Originally Posted By dshyates "...everything has been changed." NO IT HASN"T YOU DIM WIT. The architecture except for one building HASN"T changed. The Theme of he land HASN"T changed. The theme of the attractions HASN"T changed. At DCA they are changing all of that from the turnstiles to the wienie. I'll go ahead and apologise for the dim witted comment. Sorry.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Ok I just suffered through 15 minutes of reading the last 75 posts. I'm going to have to go on board with Spirit here. I think he's got the thing "the most correct" IMHO.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Really...you all know it doesn't matter. No one has ever completely revamped an entire park so quickly after it opened as well as doing it all at one time under one single budget. You can't aruge that ^ ^ ^
Originally Posted By DVC_dad Really...you all know it doesn't matter. No one has ever completely revamped an entire park so quickly after it opened as well as doing it all at one time under one single budget. You can't aruge that ^ ^ ^
Originally Posted By jonvn "If EPCOT has changed to a DCA level, What was the theme for Future World before it was Future World?" What has changed with DCA's theme? I mean, you are throwing out these little meaningless things. The basic fact of the matter is that everything in FW has been either completely replaced or extensively modified. "The hub wienie of no Disney Park has been removed and replaced." OK, and no other park has had one land removed and replaced as many times as TL in Disneyland has, either. Again, little rules being thrown out that try to put DCA in a separate class, but it's not. "saying that freshing the attractions is akin to a massive redo" Ripping down an entire building, or gutting for something completely different it is not "freshing" it. Freshing it, as it were, would be the small things done to things like POTC, where they added Jack Sparrow. It is not totally removing a show and replacing it with another.
Originally Posted By jonvn "NO IT HASN"T YOU DIM WIT." Ah, well, there is a real cogent argument. Except, yes, it has. It's all been changed, to one degree or another. Mostly rather extensively. The architecture for the building that now houses Buzz Lightyear in Tomorrowland is the same basic building that was put there in 1955. That is basically meaningless. And as I've said, the theme of Paradise Pier is basically staying the same. The themes in DCA are basically staying the same, so that argument is rather meaningless as well. Furthermore, the theme of the attractions at DCA that are remaining are not changing, either. So your comments are basically incorrect. "I'll go ahead and apologise for the dim witted comment." Then you should not have said it in the first place. "No one has ever completely revamped an entire park so quickly after it opened as well as doing it all at one time under one single budget. " They are adding: 1) A new entrance mall. This is about as big a non-entity as one can imagine. It's the midway shopping area. 2) A new cartoon ride. 3) Adding cartoons to the Pier area and a water show. 4) Adding a trolley. 5) Adding a new themed area in five years. 6) Oh, and supposedly a beer garden. That's it. That's what has been announced. It's not that much.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Jonvn, you're quoting Marcie from mouseinfo verbatim. She's a liar. Epcot has filled the parking lot - several times. Epcot has had higher attendance then she says. I posted photos for you from the Orlando Sentinel of Epcot's openeing day, which Marcie stared was only 10k guests - did that look like only 10k guests to you? How do you get 10k guests with lines at the turnstiles stretching to the parking lot? We know for a fact the average park day is ~25k, with next to no lines at the turnstiles. How is that physically possible? Also, i know you've seen my photos of Epcot's parking lot full. It was full and closed last NYE and you darn well saw those photos. Stop listening to Marcie's lies and come back from the dark side.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Reposting the photo of Epcot's opening, for reference.. <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/media/photo/2007-09/32887411.jpg" target="_blank">http://www.orlandosentinel.com /media/photo/2007-09/32887411.jpg</a> That is not a park which only has 10k guests for the day like DCA had. Marcie is a liar.
