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The Miscellaneous Thought Thread
- Thread starter mickEblu
- Start date
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Very interesting! As a chaperone, did you ever consider just going over to the bar at the Contemporary instead?
It's always impressive to see how much land and space they have around the WDW parks. And yet...
So many things inside the WDW parks turned out odd, or just dumb. For example, that 8 minute long WDW version of Pirates is simply tragic. And in a park that desperately needed more rides, they put the park's 3rd (3!) spinner attraction in the middle of Adventureland, which Google hilariously explains is a "Gently spinning ride based on a movie." I couldn't have said it better myself, Google!
TP2000
Well-Known Member
At the time, did you understand the context of the song? Regardless, I'd like to shake that band directors hand for having a sense of slightly subversive humor.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
How was the eclipse in SoCal, gang? Did Disneyland do anything for it, I wonder? We only got about a 50% darkening here, but it was still fun and eery to see. The song birds in my yard were freaking out and chirping constantly, that's for sure.
I remember the total eclipse in SoCal in 2017, and that was very impressive.
I remember the total eclipse in SoCal in 2017, and that was very impressive.
Disgruntled Walt
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I work at a high school, so we just took everyone out to the football stadium to look at it for a few minutes. We were at 94% coverage, so about the same as Consumer's photo. It's not nearly as cool as complete totality, but I did notice it was darker than usual.
Some random DCA thoughts from our trip yesterday. Monsters Inc is not a bad dark ride. Hopefully if it gets axed for Avatar land they move it (or it’s part ms that is) to DHS or somewhere else in the park. If that’s even worth the cost I don’t know.
Luigi’s outdoor queue is super charming.
Found myself missing the old area where TOT and Bugs land meet. It used to have so much charm with the canopied entrance to Bugs Land with much more of an intimate feeling on both sides. Now it’s all just wide open and gray. Much less foliage/ trees. Huge downgrade. That back path between Cars Land and Bugs Land was also nicer and more meandering. Aesthetically everything from TOT to Cars Land was a huge downgrade.
Luigi’s outdoor queue is super charming.
Found myself missing the old area where TOT and Bugs land meet. It used to have so much charm with the canopied entrance to Bugs Land with much more of an intimate feeling on both sides. Now it’s all just wide open and gray. Much less foliage/ trees. Huge downgrade. That back path between Cars Land and Bugs Land was also nicer and more meandering. Aesthetically everything from TOT to Cars Land was a huge downgrade.
Consumer
Well-Known Member
Yeah, we reached 97% at the peak of it. I was able to take a quick glance without burning my retinas thanks to the cloud coverage. Really, though, it just made everything look like a rainy day. I'm sure it's a lot more exciting with totality and a clear sky. Maybe in 20 years I'll make the trip out to Theodore Roosevelt NP to see the next eclipse.
Disney Vault
Active Member
The website that shall not be named is saying Disney might follow in universals footsteps when it comes to DAS and use a third party that requires a doctor's note.
I personally am all for this. Social media and tiktok has coached people that to say and now way too many abuse the system.
One example when I realized it was a big issue was a day racers was having issues with downtimes. And I asked the racers cm about LL and they said they hadn't sold any for racers for the day because it was having so many issues right from the start of the day. And yet the LL was still packed and backed up. Meaning it was all DAS guests!
I personally am all for this. Social media and tiktok has coached people that to say and now way too many abuse the system.
One example when I realized it was a big issue was a day racers was having issues with downtimes. And I asked the racers cm about LL and they said they hadn't sold any for racers for the day because it was having so many issues right from the start of the day. And yet the LL was still packed and backed up. Meaning it was all DAS guests!
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
Isn't it disheartening how many people take advantage of a system designed to help those who need it?
I work in hotels- and the amount of fake service animals we see is incredible. People claim their pet is a service dog to bypass the pet cleaning fee.
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Reporting in from Ron Coleman Mining near Hot Springs, Arkansas. The eclipse was utterly spectacular. The sun is quite active right now and several solar prominences were visible to the naked eye during our 4 minutes of totality. The diamond ring seemed particularly spectacular this time around persisting for quite a while.
The difference between 99.9% and totality is life changing, it is a completely different experience.
A close up of the ~6-5 o'clock feature taken about 50 miles north of us-
The difference between 99.9% and totality is life changing, it is a completely different experience.
A close up of the ~6-5 o'clock feature taken about 50 miles north of us-
ParkPeeker
Well-Known Member
Saw it in Arkansas as well, visited hot springs but decided to see it about an hour and a half north. It was absolutely wild, a must see in person!
SuddenStorm
Well-Known Member
This all gives me pause on how much praise we heaped on D'Amaro five years ago. He's one of the better looking Disney suits to come along in a few decades, but he doesn't seem to be all that different from charmless dolts like Jay Rasulo or Bob Chapek, or the "oddly waifish man of anemic personality" as the Wall Street Journal described Tom Staggs.
What's next on your parks agenda, Mr. D'Amaro?
