Originally Posted By leobloom >> I am going to say this as gently as I can, but I don't see that Lutzian dude in your ranks. << C'mon, Spirit. I'm the Al Lutz of WDW Restrooms. I keep the pressure on TDO to keep those potties sparkling with magic.
Originally Posted By leobloom >> I've always been amazed that there hasn't ever been one voice calling out WDW much like Lutz does on MiceAge. Granted it is a much bigger target with a highly disparate management structure (whereas Lutz gets all of his information with a handful of individuals that everyone knows are feeding him stuff) but it still amazes me. << I've wondered about that before, too. Obviously has something to do with the character of the local park-going population. For the fans that move to ORL to be close to WDW (I can't comprehend doing this, but I know people have done it), they probably feel the need to believe they haven't made a bad decision to move close to a deteriorating Magic World. They probably don't really like Central Florida for any reason other than its proximity to WDW, so their intense feelings of loyalty to the parks prevents them from seeing things more objectively. (And on the subject of moving to a city just to be close to a theme park -- where's that thread on fanboism pathology, Spirit?) I think a lot of other Orlando locals -- the non-fanboy type -- realize WDW isn't what it used to be. I've talked to many people who say -- without prompting -- that WDW's upkeep and maintenance and atmosphere isn't what it was, and they admit the company just wants to squeeze every possible dime out of the place. And then there are plenty of locals who NEVER go to the parks. I knew a woman who hadn't been since Epcot was the new thing in the mid-1980s. As the parks have become more associated with small kids, you find that people who don't have young children or grandchildren don't see a reason for adults to pay the astronomical sums to go for a day or two. It'd be interesting to do research on how the local perception of Disney has changed since the late-60s and today. I suspect that at some point the perception changed, but when that was I don't know. (I would guess sometime around the opening of MGM when it became clear that WDW wanted to push out competition in ORL.) I don't really know a lot about Al Lutz's background. Was he just a local from Southern California who started visiting the parks on a daily basis, documenting the poor state of DL? I know he was around in the 1990s. Was he ever a CM? Anyway, there's no Al Lutz for WDW, and given the different in local populations, I doubt there will be. The local population in ORL isn't important for being a group who owns APs or who drives WDW's business. On the converse, you have a good chunk of the local population employed by WDW -- and a lot of them are probably just happy to have jobs. Again, not a state of mind that's going to lead to serious critique of how the parks are operated and managed.
Originally Posted By SeventyOne <It'd be interesting to do research on how the local perception of Disney has changed since the late-60s and today. I suspect that at some point the perception changed, but when that was I don't know. (I would guess sometime around the opening of MGM when it became clear that WDW wanted to push out competition in ORL.) ... Anyway, there's no Al Lutz for WDW, and given the different in local populations, I doubt there will be. The local population in ORL isn't important for being a group who owns APs or who drives WDW's business. On the converse, you have a good chunk of the local population employed by WDW -- and a lot of them are probably just happy to have jobs. Again, not a state of mind that's going to lead to serious critique of how the parks are operated and managed.> I think you are largely correct here. Orlando will never be Anaheim--one of the reasons the remake of our failed. I would add the Floridians of the 1971 are by and large not the Floridians of 2011 (some are still here, particularly in local government, but for the most part they are now a minority). There are basically two "Orlandos". "LBV"--which stretches from Millenia to Davenport, and is pushing north to Clermont--is, as you said, largely made up of people who work directly or tangentially for the Mouse (with a few of the fanbois you alluded to who just really love the parks). "Winter Park" covers downtown and Seminole County, even Deltona at this point--it's largely been taken over by Yuppies who work for corporate HQs that came down here seeking tax breaks, and its residents seem vaguely embarassed to have to live in a town so heavily associated with theme parks. "We're building a new arts center downtown, haven't you heard?" We're not going to get an Al Lutz out of either of these groups.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<^ Oh, why don't YOU do it, Spirit....? (Yes, I know the answer to this, and yes, everyone else is thinking it, so why not post it!? LOL) >> <<I nominate Spirit of 74 to be the Lutz of WDW. ;-)>> I appreciate the votes of confidence, guys. And I'm sure it would be amusing to see how TDO handled a Spirit of my ... um ... ah ... caliber. But that's not what I am about. I don't work for free (even if it feels like it at times!) ... And since I am involved in other aspects of the business that would make it a toxic stew. This is a full-time gig. You have to go about it that way or nothing gets accomplished. And there have been other fan initiatives that have died because of this. But there may be other ways I can aid the cause ... ;-)
