News Round Up 2018

[FoxC63]

A while ago many of you were commenting about Disney not being able to handle anything else on their site "MY Disney Experience" and I have to agree. A few months ago I made a Room Only Reservation for one week at Wilderness Lodge for a party of two and paid with Disney Gift Cards.

One week ago I couldn't even log into my Disney account - nothing changed same email address and password but I could not log in. Sent in my email address and waited to "reset" my password but that never came. So I called. If it wasn't for the fact that I had just received a letter from Disney with my confirmation on it I would have never known my information was deleted. According to her I was NOT in their system. Then she said if it happens again you will have to go through IT. No. No. I will not, you made this reservation, you took my money so you'll wait for IT to fix it and you can call me when it's done.

It's fixed... for now but I don't trust their system.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'm not really thinking a single IP per park type concept. I think that is financial stupidity at best and suicide at worst. I am thinking that each individual park should have an identity. In other words, you should expect a different experience at IOA than US or the expected 3rd Park. It seems to me the original idea was that US was more a family park and IOA was more a teen and up thrill type park. Those concepts have been diluted, especially as Universal realized they could snooker people into buying whatever they call Park Hoppers by slamming HP in both parks.

But honestly, when people talk about US they don't really talk about it like it is 2 parks except when talking about tickets. It's one park, with no real difference in theme, that just costs the same as 2 tickets, possibly soon to be 3. That's lazy and, frankly, lame. We expect they are going to do it with the third park and people just give them a pass. Oh, Nintendo in 3 parks? HP in 3 parks? Wonderful! Look how much more they'll get by forcing people to buy those multi-tickets! Genius. Uggh. For the consumer, it really should be a massive negative.

When Disney even touches on this we savage them. FEA is a great example. That was, and still is, embarrassing as far as I'm concerned, but it's one ride. Soon to be joined by the equally thematically misplaced Guardians, and we should jump on Disney for that as well unless they somehow make it relevant to EPCOT. But really, most of the 4 parks have a theme. MK is traditional Disney stories and entertainment. EPCOT is a more learning focused park, even if not as learning focused as it used to be. AK is very much a creative attempt to blend wildlife with rides in a true themed environment. It's much better than SeaWorld or Busch Gardens ever managed. Avatar dings it a bit, but they way they did it with the focus on conservation is at least a partial save. Unlike FEA which has no save what so ever. Embarrassing. Finally, DHS is... well, DHS is DHS. It's not like the other 3 even though I'm not entirely sure it carries a real standalone theme. Something about more modern entertainment.

But even if I can't describe it, the fact is you can think of all 4 of those parks as different experiences. They may defy easy definition, but it's there and we all know it.

That is something US has failed at completely. US is, most likely, going to open a 3rd gate that is exactly the same hodgepodge of entertainment IP, even duplicative IP, as their other 2 parks. in the end, it's all one park, you are just paying for a hoper to cross it. We really should beat them up a lot harder for being that unimaginative.

Aren’t there theme’s to the two US parks? I thought it was the studios is based on things where the source material is movies/TV whereas Islands of Adventure is based on things where the underlying source material is books/comic books? So Potter is both so can be in both

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I suspect they'll build some sort of transportation method (other than just busses) to support that and the original properties.

This is part of the reason I brought up the park-to-park aspect. If Disney didn't have some options for transportation between their parks park hopping would be less desirable even if you liked what was offered in the other park but even now people opt not to get park hopping on the basis of time it takes to get from one place to the other in WDW.

I'm sure Universal will have transportation and I *think* it's been talked about before on here what options they may use but I forget. Buses would seem the easiest but it would be great if they utilized a variety of options. One thing that had me thinking is if they would replicate what they have for their existing parks as far as a central parking garage structure(s) for the additional stuff OR if they would opt for parking lots. Parking garage would be better usage for space IMO. And it makes me wonder if people could just opt to park in the new area and take transportation to the other original parks and then 'hop' so to speak back to the new parts.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

A while ago many of you were commenting about Disney not being able to handle anything else on their site "MY Disney Experience" and I have to agree. A few months ago I made a Room Only Reservation for one week at Wilderness Lodge for a party of two and paid with Disney Gift Cards.

One week ago I couldn't even log into my Disney account - nothing changed same email address and password but I could not log in. Sent in my email address and waited to "reset" my password but that never came. So I called. If it wasn't for the fact that I had just received a letter from Disney with my confirmation on it I would have never known my information was deleted. According to her I was NOT in their system. Then she said if it happens again you will have to go through IT. No. No. I will not, you made this reservation, you took my money so you'll wait for IT to fix it and you can call me when it's done.

It's fixed... for now but I don't trust their system.

I went into MDE account yesterday...it wouldn't recognize my password. I had to reset it but it worked instantly on getting the e-mail and whatnot. Made me wonder if they did some sort of update or whatnot as Stitch was also eating the page when it came to looking up Dining information (as I was looking at that information for another thread). I feel like it's done that before for me. I was on the website though rather than the MDE app and I know before we were speaking mostly about the app.

