NYC news to be announced tomorrow

[lockedoutlogic]

What a disappointment! Every year it get more boring than the last, who came up with these stupid ideas? Who would want to spend $1000s of $$ to take their family to see other people's pictures on the castle. Seriousely!!

I actually think its our fault

these "18 month celebrations" used to be better thought out and actually added some elements...a parade...fireworks...an ugly "temporary" tent that they leave up for years after to schlep catered food to US companies with cooked books and inflated stock prices...some pink paint...the world's dumbest and most expensive pin stand

It used to be about something...now they do it every year and it seems to work because we gobble it up. And they don't even do anniversarys...why? cuz its only good for a year or so and it doesn't allow them to "change" one meaningless "memories, magic" celebration out for another seamlessly. Why celebrate some anniversary when they can come up with some sort of play on words to make it think its all about you. which is - as always - about selling you product. "magical memories that last a lifetime...if you pay $150 for the photo CD"

it's silly to fall for this junk...but their numbers must tell them it works...

they at least used to sell some different merchandise and maybe add a parade or two...
...now they hook a laptop up to a projector and use powerpoint (albeit an undoubtedly expensive projector)

if i were independently wealthy...i would form my own splinter Disney protest group and hold rallies at the security "checkpoints" (not exactly the mossad...they are)
I'd call it the "Mad Tea Party" and we'd cry out for the end of this cost-cutting, money mongering, shameless attempt at fooling the dollars out of my wallet...or Visa - nobody carries cash anymore.
We'd chant "we want our Disney back!!!" and "less pixie dust...more sales tax cuts!"
And i'd even pay Palin to speak...cuz she'd be the intellectual equal of the customers...


the pre-K crowd at least

 

[serendipity]

Define "wrong direction"

if you mean a cheap attempt at selling more photos...then yeah...i guess you hit it on that one.

But that isn't their wrong direction...that's exactly where the priority is/ has been for about 20 years.

Each time i hear "big announcement" you see these theories about what cool new thing they'll build to include in the price of admission i can ride....or in the case of DVC...cool new room i can book with points that have long since been paid for...

But that is NOT how Disney operates. They build when they their statistical analysis says that they have no other options to continue the development of the revenue streams. And they probably agree to do so while Iger, Staggs, and Rasulo throw up in barf bags in the boardroom - sickened by all the money they'll "waste" building new facilities.
The more i look at it...the more the fantasyland expansion wasn't about Harry Potter or "staying ahead of the curve" at all. And it sure isnt' about technological innovation or artistic endeavour. It was the next step in the princess fairy MARKETING scheme (to sell product) that they have pursued for 10 years.
And what quietly slipped out a few months ago (no press event )? that perhaps the "plans have changed". Yeah...you bet your hiney...they're changing downwards.

What was the rumor this time around? Spain? Coaster in MGM? DVC next to an existing DVC next to the campground?

please...of those rumors only the DVC even makes any disney-sense right now. because it would mean more upfront cash, more dues, more bodies, more turnstiles spinning, and more food and merch purchased.

The other two are laughable....more construction cost for no new revenue? 500 mil to "further the magic"?

I commented on the fantasy land expansion....how about their last endeavour...midway mania. gee...that was a nice gift to us, the fans. except we gave them several BILLIONS of merchandise revenue on Toy Story 3 and the product this year alone. They play us like a fiddle. lambs to the slaughter.

OK...i'm rough, and harsh...and slightly sarcastic. But honestly...am i that far out? can you say i'm wrong?
maybe...but it should take alot of pondering even if you do come to that decision.

Can't wait to see my 3 year old have his picture with his finger up his nose on a fiberglass facade infront of a brazillian tour group...with a limited edition collectible portrait/ frame that can be purchased from Exposition hall for a mere $44.95

I wish i had guts...i wish we all had guts...and started to withhold our money until some of these trends reversed:

A. streamlined, mass produced/ mass imported chinese merchandise that is cheaply made and has no specialization or quality to it. (pretty soon i think they won't even bother printing the "2010" on the tshirts when they think they'll be able to get away with just selling 5 colors of the same screen print year after year...think of the savings!)
B. Streamlined menu, overbooked restaurants that are about squeezing blood from the rocks as a revenue source instead of being viewed as an experience that is part of the park
C. taking things offline and never replacing them...allowing decay...not correcting mistakes or seeing a vision through (examples are numerous...but the space mountain "rehab" and a largely abandoned carousel of progress fits perfectly)
D. saying "in these difficult times" at every public speaking opportunity...yet increasing all prices by 4 or so percent twice a year...annually

But i know i won't do it....and i know nobody else will either

30 days to my next trip

I agree with you 100%, except I have no future plans to visit Disney and have not since 2008. By chance on a business trip I did visit Disneyland last year for a day, but this was not a family vacation.

