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GOODBYE TO THE AFTERNOON PARADE AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

The Afternoon Parade at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun, had—so far as anyone knows—its last run on Saturday April 6. No explanation has been given, nor any replacement announced.

There’s not much of a loss here—this was a lame parade, especially in comparison to its immediate predecessor, the great Block Party Bash.

But it’s been a while since Disney World has closed a parade with no replacement—the last I can think of is Epcot’s Tapestry of Dreams parade, which I think was the last parade to run at Epcot, and closed in 2003.

So it’s interesting to speculate about why and about what, perhaps, is next.

WHY DISNEY WORLD MAY HAVE SHUT THIS PARADE DOWN

Disney Word shuts stuff down all the time—sometimes, because a new offering just isn’t that good, but most commonly for one of two reasons:

• To create budget or space capacity for something to be fixed or to be created new, or
• To just save money

I’ve written extensively elsewhere about the somewhat perverse characteristics of park operating economics that, to the grave annoyance of fans, can lead Disney to simply cut stuff to save money.

If saving money is the goal, a parade is a great target for elimination.

A parade at a Disney World park involves a ton of labor costs—not just the obvious ones like the wages of the parade performers, but also all the time that other park cast members have to put into tasks ranging from taping out the viewing areas, to crowd control during the parade, to putting everything away and cleaning it up, and even to running extra buses right after it ends—as many guests leave the park right after they see the parade.

Now the complexity on figuring out what come next—that is, a new parade or not– is that even when Disney adds something new, it often does something to cut costs well in advance, so that the portion of the extra development costs that can’t be capitalized are somewhat offset by the cost reductions. This lets budgets be met…but you don’t know if the goal was just to cut costs, or to create space and budget for something new, until the something new is announced…

WHAT MIGHT BE NEXT AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS: CARS LAND?

There’s been some speculation that the Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun parade—and also the Disney Channels Rocks show, also with a lot of staff, also closed—have been shut down so that the road they stage on (Prospect Road) or begin the show on (Hollywood Boulevard) could be repaired, or puffed up with something new. Could be—I don’t know nothing one way or the other.

But my suspicion is that the afternoon parade at the Studios is gone for the foreseeable future.

I get there by noting that the massive change in 2011 from the wonderful Block Party Bash to the lame Pixar Pals Parade only made sense at the time as a cost cutting move.

The result was a lame and widely dissed offering (though I loved seeing Doug), which makes me think that what came out in 2011 was a compromise between those who wanted the parade shut for cost-saving and operational complexity reasons, and those who wanted to salvage any afternoon parade, even one that was a shadow of its predecessor.

But why then close it for good now? And what’s next? Well, a version of Disney California Adventure’s Cars Land at Hollywood Studios has been much rumored, and much wished for, especially after the move of its lead designer, Kathy Mangum, to Disney World last summer.

Given everything Disney has been saying for a couple of years now about smashing down capital spend to “routine” levels after the multi-billion investments in the Disney Cruise Line, Disney California Adventure, Art of Animation, New Fantasyland, and MyMagic+ wind down this year, it’s hard to see where the cash comes from Cars Land at the Studios…

…but there’s a couple of things that have happened since Disney first started talking about ramping down capex that makes me willing to fan the speculation.

• One is that Disney has re-learned the lesson at Disney California Adventure that great new rides, if they bring in more visits and/or relieve congestion at another park, can have a fine payback.
• Second is that Harry Potter has had a second installment announced since then…

I don’t see Avatarland being canceled to pay for Cars Land, if for no other reasons that the Animal Kingdom according to everybody’s math really needs some new “E” Ticket rides for MyMagic+ to work well there.

But in response to what it has learned about the cash flow of Cars Land and to the threat of Harry Potter 2, I can see Disney World working pretty hard to generate extra cash and to deploy more capital than it had already been planning on something like Cars Land at the Hollywood Studios, so long as it can still make the claim to the analyst community that the funds are coming from “routine capital.”

Cars Land at the Studio would likely go into the area now occupied by Lights Motors Action and the Backlot Tour.

See the aerial photo. (Click it to enlarge it.) The bruited-about possible area for Cars Land at Disney’s Hollywood Studios is within the large red circle.

Now note how landlocked this is, because of the way World Drive, the guest entrance road from World Drive, and Buena Vista Drive hem in the park.

The only sensible point right now for construction access is from the cast entrance on Buena Vista (small orange circle). But that’s not an area of Buena Vista that can take much more traffic, and the road from there to the red circle has some turns that construction cranes and such would find awkward.

