Spirited News & Observations II -- NGE/Baxter

[djlaosc]

They just acquire IP and use that to make you forget that they can't create compelling IP anymore (although I am very psyched about a possible Pixar project down the road!).

Would that be a Pixar film, or a Pixar attration? (I'm assuming film, but just thought I would check)

According to Wikipedia...

Current Pixar Films in Production:
Monsters University
The Good Dinosaur
Inside out
Untitled November 25 2015 Film
Finding Nemo 2
The Untitled Pixar Movie About Dia de los Muertos

Possible Future Productions:
The Incredibles 2
Toy Story 4
Untitled Teddy Newton/Derek Connolly Film
Untitled Mark Andrews Film

 

[WDW1974]

Here in the UK, we would love petrol to be $4 a gallon - we're up over $9 per gallon at the moment, I think.

True, but in the UK many folks don't own cars and many who do, don't use them daily for everything from work transport to picking up the kids at soccer practice. I have a good friend in the UK who for the most part only drives on weekends.

In the USA, we are an auto society and except in a few places (NYC, SF, maybe Chicago or Seattle) you simply can't live as an adult without a car to get you to/from work etc. We think of mass transit and trains sorta like socialized medicine ... you'll pry my car keys from my cold, dead hands.

So ... $9 in the UK isn't the same as $4 in the USA. The former isn't going to harm your economy, the latter could bring ours crashing down.

 

[WDW1974]

Ahh...organizing the Spirited Archives...

If you mean throwing out vast amounts of EPCOT guidemaps from the last five years, then yeah ...

BTW, that towel was missing for 15 years (really!) and will be having its coming out party on my upcoming DCL voyage!

 

[WDW1974]

I guess I have been a Disney defender or at least when it comes to MM+ privacy issues I have been. This is not acceptable. Having glitches is one thing. Seeing someone else's room reservation or ADRs is disturbing but not the end of the world, but when people's entire profile is visible including I am assuming credit card numbers and addresses and whatever else was entered that's unacceptable. I assume they are working round the clock to fix the problems, but IMHO they should probably take the whole system down, revert back to the old reservation pages for now and fix the problems rather than risk further exposure of personal info. The reason people rarely question Google or Amazon is because this doesn't happen to them or at least we rarely hear about it if it does while a lot of people are skeptical of Facebook due to highly public privacy issues. Disney has to work quickly to resolve this or they will be lumped in with the Facebooks of the world as not trustworthy.

The people who are reporting this are reporting having access to all of the important info of others (everything from address to kids names to dates and resorts and meal ressies to what folks are paying etc ...) ... and there is NO excuse for it whatsoever except putting out a BAD system that hasn't been debugged.

 

[djlaosc]

That's just not true. In-N-Out burger was paying kids $14 an hour in Vegas almost a decade ago ... the prices didn't go up. ... And in a country where the top one percent has decided that they'd very much like it if at least 96% of the rest made minimum wage, we have a problem. Again, minimum wage in Australia is about the equivalent of $16.50 in USD. How much more is a cheeseburger there than here. It's a weak argument.

And the oil lobby is the one that has allowed speculators and not true supply and demand issues to determine market price when you go for a fill up. ExxonMobil and Co don't mind it. They'll say it isn't their fault as they make billions in profits each quarter. Gas should be a lot closer to $3 right now based on simple market conditions. IT isn't, though, is it?

Seriously, there are better things to defend than a $7.75 minimum wage that would have most people homeless if they had to live on it and BIG OIL.

UK Prices:
National Minimum Wage: £6.19 = $9.22
McDonalds Cheeseburger: £0.99 = $1.48
1 US Gallon of Petrol: £5.24 = $7.80 (the earlier calculation I did in this thread was for UK Gallons, not US Gallons [1 UK (Imperial) Gallon = 1.20095 US Gallons])

 

[WDW1974]

No, flying is a must.

But, it might be time to go ahead and pick up a nice Bombardier Challenger for your Spirited travel needs. Hey, if its good enough for Bob...

