The Spirited Back Nine ...

[TP2000]

Thought I was in an episode of Twilight Zone paying under $2 a gallon.

Even here in SoCal, the home to America's most expensive gas, I just used supermarket points to fill up my thirstiest car with Hi-Test Supreme for under $3 a gallon. I gunned the engine when I drove out of the service station, too.

 

[ProfSavage]

That's a massive understatement. Disney and Nintendo's dealings go all the way back to the sixties when Walt Disney was still alive and Nintendo (which has been around since the 1880s) acquired a license to produce playing cards and board games with Disney characters, which ended up becoming some of the best selling items of the period.
There were only two licensed out properties used in the Game and Watch series of the 80s and one of those properties was Mickey. Through Rare, Nintendo made that Mickey racing game for the N64, as opposed to all the various third parties that have produced Disney games over the years and it was Nintendo themselves that published Epic Mickey in Japan. On the other side of things, WDW hosted some Nintendo tourneys in the early 90s and unfortunately, it was a Disney subsidiary that produced that horrible Super Mario Bros movie.

Didn't know that... So why hasn't there been a ride designed yet?? Seems like a no-brainer.

 

[PhotoDave219]

BINGO! I see the exact same thing in both WDW and Disneyland. Two Custodial CM's walking together talking, maybe one will sweep up a napkin every so often. And you have to think, they would be so much more effective if they shut up, split up, and looked at the ground and swept.

There appears to be a serious management problem with Custodial crews in all the parks. Obviously their general duties require them to be out in the park fairly unsupervised. So why not tag their brooms or ID cards with RFID chips and then monitor where they go and what other CM's they interact with during their shift? You could create a computer program that tracks their whereabouts and how much time they spent "Onstage" without hanging out with other Custodial CM's gossiping. I imagine it's also fairly easy for them to disappear "Backstage" or in little hidden spots and just chill out on their phone when they are supposed to be sweeping Adventureland.

RFID tracking of their whereabouts would solve that very quickly. And keep the parks much cleaner.

This Custodial CM problem doesn't apply to the Tokyo parks. In my multiple visits to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea, I have never once seen a Custodial CM not sweeping alone. And PERFECTLY uniformed in starched white, slim fitting uniforms. But always with a smile and ready to focus on a visitor if needed, then they go right back to scanning the ground and sweeping anything they can find. Somehow, management of lone CM's isn't a problem in Tokyo.

Well I think the leadership problem goes beyond simply custodial…

 

[TP2000]

Well I think the leadership problem goes beyond simply custodial…

True. But it's at its most glaringly obvious with the Custodial CM's who can't/won't do their very basic jobs effectively and efficiently.

 

[Nubs70]

I was just going to post someone along those lines as well!

This addition alone would make Epcot THE most popular destination in Orlando and would justify any admission increases. Grosse Freiheit @EPCOT would be the Potter Swatter.

 

[AEfx]

It is never ever never ever never ever in the 25 years of its history held water.

Dave, do we have to bring up Jim Hill's word in every thread?

 

[John]

epcot is a yawn....some great scenery and ambiance but i don't like to pay to walk in a fancy "park" am in not even a horizons fiend....i like the new rides but TT and soaring and MS.....not going to hold it together...sorry energy adventure is horrible...this is 2014 you know that right? and disney is a multi billion dollar company right? and imagination....i have not walked into that building since my first visit in 98...i mean really that is a giant waste of space. and how many kids wait in line to go on a boat through a greenhouse? how many? that's right zero. and hell i will even defend the nemofication of seas because it attracts children and such....and innovations wow....where to begin i mean facepalm.... the WLP is really not a big dseal in the grand scheme at least people forgot about it...

WITHOUT FESTIVALS AND BEER epcot is nothing....it is not a world class theme park and it sure as hell isn't anywhere near what TEA numbers say.

WOW and they say I am a D&Ger. Opinions......I guess we all have one. Why isn't world class again? Because you said so? OK, but there is no park like it in the world.

 

[matt9112]

WOW and they say I am a D&Ger. Opinions......I guess we all have one. Why isn't world class again? Because you said so? OK, but there is no park like it in the world.

did you forget the without food and beer piece? there is alot i enjoy about the park and i still go and have a blast...but tolling you what i love wont make it any better will it? telling you how much fun i have wont do us any good unless this is the parks blog will it?

 

[Progress.City]

It still is.

Its nowhere near the train wreck people make it out to be

It's like a delapitated inner city with major anchors boarded up and lacking the luster it once had. It needs a major urban renewal redevelopment project with new anchors, flashy pedestrian areas, better lighting, new and uniform color scheme, outdoor public spaces, better transportation to and through, and a renewal of Disney pixie dust.

The state of EC now is comparible to Hollywood Boulevard before 1950. The 1950 redevelopment effort glamorized the boulevard and made people want to walk it and hang out on it by doing things such as adding the Hollywood Walk of Fame throughout.

Maybe, for EC, colored fiber optics on the walkways, for example. Or enclosed walkways with laser projections on the ceiling, like the Fremont Experience in Las Vegas, as another example. This is in addition to new anchors at the closed pavilions and improvements to the existing ones.

