Kevin Yee's post - changes at the Polynesian and Frontierland in the future?

I saw this on Facebook today. Well-known Disney critic and blogger Kevin Yee posted this story about a sight-line balloon being spotted over the Polynesian. He says he had previously been advised to document Frontierland and the Polynesian because they may be up for redos or renovations in the near future.

He says that in the past these balloons have indicated the advent of a construction project. You can read Kevin's assessment and his thoughts on what might be going on...if anything.

Good read. I'm glad we're going to be returning to the Polynesian for our upcoming Disney trip. Not that it would be bad if they do something to improve it, but we do like the way it is right now.

*****

Are Theme Parks "Shallow"?

I recently saw an interesting Facebook post by one of my Disney friends. This particular friend (David) runs the blog Disneyology, which is linked to over there at the left (Favorite Internet Spots). He posted a quote from someone suggesting that theme parks are shallow representations of a much richer reality and that people who enjoy them are pathetic. Here's the exact quote:

“The overwhelming feeling that one carries away is sadness for the empty lives which accept such tawdry substitutes. On the riverboat, I heard a woman exclaim glowingly to her husband, “What imagination they have!” He nodded, and the pathetic gladness that illuminated his face as a papier-mâché crocodile sank beneath the muddy surface of the ditch was a grim indictment of the way of life for which this feeble sham represented escape and adventure.” - Julian Halevy.

So, my question would be, is this news? Newsflash! Disney Theme Parks Aren't REAL! Do visitors to Disney theme parks think they are? Somehow I don't think so. Does it make it less entertaining to ride on Expedition Everest because it's not the real Mt. Everest? Again, I don't think so.

The interesting discussion in the comments centered on whether this critique is a critique of all art, or simply a prejudiced attack on theme parks specifically. I saw comments where famous films and famous paintings were mentioned; that if Mr. Halevy was criticizing all these experiences, his argument would hold water better. That could be true. Perhaps a Disney theme park is not comparable to the Mona Lisa, but it is a matter of degree.

Because both things are works of art. Lots of things are works of art. We wandered around a suburban art fair last Sunday, and I saw plenty of things that showed imagination in varying degrees. Some I liked. Some I'd never consider hanging in my own house. Some, I could tell with a mere glance, were simply not my cup of tea. But does that make them "bad" or "shallow", or their artist "talentless"? No, it just means that I didn't like them.

The first thing I thought of when reading the quote was the Jungle Cruise (because of the dated-ness of its special effects, and because of the mention of the crocodile), but then I thought of EPCOT's World Showcase. I thought of the detail that goes into making these small reproductions of various countries. Does it make me willing to forego a European vacation, because I've walked through Disney versions of England, France and Italy? Not at all. But these reproductions are accessible and entertaining to us. Simple economics say that we are going to be able to experience Disney more often than tour the great European cities.

The second thing I thought was that the first sentence is quite condescending. To presume to know anything about the lives of that woman and her husband, to know if they "accept such tawdry substitutes", or simply cannot experience anything other than this, seems to me to be irritatingly condescending. What is "grim" about something that brings someone pleasure, however small and fleeting? I think that Disney parks aspire to a bit higher level of providing enjoyment than he seems to give them credit for. But that's a matter of opinion.

David's take on it seems to be that there is no reason that the two things cannot both be appreciated on their own levels, and that while theme parks shouldn't be substituted for real experiences, they CAN be enjoyed as well for what they are and for the artistic ability and effort that goes into their creation. Others seem to feel that, as a work of art (however "tawdry" it may be) Disney theme parks should be compared to other works of art, not to real experiences. I hope I'm stating those positions accurately. Perhaps David will blog about it himself.

This blog has over the years concerned itself with Disney movies, other types of animated film entertainment, with Disney theme parks and with other amusement parks, and with attractions in the Midwest and in a few other places where we've vacationed. It has never advocated stopping one's experience at the Disney park, even though they are the main focus of the blog. But I don't see how one precludes the other.

******

Disney's Magical Express passes arrive!

It came! It came!

Checked the mail today and there they were - our DME passes and luggage tags and everything.

The excitement is building up for our first Disney visit in a little over 18 months.

We're going to stay at the Polynesian (our favorite resort of those we've experienced) and we've got a handful of dining reservations at Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, Disney's Hollywood Studios, and at Emeril's over at Universal.

One thing that's struck me as I look at our options for this trip is the cost of park tickets. It only costs a couple dollars per ticket to add on extra days after 5 days. It's almost becoming an all-or-nothing thing - we'll either visit Disney parks every days, or we'll visit no parks at all and spend our time at Universal and Sea World and maybe another place or three. And maybe enjoy our resort a little more than we usually do. For this trip we have all those reservations in the parks for dinner and lunch, but I could see skipping all of them and just hanging out and enjoying the pools.

