News
 

• Every show should begin with a round of self-congratulations

• On last Monday’s show I said to Jim “Tell me we’re done making changes to classic Frontierland attractions”, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

• Our friends over at WDWMagic, and other sites, reported that same day that Disney has plans to demolish the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade to make way for a DVC lounge.

• Disney hasn’t confirmed anything yet
• But from what we’re hearing, the Arcade won’t make it past Memorial Day, so make your plans accordingly
• If anyone wants to make t-shirts celebrating the Arcade along with the words “You can pry this laser rifle from my cold, dead hands”, be my guest

• A couple of shows ago we floated the idea of a Central/South America theme to Dinoland. Last week Disney released more details about those Dinoland changes, and explicitly referred to ‘Tropical Americas’ as the theme.

• The “Tropical Americas” are defined as:
  
• Which includes the Yucatan part of Mexico, all of Central America, and about 2/3rds of the countries in South America.

• Not for nothing, but the northern coast of the Yucatan is where the Chicxulub crater can be found. This is the impact crater from the asteroid that struck the earth 66 million years ago, contributing to the extinction of the dinosaurs. So thematically, we’re all good here even as a transitional story.

• Disney’s original concept art for the Dinoland re-do had what looks like a Moana-themed flume-log ride on the left side of the art, roughly where Dinorama is:
  
• Technically, all of Hawaii is in the Tropics. And it’s part of the United States of America, which would fit into a flexible definition of “Tropical Americas”.
• And however much Imagineering cares about ‘theming’, management only cares about revenue, so Disney would shoehorn Moana into an Indiana Jones/Encanto-themed land if they thought they could make money at it.

• Box office numbers:

• Encanto (2021) $257MM **in a pandemic
• Moana (2016) $248MM
• Coco (2017) $210MM, which for comparison purposes would be like giving “Wreck-It Ralph 2” or “Solo: A Star Wars Story” their own rides. And so I don’t think that’s the most likely scenario here.

• But I think having two Encanto-themed rides makes more sense, which is why I think the water ride will be Encanto, not Moana.

• Disney shareholder meeting

• It looks like Disney’s current leadership team has survived a fight for board seats led by activist investor Nelson Peltz and teams.

• All of Disney’s recommended board members were elected
• None of the alternatives were
• The votes ended up not being all that close, with shareholders preferring Disney’s candidates by at least a 2-1 margin over the alternatives
  

• Autopia going electric

• Disney told LA Times writer Sammy Roth that Disneyland’s Autopia is converting its gas-powered cars to electric.
• No timetable - Disney’s said “in the next few years”.
• Not sure if all-electric or hybrid.
• Sammy Roth’s column likely explains the motivation for the conversion: Cast Member safety.

• Exposure to engine exhaust fumes seem to be something the CMs are acutely aware of.
• Beyond that, there’s the general issue of safety around hot internal combustion engines.

• Or as one lawyer summarized it for: Teenagers and gasoline don’t mix

• No word on whether it’ll happen at WDW, but this should put the odds at better than 50/50.
  

• Speaking of electric cars, Disney announced that Test Track will close for its World-of-Motion-esque refurb, with the last day of operations being June 16, 2024.  The concept art is pretty vague here, so we don’t know a lot about visuals yet.
  
  

Surveys

Listener Questions

Our friend Jim wrote in about last week’s episode on Discovery Island:

I loved this week's episode. I had a vague memory of a school field trip that involved bird spotting, learning about WDW’s water management and conservation lands, and a super hazy memory of the utilidors or some other ‘behind the scenes’ area. I had never definitively figured out where the bird watching was, but your description of Discovery Island and reading about it in Foxx Nolte’s book ‘Hidden History of Walt Disney World’, I am now sure I went there back then.

Len says: I would pay valid American currency for a guided tour of Disney’s water management and laundry facilities. I’m also reading Foxx’s book right now, and we’re going to have her on the show this summer when she’s ready to release her next book. So if you have questions for Foxx, start sending them in.

Our pal Kelly writes in with a suggestion and an idea to consider:

In the last few episodes you have mentioned the addition of animals in the re-theming of the Dinoland area. I know a few ears from Disney might be listening, so I would appreciate if you could work capybaras into the conversation. They are adorable South American animals that were featured heavily in the Encanto ads, but didn’t pan out in the movie.

