News
 

Light week for news so far:

• Universal Orlando has changed the name of one of its upcoming Epic Universe coasters from “Starfall Racers” to “Stardust Racers” after complaints from a company with the word ‘Starfall’ in its name.
  
• Speaking of Universal, DreamWorks land is open again for guest previews.
  
• Disney filed a notice of commencement for its work on Dinoland at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
  
• Also, Jim: Did you know that vitamin B-12 powder can be used to make beverages glow under ultraviolet light? Just file that away for later.
  
• Disney’s new drone show, Dreams that Soar, had its official debut last week, and Jim, I think the most impressive thing about this show might be the huge crowds at Disney Springs, and on I-4 that stop to see the show.

Surveys

Lucy and others sent in this Universal Orlando survey about musical acts for Halloween Horror Nights houses:

And then the survey asks about these musical artists specifically:

• Doja Cat
• Maluma (a Columbian singer)
• Karol G (another Columbian singer)
• J Balvin (another Columbian singer)
• Peso Pluma (a Mexican singer)
• Snoop Dogg (Wasn’t this literally the plot of “Day Shift”?)
• Lady Gaga
• Dr Dre
• The Weeknd (already had a house?)
• Bad Bunny
• Kendrick Lamar
• Pink Floyd
• Ice Nine Kills (a heavy metal band from Boston)
• Ghost (Swedish heavy metal)
• Metallica
• Eminem

Len says: A couple of thoughts for Universal Orlando: (1) Pink Floyd or Metallica would be fine, but an Iron Maiden house pretty much writes itself:

• An English fighter pilot is shot down during World War II, is captured by the Germans, sees the horrors of the Third Reich, and has to escape.

• Of course it opens with “Aces High”
• He sees the inside of a German prison to “Children of the Damned” abd “The Prisoner”
• He’s sentenced to death by the Nazis and as he awaits his fate the song is “Hallowed Be Thy Name”
• But he escapes at the last second and goes into the forest to hide, where he sees the Nazis all fascinated by the occult. The songs is “Number of the Beast”
• House ends with “Run to the Hills”

(2) If you want to get really weird, imagine a Halloween Horror Nights house with The Wiggles. Like, one room is just people strapped to chairs being force-fed, to the tune of “Fruit Salad, Yummy Yummy”, which, not to put too fine a point on it, already contains the lyrics “Chop up some melons.” Guys, it’s right there in front of you.

Listener Emails

From Bruce from Brooklyn:

I have been getting ADR's since the dining plan first came out back in 2005.  I pretty much went yearly and always had ADR issues.  For popular places like Be Our Guest I was lucky to get something within 3 hours of when I wanted to eat.

Even as late as September 2023, ADR's were hard to get.  

My next trip is early July.  The first morning i was able to book, i saw something that i never saw.... just about every time was

available to book.  Someone said Disney did something to help prevent bots taking all reservations.  Do you know if that is true?  Or what changed?

Len says: Yeah, this is interesting. We’re recording this on Friday, and today I checked Disney’s website for dinner reservations for later today for a party of 4. Every theme park restaurant still had tables available. Now, for one of them - Cinderella’s Royal Table - that table wasn’t until 10 pm. But every restaurant had … something.

Even Oga’s Cantina had multiple, convenient times available.

This could be a couple of things:

1. We’re in the weird in-between with Memorial Day just past us, and Summer Vacation not yet started. So I checked for the first week of summer vacation, including Saturday, June 8 and Monday, June 10. Same thing. Every restaurant had availability.
   
2. A lot of places have the same menu for lunch and dinner now, so you get the same experience in the middle of the day without having to stay all night.

On last week’s show I asked about the odd location of the Treasures of Xandar gift shop at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind. And the best explanation I heard was from Abigail, who said Disney might have been concerned about people throwing up on the merchandise. So that’s interesting. We also heard from Imagineers who designed the ride, but that discussion can’t be talked about right now. And in regards to my idea to turn it into a bar, Sean sent in this:

Two words for the Treasures of Xandar speakeasy idea: Groot Beer.

From Jen:

I’d like to hear from you the history of rope drop. When and at which park was a rope first used? What other opening strategies have been used? How has opening evolved and differed at various parks? Thanks!

