New Magic Kingdom Welcome Show & Main Street Opening UPDATE: Page 15 - Post #281

[Nancyg56]

Okay I might be in minority but I like it. The last two Welcome Shows, after standing there forever, packed in like sardines, kids already crying .... when the "show" finished I was ....... that's it? ........... I can't imagine I lucked out with two bare bones Welcomes.

I love the idea of no longer being packed in, being able to get to Guest Relations or wander the shops or grab a coffee while waiting for a Castle Welcome Show where we have room to breath. From a security point of view, safer and now the crowds are not backed up through the scanners back to security.



Making it even more desirable ... aka sold out maybe?

I like the new plan as well. I hated that crush of my new best friends all stacked up around me in one small contained space. I think that letting folks onto Main Street to either head towards the HUb for the opening show or to get a cup of coffee and a pastry is a great idea.

This hurts big time. I made Crystal Palace 8am reservations with the intent of getting some engagement photos with my new Fiance. Sigh..

You may not have had this happen in the manner you envisioned. Disney changes hours and many PPO meals booked solely for this purpose were "ruined", and honestly since BOG opened there has not been that "empty" Main Street. Fewer people? Yes. Empty? Not for a long time.

I think that a lot of people felt that they were paying for either a photo opportunity or for a enhanced position in NFL but the truth is that all anyone is promised with a PPO breakfast is breakfast.

I totally agree. However, the only way they have been able to get the outrageous price for breakfast here (in my opinion) at the level of bookings they currently enjoy, is the hoped for extra perks. I love BOG. I will NOT pay that much for the menu they offer for breakfast.

Actually, I bet most folks are not paying an outrageous price for anything. BOG is CS and while there is a fixed priced meals option, no one has ever been made to choose that. They could choose one meal, bring 8 people in and split a pastry plate 8 ways.

 

[Elle23]

Maybe there's enough additional space in the MK compared to DL, but I just can't wrap my head around people "strolling" around Main Street and "relaxing" during this time. Too many people jockeying for position to get to their desired ride first. If you leave any space, people arriving after you try to worm their way through to get to the front of the waiting crowd.

I had already decided I am not going to stress myself out running like a crazy person to get to a ride at rope drop. I purposely booked early fast passes for that reason. And I am planning on being in the parks as much as possible each day, so I won't be in a time crunch.

I don't know when or if I will ever make it back to WDW (because of the cost), and I just want to slow down and savor it, not be in a panic and getting this or that done.

So I truly do think I will enjoy this change. I'll just be sure and stay out of the way of the mad dashers.

 

[DisIsForMe]

Will there be a gate before the hub until 9 am or can we go all the way up to the hub? Or is everything to be accessible just no rides open?

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

Maybe there's enough additional space in the MK compared to DL, but I just can't wrap my head around people "strolling" around Main Street and "relaxing" during this time. Too many people jockeying for position to get to their desired ride first. If you leave any space, people arriving after you try to worm their way through to get to the front of the waiting crowd.

It's going to be interesting to see how the reality of this works out.

Town Square and Main Street are pretty much the same size at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. Main Street's sidewalks are perhaps slightly wider, but we're not talking about a really significant difference at all. I think what you're missing is that, although you're assuming everybody is going to do rope drop the same way they do now, jockeying for position in order to run to rides, it's not going to work like that necessarily.

People who realize they enjoy the option of relaxing on Main Street waiting for rope drop instead of jockeying for position are going to do that. As I've said, half the crowd will be jockeying for position at the hub, and the other half of the crowd will be enjoying Main Street. It is not at all going to be the entire crowd lined up like cattle along a street made impenetrable by a sea of massed human bodies. It just doesn't work like that when rope drop is done this way.

 

[yulilin3]

Will there be a gate before the hub until 9 am or can we go all the way up to the hub? Or is everything to be accessible just no rides open?

If they do it like before 2004 there will be a rope and cm in each land's bridge then at 9am they will walk you into each land

 

[jdisnut]

Not long after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Disney introduced the Magic Kingdom welcome show as a budget cut. With park attendance shrinking, the company no longer wanted to pay to staff Main Street for an extra hour. This decision sparked outcry.

Now, more than a decade later, Disney is returning to the very thing so many fans once mourned. This decision has sparked outcry.

Sounds about right.

 

[WEDWDW]

Not long after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Disney introduced the Magic Kingdom welcome show as a budget cut. With park attendance shrinking, the company no longer wanted to pay to staff Main Street for an extra hour. This decision sparked outcry.

Now, more than a decade later, Disney is returning to the very thing so many fans once mourned. This decision has sparked outcry.

Sounds about right.

So the info that MKW debuted 12/01/04 is incorrect?

Thanks!

 

[jdisnut]

So the info that MKW debuted 12/01/04 is incorrect?

Thanks!

I don't know the exact date. Perhaps "shortly" wasn't a specific enough descriptor. I do know the welcome show's introduction was initially a major budget cut.

 

[yulilin3]

@WEDWDW the date comes from the Hub so I'm sure it's the correct date

 

[Sargeant Tibbs]

For those wondering if this is temporary, the Hub just posted that the last welcome show on the train station is January 8th and after that day the show will be retired.

How many years has Magic Kingdom Welcome been running?

I'm so glad I'll be there for the final MKW on January 8!

MKW is kind of like The Kiss Goodnight-it takes a real hardcore WDW GEEK to "appreciate" it!lol

I'll also be there on the 8th for a tearful goodbye. I'm not sure how I feel about this change. I don't believe it will make Main Street more enjoyable, nor will it make RD any less crazy. Getting closer to your destination doesn't mean you're there.

Also, people weren't always allowed on Main Street early during the 90's. Only when it was really busy. I have the home videos to prove it.

