Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt 6 to 15 visits per year? Wow. Aren't you bored with DLR by now?
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub Hi Cerise I see you are a new poster. Welcome to LP. I think Hans is a nice poster I have no idea why he would ask a ? like that except to make us laugh on Laughingplace.com.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Did I commit some sort of crime? I wasn't trying to be offensive; I am very curious to know how someone can visit DL that often and not be bored with the place. Geez.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo "Did I commit some sort of crime? I wasn't trying to be offensive; I am very curious to know how someone can visit DL that often and not be bored with the place. Geez." That's not quite what you asked. You asked if she was bored. Not how she avoids boredom. The answer to the first question is pretty obvious. So much so that it kind of comes off as rude. And for that matter, you're acting like there aren't thousands of people who go at least that as often as that. She's not some sort of outlier.
Originally Posted By Mickeymouseclub Sorry Hans under normal circumstances I would have not commented. This was my friendly attempt to let all of us know we have a new poster in our midst. On the other hand I am curious to understand why LP has many active posters that rarely go to WDW or DL if ever. It works both ways. I think we are all present to understand ourselves and others. So I apologize for my offense.
Originally Posted By noahbear2008 I know I am late coming in on this topic but I just wanted to add my two cents. I have a very similar experience when we took our trip in November. It was our first trip with our two year old. Most of the trip was wonderful but several "experiences" have also made us decide that we will not be returning to DL until Carsland opens. I will elaborate because I know people will want to know the reasons. 1. My son had been looking forward to World of Color since we watch the podcasts and he talked about seeing Buzz and Woody and was very excited. Unfortunately he fell asleep before we could see the show so Grandma took him back to the room so he could sleep. We got the dinning package stood in line and just before the CMs let us in to the area they said this "You are all adults, please no pushing, shoving, running, tripping or hitting" I almost laughed until two seconds later I was almost got trampled and all I could think was thank goodness my little one is not here this is unsafe. The poor CMs just got out of the way and I cant blame them. When we finally got settled and got "seats" right on the railing a lady with her two children shoved her way in between me and the person next to me and when I bumped her child because she was glued to me the lady said, "I saw how that horrible women pushed you I am watching her." I was horrified and I had to stand with her for the next 30 minutes. It ruined WOC for me and I felt unsafe. I can hear the comments now I should have said something but I didn't want a confrontation, you can say it I am chicken. 2. This will be general because I am getting long winded but the overall crowding during the parades and fireworks is dangerous is not magical in anyway and made me feel unsafe and stressed. We decided not to do the parade and the fireworks after two nights of trying, it was just not worth it to me. 3. I wrote about this in another post so all I will say is Tiki Room Mosh Pit for Toddlers. AND I want a dole whip =)
Originally Posted By ksargen "I wrote about this in another post so all I will say is Tiki Room Mosh Pit for Toddlers. AND I want a dole whip =)" What post? can someone link it, please? I'm VERY curious about this concept of a Tiki Room Mosh...
Originally Posted By Pollyana I remember the mosh pit comment. Little ones getting out of control while the parents sit back and let it happen. My oh my..... I love the Tiki room and have never encountered the "mosh pit" crew.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance "And for that matter, you're acting like there aren't thousands of people who go at least that as often as that. She's not some sort of outlier." Let's hear it, Yookeroo. What's the astronomical amount of times you go to that park each year???