They have not created anything in the last few years that in my mind competes with other trips I’d like to be taking. While it seems in the past a new attraction came out each year, that stopped after Everest (with the exception of Midway Mania). If they want to have recurring guests spending thousands of dollars each year to visit their parks, they need to step it up. At this point the only thing that has caught my interest in the last couple of years is Harry Potter, and to that point I may choose to do a weekend trip to Universal and not go to Disney at all. I’m fed up with ticket increases, food increases, etc for very little return. Each of the parks need a serious makeover to bring it up to the times, and this has been neglected decade by decade.

Magic Kingdom – fantasyland expansion – while I’m happy to hear there will be “changes” to the princess domination idea I’m hesitant to believe anything positive will come of this. Why am I inclined to believe that they will only be scaling back on their original plans, and not adding anything to the drawing board?
EPCOT – Future World needs a serious makeover. To look at Walt’s original ideas and compare them to now is depressing. World Showcase (which I love) needs to add new experiences to keep my interest.
MGM or “Hollywood Studios” – Really? Do I even need to comment on this park? I have never spent more than half a day here and the only reason I stay that long is because of Fantasmic.
Animal Kingdom – Keep the expansion and new things coming. It won’t be too long until this park is as out of the times as the rest.

Other Complaints:

Ticket events. What about families that cannot afford these events and still pay full price for park tickets and are forced to leave at 7PM or earlier?

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I agree with you 100%, except I have no future plans to visit Disney and have not since 2008. By chance on a business trip I did visit Disneyland last year for a day, but this was not a family vacation.

They have not created anything in the last few years that in my mind competes with other trips I’d like to be taking. While it seems in the past a new attraction came out each year, that stopped after Everest (with the exception of Midway Mania). If they want to have recurring guests spending thousands of dollars each year to visit their parks, they need to step it up. At this point the only thing that has caught my interest in the last couple of years is Harry Potter, and to that point I may choose to do a weekend trip to Universal and not go to Disney at all. I’m fed up with ticket increases, food increases, etc for very little return. Each of the parks need a serious makeover to bring it up to the times, and this has been neglected decade by decade.

Magic Kingdom – fantasyland expansion – while I’m happy to hear there will be “changes” to the princess domination idea I’m hesitant to believe anything positive will come of this. Why am I inclined to believe that they will only be scaling back on their original plans, and not adding anything to the drawing board?
EPCOT – Future World needs a serious makeover. To look at Walt’s original ideas and compare them to now is depressing. World Showcase (which I love) needs to add new experiences to keep my interest.
MGM or “Hollywood Studios” – Really? Do I even need to comment on this park? I have never spent more than half a day here and the only reason I stay that long is because of Fantasmic.
Animal Kingdom – Keep the expansion and new things coming. It won’t be too long until this park is as out of the times as the rest.

Other Complaints:

Ticket events. What about families that cannot afford these events and still pay full price for park tickets and are forced to leave at 7PM or earlier?

I am in complete agreement with you as well...especially about animal kingdom and mgm...

i still think its a travesty that they won't finish the job there. with MGM i give them a little leeway because they had the production facility originally installed and therefore had some other issues to deal with. Of course, for 10-15 years there is no excuse not to go ahead and get rid of that junk and flesh out the park.
Animal Kingdom is a red alert situation to me as well...they shorted the park originally and its now 12 years into its history with glaring weaknesses. and there is no plans to do anything about it in the next decade. the multiday tickets at WDW hide the problem there...cause people go more often than not (my opinion) because "it's there".

Big problems with that

I find myself compelled to take my 1 and 3 year olds there because i don't want to miss out on that time with them...and based on my parents dying at a relatively young age - i learned the hard way that time is not guaranteed.

But if i were older and more flexible...i don't honestly think i could go there with any frequency as well.

You know what the sad part is: as much as Eisner was off his rocker in the later years...i actually think he held a much higher esteem for the parks than we all (me as an employee for a time) gave him credit for. Sure they boned their recent park endeavours due to money...but at least they didn't sit on their hands and try to just fill the deposit bags. The suit that's in charge is exactly what Eisner once blurted about him: "he's a suit with no imagination (paraphrased)"

I absolutely HATE HATE HATE that disney is publically owned and they expanded into TV...more creativity...less market forecasting is needed.

