The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

[jlsHouston]

Someone mind giving me a cliff notes version of this thread?

I'm thoroughly confused

Yah..this is where I am at just going back to 269 where I left off and here I am at 274...

 

[Cesar R M]

Me too. I been highly offended this winter at gulf coast weather...

cant you guys just open a window'?

One man who started a movement which was inadequately examined by the PRESS who was then LEGALLY elected using the democratic process and once there declared himself leader for life.

What's frequently not discussed is how the PRESS in 1930's Germany was the lapdog of the government, Not it's adversary. If the PRESS had done it's job instead of being a cheerleader 1930's germany would never have happened.

I think Hitler's skill to talk and use propaganda made a lot of people fall for him.
Like the priests in austria who cheered at him at first.. until hitler showed his true face and started taking all of the church's power and wealth.
Same with British's PM.. he was really fooled by hitler.

Forbidden Journey cost less than Mermaid. It is world class in every way.

I'd also love an explanation.

Meh, I'm afraid I do not know how they work there in the US, but in Mexico they always balloon the price structures and drag the building to leech more money from the contracting company.

Example.. 3 companies try to win the project.. claim they will build it for 45million.. one company is selected..
company drags along, gets in problems, doesnt build on time.. and then they start to ask more money because "more costs happened".. they drag this along and by the time the job is finished, the sucked 10 million more.
but wait, theres more! after a few days used.. the project will show defects.. so now they have to call either the same company and pay them to fix these "details".. or hire another company to fix it as well.. so the total cost actually ends in the sums of 60-80 million.

When people panic it allows leaders to rise who espouse dangerous ideologies. The Great Depression of the 30s combined with the post World War I economic problems in Germany allowed Hitler to gain power. He blamed the Jews for the economic problems facing Germany and used them as a scapegoat.

After 9/11 the American people panicked and as a result lost a lot of personal freedoms. We traded rights for safety because we feared the terrorists. Now we have surveillance of our phones, email, and computers. All in the name of safety. They even want to create a database showing where we go based on license plate identification. Privacy? Not so much.

I find it offensive that WDW wants to track my every movement in the parks. Why do they need to know? What are they going to do with the information? Does my personal privacy mean nothing? Apparently most people don't care to protect their privacy anymore. They have become complacent about the vast government tracking systems and just shrug MME off. In my opinion this is a slippery slope.

I recommend that you read '1984' if you want to know where this is going.

Same happened in Venezuela with Chavez, same with Cuba with Fidel...
populism is the art of telling the people what THEY want to HEAR.. and then do the complete opposite once in power.

 

[jlsHouston]

Ok, but most high design shops with good designers can design the moon if given some unlimited amount. That just isn't realistic.

Part of being creative is doing it within a reasonable budget, executing something magnificent within constraints. I feel the budgets applied to the last couple WDI creations have been more than enough to accomplish more than they did.

Well...I'm not sure Walt agreed with this philosophy and he had Roy to hustle $$$ for him. Therefore I think the culture probably exists in Imagineering that originated with Walt.

 

[jlsHouston]

I hate to say it but.... I don't think Disney WANTS us to have that level of theme park here.

I don't know what the deal is but I still think it's funds being held back because of NGE.

Me too but we are probably the naive ones.

 

[jlsHouston]

Any idea why? This is something I've believed for a long time now and even actual Imagineers I've talked to can't seem to produce a solid answer.

EDIT: Well, that's not true, they did have some answers, and I can share their opinions but I'd like to hear yours first.

Have you shared your take on this yet? I am up to page 275 and I would like to hear your thoughts.

 

[jlsHouston]

One nutcase gets enough followers, A press fixated on 'access' does nothing followers elect those who believe same. All of a sudden you have evil incarnate as a government.

I grew up KNOWING people who lived in 1930's Germany they did not believe it could happen there either IT DID, And the democratic process brought it into being with all the legalities being observed with the press cheering on the 'Savior of the German People'.

Our parish priest was one of the kids 'hidden' from the Nazi's as he was one of the 'undesirables' destined for the camps.

Sticking your head in the sand and saying it can't happen here is the best way to ensure that it does happen here, The nutcases need to be called out and the dark corners of their ideology explored and reported to all, Not allowing the happy smiling face with a demons heart to continue on their merry way.