Also, I’ve been wondering about your opinion on Magic Kingdom crowd control issues if they go through with this “beyond Big Thunder”. Every time it is mentioned I get some low key anxiety thinking about adding capacity to that park. All of those extra bodies funneling through Main Street and competing for spots for the one fireworks show every night. Curious if you’ve thought through that at all or if it’s just me.

Thank you for the wonderful content every week!

Len says: Capybaras would be an excellent addition to the park!! Regarding crowds, Disney said the New Fantasyland expansion added a few thousand guests to the Magic Kingdom’s overall capacity.  So it’s reasonable to assume the same sort of per-person-per-foot calculations here.

Depending on how much of the area they develop north of the existing park, the “Beyond Big Thunder” project could be up to 4 times larger than New Fantasyland, just squinting at a map.  So you could see an additional 10K people in the park, and I’m sure Kelly can throw elbows with the best of them to get a good spot for fireworks, but you just run into a numbers problem with that many extra people.

It would not surprise me if Disney created alternate viewing areas for the fireworks, so that people in “the beyond” - and Jim, that’s what I’m going to call it for now - don’t have to try to fit in front of the castle to see the fireworks. And that would mean another … building/structure/something for projection videos.  So keep that idea in mind.

Jim’s already mentioned the challenges in just getting guests out of the park from all the way back there, and you’ll need more buses, too. So lots of logistical stuff to work out. And that’s why I don’t expect to see anything opening here anytime soon.

And Carlye writes in with a great question related to Kelly’s:

On last week’s show you mentioned that the Dinoland redo was likely not getting a new E-ticket attraction.  Using TP data on attractions with high user ratings and low downtime what ride type or system would you suggest goes into a new land to make it a highly repeatable success?

Would a copy and retheme of something like slinky dog dash be data supported idea?

Is there a “recipe” for a great land in your opinion, like:

Family coaster+water ride+spinning ride + air conditioned show, etc.

Research/Patents (use query "disney enterprises".as AND "theme park".ab)

Disney Dish – Feature for April 8, 2024
Walt Disney World’s version of
Tomorrowland – Part 1 of 2

We’ve done a number of stories over the past month or so about Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. Thought it would only be fair to pivot to Florida’s version of that same land.

These days, people seem to think that – given that Walt Disney World opened in October of 1971 with the futuristic-looking Contemporary Resort right outside the Magic Kingdom (which then had a pair of monorail tracks running right through the center of this 14 story-tall structure) virtually looming over Tomorrowland – that this side of that theme park had to have been really robust.

And if you look at WDW’s Tomorrowland today, with its pair of huge thrill rides to the back (i.e., Space Mountain & TRON Light Cycle Run), the Astro Orbiter spinning high overhead, and the Tomorrowland Transit Authority in constant motion, it’s easy to understand why you’d come away with that mistaken impression.

But here’s the thing (And forgive me for pretentiously working in a reference to T.S. Eliot. But us English majors gotta flex sometimes): Tomorrowland was a waste land back in the early Fall of 1971. Nothing attraction-wise -- outside of the Grand Prix Raceway & the Skyway – was open for business on this side of the Park was open up until Thanksgiving of that year.

And even the Skyway wasn’t really ready to do business. Not in the way the Imagineers originally designed this attraction, I mean.

To explain: For capacity-driven reasons, the Skyway has always been this one-way-only transportation system. You either got on over in Tomorrowland and then were ferried over to Fantasyland. Or you got on the Skyway in Fantasyland and were then transported over to Tomorrowland.

But when the Magic Kingdom opened in October of 1971, Tomorrowland’s Skyway station wasn’t done. I mean, how could it be? This side of the Park was largely still an active construction site, with most of the area blocked off behind fences.

But the upside of this situation was … If you boarded the Skyway over in Fantasyland, for a few months there in 1971, you got a round trip excursion over the Magic Kingdom. And at the border of Tomorrowland, you’d then fly over that series of construction fences. And then – when you got to the Skyway station in Tomorrowland – you wouldn’t get off because there was nothing (at that time, anyway) to get off to.