Back when Universal redid their website sometime last year or the year before it made everyone create a whole new account. Sometimes websites are a pain

 

[FoxC63]

Just on the app for now. No word if this will move to online as well.

hehehe, they're starting to tighten up some loose ends

 

[adam.adbe]

This. It's more likely they spread it across multiple parks. Especially Universal - considering the way they worked Harry Potter into both parks, built a ride between the two that requires an upcharge to ride. Better to force Harry Potter fans to pay to go to THREE parks than to make a Harry Potter theme park. Same for Nintendo.

It's an XFinity Triple Play.

 

[adam.adbe]

yeah, I liked the scene and the twist at the end as a standalone moment, but the more I thought about it (and as it was explained to me) really didn't fit Luke's personality to not come back. To go away in the moment and hide, sure, that works and matches past Jedi masters especially when they knew they couldn't take on the bad guys alone - but then when there is "new hope" he should have been willing to do more and come back just like Obi Wan was willing to

Oh well, rehashing things talked about at length on here, sorry for the distraction

Luke realized he was mostly just perpetuating cycles. Obi Wan never learnt his lesson.

 

[rteetz]

News

Disney Files Patent for Immersive Multimedia Hotel Room Shows

 

[rteetz]

News

Disney Permits Bonnier Publishing to Create Bilingual Books

 

[rteetz]

News

PHOTOS: New “Discover the Magic” MagicKeeper Released at Walt Disney World

 

[rteetz]

News

Marvel Releases Avengers: Infinity War “Family” Featurette

 

[Boski]

hehehe, they're starting to tighten up some loose ends

If people wouldn't cheat the system they wouldn't have to.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Luke realized he was mostly just perpetuating cycles. Obi Wan never learnt his lesson.

Right, and he wanted to creat something new and left the pieces of the map for someone to find him (if he truly wanted to just die he wouldn’t have done that)

And in some of the books that take place between episodes 3 and 4 Obi Wan does come to some of those realizations as well

 

[jknezek]

Aren’t there theme’s to the two US parks? I thought it was the studios is based on things where the source material is movies/TV whereas Islands of Adventure is based on things where the underlying source material is books/comic books? So Potter is both so can be in both

I'm not sure anyone who doesn't get too involved would draw that distinction. It's thin and I think just a little bleed has killed it. I don't really know anyone who has casually been that would pick up on that. I used to hear the one with the Marvel stuff and the one with ET when talking with casual people, now I generally hear the one with Hogwarts and the one with Gringotts. But even casual Disney folks know there is one with animals, one with the castle, one with the big ball and the countries, and one that has Star Wars.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'm not sure anyone who doesn't get too involved would draw that distinction. It's thin and I think just a little bleed has killed it. I don't really know anyone who has casually been that would pick up on that. I used to hear the one with the Marvel stuff and the one with ET when talking with casual people, now I generally hear the one with Hogwarts and the one with Gringotts. But even casual Disney folks know there is one with animals, one with the castle, one with the big ball and the countries, and one that has Star Wars.

Oh yeah, it’s way clearer at disney. More my point was US had that intention and isn’t really succeeding but did at least try to do something

 

[FoxC63]

If people wouldn't cheat the system they wouldn't have to.

Not everyone who used this feature was cheating.

 

[STLstone]

News

Solo: A Star Wars Story toys

https://wdwnt.com/2018/04/starwars-com-reveals-the-solo-a-star-wars-story-toy-line/

No Boba Fett? What gives?

 

[umichigan10]

Starting second should have given them a head start on learning what works. Universal clearly considers Disney it's competition, not Six Flags. I think consumers should generally be savvy enough to understand that if they consider Disney the competition, they charge like Disney is the competition, and they build multiple parks in the same area like Disney, they should be held to similar standards.

And again, what started my thoughts on this, is they have a blank canvas to build a third park. The first major new theme park in Orlando in 20 years. And we expect that they will use the same IPs, the same style, the same stuff as their other 2 parks. And people seem fine with that while at the same time we ding Disney for any trespass on theme. It's just interesting that we give US, and look to find reasons to give US, a pass for building separate parks that aren't really separate at all except in how to squeeze the most money out of the tickets.

See I look at it as their first actual theme park was in the same vein as the studios at Disney (Disney actually copied them but anyways) and if you look at the studios at the world, it’s had an identity issue for the last 15-20 years. So I can see why that uni Park is super disjointed, and why things like mummy and rip,ride,rockit are just plopped down in places they don’t belong

IoA has more of a “theme” behind it, which is more of an idea in “adventure”. Basically they got as many well known IPs as they could and crammed them into the place and tied them in with this loose idea that it’s based on.

Basically it’s my long way of saying that again they’re two different creative teams putting their spin on the same idea. I honestly believe that uni in its early days (and really until Harry Potter, though there were some exceptions like suess landing) was more focused on the ride/thrill concept than overall theme (not quite six flags but not quite Disney). Not until the Potter acquisition did they really dive into the theme environment idea.

 

[MissGina5]

Vampirina is actually a childrens book

So basically this show creator just copies popular, non-Disney movies that have come out lately and turns them into Disney cartoons? Was he behind Wizards of Waverly place as well?

Vampirina= Hotel Translyvania
TOTS: Storks, or whatever it was called.

 

[StrawberryChan]

News

First look at Pixar Fest decor and “Pizza Planet” theming.

https://photos.mouseinfo.com/On-the-Scene-main/On-the-Scene-2/i-hNs94sH

are those pride mickey ears?! oh my gosh