A very apt scene from Star Wars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=cp069Y_P-9M#t=0

I see this dark side of recent history is very close to your heart. I personally would bear the arms that sit in our house and defend myself and others against that form of tyranny and genocide should I ever see it occurring on American soil. I have to believe most people in America would too.

 

[jlsHouston]

Running with @NoChesterHester 's point, Forbidden Journey's budget was 80-90 million and Little Mermaid's was around 100 million.

Ummm..maybe everyone disagrees but Little Mermaid is missing something. I got no desire to FP this one ever again...I pull multiple FP's for Peter Pan...maybe my nostalgia is off.

 

[jlsHouston]

I always felt that it was Imagineering that was responsible for creating the 'magic'. The magic has been sliding away and without Imagineering, it would be gone altogether. Imagineering has been losing the battle with the sharp pencil boys.

Yes I think this is my perception too

 

[fbb]

I'm gonna complain about DTD parking for a minute...

Whatever senior level executive has allowed parking to devolve into the utter clusterF that it is has no business being an executive at any company, let alone having the responsibility of walking a dog.

Clearly, nobody thought this through by any stretch of the imagination. The amount of disrespect shown the guests and the cast is immeasurable.....

Carry on.

Thank you for your participation and feedback during the test phase of the DTD parking experience.

 

[NoChesterHester]

hang on, since when WDI is the one who says "you need attractions" or "You do not need attractions"?
Isn't that based on demand and $$$ ?
I dont think the "imagineer" group (whose function primary is to invent, design..etc..) as anything to do with that..

I know! This is what I've been trying to explain. It goes completely against conventional wisdom on these boards. Yes... Essentially WDI is its own client. Essentially WDI tells the resort management teams what they will build and what they can have.

Sounds insane. Yes. Don't believe me?

Read closely, pre-development is a Division of Walt Disney Imagineering:

https://sjobs.brassring.com/tgwebhost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerid=25348&siteid=5039&jobid=160526

 

[ParentsOf4]

I have no idea what you are basing these thoughts on... But I believe you are fully 100% off on this except for the conventioneers

When Disney announced Disney's Magical Express (DME) at the end of 2004, I thought it was one of the most brilliant financial moves at WDW in years. It, along with the (at the time) new Magic Your Way (MYW) a la carte ticket pricing helped WDW recover from the post-9/11 economy. WDW hotel occupancies immediately improved.

I hope whoever came up with the idea got a big fat bonus for it.

 

[jlsHouston]

I know! This is what I've been trying to explain. It goes completely against conventional wisdom on these boards. Yes... Essentially WDI is its own client. Essentially WDI tells the resort management teams what they will build and what they can have.

Sounds insane. Yes. Don't believe me?

Read closely, pre-development is a Division of Walt Disney Imagineering:

https://sjobs.brassring.com/tgwebhost/jobdetails.aspx?partnerid=25348&siteid=5039&jobid=160526

That isn't how I read this job description posting. I need to go find my Disney Wars book. I think I remember these departments would have meetings and throw out ideas to Eisner and the other managers and then it would be decided by management which were liked and going to be funded and the budget. WDI didn't make a decision about what project was a go and what wasn't.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Thank you for your participation and feedback during the test phase of the DTD parking experience.

Nicely done.

 

[flynnibus]

FYI, Issue still not resolved. As far as I can tell, the username I created back in 2002 on ESPN.com for my insider account is continuing to cause problem. That username is linked to my e-mail address across the board. This means that the ESPN username/email address is taking precedence on some sites while just my e-mail address is taking precedence on others. I was unable to find a support line the addresses account issues across the board, only issues at each entity. This means that even though the same account name/email combination can be used on ESPN, DisneyWorld, DisneyMoviesAnywhere, DisneyStore, etc however they don't consistently talk to one another.

This is a problem with the old Go.com central accounts and the fact the difference services over time had different guidance for what to setup accounts as. The net result is if you have an account with your email as the username, not all sites behave equally. You could get things like it works fine in the local service, but when you goto edit profile things, it would switch accounts, etc. I had this problem before MM+ was around... between ESPN and club penguin I had problems. Trying to edit my profile would switch which account I was looking at compared to the account I had logged into ESPN with.

By contacting member services at ESPN, they were able to modify my account profiles so my username and email were not ambiguous anymore. ESPN changed my account username.. and things cleared up.