Jim, that’s a fun idea. I wonder if early Disneyland crowds were just as competitive as modern people.

From Nick,

Maybe a year or so ago I heard you and Jim mention a road upgrade budget that was already proposed and approved for the Reedy Creek Improvement District. There was one year that had a rather larger budget with road expansions to a specific area. I don’t remember what area it was but I immediately thought the only reason to have  a road expansion is if there was going to be more traffic to that area maybe with a new park. Did you look into where the road expansion is going to be and is there any area in that area that could be developed?

Len says: Nick has good timing, because the Central Florida Tourism Oversight Board just put out its proposal for a new Developer Agreement, which has its first public hearing this week.

That new agreement includes $100MM for immediate use in roadwork. And it looks like the projects are the same or substantially similar in this Developer Agreement as the ones Disney proposed with Reedy Creek:

Both docs have these projects:

• World Drive North Phase 3
• Western Way and Buena Vista Drive
• Western Way Widening (Assuming that's item 5 above)
  

And I think these are new (or have new names) in the new doc:

• North Buena Vista Drive Bridge Replacements (unless it's part of item 6 above)
• Milling and Resurfacing of portions of Buena Vista Drive and World Drive

I note that the $100M amount just approved is pretty close to the $109MM estimate Disney had last year for roadwork for FYs 2023-2025. I’m not sure if some of that work was postponed due to the ongoing legal dispute, but that’s my assumption.

The rest of the agreement is either the same as what Disney had proposed, or includes “new” information that Disney has already committed to. For example:

• Disney commits to $8B in spending in the next 10 years, and $17B over the next 20. Disney’s already given that $17B number and said it’d be within 10 years. So the CFTOB is asking for less in the short term and giving Disney more time than Disney’s asked for.
• The new developer agreement allows for:
  

• 53,467 hotel rooms, which is 245 more than Disney put in the (now revoked) 2032 plan
• 1,258,564 square feet of office building space, which is ~100,000 sf more than Disney put in the 2032 plan
• 1,732,887 square feet of retail/restaurant space, which is ~700K less than Disney put in the 2032 plan
• 5 “minor” theme parks (read: water parks, ESPN Wide World of Sports, etc) (same as 2032)
• 5 “major” theme parks (read: one more theme park) (same as 2032)

From Matt on our Patreon page:

And from Joe:

On a previous show you mentioned the possibility of a hotel adjacent to the Magic Kingdom. Exactly where would this go and how big could it possibly be? I’m assuming it has to have space for parking, pools, restaurants, and retail. It doesn’t seem like there’s enough room there.

Len says:

The background image below is from the current CFTOB 2032 Comprehensive Plan. Areas in green are suitable for development.

The MK overlay is from Google Maps, scaled to fit the Comprehensive Plan.

To the west of the MK is a piece of land bordered on the west by Floridian Way, and to the east by the storage area for the Electrical Water Pageant.

I've added a red cross to this piece of land. Just the rectangle around that red cross is a piece of land about 1,000' wide by 1,500' high (about 34.5 acres), according to Google Maps. That doesn't count the stubs of land north and south of that box.

For reference below is the Yacht Club. Google Maps says the entire complex minus the docks is no more than 1,000' by 1,000’' (about 24 acres). That includes parking.

IIRC there are around 630 rooms at Yacht Club.

So it seems like this piece of land would be more than enough to host a Yacht Club-sized DVC, with walking access through Adventureland.

Yacht Club is smaller than this:

Research/Patents (use query "disney enterprises".as AND "theme park".ab)

Fireworks at Disneyland – Part One

Last month, when we were talking about Magic Kingdom Golf Course (that miniature golf course which operated at the Disneyland Hotel from 1961 to 1978), we mentioned one of the main reasons Jack Wrather decided to spend a half million dollars on this addition to his Anaheim Resort was because Walt decided to close Disneyland on Mondays & Tuesdays during the off-season starting in the Fall of 1958.

A friend who works in the Disney Archives reached out with an addendum. They wanted to point out that – prior to the Fall of 1958 – Disneyland was closed on Mondays.