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Splash and Thunder looked much improved this weekend. Was it the online fan focus? Maybe. Could just have easily been the visit by Iger and the Board, alas.>> Ah ... what visit, Kevin? Iger and the Board couldn't have been here since there's not one photo out in cyberland. Did Thomas Smith not arrange those one on one interviews for ya? ;-) As to the attractions looking better ... well, that's good to hear. But all the attractions need to aim for being in 100% shape every day. That has to be the standard and it's not even close. Look at CoP news. I also very much doubt Iger or the Board got anywhere close to the MK's mountain range, but anything's possible. <<BTW, I agree with the Spirited observations here - he's not insulting me or saying anything he didn't already say to my face. He may even be right that it takes a "bulldog" mentality to force change... but he's also right that I don't want that to be me. It has to be the right "fit" for a personality.>> Good. I didn't mean to sound that way. Trust me, if I was gonna insult you, then I'd do it to your face. I think you know that about me by now. And you're way too nice to insult (which may be part of your problem ... wait, that coulda been a fanboi passive aggressive shot! ;-) ) And you can't change who you are. You'll just come off smelling like a phony and that's what you don't want. There are dozens (hundreds at this point?) of online Disney apologists and folks who won't notice any of your Declining By Degrees points who can handle the phoniness just fine. But, as I've said, I do think the fact TDO will credential losers (and yes, I do mean that!) and not a noted Disney 'expert' (should I have said geek?) and author of numerous books does tell you that Disney views you as someone who will be fair and balanced to a degree it makes them uncomfortable. So ... no Disney Fantasy freebie for you and the family!
Originally Posted By TDLFAN >>We need help getting this off the ground and I know there are many WDW enthusiasts here who are sick of the TDO, we need an Al Lutz type who will help keep them in check(or at least voice our displeasure). Anybody willing to help??<< Well, there was this TDLFAN guy who used to post here almost a decade ago. He was telling everyone about the decline of show and quality all over the WDW long before the fans started to notice.. Yet, he was hissed and criticized for being daring enough, not by the people in charge of running WDW mind you, but by his online forum peers!! Even those who make a quick buck complaining about Disney online did not agree with TDLFAN and had him shut up. Now people are asking for someone like TDLFAN to get things "off the ground and started". How laughable. A sad case of a little, too late. Too bad those who took a strong public stance against poor Disney management years ago, no longer give a **** about the state of WDW. So good luck with your search. No one at the House of Mouse gives a darn about any fanboi's ranting.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<The biggest strength of social media is also its biggest failure - the democratisation of the internet - everyone has a voice but it makes it harder to aggregate all of those voices into one unified message. I've no idea why it isn't possible - ego?>> Ego definitely plays a role, at least so far as the Disney fan community and voices being heard goes. Everyone seems so splintered that it takes something truly remarkable to bring them together. Sometimes it's the weirdest things like the Lights of Winter being removed from EPCOT. Even in this fan campaign, I have my concerns. There are some who feel almost as if they need to apologize for criticizing WDW for its poor maintenance/upkeep. You just can't do that. You MUST attack. It's like tough love. You have to 'harm' Disney to some degree in order to help it. Doing anything less is going to net you the equal of a 'thanks for your comments and have a MAGICal day' in the cyber world. <<I've always been amazed that there hasn't ever been one voice calling out WDW much like Lutz does on MiceAge. Granted it is a much bigger target with a highly disparate management structure (whereas Lutz gets all of his information with a handful of individuals that everyone knows are feeding him stuff) but it still amazes me.>> Lutz also benefited from a perfect confluence of events/circumstances when he first rose to prominence as a voice of DL fans. The resort expansion left many locals bitter as they went from being promised an Audi to Buick ... to well, a slightly used Dodge. AP ranks were swelling. The park was starting to have serious infrastructure issues. Oh, and then you had management that had no clue how to run anything but mall stores. ... He also benefited from a local base that is passionate about DL, feels an ownership (rightly or wrongly) and understand its history. A 16-year old from Artesia likely understands the history of the park because generations of his/her family have also grown up with the park. And Lutz went from being right maybe half the time, to being right about 95% of the time too. I think we both know that's because as he grew as a 'go to' DL expert by the media, certain folks in TDA as well as Glendale and Burbank decided to use him to further their agendas. I believe firmly he is being used by the current DL Prez right now, but he doesn't care so long as he believes the resort is being managed/herded in the right direction.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN >>I've always been amazed that there hasn't ever been one voice calling out WDW much like Lutz does on MiceAge.<< At the risk of sounding like a broken record Mr. Macdonald.. Once upon a time there was this TDLFAN guy.. but you particularly shot him down repeatedly for his beliefs. Could it be that you no longer sleep with the lions that guard the doors to the Disney Kingdoms?