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "That's not quite what you asked. You asked if she was bored. Not how she avoids boredom. The answer to the first question is pretty obvious. So much so that it kind of comes off as rude." MYOB.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "On the other hand I am curious to understand why LP has many active posters that rarely go to WDW or DL if ever. It works both ways. I think we are all present to understand ourselves and others. So I apologize for my offense." No worries, and thanks for asking why some of us don't visit frequently. There are lots of reasons why I personally don't go to DLR often: number one is distance. Other reasons are the expense, frequent visits to the resorts worldwide multiple times, change of taste, boredom, too many crowds, the general dumbing down of the experience, etc.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Now this is an interesting point about posters who are on LP but do not go too often (although often is relative for everyone). As a kid growing up in Central California, I used to go to DL every 4 - 6 weeks with different friends of family. I was also in children's hospital a lot, and Disneyland, Knoot's or USH would be a treat the day before my appointments. I loved it and never got bored of it. A lot of the reason was because there were so many different dining experiences (man I miss the Tahitian Terrace and the Golden Horseshoe Review), shops like the candle maker, the geode shop, the wood wrok workshop, One of a Kind etc. that were attractions in themselves. And growing up in a family full of live musicians, I always enjoyed the variety of live music opportunities. To me these epitomised disneyland as much as PotC or HM. And I would read everything I could on Disney - every Magic Kingdom Club magazine, and the librarian used to keep cuttings in the press about Disney for me. It was always difficult to find someone to converse about Disney with, and it got to the point where my immediate family started to hate Disney, and I was no longer allowed to talk about it. I then moved to the UK in 1986 (before Star tours opened), and was devostated that there were no Disney parks, and that the local parks were more like carnivals. And getting information on Disney was ever harder. I learnt of Splash Mountain and Fantasmic by taking special trips to the London Disney Store, an at the time 2 hour journey that would take me 4 hours of work to save the rail fare. I was an addict in the extreme. In 1989 I was overwelmed with joy that EuroDisney would open in 3 years. I took on two part time jobs while at school to scrimp and save to be there for opening day. And when I finally got there, although there were less attractions, I actually was amazed to see a park I felt was even better than the original (unlike the MK in WDW, which I was totally underwelmed with on our first visit in 1982). It was worth all the sacrifice and scrimping and saving. I was able to make it onto a school trip as well later that year, and enjoyed it even more the second time.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I went to university in 1993, not able to return to EuroDisney as going to college (especially with no financial support from family) is an expensive enterprise. But when I got there, I was so pleased. Aberystwyth has a copywrite library. It meant that by the end of my first year, I had read every book ever published in the UK about Walt Disney, Disney Parks and Theme Parks in general. It was also at this time that I first had access to the internet and used to post on the old Rec.arts boards as baloo (hence the screen names). It was like a huge renaissance as so many now well known Disney writers and I would exchange info. I loved it. i managed to do a charity run to Disneyland Paris as it became known in 1995 to ride the newly opened Space Mountain. I was allowed £5 ($7.50) and had to travel between 3 countries, 600 miles to get there. I managed it, and managed to raise £20,000 ($30,000) for the British Institute for Brain Injured Children and Make a Wish. And it was totally worth it. Riding Space Mountain in Paris blew me away. A synchronised soundtrack, a launch and 3 loops in a Disney coaster - increadible! I was sold.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo My time in college and the years after, I could not afford to go the parks, but of course I poured over the internet looking for sites, through brochures at travel agents, and kept writing applications to work for the mouse (I did a short stint at the Disney store and also at Legoland Windsor, and while I enjoyed both, I thought to keep the passion alive, I would pursue an alternative career so I would not burn out. And while I could not afford to go, I worked tirelessly on fundraising and making arrangement for Make a Wish and Dreamflight families to go. And eventually took a few myself as I got older. The magic just got stronger and stronger, and it seemed like Disney was getting better and better. In 1997, I met my wife. She had never been to a Disney park before, but she loved the movies (we watched Hunchback at her request for our 2nd date) and had a few pieces of merchandise in her home (she was a Pooh fan). Family illness struck my parent's home hard, so in 1999 we all scrimped and saved to go to Disneyland Paris in 1999. I started to see it was not as good as it had been, but still loved it. Also this new website was starting post things about Disney, something called Laughing Place . com? I would read it on my lunch breaks at work (we didn't have a PC in the home at that stage and I had left university with daily access). That year was also my now brother in law's 18th birthday, so as a treat, I went with my now in laws to DLP in October for Halloween. Now I thought I was in love with sarah, but the moment I knew she was the one was that trip. We rode It's a Small World 5 times without getting off, at Sarah's request. It was during that voyage I decided I would propose. Which I did 3 weeks later on my birthday. We booked for our honeymoon a 2 week millenium trip to WDW and a week long Caribbean Cruise. We even considered getting married at WDW, but it was cost prohibitive (we got married at Lake Tahoe instead). And the Honeymoon was amazing, almost everything went perfectly at WDW, and we thought Dixie Landings as was, was fantastic (better in many ways than my previous stay at the Contemporary, though the monorail was always cool). We fell in love with Epcot (a park that facinated me from the first time I heard about it in 1979) and DAK. Illuminations and Tapesty of Nations were increadible. It was awesome. We fell in love with Walt Disney World. I knew then that I needed to take Sarah to the original after that, but with DCA being built, it would make sense to wait. So in 2001, we bought our first annual pass to Disneyland Paris (we have had 10 now)and using airmiles and AP discounts, we managed to go every 6 weeks that year, getting to know the place inside and out. And with every visit we fell more and more in love with the place (though Jay Rasulo started cut left, right and centre - a sign of the Disney to come). But we never got bored.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo By this point, I was well accustomed to hotels, living in them for work much of the time. And in 1999, the DLP hotels were good quality, in 2001, still not bad, and the Hotel New York was first rate. 2002 was an amazing year. Within a few weeks of each other, we were at the AP preview of the much maligned Walt Disney Studios Paris (which we loved, it brought back the live entertainment that had been missing from DLP) and finally met this new guy, Bob Iger. I also met Roy Disney Jr properly that trip and we had coffee. It was fab. A few weeks later (we were posters on LP by this point, under a different name) we went and stayed at the Grand Californian for our first trip to DCA, and the first time we met Doobekah, Dave, Jim in Merced and others. It was awesome. And we very much fell in love with DCA (Sarah had never seen many of the fruit and veg that grew there, nor tortilla making, and she had never seen why sourdough was different - these were real thrills for her, as was Blast, and the wine tasting reminded us of our wedding week where we went to the Napa and Sonoma vinyards as a newlywed couple in 2000. It looked like a great start and reconfirmed California as the best Disney resort on the planet (our trip to San Diego Zoo made DAK seem alright, USH is much better than MGM, and although we loved Epcot, well living in europe and working at the time in the tech industry where I started travelling more and more, the lustre came off the place).