Originally Posted By jonvn "you're quoting Marcie from mouseinfo verbatim." No, actually, I'm not. I don't know who she is other than another internet blogger. I knew about the parking lot thing prior to her. I have been following this stuff for more than a few weeks, and I don't need her, or anyone else, to tell me what to think. The fact that you would go out of your way to bring in someone who is not part of this conversation speaks that you have some other issue here. One that is just not my concern. "I posted photos for you from the Orlando Sentinel of Epcot's openeing day, which Marcie stared was only 10k guests - did that look like only 10k guests to you? " I don't remember her saying opening day had only 10k guests. And no one is even talking about that. No one has brought it up, and quite honestly, no one cares. No one here has suggested the place had only 10k guests opening day, and no one has said anything negative about the place at all. "We know for a fact the average park day is ~25k, with next to no lines at the turnstiles. How is that physically possible?" We know this, do we? How do we know this? Don't throw "facts" at me unless you can back them up. But to answer your question, that picture simply could have been taken before they opened the gates. That's probably what that picture is. So it is perfectly possible for the place to have 10k people in it with that line. With no other information available I have no reason to think the two things could not both have happened. My guess is that Marcie is not lying, as there is no reason for her to do so. It makes no sense at all, and so I don't really believe it. On the other hand, I don't know what the opening day's numbers are, so I have no reason to believe it, either, other than she seems fairly accurate in general. But, chiefly, I couldn't care less about opening day attendance figures at Epcot in 1983. "Also, i know you've seen my photos of Epcot's parking lot full." That's interesting, because I've not seen those photos. So what you think you know is not correct. "Stop listening to Marcie's lies and come back from the dark side." When you have someone online who purports to know things, you have to judge what they say critically. When someone comes here, such as Bean, who says things that make reasonable sense, and appears well informed, or Marcie, who also says things that make general sense, and also seems to be fairly well informed, you develop a track record. What makes it such that these people make sense is associating what they say with real world experience, and human behavior. They don't come across as nuts, spouting crazy irrational stuff that does not have anything to do with corporate realities, like some other bloggers do. This is opposed to people ripping down pictures on their website and putting up "marcie is a liar" in their place. She is likely not a liar, or at worst is simply mistaken. There is no reason for her or anyone to flat out lie about such things, that is irrational. So, now you present me with a choice. I have to try and decide whether I should listen to people who in the past have given out information that has been accurate and presented in a reasonable fashion, or I should listen to people who present evidence that indicates they don't think things through very clearly. I think I'll listen to Marcie, Bean, and even Jim Hill first. I'll even listen to Al if things are otherwise independently confirmed (which usually they are not quite correct). But I'm not going to listen to someone who can't even figure out what we are talking about and has decided that any epcot topic open is one where they can jump in with some angry and strange pronouncement about another website writer and tell us all about whatever it is they personally have an issue with. If this is staying on the darkside, then that's where I'll be, because that's where the information is. Aside from that, no one is quoting her. Since no one is quoting her, I don't see the point in discussing what she said further. Again, I really couldn't care less.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<The lots have never been full to my knowledge.>> OK. Jon. That's to your knowledge. Guess what? I was at EC on Opening Day. I'm a Floridian. I;ve had an AP since they started selling them in 1982. I've seen the parking lot full. Are you aware that the lot was actually expanded in the mid-80s because it wasn't large enough? Because that's a fact. "Because you're stating something that simply isn't true." <<Of course it's true. I listed all the things that were changed and or replaced. It basically is everything in FW. Everything. >> No. You've lised things that you say because they've had some updating is the same as what is going on at DCA, which isn't true no matter how much you drone on about it. SSE hasn't had over 3/4ers of its changed ONE BIT since Day 1. The Living Seas, other than overlaying the characters, is still the same place it was at opening ... a giant ride through an aquarium, with exhbits and a resturant next to the tank. ...Energy has had new movies added ONCE to an attraction whose highlight is a trip back to the age of the dinosaur ... again, not much of a change. ... The Land boatride changed names and lost its theme music ... but unless you're going to argue that they replant the lettuce in the greenhouses to show they're changing like DCA, well, they haven't changed the substance of the attraction in 25 years ... the entrance plaza is exactly the same ... the entryway has had some planters taken away and some stones put up in an attempt to shill photos ... but it's largely the same area. I could go on and on, but I'll leave that to you. You're just way off on comparing EC, a hugely successful park to DCA, one that has been far from that. <<You can try and claim that it didn't happen, but it is simply there to be seen. You can try and make excuses for how it does not count for reasons you wish to invent, but the final upshot is that the FW area has been totally changed over. Half the theme park. Half a 300 acre theme park.