News Round Up 2019

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

the increased crowds...

Well...at least THAT'S no longer an issue.

 

[disneygirlsng]

Wine and Dine medals:

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/b...f-the-disney-wine-dine-half-marathon-weekend/
These.... do not seem on theme? Granted, last year was my first really paying attention to these things but I would never guess a wine and dine theme with these designs. That being said I wish I could do the two course for that Three Caballeros medal!

I LOVE them!! Can't wait to get all 4!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Well...at least THAT'S no longer an issue.

Did the crowds at WDW drop off lately? I know the DL crowds have been greatly reduced.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

Did the crowds at WDW drop off lately? I know the DL crowds have been greatly reduced.

All the reports from WDW seem to say that crowds are very "light" this summer andit looks even worse for the fall. None other than Pete Werner has commented on the wide open availability for the fall.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

All the reports from WDW seem to say that crowds are very "light" this summer andit looks even worse for the fall. None other than Pete Werner has commented on the wide open availability for the fall.

That would be great. We're going to HHN in early October and have 2 day WDW tickets we were finally going to use. I can't even remember the last time I went to WDW and it was empty.

We would always go around Halloween time for MNSSHP and do a few parties (which seems insane now, looking at the price increases). Some years we'd go back for the Christmas decorations. We also went in May the last few years they had Star Wars Celebration.

 

[rteetz]

That would be great. We're going to HHN in early October and have 2 day WDW tickets we were finally going to use. I can't even remember the last time I went to WDW and it was empty.

We would always go around Halloween time for MNSSHP and do a few parties (which seems insane now, looking at the price increases). Some years we'd go back for the Christmas decorations. We also went in May the last few years they had Star Wars Celebration.

I wouldn’t expect empty. The parks still have decent waits. It’s not crazy wall to wall like it was or like people expected but it’s not dead with everything being a walk on. Slinky is still 75+ minutes and flight of Passage 100+. October you add SWGE and the parks certainly won’t be empty. They are also getting ready to release new discounts

 

[Bay Max]

Are you using a mobile browser or your desktop/laptop when it happens?

I was getting HORRIBLE redirects on my iPhone a few weeks ago. I downloaded and added a content blocker and all my issues were solved.

It happens when I use my iphone as well. Thanks for the tip.

 

[PolyRob]

It happens when I use my iphone as well. Thanks for the tip.

I downloaded Firefox Focus from the app store and followed these steps: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/focus#w_use-firefox-focus-with-safari

Good luck!

 

[crazy4wdw]

Casting Announced for Disney+ Series Diary of a Female President

With the debut of Disney+ just over the horizon, there’s sure to be a wave of announcements about all the incredible shows premiering soon on the streaming platform. Case in point: today’s update regarding Diary of a Female President! With production having started this week in Los Angeles, Disney+ announced that executive producer Gina Rodriguez (Golden Globe®-winning star of Jane the Virgin) will also guest star on the series in a recurring role.

Told from the narration of her diary, Diary of a Female President follows Elena (Tess Romero), a Cuban-American 12-year-old girl, as she navigates the ups and downs of middle school and begins her journey to become the future president of the United States. Rodriguez will play adult Elena, currently on the campaign trail.
But that’s not all… Rodriguez is also directing the first episode of the series, which was developed through her production company, I Can and I Will Productions. Look for more news about Diary of a Female President, as well as other Disney+ shows, in the coming months—leading up to the service’s debut in November!

https://d23.com/disney-plus-casting-update-and-new-disney-parks-fun-plus-more-in-news-briefs/

 

[rteetz]

https://blogmickey.com/2019/07/batu...s-edge-gift-card-back-in-stock-at-disneyland/

 

[AcusTwinhammer]

Won't they need to put a security station on that path? IIRC, it would come out by the monorail station. Everybody on the monorails has already been screened but the walkers won't have.

If they put the security station at the new bridge, will they ever be able to stop "bridge troll" jokes?