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<I've wondered about that before, too. Obviously has something to do with the character of the local park-going population. For the fans that move to ORL to be close to WDW (I can't comprehend doing this, but I know people have done it), they probably feel the need to believe they haven't made a bad decision to move close to a deteriorating Magic World. They probably don't really like Central Florida for any reason other than its proximity to WDW, so their intense feelings of loyalty to the parks prevents them from seeing things more objectively. (And on the subject of moving to a city just to be close to a theme park -- where's that thread on fanboism pathology, Spirit?)>> Oh, my potty passionate pal, where to begin? I think you absolutely are correct regarding people not wanting to admit they have FAILED or simply made a bad life decision by moving to O-Town, so they tend to ignore things. I'll never forget when an ignorant ex-friend and I got into a talk about how filthy the carpeting was in my pricey WDW resort hotel and she simply said 'I never look down' ... well, doesn't that make everything all right? Take that to the extreme and people just opt to not see what's there. It's almost like a petulant child sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling 'I can't hear you'. As to the pathology thread ... well, I haven't had the time to start that ... and I have reservations, serious ones, about doing it because I can already hear the 'Spirit's saying we're all crazy wackjobs!' and I'm not sure I want to go down that path. That said, I did write a little something related to said topic a few days ago, in response to another post that kinda goes into that a bit, and I'm going to drop it on the Social Media thread in a few minutes ... <<I think a lot of other Orlando locals -- the non-fanboy type -- realize WDW isn't what it used to be. I've talked to many people who say -- without prompting -- that WDW's upkeep and maintenance and atmosphere isn't what it was, and they admit the company just wants to squeeze every possible dime out of the place. And then there are plenty of locals who NEVER go to the parks. I knew a woman who hadn't been since Epcot was the new thing in the mid-1980s. As the parks have become more associated with small kids, you find that people who don't have young children or grandchildren don't see a reason for adults to pay the astronomical sums to go for a day or two.>> No doubt. For every crazy Disney loon who thinks that moving from (fill in the blank) down to some non-descript apartment or subdivision in the WDW area will somehow fill a void, you have REAL people who live in Orlando and work real jobs and feel that Disney (and to a lesser extent all the parks) lower the quality of life because of all the bad they bring. I meant to start a thread on something I saw on the LP Latest last week and really it should be viewed. It's from the CBS Evening News a week ago on 'WDW's homeless' and uses the fire at the motel in Kissimmee as a jumping off point to show just how non-MAGICal the area can be. <<It'd be interesting to do research on how the local perception of Disney has changed since the late-60s and today. I suspect that at some point the perception changed, but when that was I don't know. (I would guess sometime around the opening of MGM when it became clear that WDW wanted to push out competition in ORL.)>> I've done some research of my own. I was considering writing a book a few years ago (still am, subject has just changed ... or subjects) ... but the perception of Disney really did change right about 1990-1992 ... when Disney was undergoing massive growth, particularly in the hotel business and they weren't being the best neighbor. Disney really pretty much had a honeymoon for most of its first two decades and then it all started to change ... not coincidentally, that's also when many longtime Orlandoans started leaving the area in droves. <<I don't really know a lot about Al Lutz's background. Was he just a local from Southern California who started visiting the parks on a daily basis, documenting the poor state of DL? I know he was around in the 1990s. Was he ever a CM?>> Local. Was in the music business, but I think long out of it now. I don't think he ever visited daily. I first heard of him around 1997-98 when I was headed out to LA after a long absence and was looking for some DL info online and discovered his first site the DIG, which was actually very impressive for its time and had all the trip-planning type info that Deb Wills is now known for with WDW. Then, I discovered newsgroups and everything changed ;-) <<Anyway, there's no Al Lutz for WDW, and given the different in local populations, I doubt there will be. The local population in ORL isn't important for being a group who owns APs or who drives WDW's business. On the converse, you have a good chunk of the local population employed by WDW -- and a lot of them are probably just happy to have jobs. Again, not a state of mind that's going to lead to serious critique of how the parks are operated and managed.>> You'd think with all the people who live in the parks (again, mental health comes into play as these were not designed for folks to use like the local mall), someone would decide to step out of the pixie dusted cabal and be a voice of honesty and integrity. But most just want in on Disney's Social Media Whorefest and what swag they can get.