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo The next few years became lean for us again. Our son was born and Sarah gave up work, making us a single income household. And we bought our first house. So we managed 1 trip a year to DLP at this point. But work sent us (that's right, they allowed me to take my family) to Dubai, Hong Kong, Australia and all over Europe. And we would go to local parks that were starting to really up their quality and service standards. While in the meantime we noticed Disney were cutting theirs. And DLP quality was starting to litterly rot and mold away, it was getting in a terrible state. Our daughter was born, and the quality had slipped between the birth of our two children. We loved seeing it through their eyes, and having Mickey hold our babies for photos were grand. But as we toured the parks with pregnant wife, or babies, we noticed especially how thrills were being pushed more and more. And there was less and less live entertainment on offer, it was starting to hit hard how things were changing. There were less and less things we wanted to buy too.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I was doing well in my career, and we were able to get back into the swing of going to DLP 4 or 5 times a year, but with all the cuts, it was starting to get to us. We then decided that the kids were getting older and that prices were going to go up when the kids started school. Besides, my daughter needed her first haircut. So we decided to go to Walt Disney World for December 2006. We figured that with taking a 3 year old and an 18 month old, we would probably spend a lot of time in the hotel. So we decided on the Animal Kingdom Lodge with a deluxe Savannah view. Because the kids were so young, we decided to leave Universal, Sea World and Kennedy Space Centre for when they were older. We also decided that we would only use Disney transport to save the extra costs of either shipping baby seats or having to pay almost as much to rent them as a car rental would have cost. The result is legendary on the WDW boards. Needless to say, we had a less than magical experience with terrible service in this deluxe hotel (including Sarah cutting her leg on a broken chair), one hour commutes on Disney buses (including 2 break downs on a 12 day trip), broken audio animatronics on virtually every major AA attraction (including the brand new Yeti - the attraction that was the tipping point for me wanting to go to Fla again). The highpoint was seeing our LP friends and Marie Osmond presenting Candlelight. But overall the Pop warner experience and many other things made us feel really ripped off. The first time ever for Disney. and it was definately a shadow of it's former self (less entertainment, less merchandise, poor service, terrible transport, poor maintenance, Pal Mickey breaking 5 times in our trip etc.) I have not been back since, but still read WDW boards to see if it was just bad luck (taking my mother in law did not help the enjoyment factor). Although things like the haunted Mansion upgrades have helped, reading the boards, it seems like things have remained like our visit to a degree (though I understand transport it better now). But this explains why I still read and post on the WDW boards. I hope Disney find themselves again in the swamps of Florida. And when they do, we may go back. But when I have a better experience at a Holiday Inn Express, you know Disney have gone down. But not everywhere thankfully.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo 2007 I was a little nervous. We still loved Disney, just not in Florida, but we were tired of the decline. For years we had been considering buying into DVC or perhaps even the new Marriott resort at DLP. It seemed on paper, for a family like ours that went every year (and FWIW, we do travel a lot elsewhere - I have been to about 60 odd countries now in my 36 years), it seemed to make sense. in 2007 we decided to stay for a 10 day vacation at the newly opened Marriott Ile De France in a 2 bedroom villa. During this time, the highlight was to be in meeting Lulu and her daughter Dr Fruitloop for the first time (we had been helping them with their European trip planning), as well as spending some quality time with the UKFAN posse and Stageman and wife. We had a fantastic time. DLP had refurbed the place for the 15th anniversary, and well still not quite up to the standards of the early 90's, it was in great shape. We had a fantastic time showing Lulu the park, and we fell in love with the villa, far better than any Disney accommodations (though Lee Mac disagrees with me). we also enjoyed showing the kids the champagne wineries, medieval provins etc. When we found out the cost of ownership was for 75 years, for less than what the Holiday Inn were charging down the road, it was appealing. When we found out we could stay in other Marriott Vacation Club resorts (which we have, I highly recommend Newport Coast and Lake Tahoe in California; Majorca; Estepona and Marbella), we snapped it up. And the service has been consistently better than any of the WDW or DLP experiences we have had since 2001. We booked a trip to Disneyland for Feb 2008, but again, I was nervous after the WDW experience. But it was a part of a larger trip to decide whether to move back to the US or stay in the UK. We had an amazing