News
 

WEEK OF APRIL 22:

• Michelin awards for Florida
• Cover EU’s moderate resort announcements
• Cover HHN dates

• Every show should begin with a round of self-congratulations
• But before the congratulations, a correction of sorts:
  On last week’s show where we were talking about the dark-boat-ride concept coming to Dinoland in Animal Kingdom, I read out some box office numbers to support my theory that although the concept are shows Moana as the them, Moana didn’t do as well at the box office as Encanto, so Encanto might be the more logical choice because it was more popular.

• And I was informed later, by someone who would know, the interesting fact that since Moana has been on Disney+, it’s never left the top 5 most-streamed titles. So I don’t know what I was thinking about Encanto, Jim - Moana is a wonderful choice for this part of the park.
  
  On to the congratulations:
• On several shows this year, starting with the January 1 show, we mentioned instances of what looked like questionable DAS usage in the parks, both from counting the number of people getting into lines and watching the occasional incident here or there. And we said we wouldn’t be surprised to see some changes.
• Last Tuesday Disney announced major changes to its DAS program.

• The biggest changes:

• Disney is returning back to the program’s original target population, those with developmental disabilities that prevent them from waiting in line.
• Moves to a third-party verification company, who’ll do live video chats with you to determine the appropriate accommodation

• Schedule those up to 120 days in advance, up from 60 now

• And the new program is good for 120 days, double the current length

• If you show up at the parks, you’ll be able to use a small room near Guest Relations to have that video chat.

• A major source of DAS use is from people who say gastrointestinal issues cause them not to be able to wait in long lines - they have to go to the bathroom too frequently to wait in line.
• Disney is addressing this by modifying the standby queues at some unspecified attractions to add a ‘return to your place in line’ feature.
• Designed for a maximum group size of 4, or your “immediate family”, whichever is larger.

• Stays the same:

• The way you’ll use MDE to set return times while you’re in the parks

• Takes effect May 20, 2024in WDW, June 17 in Disneyland

• If you’ve already registered under the current process and your trip is before then, you don’t have to do anything.

• I would expect more details around the very, very specific steps here, to come out soon.
  
• Let me say this: I know a lot of people have a legitimate need for this service, either for themselves, their children, or their parents.

• Disney knows the demographics of the groups most likely to abuse this system. You are not the droids they’re looking for.
• Change is hard and scary. I really don’t think this new process is going to be substantially different for the vast majority of people.
• Disney has thousands of Cast Members who are disabled or who have family members that are disabled. If you told me this new policy went through 25 rounds of internal review and testing before we heard about it, I would believe that.
• And you’ll wait less in line when you’re done.
  

• Here’s why Disney had to make this change:

DAS abuse has gotten out of hand. Disney’s unlikely to give actual numbers on it, but we can piece together some things:

In this 2020 lawsuit about ADA accommodation at its parks, the court found this data from Disney persuasive (emphasis mine):

In a two-week study conducted by Disney's Industrial Engineering team in April 2013, the team found that GAC pass usage at five of the most popular attractions at Disney (the "GAC Study") was much higher than the percentage of guests in the park who held a GAC pass.

At that time, approximately 3.3% of guests at Disney used a GAC pass, yet the percentage of guests on the most popular rides who had a GAC pass and entered through the FastPass line was significantly higher than 3.3%.

The GAC Study showed that 11% of riders on Space Mountain, 13% of riders on Splash Mountain, and 30% on Toy Story Mania used a GAC pass to access the ride.

Disney's industrial engineers concluded that the small portion of the guest population who held GAC pass was consuming a substantial portion of the ride capacity.

For example, guests with a GAC pass were riding Toy Story Mania an average of ten times more than guests who did not have a GAC pass.

Cite: A.L. v. Walt Disney Parks & Resorts US, Inc., 469 F. Supp. 3d 1280, 1294 (M.D. Fla. 2020). The quote above is on the right-hand side of page 9.

Disney said yesterday that use of the system has tripled in the last 5 years. (Second cite here.)

The DAS system allows the guests qualifying for DAS to bring up to 5 other people on the ride with them. And that’s a really big multiplier effect for every instance of abuse.

Multiplying the previous numbers by 2.5 (and not 3, just to be conservative) to account for that increase, an initial ballpark estimate gives us this:

• 8-9% of guests with DAS cards, and their group, are taking up to 75% of the seats on popular rides.

That is in line with the data we’ve collected by counting the number of people getting in the different kinds of lines at Disney’s rides last year and this year.

