The Spirit Takes the Fifth ...

[WDW1974]

Well... I COULD use a good manny for our little one while we're soaking in an onsen. We might be able to make this work!!

And purely for selfish reasons, I'm hoping fares don't go down again. . I bought our tickets for March at what I felt was a good price, but even then it dropped $100 per for about 24 hours and it ticked me off. So you'll excuse me if I'm pulling against you for a fare drop in Jan. . But right now I feel good about what we paid.

I toyed with hitting Hong Kong and Tokyo both on this trip too. That may well be my one real regret. Then again, I've already got Shanghai and HK penciled in for 2016.

I would make a really handy manny.

Yes, that is selfish of you, but I understand. When my friend got his $800+ fare for Tokyo, all I was thinking was 'how come that never happens for me!' ... But I see no real way of me going before November for many reasons. But who knows? My Faux Top One Percent Spirited Winter Holidays Abroad wasn't even in the realm of thought until so many circumstances fell into place just in September.

It is easy to want to add HK on a Tokyo trip, but my experience is it's better to add it to a China trip. I know my SDL Grand Opening trip will definitely include Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau as well. But not likely Tokyo.

 

[WDW1974]

People seem to forget the stock topped $100 a share and split in '98 or '99 -- not coincidentally when Disney seemed invincible and was out and about and buying other properties/companies.

Then, just a few years later...

Yep ... people forget a whole lot when it fits their agendas or their memories just fade. I truly can't believe 2003, which was a VERY good year for me, was a decade ago. Time is funny that way.

 

[WDW1974]

Was at DAK on Thursday till 1 PM and Epcot on Friday till 3 PM. Both felt like they had typical Thanksgiving crowds.

I would not be surprised if both DAK and Epcot cleared out later as crowds (such us ) headed to either DHS for Osborne's or MK for the usual evening festivities.

Also was in the World Showcase Wednesday evening and crowds were light but that's consistent with my experience on previous Wednesday and Thursday evenings during Thanksgiving week. I'm guessing that a lot of visitors save the World Showcase until Friday when the Christmas festivities start.

Overall, it felt like typical Thanksgiving crowds to me.

Interesting. I have never been at Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday that I guess still has some meaning to me. I have been the weekend after though (like today and tomorrow) and have not ever found it that crowded.

Have to comment, I noticed plenty of adults lined up by 11:30 AM at all the World Showcase carts serving adult beverages. Saw a few tipsy adults but none unable to walk. It was 3 PM when I left though.

I generally don't believe EPCOT has a huge problem with drunks. I think it exists and gets MUCH worse during the Food and Wine Festival.

I will admit a soft spot for the Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. It's the primary reason we still visit during Thanksgiving but even that might not be enough to bring us back in 2014. It's too much effort just to spend an hour admiring the lights and even my children are bored with the same old attractions year-after-year. After enough trips, "classic" devolves into "tired".

The Ozzy and Sharon Lightacular is definitely my reason for visiting during the holidays, although I am missing them this year (I'll take Paris!) ...but they don't change very much from year to year and, yep, things do become 'tired' after a while when you don't change things up (see: TDR).

DW thought the Christmas decorations were truly weak this year. For example, she thought MSUSA looked fine but the rest of MK looked Spartan, hardly Christmassy at all.

Just feels like WDW tries less and less every year. This is the first time since the kids were in diapers that we have no upcoming trips planned to WDW. On the trip home, DW called this an end of an era for us.

I have thought they've been weak for years, MK especially when you compare it with DL. I did see they are decorating the new areas of Fantasyland, but they also decorated Toontown Fair when it existed. ... But I don't need at @TP2000 to tell you all about the DL decorations or do I?

EPCOT seems to be spartan every year, although I have heard some WS pavilions have new stuff.

2014 might finally be the year we return to Disneyland.

When did you last see the place where the MAGIC truly began?

P.S. We still have 28 days of unused "No Expiration" park tickets purchased back in 2005 when a little birdie warned me about which way ticket prices were headed.

And I think we have enough water park days left to spend an entire summer at Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach.

I'm sure we'll use some more when Avatar opens up. I'm going to reserve judgment until I get to experience it.

I am afraid to ask how many days admission you bought back in '05 ...

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Yep ... people forget a whole lot when it fits their agendas or their memories just fade. I truly can't believe 2003, which was a VERY good year for me, was a decade ago. Time is funny that way.

And those daggers will be back when the stock tanks. Does Iger have another big acquisition in the works/buyback to goose the stock price? God forbid they finally remove the debt from DLP, or fix WDW or build more rides at DL or...

 

[the.dreamfinder]

BTW, I believe @WDWFigment said he used ITA Matrix to get that deal for his flights to Tokyo and Hong Kong.
http://matrix.itasoftware.com/

 

[alissafalco]

We'll miss you Sprirt, have a great trip!

 

[Cesar R M]

Chalk another one up to Frozen being a surprisingly good and at many points great Disney animated feature. Once again marketing really did not really represent the movie, but that's actually ok since there was a few moments that I did not see coming at all.