So Guests would then pass right through the Tomorrowland Skyway station, maybe say “Hello” to those right-to-work employees who were still laboring on that load / unload platform finished in time for that year’s Christmas crowds … and then your Skyway car would then head back the way it came on a return trip to Fantasyland.

Want to stress here that – because Guests riding the Skyway got a spectacular view of the Contemporary Resort with the monorail passing through – they still felt like they experienced Tomorrowland (i.e., I have seen the future. Even if I didn’t actually get to ride anything over there).

Side note: This was an aspect of early, early Disney World that was actually pretty cool back in 1971. Because the greenery that the Resort’s horticultural team had planted hadn’t really had time to grow (Not yet, anyway), when you were walking around inside of the Magic Kingdom, in certain spots, you could still look out past the theme park and see other aspects of the Resort.

I’ve been told that it was especially cool back then to be walking through Adventureland and be able – through gaps in the forest around the Jungle Cruise – to catch glimpses of rooftops of the Polynesian Village Resort on the other side of Seven Seas Lagoon.

This appeared to be themed storytelling on a truly epic scale. Which is why – when I got to sit down with Disney Legend John Hench in the mid-1990s – I flat-out asked him “Was this the actual plan? That – when you were walking around inside of Florida’s Magic Kingdom – you were then supposed to be able to see resorts off in the distance that would reinforce the overall theme & story being told in that part of the Park.

John’s response to my question was “Sort of.” To explain: As far as Hench was concerned, it was really just a happy accident that – right after the Magic Kingdom opened in October of 1971 – that you could see the Contemporary Resort off in the distance while you were standing in Tomorrowland. Or that you could glimpse the rooftops of the Polynesian Village on the other side of Seven Seas Lagoon as you walked through Adventureland.

“You have to remember that the team that was designing & building the Magic Kingdom in Florida was largely made up of people who’d worked on the original Disneyland. So that we knew – within a year or so – the trees that we’d planted alongside the outside border of the Park would start to grow & fill out. And that they’d eventually cut the Magic Kingdom off from the outside world.”

That said, Hench went on to say that the Imagineers did have hope that two hotels that were originally designed for Walt Disney World …

·          The Thai / Asian-themed hotel (which was originally supposed to be built where the Grand Floridian is today)

·          And Disney World’s Persian Resort (which was to be built to the north of the Contemporary along the shores of Bay Lake just to the southwest of WDW’s dry dock)

John told me that – given that the central building in Disney’s Thai / Asian Resort was supposed to have been 160 feet tall (That’s 20 feet taller than the Contemporary) – the hope was that Guests, especially when they stood in the Adventureland Plaza part of the Magic Kingdom, could see this exotic looking structure rising up off in the distance over the Jungle Cruise.

Similarly over in Fantasyland, the hope was – once construction of the Persian Resort was complete in the mid-to-late 1970s – that the blue onion domes that sat atop many of the structures at this hotel could then be seen way off in the distance as one stood at the edge of that lagoon where the “20,000 Leagues” subs made their home.

Sadly, neither of these two beautiful-looking resorts made it off of the drawing board. The Thai / Asian Resort got closest to completion. The 1972 edition of Disney’s annual report (Which was published on November 30th of that year) said that site prep along the shores of Seven Seas Lagoon had been completed. More to the point, architectural drawings were now being redone (Late in the game, a decision had been made to reduce the overall room count for Walt Disney World’s Thai / Asian Resort from 600 to 500 rooms. So the blueprints had to be adjusted accordingly).

Anyway, the plan – at that time, anyway – was that ground would be broken for the Thai / Asian Resort in 1973 with this new monorail hotel opening to the public in late 1974. But then – of course – in October of 1973, the Arab – Israeli War broke out. Which then led to the Arab Oil Embargo. Which – in turn (due to the severe scarcity of gasoline in the continental United States) severely cut back on the number of people who were driving down to Florida to then vacation at the Walt Disney World Resort.

This interconnected series of events frightened Disney’s board of directors. Who immediately stomped on the brakes when it came to any further expansion of the Company’s resort in Florida. A lot of projects got paused at that point (i.e., the late Fall / early Winter of 1973) – among them the Thai / Asian Resort. Likewise the Persian Hotel. And a number of these previously heavily hyped projects never got restarted.

