The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

[ParentsOf4]

Not that I agree with how Disney does it's pricing or nickel and dime's the customer, but in their eyes, it's working.

The parks area still damn busy year round and there's no sign of that slowing down.

How they run their hotels is another thing, as they obviously know that occupancy is down.

You would think instead of running these 30% off promos all the time they would think to maybe just lower the prices just a tad.

30% off of a $615 rack rate at Saratoga Springs is still way overpriced.

It's no wonder it's always available, at times it seems half the resort is empty (and I wouldn't be surprised if it was).

One of the many draws to staying onsite in the Good Old Days was discount theme park tickets for hotel guests.

It might be time for WDW to bring back some form of discount ticket pricing for onsite guests, this time basing it on resort level and limiting it to length-of-stay tickets.

There's got to be a price point that will improve total revenue through increased Deluxe Resort sales more than enough to offset lost ticket revenue.

 

[alphac2005]

the bottom line is educational problems are not political and they cannot be fixed by politicians

And the policymakers are dominated by the extremes of both sides and are entrenched in their stupidity. Politics has no place in education, yet it's injected into it all. If the lawmakers would stop their bogus politicking and dealt with the substance, not their false dogma, reform would be of substance and well for all. 21st Century America is all about injecting politics into everything and creating controversy even the most unpolitical of topics.

 

[lebeau]

Transport isn't affected.

Bottom line is.

No more boat rentals at all these resorts, so one can now look back and say 'I remember when ...'

Did anyone catch the new Disney Resort Hotels show on Destination America last night? It's Disney Week, doncha know?

Lots of unintentionally great bits. For one, the show spent more time on Art of Animation and the wonderful value of its family suites than it did any other resort. Guess they really are having trouble filling those things up.

There was a segment on Disney's incredible transportation system. All guests have acces to the monorail, boats and busses in that order. Like most guests will take the monorail everywhere, some will prefer to hop on a boat and in a pinch you just might get on a bus at some point. HA! When talking about Port Orleans Riverside, they specifically highlighted boat rentals. Oooops.

The show ended with MyMagic Plus and how it will make every aspect of your vacation better. Of course the only examples they could give were keyless room entry, ticketless gate entry and FastPass Plus. But the funniest bit was the commercial that kept running that hyped up the advantage of trying out FastPass Plus while it was still testing. How is that an advantage?!? They are now selling the fact they don't have all the bugs worked out yet? Nearly fell off my couch.

Can't wait till tonight when I can watch the Sandwich King and his family schlep around the Magic Kingdom. What are the odds he spends most of his time in New Fantasyland?

 

[RSoxNo1]

Again, anyone here want to defend the sending of flashdrives to guests for MM+? Anyone ...

All we got was a cardboard cut out, there wasn't even a flash drive with it. It mentioned a flash drive, does that count?

 

[RSoxNo1]

Dave Smith says lots of things ... especially to fanbois.

The tale is bunk.

Weren't their plans to build a second Matterhorn, have a night or two when they were both open and then demo the first one?

 

[lebeau]

Ricky Brigante, Host ‏@InsideTheMagic 7h
Watching "John Carter" on @SpikeTV and the ending still angers me that there won't be a sequel. It's just begging for more.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When was the last time this guy had a drug test ???

I was begging for the remote.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Speaking of Let It Go...other than the snippet they played on the Oscars, I have yet to hear that song.
I may be the last human alive who can say that. Kinda makes me proud...

Sorry, but there's two of us. You'll have to share the pride!

 

[ford91exploder]

And the policymakers are dominated by the extremes of both sides and are entrenched in their stupidity. Politics has no place in education, yet it's injected into it all. If the lawmakers would stop their bogus politicking and dealt with the substance, not their false dogma, reform would be of substance and well for all. 21st Century America is all about injecting politics into everything and creating controversy even the most unpolitical of topics.

Well said that is EXACTLY the problem on many levels.

 

[ford91exploder]

Did anyone catch the new Disney Resort Hotels show on Destination America last night? It's Disney Week, doncha know?

Lots of unintentionally great bits. For one, the show spent more time on Art of Animation and the wonderful value of its family suites than it did any other resort. Guess they really are having trouble filling those things up.