Originally Posted By ReelJustice << It's almost like a petulant child sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling 'I can't hear you'.>> Spirit, have you been invading my thoughts? I've used this a few times in the past few days of correspondence with our mutual friend, EPCOTExplorer.
Originally Posted By dshyates I don't think that a personality such as Al is going to appear out of no where. But I think an organized assault by already known subversives such as Spirit, TDLFAN, Kevin Yee, and the Bois putting this initiative along with a host of minions (such as Hokie, EE, and myself) along with cooperative website like LP, MiceAge, Orlando United, etc. can make a difference. We have to bombard the message boards and submit concise and factual articles to the sites that will take them. I'm sure the mouse has noticed Kevin's declining by degrees series and has garnered him his persona non grata status with them. If we start coming at them from a bunch of different directions they will not be able to control the message. Use their own weapon (social media) against them. The whole concept of Disney trying to wrangle the interwebs into submission is laughable. When you play with fire younger burned.
Originally Posted By leemac <<At the risk of sounding like a broken record Mr. Macdonald.. Once upon a time there was this TDLFAN guy.. but you particularly shot him down repeatedly for his beliefs. Could it be that you no longer sleep with the lions that guard the doors to the Disney Kingdoms?>> Mixed metaphors aside - and the lacking of a capital D in my name - glad to see you back on LP Julio.
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer I'd be happy to help, if the above scenario came into being. I call rants about EPCOT.
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub My new personal demand is: Tear it all down We need more Executive Parking! But please no more MeetnGreets I am making t-shirts for sale now I also plan a t-shirt with Mickey Mouse and the Fab5 arriving with mops and buckets to personally clean & scrub:Assignment Main Street and the rest of the Resortworld.
Originally Posted By leobloom >> Oh, my potty passionate pal, where to begin? I think you absolutely are correct regarding people not wanting to admit they have FAILED or simply made a bad life decision by moving to O-Town, so they tend to ignore things. I'll never forget when an ignorant ex-friend and I got into a talk about how filthy the carpeting was in my pricey WDW resort hotel and she simply said 'I never look down' ... well, doesn't that make everything all right? << That solves everything. Just stop looking at all the cut corners and magically everything will look better! >> I meant to start a thread on something I saw on the LP Latest last week and really it should be viewed. It's from the CBS Evening News a week ago on 'WDW's homeless' and uses the fire at the motel in Kissimmee as a jumping off point to show just how non-MAGICal the area can be. << That sounds very interesting. The dark side of magic and pixie dust. Kinda like the fifth gate that will be based on Disney villains! >> Local. Was in the music business, but I think long out of it now. I don't think he ever visited daily. I first heard of him around 1997-98 when I was headed out to LA after a long absence and was looking for some DL info online and discovered his first site the DIG, which was actually very impressive for its time and had all the trip-planning type info that Deb Wills is now known for with WDW. Then, I discovered newsgroups and everything changed ;-) << I remember well the DIG and the newsgroups (rec.arts.disney.parks -- so that's where Disney Parks came from!)
Originally Posted By ChiMike In my usenet time it was RAD. They had not taken the hierarchy down another level. Ohh, and of course the Bertino ftp site. Good memories! Also. RAD was for the most part WDW conversation. The DLanders all hung out at ADD. However, when Indy opened, I remember it being the first attraction opening spoken about online at both forums. Pretty interesting to think of the forms of communication back then. People on the East coast getting day by day feedback of soft openings for Indy. Having nothing but text (for the most part) to describe bug room, main chamber, queue. Very good memories! It was a RAD ADD
Originally Posted By leobloom I'd forgotten about ADD and the Bertino ftp site with all the attraction scripts. Yeah, ChiMike, very interesting to think about online communication back then. Not that Indy's a ride that translates well into youtube videos, but it was an exciting time for park fans even without the visual images.
Originally Posted By ChiMike ^^ And not to be too stuck in the good 'ol days, but more off the radar. A tip might go out about a soft opening, new low-level park offering, or for some consumers even a new discount, and it wouldn't be this feeding frenzy that is seen today. The reaction to the newsgroup posting wouldn't even be a blip on park management's radar. As Spirit pointed out on Social Networking, what once was a simple club of in the know fans has now turned into a cottage industry.
