reddening's thread of DISNEY PARKS gossip

"no gossip" when a ride literally caught fire within the last week, smh. morbs won't be satisfied until the streets of the magic kingdom are awash with blood.

sorry, need toonville sex

Harlan Ellison almost got disappeared by Disney for that, so be careful.

I'm sure a trip with kids can be a blast (albeit exhausting, I'm sure) but, yeah, going to WDW as an adult (of drinking age, natch) has been a revelation. And there's so much to do that you can go with a degree of regularity and focus on different stuff each time. I'm absolutely sure it isn't for everybody, but it's the perfect foil to my general travel/vacation anxiety.

Seriously, Morbs, just Google "Disney World cast confessions" if you want to peel back the sunny corporate facade. There's plenty of scandal floating around out there.

WDW really started to shine when in college I visited with friends; I took it for granted for years.

Because of Universal's Islands of Adventure there's some legal stuff with Marvel characters and the WDW parks. I think Disney can't use any Marvel stuff east of the Mississippi? Disney's doing a weird traveling Marvel theme park this winter and it's not getting any further east than Texas.

also I'll be at Disneyland and California Adventure in a week and can't wait. Space Mountain is a rocket back to the 80s.

It's amazing how well these parks work. Really make it easy, especially with kids.

OK, gossip: I talked a while with a security guard while I waited for a bus (apparently, they have some discretion to call for more buses if guests are waiting more than 20 minutes). He like everyone else there was very nice, or trained to be nice, so asked about our trip. When I told him how many broken rides we encountered, he had some really good hypotheses for me. One is that they keep adding more and more "magic hours" (or whatever), so the parks open earlier and stay open later. A few days a year each park even stays open 24 hours. Anyway, that puts so much extra strain on the rides as those hours add up, which leads to more broken rides, plus, all those extra hours operating reduces the amount of time they have to clean, care for and otherwise maintain the rides. Ergo, these extra steps taken to give guests more fun sometimes backfires and causes the rides to poop out, at least for a bit.

Similarly, I asked about the fire on the Seven Dwarves ride. He told me that Disney, to satisfy demand and add spectacle, has been expanding the range of the fireworks (bigger, better, etc.). Up until last year they gave guards asbestos gloves and a bucket of water and had them patrol the roofs of rides post show to look for smoldering or unexploded fireworks, but recently took the guards off fire duty, ceding the job to engineers. But I guess they only check for fire if they see smoke.

Also, trivia! The fake eiffel tower is 1/10 the size of the real one, which is cool, but in order to preserve the illusion they have to keep the birds off, because otherwise it would look like the tower was covered with giant birds!

More trivia! Did you know a rhino can only see about a foot away, so that when they charge they are largely running blind? That's nuts.

Saddest thing I learned - and I think this was online - was not just the physical but emotional stress of playing one of the Disney characters, because they see so many terminally ill or otherwise very sick kids every day. The thing I read noted the Fairy Godmother has it worst, because guess what wish the kids all make?

:(

That the rides would stop breaking since they probably won't make it back next year?

Guilty lol

On a couple of the Disney message boards I visit (ahem), frequent guests complain about the strain on transportation and employees that Early Magic Hour, etc place on them. Until a few weeks ago, the resort monorail, for example, was running on reduced hours to alleviate strain.

At the same time, demand is so high the park keeps trying to up what they have to offer.

This was out first experience with the (admittedly only a year old) magic bands, but they were by and large helpful. I asked some cast members about them, too, and they said that there seemed to be less of an issue of guests figuring them out (barring the visitor or two who can't open their hotel doors) and more retraining the entire cast to work with them. Plus, there is still the odd glitch or two. Hence our essentially free Crystal Palace meal.

WDW may also be the only place on earth where you walk 10-15 miles a day and still put on a few pounds. Man, my gut ...