So maybe Disney’s thinking about generating a construction access point and staging area from the World Drive entrance to the Studios, somewhere around the red X. And maybe that’s the rumored “road that needs to be re-built.”

And maybe that’s why Pixar Pals Countdown to Fun and Disney Channels Rocks are gone—not only to save cash for reinvestment, but also to free up their staging and storage areas for Cars Land construction!

Just speculation…probably wrong…but still fun to dream about!

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DISNEY WORLD NEXT WEEK: APRIL 6, 2013 TO APRIL 14, 2013

The material below details operating hours, Extra Magic Hours, parades, and fireworks.

The same stuff is in the table, but organized by park, not by topic.

The parks return this week to near-normal after some of the busiest weeks of the year.

(For more on April 2013, see this.)

[Read more →]

WHAT IS FASTPASS+ AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Disney’s MyMagic+ program has multiple elements, most tied to an RF communicator reader in either a printed plastic card or, in the works, a wristband.

Of the elements of the program, the one with the highest likely impact on first-time visitors will be Fastpass+, the ability to reserve three or so experiences per day at a park—such as major “headliner” rides, minor rides, fireworks- and parade-viewing spots, and even counter-service restaurants—months before from home.

Most people think, based on Disney World’s tests to date, on simple capacity math, and on the published terms of service, that Fastpass+ will restrict you to the ability to reserve just one or two “headliners” rides per park day, with only one ride on each of them per day.

Depending how this unfolds, it may mean that people will be able to see fewer headliners per day without major waits, especially at the Magic Kingdom, than is the case right now with a good plan and the use of the traditional FASTPASS system.

However, according to the terms of service, once Fastpass+ is operational, if you convert a paper ticket to RF, the paper ticket will be void, and neither it nor the RF device can be used in the traditional FASTPASS system.

(See the red-boxed area of the image, which is a screenshot from the March 28 version of the terms of service. Click it to enlarge it.)

This makes me think the traditional FASTPASS system will remain (at least for a while) for those who don’t or won’t use the new RF based MyMagic+ program.

If this is true, then the value of my crazy idea of buying two park tickets per day—in this case, one regular, and one MyMagic+–will SKYROCKET.

This is because you’ll have two shots at the headliners—one from Fastpass+, and one from traditional Fastpass—that is, one on each ticket.  (However, very little capacity likely will be reserved on the headliners for traditional Fastpasses…which is why relying just on a paper ticket is not a good strategy either.)

Especially at the Magic Kingdom, buying a second, paper, ticket may be in effect Disney’s backdoor way of introducing a version of Universal Express—a means to buy your way out of difficulties the parks otherwise present you.

But regardless, Fastpass+ will make major changes to the best ways to experience the parks, especially for those relying only on it for the services that have been provided by the traditional Fastpass program.

WHEN WILL FASTPASS+ BECOME OPERATIONAL?

For one big and a couple of minor reasons, I think we’ll see the first major sets of park experiences governed by Fastpass+ start October 1 or later.

First, I don’t think the systems are ready.  I’ve stayed in Disney resorts multiple times so far this year, and have had comic systems issues interfere with my experience.  This makes me think the IT behind MyMagic+ is still pretty buggy.

Second, Fastpass+ is unlikely to launch in the busy summer season.  You don’t want to do something this different and new when the infrastructure of the parks is already taxed by summer crowds.

Third, I doubt the launch date will even be announced during the peak of the summer season—e.g.  earlier than August 1.

This is because if the operational launch date is announced, many summer visitors will think it applies to them, even if the announcements are about a go-live date much later.  Anyone who runs a site like this gets a sense of how confusing Disney World is, and how many people will interpret an announcement of a future launch as an announcement of a launch right now.  Putting the announcement of launch off until August misses confusing the bulk of the summer crowds.

An August 1 announcement means an “operational in the parks” launch date no earlier than October 1. This is because there will be at least 60 days notice before Fastpass+ is operational in the parks (you can infer this from the terms of service, which mention 60 days of time to reserve experiences for certain classes of ticket holders).

Finally, there’s something else special about October 1—it’s the effective date of Florida House Bill 1353—and this bill, or a variant of it, matters quite a bit…

Disney World ticket prices make the first few days of a ticket much more expensive than later days.  This means there’s a market for illegal sales of partially-used multi-day tickets, since there’s an opportunity to arbitrage the low cost of the last days to a new buyer who otherwise would have to pay much higher early day prices.