The problem with that, of course, is that people who legitimately need the accommodation are waiting in line longer than they should, because of abuse. And remember that, because that’s an important justification for this change.

(It also means that non-DAS users who paid for Genie+ and ILL are waiting longer than they should, as well as everyone in the standby line.)

Not for nothing: I haven’t talked to anyone internally about this, but I would bet money that they looked at the upward trend in DAS use, looked at the June opening of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, and were scared that pretty close to 100% of the Lightning Lane capacity for Tiana’s would have to be allocated to DAS. That would’ve shut out basically everyone else in the park from using Lightning Lane. And the ADA guidelines are guidelines, not a suicide pact.

Speaking of ADA guidelines, Jim, would you like to hear some interesting hypotheticals I came up with about how Disney might have ensured this new policy comports with ADA guidelines?

Hypothetically - and I'm just spitballing here because what do I know about anything? - What if when Ticketmaster was sued by Taylor Swift fans in 2022 for not doing enough to prevent bots from buying ADA-designated tickets, Ticketmaster went to the US Department of Justice and said "I thought we couldn't require documentation here. What are we supposed to do?"

And what if - again, hypothetically, because I am definitely not a lawyer - the DOJ said "Hey Ticketmaster, you should totally read the section marked Prevention of Fraud in Purchase of Tickets for Accessible Venues on our ADA Requirements, last updated on February 28, 2020."

And what if Ticketmaster said "Could we get some guidance on what you mean when you say 'venues ... may take steps to prevent the fraudulent sale and use of accessible seating?"

Now if the DOJ came back and said something like "As long as you have substantial evidence of abuse, e.g., something that shows that people who legitimately need accommodation are being negatively affected by fraud, and you can show that you're doing it in a minimally intrusive way that gets the job done, you can ask more questions as long as the end result is that the aforementioned people who legitimately need accommodation are better off." In way more expensive lawyer-speak, of course.

Hypothetically, if I was a theme park operator with a small army of lawyers, I might approach the DOJ by saying "You know, a day in a theme park is a kinda like a Taylor Swift concert. There's limited seating capacity per day, and you want to make sure the special seats go to those who actually need them. Would you agree?"

Now suppose the DOJ was like, "You have proof of this abuse?"

And if I ran that theme park and could say "Oh god, untold staff-hours counting people in line. Population analyses to make the Census Bureau weep with joy. Disks full of social media posts from click-chasers explaining what they said to get a free Lennyland skip-the-lennyline pass, but the next day filmed themselves sweating in a yurt doing yoga poses in the desert for three hours. Like that? Because this is like 75% of our special line sometimes. No cap."

In that case, the DOJ might say you can proceed with your additional questions.

• One last thing on this for anyone who owns Disney stock.  I was on a call with … someone … going through the likely impacts of this change. And the thought occurred to me that if almost 4 out of 5 people in the Lightning Lane lines for the popular attractions aren’t paying for it, then a ton of the extra revenue Parks & Resort has seen over the last few years has come from just 1 in 5 guests in each Lightning Lane line paying for it.
• And that means that if these new DAS rules can convince just 1 in 4 DAS users to switch to paying for Genie+, Disney basically doubles the money it’s making from Lightning Lane.

• So when I was on this call with … someone … and I said “Okay, so the numbers indicate that people who really need DAS are being harmed by waiting in line longer than they should, and these changes will fulfill the intent of the ADA guidelines, so on that alone you should make these changes.” And they said “Yes, that’s what we’re trying to do here.” And I said “So the extra billion dollars in profit is just a byproduct you’ll have to live with?”
• And then we both laughed and laughed and laughed until we choked.  Honest to god, I’ve never heard anyone in their position laugh that hard in my life.
  

• 1900 Park Fare has re-opened. Went with Christina and our friend Steve on Tuesday.
  

• New Location – moved from the main lobby entrance to just next to the entrance to Grand Flo Café on the 1st floor.
• 1 TS Credit on the dining plan
• $54 for adults, $34 for kids
• NO DISCOUNTS
• Entire premise is on wishing. You will be greeted as a “Wish Maker” and each character will be focused on talking to you about wishes. There is a wish ceremony much like the friendship day parade at crystal palace where you’ll be encouraged to hold up your wish card as Jiminy Cricket narrates the process.
• Characters:

• Prince Ali – said that he didn’t become a Prince because the Genie made him one, he became a Prince because of his true heart.

• We got a question from Bethanee who asked “Is this the first Prince to appear at a character meal?” And I believe Prince Charming was a character also at 1900 PF in 2009.

