After a week in the Vacation Kingdom of the World, and a bit of time away from Progress City (has it really been that long since the last post?), we’re gearing up for the next wave of activity here. I have books to review, DVDs to review, stories to write and a third podcast to figure out. Hopefully, this will happen sooner rather than later!
In the meantime, I thought I’d say hello and offer a few thoughts about Walt Disney World on my return. I won’t get too deep into it, because I’m sure we’ll be talking about it on the podcast and elsewhere, but there are some definite impressions that can be easily summed up.
All in all, it was a good trip. The parks seemed to be in mostly good shape, and aside from a few glaring exceptions the resort’s operations seemed to be smooth. One of the most noticeable things was the Cast Members, who seemed to be really energetic and on the ball all around. Maybe it’s because the College Program kids are all fresh and new, but it seemed like everyone was just… well… doing their job with a little bit of extra spark. There were a few bad eggs, as can be expected, but overall there was a higher than typical number of genuinely pleasant CM interactions.
Magic Kingdom: The Kingdom seemed to be in pretty good shape, although the custodial team was clearly not staffed enough to keep up with the crowds. But while the park was a little rough on the cleanliness front, it did seem to have improved its general maintenance considerably. A few years ago this park was falling apart at the seams. Now there was fresh paint visible in several places, and there were several positive little changes.
Putting the magic in the Magic Kingdom. “What Am I Celebrating?” This. This is it.
The exception, as is typical, is Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland continues to be a disaster, and needs a complete stem-to-stern overhaul. In Adventureland, the Tiki Room: Under New Management continues to grow more abandoned and outdated, and needs to be restored to its original show immediately.
EPCOT Center: EPCOT can be summed up pretty easily – Showcase looks great, Future World looks rough. There’s lots of fresh paint and new construction in World Showcase; work continues on the Cantina replacement and the new pizza place in Italy which, by the way, is going to be ginormous. Crowds packed the promenade, and every attraction and live entertainment performance drew a throng of guests. Showcase needs new countries. When you have that many restaurants and they’re all booked solid, it’s time to expand. Some new, fresh attractions wouldn’t hurt either.
Future World, much like Tomorrowland, needs to get sanded down and reconstructed. The Imagination pyramids looks like someone covered them with pig grease and soot, and there’s just a general feeling of clutter and malaise everywhere. There is, though, a lot of new retro merchandise so Disney should be applauded for that. There was also tons of new country-specific merch in each pavilion in World Showcase. Add to that some spectacular weather and the always-impressive Flower & Garden shows, and EPCOT was looking pretty darn good.
Eew.
Hollywood Studios: Same old, same old. Empty buildings, outdated attractions, unadorned soundstages and still that bloody hat. Hollywood and Sunset still look great, but the rest of the park needs help soon. We also had an absolutely awful run in with a cast member here, but that’s Beacon Joe’s story to tell. This park has such great potential – give it some love, Disney!
Saratoga Springs: We stayed here, despite my reservations about it being a hallowed resting ground for the remains of my beloved Villas. The buildings have a distinct lack of interesting character, which we’ll discuss in the future, but it’s nice and quiet and the rooms inside were quite nice. It’s good to be close to the Village, especially now that the noise factor of Pleasure Island has gone down, and I love taking the boat ride up the Sassagoula. So I’d say the resort exceeded my expectation, but lacks the great escapist themeing of, say, the Polynesian.
Not Lake Buena Vista, but still a very lovely spot
Transportation: Surprise, surprise – my biggest problem with the resort is, once again, the broken transportation system. The fact that I had lots of online Disney folks expressing surprise that I actually tried to use the buses instead of driving everywhere shows how bad it’s gotten. It’s time for Disney to start at square one and overhaul the entire resort transportation infrastructure. The overarching design goal of Walt Disney World was that you wouldn’t have to use your car; now it’s almost necessary if you want to move about in a timely fashion.
Those are the cliff notes. I don’t want to give away too much, else I spoil all our scintillating commentary on the next podcast. Now planning has to begin for the next trip – Destination D in September. West-coasters, how about it?
Here it is – our sophomore effort. There’s Disneyland, there’s Horizons, there’s Robin Hood. We hope you like it.
Remember, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here, and we’d be ever so grateful if you’d write a little review and rate the podcast.
While I’m shilling, I’ll remind you that you can now follow us on Facebook, too. I feel so trendy.
Anyway, here it is. Keep those great suggestions and comments coming – we appreciate how supportive everyone was of the pilot episode, and hope to be back soon with more!
There are a couple of new Disney-related books that have been released recently, and while I haven’t had a chance to read or review them yet I thought I’d let you know that they’re out there.
The first title is Warp and Weft: Life Canvas of Herbert Ryman, a “memoir biography” of the legendary Disney artist by John Stanley Donaldson. Donaldson was a friend of Ryman’s for thirty years, and the material for this 400-page biography was mined from his lifetime of notes, correspondence, diaries and audio recordings. In his career Ryman worked as an artist at both the Disney animation studio and Imagineering, and his concept art for EPCOT ranks among my absolute favorite pieces of Imagineering artwork.