Now Disney’s terms of service make it clear that all MyMagic+ tickets in whatever form are non-transferable, so if you show up with a ticket partially used by someone else, you will be refused admission.  But Florida’s laws against resellers don’t cover non-printed tickets.  Moreover, they have “printing” requirements to signify non-transferability.  HB 1353 would resolve these issues.  And it has an effective date, if passed, of October 1…

(See the red-boxed part of the image, which is from the staff analysis.)

It’s hard for me to see Disney launching a major new ticketing program for which there are no legal penalties for resale of a partially used pass…

…so October 1, 2013 is my bet for the basic operational launch date of Fastpass+, and August 1, 60-ish days before, my bet for the announcement date.

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NEW DISNEY WORLD SUMMER 2013 ROOM RATE DEAL

As expected, Walt Disney World has released a new deal for the summer of 2013.

The new Disney World deal covers most arrival dates from June 13, 2013 through August 14, and needs to be booked by June 14.

The deal follows Disney World’s recent pattern of different discount levels based both on starting price and demand, and also excludes what has typically recently been excluded:

• Save 30%: Animal Kingdom Lodge (standard view), Bay Lake Tower, Beach Club, Beach Club Villas, BoardWalk Inn, BoardWalk Villas, Contemporary, Grand Floridian, Old Key West, Polynesian, Saratoga Springs, and Yacht Club
• Save 20%: The Cabins at Fort Wilderness, Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans Resort Riverside, The Villas at Wilderness Lodge and Wilderness Lodge
• Save 15%: All-Star Sports, All-Star Music, Art of Animation Family Suites and Pop Century
• Explicitly excluded: Campsites, 3-Bedroom villas, suites, Art of Animation Little Mermaid
• Possibly available at low (e.g. 5%) discount some dates: All Star Movies, Port Orleans French Quarter, other unlisted resorts

For more details, see Disney’s page on this offer.

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NOW AT AN AWKWARD AGE…

Yesterday this site completed its fifth full year of operation.

(This birthday post would have gone up yesterday, but I had more important news to relay.)

Thanks to all of you, the site is continuing to grow and as a result helping even more people.

The site will have its 3.5 millionth visitor all-time visitor since opening in a couple of weeks, 2 million of you have stopped by for a spell over the last 12 months, and the forecast for the next 12 months is almost 4 million of you coming by!

I’m grateful for and humbled by your readership, your help, and your kind words…thanks!!

WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS

In the time between now and the 6th birthday I expect two major developments:

• Revising the itineraries in response to MyMagic+ and Fastpass+–which, for reasons explained here, I’m not seeing as going into large scale operation much before October 1
• Revising the look and feel of the site, for both technical and reader experience reasons.

This site is built on WordPress, and the “theme” the site runs on—NeoClassical by Chris Pearson—is what shapes its look and feel.

I love the typographical clarity of NeoClassical, but it has not been supported for years.  As a result, every time there’s a WordPress upgrade, there’s a risk the site might break, and I can’t take advantage of the newer features released WordPress since NeoClassical was last updated more than 6 years ago.  So a new theme is on the to-do list!

Developing a new theme will also give me a chance to fix some major reader issues:

• Stuff is hard to find, and
• The overall look and feel of the site is too cluttered

You won’t find everything here—based on the comments I get (about 4,000 questions asked, and 4,000 answers given, in the last 12 months) the site is thin on stuff for kids younger than 8, on itineraries focused on just a park (all my itineraries are fully integrated for multi-park long stays) and on best and worst days.

But even so, there’s still a lot here—almost 1500 individual entries, with more coming out at a rate of 3-5 new posts a week!

I have lotsa stuff on how to find things around here—the best option is the search box at the top right of every page. (Try the search box.  It’s delicious!  Don’t believe me? Search for “Wishes”!)

But I think an “accordion menu” on the left side would be a big help—like the one on the left side of MouseSavers.com.  This would allow the navigation section you now see on the left side of this site to expand to be much more detailed and specific than it is right now if needed, while defaulting to something much shorter and less scary.

If I went that way, it’d also make it easier to kill the entire right sidebar, moving the important parts to the left side, in space freed both by the accordion menu, and also by killing the “More Puffery” section.

I’ll also likely re-do the home page so it has its own, new layout.

The current home page intentionally is like the table of contents to an instruction manual which has had its cover pulled off.  For the intended users of this site—first time visitors who may never return—that’s OK.  But over time the site has developed three different types of readers:

1. The intended audience: first timers
2. Returning visitors who are using the more detailed material on the site to shape certain key decisions like when to go and where to stay…
3. Disney fans who like to see what’s new here, and to just generally browse the site

So I’m thinking I may just make the home page three columns, with one column exactly addressing each of these three types of readers….