 

[MarkTwain]

I'm not inside WDI and I'm afraid I don't have answers. It is all opinion based on an outsiders point of view. I'm sure if it were straightforward and simple they would fix it.

If I had to guess it is greatly an inefficiency due to motivation. An outside company generally receives a lump sum to complete a task so there is incentive for efficiency. WDI doesn't have that same motivation.

Have you shared your take on this yet? I am up to page 275 and I would like to hear your thoughts.

Nope I hadn't yet! Well one I asked specifically why their projects tend to cost so much more than Universal's. His response was that Disney spends WAY more time constantly modifying designs, second-guessing, taking things into meetings, etc. Universal basically says "we want this, make it happen" when Uni Creative comes up with something, and then they immediately push it out the door to get built. Much of this, in his opinion, is due to Uni's higher reliance on hit franchises that perhaps can't wait to be built 4+ years down the road, and also due to just a stronger desire to grow quickly. They sort of just take the first good design and run with it, and that results in much more streamlined design development costs.

Disney, meanwhile, questions everything - every component of the design is taken into some kind of meeting and debated, adding months or years of salaried design work. He talked about how cast member focus groups were brought in and asked "is this how you would use this, is this dispatch station set up well, etc." and then going back to revise entire designs based on their feedback, something Uni probably wouldn't do. And then many different proposals are looked at - they might build 10 elaborate models with slightly different color schemes and then just go with one of them. That kind of thing. It sounds like a lot of the expense IS spent due to Disney's obsession with detail, trying out several different lighting schemes for an obscure portion of a ride or picking out the exact style of faux-wood that would look best in an area.

And revisions, revisions, revisions: management comes in and says "the operations department doesn't like this, find a way to add more vehicles, expand the loading area," merchandise comes in and says they want more room for the gift shop, cast member managers say they want a bigger breakroom, so the ride footprint gets reduced, every time shuffling square-footage around and redesigning major components of the attraction. Just tons and tons of second-guessing and modifying it sounds like Uni doesn't do. He said this somewhat defensively, as if all this careful consideration of design leads to a stronger design product and "the Disney difference" (and maybe it does). But at some point you have to wonder the trade-off, at what point the pursuit of perfection becomes inefficient and wasteful, and as NoChesterHester said, whether all that design effort would be better spent pushing things out the door and getting stuff built at a cheaper price to try and quickly fix WDW's problems. I know personally, I would prefer a New Fantasyland that is 80% as pretty as the current one, with a restored Imagination pavilion to match, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Lee]

WDI didn't make a decision about what project was a go and what wasn't.

Correct.
Think of it like a movie studio. WDI pitches projects that are either approved or (most often) not.

Nope I hadn't yet! Well one I asked specifically why their projects tend to cost so much more than Universal's. His response was that Disney spends WAY more time constantly modifying designs, second-guessing, taking things into meetings, etc. Universal basically says "we want this, make it happen" when Uni Creative comes up with something, and then they immediately push it out the door to get built. Much of this, in his opinion, is due to Uni's higher reliance on hit franchises that perhaps can't wait to be built 4+ years down the road, and also due to just a stronger desire to grow quickly. They sort of just take the first design and run with it, and that results in much more streamlined design development costs.

Disney, meanwhile, questions everything - every component of the design is taken into some kind of meeting and debated, adding months or years of salaried design work. He talked about how cast member focus groups were brought in and asked "is this how you would use this, is this dispatch station set up well, etc." and then going back to revise entire designs based on their feedback, something Uni probably wouldn't do. And then many different proposals are looked at - they might build 10 elaborate models with slightly different color schemes and then just go with one of them. That kind of thing. It sounds like a lot of the expense IS spent due to Disney's obsession with detail, trying out several different lighting schemes for an obscure portion of a ride or picking out the exact style of faux-wood that would look best in an area.

And revisions, revisions, revisions: management comes in and says "the operations department doesn't like this, find a way to add more vehicles, expand the loading area," merchandise comes in and says they want more room for the gift shop, so the ride footprint gets reduced, every time shuffling square-footage around and redesigning major components of the attraction. Just tons and tons of second-guessing and modifying it sounds like Uni doesn't do. He said this somewhat defensively, as if all this careful consideration of design leads to a stronger design product and "the Disney difference" (and maybe it does). But at some point you have to wonder the trade-off, at what point the pursuit of perfection becomes inefficient and wasteful, and as NoChesterHester said, whether all that design effort would be better spent pushing things out the door and getting stuff built at a cheaper price to try and quickly fix WDW's problems. I know personally, I would prefer a New Fantasyland that is 80% as pretty as the current one, with a restored Imagination pavilion to match, but maybe that's just me.