Better music than Tangled and I thought Olaf would be a grating character but he was actually quite charming and humorous.

Disney animation seems to be a on roll

unless you discard disney toon studios.. I will not agree with you (Ie, planes)

People seem to forget the stock topped $100 a share and split in '98 or '99 -- not coincidentally when Disney seemed invincible and was out and about and buying other properties/companies.

Then, just a few years later...

I think that was the point, they felt untouchable.. invincible.. then they started to live in the bonanza, not working to keep their levels.
happened to Apple and Google too, but then pushed hard again and went up again.

Interesting. I have never been at Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday that I guess still has some meaning to me. I have been the weekend after though (like today and tomorrow) and have not ever found it that crowded.



I generally don't believe EPCOT has a huge problem with drunks. I think it exists and gets MUCH worse during the Food and Wine Festival.



The Ozzy and Sharon Lightacular is definitely my reason for visiting during the holidays, although I am missing them this year (I'll take Paris!) ...but they don't change very much from year to year and, yep, things do become 'tired' after a while when you don't change things up (see: TDR).



I have thought they've been weak for years, MK especially when you compare it with DL. I did see they are decorating the new areas of Fantasyland, but they also decorated Toontown Fair when it existed. ... But I don't need at @TP2000 to tell you all about the DL decorations or do I?

EPCOT seems to be spartan every year, although I have heard some WS pavilions have new stuff.



When did you last see the place where the MAGIC truly began?



I am afraid to ask how many days admission you bought back in '05 ...

are the lightshows really associated with Ozzy Osborne? XD
I dont know why .. but when people mentioned "the osborne family spectacle light show" I always think of Ozzy doing some of his stunts.

 

[TP2000]

I have thought they've been weak for years, MK especially when you compare it with DL. I did see they are decorating the new areas of Fantasyland, but they also decorated Toontown Fair when it existed. ... But I don't need at @TP2000 to tell you all about the DL decorations or do I?

Don't get me started!

I just got home from a weekend of being tour guide (without a riding crop) for the out-of-town family at Disneyland and DCA.

Nearly every land in both parks is decorated for Christmas now. The only exceptions, in order, are Tomorrowland (no decorations at all), Condor Flats (no decorations at all), parts of Paradise Pier (sparse decorations around Screamin' and Midway Mania, but full decs up now on the north end of the pier around the crazy-fun Viva Navidad celebration, World of Color viewing, and Little Mermaid ride complex), and Adventureland (only decorated part was the Jingle Cruise queue and building).

But Main Street USA, Buena Vista Street, Fantasyland, Hollywoodland, Frontierland, A Bugs Land, New Orleans Square, Cars Land, Critter Country, Grizzly Peak, and Mickey's Toontown were all fully decorated in lavish themed décor. Along with Downtown Disney and the hotels, too.

It never ceases to amaze me that the Anaheim property and the Orlando property are run by the same parent company. But it's never more glaring than during Christmastime. Example #358 of this phenomenon is the Radiator Springs Courthouse in Cars Land decorated with air filter garlands, with the big Christmas tree decorated with real vintage hubcaps and topped by a gleaming star made of exhaust pipe, surrounded by tire planters filled with poinsettias. And the bronze statue of Stanley "the town founder" in front turned into a bronze Santa Stanley with santa hat and pack of toys on his back. In addition to the themed décor at every other Cars Land shop, restaurant, snack bar, or attraction. In a land that is only 18 months old and wildly successful with no need for extra publicity.

Tell me again what TDO does with all it's time and money?

 

[ParentsOf4]

Hey, @ParentsOf4 ... how about some general trip observations?

Not sure if you read them @WDW1974 but I started a thread about unusually long FP+ lines here:

This is what a FastPass+ line looks like

Many FP/FP+ lines definitely were longer than during previous Thanksgiving trips. I think Disney needs to adjust their FP+ distribution algorithms. It should be a solvable problem with a bit of software.

I also started a thread concerning changing FP+ times here:

Changing FastPass+ Selections for Popular Attractions

We experimented with changing FP+ selections on short notice. As I expected, it was difficult to get FP+ for any attraction that actually needs FP+. On two occasions, we wanted to select later times but there was 0 availability for attractions worth FP'ing. So much for FP+'s flexibility. We were locked into return times just like the old FP.

FP+ changes how visitors tour WDW. It doesn't make it better or worse. Some will like it more, some will like it less. For those who like to sleep in, it's great not to have to be there for rope drop. Conversely, for FP experts, it stinks being limited to 3 FP+ per day and only at one park.

If they continue to add back FP+ tiers, then forget about it. Guests want to pick FP+ selections that they care about, not be forced into selecting FP+ for attractions that shouldn't need it in the first place.

MyMagic+ would be fine with a $100M budget but considering how much was sunk into it, it's never going to meet its profit objectives.

MyMagic+ does absolutely nothing to solve WDW's biggest problem: capacity.

Disney, do you really want to improve everyone's vacation? Stop building hotels and DVC (10,000 rooms added since Disney's Animal Kingdom opened in 1998) and start adding ride capacity.