Great food, though. They do it right.

and park food has improved vastly since the fried horrors served in the seventies and eighties

going to WDW as an adult (of drinking age, natch) has been a revelation

WDW really started to shine when in college I visited with friends

OK wait you guys now I really feel like I have no idea what to expect. People go to Disney World without kids? I literally have no concept of what we're talking about. I went here as a kid and I liked it but what I remember is, like, there was a haunted house and It's A Small World and Pirates of the Caribbean and Disney characters. And Main Street Electrical Parade. And there was Epcot, which was like kind of a cool slightly corny Festival of Nations kind of thing. But it was definitely for kids. If it's a place where adults go without children then I feel like I... don't know actually know what Disney World is? What do you do there? My cousin works at Animal Kingdom and told me "it's a glorified zoo with a few rides" which somehow doesn't sound supremely exciting (but I think we're planning to be at MK and Epcot and skip AK anyway, we're just there a couple of days.)

OK I guess one way for me to deal with this would be to actually read this thread? So it sounds like

a) I'll be impressed on some kind of intellectual level with the sheer scale and attention to detail and design?
b) There is actually good food to eat? (But only at the sit down restaurants which you have to book months in advance? Seems very unlikely I'd know weeks or even days in advance what time we were going to be where and whether we would want to eat.)
c) Roller coasters (I don't really dig roller coasters, just listing things that I think a grownup would do.)
d) Just hanging out at a hotel and sitting by the pool and reading or whatevs -- I mean, that sounds fun, but I somehow can't see going all this way and then sitting and lounging like I'd do at home except it'd be warm.

I think I'm not really gonna get the idea of this until I'm physically there.

Well, eating couscous in 1986 was more exotic, but, yeah, most of the restaurant food in World Showcase is good to very good. The best thing is that if you're drinking around the World the snacks are often just as good and "authentic."

Pro tip: lunch and dinner have the same menu, so if your heart is set on table service, choose a late lunch.

As for the other points: you can spend a week in WDW w/out visiting a single park. I've got the brother of a friend who owns a time share at the Beach Club Villas, and he drives up with his family a few times a year to golf while they hit a park if they feel like it.

obv if this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience you might consider pool lounging a waste of time, but, really, if you're gonna be at WDW more than a couple days, have kids, and are staying at a Disney resort, you'll want nap/pool time and a good dinner at your resort (if that's your thing).

People go to Disney World without kids? I literally have no concept of what we're talking about.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a0/WDW-ClubCoolInside.jpg/800px-WDW-ClubCoolInside.jpg

Club Cool bender for three straight days. That's what we're talking about.

My wife and I went for 8 days as adults and I don't think we ever ran out of stuff to do. It definitely is the triumph of attention to detail. We even wanted to, like, relax and watch a movie on the lawn of our resort and we never fit it in!

We rented Frozen when we got back home

Each of the Epcot World Showcase pavilions is run by its host country, including the chefs, restaurants, servers and whatnot, so the food is the real deal, as are the dodads and snacks sold in the shops; my wife, who spent part of her childhood in Germany, found a brand of spicy mustard in the store that she had not seen since she was little.but even the other restaurants are pretty high quality. My parents ate with us two years ago at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, just a few weeks after they had gotten back from Africa, and they said the food was better quality and more authentic at Disney World than what was served to them in Africa.

I try to get in a week or so of WDW every 2-3 years, on average. The focus is usually on Epcot but I always hit all of the parks. As noted, food and drink (specifically as consumed around the World Showcase) are pretty central to the trip. I dig a lot of the rides and the astonishing attention to detail and the general organization and layout of the whole enterprise (a more ambitious and focused version of me would be driving towards becoming an Imagineer). I plan on fitting in at least one of the backstage tours (some of which last most of a day) on my next trip. Also, for whatever reason, that whole hermetically-sealed experience is so much more relaxing for me than trips to almost anywhere else, where my anxiety has me fretting excessively about every little variable. But it really is a huge place with tons to do and the trip is what you make of it. You can maintain a hectic pace and hit tons of stuff, but it's also a great place to take it slow and just sit somewhere for a stretch and take in the sights.