 

[PhotoDave219]

It's like a delapitated inner city with major anchors boarded up and lacking the luster it once had. It needs a major urban renewal redevelopment project with new anchors, flashy pedestrian areas, better lighting, new and uniform color scheme, outdoor public spaces, better transportation to and through, and a renewal of Disney pixie dust.

The state of EC now is comparible to Hollywood Boulevard before 1950. The 1950 redevelopment effort glamorized the boulevard and made people want to walk it and hang out on it by doing things such as adding the Hollywood Walk of Fame throughout.

Maybe, for EC, colored fiber optics on the walkways, for example. Or enclosed walkways with laser projections on the ceiling, like the Fremont Experience in Las Vegas, as another example. This is in addition to new anchors at the closed pavilions and improvements to the existing ones.

Sorry, it's not the worst off Disney Park in Orlando.

 

[ProfSavage]

It's like a delapitated inner city with major anchors boarded up and lacking the luster it once had. It needs a major urban renewal redevelopment project with new anchors, flashy pedestrian areas, better lighting, new and uniform color scheme, outdoor public spaces, better transportation to and through, and a renewal of Disney pixie dust.

The state of EC now is comparible to Hollywood Boulevard before 1950. The 1950 redevelopment effort glamorized the boulevard and made people want to walk it and hang out on it by doing things such as adding the Hollywood Walk of Fame throughout.

Maybe, for EC, colored fiber optics on the walkways, for example. Or enclosed walkways with laser projections on the ceiling, like the Fremont Experience in Las Vegas, as another example. This is in addition to new anchors at the closed pavilions and improvements to the existing ones.

It's like a delapitated inner city with major anchors boarded up and lacking the luster it once had. It needs a major urban renewal redevelopment project with new anchors, flashy pedestrian areas, better lighting, new and uniform color scheme, outdoor public spaces, better transportation to and through, and a renewal of Disney pixie dust.

The state of EC now is comparible to Hollywood Boulevard before 1950. The 1950 redevelopment effort glamorized the boulevard and made people want to walk it and hang out on it by doing things such as adding the Hollywood Walk of Fame throughout.

Maybe, for EC, colored fiber optics on the walkways, for example. Or enclosed walkways with laser projections on the ceiling, like the Fremont Experience in Las Vegas, as another example. This is in addition to new anchors at the closed pavilions and improvements to the existing ones.

Hyperbolic gobbledygook

 

[Progress.City]

Hyperbolic gobbledygook

I just cited examples of how redevelopment helped some areas (Hollywood Boulevard and Fremont Street). I'm not saying EC should mimic these and do the same. I'm saying EC needs to find its own redevelopment mechanism that is truly unique to EC and is Disneyesque in its nature.

Finding new "anchors" for the closed pavilions and injecting new life into the current ones should be paramount to any EC redevelopment.

 

[StageFrenzy]

@PhotoDave219 do you cringe when you see a photographer and his equipment go flying when a player run's into him during a game?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Sorry, it's not the worst off Disney Park in Orlando.

Financially maybe, but those criteria give us the present situation at Walt Disney World.

 

[PhotoDave219]

@PhotoDave219 do you cringe when you see a photographer and his equipment go flying when a player run's into him during a game?

Yes. But thats also a failure for someone to pay attention to whats happening. Me? I refuse to take a hit. You just never turn your back on the play....

Ive had more close calls in basketball than football.

 

[Progress.City]

It has gone beyond that now.

A few key attractions in a sea of good to mediocrity in a park that doesn't know what it is anymore.

You hit it right on the head! I couldn't have said it better myself!

 

[Progress.City]

Also don't forget that DAK is 16 years newer than Epcot.

Epcot is getting old and, unlike the classic looking Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, it's increasingly looking like what it is: a late 1970s version of a "futuristic" theme park.

There's something to be said about nostalgia. That's what Horizons was all about, right? A nostalgic look at visions of the future. I guess this theme has taken on the whole of EC.

 

[Progress.City]

EPCOT doesn't need anything new. Just a clean up of what's there. A major clean up at this point, but the bones of a really solid park still exist.

AK was never finished. It was always intended to add more to the park. Avatar is filling that role now I guess, but there is still a large expansion area behind Asia.

Plus, from a money standpoint EPCOT does much better as a stand alone park then AK.

It needs a Project Gemini-like project. I'm not saying it needs to be like Project Gemini in detail and theme but like it in scope and ambition.

 

[Cesar R M]

Are you saying that's why it does much better from a money standpoint? If so, yep definitely. If you are saying you think they should actually take away the beer and food that's blasphemy

Put aside alcohol sales, food and wine festival or people drinking around the world for a minute. Just dinners alone are a huge money maker. At AK there are only a handful of places you can even eat dinner and the park is regularly closed too early to really capitalize. The plans to add a nighttime show, night safaris and more rides in Pandora that can stay open late should help to keep people at AK longer and help the park to capitalize on the dinner crowd. It will never be as lucrative as World Showcase, but there's a lot of room for improvement financially.

I think thats the point.
Epcot seems to be exclusively based on food and drinking and very little real attractions.

 

[Cesar R M]

Well good, without you in the parks, thats one less person to keep me from Soarin