A number of interesting points being made on this thread about love for WDW and when it's appropriate, if ever, to take one's business elsewhere...
Genuine love for a product or a brand is much like love for another person: if you're deeply in love, there is very little that even your family and closest friends can say that will convince you that the object of your affection doesn't deserve the full measure of your ardor. You can't, after all, argue against an emotion with mere words.
By the same token, however, once you've lost that loving feeling (to borrow liberally from the Righteous Brothers), it can be incredibly difficult -- if not impossible -- to bring it back.
I'd had an abiding affection for WDW for decades. Six or seven years ago, I would have summarily dismissed any effort to convince me that WDW did not deserve the place of privilege that it had long occupied in my regard. But something changed over the last couple of years, and that change had nothing to do with anything that anyone said, on a message board or elsewhere.
Although I have tentative plans to visit Orlando again in the next year or two, it's likely I'll spend my time largely at SW and Universal, along with a couple of local side trips. A decade ago, the idea of being in central Florida and not setting foot in a Disney park would have been literally unthinkable.
I say this not to "complain" or because I want to convince anyone else that they should "boycott" WDW... I say this because, for me, WDWMagic has always been a community as much as it has been a news site. I share my feelings and opinions -- both positive and negative -- here because I know they will resonate with other community members for whom WDW has occupied an important place in their emotions and memories.
For a few people in the community, that loving feeling for WDW will never go away -- no matter how stale the parks become, or how little value they get for their money. But for many, that loving feeling has already dissipated, or is on the verge of doing so.
It's much easier to sustain a loving feeling that has been firmly entrenched for decades, than to resuscitate a feeling once it has slipped away. It would have been a relatively simple thing to maintain that abundant goodwill and affection with its core fanbase, but Disney has squandered numerous opportunities to do so in the last several years. TWDC now faces a critical juncture for WDW: should their much-vaunted NextGen/MyMagic+ initiative, coupled with a lack of any substantive additions to the parks, alienate a large portion of their most loyal fans, they could well lose several generations of longtime guests who may never again be brought back into the fold.
Genuine love for a product or a brand is much like love for another person: if you're deeply in love, there is very little that even your family and closest friends can say that will convince you that the object of your affection doesn't deserve the full measure of your ardor. You can't, after all, argue against an emotion with mere words.
By the same token, however, once you've lost that loving feeling (to borrow liberally from the Righteous Brothers), it can be incredibly difficult -- if not impossible -- to bring it back.
I'd had an abiding affection for WDW for decades. Six or seven years ago, I would have summarily dismissed any effort to convince me that WDW did not deserve the place of privilege that it had long occupied in my regard. But something changed over the last couple of years, and that change had nothing to do with anything that anyone said, on a message board or elsewhere.
Although I have tentative plans to visit Orlando again in the next year or two, it's likely I'll spend my time largely at SW and Universal, along with a couple of local side trips. A decade ago, the idea of being in central Florida and not setting foot in a Disney park would have been literally unthinkable.
I say this not to "complain" or because I want to convince anyone else that they should "boycott" WDW... I say this because, for me, WDWMagic has always been a community as much as it has been a news site. I share my feelings and opinions -- both positive and negative -- here because I know they will resonate with other community members for whom WDW has occupied an important place in their emotions and memories.
For a few people in the community, that loving feeling for WDW will never go away -- no matter how stale the parks become, or how little value they get for their money. But for many, that loving feeling has already dissipated, or is on the verge of doing so.
It's much easier to sustain a loving feeling that has been firmly entrenched for decades, than to resuscitate a feeling once it has slipped away. It would have been a relatively simple thing to maintain that abundant goodwill and affection with its core fanbase, but Disney has squandered numerous opportunities to do so in the last several years. TWDC now faces a critical juncture for WDW: should their much-vaunted NextGen/MyMagic+ initiative, coupled with a lack of any substantive additions to the parks, alienate a large portion of their most loyal fans, they could well lose several generations of longtime guests who may never again be brought back into the fold.