>> Except that it hasn't. You can't seem to grasp your mind around the fact that changes and updating over a quarter of a century don't equate to a total revamping of a park that just celebrated its sixth B-DAY. "It hasn't. SSE is still SSE" <<It's been revamped. As has the rest of the things. Paradise Pier after the changes will still be paradise Pier. It's another irrelevant argument.>> Look. If you want to talk revamping or semantics, I'll just let you argue with yourself or others ... I'll gladly tell you SSE has been revamped. But it still is pretty much what it always has been. BTW, they recently spent $60 million on the Mansion ... I guess that means it's a totally new attraction by your thinking. "That's the only complete teardown at EPCOT -- Horizons to Mission Space. But I'll even give you TT from WoM. That's still two." <<That would be the some then. Some of them have been total rip downs and rebuilds. But then, you also have things like communicore which was replaced, too. >> Yes. Communicore, which was small exhibits that changed, was replaced with Innoventions, which is small exhibits that change out frequently. you're picking wings off of flies! <<It is again ridiculous to suggest that because communicore was "supposed to change" that the change would be for something completely different. That's just ignoring the facts.>> No. It isn't. Both are small-scale, temporary, interactive attractions. I'm ignoring nothing. "If Al Lutz, or anyone else" <<What are you, his love slave? What do you keep dragging him into this for?>> Probably a low blow ... and if so well ... you probably had it coming. Honestly, I sometimes feel like you will crawl on your knees 1,000 miles in the opposite direction rather than agree to anything the man has said. In this case, you simply say EPCOT and DCA are the same situations and thereby discredit every word your pal has said. The only problem is they aren't. "But you feel like you have the knowledge to toss out the same words about a park that has been incredibly successful by any metrics for 25 years." <<They have systematically been making the FW area more accessible as a theme park and making it appear less like a world's fair. They've been doing this ongoing for years now. What they do internally I have no idea, and don't claim to, so don't put words in my mouth. However it is pretty obvious what they have removed and what they have replaced it with.>> I'm going to go out on a very short limb and say that I'm intimately more aware of what has come, gone and largely stayed the same than you have. That's why I'm not letting you state a blatant untruth that half the park has been ripped out and replaced because Disney is deseperatly throwing billions at the park ... it's not true. "Sorry, but with parking lots, size really doesn't matter." <<It does matter, if they expected a certain number of vehicles and planned for it, and they did not show up. >> No. All it shows is that when EC opened, Disney barely had 3,000 rooms on property. Now, they have almost 30,000. A lot of cars stopped coming, but people didn't. "when Bob Iger tells the media that 'DCA has been a challenge' and uses much stronger language behind the scenes, it's safe to assume the park hasn't lived up to whatever expectations TWDC had for it." <<My guess is that it's not doing what the original forecasts were. I don't know what stronger language he uses behind the scenes, and no one here claims to have heard him say anything behind the scenes.>> I can't say I know exactly what he has said behind closed doors, but I do (believe it or not) have friends who have discussed the park with him. And he is a bit more blunt when the media isn;t quoting him. As anyone would be. "The first set of ideas thrown away were based upon 40-plus years of creative and financial success. The second set was based upon the notion people would accept anything with the Disney name on it in Anaheim. It was a park designed by consultants, real estate experts and retailers ... not Imagineers." <<I'm sorry, but didn't WDI have some involvement in the park? Seems to me that if they did, then there were "imagineers" working on it.>> Most of the people who conceived and designed the park came from the DDC side of the company, not WDI ... WDI wound up coming in and trying to ride to the rescue of a fundamentally flawed park.
Originally Posted By MPierce Well I do know mousermerf is pretty well informed and has a lot of useful knowledge about Epcot. Sometimes I think he considers Epcot his baby. About this Marcie person I really have no opinion. To my knowledge, I've never read anything she has written. Going on the parking lot is not full theory would mean every mall, and shopping center across American are complete flops. Yes there are a few things that have been made over in Epcot over the last 25 years. I think it's because you have to cange things around are they will become stagnat. Some people like the old Epcot some like the new Epcot. In my opinion it has remained basicly Epcot with a few tweaks here, and there.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 MPierce, this Marcie person (who I've never read, btw) is basically a Disney employee who does her/his (yeah, many people say she is a he) best to discredit everything critical said about Disney -- and in particular anything said by Al Lutz. IMHO, she/he is far less credible than Lutz because she/he is a Disney employee. So, you either have two possibilities regarding this person: 1.) They're sanctioned by their employer to spout mistruths and spin the company line, which makes them completely worthless as a source of real info.; or 2.) they're posting without Disney's knowledge and/or approval and therefore likely breaking their employment contract, so even if their info has some truth to it, the fact they are engaging in activity that should get them fired would give me pause about believing a word they said. If it's No. 2, they should be smart enough to do what some of my friends do ... spoon-feed another spirit their information so it goes out to the masses with no sugar trail back to them.
