Rumors of Light (ROL discussion thread)

[disneymath]

@KateP85 ... what a cutie!

 

[Delgado]

We experienced animal kingdom tonight. Ill try tomorrow. Hint...I'm left very confused.

 

[dachsie]

OMG! He is so cute! Looks like a happy little guy. Happy 2 month b-day baby ROLf!

 

[figmentfan423]

View attachment 172065

He's beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! give little ROLF a hug from me

 

[elmoandzoey]

@KateP85 Little RoLF looks absolutely adorable! And so big already - we're still here talking ROL

 

[HopperFan]

@KateP85 Little RoLF looks absolutely adorable! And so big already - we're still here talking ROL

Let's hope they roll it out in celebration of his first birthday!

 

[antman]

happy Memorial Day folks. My may trip is in the books, got back last Sunday. It was great but doing 2 nights at HS for Star Wars stuff made up for the lack of AK evening stuff. Prepping for my October trip and I don't see any evening hours at AK, it still shows closing at 5. Any idea when they will update the hours to reflect the evening/night time events? I've missed about 50 pages of posts so if a similar topic was already discussed I apologize.

 

[jlundeen]

happy Memorial Day folks. My may trip is in the books, got back last Sunday. It was great but doing 2 nights at HS for Star Wars stuff made up for the lack of AK evening stuff. Prepping for my October trip and I don't see any evening hours at AK, it still shows closing at 5. Any idea when they will update the hours to reflect the evening/night time events? I've missed about 50 pages of posts so if a similar topic was already discussed I apologize.

glad you had a great trip. We really enjoyed the Star Wars stuff in HS during our April trip, too!

I'm also waiting for the updates for AK and HS park hours for late fall...our trip is right after Thanksgiving, so hopefully the Christmas decorations will be complete, but the crowds won't be too bad yet.

I suspect that they won't update AK hours until they can figure out ROL...sure hope they get it up and running by fall! Not all that interested in the JB show.

 

[HopperFan]

It may not be Rivers of Light but at least the new mugs are not a Rumor ... now where are the Lotus light up popcorn buckets?!?!

Derek Burgan ‏@derekburgan 4 hours ago
Animal Kingdom debuted new souvenir cups, one which folds like an accordion and both "flicker" with lights. #blessed

WHEREFORE ART THOU?

 

[KateP85]

Let's hope they roll it out in celebration of his first birthday!

I think that's optimistic...

Thanks for the kind words, he is indeed a happy baby...as long as he's being cuddled or fed or in some other way given lots of attention. Putting him down and walking away has led to screaming that had the neighbors from across the street on the phone to see what was wrong!

From what I hear from my friend working on RoL, things are progressing slooooooowly. She said by the time she's done working on this she'll never want to see the show or hear the words Rivers of Light again. She also said a different team put together the JB show, and she thought it was a good show, just not a great replacement for RoL. She also said the barges used in the JB show came from Fantasmic in California (since that's closed at the moment) and they're driven by a person as opposed to the GPS controlled barges used in RoL. I thought that was interesting.

 

[HopperFan]

From what I hear from my friend working on RoL, things are progressing slooooooowly. She said by the time she's done working on this she'll never want to see the show or hear the words Rivers of Light again. She also said a different team put together the JB show, and she thought it was a good show, just not a great replacement for RoL. She also said the barges used in the JB show came from Fantasmic in California (since that's closed at the moment) and they're driven by a person as opposed to the GPS controlled barges used in RoL. I thought that was interesting.

When I first saw the backdrop barges I said "they stole the sets out of Small World to make an Agrabah set" - you know for all the people that were in Jungle Book story .....

Then the first show I watched it live and when the barge came out and I said "that is the barges from Fantasmic" and alas they are.

And way too many other issues. I would have rather them do nothing there and focus their resources on getting RoL running. Kinda like opening Soarin' with the old movie only to have constant issues and lines hours long ......... for three weeks .... why? Doing something right to begin with is always a better option.

GPS is old technology, it's not rocket science, it should have been worked out and running fine before 2016 even arrived. The fact that it runs once through and "then has problems" is highly suspicious. So GPS works, but only once..... If it is the reason (and I'm not convinced) then by now they should have adjusted those floats to be operated manually and on with the show by summer. Clearly in all this time they were not capable of utilizing GPS properly. Since rumors are September at earliest but some saying December or no end in sight ........ why? The money spent on Jungle Book would have been better spent on the floats to make them operable. I just don't believe it. Disney has been in the business a long time, has great designers and engineering on staff and at their fingertips with multiple subcontractors .... this excuse makes no sense.

Jungle Book show has many problems! and some will affect RoL if it ever happens ..........
- Loading/unloading of that venue apparently was planned by no one. What a cluster.
- The water screens are not working right, they don't touch in middle so the screen breaks and many projections fall into the abyss.
- And hopefully there is a plan for a 2 sided show (this is not Fantasmic) because from reviews it seems the best seats in the house for JB may be on the bridge.

 

[Aliceacc]

This probably won't be a popular point of view.

But it's just one show. It's not going to make or break our vacation, merely an add on that we had the opportunity to take advantage of.

If it's wonderful, then great.

It it's less than wonderful, we'll get a chuckle out of it and go back to the resort.

I really, really look forward to our WDW vacations. But no one show, or attraction, or anything really "makes" the vacation.

I'll be there with my husband and my kids, wrapped in the Disney bubble. And we'll have vacation memories to cherish, whether the Jungle Book show is a hit or a miss.