What a lost opportunity. What a waste of a couple billion dollars.

 

[JimboJones123]

It looks like we're headed in the right direction. The bugs haven't been worked out yet, and already the crowds are being more equally distributed. 10 to 15 minutes for FP+.......oh! the humanity!

When stand by is walk on.... what is the point of a 10-15 minute FP+?

Words do have meaning.

 

[Wikkler]

I'm pretty much the only person who's waiting to see Frozen until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

 

[BrianLo]

unless you discard disney toon studios.. I will not agree with you (Ie, planes)

Yes I'm only referring to Walt Disney Animation Studios. Ie Tangled -> Wreck it Ralph -> Frozen. They are starting to demonstrate once again they are a brand families "trust" will make a good movie. Almost more so than Pixar as of late whose movies always perform so spectacularly in part due to the clout the name carries.

It's also doing surprising box office numbers.

 

[wdwfan4ver]

DW thought the Christmas decorations were truly weak this year. For example, she thought MSUSA looked fine but the rest of MK looked Spartan, hardly Christmassy at all.

I am not shocked. I only went to WDW for Decorations in 2010, and I thought the decorations was weak for most of the WDW parks at the time. The fact is I wasn't impressed with MK outside of Mainstreet USA at the time.

Maybe that is caused by how I grew up back in the 1980's and 1990's for decorating for Christmas. I grew up in a family that had a lot of decorations put up outside and inside the house. My Parents house of on Television 3 or 4 times for Christmas decorations outside matter of fact. As an adult, I also am the same way as my parents for decorating.

 

[Cody5242]

Interesting. I have never been at Thanksgiving. It's the one holiday that I guess still has some meaning to me. I have been the weekend after though (like today and tomorrow) and have not ever found it that crowded.



I generally don't believe EPCOT has a huge problem with drunks. I think it exists and gets MUCH worse during the Food and Wine Festival.



The Ozzy and Sharon Lightacular is definitely my reason for visiting during the holidays, although I am missing them this year (I'll take Paris!) ...but they don't change very much from year to year and, yep, things do become 'tired' after a while when you don't change things up (see: TDR).



I have thought they've been weak for years, MK especially when you compare it with DL. I did see they are decorating the new areas of Fantasyland, but they also decorated Toontown Fair when it existed. ... But I don't need at @TP2000 to tell you all about the DL decorations or do I?

EPCOT seems to be spartan every year, although I have heard some WS pavilions have new stuff.



When did you last see the place where the MAGIC truly began?



I am afraid to ask how many days admission you bought back in '05 ...

I was at Epcot yesterday for the Candlelight Processional and I can confirm that there are more decorations than last year but some pavilions were lacking

 

[michmousefan]

I actually prefer "For the First Time in Forever" and "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" over "Let it Go"

I liked those as well… just a matter of preference for the flashier stuff, I guess. Not as much of a ballad guy.

And it's forecast at $92.6 million for the 5-day frame. That's impressive on its own (it broke the record held by a Potter movie) but considering that it was actually the 2nd place movie for the weekend, the suits must be truly thrilled.

I would love to think that the extra revenue will help bail out the beleaguered misfire in Orlando, but fear it will just go to executives who probably don't need it. Anyway, $20 million here and there -- sadly -- won't make much of a difference, will it?

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I would love to think that the extra revenue will help bail out the beleaguered misfire in Orlando

The only thing it will probably do is fast track Anna and Elsa's Fairytale Hall (or whatever they're going to call it).

 

[TalkingHead]

DW thought the Christmas decorations were truly weak this year. For example, she thought MSUSA looked fine but the rest of MK looked Spartan, hardly Christmassy at all.

Without a doubt, SeaWorld does the best job decorating for Christmas. Decorations are all over the park, not to mention their numerous Christmas-themed shows (included with park admission -- novel idea).

Universal at least has Grinchmas at IOA and the Macy's parade at the Studios, but both Uni and Disney could step it up in the decorations department.

 

[Cesar R M]

I am not shocked. I only went to WDW for Decorations in 2010, and I thought the decorations was weak for most of the WDW parks at the time. The fact is I wasn't impressed with MK outside of Mainstreet USA at the time.

Maybe that is caused by how I grew up back in the 1980's and 1990's for decorating for Christmas. I grew up in a family that had a lot of decorations put up outside and inside the house. My Parents house of on Television 3 or 4 times for Christmas decorations outside matter of fact. As an adult, I also am the same way as my parents for decorating.

Let's not forget most of the people have these "memory vision" type memory.
Where we remember the best and forget most of the nickpicking bad details that we see now.
And the younger we are the easier it is for us to get amazed. (because the older you get, you know more of how everything works)

Tell me again what TDO does with all it's time and money?

Saving money to buy a new super yatch for his retirement?

 

[Hakunamatata]

Saving money to buy a new super yatch for his retirement?

TDO=Team Disney Orlando.

 

[Cesar R M]

TDO=Team Disney Orlando.

I mean as in "give money back to Iger so he can buy his yatch"