That way you can just skip all that airport unpleasantness altogether.
(I got dibs on a front-facing seat.)

Again, this is why the Top 1% never complains about losing basic rights to board an aircraft because most of them would never fly commercial. They just have their pilot fuel up the private jet (why this is allowed, I'll never know ... why can't top one percenters and corporate titans and celebs be terrorists, right?)

I think I told you a tale about how someone I met at a memorial flew their dog coast-to-coast on a private jet.

Believe it or not, I don't like small planes. I'd much rather be on a 777 then a private jet ... but maybe I'll change my mind one day!

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Just thought I'd put this up

REAL DOLLARS REVEAL ALL!!!

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Has anyone here seen "The Queen of Versailles"?

 

[GoofGoof]

I see this point come up frequently and while it is possible to make a comparison, I'd also say that it isn't a very fair/easy one. Circumstances were and are so different ... and while DL suffered ... it did so for a relatively brief period, 5-6 years from Tomorrowland 98 opening to Matt taking over as Prez. And even during that period, the entire resort was improved greatly. DCA was added (even if flawed, it allowed for what is there today), the Grand Californian was added, DD was added. The entire Anaheim Resort area was redeveloped.

No excuses to what went on at DL, though. Guests died in the multiple incidents that were Disney's fault. And the old park fell into disprepair.

WDW is a city. And it has needs all over the place. Four theme parks, two water parks, plus one decaying rotting hulk of one. Transportation is a nightmare. And all at the time the company decides to spend $1.5 billion on a datamining/trip planning system designed to bring in more/new revenue and one that is highly flawed ... it honestly is the perfect storm to make WDW a place that many people 'used to love'.

No doubt the scale of the issues is much larger at WDW. Agreed 100% that the $1.5B for Nextgen could have put a serious dent into at least some of the issues. I guess the difference for me is I still have hope it can be turned around. Maybe it's a fool's hope, but I still think with the right commitment from local and corporate management the major issues could be resolved. I know it will never be returned to what it once was but even with its flaws WDW is still a place I love and enjoy visiting.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

HAH!!!

Funny. Oh, you were serious?

I'd expect that thing to sit there for at least another decade, maybe at some point growing so unpopular that they open it only during busier times. Replacing it is not even remotely on the radar.

Hey, I can dream can't I? Isn't that what Disney's all about? Or is my dream invalid due to it lacking spending on Princess and Pirate merch?

 

[George]

No doubt the scale of the issues is much larger at WDW. Agreed 100% that the $1.5B for Nextgen could have put a serious dent into at least some of the issues. I guess the difference for me is I still have hope it can be turned around. Maybe it's a fool's hope, but I still think with the right commitment from local and corporate management the major issues could be resolved. I know it will never be returned to what it once was but even with its flaws WDW is still a place I love and enjoy visiting.

I still have hope too, but never have I been so worried about the resort in my life. I'll be greatly cheered if I ever do see signs of a turnaround.

 

[George]

If you mean throwing out vast amounts of EPCOT guidemaps from the last five years, then yeah ...

I wish I had kept some of the old school EPCOT guide books. They provided some serious guidance and a backpack would've been handy to carry the things around.

 

[The Mom]

Ah, got it. I stand majorly corrected. Thanks! And to reiterate, I wasn't bagging on NO, which I do hope gets the DCL business, just was commenting on it may be an uphill battle. But it's seeming like it might not be as bad as I thought.

Canaveral is closer to me, but I wouldn't mind spending the night before in NOLA, having a nice meal before the cruise. I've been to NOLA several times - sometimes with kids, sometime, without. Always had a good time - but didn't spend much time on Bourbon Street.

 

[The Mom]

I hate I-10 ... I find that area can be scary. As to the UNF Ospreys, I have some close friends that work for that fine institution of higher learning/factory of education and earning $$$!

So do I. Unless we have a mutual friend, mine is higher up.