There's plenty to criticize about the whole endeavor, though, don't get me wrong. The forced cheerfulness starts to feel a little sinister at a point, and a week in is usually the point where I'm fairly ready to return to the real world.

Each of the Epcot World Showcase pavilions is run by its host country, including the chefs, restaurants, servers and whatnot, so the food is the real deal

It's worth noting that both the Food & Wine and Flower & Garden festivals at Epcot include an obscene number of additional kiosks featuring food and drink from even more countries than are usually represented.

My parents ate with us two years ago at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, just a few weeks after they had gotten back from Africa, and they said the food was better quality and more authentic at Disney World than what was served to them in Africa.

Jiko? I've wanted to go for years but it's so damn far. Best collection of South African wines in the U.S.

if you don't want forced cheerfulness, or really any cheerfulness at all, but want all the rest, try Disneyland Paris!

I would love a version of WDW where all of the employees are surly.

xpost No, Boma. Great buffet with all sorts of good stuff, including several African beers as well as a bunch of Florida beers, too. Plus wine, natch.

Cocktails stink across the board at Disney, btw. But beer and wine are great, especially during Food & Wine, ie now. Germany had soooooo many beers.

I've never gotten a vibe of forced cheerfulness so much as a well trained, enthusiastic staff, a la Trader Joe's. They all seem to be into it, and willing to bend over backwards to help you have a good time. When my daughter and I were stuck on Space Mountain for 20 minutes, the cast guy closest to us was super fun and funny, and no one seemed to be stressed at all. Including, I should say, the guests. I've seen very few totally freaked out or crying kids, let alone adults, at WDW. Kids are usually engaged or, if they're young, asleep in strollers, and unlike, say, Six Flags, you don't see a lot of trash behavior. Probably because Disney attracts kids and parents with kids, plus adults, but not many teens, in my experience. The obvious theory is that the price is relatively prohibitive. Who would go if they weren't into it?

The rumor mill has it that Pleasure Island (RIP) was closed down because it was in Downtown Disney (which is free to the general public) and attracted a lot of troublemakin' townies.

Downtown Disney definitely has a slightly rowdier vibe compared to the parks. Lots of what seemed to be local teens were there on the weekend we went.

My parents ate with us two years ago at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, just a few weeks after they had gotten back from Africa, and they said the food was better quality and more authentic at Disney World than what was served to them in Africa.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, November 7, 2014 9:21 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no offense to your parents, but this is some 'better than real africa' yelp review nonsense.

Downtown Disney is a joke: a bland shopping mall. It had so much more life as the Walt Disney World Shopping Village.

xpost Dude, why do you have to be a dick about it? I didn't say they went street fooding it in Lagos. They took a trip to Tanzania. The food they were served on their trip in Tanzania was less "African" and less good than the (pan) African food they were served in Disney. I have no doubt the food served to them on their trip in Tanzania was what the tour imagined Americans or other non-Africans wanted to eat, which was not necessarily indigenous food, and not necessarily good. Ergo, "the food was better quality and more authentic at Disney World than what was served to them in Africa." It's really no different than someone saying they had better French food in America than they had in France. It's possible. A chef is a chef is a chef and a recipe is a recipe.

I am certainly being a dick, but it's the kind of thing someone says because it appears to have more clout than saying 'the food at disney was better than applebee's' when it really doesn't (as you point out). so the question is 'why say it at all?', and this is of course a question only someone being a dick would ask.

I've never gotten a vibe of forced cheerfulness so much as a well trained, enthusiastic staff, a la Trader Joe's.

See now I'm starting to get it because I REALLY like going to Trader Joe's, even as I understand in some objective way why other people find it cloying.

