Bring back more guest experiences please!!

[ForWhomTheMouseTolls]

Look, I know this is contentious, but there is one thing we can all agree on:

Horizons was the best ride in Epcot history.

This is your good feels moment of the day.

 

[hereforthechurros]

I’d say the BBC is the #1 entertainment company in the world now based upon quality of output.

Now Disney is just another brand holding company which makes money by hawking products based on its brands. There is no company behind those Brands any more. If their market research said you can make more money by using the Marvel brand, All Disney signage would be gone in 24 hours.

I read recently Disney was #1 which took me by surprise. I’ll have to find the source on that. Comcast may even be bigger. But Disney is what, Fortune 4? Sure they aren’t a charity but neither are we, and we’re allowed to expect better where warranted. They had/have enough capital to have handled things differently (better IMO) but instead it was cut/halt/water down everything then ramp back up at a snail’s pace. But guess what? Jokes on me because their gamble to remove the soul from the parks paid off. Demand remains.

Even the 50th, which should be the biggest celebration ever coming out of such an awful time doesn’t feel like anything special to me.

 

[tigger2002]

I’m literally here to watch psychology in action at this point....someone could write a thesis paper on grown adults and their feelings about Disney.

.
Thesis? Coloring book maybe.
.

 

[mshanson3121]

View attachment 579162

You're seriously going to give me nightmares with this crud lol. I put graphing behind me many years ago

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

You're seriously going to give me nightmares with this crud lol. I put graphing behind me many years ago

Sorry about that. My meaning might have been a bit obscure, but I couldn't help but capitalize on the play of words since some of these posts could be labeled similarly to those types of functions.

 

[cgattis]

Sorry about that. My meaning might have been a bit obscure, but I couldn't help but capitalize on the play of words since some of these posts could be labeled similarly to those types of functions.

I’m kinda smirking COS I see what you did there….it’d be a SIN not to. Math humor….heh

 

[RamblingMad]

I read recently Disney was #1 which took me by surprise. I’ll have to find the source on that. Comcast may even be bigger. But Disney is what, Fortune 4? Sure they aren’t a charity but neither are we, and we’re allowed to expect better where warranted. They had/have enough capital to have handled things differently (better IMO) but instead it was cut/halt/water down everything then ramp back up at a snail’s pace. But guess what? Jokes on me because their gamble to remove the soul from the parks paid off. Demand remains.

Even the 50th, which should be the biggest celebration ever coming out of such an awful time doesn’t feel like anything special to me.

It doesn’t have to be special. The reality is that when the parks closed, parents didn’t know what alternatives to do instead. Some tried camping. And over the past year I’ve seen so many camping failures. You don’t go from a Disney hotel to camping and expect everything to work out.

It really boils down to alternatives. Disney really owns the tween and below vacation space. They don’t have a lot of competition.

Right now I’d rather invest in Disney than go to the parks. Let’s see what they look like post COVID.

 

[middlechild]

Off on a tangent there, aren't you?

 

[hereforthechurros]

It doesn’t have to be special. The reality is that when the parks closed, parents didn’t know what alternatives to do instead. Some tried camping. And over the past year I’ve seen so many camping failures. You don’t go from a Disney hotel to camping and expect everything to work out.

It really boils down to alternatives. Disney really owns the tween and below vacation space. They don’t have a lot of competition.

Right now I’d rather invest in Disney than go to the parks. Let’s see what they look like post COVID.

That's an interesting take. I have an eight year old and countless friends with kids and most of them do not vacation at WDW. Or maybe they've been once. Some straight up hate it. My son has been to 25 states and a bunch of national parks and the beach. Never occurred to me people with kids would ONLY vacation at WDW. That's... odd.

Seems Disney has gone out of the way to make other anniversaries special so it's weird that wouldn't care about this one. Wouldn't they have always commanded the kid market and had no competition and therefore any reason to make any of them special? Guess I'm not following.

 

[RamblingMad]

That's an interesting take. I have an eight year old and countless friends with kids and most of them do not vacation at WDW. Or maybe they've been once. Some straight up hate it. My son has been to 25 states and a bunch of national parks and the beach. Never occurred to me people with kids would ONLY vacation at WDW. That's... odd.

Seems Disney has gone out of the way to make other anniversaries special so it's weird that wouldn't care about this one. Wouldn't they have always commanded the kid market and had no competition and therefore any reason to make any of them special? Guess I'm not following.

There are a lot of DVC owners that take their family to WDW every year.

There was a thread in general about what vacation to do other than WDW. Really, Disney has the market cornered on the tween and below demographic for vacations.

 

[ford91exploder]

Look, I know this is contentious, but there is one thing we can all agree on:

Horizons was the best ride in Epcot history.

This is your good feels moment of the day.

Horizons was probably the best ride in Disney history bar none. And it was to be the centerpiece of the space pavilion. I became an engineer largely because of the things that inspired me at EPCOT

 

[ford91exploder]

I read recently Disney was #1 which took me by surprise. I’ll have to find the source on that. Comcast may even be bigger. But Disney is what, Fortune 4? Sure they aren’t a charity but neither are we, and we’re allowed to expect better where warranted. They had/have enough capital to have handled things differently (better IMO) but instead it was cut/halt/water down everything then ramp back up at a snail’s pace. But guess what? Jokes on me because their gamble to remove the soul from the parks paid off. Demand remains.