• Cinderella – in her usual blue gown but she took time to show us her slipper, with a giant diamond on it. And I was with Christina, who only had to be slightly restrained from saying “Put that ankle away, harlot.”
• Mirabel – adorable. She was our favorite and you’ll probably see her twirling and dancing around the dining room. Sprightly and perky and totally focused on the guests.
• Tiana in a sweet safari outfit. She’s going out hunting for new spices.

• Also, Tiana canonically knows about Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.
• And this led to a really interesting discussion about Tiana in Frontierland. Because Tiana is set in the 1920s, she knows about Tom Sawyer’s Island, because TS was written in 1876.

• Likewise, Tiana knows about all of Frontierland, because everything else in the land happened before 1895. So if you want to feel old, Tiana knows about Frontierland what we know today about the year 1990. Jim, let me just Google Maps real quick the nearest cliff I can fling myself off of.

• We know that when the princesses are together, they’re aware that the other princesses live in other “kingdoms”.
• So what do the other residents of Frontierland know about Tiana? Do they know
  

• Buffet / breakfast – just to start, we’re going to say that this is our favorite character meal foodwise. We would pay the asking price just for the food and here are a few reasons why:

• THE FIRST THING THEY TELL YOU WHEN YOU SIT DOWN IS THAT THERE’S A FULL BAR.

• Chrissy ordered 3 or 4 drinks, hence the comments to Cinderella.

• Compart Duroc Whole Bone in Ham – this is at the carving station in the middle of the very clean buffet station. It is cooked with scored skin on for several hours each morning and it’s a real life version of something that should be the star of a WhoFeast or some medieval banquet. It tastes better than it looks.
• Spiced Tofu Scramble with Veg- this dish could easily be a star at Boma. Packed with just cooked veg so everything still retains its ideal color, crunch, and “” value – if that sort of thing is important to you. The best part is that it’s truly tasty.
• Guava and cream cheese Danish – a nod to Mirabel, this is the most delightful way to introduce a potentially new fruit to picky eaters. It’s a more mellow sweetness and the caramelization around the edges of the beautiful lamination combined with the fact that some pastry genius found the most ideal thickness makes this our new favorite breakfast dessert. Any thinner and it would have been just crunchy caramel and the fruit would have cooked out or been superfluous. Any thicker and it would have been a cinnamon roll consistency and wouldn’t have been as special. Love.
• Croissant breakfast pizza – smoky bacon, eggs, and a sausage gravy “sauce” on layers and layers of crispy, buttery puffed pastry. We’re making this at home on a lazy weekend.
• Beef and potato hash – that name really lacks the snazziness that this dish has. Spoon a few dollops of hunters bbq sauce on the side and good googly moogly. This dish and the tofu scramble are going to be gold for folks like us who don’t always run to traditional breakfast foods in the morning.
• Bread Pudding with Vanilla Crème Anglaise Just sweet and fluffy and sticky- all in the best way. All breakfast should end with dessert like this.
• Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread – we’ve said this before but we don’t often need to take too many notes when we try new food – we just look at our camera roll. We have more pictures and video of this delight than we do some close relatives. That gloss is just pure joy.

• It's important to remember that the culinary team responsible for this menu includes the same folks who brought us the spectacular food-as-art menu served on the Galactic Starcruiser.

• Oh, and speaking of the Starcruiser food. I said, JIM, SPEAKING OF THE STARCRUISER FOOD, did you know it took the Food Lab people three years to develop the translucent fruit served on the Starcruiser?

• I told the Food Lab people that I was on the very first Starcruiser voyage, saw the translucent fruit within the first hour I was there, and the knowledge that someone could actually do that was worth the $5000 alone.

• Photos:
  

Surveys

Listener Questions

Lots of people wrote in about the DAS changes that we just discussed. Here’s some perspective from our listeners, starting with Victoria:

First of all, yes there is abuse of the DAS system. I think everyone knows that. However a lot of this situation seems to be of Disney’s own making. They are citing the fact that DAS usage has tripled over the last 5 years. Are they truly ignoring the fact that if you include covid closures, that increase almost directly correlates with the introduction of Genie+? So doesn’t it make sense that people are abusing the DAS more because Genie+ is expensive, not user friendly and can barely get you on 2 rides on a busy day?

My family member has multiple conditions that will still quality us for the DAS, so I’m not worried for us but under this new wording a lot of people who previously qualified will not. So Disney is basically punishing the disabled community because their alternative doesn’t work.

I’m also not sure how this is going to function if they don’t thoroughly train CMs. The online registration varies a lot based on your CM. A lot of people in the community are concerned that they may be viewed as “not disabled enough”. This also seems to require a more in depth screening call which will take more time. I registered for the DAS virtually on 3/12/24 and waited over 2 hours.

A lot of us are going through a range of emotions over this. While I do agree the system can be improved, the vague info Disney shared seems to have caused more panic than comfort to the disability community.

And Mike from Edmonton writes:

The big point of personal interest with this update is Disney's reporting last year that DAS use has tripled over the previous five years. I'm guessing the increase came from number of a societal factors, as well as some brought by Disney themselves:

1) I've heard of a number of people who discovered through social media they shared characteristics of disability or Neuroatypicality from it, and used that information to get a diagnosis. Quite a few people have said how much easier their life would have been if they were diagnosed with they were 14, instead of 40. [Note to Mike: I got diagnosed in my 40s and I agree my life would’ve been easier had I been diagnosed as a kid.]

2) Let's not forget the pandemic did quite a number on the bodies of quite a few unlucky people. And I won't mention the high cost of healthcare may affect people's healing process, cause then it'll start getting real depressing.

3) Speaking of depressing, have I mentioned the economy? Spending power is down, and Disney prices just keep going up. What might have been a family annual/semi-annual/once-every-seven-years has now been priced into a once in a lifetime vacation. So someone who might not have bothered out of embarrassment some years ago might have DAS become a necessity. Cause if they bail out after 3 hours in the Magic Kingdom, there might not ever be a next time to make up for it.

4) Even though Disney has gutted most of the perks of the system, the idea of not having to physically wait in line is still pretty enticing. And I blame this on Lightning Lanes and Disney's "Oops all E-Ticket" development approach to inflate the line well beyond what would have been reasonable.

Now to clarify, I won't deny there's con-men cheating their way into the system at the detriment of everyone. But ultimately, if Disney makes it pretty difficult to enjoy the parks, and they have a system to make it easier, they shouldn't be surprised a lot of people want to use it. Although the increase in amount of people who could validly use it may be out of their hands, most of the motivating factors as to why they'd use it certainly are.

Last one, from Eric:

Over-inflated wait times have been mostly attributed to Genie+/ILL sales pushing, but thinking through the recent DAS changes in response to abuse, I’m wondering the over-inflated wait times we’ve seen the last couple of years can also be linked back to DAS abuse, at least in part. Artificially increasing a posted wait times would also increase the DAS virtual wait time and decrease the DAS usage rate, especially in aggregate.

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

Disney Dish – Feature for April 8, 2024
Walt Disney World’s version of
Tomorrowland – Part 2 of 2

Where we left off:

After that, it would be nearly six months before a third attraction finally came online in WDW’s version of Tomorrowland. And that was “If You Had Wings,” which then began operations on June 5, 1972.

And after that … There was this more-than-two-year-long pause before other attractions came online at the WDW version of Tomorrowland.

Why the pause? Well, some of it had to do with Epcot-the-City. And some of it had to do with Florida’s version of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” And still more of it had to do with Circus World, a rival theme park that the Mattel Corporation had announced in September of 1972 (Less than one year after Walt Disney World first opened). And this project was going to be built just 10 miles up the road from the Magic Kingdom over in Haines City.

We’ll get to that part of the Tomorrowland story with the next installment of this series.

 Lot of talk lately about Beyond Big Thunder, the project that’s supposed to transform the Magic Kingdom in Florida.

I’m old enough to remember when there wasn’t a Magic Kingdom. There was just a construction site out in a swamp in Central Florida. And if you wanted to learn more about what Disney had planned for all that property, you sent Walt Disney Productions 50 cents. And what you got back was a copy of this 24-page booklet called “Preview Edition of Walt Disney World – The Vacation Kingdom of the World.”

Written in 1969 / published in early 1970. Highly prized by Disneyana collectors. Within the past 10 years, D23 did a reprint of the WDW Preview Guide and then made it a giveaway at one of its events.

I’m bringing up this booklet today because … On last week’s show, we were talking about the Imagineers’ original plans for Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom in Florida and the various factors that impacted this part of the Park. To be specific, I’m talking about the more-than-two-year-long lag between when “If You Had Wings” opened in Tomorrowland in June of 1972 and the Star Jets opened in November of 1974.

FYI: The Star Jets were the very first part of the expansion of Florida’s Tomorrowland to come online. Inside of two months, we’d see the world’s first “Space Mountain” open along with an imported-from-California “Carousel of Progress” open on January 15, 1975.