There was a segment on Disney's incredible transportation system. All guests have acces to the monorail, boats and busses in that order. Like most guests will take the monorail everywhere, some will prefer to hop on a boat and in a pinch you just might get on a bus at some point. HA! When talking about Port Orleans Riverside, they specifically highlighted boat rentals. Oooops.

The show ended with MyMagic Plus and how it will make every aspect of your vacation better. Of course the only examples they could give were keyless room entry, ticketless gate entry and FastPass Plus. But the funniest bit was the commercial that kept running that hyped up the advantage of trying out FastPass Plus while it was still testing. How is that an advantage?!? They are now selling the fact they don't have all the bugs worked out yet? Nearly fell off my couch.

Can't wait till tonight when I can watch the Sandwich King and his family schlep around the Magic Kingdom. What are the odds he spends most of his time in New Fantasyland?

Too funny ... yet very sad at the same time.

 

[alphac2005]

This is the kind of CRAP my DW complains about, We are both coaches in FIRST Robotics so we have a science orientation, When DW brings home yet another bad science piece I want to scream, The little pieces where the cops come in and encourage kids to 'inform' on their parents for illegal activities. Damn that's straight out of the old (and apparently resurgent) Soviet Union.

I'd really like the schools to confine themselves to providing kids with Academic skills, There is a waitress in the local Chinese restaurant - her parents are factory workers in china she went to the school for factory workers and she is far more academically competent than the majority of the graduating seniors and she just had her 21'st birthday. She also speaks better english than the majority of seniors as well.

Draw your own conclusions about the success of the US K-12 system.

I love reading and seeing reports of the educational system of Finland. Take everything that we're doing and flip it on its head. Fifteen minute breaks between classes, creativity fostered, no going home to hours of homework, and the kids are consistently at or near the top of the international educational rankings.

Finland has a society where family structure is well in place and there is a very high value with regard to education. Most importantly is that teachers are held in the highest regard and at the top of professional careers in the country. They're well paid and respected. How can we expect teachers to be respected by students when many of their own parents inject their political nonsense at home and belittle teachers here in the States? Finland also has a stable social structure and doesn't have the issue of broad swaths of variance when it comes to income, which is a reality in the US.

 

[mgpan]

There is a George Kalogridis sighting. I have been seeing him on the Walt Disney World special on Destination America called Walt Disney World Hotels. The special is for the WDW hotels and My Magic Plus.

Yes, George is promoting mymagic plus on the special and the special is mentioning a new guest experiences with it being mymagic plus.

We should all realize just how telling this is concerning WDW and it's present climate as a purveyor of hotels and timeshares with themed entertainment outside a resort environment as a side business. Many here have written of this prophetically and some have wrongfully disagreed. What more proof do you need? Destination America (which I would bet is paid $ by many of the organizations whose destinations they feature in programming) is featuring a show about hotels/timeshares in the "Most Magical Place on Earth" with interviews of a high level executive who should be concerned with the entertainment offerings of the complex, not where you sleep. That's the focus of a show about WDW, hotel rooms? Would this have been the focus of such programming even 5-10 years ago? And, the focus of his comments? Not the future of said entertainment and innovation for future attraction offerings, but the benefits of staying at on overpriced Disney resort to receive MM+ benefits, many of which were available for free as recently as a month or so ago!

 

[Travel Junkie]

Yeah, I hope there is an Al Lutz column tomorrow. I just chalked it up to the winter blahs and a post-Cars Land lull, but it seems to be about two weeks late now.

It would be nice if Lutz could follow up on some stuff that was supposed to happen this winter, like the Soarin' HD rehab, the Mermaid show upgrades, etc. And I wonder when Thunder Mountain will reopen?

If there's no Al Lutz column tomorrow, then that's a problem.

Ask and you shall receive.

http://micechat.com/59859-disneyland-60th-rumors/

 

[flynnibus]

Finland also has a stable social structure and doesn't have the issue of broad swaths of variance when it comes to income, which is a reality in the US.

It also has a total population smaller than NYC alone.. and smaller than most of our major metro areas. Scale is a tough topic for many ideas to ignore.

 

[ford91exploder]

I love reading and seeing reports of the educational system of Finland. Take everything that we're doing and flip it on its head. Fifteen minute breaks between classes, creativity fostered, no going home to hours of homework, and the kids are consistently at or near the top of the international educational rankings.

