new ToD parade route

[mkt]

hey gang, this is official news.. not BS or hearsay..

effective September 29, ToD will no longer be performed from Germany to Mexico and back.. it will be Morocco-Germany only

 

[Fievel]

Good..that area seemed like it was too small if you weren't watching the parade.

Although I'm guessing this has something to do with cost-cutting.

 

[MrNonacho]

mktiggerman, any word on whether it will still be performed twice a day?

 

[RobFL]

Are they going to change the park maps?

And what do we do with the boxes UoE just got (which were printed in May and don't even list JIIwF as an attraction)...?

-Rob

 

[mkt]

Originally posted by MrNonacho
mktiggerman, any word on whether it will still be performed twice a day?

yeah, no change there

 

[RobFL]

Essentially, to run from one place to the other and back again makes a lot of sense. You have to pay someone to move the floats and costumes either way, so why not make it part of the preformance?

-Rob

 

[mkt]

Originally posted by RobFL
Essentially, to run from one place to the other and back again makes a lot of sense. You have to pay someone to move the floats and costumes either way, so why not make it part of the preformance?

-Rob

that's the way it's been done.. they just would rather have 1 complete pass (full puppets and cast/crew) than 2 half-assed passes (missing puppets and cast/crew)

 

[Talsonic]

Certainly an improvement!

I would prefer to have a Morocco to France route, but I'll take any reduction they give me! Thanks for the information.:sohappy:

 

[DisneyCP2000]

Yikes only 1/3 of the parade left. I'm more of a ToN person but it's kinda sad to see that it's slowly fading away. Hopefully the rumors of a new parade will be true and revive Epcots numbers.

 

[Testtrack321]

Amazing. Absolutly amazing.

 

[kwt10]

I may be totally off here but to me the less of the parade the better. I am not a fan of either of the parades and wish that they would get a new idea in the parades there.

 

[IOAfan0183]

I probably missed something, but WHY is EPCOT reducing the parade route to just Germany to Morocco?

IOAfan0183

 

[Testtrack321]

Originally posted by IOAfan0183
I probably missed something, but WHY is EPCOT reducing the parade route to just Germany to Morocco?

IOAfan0183

Incase you don't know or other people don't know, here's the Tapestry story.

Tapestry of Nations (ToN) started out going all the way around the lagoon. It went from Mexico to Germany, Germany to Morrocco, and Morrocco to UK. Then little after a month after the Millennium Celebration ended the route was shortened to just Mexico to Germany, and Germany to Morrocco due to bad wind conditions on the bridge from France to the UK. Now they are shorting it again. This time for budget, not for saftey. Bad show.

 

[mkt]

Originally posted by Testtrack321
This time for budget, not for saftey. Bad show.

how about for the fact that it is impossible right now to staff 2 complete passes of the parade, so instead of having 2 half-assed ones, they'll have 1 good one

 

[Raidermatt]

how about for the fact that it is impossible right now to staff 2 complete passes of the parade, so instead of having 2 half-assed ones, they'll have 1 good one

I didn't realize Disney was banned from hiring new cast members to properly staff its attractions. Is that a state or federal law?

(Sorry if that's a little sarcastic, but really now, if they wanted to staff the thing fully, they could.)

 

[wdwcrazy]

What kind of excuse is that? We don't have enough cast members? If they're short on CM's HIRE MORE don't just cut half of the parade. This is just going to make it harder to find a spot now for ToD. :brick:

 

[mkt]

Originally posted by Raidermatt
I didn't realize Disney was banned from hiring new cast members to properly staff its attractions. Is that a state or federal law?

(Sorry if that's a little sarcastic, but really now, if they wanted to staff the thing fully, they could.)

ok.. now i get ed..

1-Epcot Entertainment will NOT pay overtime for ToD. So even though they have the cast available, they won't let them come in on their day off. So budget did have something to do with it.. but not budget cuts, but rather insufficient budget.

2-ToD has a history of sending it's cast out on medical leave. I personally was on leave from December through May of this year, due to injuries sustained on Christmas day performing in ToD.

3-Not too many people want to be in ToD in the current WDW entertainment department. Out of those that are eligible to learn it, few want to, and if scheduled to learn it, they call in sick to rehearsals (which is exactly what I should've done)

4-The parade is leaving by next summer, and it's an extremely UNPOPULAR parade in guest surveys, so why not cut back, since it's gonna be gone soon anyway..

5-New applicants wanting to do ToD are sparse... that parade has a bad reputation all over the Orlando entertainment industry. The parade is staffed primarily by College Program CM's and High School kids (with a few "old school" ToN part timers and full timers still there). Not to mention that ToD has the highest turnover rate in WDW entertainment. Some of the ToD recruiters flat-out LIE to applicants to get them to audition for it, so obviously something is wrong there.


I could make the list even longer if you'd like.. those are

 

[mkt]

Originally posted by wdwcrazy
What kind of excuse is that? We don't have enough cast members? If they're short on CM's HIRE MORE don't just cut half of the parade. This is just going to make it harder to find a spot now for ToD. :brick:

read what I just wrote.. there are 2 sides to every story

 

[mkt]

now to condense my last 2 posts into a sentence..


How can they keep the parade staffed if?:

A- the cast doesn't want to do it

and
B- there aren't enough new applicants to fill in for the turnover.


just a thought

 

[Maria]

In my opinion, the change was for good. hehe.... sorry... I liked ToN but once a day was fine with me. Twice it was just too much and a huge "traffic jam". It could become an even bigger traffic jam in such a little space now, but it´s fine with me... :animwink: