News
 

• Universal provided more details on the upcoming Super Nintendo World for Epic Universe

• Attractions:

• Mario Kart Bowsers Challenge (which Jim and I did in USH last year)
• Yoshi Adventure, a ride for children

• Yoshi Adventure is a slow-moving Peoplemover-like ride above the lower level of Super Nintendo World. Guests board two-person Yoshi ride vehicles as they take a leisurely ride on elevated pathways before entering a warp pipe to Yoshi’s Island. Turns out Yoshi Island is being ransacked and all the Yoshi eggs have been stolen! Good thing we’re there with Captain Toad to find the missing eggs. When guests find an egg on the ride, they press a button to spot it for Captain Toad, and at the end of the ride, the Captain himself lets you know how many you found.

• Donkey Cart Minecart Madness

• Donkey Kong Minecart Madness is a family friend rollercoaster that simulates the wacky mine cart levels from Donkey Kong Country. Guests board four-person ride vehicles that appear to hop the tracks, in actuality it is a complex ride system that hides the tracks of the rollercoaster. Along the ride guests are launched out of a barrel, over waterfalls, miss nearly colliding with other mine carts, avoid bad guys, and collect the hidden K-O-N-G letters.
  

• Universal drone show coming this summer

• CineSational: A Symphonic Spectacular
• 228 fountains that reach heights up to 131 feet
• 4K projection mapping
• Original composition w/ new arrangements
• Over 600 drones
• Disney Dreams that Soar: May 24 to September 2

• Disney announced Bay Lake Tower is getting a year-long refurbishment, running from September 2024 through September 2025.

• A lot of this will be room refurbishment
• Jim, this is a DVC property, so it’ll lower DVC availability in the all-important MK resort area
• I note without a hint of skepticism that this is roughly the first 9 months or so (at least) the new Poly DVC tower will be open.

• And one way to boost demand is to reduce supply
• And that sales of the Fort Wilderness Cabins DVC has reportedly been slower than molasses in winter

• My understanding is that FW is selling the equivalent of around 110 to 115, one-week stays per month, using August as the average month for points.
• To put that in perspective, Riviera, which I think is the most expensive DVC, is selling the equivalent of around 250 one-week stays per month, using an August, standard-view, 1-BR as the rough equivalent of a cabin. That’s more than double FW cabins.

Surveys

Listener Emails

From Stephanie in Yorkshire:

We are travelling to Disney World for a 2 week holiday in August…15 wonderful nights at POFQ then Wilderness Lodge.

My question is about Genie +. A while back there was some news from Disney about changes coming to Genie + which the speculation was would include being about to pre-select lightening lanes in advance of stay for Disney hotel guests..do you guys have any inside news on this?

I am not looking forward to the stress of waking up at 7am every day to secure my lightning lanes and would really welcome this ability to pre select a couple of lightening lanes for each day of my stay!

Len: It’s definitely happening. The changes we’ve seen to DAS, and the earlier extension of Disney’s hotel room cancellation policy to 8 days, all fits in with the operational and technical changes they’ll need to make in order to provide G+ reservations 7-days out. But it happening by August doesn’t seem likely as of today.

In the meantime, you might want to look at the third-party service called Standby Skipper, which does exactly what you want.

On last week’s show we had a listener question on whether Disney will ever bring back in-room resort delivery. And a bunch of folks wrote in to say they’d buy more stuff if Disney just did front-of-park pickup like they used to. Veronica says:

I did my last trip with a stroller and at least with a stroller, I can cram in merchandise to the basket underneath.  Once we're stroller-free, we're not buying things.

Jim, on a scale from “Our parks are complicated to visit” to “Velociraptors are eating the guests”, where does “we’re not buying things” rank in the ability to strike fear in the hearts of Disney theme park executives?

A number of listeners, starting with John Forrest, said they missed the days when Disney just put stuff in your room for you.

From Ric:

My uncle has been a huge Disney (and Disney Parks) fan since the 60s, and I credit him in large part with my love (obsession) of Disney. He recently sent me a video about Beyond Big Thunder and said that he finds it hard to imagine the park without the river, the Liberty Belle, and Tom Sawyer’s island. Have you heard anything or have any insight on the likelihood of any of that surviving this expansion?

Len says: The concept art for Beyond is, as you’d expect, vague about the rest of the park. But the most recent update to the long-term CFTOBD plan shows the Rivers of America still there. And I’d think given its size, and how much rainfall that area collects, that if they closed it or changed that in some way, it’d have to show up on the long-term plan.

From Shawn:

Hey guys, just wondering if you've seen the Marques Brownlee video released this week about the 360 degree treadmill technology being worked on by Imagineering yet? It's a fascinating watch, and I'd love to hear your ideas about how this sort of technology could be implemented in the parks someday!

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KEtxTQUzxY&ab_channel=MarquesBrownlee

Len says: The inventor here is Disney Imagineer Lanny Smoot, who’s got more than 100 patents and is well-regarded in the theme park community. A couple of ideas:

• Theme park special effects. If you remember the old Starcruiser fight scene where Kylo Ren “pulls” Rey towards him using The Force, something like that here.
  