Finland has a society where family structure is well in place and there is a very high value with regard to education. Most importantly is that teachers are held in the highest regard and at the top of professional careers in the country. They're well paid and respected. How can we expect teachers to be respected by students when many of their own parents inject their political nonsense at home and belittle teachers here in the States? Finland also has a stable social structure and doesn't have the issue of broad swaths of variance when it comes to income, which is a reality in the US.

Teachers MIGHT be better respected IF they were better educated, Friend of mine who is a department chair at MIT and had multiple PhD' is not 'Qualified' to teach high school science, They would need to take 3 years of 'Education' courses and a year of student teaching.

I think that says enough about the self serving bureacracy which is the K-12 education establishment where so called diversity and inclusiveness is deemed more important than competence. Leading to the saying "Those that can DO, Those who cannot TEACH",

My DW is a teacher and it makes her scream that some of her colleagues cannot do simple arithmetic, spell or write a concise sentence in english, She is always commenting howintheheck did they ever GRADUATE much less get a teaching license, Yet college professors are not deemed 'competent' to teach in the K-12 system.

In the US the 'Education' graduates tend to be in the bottom quintile of academic achievement. In Finland only students in the top 15% of K-12 students are accepted into the teacher training programs.

As to teaching across socio-economic levels, This is done all the time in France and Germany where it can be rightfully said at any time all the schoolbooks in the country are open to the SAME page. 'Social Promotion' is unheard of outside of the US.

 

[ford91exploder]

It also has a total population smaller than NYC alone.. and smaller than most of our major metro areas. Scale is a tough topic for many ideas to ignore.

True but they are not hobbled by massive bureacracy either,

A small city close to where I live the school 'Administration' budget is larger than the entire academic budget they have nearly as many administrators, curriculum coordinators, Dean of green paper clips, Dean of red staplers than they do teachers. While closing schools they are proposing to build a new 'Administrative Campus' to house the increased number of 'Administrators' This is in a nutshell one of the many problems with the K-12 system.

Back in the old days you had the school board, The principal and assorted vice-principals and the teachers and they RAN the school. Now there is a massive unaccountable 'administration' sucking all the dollars out of the classroom.

 

[stevehousse]

Speaking of Let It Go...other than the snippet they played on the Oscars, I have yet to hear that song.
I may be the last human alive who can say that. Kinda makes me proud...

And I won't be singing that, or anything else. I'll leave that to Ms. Menzel, who I think is great.
(Went to an "evening with" her in Ft. Lauderdale a few years back. Very talented.)

For now, I'll throw another blanket on the bed and get some sleep.

You mean Adele Dazeem!!! LMAO that was the best moment of the oscars!

 

[JimboJones123]

The AA still carries that torch of greatness ... but more because of its craftsmanship than anything else ... and frankly, I don't view this country as I did in the 80s and 90s, so it's sorta painful to watch it and feel proud and patriotic when that isn't how I feel about today's USA.

I stand very corrected.

AA is a triumph. A quiet understated show when it needs to be. Not something that can be said of many theme park attractions. It truly captures the agonizing truths and triumphs of American Spirit.

Looks like something to do during the launch of Flower and Garden tomorrow.

 

[JimboJones123]

I love reading and seeing reports of the educational system of Finland. Take everything that we're doing and flip it on its head. Fifteen minute breaks between classes, creativity fostered, no going home to hours of homework, and the kids are consistently at or near the top of the international educational rankings.

Finland has a society where family structure is well in place and there is a very high value with regard to education. Most importantly is that teachers are held in the highest regard and at the top of professional careers in the country. They're well paid and respected. How can we expect teachers to be respected by students when many of their own parents inject their political nonsense at home and belittle teachers here in the States? Finland also has a stable social structure and doesn't have the issue of broad swaths of variance when it comes to income, which is a reality in the US.

I just wanted to comment that I loved this post.

 

[Cesar R M]

You mean Adele Dazeem!!! LMAO that was the best moment of the oscars!

let's all thank JORN TORNVOLTO for his introduction of ADELE DAZEEM!

 

[stevehousse]

let's all thank JORN TORNVOLTO for his introduction of ADELE DAZEEM!

You'll appreciate this! The john travolta name generator! LOL

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/...l_adele_dazeem_what_s_your_travolta_name.html