 

[skier_pete]

Notice that they didn't even mention FLE just proves they have no clue what to due with FLE.

They did mention the Ariel attraction, but I think they only mentioned it in the context of DCA. They really didn't announce anything at all WDW-specific, did they?

There's little to respond to on this thread, since most already have there minds made up how awful WDW has become.

However, I would like to say that there is a simple reason they didn't mention FLE or Ariel coming to MK....this is about 2011 marketing campaign. And neither items will be on-line in 2011. they DID mention Star Tours - which is coming to WDW in 2011.

The only other thing I'll say is - and I'm not pointing to anyone specifically here so don't anyone get all up in my virtual face - I don't wholly understand why people on these boards who seem to hate everything Disney has done in the last 20 years still hang out here? Personally, if I can't stand a product anymore, I ignore it. (See my relationship with the Buffalo Bills...i.e. there is none.) I couldn't spend my time hanging out somewhere just to bash it.

OK, one more...for the record, I still love going to WDW, yet I think putting people's picture on the castle seems pretty stupid. But the LAST time they went to put something on the castle and we all got in an uproar over it was the Christmas lights - which you know what, turned out to be pretty darn awesome. Personally, I think judgement should be reserved until we see how it's implemented.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I'm guilty as charged, Skiier....

but i also laid out my defense in the posts above. Life is a series of picking the "lesser of two evils"

 

[DC7800]

I don't wholly understand why people on these boards who seem to hate everything Disney has done in the last 20 years still hang out here? Personally, if I can't stand a product anymore, I ignore it.

Don't confuse someone being critical of Disney with a hatred of Disney. If anything, just the opposite is true; The persons taking such a critical stance - rather than blindlessly accepting mediocrity from a company which once knew no boundaries - are often the very people who care the most. Disney means something special, and we want the company to uphold its own established standards. Indeed, when people on a Disney discussion board get excited over restroom renovations or new railings around the Epcot fountain, its apparent some people care a bit too much.

I still love going to WDW, yet I think putting people's picture on the castle seems pretty stupid. But the LAST time they went to put something on the castle and we all got in an uproar over it was the Christmas lights - which you know what, turned out to be pretty darn awesome. Personally, I think judgement should be reserved until we see how it's implemented.

Withholding judgement is fair, but based on the sneak preview video posted, the projected images are even more tacky than the idea sounds.

 

[serendipity]

There's little to respond to on this thread, since most already have there minds made up how awful WDW has become.

However, I would like to say that there is a simple reason they didn't mention FLE or Ariel coming to MK....this is about 2011 marketing campaign. And neither items will be on-line in 2011. they DID mention Star Tours - which is coming to WDW in 2011.

The only other thing I'll say is - and I'm not pointing to anyone specifically here so don't anyone get all up in my virtual face - I don't wholly understand why people on these boards who seem to hate everything Disney has done in the last 20 years still hang out here? Personally, if I can't stand a product anymore, I ignore it. (See my relationship with the Buffalo Bills...i.e. there is none.) I couldn't spend my time hanging out somewhere just to bash it.

OK, one more...for the record, I still love going to WDW, yet I think putting people's picture on the castle seems pretty stupid. But the LAST time they went to put something on the castle and we all got in an uproar over it was the Christmas lights - which you know what, turned out to be pretty darn awesome. Personally, I think judgement should be reserved until we see how it's implemented.

No flames here (honest), though I do wish to speak to your point. I do not hate Disney, on the contrary I love Disney, and specifically the Disney I remember of my youth. I am nostalgic for the times where it seemed as though Disney would never stop growing and expanding. I grew up during the years of EPCOT, MGM & Animal Kingdom opening. When Disneyland Paris was announced and brought to the board, and all the way through the Asia expansion. Now, it seems we are at a lull, and I find it extremely disappointing. I hold Disney up to very high standards and maintain exceedingly high expectations of them as a corporation as well as a theme park. While I am not at the point of *hating* Disney, I do hate the new directions (if you could go so far as to say they have had any real direction in the last years) they have taken. I frequent the boards and Disney news always hoping to see a glint of the past advances I had taken for granted in my youth, with false optimism that I cannot help but feel when I hear of these announcements. When all of that hope is thrown back in my face with the big news being “Memories” I lash out a bit, and voice my complaints. I hope that Disney hears them from enough people that they choose to make a change, though the pessimism in me is not holding my breath, that is, until the next announcement.