They offered up – as proof – this advertisement for Walt’s family fun park which was published in the Los Angeles Times on Monday, July 18, 1955 (This was the day after Disneyland’s grand opening celebration was televised live on ABC. July 18th was the very first day the paying customers could get into this Park).

Anyway … This ad reads:

Disneyland -- Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom -- will officially open on Monday, July 18th, and remain open every day during the summer from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Beginning in the Fall, Disneyland will be closed on Mondays.

Now my friend at the Archives went on to say that -- between 1955 & 1957 – Park managers kept changing their minds about that closed-on-Monday rule. Largely because (I’m quoting directly from their e-mail to me now):

You have to remember that there’d never been a Disneyland before. So Walt and his team down in Anaheim had no idea – on a day-to-day basis – how many people were actually going to show up each morning at park opening. Which made properly staffing the place tough. If not impossible.

Mind you, by the Late Winter / Early Spring of 1957 (with 20 months of operational data now under their belt), the thinking among Disneyland managers was … Well, we now think we know how this place works. More importantly, how Disneyland visitors actually want to use Walt’s family fun park.

Just so you know, Len: At this point in the Park’s history, Disneyland had blown past its 8 millionth visitor (Visitor Number Ten Million – a Leigh Woolfenden -- wouldn’t show up ‘til December 31st of that same year [1957]). And what especially interested Walt is that – of those 8 million visitors to his family fun park – 32% were repeat customers.

So the thinking was … Well, don’t just give these people new things to do. Which Walt did, by the way. In just three months time (i.e., April – June 1957), Disneyland Park opened four new attractions:

·          The Sleeping Beauty Castle Walk-thru

·          The Midget Autopia

·          The Motor Boat Cruise

·          And the Viewliner

But the thinking now was … Well, in addition to those one-out-of-three visitors who are now coming back to experience Disneyland, we want to see if we could maybe increase our profit margins by doing something that might then lure in additional customers on weekend nights.

To be specific: The idea that was being floated here was “Date Nite at Disneyland.” And the managers who ran Disneyland (at this point) had data in hand which showed that – while parents with small kids would arrive at the Park at opening (which – again – was 10 a.m. ) – these same folks would then leave Disneyland at dusk. Largely because it was now verging on their children’s bedtimes.

This often meant that half of Disneyland’s paying customers were bailing out of the place by 6 p.m. daily. Which left seats empty in the Park’s restaurants. Merchandise unsold at Disneyland’s leasees.

But if Disneyland were to institute a “Date Nite” program – which would offer couples discounted admission to Walt’s family fun park starting at 5 p.m. … Well, as the parents with young kids were walking out to their cars, the teenagers would then begin walking into Disneyland … Which then helped mitigate Park’s empty-seats-in-restaurants / unsold-merch problem.

Walt was intrigued by this idea (Which called for extending Disneyland operating hours on Friday & Saturday nights from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. [With the idea here being that any teens who purchased tickets to “Date Nite at Disneyland” and then came through the turnstiles right at 5 p.m. would then have a full eight hours to explore the place]. But Walt being Walt … Well, he wanted to be sure that these teenagers – even though they were paying for discounted admissions material to Disneyland – still got a good value.

So he agreed to give “Date Nite at Disneyland” a try starting in late June of 1957 (The first one was officially held on June 28th of that same year [1957]). But with the understanding that no corners would be cut. That all of the Park’s rides, shows & attractions will remain open right up ‘til 1 a.m. on Friday & Saturday nights.

So they announce the “Date Nite at Disneyland” program. Which – for just $6.50 – covers two admissions to the Park and 10 adventures (This was back when the Park was still using ticket books).

To make sure as many teens as possible knew about this new admission media, the Park promoted “Date Nite at Disneyland” with a radio jingle. Which features these lyrics:

Date Nites are late nights at Disneyland
The sky lights up at 9 each night
Friday and Saturday nights

Want to be sure you caught the important part there. So here’s the tail end of that same radio jingle:

Take your date to Disneyland
Fireworks are great at Disneyland
The sky lights up at 9 each night
Romantic rides in the cool moonlight
We’re under a million twinkling lights
Friday & Saturday

The big news is that “ … fireworks are great at Disneyland.” Because – prior to the launch of “Date Nite at Disneyland” – the sky DID NOT in fact light “ … up at 9 each night.” And that was because Walt’s family fun park (for the first two years of its existence, anyway) didn’t do fireworks.

