What's after 100 years celebration?

[King Triton]

I heard that the 100 years celebration at WDW will be extended to February 2003. What's going to happen after that? Will there be a new celebration? If so, what's the theme and will we see a brand new daytime parade at the Magic Kingdom? Will they keep the same parade after February?

Anyone know?

Thanks.

King Triton

 

[RoutemanDan]

I can't answer your question but just wanted to say that I hope they give the celebrations a rest for a while.It's getting stale having one every year.

 

[Luv2Roam]

We saw a sweatshirt with 75 years of Mickey. So something new is on the horizon.
I think they drug on this 100 years way too long.

 

[Another Voice]

I think the plans are in somewhat of flux right now to the last round of budget cuts and the pending round of budget cuts. There will be a lot of merchandise for Mickey 75, but whether it turns out to be a full-blown “celebration” isn’t clear right now. A lot will probably depend on the Supreme Court. If the early Mickey Mouse cartoons fall into public domain, Disney will definitely not mount a major effort since it will simply convince ever guy with a VHS machine to produce tapes of ‘Steamboat Willie’ and sell them in competition.

The next big celebration that’s set is the 50 Years of Disney’s theme parks shindig that nominally supposed to be for Disneyland’s 50th Anniversary. Rumors say that the current Magic Kingdom parade will be shipped out west (about the only thing “new” planned for Disneyland) and maybe a parade from Tokyo Disneyland will be shipped to Orlando. Things are all dependent on budgets at this point.

 

[Bob O]

I agree with DAN!!!!! rather than a pr caimpaign based around some supposedly big event why not give the parks some TLC THAT THEY ALL NEED!!

 

[cindyfan]

I guess I have to agree with Dan and Bob too.

The "celebrations" are nice....but they just drag on too long!
It seems WDW invests too much into them, instead of investing in some major renovations.
It is always nice to see new parades and such.......but they just got way too carried away with this 100 years thing.

It would be nice to see something small for Mickey's 75th, but just make it simple! Maybe just a new parade, or additions to the current one.
Or bring back the Main Street Electrical Parade and I would be happy!!!!

YES, the parks just need some of the TLC!!

 

[lrodk]

I have heard of a possible theme that would tie-in with Mickey's 75th Birthday(11/18/03). Since past celebrations have usually launched on or around October 1st, I would imagine this celebration would be patterned along the same dateline. Mickey's 75th B-day(if that's what they end up calling it)would have strong marketing support with the cross-promotion of the highly anticipated E-ticket attraction currently slated to open in Epcot next summer(Mission Space), not to mention Mickey's Philharmagic 4D film in Fantasyland at around the same time.

 

[WDW2002]

Originally posted by Another Voice
Rumors say that the current Magic Kingdom parade will be shipped out west

Thank GOODNESS!! Disneyland needs a new parade, the current one is lame at best.

 

[Another Voice]

There are “rumors” that many inside the marketing group consider the whole birthday & anniversary “celebration” trend to be worn out, especially considering the non-response to Walt marketing event. Since there is a huge anniversary celebration on the horizon with Disneyland 50, there are a lot of people arguing they should give those types of special promotions a rest so that 2005 really will be something unique and exciting. And even more to the point, Disney is simply unwilling right now to spend the money on “new” parades and whatnot for the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

 

[DVCDAVE]

I truely don't know, BUT if Ei$ner is gone, they should celebrate his long over due departure !!!!!!!

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

Originally posted by Another Voice
There are “rumors” that many inside the marketing group consider the whole birthday & anniversary “celebration” trend to be worn out, especially considering the non-response to Walt marketing event. Since there is a huge anniversary celebration on the horizon with Disneyland 50, there are a lot of people arguing they should give those types of special promotions a rest so that 2005 really will be something unique and exciting. And even more to the point, Disney is simply unwilling right now to spend the money on “new” parades and whatnot for the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

Makes absolutely PERFECT sense to me. Budget available or not - just give the celebrations a rest for a while. Sometimes the anticipation is better than the actual event. Let the 50 years of theme parks thing be something of merit and not sandwiched between whatever lame celebration Disney thinks they can find....

 

[MelissathePooh]

that's easy - 101 years of magic (technically) and 4 years of drinking! At least that's going to be our badge for the upcoming January Drinking Around the World!

I don't mind the celebrations necessarily as much as the mechandise for them. Everything is marked or dated and its hard to find regular stuff. A few things are okay, but they go overboard with it. It would be nice to have a break - although from what I can remember it just kind of happened that the 25th MK anniversary - Millennium and 100th birthday all came sort of back to back though. The was a break from 1998 until Oct of 1999. (may have been from 97-99 - can't remember).

 

[caseymaureen]

I've heard of one thing waiting in the wings, while it isn't very big, it's still pretty cool. They're planning on doing a little work to Tower of Terror to spice it up a bit. If you ride it in the next few months you'll notice that some of the cars have seatbelts in certain rows instead of the usual lapbars, it's part of the testing. The problem with the lap bars is that if you have one bigger person and two little kids in the row, the lapbar is not going to be holding those kids in very effectively. The seatbelts will fix that and hold each person in correctly, which enables the imagineers to spice up the ride sequence and make everything a little more exciting.

 

[Luv2Roam]

One of our ToT falls thos month was with the seat belts. They are more comfortable than those lap bars.
We put to the test, How High Can a Full Pin Bag Float? (Eye level)

 

[raidermatt]

With the extension of the 100 Years celebration, I'm not expecting anything else of any significance in 2002, unless its for 2003 and starts towards the end of 2002.

Yes, the 100 Years Celebration is dragging on a bit, but to be fair, there were some outside factors that slowed the start of it back in October '01.

Still, I'm sure that if there wasn't still a bunch of 100 Years merchandise to sell, the celebration wouldn't have been extended.

The thing to keep in mind is that a big part of Disney's guests visit no more than once a year, and many every 2+ years, and they don't pay close attention to the goings on like we do. So to them, the celebrations don't drag at all.

Personally, I don't mind them, except when they take a great parade (ToN), and diminish it to fit the Celebration (ToD), and when they take the place of real attraction development. For the most part, the celebrations should be a side dish, not the meat.