 

[Figment632]

There's little to respond to on this thread, since most already have there minds made up how awful WDW has become.

However, I would like to say that there is a simple reason they didn't mention FLE or Ariel coming to MK....this is about 2011 marketing campaign. And neither items will be on-line in 2011. they DID mention Star Tours - which is coming to WDW in 2011.

The only other thing I'll say is - and I'm not pointing to anyone specifically here so don't anyone get all up in my virtual face - I don't wholly understand why people on these boards who seem to hate everything Disney has done in the last 20 years still hang out here? Personally, if I can't stand a product anymore, I ignore it. (See my relationship with the Buffalo Bills...i.e. there is none.) I couldn't spend my time hanging out somewhere just to bash it.

OK, one more...for the record, I still love going to WDW, yet I think putting people's picture on the castle seems pretty stupid. But the LAST time they went to put something on the castle and we all got in an uproar over it was the Christmas lights - which you know what, turned out to be pretty darn awesome. Personally, I think judgement should be reserved until we see how it's implemented.

Dont get me wrong WDW as a whole is still the best place to be but Disney is not the most innovative anymore!

 

[Donut23]

There's little to respond to on this thread, since most already have there minds made up how awful WDW has become.

However, I would like to say that there is a simple reason they didn't mention FLE or Ariel coming to MK....this is about 2011 marketing campaign. And neither items will be on-line in 2011. they DID mention Star Tours - which is coming to WDW in 2011.

The only other thing I'll say is - and I'm not pointing to anyone specifically here so don't anyone get all up in my virtual face - I don't wholly understand why people on these boards who seem to hate everything Disney has done in the last 20 years still hang out here? Personally, if I can't stand a product anymore, I ignore it. (See my relationship with the Buffalo Bills...i.e. there is none.) I couldn't spend my time hanging out somewhere just to bash it.

OK, one more...for the record, I still love going to WDW, yet I think putting people's picture on the castle seems pretty stupid. But the LAST time they went to put something on the castle and we all got in an uproar over it was the Christmas lights - which you know what, turned out to be pretty darn awesome. Personally, I think judgement should be reserved until we see how it's implemented.

I'm not going to comment on the "disney haters" comment. That has been covered many times in other threads and I'm just not going to beat a dead horse to explain to those who don't want to understand.

I for one have said from day one...the lights on the castle were a giant step back to when Disney actually created Disney magic. These ideas were what we had become used to from Disney......GOOD ideas. Somehow my head was somewhere leading up to it because I think i found out about the lights a couple days ahead.

I will say, looking at a Plastic Pumba flying around a castle spire....and the giant makeup mirror in front left me cold - tacky bling. Probably more so because of the gold - leaf story of Sleeping Beauty's castle. Back in the day.....when magic was magic....as they sincerely TRIED to create magic.

For those who don't know the story.....I heard this on the Walk in Walt's Footsteps tour at DL.


They were about to begin painting and finishing SB castle at DL in prepartion for opening. Walt went to Roy and told him the spires MUST have gold leaf. Gold leaf was the only thing which would sparkle - even on cloudy days. Gold paint would look dull and that was not acceptable. Roy said something like......."Walt....are you NUTS. Do you know how much gold leaf costs?" In a word....NO!

Walt just waited until Roy left for a trip to NYC....had the gold leaf applied and the spires look fabulous.

 

[Donut23]

No flames here (honest), though I do wish to speak to your point. I do not hate Disney, on the contrary I love Disney, and specifically the Disney I remember of my youth. I am nostalgic for the times where it seemed as though Disney would never stop growing and expanding. I grew up during the years of EPCOT, MGM & Animal Kingdom opening. When Disneyland Paris was announced and brought to the board, and all the way through the Asia expansion. Now, it seems we are at a lull, and I find it extremely disappointing. I hold Disney up to very high standards and maintain exceedingly high expectations of them as a corporation as well as a theme park. While I am not at the point of *hating* Disney, I do hate the new directions (if you could go so far as to say they have had any real direction in the last years) they have taken. I frequent the boards and Disney news always hoping to see a glint of the past advances I had taken for granted in my youth, with false optimism that I cannot help but feel when I hear of these announcements. When all of that hope is thrown back in my face with the big news being “Memories” I lash out a bit, and voice my complaints. I hope that Disney hears them from enough people that they choose to make a change, though the pessimism in me is not holding my breath, that is, until the next announcement.

Bravo

Very well said. Thank you!