 

[skier_pete]

You know, it's funny because one of my pathologists at work was mentioning the other day that he had read an article that stated this very sentiment....that Disney is pricing out the average family. I think that is really sad and not at all what Walt would have wanted.

Here's the good news - if they have truly run the prices up too high and see it's effect on the bottom line. (Disney has partly raised prices as quickly as it has because it knows the parks are overcrowded, and they actually don't want increases in people, but increases in spending. But at a point they would have to roll back prices (or offer deep discounts) to get people to come back again.

I'm not holding my breath yet that Star Wars land isn't going to cause a pop. It may be a phenomonon of "avoid the opening crowds + the main ride isn't there yet anyways." I think we have to wait until early 2020 to really declare that they are having an attendance issue.

 

[soniam]

Few things here. First the site is banned for a reason. It’s best if we don’t constantly talk about them.

Views: If DHS had fireworks you’d have an amazing view of their show. You have an obstructed view of Epcot and than a very distant view of MK.

Food: that’s always going to be hit or miss with people. Not everyone is going to like everyone. I enjoyed what I had.

I would say Dahlia is my favorite part but don’t count out Toledo. Go try it if you can.

How did you get to the hotel, or were you staying there? I am curious if they allow non-hotel guests to park w/o an ADR. I would love to hit Barcelona and/or Dahlia.

we go to the Alamo here (north of NYC) which has really good food and drinks and craft beers and stuff - and also polices stuff (no kids allowed, no use of phones, no arriving late, etc.) - but the tickets themselves are only $15 ... they get you on the food/drink bill (although, it isn't really any more than like a regular restaurant would be)

granted we have to add about $50 for a babysitter to that

That's exactly what I was going to say. Alamo may not have steaks, but the food is pretty decent. It's not outrageously priced compared to Disney.

Do we know what’s going on with this? It’s been down for so long unexpectedly that I feel like this should be bigger news.

Jim Hill said that it was built by a company that has been out of business for a while, so it takes a while to get parts.

Have they done this in the past? Or is this new ground?

Heat. @rteetz posted a reply from twitter. It was closed every time we tried to use it last summer due to heat. It doesn't have AC.

Or, Disney has now discovered where the price resistance point is.

It’s our own “rise of the resistance”

I’ll head out now...lol

POR = Price of the Resistance

 

[rteetz]

How did you get to the hotel, or were you staying there? I am curious if they allow non-hotel guests to park w/o an ADR. I would love to hit Barcelona and/or Dahlia.

I was at Saratoga so I walked to Disney Springs and took a bus from there. Highly recommend Dahlia. It’s just like any other hotel you can visit if you want staying.

 

[Gusey]

All the reports from WDW seem to say that crowds are very "light" this summer andit looks even worse for the fall. None other than Pete Werner has commented on the wide open availability for the fall.

Hotel availability does not always = in-park crowd level. With DL, only 3 hotels so most of crowds are form off-site. At WDW, I think people will be more likely to start staying off-site due to cost, especially with Universal's new Value Resorts being so much cheaper than Disney's cheapest hotel. I think there will still be crowds in the parks, there are just less people in the hotels, (the number of Disney hotels are going back up again too). Just my 2 cents

 

[Firebird060]

Hotel availability does not always = in-park crowd level. With DL, only 3 hotels so most of crowds are form off-site. At WDW, I think people will be more likely to start staying off-site due to cost, especially with Universal's new Value Resorts being so much cheaper than Disney's cheapest hotel. I think there will still be crowds in the parks, there are just less people in the hotels, (the number of Disney hotels are going back up again too). Just my 2 cents

The only thing that makes me wary to agree with you is that over the past year all the times I traveled down there crowd levels are not as bad as predicted. The availability of rooms were a lot less than what we are seeing now for fall. Most of my trips over the past year to use my AP were what I considered last minute, aka 8 weeks or less before arrival. So honestly I think that is more telling. Also there are several non Disney owned cheaper hotels in the bubble and At a conparable price to many offsite hotels when you factor the transportation and or parking costs of going to Disney, especially because not everyone chooses to air bnb which is significantly cheaper for a large family. In saying that Even these on site partner hotels seem to have more availability this fall. These are pretty big warning signs at attendance is going to be at a low level this fall.