trip, meeting LP friends (people with whom we had become very close to over the years, and with whom we have shared the pleasure and pains in life. People who were the first to know about the birth of my children after the grandparents). We had meets in San Francisco and in LA. It was great. The best accommodations in that 4 week trip were the Marriott Villas at Newport Coast. The service and amenities were fantastic. It made the Grand Californian the week later seem like an ante climax. Though we still had a great time of course, the decore and location cannot be beat! That trip was very mixed. In some respects, it was probably the best trip to Disneyland ever. And that was because of the wonderful people in LP community (though sadly lots of tiffs means things are not quite what they once were). And Disneyland was in wonderful condition from the 50th spruce up a couple of years earlier. The magic was still there, though the place had less entertainment, less unique shopping, and DCA had been seriously dumbed down. the Grand Californian had the best service of any Disney hotel in our experience. But the magic was largely nostalgia (though I do like the Monsters Inc dark ride and Remember is the finest firework show Disney has ever done IMHO). And despite the nuisances of the crowds, I also think the same Apers that annoy us long distance infrequent visitors, we also have to thank for giving Disney a hard time and not allowing entertainment or hours to be cut in the same way as WDW or DLP has endured. Disneyland is still the best of the resorts IMHO (though i have yet to visit the Asian Disney Resorts). But it is a shadow of it's former self IMHO. I yearn for a day where edutainment returns to Disney's core mission. And where it is not all about toons, or video screens (frankly I don't have to leave my house for those kind of experiences, let alone the country I am in). But I fear for the worst, and just like so many other great memories of the past, the greatness of Disney, or at least what it means to me, is consigned to memory. We will be going to DLP at Easter, and I am looking forward to trying out Europa Park with it's award winning Hotel Colloseo <a href="http://resort.europapark.de/lang-en/Theme-Hotels-Guesthouse/Hotel-Colosseo/c583.html" target="_blank">http://resort.europapark.de/la...583.html</a> Phantasialand with it's award winning Hotel Ling Bao <a href="http://www.phantasialand.de/eng/Hotels/Hotel-LING-BAO" target="_blank">http://www.phantasialand.de/en...LING-BAO</a> and Eftling's bosryk even more this year: https://www.efteling.com/Solution/Contentpage.aspx?id=NL-EFTELINGBOSRIJK&ch=DEF As our experience at the Alton Towers Hotels and Waterpark have shown this year, coupled with accounts of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the quality gap is narrowing. The parks of Europe in the 80's are starting to out Disney, Disney (a monorail every 3 minutes at Alton Towers - when was the last time you saw that at Disneyloand or WDW?) Nemo subs, Toy Story video games, Liitle Mermaid rides, toy story themed carnival rides, etc. do not inspire me in the same way as a Spaceship Earth, or a Pirates of the Caribbean or a Blast. I was never really into the toons that much, and under Iger's watch, I have started to loathe them. i also do not travel halfway across the globe for carnival spinners with longer waits than my local parks, or interactive screens (frankly the theatre is more immersive use of time and money). I have come to the conclusion that maybe Disney will never be the same or equal to the period from 1976 to the early 00's where Disney were the most amazing entertainment provider on the planet (just like how Vegas will likely never take up uber theming again). Iger has driven most of my interest out of the company. I enjoyed TRON Legacy and the Sorceror's Apprentice, and the last attraction to dazzle me was Tower of Terror or Soarin'. But I do not think under the current leadership, we will get there (though world of Colour and carsland look interesting). we went to DLP twice last year and had fun, we will go once this year in all likelyhood and will no doubt have a good time (like we did last year in Scotland, Spain, Legoland, Alton Towers, the museums and aquariums, Chessington, Warwick Castle and many other places). and we are trying to save to get to Japan including Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea, where I understand the entertainment and maintenance standards are still up to the Disney I grew up with. So why do I still come onto LP? Well I do so in hopes that like when DL was killing people in the Pressler years, and then turned around in the 50th, that the whole company does that. Also, after 11 years of friendships on this board, that is difficult to turn your back on. And also, there are some lovely history stories or personal stories that remind me of where the spark is for me. Disney used to make me feel better about humanity, and that if you can dream it, you can do it (to quote Walt). they often say it started with a Mouse. well maybe it did for Walt, but for me, it started with the sense of time and place, an immersive experience that as a boy lead me on a voyage of real discovery and learning. Something modern Disney has forgotten about. I was never a Disney animation fan, I was a Disney p0ark fan. and now a historian.