 

[GoofGoof]

I still have hope too, but never have I been so worried about the resort in my life. I'll be greatly cheered if I ever do see signs of a turnaround.

I'm with you on that. I do have hope, but I am also worried. This Nextgen thing has everyone down.

 

[flynnibus]

Quite busy of late, but I had to drop in to note that there are numerous reportings of folks logging into MyDisneyExperience only to wind up with the personal information OF OTHERS!

So, I have to ask ... where are the defenders of Disney (I see @flynnibus is busy defending Carnival Cruise Lines to the audience on the DCL board) and MM+?

Yes - I'm defending Carnival.. You should have been a painter or something and not a reporter/PR person.. because your deductive reasoning is poor.

As for the reports of pulling up wrong info.. I've only heard of one myself (the DIS report) but such a 'risk' is not unique to MM+ at all - Disney was at risk of doing this since they started doing online profiles and reservations from the start. Why issues now? Dunno. Is the risk widespread? Impossible to say without knowing what 'wires crossed' for this person.

Many of the ADR/etc type reports so far I've seen when they resolve them they find out their previous data was 'dirty' and incomplete or inaccurate. Like I described before.. they could be facing an uphill battle if they are dealing with crappy, inconsistent data from poorly written systems that preceded it. Add to that any stupidity they might have injected with the new system.. and let the chaos begin. What would be interesting is to find someone who works the reservations lines and find out what Disney is feeding them in terms of status of the problems. Are their new problems growing? Or is it just when dirty data appears.. clean it up.

Just think about that for a bit. This isn't one person on the DIS Boards. This is now multiple people, including here. ... and wel all know that most people don't post on fan forums, so one can easily extraoplate that these aren't a few 'isolated incidents' but a major flaw with Disney's security protocols.

Who has been saying it here? I've only heard jokes and poking.. not anyone saying its happened to them (tho I haven't been reading closely lately.. I'm asking for references to them). And it doesn't speak to their security protocols at all - that's another misunderstanding on your part.

 

[scpergj]

So do I. Unless we have a mutual friend, mine is higher up.

Aah...possibly the same one that handed me my diploma....

 

[ChrisFL]

Believe it or not, I don't like small planes. I'd much rather be on a 777 then a private jet ... but maybe I'll change my mind one day!

Wouldn't small planes like that be more prone to turbulence during flight? That alone would make things a bit less comfortable.

 

[stingrock23]

No doubt the scale of the issues is much larger at WDW. Agreed 100% that the $1.5B for Nextgen could have put a serious dent into at least some of the issues. I guess the difference for me is I still have hope it can be turned around. Maybe it's a fool's hope, but I still think with the right commitment from local and corporate management the major issues could be resolved. I know it will never be returned to what it once was but even with its flaws WDW is still a place I love and enjoy visiting.

I think we all have hope, but it doesn't look like the Disney execs see that yet. Each time I go to Orlando, I edge closer and closer to wanting to spend my $ at Universal instead. I still go to both, but can see that Uni is investing in attractions, while Disney is investing in a system. just think what 1.5 billion could have built. Sadly, we won't know for a long while

 

[RSoxNo1]

That's just not true. In-N-Out burger was paying kids $14 an hour in Vegas almost a decade ago ... the prices didn't go up. ... And in a country where the top one percent has decided that they'd very much like it if at least 96% of the rest made minimum wage, we have a problem. Again, minimum wage in Australia is about the equivalent of $16.50 in USD. How much more is a cheeseburger there than here. It's a weak argument.

And the oil lobby is the one that has allowed speculators and not true supply and demand issues to determine market price when you go for a fill up. ExxonMobil and Co don't mind it. They'll say it isn't their fault as they make billions in profits each quarter. Gas should be a lot closer to $3 right now based on simple market conditions. IT isn't, though, is it?

Seriously, there are better things to defend than a $7.75 minimum wage that would have most people homeless if they had to live on it and BIG OIL.

Do you mean to tell me that people will pay more money for a quality product and they'll be less willing to return if that quality declines? I don't buy it.