Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts Tres

[Figments Friend]

Plenty of people notice the shop and plenty browse it. Some even buy things, just not Kin Shriner's General Hospital aqua blazer that has been there for a decade.

It is the first place or last place you see for most guests. Closing it for an infrastructure facility is following the model of turning Sun Bank into the Art of Disney into package pickup at MK.

Same type of ignorant decision-making.

Well then that is good to hear then, that peeps were actually checking Sid's place out.
Seems over the last few years i have rarely seen anyone wander over there, as a lot of the Guests tend to push through the gates, grab a Guide Map, and rush up Hollywood Blvd.

They seem too 'distracted' to pay attention to their surroundings...and i did not even mention the cell phone nose bruises ...!

 

[tirian]

Well then that is good to hear then, that peeps were actually checking Sid's place out.
Seems over the last few years i have rarely seen anyone wander over there, as a lot of the Guests tend to push through the gates, grab a Guide Map, and rush up Hollywood Blvd.

They seem too 'distracted' to pay attention to their surroundings...and i did not even mention the cell phone nose bruises ...!

It's packed every afternoon.

 

[Figments Friend]

Great to hear..!

 

[OrderMuppet]

I forgot to add the free chocolates after sit-down meals. Little? Yes. But even Olive Garden can do it.

Did you mention the Mickey butter? Chocolate mints and Mickey butter bring me back to my childhood awe of the WS restaurants.

 

[bubbles1812]

So let me get this right. I could take a 5 year old to see Saw, and that would be ok?! Because that sounds like a very flawed system.

Yep. And you would be amazed at the amount of parents I have seen that have brought in their very young children to R rated films. My fave all time was watching the young couple bring in their 6 year old to The Omen remake. You can imagine how will he took it when the mother is pushed off the balcony...

 

[Figment82]

Along the lines of attraction-specific merchandise.... DLR is having a Tiki Room 50th anniversary merchandise party this weekend. The base ticket was $85 and that's just for the ability to buy the merchandise. It sold out incredibly fast. There are some fantastic pieces in the catalog by great artists, including and Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily. Retro is very in now, and retro tiki seems especially popular. They could fill up a store in Adventureland with those kind of items, Disney-branded or not, and I guarantee it'd be popular (I'd definitely be interested!), but instead I've seen stuffed animals with the DAK logo on them. Huh? We were at DHS on Saturday and they had Epcot and DAAR mugs in Celebrity 5 & 10. It's like they're not even trying anymore....

 

[COProgressFan]

The merchandise itself isn't the problem; the lack of show is the real tragedy. Let's make a list of the show-setting elements removed over the last 20 years:

•Adventureland•
Entertainment
Many characters other than Aladdin
POTC not based on a tired movie franchise
Various small shops with immersive theming
Outdoor POTC cannons firing at night
Water fountains
Consistently open quick service locations

•Frontierland•
Golden Horseshoe
Street entertainment (cowboys)
Many characters other than Woody and Jessie
Various shops (replaced with one massive pin store)
Country Bear show rotation (e.g. Christmas)
Paintbrushes on TSI
Aunt Polly's quick service on TSI
Keel boats
Canoes
Nighttime riverboat (technically Liberty Square)

•Liberty Square•
Fifers
Lighting of the tree
Small, unique shops
Properly mysterious setting for HM
A timeless HoP that didn't focus on one President
Nighttime riverboat

•Fantasyland•
Honestly, it's only improved, except for ripping out Snow White instead of adding the mine coaster and putting the princesses elsewhere. The skyway is gone. Toad and 20k were either already gone or on the way out.

•Toontown•
Good riddance.

•Tomorrowland•
Alien Encounter (unsatisfactory replacement)
Timekeeper (thematically inappropriate replacement)
A teenage vibe rather than cartoons for 6-year-olds
An updated CoP
Consistent maintenance
Regular refurbishments
Fountains
Space Mountain TV station in queue
Skyway

•MSUSA and Hub•
Maintained parades
Small, thematically appropriate shops
Center Street/Market Street
Magic Store
Cinema
Fresh candy and fudge
A real bakery with freshly made items
Arcade with vintage games
Day-long transportation
Walt Disney Story in Town Square Theater
Trees
Small castle stage (forced perspective)
Fountains
Lengthy, regularly updated day parades

•Park-wide•
Elaborate Christmas decorations
Elaborate autumn (Halloween) decorations
Specific napkins, drink stirrers
Walt Disney World-branded bags
Bigger fireworks shows for MNSSHP and MVMCP
Unique menus
Accessible restaurant reservations

••• You can see the trend in the list. Nearly everything related to entertainment and show—elements that don't make money but enhance the experience—have been cut. Disney calls the Magic Kingdom a theme park, but nearly every supporting detail has been removed. No matter how decent the park's refurbishments and New Fantasyland may be, the experience was infinitely richer 20 years ago.

It was that old-school "show" mentality that made WDW the most visited destination on earth. You can only milk it for so long...

EDIT: I forgot to add the free chocolates after sit-down meals. Little? Yes. But even Olive Garden can do it.

