Sorry to be so late in jumping aboard, but still have comments.
Just received my Disney Club bulletin saying that after 2003 the Club will be closed. Read it with mixed emotions because over the past couple of years, any advantages to being a member were negligible. ALWAYS looked forward to renewing the membership, because I had hope that were would be new offers to make membership in The Club worth it. That never happened.
On another message board site read that The Hunchback is closed. Since it opened, saw the show AT LEAST three times on each visit. Know that new attractions are needed, but have NEVER been to an empty show there. It was a mini Broadway show.
Don't remember the name of the stage at MGM (age, don't you know,) but it was a show with audience participation in which various television shows were recreated using audience members. LOVED IT. It was replaced for a couple of years with Doug. BIG SNOOZE. This year is was just a giant, empty commercial for ABC's fall line up of shows.
The Back Lot tour was closed this year. Probably forever if Disney's history repeats itself.
Don't know if any of the others of you saw the program featuring Walt and his vision. That's the problem with Disney now, there is no Walt with his vision. The program told how Walt suffered financial hardships because of his dream. The people who run the place now are NOT named Disney so they don't care about the name and what it means (and has meant) to so many of us.
It was a bottom line business with Uncle Walt, too, but it was more. It was about families and fun and making learning (EPCOT) something desirable and not a chore.
Hate to be an Eisner basher.... No, I don't. With him IT'S A BUSINESS you milk for personal financial gain. YOU BLEED EVERY DOLLAR FROM WHEREVER YOU CAN. At this point that blood is coming from the parks.
Would Walt have felt it necessary to build a broadcast empire on the back of his dream? I don't think so. Would Eisner spend his last dollar to realize his dreams? Dreams that dealt with other people, strangers, the public? Definitely not.
The MAGIC is being drained from the Disney experience for me.
It's not the big things. It's the little things they keep chipping away at. Have been a Disneyphile for over 10 years. Not long compared to some, but a lifetime to others.
The suits are continually eroding the Disney experience until there will be nothing left for people to WANT to experience. The attendance figures don't reflect it, but I would guess that the majority of visitors to Disney are NOT first timers. It's us repeat customers who know that the Orlando area is one of the best in the world to visit with family (and I've traveled all over the world.) Las Vegas doesn't do it. Europe doesn't do it. South America doesn't do it. The Caribbean doesn't do it. ORLANDO does it.
We can complain and voice our disappointment as much as we want about what is going on with Disney parks, but until the shareholders complain and withdraw (that's who Eisner is courting, not the park attendees) and they realize the importance of the parks to their bottoms lines, then MAYBE, the suits will listen and give us back the MAGIC.
POPSICLE