Two months after that, Florida’s “Flight to the Moon” attraction was reimagined as “Mission to Mars.” That redo opened on March 21, 1975. And then – three months after that – the Magic Kingdom’s PeopleMover began tooling around the second floor of Tomorrowland in early July of 1975.

So – just to recap here – inside of eight months, Tomorrowland had five new attractions come online. Which made a huge difference when it came to hourly capacity at the Magic Kingdom. Not to mention temporarily shifting the Park’s center of gravity (Previously, it had been Frontierland & Fantasyland that had drawn the most Guests daily. But now – thanks to Space Mountain – Tomorrowland was where people spent a lot of their vacation standing in line).

FYI: Space Mountain (which had been in development since 1964. That was when John Hench – who, at the time, was riding herd on developing a new Tomorrowland for Disneyland – floated the idea of turning this side of that theme park into a space port. With the idea that all of the coaster cars that were zooming in & out of Space Mountain would then double as intergalactic vessels that were visiting this space port)

Anyway … Space Mountain had long been on the books for Florida. Here’s a quote from that “Preview Guide” that I mentioned at the top of today’s show that bears this out:

“Later in Phase One’s masterplan, Tomorrowland will present the spectacular Space Mountain, 20 stories tall. Inside, Guests will pilot “space vehicles” on a thrilling journey.”

Did you catch the really important phrase there? “Phase One” ?

According to Don B. Tatum, the then-President of Walt Disney Productions, “Phase One” of Project Florida was that piece of Central Florida swampland that the Company was transforming into an outdoor recreation attraction.

To be specific, this parcel of land that Disney was developing centered on Bay Lake and then stretched:

“ … three miles from East to West and over two miles from North to South, with Walt Disney World’s ‘Phase One’ – which centered on the creation of a destination vacation resort -- encompassing more than 2,500 acres and will include an almost endless variety of activities. There will be entertainment and recreation activities on Bay Lake, Seven Seas Lagoon and at each of the resort hotels.”

So how long was “Phase One” of Project Florida supposed to have lasted? From October 1971 through the Fall of 1976 ( just as the United States was concluding its bicentennial celebration. The 200th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence).

And how was “Phase One” of Walt Disney World supposed to be completed? Well, never mind about “Beyond Big Thunder.” How about a project that I like to call “Above Frontierland.”

Here’s a description from that Preview Guide for Walt Disney World that I cited at the top of today’s show:

Another major attraction to be added during Walt Disney World’s “Phase One” is Thunder Mesa, which will tower over dense pine forests, offering a spectacular panoramic view of Frontierland. Resembling a table-top mountain typical of those found in Southwestern deserts, it will include a Pueblo-style village and a series of exciting adventures. Inside Thunder Mesa, Guests will sign aboard the Western River Expedition – a musical parody of the wild old West. On their cruise, they’ll come face to face with cowboys and Indians in a frontier fantasy on the grand scale of Disneyland’s famous “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

Thunder Mesa was supposed to have been huge. 3/4rds of the height of Cinderella Castle (That’s 183 feet tall. So we’re talking about a structure towards the back of Frontierland that would have been 140 feet tall. That’s just 44 feet shorter than the Contemporary Resort. As you stood on the top of that table-top mountain in the Pueblo Village and look out over the Park, you’d have been able to see over the trees out into Seven Seas Lagoon and had great views of the Polynesian Village & the Contemporary.

FYI: Just this past weekend, Heritage Auctions

 Outdoor recreation attraction … destination vacation resort … Phase One and Phase Two … a fully operating community of 20,000

Don B Tatum, president of Walt Disney Productions.

Our first five year program of development is very similar to the way Disneyland grew. When Walt Disney said on opening day that ‘Disneyland will never be completed,’ he was really embarking on a long term program of addition and development. That’s what we are beginning here – a long term program of growth in which the Phase One vacation complex represents the first five years.

Looking beyond Phase One, we have additional projects & concepts on the boards for many years ahead.

Later in Phase One’s masterplan, Tomorrowland will present the spectacular Space Mountain, 20 stories tall. Inside, Guests will pilot “space vehicles” on a thrilling journey.

Another major attraction to be added during Walt Disney World’s “Phase One” is Thunder Mesa, which will tower over dense pine forests, offering a spectacular panoramic view of Frontierland. Resembling a tabletop mountain typical of those found in Southwestern deserts, it will include a Pueblo-style village and a series of exciting adventures. Inside Thunder Mesa, Guest will sign aboard the Western River Expedition – a musical parody of the wild old West. On their cruise, they’ll come face to face with cowboys and Indians in a frontier fantasy on the grand scale of Disneyland’s famous “Pirates of the Caribbean.”