Very accurate.
Tons of waste on every project.

 

[ford91exploder]

Nope I hadn't yet! Well one I asked specifically why their projects tend to cost so much more than Universal's. His response was that Disney spends WAY more time constantly modifying designs, second-guessing, taking things into meetings, etc. Universal basically says "we want this, make it happen" when Uni Creative comes up with something, and then they immediately push it out the door to get built. Much of this, in his opinion, is due to Uni's higher reliance on hit franchises that perhaps can't wait to be built 4+ years down the road, and also due to just a stronger desire to grow quickly. They sort of just take the first good design and run with it, and that results in much more streamlined design development costs.

Disney, meanwhile, questions everything - every component of the design is taken into some kind of meeting and debated, adding months or years of salaried design work. He talked about how cast member focus groups were brought in and asked "is this how you would use this, is this dispatch station set up well, etc." and then going back to revise entire designs based on their feedback, something Uni probably wouldn't do. And then many different proposals are looked at - they might build 10 elaborate models with slightly different color schemes and then just go with one of them. That kind of thing. It sounds like a lot of the expense IS spent due to Disney's obsession with detail, trying out several different lighting schemes for an obscure portion of a ride or picking out the exact style of faux-wood that would look best in an area.

And revisions, revisions, revisions: management comes in and says "the operations department doesn't like this, find a way to add more vehicles, expand the loading area," merchandise comes in and says they want more room for the gift shop, cast member managers say they want a bigger breakroom, so the ride footprint gets reduced, every time shuffling square-footage around and redesigning major components of the attraction. Just tons and tons of second-guessing and modifying it sounds like Uni doesn't do. He said this somewhat defensively, as if all this careful consideration of design leads to a stronger design product and "the Disney difference" (and maybe it does). But at some point you have to wonder the trade-off, at what point the pursuit of perfection becomes inefficient and wasteful, and as NoChesterHester said, whether all that design effort would be better spent pushing things out the door and getting stuff built at a cheaper price to try and quickly fix WDW's problems. I know personally, I would prefer a New Fantasyland that is 80% as pretty as the current one, with a restored Imagination pavilion to match, but maybe that's just me.

It has a name Paralysis by Analysis, It tends to infect organizations which have been overrun with accountants because by their very nature they do not understand the creative process.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

I see this dark side of recent history is very close to your heart. I personally would bear the arms that sit in our house and defend myself and others against that form of tyranny and genocide should I ever see it occurring on American soil. I have to believe most people in America would too.

To be fair the Nazis did have some rather swish uniforms too.

 

[The Mom]

I think it's time to stop the political rants and get back to discussing WDW. Or lifestylers. Or parking.

 

[ford91exploder]

I see this dark side of recent history is very close to your heart. I personally would bear the arms that sit in our house and defend myself and others against that form of tyranny and genocide should I ever see it occurring on American soil. I have to believe most people in America would too.

You are correct and I pray we never get to the state of needing the third box of liberty from these three boxes soap/ballot/ammo.

My great grandparents immigrated from Hungary in the early oughts of the previous century, They were professionals so they bypassed Ellis Island, Fast forward to the 1960's there was a very large and active hungarian community in NY/NJ many of whom escaped during the 1956 revolution my grandparents helped the refugees,

So these grandparents were my baby sitters when I needed one and they told stories about the war and the camps when I was old enough to understand and also it was my DUTY to ensure that nothing like this ever happened again and to keep the stories alive so no one would ever forget what happened.

I think you really have to KNOW some of these people first hand and realize its not just old movies and historical accounts and that makes you remember that given the right conditions it could happen again.

Unfortunately people in 'Murica are sheep these days and conformity to the norm is valued above all else and like the 1930's people are ruled by fear my DSIL is petrified of terrorists even though you are about a million times more likely to win POWERBALL than be a victim of terror.

And don't forget WE put the Nisei in camps in the 1940's - What's to stop that from happening again for some group???

I find now to be a very scary time, And I've never felt that way before.