 

[Orange Team]

The morning welcome show began sometime between summer 2002 and summer 2003. I just watched a home video and pictures I have from summer 2003. It shows the exact same morning welcome show that is currently going on.

In summer 2002 there was a different kind of morning welcome "show" with a couple of characters like the Mad Hatter and Captain Hook at the Mickey planter, while guests were held at the turnstiles. In summer 2001 and prior summers, there was nothing. Guests could enter Main Street about 45 minutes to an hour before park opening.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

Not long after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Disney introduced the Magic Kingdom welcome show as a budget cut. With park attendance shrinking, the company no longer wanted to pay to staff Main Street for an extra hour. This decision sparked outcry.

Now, more than a decade later, Disney is returning to the very thing so many fans once mourned. This decision has sparked outcry.

Sounds about right.

This. All day long. No one likes change at WDW. It's the same knee-jerk reaction to change that TDO is responding to every time they refuse to do a holiday overlay or engage in an 18 month, sweeping re-furb of an attraction that really needs it. The idea that this was a budget cut that people are now madly in love with… I just can't.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

If they do it like before 2004 there will be a rope and cm in each land's bridge then at 9am they will walk you into each land

And this is where it will diverge from the model at Disneyland. There, the rope will either be at the end of Main Street (if it's an EMH morning, so that EMH visitors have full access to the hub to cross through the park) or there can be multiple ropes staged between the hub and the lands. But they haven't walked people into the lands behind the rope for years. In Anaheim, when the announcement is made that the park is open and you shouldn't run, the CMs just roll the rope up and you're on your own to walk/jog into the lands. The only exception is when a new headliner debuts. For example, when Cars Land debuted at DCA, CMs rope walked the crowd back to Radiator Springs Racers every morning.

With the new welcome show at the castle stage cutting off access through the castle to Fantasyland, it's going to be interesting to see how the rope walk works after January 9. There's going to be a lot more pressure for the pathways around the castle/the pathway to the tea cups. In my humble opinion, it's also going to be pretty awful to have the iconic access from the hub directly to Fantasyland through the castle unavailable at rope drop. Something is really lost in that. If George Kalogridis continues with all of his Anaheim-esque changes, I hope the next thing to go is that damned castle stage. It never had any business being there upstaging the castle in the first place. It was just a way to not have to let the characters roam the park anymore.

 

[hiroMYhero]

The idea that this was a budget cut that people are now madly in love with… I just can't.

And on the Touring Plans site, the Welcome Show is classified as a "diversion." So "show," in this specific case, is a misnomer.

 

[Melissa<3Disney]

Count me in the camp who is both excited and nervous about how this will affect our morning touring. In 2010, we had a PPO CP reservation and walking down an almost empty main street was just magical. Then my (now) husband proposed to me with almost no one in the background. Awesome memories and photos. So now bringing our 2 year old for his first trip (January 2017) I was a bit excited to have a similar experience. But I am a DISer, so I had read that the emptiness is not really the same since BOG opened. So I went in with those expectations. Then boom a week or two ago they change park hours to an hour earlier.

Here's the thing, I knew this could happen. So even though I was a little disappointed, and would have loved the character meal for our kiddo, I cancelled our reservation. (And booked Skipper Canteen lunch which we are now even more excited about) I would just hate to lose out on the hour of rides in the morning. That being said this new change is a little exciting to me. I like the idea of being able to "Mosey" on down Main Street, grab a coffee and cinnamon roll, and take our time enjoying the magic with a lot of our closest new friends.

Even though it hasn't started yet, based on your best guesses, my questions are these. If park opening is at 8am what time should we get to Magic Kingdom to start our trek down Main Street and not get so far behind the herd that we lose that rope drop advantage? And Later on in the week (Thursday Feb. 3rd) we have (what is for now) a PPO BOG reservation at 8:10. What time should we get to the gate, do they let us in early so we don't get caught up behind the people entering the park and are late for our reservation?

 

[jomass]

Multiple people said it above. The people promising to cancel their PPO reservations because they will no longer have exclusive ride and Main Street time. That's why other people like me are saying good, go ahead and cancel. Because a lot of other people really want those PPO dining experiences irrespective of getting on 7DMT early or photo ops on an empty Main Street, but get shut out of those ADRs by people who reserve them primarily so their kids can ride 7DMT first. It's kind of a toxic way of working the system that really needs to go.

The grapes are rather sour. Why should it matter what people book their ADRs for? Everybody has their own preferences and the same opportunity. Sorry but this sounds pretty juvenile.

 

[cavepig]

I'm so glad the Welcome show is changing. I did not like being smooshed in that area as people tried to get a better view of it then smashed under the railroad station It did start before 2004, I have pics & video of it in 2003. Going back to being able to walk on Main St preopening sounds great!

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

The grapes are rather sour. Why should it matter what people book their ADRs for? Everybody has their own preferences and the same opportunity. Sorry but this sounds pretty juvenile.

Why is it always the newbies who think being snide and calling names have a place on the DIS? Your opinion matters. Your ridiculing others doesn't.

 

[Farro]

Why is it always the newbies who think being snide and calling names have a place on the DIS? Your opinion matters. Your ridiculing others doesn't.

That poster joined the same year you did.

Besides, I'm sure some new package will happen to allow people in the park earlier to take pictures!

 

[mom2rtk]

This. All day long. No one likes change at WDW. It's the same knee-jerk reaction to change that TDO is responding to every time they refuse to do a holiday overlay or engage in an 18 month, sweeping re-furb of an attraction that really needs it. The idea that this was a budget cut that people are now madly in love with… I just can't.

People like what they like. There is no right or wrong when it comes to preferences at a theme park.

Sure there are some people who resist every single change without giving it much thought. But there's also plenty of people who embrace any new change because they think new is always better.