Even the 50th, which should be the biggest celebration ever coming out of such an awful time doesn’t feel like anything special to me.

Disney is a giant machine running on nostalgic inertia. With their actions that nostalgia is quickly being lost. When the Disney machine runs out of nostalgia what happens then. The core of Disney’s appeal is the ability to share the experiences you had as a child with your children.
Once that ability is lost what then? Uni does ‘ride the movies’ better than Disney

 

[soniam]

Horizons was probably the best ride in Disney history bar none. And it was to be the centerpiece of the space pavilion. I became an engineer largely because of the things that inspired me at EPCOT

Me too, but it was Communicore and SMRT-1 that got me.

 

[RamblingMad]

Disney is a giant machine running on nostalgic inertia. With their actions that nostalgia is quickly being lost. When the Disney machine runs out of nostalgia what happens then. The core of Disney’s appeal is the ability to share the experiences you had as a child with your children.
Once that ability is lost what then? Uni does ‘ride the movies’ better than Disney

But it's really changed a lot. For me WDW peaked in the 90s.

Here's a good comparison:

https://yesterland.com/mk19962016a.html

 

[ford91exploder]

But it's really changed a lot. For me WDW peaked in the 90s.

Here's a good comparison:

https://yesterland.com/mk19962016a.html

Agree, Peak Disney was during the 1990’s. You can mark the end with AK’s opening. I was listening on WRKO the opening day festivities.

 

[RamblingMad]

Agree, Peak Disney was during the 1990’s. You can mark the end with AK’s opening. I was listening on WRKO the opening day festivities.

In terms of the overall experience, I liked WDW best in the 90s. It was also more affordable. And it involved far less planning. And it was right when Disney studios really ramped up their animation with movies like Lion King and Aladdin

I do think Disney cruises have improved since then.

I’m not in love with what they have done with Star Wars. And I’m pretty much burnt out on Marvel. I actually watched Bonfires of the Vanities and Twister last night to get back to how movies used to be.

 

[ford91exploder]

Twister is my all time favorite movie, DW groans when I trot it out. But having done some storm chasing. Note it’s DANGEROUS and should be done in the company of professionals. But done correctly it helps understand the storms and their genesis. We had real time satellite and NEXRAD as well as a couple of weather stations on the vehicle to record local conditions

Superhero flicks can be fun. Example Iron Man the first one is unofficially the MIT official movie because it demonstrates how obsessed creators are and how messy the process can be with systems doing unexpected.

but ‘Splosions are not a substitute for a story. Not only were the early Pixar movies technically groundbreaking the stories were well told

 

[ford91exploder]

In terms of the overall experience, I liked WDW best in the 90s. It was also more affordable. And it involved far less planning. And it was right when Disney studios really ramped up their animation with movies like Lion King and Aladdin

I do think Disney cruises have improved since then.

I’m not in love with what they have done with Star Wars. And I’m pretty much burnt out on Marvel. I actually watched Bonfires of the Vanities and Twister last night to get back to how movies used to be.

DCL was the island of old school Disney quality, and for sure Disney cruises have improved from their beginnings with the ‘Big Red Boat’

we’ll see what DCL brings back in terms of quality if cruising is ever allowed to restart in the US.

 

[RamblingMad]

DCL was the island of old school Disney quality, and for sure Disney cruises have improved from their beginnings with the ‘Big Red Boat’

we’ll see what DCL brings back in terms of quality if cruising is ever allowed to restart in the US.

I think, Disney needs to get more competitive for DCL. The Wish is a big failure in my mind. Unless you're staying in the very best rooms, I don't get the motivation for going on it. However, it has come a long way since the Big Red Boat.

 

[Keyser]

This has been an interesting thread to read. ford91exploder - you remind me a lot of a former member on these DIS boards - Another Voice - who used to post (probably like 10 years ago?) with similar broad ideas to what you're saying. Not sure if those much older posts are archived, but you'd probably find it interesting to read AV's posts from a while back.

<I cut out a big long commentary here about how different people will see things differently...>

I guess the biggest question is really whether Disney is sacrificing long-term quality for short-term gain, and either cutting or upcharging to an extent that the "Disney experience" is lost. I think I and many others are willing to cut them a lot of slack in the short term as we are coming out of the pandemic, and it's a little hard for me to say that anything they are doing at this point is symptomatic of a longer-term issue. But, we were seeing some worrying signs even prior to the pandemic, and if we are looking back a year from now with a list of lots of stuff missing (or being newly upcharged for) and nothing equivalent or better to take its place, that's a problem.

Back to the theme of the thread, I think I'd expect the first things to come back to be more about capacity issues to the extent they can staff them: full restaurants, full theaters, etc. Then next would be the things people "expect" from a Disney trip: fireworks, full shows (including something at night), etc. I even think that character interactions are likely to come back sooner than many people expect. Those are the things that if they don't return, a lot of people are going to feel they've missed out on core aspects of the trip. Housekeeping services I could see going either way, and it will likely mirror national trends more than anything (if major chains stop daily housekeeping long-term, I bet Disney does, also, and vice-versa). I think the real trick will be to see how many of the secondary amenities come back and in what form: these are things like fastpasses, the trams/transportation, secondary activities, etc.