The other new title, which just released last week, is Project Future, The Inside Story Behind the Creation of Disney World by Chad D. Emerson. Emerson, a member of the faculty at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law, spent two years researching the clandestine process by which Walt Disney Productions planned “Disneyland East” and purchased their 27,000+ acres in swampy Central Florida. He also interviewed a number of key players in the process, including Disney consultant Buzz Price, former Florida Governor Claude Kirk, and key Disney players Bob Foster and Tom DeWolf.
Review copies of both of these titles are winging their way to me, and I’m looking forward to both of them. I’ll even hide my jealousy over Project Future, since it’s obviously the kind of book I was planning to write! But nothing can beat actual first-person testimony, and it’s obvious that both these authors have that in spades. Check them out via the links above, and you can look for reviews in hopefully the near future!
I apologize that things have been ever so hush-hush here for several days. Rest assured, there are lots of new stories waiting in the wings. And a new podcast should be just a dream away…
But I did want to drop by tonight to make a comment about the news that was reported today in an L.A. Times blog that Disney will not be holding the D23 Expo this year, opting instead to hold the shows on a biennial basis. Other Disney gossip sites are jumping in to say that they’ve heard this too, but Disney is yet to make any statement on the issue.
I was taken off-guard by this, personally. A month ago, I was told by someone who most definitely would know that the Expo would in fact be held this year, and it was strongly implied in the most obvious of ways that the dates for the event would be announced on March 10th – the first anniversary of D23’s original announcement. This would, of course, coincide with not only this year’s Disney shareholder meeting but also the D23 anniversary event at Disneyland.
So, what to believe? I certainly believe that the L.A. Times blogger has his sources. But how firm is this decision? Could this be – and this is the height of wishful thinking on my part – a trial balloon to see what fans would say if they skipped a year?
Well if so, and if they’re looking for input, allow me to say this: don’t cancel the event.
As everyone and their grandma knows by now, we went to the Expo last year, and we had a blast. I’m not much of a joiner or a convention-goer, so I was highly dubious at first; in fact, I was basically using it to justify a trip to Disneyland, and also wanted to be there in the off chance that something interesting happened at the Expo. Well, to say that it far exceeded my expectations would still remain an understatement. I learned so much, and saw so many fascinating people and heard so many fascinating stories, that this grizzled and hardened Disney fan actually got really excited about where the company was going. Mr. Cynic himself bought the company line for the first time in years, because I saw the company honoring its own past and could see the excitement for the future in the faces of all the Imagineers and back-of-house staff that were there.
To use the most worn out and trite of catchphrases, I bought the Kool-Aid.
And this is Disney’s biggest mistake in not holding this event. The D23 Expo was, by far and away, their greatest success in generating fan goodwill in years. Let’s face it, Disney will always have a pixie dust brigade ready and willing to do their bidding no matter what, but after a decade of Pressler and Rasulo and everything else, fandom was starting to get a little shaggy around the edges. To engage the fans in such a positive way felt like at least an overture to some sort of rapprochement, and at the very least it provided a very public forum in which Disney executives were forced to face the music for their choices (I’m thinking here of the extremely tepid reception to Toy Story Playland at Rasulo’s presentation, which still amuses me).
Now, I’m not insane, and I realize that this was just an enormous PR event. But so what? If people had fun – and from the reaction to the cancellation rumors, it sounds like they did – I have no problem with such a symbiotic relationship. Speaking for myself, it was the most fun I had all year – no one is more surprised about that than I! – and I was really, really looking forward to going back.
And not just because of Monte Cristos.
So, dear Disney – snap out of it. Just for once, can we stick to the plan and commit to something? You’re like the worst girlfriend I never had. You start something, then you run fleeing from it. If they don’t do it this year, what are the odds that we’ll ever hear of it again? Or will it become one of those things that people ask Iger about occasionally until he becomes more and more irritated at the question? Will the Expo be buried with Hoffa and Song of the South?
Again, this is still unconfirmed. And we know that they were planning on doing it at some point. So let’s all politely say… Hey there, Disney. How’s about doing this so we can all come spend ridiculously irresponsible amounts of money on you? Why do you hate our money, Disney? Because I was going to come give all my money to you in September, but if you cancel the Expo I won’t! Don’t you want my money? It’s perfectly good, I assure you! My money not good enough for you, buddy? Huh? You got a problem??
Anyway.
Hold the Expo, or I will be sad. Can your conscience bear my sadness, Mr. Robert Iger??
Meet the World has a new post up of a photo essay of Tom Sawyers Island in 1974. It’s pretty interesting to see how little has changed on the Island save the very significant growth of foliage. I went back to some pictures I took last year on a visit to WDW, and decided to share them with you all. You should really go back and catch the other article first to see how much the trees have grown! Enjoy – you can click on the pictures to see a larger photo slideshow on Picasa.
PS – Thanks to George at Imaginerding for putting the Meet the World article up on his Geek End Update so I could catch wind of it…
From the Progress City archives comes this collection of 33 tall tales and true from Disney history. Available in paperback, hardback, and ebook formats.
Putting the magic in the Magic Kingdom. “What Am I Celebrating?” This. This is it.
Eew.
Not Lake Buena Vista, but still a very lovely spot
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