Spirited Friday Night Musings:
Whoever said you can't go home again never met Rosie or LeBron.
The Emmy noms came out Thursday morning, an appropriate time if you ask me, and they really are getting to be so predictable and not a very good representation of the best our industry has created. I know that it is hip to be in love with Netflix ... and shows like Orange is the New Black, House of Cards, ... and every year picks from Modern Family, which had a very mixed season, to Mad Men to Downton Abbey. But way too much quality TV from niche shows like Walking Dead (which pulls in numbers that any mainsteam show would love) to James Spader in NBC's fun and addictive Blacklist to Parks and Recreation (likely the best comedy that you don't watch) wind up on the sidelines and that just sucks.
So, I got to truly use MM+ for the first time during a brief visit to WDW for the Fourth and ... I must be smarter than I look because it went exactly as I predicted. I was able to use and abuse it with ease, much like I was the old system. Heck, this system is better for me in so many ways. Now, I can show up at TPFKaTD-MGMS at 6:30 p.m. with FP's booked for ToT, ST 2.0 and TSMM (which I almost never ride in FL), also get to ride RnRC with single rider, get a second ride on ST with little or no wait, see fireworks and Fantasmic and leave at 11 without having spent a penny.
Again, though, I feel very bad for the newbies who visit EPCOT and book SSE, Nemo and Turtle Talk (what I did one day when visiting at last minute) when they are all walk-ons. Savvy guests will enjoy FP+ (if they stop looking at their MAGIC Band expecting to check the time like I kept doing!) The others ... the ones that matter to Disney will largely have much more mixed results.
And just to correct a little misstatement that I saw here somewhere, but UNI has NO plans whatsoever to have any system like MM+ at their resort. None. ... They do have active plans for multiple new hotels, a new water park, new transport, massive additions at each existing park ... and blue sky development on a third gate. But again, no UNI+ coming.
You can tell that TPFKaTD-MGMS hasn't had a nightly pyro show since the end of the 90s because they have no clue how to have crowd control whatsoever (this was true on the 4th as well as the 7th and 8th). They are taping the ground (really, this is what passes for crowd control ... wasting ginormous amounts of masking tape every night on the pavement) and blocking paths off. Not helping matters: Starbucks construction, the temporary stage that really is pretty much there all the time and is used in the Frozen pyro show, and, oh yeah, that giant hat/pin stand.
Best location to see the Frozen fireworks: the bridge near the International Gateway overlooking France at EPCOT. Seriously, check it out before the O-Town Lifestylers head there and ruin it. And someone tell
@WDWFigment that it is a GREAT photo locale.
Well, the nickel and diming continues in Disney dining. The Grand Flo Cafe, one of the last on property locations to offer bread with lunch has stopped because not having bread is exactly what you'd expect at the coffee shop of the hotel that has 5-star delusions and 4-star dreams.
At least at the GF they have completely shut down the entire main building except for dining, retail and lobby as they renovate the rooms to look like hip Vegas rooms from 2009-2010. (In other words, no one is currently staying in that building at all. They have put up walls around the lobby railings so you can't see anything from the lobby.)
The above is impressive because next door at Disney's Polynesian Village Resort and Villas, the resort is a disaster area and that isn't stopping a damn thing. Lobby totally covered in walls? Yep? Dining in the cast cafeteria? Check. Shops and arcade closed off? You betcha? Pool about to be bulldozed in the midddle of summer? Of course. Jackhammers being used at 1 a.m.? Naturally. ... Rooms reduced to $75 a night? HAHHAHHHHAHA!!!!!
This is Disney. This is the company that will sell you a $16.95 piece of vinyl that you may not even want or already have with a no return or exchange or opening the box policy. You really think Disney is offering ANYTHING off its crazy Poly rates?
I think I saw Phil Holmes with a chainsaw and covered in leaves when I walked backstage at the MK.
Speaking of which, the work on 'Second Street' has begun with pilings in the ground and a new wall going up. They are also doing test patches of paint work on the backside of what I believe is the crystal shop and/or Starbucks. What are they doing? Looking at various ways of painting faux brickwork on the buildings. No, I am not impressed.
Don't talk to a WDW Food and Beverage Manager about cleanliness and food quality at 11 p.m. on a hot night unless you really want to hear the truth. I do and I did.
New Fantasyland is officially done (I typed 'dead' for some reason!) and it is almost exactly what I expected. I will give Disney fanbois this: the SDMT is most definitely the best part of the whole damn thing. I'll also say that isn't really saying very much. ... Folks I know and respect are comparing Diagon Alley to TDS. No one I know is comparing SDMT to much more than the Barnstormer (yes, it is much better than that!)
Only WDW could be selling a pin from the Flower and Garden Festival in July at full price (either $12.95 or $14.95).
I admit I don't get the Frozen phenomenon. I know it has gotten into the cultural zeitgeist of the moment much like the much, much, much, much, much, much better Lion King did two decades ago. But I literally couldn't go more than 2-3 hours on WDW property without hearing someone singing 'Let It Go!' and I am not simply talking about my fanboi minions either. People love it. Just like they love Potter or Star Wars ... or Lion King. I'm just the Spirit who thinks it was a pretty good film with largely forgettable music.
The new Harambe Theater area looks quite nice (didn't see a show in it), but really couldn't they have built the place with real seating and not simply move the temporary bleachers over?
I had some amazing meals on WDW property. Likely put weight on (not good!) Not talking about quick serve either. What do they have in common? None were Disney owned establishments. None required a reservation. And all of them were reasonably priced for what they offered and what was consumed.
I realized that I still love Dixie Landings, even in its watered down, Walmarted form.
A Spirited WDW First: having a lion wake up and ROAR while taking a spin on KS in the early evening.
One attraction with higher show quality at WDW than DL: Splash Mountain.
One attraction with embarrassingly bad show quality: CoP.
One attraction that got back its bird on a stick: EE.
Yes, the Spirited patch is still there. It likely will be a decade from now.
I had planned to go take a pictorial of me in suggestive poses in the middle of the road at the site known as Flamingo Crossing, but ran out of time and that will have to wait.
Seriously, Georgie, you can't even keep the AC working right at your biggest retail outlet (WoD)?!?!? Do you work for Disney or do you manage a few K-Marts in Mississippi?
That Spice Road Table joint sure is puurrrty ... but no one seems to want to dine there. Disney should think about this before they take up more waterfront viewing with one of the few concepts floating around.
Thanks A. for that 'celebratory' margarita. It inspired me to buy another as soon as you left for the Poly!
Yes, I saw the little exhibit on Frozen in Norway's Stave Church ... and ... and ... that is all.
A friend at UNI tells me that they find a handful of MAGIC Bands every day. No, they don't drive them over to WDW!
I am not the emotional type when it comes to theme parks, but if ever I was going to cry it would have happened when I walked into the Shop Formerly Known as Sid's.