 

[ErinF]

I would have rather them do nothing there and focus their resources on getting RoL running. Kinda like opening Soarin' with the old movie only to have constant issues and lines hours long ......... for three weeks .... why? Doing something right to begin with is always a better option.

I'm happy for there to be something there (i.e. Jungle Book show). And I'm also glad to get to see old Soarin' on my upcoming trip, June 4-13. We are just missing the opening of the new movie, and the opening of FEA, and the new Star Wars fireworks, etc. We only get to go to WDW every couple of years, so it's a bigger deal for us to be able to see something rather than nothing. I think since you get to go much more frequently, you are forgetting about the families who can't go as often.

 

[HopperFan]

I'm happy for there to be something there (i.e. Jungle Book show). And I'm also glad to get to see old Soarin' on my upcoming trip, June 4-13. We are just missing the opening of the new movie, and the opening of FEA, and the new Star Wars fireworks, etc. We only get to go to WDW every couple of years, so it's a bigger deal for us to be able to see something rather than nothing. I think since you get to go much more frequently, you are forgetting about the families who can't go as often.

The issue with Soarin' is there are clearly issues. At one point standby posted 3 hours and FP was taking 1 hour. Worse than pre-renovation. That's a lot of wasted time for the guest who doesn't get there often and is why frustration and hostility begin. My DD worked there and with much shorter waits saw the ugliness in guests. Guests with shorter waits who had no issue attacking CMs. Disney needs to open when ready for a smooth operation.

Jungle Book is a bandaid that is delaying the real show. As a stockholder more than a guest it makes me mad to see my stock continue to drop as they continue to spend money on a Disney-inferior products. There is way more to do at Disney than any average guest can get done so I don't think adding something where nothing existed before is needed. It's already been said by many that you don't have enough time in a evening to experience all the AK nighttime offerings as it is.

Yes I go often but it wasn't always that way. And I'm not local so my trips are costly. I understand wanting to do lots but I also know there is no way to do it all, so things will always be missed.

 

[KateP85]

When I first saw the backdrop barges I said "they stole the sets out of Small World to make an Agrabah set" - you know for all the people that were in Jungle Book story .....

Then the first show I watched it live and when the barge came out and I said "that is the barges from Fantasmic" and alas they are.

And way too many other issues. I would have rather them do nothing there and focus their resources on getting RoL running. Kinda like opening Soarin' with the old movie only to have constant issues and lines hours long ......... for three weeks .... why? Doing something right to begin with is always a better option.

GPS is old technology, it's not rocket science, it should have been worked out and running fine before 2016 even arrived. The fact that it runs once through and "then has problems" is highly suspicious. So GPS works, but only once..... If it is the reason (and I'm not convinced) then by now they should have adjusted those floats to be operated manually and on with the show by summer. Clearly in all this time they were not capable of utilizing GPS properly. Since rumors are September at earliest but some saying December or no end in sight ........ why? The money spent on Jungle Book would have been better spent on the floats to make them operable. I just don't believe it. Disney has been in the business a long time, has great designers and engineering on staff and at their fingertips with multiple subcontractors .... this excuse makes no sense.

Jungle Book show has many problems! and some will affect RoL if it ever happens ..........
- Loading/unloading of that venue apparently was planned by no one. What a cluster.
- The water screens are not working right, they don't touch in middle so the screen breaks and many projections fall into the abyss.
- And hopefully there is a plan for a 2 sided show (this is not Fantasmic) because from reviews it seems the best seats in the house for JB may be on the bridge.

See if nothing else, I hope they're using this time with the JB show to figure out how to fix the things they can fix - loading and unloading the theatre for one. Although I've also heard the seating is less than ideal (uncomfortable and too close to the row in front) and that's not fixable.

I heard that GPS was the issue, combined with electrical problems. I have to assume there's more to it than that because it's taking so long to fix. I got the impression from my friend that they had been shooting for the summer to open but that's not going to happen now.

I do think it's a shame, people (me included) were SO excited for the nighttime stuff at AK and it's fallen flat. I hope when RoL does open up it is as amazing as I thought it was going to be.

 

[Melissa_E]

these mugs are SO cool!!!

 

[HopperFan]

these mugs are SO cool!!!

RIGHT?!? I want to go down just to get them. If that lotus popcorn bucket shows up I may have to do a road trip.

 

[HopperFan]

NOW, new billboards are going up on the highways "Alive with Magic" ... no reference to the Jungle Book but a prominent Tree of Life. Is "Alive with Magic" now an overall Animal Kingdom tag? Is Rivers of Light truly more a Rumor of Light? Do you think that when Jungle Book passes in a few months that we could instead be looking at something like "Finding Dory: Alive with Magic" or "Pete's Dragon: Alive with Magic" ... you could even use Moana as that part of the world would be a refreshing addition.

We actually got the project manager for AK expansion at our recent dining with an imagineer dinner. He said the Jungle Book show was temporary but that they had many shows they could put on using the Rivers of Light theater (apparently it doesn't have any other name yet) until ROL (the show) was ready to go.

So maybe the idea of there being more "Alive with Magic" shows in the pipeline are not so far fetched .... and who knows when RoL will ever start up. Have had experience with Dining with Imagineer, they bring high level CMs who are well in the know.

 

[nari]

not good reviews anywhere about the new show im keeping my reservation in case the ROL comes live before sept but not 100% sure... If not then i might just change the reservation to something else.

Has anyone confirmed whether the DP are included for Tiffins and TH?


Cool mugs!

 

[jlundeen]

yes, dining packages are available at both - use the DINING reservation system on the web or app to book.