Soarin' Over Pgh
Well-Known Member
Apparently so. Glad my patient enjoyed her run at Disney, then lunch and evening at Universal for the next few days. Disney really hooked her there, didn't they?
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Spirited News & Observations II -- NGE/Baxter
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
Apparently so. Glad my patient enjoyed her run at Disney, then lunch and evening at Universal for the next few days. Disney really hooked her there, didn't they?
flynnibus
Premium Member
She traveled all the way to Disney for the race didn't she? And paid disney's crazy race rates didn't she??
Did they get more out of her? No but they do for many... Hence the crowd boosts during those weekends. No need to discount when you're already busy
Clever Name
Well-Known Member
We can't help ourselves. We are unwitting sycophants.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
What Flynn said. He's an interesting guy of sorts; he used to work for Touring Plans before he got into a big time, nasty, public fight with their head of research here in Florida which ended that business relationship as far as I know.
I have my own opinion of him and as much as he can be right about things, but the honey boo-boos of the world might be better company.
Really? How exactly did Merf step out of line by calling folks out for their lack of transparency? I'd love to hear your opinion ...
Happy you are. Many folks seem to be. I REALLY want to be too!
I have read (perhaps Realityland?) originally plans were to line the Seven Seas Lagoon with hotels. I believe these plans date all the way back to Roy Disney.
I also vaguely recall reading that Disney long ago gave up trying to maintain Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake as swimmable lakes. I'm pretty sure this dates back to the 1970s. I guess Florida swampland is a tough place to try to maintain a swimmable lake.
There's a lot of BS out there (urban/CM/fanboi/Internet legend) regarding why Disney stopped allowing swimming in its lakes. The easiest and honest answer is money (it usually comes down to that). There's a lot of liability there and they are natural bodies of water. ... About 5-6 years ago I was waiting for MK pyro at the Poly and was walking in the water slightly over my ankles. Kids were swimming maybe 3-4 feet offshore. As I was walked I saw a snake just swish on by me and, while I believe it was a harmless one, I wasn't taking chances.
The amoeba story that gets trotted out has nothing to do with it either. It has taken on fifth gate, monorail expansion, Cindy's hurricane removable turrets level of tall-tale telling. It gets thrown out as the excuse as to why RC was closed, missing the point that the lake water at RC was filtered and there was no growth of plant life on the bottom, which is where this little creature thrives.
I can say that lake swimming and RC going were two of my favorite things about the WDW of the 70s and 80s (and RC right on through my last 3-4 visits in May 2001).
Michel is one guy with some talent. I'm not willing to annoint him the next great one just yet. And what you need to realize is the greater point that there hasn't been a passing of the torch between the last current group of greats and the people who are designing Disney projects today. Most of those greats are gone from the company (many long ago) ... and the talent gap is great.
And if you are a great young talent where would you rather go? Disney or UNI or any of the private design houses that are doing amazing work from China to Las Vegas? Disney isn't close to what it used to be. And Tony was just the start of a great purge.
I hope Joe Rohde and Tom Fitzgerald have their mortgages all paid off and haven't run up $100,000 in credit debt and have saved some of the huge sums they've earned because they're gonna need it! Soon!
Both would be great reasons not to swim in them.
I suspect my northern bias was kicking in when I was younger. I recall being completely grossed out by the Seven Seas Lagoon on my first visit in 1978. Subconsciously, I probably was convinced it was full of alligators. You were brave souls to swim in it.
You could say the same thing about anyone who goes in ANY natural body of water from a local pond or river to a lake or ocean. There's stuff in that water ... some of it alive!
But I'm more scared of people myself (especially crazy Disney fans!)
flynnibus
Premium Member
He tried to call the guy out as getting a paid endorsement for the piece.. and based on what? Not any fact that the piece was sponsored or paid for by Disney - but purely on the premise that the publisher and Disney have other business relationships (the mentioned conference). You know as well as I those are very different beasts. It also doesn't connect any dots between the author's objectivity and the other relations the publisher has.
He took a blind leap and there was nothing there.
Having other business transactions between companies.. or even being 'friendlies'.. does not equate to getting 'paid endorsements'. Then he demonstrates his lack of tact and professionalism by accusing the guy openly without any direct supporting material to say so.
You don't have to like the piece.. or even buy into people quoting metrics provided by the topic of the piece themselves.. but to jump to accusing people of unethical behavior with nothing to stand on.. is juvenile and unprofessional. Merf sees what he thinks is SLANT - and jumps right to worst case scenario.
The guy stopped responding to him not because of fear of the truth.. but because Merf didn't have anything and couldn't hold a professional exchange with him.
I am shocked they even responded to him. But, yes, much better to simply accuse the individual who raises legit issues versus fessing up and saying "yeah, I make six or seven figures annually by getting companies to believe in something that still can't be tangibly measured, and yeah one of those companies happens to be Disney.''
Yes. I don't think this site or its members should be giving attention to social media whores who are simply looking to pump up their hits and use that to influence Disney to include them in the herd feeding frenzy.
They do lie. Merfie was getting too close for comfort. Again, I wouldn't bet my life on it (maybe JT's!) but I'm pretty certain Holtz was behind Disney's kissing up to the Mommy Blogger Brigade. What was put out on the PR wire was pure propaganda/advertising for Disney and while Holtz may not have been paid directly for it, if he gets paid for more 'work' from the company just where's the difference? There isn't one.
As to Mongello, I've had folks look into his 'employment status' with TWDC. He isn't an employee. But if he was a contractor, then that would be very hard to track. And let's assume he isn't. That Disney has never given him actual money for his slanted PR. What is the value of all expnses paid week in Hawaii? Or a trip to Anaheim for Cars Land's opening? etc ... The retail cost of these things can be staggering when you're always on the invite list.
No, it didn't.
That's just the popular rumour. It doesn't make it true.
In a quarter of a century of lake swimming at WDW, not one person was ever infected (let alone got sick or died) from amoeba. NONE.
Oh, some of us are paying attention ... some of us are paying attention to plenty that we'd never put on an online forum, but we might share with folks more in a position to act ... to bring about some Spirited change.
SirLink
Well-Known Member
So your THE Batman does that make Lee your Robin...
I disagree with your disagreement. I guess I'm saying you are wrong, IMHO.
Disney is mico-targeting with Mommy Bloggers. It is buying the hype from social media 'experts' (how anyone can claim to be an expert on something that hasn't even been significant for a decade is another story) that upper middle class mommies who sit home all day in their $526,000 homes, while Daddy works, do all the planning on vacations and,therefore, can influence others. The problem is they don't touch nearly the audience that REAL/Traditional media still does ... and that media is MASS media.
Mommy bloggers may well be very good at influencing their peers, but far more people visit WDW than that demo. Spending $9,000 in a week on a Mommy Blogger and her family from Little Rock is not justifiable under common sense real world terms. A tiny blurb in the Chicago Tribune Travel section will influence more people and across a diverse range.
Oh and someone needs to tell Disney that having a token Hispanic or two and a token African-American and even a Daddy, doesn't change the fact they're going after one demo.
But I need to run ... I'll see you all a little later.
Lee
Adventurer
No.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
If it was really bad for you to swim in Bay Lake, why would WDW host triathlons that involve swiming in it as one of the stages?