Originally Posted By MPierce Thanks for the information Spirit. I never realized how much in house fighting exist amoung Disney fans. It's like throwing a bunch of Shiite Muslims in a room with a bunch of Sunni Muslims in it.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy This discussion about what park has changed the most is really pretty ridiculous. Who cares how much a park has changed? By some standards, WDW's MK has changed the least and people complain that it needs an overhaul. On the other side, you have folks who think that a large overhaul seems to be a bad thing. The discussions are really out of whack and at odds with one another. There really isn't any precedent or formula for what makes a park work. To say that the amount of change in a Disney park at any given time is "unprecedented" is a bit silly considering that there haven't been any two parks that have followed any sort of precedent really when it comes to their long-term or short-term development. Even the two clone parks -- WDW's MK and TDL have evolved in entirely different ways since they were first opened to the public.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Thanks for the information Spirit. I never realized how much in house fighting exist amoung Disney fans. It's like throwing a bunch of Shiite Muslims in a room with a bunch of Sunni Muslims in it.>> I'd prefer to say a bunch of mindless left-wing nuts with a bunch of mindless right-wing nuts, but your analogy fits too!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<The discussions are really out of whack and at odds with one another.>> Here comes the voice of sanity and reason in the LP ... (that was sarcasm, just in case anyone thought otherwise!) <<There really isn't any precedent or formula for what makes a park work. To say that the amount of change in a Disney park at any given time is "unprecedented" is a bit silly considering that there haven't been any two parks that have followed any sort of precedent really when it comes to their long-term or short-term development.>> This is largely true. But it's also true that what is happening with DCA is totally unprecedented in Disney park history. Comparing it to EPCOT Center's development over a quarter of a century of financial and creative success is a bit disingenuous at best. And, FWIW, Jon and I largely agree on DCA and its problems and its enjoyable aspects. But he's trying to make a 1-to-1 comparison that just isn't possible. <<Even the two clone parks -- WDW's MK and TDL have evolved in entirely different ways since they were first opened to the public.>> Uhm ... the MK and TDL were not cloned parks. TDL was known (and referred to at WDI) as a 'best of' park when it was built because OLC officials basically went through DL and the MK and picked what they wanted to buy, like you'd flip through a catalog or a web site nowadays. There are no cloned parks at all. Similar, sure.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Are you aware that the lot was actually expanded in the mid-80s because it wasn't large enough?" If that is true, then that's something I was not aware of. "You've lised things that you say because they've had some updating" It's not "some updating." These things include total rip downs and rebuilds. "...but it's largely the same area." As it will be in DCA after the changes are made. For the most part. Except for those things that will be replaced, like they were in Epcot and in other parks. "you're picking wings off of flies!" I would say that's what you are doing with some of these twisted sorts of things you are going through to make Epcot a different situation than what it is. "I sometimes feel like you will crawl on your knees 1,000 miles in the opposite direction rather than agree to anything the man has said." I don't even know what he has said in regards to this. There is no reason to bring up outside people into this discussion. "That's why I'm not letting you state a blatant untruth that half the park has been ripped out and replaced because Disney is deseperatly throwing billions at the park ... it's not true." I never said that half of it has been ripped out and replaced. I have said that everything has changed. There were some things that were ripped out and replaced, though. Half the Epcot park is changed from what it used to be. Which is odd considering that the WS part has basically sat stagnant all these years. Very little has changed. A couple of minor updates here and there, and that's about it, maybe two new pavilions. Not really a lot of progress there. "And he is a bit more blunt when the media isn;t quoting him. As anyone would be." Perhaps he is. I have no idea what he has or has not said, or why. I'm supposed to accept several layers of filtered info on this? A friend of a friend of some guy on the net? "Most of the people who conceived and designed the park came from the DDC side of the company" Yes, I recall that being a big sticking point. I think that is the cause of a lot of the ego driven changes we can see coming to DCA.
Originally Posted By jonvn "IMHO, she/he is far less credible than Lutz because she/he is a Disney employee" She's an anonymous one. If she is still even an employee. "They're sanctioned by their employer to spout mistruths and spin the company line, which makes them completely worthless as a source of real info" Except that her information is generally correct. "they're posting without Disney's knowledge and/or approval and therefore likely breaking their employment contract" She's actually discussed this. She does not say things she is not supposed to. This is why you generally just get responses out of her about subjects that have been already breached only. "This discussion about what park has changed the most is really pretty ridiculous." Yes, this was my point. All this talk about how this is "unprecedented" is silly. You can point to other parks that have had very similar stuff anyway. It really doesn't matter. "But he's trying to make a 1-to-1 comparison that just isn't possible." It's not a one to one comparison. I'm simply saying that other parks have had large scale rework done to them, and so what is happening at DCA is just the latest in what they are going to do. And Epcot springs to mind as the easiest, because half the park has changed over to one extent or another. But you can also point to Disneyland itself, which has had areas added, ripped down, rebuilt, multiple times and in some very short amount of years for a lot of it.
Originally Posted By jonvn "It's like throwing a bunch of Shiite Muslims in a room with a bunch of Sunni Muslims in it." Sometimes. Any group of people who are fans of something will do that, I think. But I'm not really annoyed here at all. I recognize this as nitpicking something to utter banality. It's just fun. Some people like sports. We like this. Unless it gets personal, it's not really something that's all that important in the big picture. Global warming? That's important. This is not.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << This is largely true. But it's also true that what is happening with DCA is totally unprecedented in Disney park history. >> What in Disney park history hasn't been unprecedented? They haven't done anything the same way twice in row ever! So, what's the point?