Wow. I knew all this, but seeing it all compiled together really shows how different things are today.

It's a shame they've taken such a wonderful place and then decided to remove all the things that made it so wonderful.

 

[John]

The merchandise itself isn't the problem; the lack of show is the real tragedy. Let's make a list of the show-setting elements removed over the last 20 years:

•Adventureland•
Entertainment
Many characters other than Aladdin
POTC not based on a tired movie franchise
Various small shops with immersive theming
Outdoor POTC cannons firing at night
Water fountains
Consistently open quick service locations

•Frontierland•
Golden Horseshoe
Street entertainment (cowboys)
Many characters other than Woody and Jessie
Various shops (replaced with one massive pin store)
Country Bear show rotation (e.g. Christmas)
Paintbrushes on TSI
Aunt Polly's quick service on TSI
Keel boats
Canoes
Nighttime riverboat (technically Liberty Square)

•Liberty Square•
Fifers
Lighting of the tree
Small, unique shops
Properly mysterious setting for HM
A timeless HoP that didn't focus on one President
Nighttime riverboat

•Fantasyland•
Honestly, it's only improved, except for ripping out Snow White instead of adding the mine coaster and putting the princesses elsewhere. The skyway is gone. Toad and 20k were either already gone or on the way out.

•Toontown•
Good riddance.

•Tomorrowland•
Alien Encounter (unsatisfactory replacement)
Timekeeper (thematically inappropriate replacement)
A teenage vibe rather than cartoons for 6-year-olds
An updated CoP
Consistent maintenance
Regular refurbishments
Fountains
Space Mountain TV station in queue
Skyway

•MSUSA and Hub•
Maintained parades
Small, thematically appropriate shops
Center Street/Market Street
Magic Store
Cinema
Fresh candy and fudge
A real bakery with freshly made items
Arcade with vintage games
Day-long transportation
Walt Disney Story in Town Square Theater
Trees
Small castle stage (forced perspective)
Fountains
Lengthy, regularly updated day parades

•Park-wide•
Elaborate Christmas decorations
Elaborate autumn (Halloween) decorations
Specific napkins, drink stirrers
Walt Disney World-branded bags
Bigger fireworks shows for MNSSHP and MVMCP
Unique menus
Accessible restaurant reservations

••• You can see the trend in the list. Nearly everything related to entertainment and show—elements that don't make money but enhance the experience—have been cut. Disney calls the Magic Kingdom a theme park, but nearly every supporting detail has been removed. No matter how decent the park's refurbishments and New Fantasyland may be, the experience was infinitely richer 20 years ago.

It was that old-school "show" mentality that made WDW the most visited destination on earth. You can only milk it for so long...

EDIT: I forgot to add the free chocolates after sit-down meals. Little? Yes. But even Olive Garden can do it.

The saddest thing of all.......this is only one park

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Not intending to bring politics into this thread but to the extent it's germane to theme parks, this piece is a pretty good rundown of the decade-long crusade against theme parks by Rep. Ed Markey, who was just elected to the U.S. Senate yesterday.

He's also, if you remember, the Rep. who lent his name to a pretty paranoid letter to Iger about MyMagic+, which received this pretty dismissive reply from Iger's office.

For what it's worth my sources on the Hill (I may not have Imagineering sources but at least I'm an "insider" somewhere!) say the staffer who's behind all of this is likely to follow Markey to the Senate.

I wouldn't expect his attempt to federally regulate the amusement park industry to get much traction in congress, and unless he gets the right subcommittee chairmanship it's unlikely he'd be able to hold hearings right away, but his ability to be a gadfly shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[manutdfan1]

It's been awhile since I've been to this site, but the Star Wars Land rumors enticed me to come back over.

Honestly, reading through this threads are pure depressing. I love Disney World and visit it often. However, since Potter has opened, I've made two trips to Orlando. One was a mix of Uni and WDW, while another was just a trip to Uni. This August, I'm returning to Orlando, and we're going to spend 2 days at USO and make a one day trip to the MK.

Reading these threads makes me question my decision to even spend that one day at the Magic Kingdom. Has it really gotten that bad? I don't remember it falling too far in quality when I visited 3 years ago.

Anyway, I have much more fun reading the Uni boards on WDWMagic. There seems to be a lot of excitement over there. There's even a rumor that a third park might be in the works. When I was in high school, I was a Disney fanatic and loved what it stood for. It's like I've come back to these boards to find that my "Laughing Place" is no longer what it used to be. Very depressing...

 

[Viget]

Nope. That opinion ain't flying with this Spirit because it fundamentally misses the role retail played at Disney Parks from 1955 until the Lee Cockerell mid'90s era. Revenue per square foot is numbers talk and it is the type of talk that has totally destroyed retail at WDW.