Man, D'Amaro was Disneyland's golden child. He was loved resort wide, and by the fans as the anti - Chapek.
But honestly, since moving up the ladder I've disagreed with almost everything Disney's done to Disneyland. And a lot of the D'Amaro era changes are going to permanently alter Disneyland for the worse.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
I don't see how he's ever been the anti chapek. I mean he does seem friendly and personal but he hasn't done anything positive from what I've seen.
I think people touted him as an anti chapek on personality and looks but not based on his output. He's another corporate soulless executive just like anyone else in that role will be.
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
Once the DEI taskforce is long gone and forgotten I expect to hear it come back as well as staff come and go. The 2020 overreaction Disney had already is looking silly in 2024.I wouldn’t be surprised if “Zip” causally returns to many park music loops once TBA is established and all other references to SotS have been long forgotten. It’s too iconically, perfectly “Disney” to not save and further establish as its own thing, separate from its origin. And it puts guests in a happy, energetic, merch-buying mood to boot!
We’ll never again officially hear the vocal soundtrack version, though.
It's pretty sad that the only thing happening in Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, the two flagship parks for the Disney company, is retheming a log ride that was already popular.
I'd bet you Bob Iger and Bob Chapek have never even been on Splash Mountain and care more about their own publicity than the guest experience. They saw an opportunity to be seen as "official good guys" based on 5 people on twitter, and made a drastic decision.
I'd much rather they added a Tiana ride to each park to address the capacity issues both parks face.
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TP2000
Well-Known Member
I have this growing suspicion we were snowed by D'Amaro, and he seemed great compared to his predecessors.
Bob Chapek was a grumpy, weird, unlikable dolt. And Michael Colglazier was a geeky snob with the most boring and charmless wife in all of Orange County who was oddly even snobbier and more boring than her husband (trust me on that one). So Josh D'Amaro seemed like a huge improvement.
He was personable (and I'm sure he honestly is), he was charming (a true skill that's hard to fake), and he had a lean runner's physique and a winning Pepsodent smile and a Cool Dad skinny jeans wardrobe just as the skinny jeans era was ending (all of that part is just scientific fact).
But now that he's been in the Chairman role for several years, and done multiple big press announcements with vague and unfunded Blue Sky ideas as his vapid schtick, while the actual parks themselves devolve into over-crowded messes with major capacity problems all staffed by tatted up greasy haired carnies or burly-bearded men in dresses, I'm about done with Josh D'Amaro.
And then this past weekend when he blamed the Galactic Starcruiser failure on the audience being too stupid to understand how brilliant it was, I thought "Yup, stick a fork in him, he's done."
CaptinEO
Well-Known Member
If Disney's guests were stupid they would chose to pay 2 thousand a night for a hotel that had almost nothing to do with Star Wars. But it turns out the guests in this case were too smart to be conned by this expensive lackluster experience.I have this growing suspicion we were snowed by D'Amaro, and he seemed great compared to his predecessors.
Bob Chapek was a grumpy, weird, unlikable dolt. And Michael Colglazier was a geeky snob with the most boring and charmless wife in all of Orange County who was oddly even snobbier and more boring than her husband (trust me on that one). So Josh D'Amaro seemed like a huge improvement.
He was personable (and I'm sure he honestly is), he was charming (a true skill that's hard to fake), and he had a lean runner's physique and a winning Pepsodent smile and a Cool Dad skinny jeans wardrobe just as the skinny jeans era was ending (all of that part is just scientific fact).
But now that he's been in the Chairman role for several years, and done multiple big press announcements with vague and unfunded Blue Sky ideas as his vapid schtick, while the actual parks themselves devolve into over-crowded messes with major capacity problems all staffed by tatted up greasy haired carnies or burly-bearded men in dresses, I'm about done with Josh D'Amaro.
And then this past weekend when he blamed the Galactic Starcruiser failure on the audience being too stupid to understand how brilliant it was, I thought "Yup, stick a fork in him, he's done."
These same guests were also likely the ones Disney scared off in 2019 when opening Galaxy's Edge by having a PR team tell the public how crowded it would be. Well they listened and steered clear.
Both these examples prove how disconnected Disney is from its own customers.
truecoat
Well-Known Member
2045 it goes right over Disney World.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
I admire your optimism. But a report released today shows that in just the past 5 years the State of California has spent $24 Billion on taxpayer funded homeless "solutions", and the problem grew from 130,000 homeless before the $24 Billion to 170,000 homeless after the $24 Billion (with a B).
That's $141,000 spent on each homeless person in California in the past 5 years. Where'd that money go? And what does spending an extra $6 Billion do, on top of the existing programs already funded with Billions in tax dollars per year?
The LA Olympics start in 4 years and 3 months, by the way.
Audit finds California spent $24B on homelessness in 5 years, didn't consistently track outcomes
A state audit has found that California spent $24 billion to tackle homelessness over a five year period but didn't consistently track the outcomes or effectiveness of its programs.
www.cbsnews.com
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