• I don’t think we’re going to see it for guests or consumers any time soon. For one thing, the liability if someone fell would be insane.
  

Snow White

A number of listeners sent us an Instagram post where someone claims “a family paid $300 for a photo op with the Evil Queen” and that person decided that the role was being played by a man.

There are a number of issues with this story. First, there’s no such thing as a $300 photo op with the Evil Queen. They might have paid for the Storybook Dining character meal at Artist Point. But it’s dishonest to say it was a $300 photo op, especially to people who don’t know much about Disney World.

Second, it’s not clear it’s a man playing the part.

But even if it is, so what? It’s clearly established that that’s okay, from the perspective of historical theater and from the story itself.

For one thing, cross-dressing has something like a two-thousand-year history in the performing arts, and in cultures around the world. It was well-known in 19th century Europe, where the Brothers Grimm first wrote down the story of Snow White.

Second, in the story of Snow White, it’s an established fact that the Queen is a witch who has the power of transformation. We know this because the Queen takes the form of the old peddler woman. And not to put too fine a point on it, but the Queen takes on the form of the old peddler woman because she knows that that’s what’s comforting and trustworthy to Snow White.

Last thing: the Queen manages to rack up like a dozen attempted murder charges in, what, a 75-minute film? I’m just saying that worrying about whether she’s wearing boxers or briefs maybe isn’t at the top of the list of morally questionable behavior.

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

Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration
Feature Piece

No one’s smarter when it comes to making money than the Mouse. Conversely, no one’s dumber than Disney when it comes to finding ways that they can save a few bucks on a project for the Parks.

Case in point: “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration,” which opened at the Magic Kingdom in Florida on this very same date – May 6th – 15 years ago (2009).

Built around a hugely popular character (star of one theatrical release, three home premieres & [at that time] two animated series. As of 2017, with the debut of the Chinese animated series, “Stitch & Ai,” that would grow to three animated series).

More to the point, Stitch already had a big presence in this theme park. Just steps away from the brand-new, custom-built stage for “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was “Stitch’s Great Escape.” Reimagining of Tomorrowland’s “Alien Encounter” show opened back in November of 2004 (Just two years & five months after the original “Lilo & Stitch” movie was first released to theaters in June of 2002). And – once Guests finished experiencing having Stitch burp in their face and smelling his chili dog-scented breath – they then exited into Merchants of Venus, a gift shop that was crammed full of Stitch plush.

You get what I’m saying here, right? You had a brand-new show at the Magic Kingdom that was based on an already popular character. And you didn’t need to explain to Magic Kingdom visitors who Stitch was. As they were walking into Tomorrowland, they would have passed the marquee for “Stitch’s Great Escape” (Which literally had that little blue alien hanging off of the side of the building).

And did I mention that “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was part of Disney’s living character initiative program? Meaning that – as part of this live show – Stitch would then turn to members of the audience and say  something like “You – in the back row with the blue hat & the white shirt – what’s your name?”

On paper, “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” should have been a hit straight out of the box. Tomorrowland’s Merchant of Venus store should have started doubling the amount of Stitch plush it was selling daily.

What happened instead? After just six weeks of operation, “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was shut down (on June 27, 2009 to be exact) and never presented again. And the purpose-built stage for this live show …Well, it’s still in place. But – to my knowledge – is rarely if ever used these days. The last time I saw performers on this stage was during “Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party.” That was when one of the entertainment offerings presented at this after-hours hard ticket was the “Totally Tomorrowland Christmas” show.

So what happened here? It’s actually a little quirk in the way things get built at Walt Disney World that I like to call “That’s actually NOT my problem. YOU figure it out.”

To explain: When the Imagineers are building a new ride, show or attraction for their Park, they’re in charge of that project right up until the moment that they then hand said ride, show & attractions off to Ops (And that name is just what it implies. These are the people who actually operate all of the rides, shows & attractions at the Disney Parks).

And to WDI’s way of thinking … Their job is to deliver a spectacular looking ride, show & attraction. Something that genuinely dazzles the Guests as they experience this new addition to the Park. Whereas the stuff that exists beyond the load / unload area … That’s Op’s department. They have to maintain this ride, show or attraction’s queue space. Make sure that the Guests move through this space as efficiently as possible. Not to mention get funneled into the post-show gift shop as quickly as possible (Sales resistance reportedly starts at 58 seconds. Need to get people in front of those $75 spirit jerseys ASAP).

Interior queue is never an issue. WDI’s happy to design & build these / make these spaces heavily themed / start the necessary exposition for the ride, show or attraction inside of that structure started as early as possible.

Exterior queue … To WDI’s way of thinking, that’s Op’s problem. To be specific here, that’s not something that Imagineering is willing to spend its development & construction budget on. So if Op’s wants – say – a shaded queue space for the exterior of this ride, show or attraction (which would then make it far more pleasant for the Guests standing in the outside part of the line as they wait to get into the interior part of the queue. Which is typically in the shade and air conditioned) … They often have to wait ‘til the second fiscal year that this ride, show & attraction is in operation. So that the Park will then include – as part of that year’s operating budget – the money necessary to build said shade structure.