Meanwhile, our excitement continues to grow...

*****

A Little History

The Disney Company got started with short films and animation. Many of you may know the history of this corporation better than I do, but it is still worth mentioning that Walt Disney was a pioneer in the movie business. No one thought he could make a full length animated film, but he went against opinion, spending his own (and his brother Roy's) money to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

His boldness and confidence paid off and the studio was rewarded for their perseverance. Over the years, Walt Disney pushed the envelope, embracing media before it was popular to do so. He devoted his studio to making animated features, then embraced television when others didn't quite know what to make of it. He didn't worry about "what" to make of it; he worried about doing the "shaping" of the medium himself.

Likewise with Disney theme parks. No one had ever done what Walt Disney and his company did with this form of entertainment. In fact, his representatives were told by amusement park owners and operators at a meeting in Chicago, point blank, that there was no way his ideas about amusement parks would ever work. He should go back to what he knew, making movies and tv shows. As was usually the case, Walt ignored the conventional wisdom and followed his instincts. You see, what Walt had, and what no one else really saw up until then, was content.

Walt saw the synergistic possibilities between the various media, and to him, the theme park was just another media available for him to display his content. A lot has been written about "telling a story in three dimensions", and perhaps Walt even said exactly this at some point. Whether he meant to or not, he hit upon another way of experiencing the things we (and he) loved.

They're still doing it today. What came first, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie or the Pirates of the Caribbean theme park ride? For some, today, it might be hard to tell (which in and of itself is a mark of the genious of this company and this man), but the theme park attraction was there long before the movie. Walt wanted to tell a story of adventure on the high seas, with funny, exciting pirates, in a way that hadn't been told before, and that was by letting his guests experience "a pirate's life" up close through the use of animatronics and movie sets. Same with The Haunted Mansion. Long before it was a mediocre (at best) movie starring Eddie Murphy, it was a theme park attraction. It may be the reverse of their earlier methods, but it displays the same sort of synergism - giving the audience another way to experience the story.

At first, people delighted in experiencing those classic early Disney tales through the magic of audio-animatronics as they rode through a series of set pieces. But it wasn't all about movies. Walt was never one to repeat himself ad nauseum. His theme park soon had its very own Jungle Cruise a mountain that guests could ride a bobsled through called The Matterhorn (after the mountain it was modeled on), a ride where kids and parents could be the drivers of their own cars (Autopia), and the aforementioned Pirates of the Caribbean and Haunted Mansion. And it kept growing and growing. A train ride encircled the park (from the very beginning), shows and exhibits popped up (and sometimes popped back down), and a fairy tale castle was its centerpiece. The world had never seen anything quite like Disneyland.

The impetus for expansion to Florida and the mega-resort we now know as Walt Disney World was not to build more theme parks. It was to build a working community - a real place where real people would work and live under a new, almost experimental system that Walt was working out with prominent city planners and futurists of the day. EPCOT came to be built in the 1980's, but it was never the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow that Walt wanted to build - that died when Walt died, too early.

Would it have worked? We will never know - and honestly, perhaps we're better off not knowing. What if it had been a colossal failure? Walt pretty much succeeded, or got his way, in everything he did. But there's always that first time, and maybe he was finally headed for a fall, dabbling in things that were really beyond his expertise, no matter how much he read and educated himself on the pertinent subjects.

And what we did get, instead, is in many ways preferable. We got four theme parks, a couple of water parks, a dozen or so first class resort hotels, ancillary facilities like miniature golf courses, real golf courses, boating, car racing, sports, and who can forget Downtown Disney? Because the company went in this direction, we also got a couple theme parks in Europe, two more in Japan, another in Hong Kong, a second gate in Anaheim, a new one opening soon in Singapore and Disney Vacation Club resorts in Hilton Head, Vero Beach, and now Hawaii. That's not bad, is it?

*****

About those DVC Waterpark Resorts...

Well,first, there aren't any. I mean, they all have pools and some water features, but none of them are designed as a resort hotel whose focus IS on the water park.

I suggested, a couple of times, that DVC should build an indoor waterpark resort in the Midwest. Perhaps in the Wisconsin Dells, where there is more than just one game in town. I said it would give midwesterners a way to use their points besides flying to a Florida, California or Hawaii location. Without flying at all, actually.

But as I thought about it, I thought - who would buy ownership in this park? It doesn't have the home resort luster of Hawaii, of the Atlantic Ocean, or of WDW or Disneyland Resorts. Why own points at the Disney Dells Resort and Waterpark?