Even if the place operated at a loss, which I am quite sure it doesn't, so what? Before you were a globe-hopping Disney photog, retail was part of the show. Sometimes, it lost money. Somewhere in my files I have the entire 1987 MK retail breakdown location by location. Emporium blew the others out of the water. I think every location combined didn't equal what it made. But when you were in Liberty Square, you felt it. It wasn't all Disney's MAGICal toon park. So, you had a Silversmith shop and a perfume shop and an antiques shop. And they may have not made much money usually, but they were an integral part of the show and of setting a mood for a time and place.

It's all watered down and just like trees being replaced by shrubs and wood chips or themed trash cans being replaced with generic ones that say MSUSA or CMs wearing street clothes or basic costumes, it all dumbs the experience down to a complete different level.

This, this.... a thousand times this! When I was a young child one of my fondest memories were the themed trash cans. I know it sounds crazy, but just going from one land to another and seeing a different can that had a different font, color scheme, etc in it was just amazing. Even the resorts had their own trash cans too.

Now when I walk around, I see a few, but mostly I see all the same. They don't give me that warm and fuzzy feeling any more, then just say: here's a place for trash.

Maybe I liked them because they reminded me of the street sweepers on MSUSA that always used to cheer up kids when they were having a bad day. Definitely some magical moments there. Recently, I had one of old guard do that to my son... it was a nice memory. Now, you're lucky if you get any eye contact from cast members.

WDW is sowing the seeds of their own destruction now... I wonder if my son will be as rabid about WDW as I am today.

 

[Tod&BigMamaOdie]

It would take a great man to get them back in shape.

or woman.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Kevin Yee said it best. The new script makes it seem as if Obama's presidency was inevitable. The show is no longer about all the presidents. (FWIW, I'm not trying to get political; it could be any president.)

I still don't see how one could get that viewpoint from the show. Do you have a link to the @KevinYee article? I agree with the rest of the points in your post, but this one seemed off given the across-the-board praise I've read for the current version of HoP among Disney fans.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I had my doubts going into MU, but I did like it in the end. The short in front was very cute and remeniscent of Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet.

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

I still don't see how one could get that viewpoint from the show. Do you have a link to the @KevinYee article? I agree with the rest of the points in your post, but this one seemed off given the across-the-board praise I've read for the current version of HoP among Disney fans.

http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky063009a.htm

 

[Calvin Coolidge]

Which sure as heck ain't Iger. He's already got his sights on politics. God help us all.

I keep hearing about Iger having political ambitions—and I don't doubt that it's true—but I can't for the life of me figure out what elected office he expects to hold. I don't see him having much of a chance of winning statewide office in NY or CA. Both states are looking at some bloodbath primaries in the coming years (Cali especially) and I don't think he'd stand a ghost of a chance in a competitive primary

 

[bubbles1812]

I keep hearing about Iger having political ambitions—and I don't doubt that it's true—but I can't for the life of me figure out what elected office he expects to hold. I don't see him having much of a chance of winning statewide office in NY or CA. Both states are looking at some bloodbath primaries in the coming years (Cali especially) and I don't think he'd stand a ghost of a chance in a competitive primary

But his selling point can be that he brought the world The Avengers and a seventh Star Wars movie!! Now tell me how anyone can beat that?!

 

[PhotoDave219]

Side note. The Verizon data network is badly overloaded right now (5:15pm).

Wifi doesn't seem much better.

@wdwmagic Steve, you've got links Into the telecom, what are they going to do about it? How am I supposed to use my phone to access MDE to get to my plans/FP+? They have a key infrastructure issue here that needs resolution.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

http://miceage.micechat.com/kevinyee/ky063009a.htm

OK, now I understand what Mr. Yee is trying to say, but still disagree.

The show's themes are fairly universal and associating generic terms with a single man is a pretty easy talking point to make. Too easy, in my view, to give his argument much weight. That "the media" did so for one President does not mean they could not do for another, nor would that undermine the presentation when the next President comes because the show's theme is well established before Obama is even acknowledged. Remember that this is the same team that gave us the "thank the Phoenicians" line in SSE. I don't think WDI is clever enough to make a political assertion of that kind in one of their attractions. Mr. Yee can read into the show whatever he wants, but it does not gaurantee that everyone will see it the same way. It will mean different things, to different people, at different times in history. As Eisner learned back in the 90s, an attraction of this nature cannot please everyone's political and historical substance preference. Not with a brief run time of 23 minutes and in such a politicized nation. The show changes its focus from an overall view of American history, to one on the Presidents themselves, making it more relevant and unique in a time when AA does the former with a much better job. That most like it would be enough to label it a success.

That and the show's closing song has changed from the time the article was written.

 

[lazyboy97o]

So let me get this right. I could take a 5 year old to see Saw, and that would be ok?! Because that sounds like a very flawed system.

Yes you can. Who would stop you at home?

Even if Sid's were the single-most profitable store on property, I don't view it as something that helps tell the story or establish a more authentic theme. To me, the story is best told through the facades and the decor in the stores. There are still some stores in the parks (a few Adventurelands come to mind) that sell authentic merchandise to some degree, and I don't think it makes a difference in thematic cohesion.

I think Sid's is a wonderful example of the way Southern California exploded and changed with the arrival of the film industry. The merchandise is part of that story of change.