In addition I’ll continue all the routines that for better or worse the site has fallen into—I’ll revise the 2014 material (the 2014 crowd calendar, price seasons, and week rankings) in the summer, once final prices and final public school breaks are released; the 2014 version of the week picker will come out shortly after that, and in the fall, I’ll publish the first drafts of the core 2015 material.

Having completed the Great Moderate Re-Visit over the last 12 months, and stayed in and reviewed the brand-new Art of Animation Family Suites and Little Mermaid standard rooms, I’ll finish re-visiting and re-reviewing the other Values in the next 12 months; stay in the newly refurbed rooms that are emerging at the Polynesian; and check out the new DVC offering at the Grand Floridian when it opens.

Then there’s the rest of the Fantasyland Expansion that will emerge over the next 12 months…and likely other fun new stuff to check out that we don’t know about yet!

Moreover, I’ll likely need to revise the Harry Potter material for the opening of part two of Harry Potter at Universal Studios—currently rumored for June 2014.

So there’s plenty to look forward to in yourfirstvisit.net’s sixth year!

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THE NEXT DISNEY WORLD DVC VENUE HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED

April 1, 2013—In an announcement that caught the fan community off guard—Josh was so shocked that he immediately ran off to take more photos of merchandise—Walt Disney World, RunDisney, and Adventures by Disney today jointly announced that the next Disney Vacation Club (“DVC”) venue at Walt Disney World will be high adventure backpacking campsites.

The campsites, to be known as Disney’s Villaderness Campsites, will be located in the stinking mangrove swamps pristine wetlands area northeast of Bay Lake, near where several years ago Disney announced it would build a high-speed rail line.

The idea behind the new DVC resort is fastpacking—the combination of backpacking and trail running.  It will be themed around “pain.”

Guests at Disney’s Villaderness Campsites will check in at the Contemporary Resort, and then “fastpack”: run from there along wilderness trails to the campsites, while carrying personal backpacks filled with all their gear—tents, sleeping bags, stoves, food, clothes, etc.

Transportation to and from the parks will also be via running, but guests will not be required to carry their loaded backpacks for day trips, except to the Animal Kingdom. (“Because we say so,” a Disney spokesperson explained.)

Adventures by Disney guides will accompany, goad and belittle the runners, and shout out the highlights of what is being passed—pythons, sink-holes, and the like.  (DVC guests staying on points will be able to use the Adventures by Disney guides only every fourth day.)

Sell-side analysts are quite excited.  “In the traditional DVC model, Disney convinces future guests to pay Disney to build a hotel for them, and then to pay Disney for its upkeep, but they do get a sticker,” says Bertie Wooster of UBS. “At the Villaderness Campsites,” he continues, “guests will be paying Disney for 50 years for the privilege of running their own gear to unimproved swampland!  Not even a community room or second-rate restaurant! Brilliant!”

THE STORY BEHIND THIS JUST-ANNOUNCED DVC RESORT

Disney’s Villaderness Campsites were inspired, insiders say, by the stunning growth of Disney World’s various running events.

The current RunDisney events, including the full, half, half-full, 3.1415k, sideways, silly walk, and Hoop Dee Doo marathons, were originally inspired by management’s observations of guests in the parks during peak-crowd weeks.

One insider told me “we realized that people would pay good money to stand in hot lines for two or three hours per ride.  So the question we asked ourselves was, ‘how could we take people’s willingness to be just miserable for hours and make even more money off of it?’”

And thus the marathons and other running events at Disney World were born, as there seems an almost insatiable demand to combine the best of Walt Disney World with hours of pain and misery—and pay extra for it.

Disney’s Villaderness Campsites (pronounce it like a movie-Nazi: “Veeeeelderunessss”) are the natural outgrowth of the need of many to pay for pain and Disney’s wish to grow income while limiting capital spend after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the Tangled bathrooms.

(Helping a bit on the capex front is that the plans to add Minnesota as Epcot’s next World Showcase nation were recently quietly canceled, pouring some capital back into the cash till).

Fastpacking to the pain-themed campsites creates the combined misery/Disney experience so deeply craved, while the unimproved sites, and the requirement for guests to bring their own backpacks and gear, makes the capital investment negligible.

Negligible, that is, for Disney.  Guests will still need to pay an arm, a leg—and a couple of feet. The minimum buy-in points and point calendar are still being developed, and may be related to best marathon times.  But the expectation is that pricing will be similar to One-Bedroom Villas at Saratoga Springs, since an un-developed wasteland is comparable to those tiny rooms.

But at least at Saratoga Springs you won’t have to pack in toilet paper and a trowel!

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