except in the UK where I feel they cheapen out a lot. But even on that, curse of Alton Manor, a new dark ride at Alton Towers, upped the dark ride game a bit this year.
It’s interesting to see Efteling target international visitors, and Phantasialand seem to be going down a similar route, recently changing their social language from German to English. Exciting times across Europe - let’s hope it shakes Disney out of complacency when it comes to new additions!
Last edited:
nickys
Premium Member
15 camera angles later… enjoy
Thanks Martin. So sad I missed it on our trip.
Trekkie101
Well-Known Member
Incredible effort!
15 camera angles later… enjoy
Ah this is just fantastic!!
Thanks so much for sharing!(I am going to have just stop bothering to film anything when I am there and remember there are people like Martin with actual skill who these shows justice
)Apart from using the Magic Over Disney name again, so its not entirely meaningless almost!
This was great, I actually really quite like Mix Magic anyway
I wouldn't be mad to get the slightly less pyro version of this for a bit.Got my Christmas AP Party tickets today too, they also released the schedule of the shows for it, which seems uncharacteristically efficient for DLP!
Swissmiss
Premium Member
Very jealous. I so wanted to go but I‘d need to be back home before noon on Friday which although logistically I might just make it with about 3 minutes to spare, I am not sure I’d be in a physical state to be able to do what I need to do once I got back.
I got very lucky in that we sort of had rough plans to go around that week to go do the Christmas things but hadn't booked into anything yet before they announced it, and then the date got announced via the social media accounts just as we were trying to make up our minds. So it kind of settled our plans for us
Very thankful as normally we wouldn't have the opportunity to drop everything with how close they tend to announce the party dates!
Normal Dreams is better
Stars on Parade feels odd, if we had got an extra Christmas parade time back (so 3 times) I could understand, hopefully, they are fixing it. Christmas does feel a little light with only getting Lets Sing Christmas on top of the parade too.
Feel like Studios needs something other than just L'Hiver Gourmand at least.