Back to Tomorrowland at WDW’s Magic Kingdom now … One aspect of this side of that theme park that was definitely up & running for Disney World’s opening day was the Tomorrowland Terrace. But that was largely out of necessity. Early on, the Magic Kingdom didn’t have nearly enough quick service restaurants.

What especially complicated this situation was … Well, think about it. One of the Magic Kingdom’s most popular attractions – at least as little kids were concerned – was the Grand Prix Raceway. After standing in the hot Florida sun waiting for their turn to drive a racecar, the parents of these kids would typically take their families into the Tomorrowland Terrace to take advantage of that restaurant’s shade & air conditioning.

Similarly, given that Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride & the Mad Tea Party were just steps away from the Tomorrowland Terrace’s entrance, as soon as Guests finished experiencing those two Fantasyland attractions, they’d duck into this quick service restaurant and grab a Coke or a burger.

Mind you, the Tomorrowland Terrace did land office business from October 1, 1971 through Thanksgiving of that same year because the main entrance to Tomorrowland off of the Hub was blocked off. If you watch “The Grand Opening of Walt Disney World” (That 90 minute-long special that aired on NBC on October 29th of that year), at the 54 minute mark, you can watch all of these dancers on that bridge to Tomorrowland (the entrance that’s now directly across from the “Partners” statue). And there’s clearly a construction fence behind blocking access to … Well, where the “Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor” & “Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin” is today.

So – with that access way blocked – WDW Guests were then funneled into Fantasyland & Tomorrowland via that bridge to the right of Cinderella Castle. And since the very first thing that these people encountered when they entered this side of the Park was Tomorrowland Terrace, that quick service was just swamped from Day One.

Quick side note: I know that there are a number of “Disney Dish” listeners out there right now who are confused because … Well, the restaurant that I’ve been describing in this part of the show, they know as Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café. NOT as Tomorrowland Terrace.

And there’s a good reason for that. This quick service restaurant was known as Tomorrowland Terrace from October of 1971 through September of 1994. As part of WDW’s New Tomorrowland project (i.e., “The Future That Never Was is Finally Here!”), Tomorrowland Terrace was closed & rethemed (This was when that Sunny Eclipse animatronic was installed). This quick service then re-opened on December 9th of that same year as Sonny Eclipse’s Starlight Café.

Where this gets interesting is … Well, the Magic Kingdom’s other quick service-of-size, the Plaza Pavilion (which was located between Main Street, U.S.A. & Tomorrowland and didn’t actually open ‘til late 1973 / early 1974) got its name changed in the Fall of 1994. It then became the Tomorrowland Terrace Noodle Station. No lie. Though I have yet to meet anyone who has ever actually consumed noodles served by this counter service restaurant.

Me personally, all I have ever seen this facility used for for the past decade is dessert parties. People paying $119 per person so that they can then sit down & watch the Magic Kingdom fireworks while eating mini-cupcakes and then wave to Tinker Bell as she flies overhead right after she’s jumped off of Cinderella Castle.

Okay. So to get back to where today’s story started … Given that Tomorrowland was largely a construction site when the Magic Kingdom first opened in October of 1971, when did attractions actually start to open on this side of that theme park?

We got one by Thanksgiving of that year (i.e., “America the Beautiful,” which opened on November 25, 1971). We got a second Tomorrowland attraction on Christmas Eve of that same year (i.e., “Flight to the Moon,” which opened on December 24, 1971).

After that, it would be nearly six months before a third attraction finally came online in WDW’s version of Tomorrowland. And that was “If You Had Wings,” which then began operations on June 5, 1972.

And after that … There was this more-than-two-year-long pause before other attractions came online at the WDW version of Tomorrowland.

Why the pause? Well, some of it had to do with Epcot-the-City. And some of it had to do with Florida’s version of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” And still more of it had to do with Circus World, a rival theme park that the Mattel Corporation had announced in September of 1972 (Less than one year after Walt Disney World first opened). And this project was going to be built just 10 miles up the road from the Magic Kingdom over in Haines City.

We’ll get to that part of the Tomorrowland story with the next installment of this series.