I bring this aspect of ride, show & attraction construction – the decades-long battle that’s been going on between Imagineering & Ops in Florida for decades now because … Well, “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was built in a previously open chunk of real estate in the Tomorrowland section on WDW’s Magic Kingdom. To be specific, between the elevator that takes Guests up to the Astro Orbitor in Rockettower Plaza and the PeopleMover. The Carousel of Progress theater is to your Southeast and the Park’s Grand Prix Raceway is to your Northwest.

What’s significant about this location. It’s a wide open space in the middle of a sea of concrete / paving material. Zero shade. Sun directly overhead for a good chunk of the day. Pavement gets very hot.

No seating for “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration.” Guests encouraged to sit on the hot pavement. What’s more, people are encouraged to show up at least a half hour in advance if they really want to interact with Stitch (Six shows a day. 25-minute-long experience).

So people are sitting in the direct sun in advance on hot pavement. Already miserable before show gets started. Then … This is a video-based show. Squinting to look up at huge screen to see Stitch.

What makes me especially crazy about this is … Well, “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was the third time that Florida had used this particular version of its living character initiative technology. “Turtle Talk with Crush” had debuted at Epcot in November of 2004, the “Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor” in April of 2007. Guests seated in dark theater facing big video screen / easy for them to see the character they were interacting with.

Worse yet, “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” was based on two living character initiative shows that were already successful at Disney’s overseas parks:

·          “Stitch Encounter” – which opened at Hong Kong Disneyland in July of 2006. It was staged in an indoor space just to the side of the entrance to this theme park’s Space Mountain.

·          And “Stitch Live!” – which began being presented at Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris in March of 2008. That version of this attraction was presented inside of Studio D, which – at that time, anyway – was just off of that theme park’s Production Courtyard.

You get what I’m saying here. These two earlier versions of a Stitch living character initiative show were presented indoors where it was then easy for Guests to see the giant screen that Stitch appeared on. Plus – even when there weren’t benches for Guests to sit upon – there was least a carpeted floor. Not pavement.

And the folks at WDW knew all this going into the “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration.” And they still convinced themselves that “ … we’ll be fine. People already know Stitch & love this character. They’ll be willing to sit in the hot Florida sun with no shade on blazing pavement for a half hour before this show gets started just for the chance to interact with a CG version of this character.”

To make matters worse, because of the cost of building this brand-new stage in Tomorrowland at WDW’s Magic Kingdom, rather than sticking with the already-proven-successful formula of the “Stitch” living character initiative show at Hong Kong Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris (i.e, three minute load in, 15 minute long show, two minute long load out = three shows an hour) … They padded out “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” with additional performers. A host – Tip Trendo – and his four back-up dancers. Plus two robots. Plus a finale where a Cast Member in a Stitch costume that was also dressed as Elvis came out & danced with Tip & his Galaxy Girls.

Show is now 25 minutes long and flabby. Can only get in six shows a day. Low capacity (Stitch can only see the people right in front of the stage to interact with them). Miserable seating area.

Opened … Immediately besieged with complaints. Especially about the lack of shade. Park explores the idea of stringing up ropes over seating area (again, on pavement) and then draping cloth over those ropes to create some shade. Find out that they can’t do that because it would then block the view of the performer who’s puppeteering Stitch. Couldn’t pick out Guests to interact with.

Been told by a WDW Entertainment staffer that – if that they’d opened “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” right after the holidays (i.e., January) – the show might have had a chance. Entertainment would have been have a chance in the cooler Late Winter / early Spring to make the necessary operational adjustments prior to the hot Summer months. Opening “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration” in May (when the Park is already getting hot by Noon on a typical day) doomed the show.

Six weeks later, threw in the towel. Walked away from a $10 million investment ($8 million on the infrastructure – stage, enormous screen over stage, $2 million on development of show, costumes & rehearsal). Didn’t get the chance to fix it in Year Two. There was no Year Two for “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration.”

Makes me think of that 5000 seat arena that was built at the edge of Discovery River in Disney’s Animal Kingdom for “Rivers of Light” (Supposed to originally open for Earth Day 2016 (April 22nd). Sat in that arena at night. Seats still hot for that show’s 9 o’clock performance. You’re building this thing in Florida. Disney World has been here since the Fall of 1971. You know the drill.

FYI: Disney KiteTails – show that was staging in the Rivers of Light arena – ran longer than “Stitch’s Supersonic Celebration.” 51 weeks (October 1, 2021 – September 27, 2022) as opposed to six weeks.

Especially in these days where – thanks to climate change – Florida is experiencing more extreme weather, this “We’ll build the shade structure in Year Two and the Park will pay for it, not Imagineering” nonsense has to stop.

Len says: Jason Surrell story