You also want to think that if you are right, that is still a bad thing for Disney, they need the on property rooms filled to a certain capacity to offset the staffing and operating costs of each resort, which would still mean wdw would need to run some sort of incentive for people to fill the rooms

 

[Dawn Peterson]

Hotel availability does not always = in-park crowd level. With DL, only 3 hotels so most of crowds are form off-site. At WDW, I think people will be more likely to start staying off-site due to cost, especially with Universal's new Value Resorts being so much cheaper than Disney's cheapest hotel. I think there will still be crowds in the parks, there are just less people in the hotels, (the number of Disney hotels are going back up again too). Just my 2 cents

I started at Deluxe and now I’m starting to go with off site. Now that hotel parking at night is equivalent to paying to park at a theme park and we sometimes drive, the perks of staying on site make it more difficult to choose Disney. Of course put a discount in my path and I’m all about Contemporary . I am making our next trip Universal. I think our girls are now old enough.

 

[dm1996]

I started at Deluxe and now I’m starting to go with off site. Now that hotel parking at night is equivalent to paying to park at a theme park and we sometimes drive, the perks of staying on site make it more difficult to choose Disney. Of course put a discount in my path and I’m all about Contemporary . I am making our next trip Universal. I think our girls are now old enough.

Here's the good news - if they have truly run the prices up too high and see it's effect on the bottom line. (Disney has partly raised prices as quickly as it has because it knows the parks are overcrowded, and they actually don't want increases in people, but increases in spending. But at a point they would have to roll back prices (or offer deep discounts) to get people to come back again.

I'm not holding my breath yet that Star Wars land isn't going to cause a pop. It may be a phenomonon of "avoid the opening crowds + the main ride isn't there yet anyways." I think we have to wait until early 2020 to really declare that they are having an attendance issue.

we have 2 young kids that we take to Disney for their bdays and 2 other times a year, all during Fall and Winter. Every year I closely monitor hotel rates and by doing that, you start to find out when resorts typically start to be at capacity (conventions can throw this off a bit, but they usually are at only a few resorts).
In the six years of doing this, this is the first time everything is available. Epcot resorts are wide open—-F&W usually eats those up. Each year, we book 6 months ahead of time and even at that point, there are usually a few resorts that aren’t available. This year, only Ft Wilderness is unavailable at 3 months.

We are also scaling back to 2 visits this year because of costs. Our AP’s expire after our next visit and we will just buy a 3 day ticket for the next trip. In the last 2 years, Disney has increased our 4 night vacation from expensive to unaffordable. I really think the resort parking fees just killed the Magic for me.

 

[Fantasia79]

When you do the math, with the economic woes in Europe, you can do Europe for the price of a Disney trip right now. A lot of things have to hit (time to go, kids old enough, interest, etc). My Facebook is filled with friends overseas right now. My theory is that Disney raised their prices too high, and some of the quality has been dropping (customer service a big one).

Granted, they had to in order to lower attendance. It will take some creativity, and they’re certainly not hurting.

 

[Dawn Peterson]

When you do the math, with the economic woes in Europe, you can do Europe for the price of a Disney trip right now. A lot of things have to hit (time to go, kids old enough, interest, etc). My Facebook is filled with friends overseas right now. My theory is that Disney raised their prices too high, and some of the quality has been dropping (customer service a big one).

Granted, they had to in order to lower attendance. It will take some creativity, and they’re certainly not hurting.

I would love to do Europe but I can’t get past the flight cost. We would probably have to drive several hours to a major city to get anything decently priced.