I can't come up with a good reason. I stated last summer that perhaps we, as DVC owners, might be interested in buying some points there, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that we probably would not be inclined to add on points there. We would probably prefer to buy a few extra points at our home resort at WDW.

We would use it, certainly. Perhaps that would be good enough for Disney. But I'm not sure how this timeshare thing works. The fact that ownership in that particular resort might be a hard sell, even though I suspect the resort would be full much of the year, might mean that it could not be a DVC property.

That's okay though. As long as, like the Disney Collection now, we could use points to stay there, we probably would still use it on occasion. And if there was one there, we might be more inclined to buy those extra points. We actually had trouble using our points this year. Part of that was because we were saving up to go to Hawaii, and then couldn't get in, but part was because a Disney vacation every year is getting to be something we don't really want to do anymore.

But the kids LOVE those waterparks in the Dells (and elsewhere). So maybe this just becomes the test case for those Location-Based Entertainment venues that Kevin Yee wrote about a couple years ago over on MiceAge.

I think it would be an easy sell to vacationers, if not to DVC owners via the timeshare route.

(And since everything Disney does these days seems to be related to constructing DVC villas, maybe they wouldn't even consider it. But I wish they would.)

*****

Midwest Atttractions - Great Wolf Lodge

We spent a couple days at the Traverse City, Michigan version of the Great Wolf Lodge over our spring break. Why Traverse City, you might ask? (Or maybe you won't ask, but I'll tell you anyway.) Because of the Old Mission and Leelanau Peninsulas and their wineries, and because of the restaurants in Traverse City, and because Saugatauk was on the way home and a convenient spot for a couple nights' additional stay. That's why we drove 6 some hours to that waterpark instead of going to the closer Wisconsin Dells park, or one of the Illinois indoor waterparks like Grand Bear Lodge near Utica, IL, or Key Lime Cove Resort and Waterpark in Gurnee, IL.

Why Great Wolf Lodge? Because they do a wonderful job with their facilities, in my estimation. It is what it is - a facility for kids to enjoy pools and water features, and just nominally for adults. The Dells in Wisconsin are a huge tourist trap, really gauged to families with children from toddlers to teenagers. The Lodge is the same, but they don't necessarily allow anyone but hotel guests in their park (unlike so many other water parks in the Dells), and they have fun activities for the kids besides the pools. My kids love MagiQuest and most of the Great Wolf Lodges have this available. Nice sized rooms (even if the beds leave something to be desired), and on-site dining and shopping facilities.

What does this have to do with Disney? I posted last summer that I thought that Disney should open a DVC resort in the Dells; they could do it really right, and it would be a hit with the many midwestern DVC members who might not want to fly to Florida, or Hawaii or California, to take advantage of their time share points. I think such a place would be jammed to capacity year around.

Disney could do these types of themed resorts as good or better than anyone, I think. They already do. While Great Wolf Lodge does a good job, it isn't up to Disney standards, as low as they may have become over the years.

Anyone from Disney listening? This might be a real opportunity for expansion, and for making even more money, which is, after all, your real motivator!

*****

THE HUNGER GAMES - the movie

The Hunger Games probably wouldn't have been a must-see movie for me, but it certainly was for my kids, who both liked the first book a lot. I liked the book, too, but not enough to read on in the series immediately.

But after seeing the film, I did want to read on, and I did. Partly that was because of the vision of the filmmakers, who showed a dark, unwelcoming future where people live almost like pioneers, even as the ruling classes in the Capitol live in luxury. I wanted to find out more about this future; how did it come about and how did it work? The second and third books give more insight into these ideas; presumably the films will also.

Some things work better, in my opinion, on film, and I think it's very possible that The Hunger Games is one of those things. I'm a verbal, not so much a visual, person. So when I see a richly rendered vision I'm impressed. Personally, I thought that The Hunger Games did just that. Some may disagree.

I thought there were pretty decent performances. Yes, some of the tributes seemed to be caricatures of violent youths, but then again, that's sort of what they are. They are stunted in their growth purposely for these Games, and the performances more or less matched what I was thinking about those trubutes. But the main characters, Katniss, Peeta, and Haymitch, all were very good portrayals with some depth.

I'm not a film reviewer; I tend to like a lot of stuff I see and I am not overly critical of things I don't know much about. What I saw here was a big budget movie that succeeded in conveying the vision and in telling the first part of a broader story. I'm not saying that this is a great film, destined to be a classic, but I think it's a solid entry into the subcategory of dystopian fictional films.

*****