And why was that? That was largely because Walt initially saw fireworks as … Well, a flash in the pan. By that I mean: You light a sky rocket. It blasts off into the sky. And then – high overhead – it explodes. There’s this brief blast of color, light & noise. But then the money you spent on that firework is gone forever.

To Walt’s way of thinking (especially at this point in Disneyland’s history. When what his family fun park really needed was more rides, shows & attractions) to waste money on fireworks – something that literally went up in smoke – just seemed … Well, wasteful.

But Tommy Walker (the then-head of Entertainment at Disneyland) kept leaning on Walt when it came to fireworks at Disneyland. And one Friday night in April of 1957, after Walt had driven down to Anaheim from Burbank and was planning on settling in upstairs in the Disney family apartment (Which was located upstairs over Disneyland’s firehouse) for a weekend full of work at the Park (It was on this trip that Walt supposedly picked the site for the Grand Canyon Diorama & Disneyland’s “Alice in Wonderland” dark ride. Which would both open at the Park the following year, in late March & Mid-June of 1958 respectively).

Anyway … Walt was met backstage at the firehouse by Tommy Walker & Joe Fowler (who – at that time – was the General Manager of Disneyland). And before Disney could settle in, Walker & Fowler escorted Walt out to a far corner of the parking lot. Which had previously been dirt. But was a mound of sand with all of these tubes sticking up out of it.

It was at this point that Walt was introduced to Bernard Wells, a Brit who was literally a member of pyrotechnics royalty.

Seriously. Bernard was the “Sons” part of Joseph Wells & Sons. The UK-based fireworks company that dated back to the 1830s. More to the point, Joseph Wells & Sons had produced & directed the fireworks displays that had celebrated the coronation of three different British monarchs (i.e., Edward the 8th, George the 6th, and Elizabeth the Second).

Anyway … In 1951, Bernard had a falling out with his father. As a direct result, he then emigrated to the United States and set up his own pyrotechnics company, the Atlas Fireworks Company.

And Tommy Walker? While he was special events director at USC …

Quick aside here: Tommy Walker was hired to be Disneyland’s first entertainment director because – on January 1, 1955 – Walt saw the halftime show that Walker staged at that year’s Rose Bowl game. Immediately after that, Disney sought Walker out and offered him the opportunity to stage Disneyland’s opening ceremony.

Tommy took the job and then hired his own father, Vesey Walker (the then-72-year-old bandmaster) to head Disneyland’s marching band. Mind you, both of the Walkers originally only had two week-long contracts with Disneyland because no one knew if the place was going to succeed or not. But that’s a story for another time.

Okay. Back to Bernard Wells now. Who Tommy Walker had hired to do fireworks displays for USC. So Tommy knew that Bernard was a pro. More to the point, Walker knew that – if he was ever going to convince Walt Disney that fireworks were more than something that just went up in smoke – Tommy needed to show Walt something truly spectacular. And Bernard Wells knew how to deliver spectacular.

So that night – out in a corner of Disneyland’s parking lot – Bernard Wells first fired up a railroad flare. And then – as he walked casually around that sand pile – Bernard periodically lean down and light a wick at the base of a mortar tube. And then a colorful rocket would shoot out of that tube, zoom up into the sky and explode over Disneyland.

Walt watched this five minute-long display. And – after that – said “Okay. Let’s give it a try.”

And with that, fireworks displays at Disneyland were born.

Of course, it’s one thing for Walt to say “Okay.” And it’s quite another for the 125 horses  who then made their home backstage at Disneyland at the Circle D Ranch (was located to the north of Frontierland) to get used to all those fireworks shells exploding overhead on Friday & Saturday nights.

We’ll get to that part of the story – along with how Disneyland dealt with its neighbors in that housing development that grew up quite quickly next to Walt’s family fun park in the 1960s – in the next installment of this series.