Did you know Trader Joe's will let you try anything in the store, no strings attached? They'll even open a package for you right there.

i hate trader joe's checkers -- they all dress like they just got out of bed & talk to me like they're my roommate

i would rather full scale plastic cheerfulness than cloaked 'hey we're pals wanna smoke a doobie' cheerfulness

have a magical day is 1000% more preferable to 'HAY WHATCHA GOT PLANNED FOR THE WEEKEND? ANYTHING FUN?'

so otm

Absolutely. I avoid Trader Joe's for that very reason. People pretending to be my bud because they're being paid to do so is thoroughly off-putting.

Sorry, I love my Joes bros and am gonna keep on thinking of them as my close personal Hawaiian-shirted buds. When they ask me what I'm doing this weekend, I tell them!

As for Disney, I am totally defeated by this FastPass system. I am trying to sign up for some rides, but when I click on a date, it says it is removing me from my party because my FastPass limit is reached. Is there some completely separate part of the site where I'm supposed to buy FastPasses so that I have them to use? Every indication I've gotten is that it would be monumentally stupid to just show up at the park on Christmas Day, but apparently the incredible attention to detail doesn't extend to building a usable website.

When I go to Trader Joes tomorrow and my bro asks me what I've got planned this weekend I'm gonna be all "planning to spend a few more hours struggling with My Disney Experience, dude, and you?"

OK update I think I understand what's going on here, some kind of complicated coordination issue with my sister's family who are linked to us on this reservation.

I've actually become friends with a couple of local TJ folks. Go figure, they're nice off the clock, too.

Fast passes, or at least early fast passes, tend to get snagged well in advance. Christmas is literally peak visiting time, so I wonder if that has anything to do with your problems.

the park, by the way, has many Fast Pass kiosks, with dedicated staff just there to help you with the fast pass stuff.

the kiosks were new and a bit of a mixed bag last time I was there because they had to have cast members operate them for you, so you were very likely to run into a case of old timer trying to interact with new technology. Some cast members knew all the short cuts and how to game the kiosk but others just didn't get it. It's probably improved since then.

Yeah, all the tech stuff gets better all the time. The kiosk cast was all young last week, and very helpful. We did a lot of fast pass swapping. If we had a fastpass for, say, Haunted Mansion later in the day, but the line was short, we would just wait in the line then use the fastpass for something else later.

Also, again, rider swap was awesome and easy. My older daughter and I used the fast pass for Space Mountain while my wife waited with our younger daughter (who doesn't like dark rides). We zipped through the line and onto the ride in now time, then popped out, tag-teamed, and left the kids waiting while she and I more or less immediately went on Space Mountain. So mechanical delay aside, I basically got to ride it twice in 10 minutes. All you have to do is tell a cast member when you head in.

With fast pass or rider swap, how are you not taking another patron's place in line?

It all goes pretty smoothly. It's not that you're taking someone's place so much as a feeding in from a second, faster line. So you wait in the regular line, and then every set amount of time they send in a batch of the fast pass holders. Keep in mind that fast pass is free and available to everyone, first come, first served (they're usually claimed if not months in advance than certainly early in the day). Ride swap, it's not a regular thing, or at least not too apparent. Just a person here or there. It makes it fairer for folks stuck babysitting or waiting with old folks or whomever, so they don't have to spend an hour sitting there, then another hour waiting in line themselves. You could say the assumption is they have been waiting in line with their family in spirit.

I should note they no longer have handicapped access lines, because too many assholes were pretending to be in wheelchairs and stuff to skip the line. But for all its elaborate design, WDW seems remarkably handicap accessible, from buses to rides. I should look for blog posts from folks in wheelchairs. I'm curious what they think.

If anything, the proliferation of scooters and strollers are the only things hampering the flow of things, but both are probably necessities. I saw mostly elderly and impaired (casts and crutches) young folks using scooters, which is only fair, because walking 10 to 15 miles a day can be tough on anyone.