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D-I-G Update 3/17/00: New outlet merchandise available at AMS AMS is a liquidator of merchandise that Disneyland has selected to get rid of over-stock and lesser selling items at several locations around the Southern California area. They occasionally send out an e-mail detailing the latest arrivals, which also includes a listing of their ever-changing locations they always are moving around to. You can subscribe to this list by using the information below. They are usually well worth a visit if you're in the area and just snooping around for stuff, although sometimes prices aren't always as low as they should be, or selection can be incomplete. Below is their latest e-mail:
By the way, no more pins are going to be available at the outlets now that the pin trading craze has hit the parks. More than a few folks had bought them at the outlets at the reduced prices, and then came to the park to swap for more desirable / expensive items. D-I-G Update 3/11/00: Preview Center closing, ticket booth situation From a kind soul:
They are moving to have everything in place and tested it seems before spring break. D-I-G Update 3/10/00: Pirates event date change: May 20th is now the date they are giving out. More details to follow soon. What drama! D-I-G Update 3/9/00: Another quickie! Parade fix info / New ticket booths / How to get past those ads on the Tarzan DVD
April 14th is the day! Someone was kind enough to summarize in an e-mail what I had been hearing about what was going on with the parade. It looks like we now have a date for the fixes:
Yes it does! And again, thank you for your note. Once the music gets fixed, I'm sure it will go a long way towards making it a lot more enjoyable for visitors. Let's see what they come up with! Those Saturday hour-or-two waits for buying admission tickets may finally be coming to an end... The first of the new ticket booths is opening today, [the 9th] but with limited functions is what seems to be the case. Two more are coming up on the 13th. Tarzan DVD solutions! One thing I can count my blessings on is just how wonderful the readers of the site are when it comes to sharing helpful information. The following two folks have suggested ways to get past those horrible hostage-taking non-skipable ads that start each Tarzan DVD:
Thanks for those suggestions. Now really, how consumer hostile can Disney be sometimes with this kind of stuff? Do they even consider their customers? Apparently in the Home Video division they do not. Enough for today, I need some sleep! See you all at the park! D-I-G Update 3/8/00: A quickie! New Haunts for the Mansion? / DCA ride problems / Survey says, fix the parade! / Burbank cuts back even more / Other rumors / Tarzan DVD holds you hostage From a very kind source comes the following really good news about the Haunted Mansion:
Wonderful news! Now on to less thrilling DCA problems... I got the following note, [which seems to check out] about problems they are having with the new spinner-type of attractions in California Adventure:
I had wondered how you can get Pirates types of load numbers onto Dumbo types of rides. No matter what they do to try and speed up loading and operation, you will still have a limited load ride operating here - something that they should have really thought long and hard about. The good thing is that they do test these attractions with sandbags and such for extended periods of time before opening them. BTW - did you realize there is not a single type of high capacity attraction like Pirates at all in the new park? Everything - due to their wanting to save money over providing quality - runs in cycles [from the spinners to the many movies they are showing] - there is only one continuous load ride in the whole park [SuperStar Limo - the dark ride]. Fastpass won't help customers with such poor planning as this. Parade surveys... Kind reader Mary forwarded this to me, a thank you to her for doing so!
I would just LOVE to see the responses on this survey! I really hope they are not using this to try and get off from fixing it - the music is just dreadful. Everyone at the park is just sick of diploma jokes. Meanwhile back in Burbank... ...the situation seems to be getting worse financially. Due to the studios underperformance [less than 3% of the profits came from films last year, no wonder Roth took a hike] they are slashing budgets left and right. One very sad casualty of these cut-backs was forwarded to me by kind reader Chris J.:
For a company that is supposed to be doing well, it looks like there is a lot more going on that what is being said to a lot of folks. Rumors continue to swirl... ...about possible Disney purchases of other companies. Heck, if you can't earn your way out of a slump, you just buy your way out huh? Seagrams [who owns Universal] apparently has talked about selling everything but the beverage business to either Disney or Fox. Can you imagine Disney owning Universal - both the studio and the parks? Meanwhile the lovely FABULOUS DISNEY BABE has passed on rumors that one other purchase Eisner may be contemplating is Mattel. Finally, something Pressler can run without giving people fits! And remember all the rumors about the Disney Stores being sold? Well, it looks like the period of sales they had at the time of Lion King was really more like a one-time windfall - sales have been less for each major film event since. And since the prospect of actually having to advertise and such [like a regular retailer would] seems way too rich for Disney, look for a decision to be made about the future of the chain with the next two major animated film releases. When Dinosaur and the Emperor's New Groove [yes, that's an awful title] come out, if they don't ignite the retail fires, Sears may finally get their hands on the operation. Tarzan DVD headaches... Many of you have been writing me to complain about the Tarzan DVD's previews - they force you to watch them before the movie starts, unlike just about any other DVD ever made for the consumer. Here's a toll-free consumer phone number Buena Vista set up for dealing with complaints about the sound problem, but you can also call them up and register a complaint about being held hostage while trying to watch your movie. 1-800-723-4763 Video execs keep telling the press "people like to watch these things" - if they are so confident of that, why do they NOT program it so you can just skip to the next chapter then? D-I-G Update 3/2/00: DCA June opening? / No more WDI spending as execs rejoice at IOA's "failure" / Fastpass will crowd Tomorrowland even more as Innoventions attendance keeps slipping / Haunted Mansion operational info / Indy's Fastpass / Tiki blues / With those Pins, who needs Regis? / Pavers too / Character 45th Promotion takes its toll / New Disneyland Resort logo / Rainforest Cafe tidbit / Wolfgang Puck tidbit / Costuming building changes, finally! / Parade redo update / Collectors' update DCA [California Adventure] opens in June... ...if you work for Disney. Cast member [employee] previews are slated to start early this summer, and will continue through the fall. Selected public previews, primarily aimed at Disney hotel customers, will follow. Look for an early fall preview period opening aimed to locals, then a late winter roll-out nationally. Why so soon? They are trying to get all the money flowing as fast as they can. My own personal guess is that they finished all the Margarita and beer carts early. ;) And yes, as previously reviewed here, that disappointing raft ride is totally done. What you've read about it is all it will ever be, unless Pressler and Eisner move on, or Walt himself haunts the heck out of them one late night. Carnival booths have been confirmed in the Paradise Pier area by the way - pitch those pennies and win either a hanging Piglet rear view mirror plush toy or Pooh Hundred Acre wood pine tree shaped car deodorizer I guess. As for myself, I do prefer those jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety-Birds that both Knott's and Magic Mountain give away as carnival booth prizes. You have to wonder about Eisner going on and on about the Disney brand in all media chat, while the reality is that he actually turns his back completely from what made it so gold plated in the first place. Even MOTLEY FOOL has noticed the problems here. And poor Cynthia. She has this mess handed off to her, and she has to make it all work somehow. She has all of my sympathy and none of my envy on this one. You can't hug away a mistake of that size. Sometimes gathering material for this column can be, well... depressing. From someone in the know:
I asked: Are they just banking on the return of the Electrical Parade for here? They continued:
It hurts to even think that, doesn't it? Oh hell, where's my jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety Bird when I need it? Let's chat about Tomorrowland's Autopia, Fastpasses, and Innoventions, shall we? Team Disney Anaheim [the suits out back, better known as TDA] wants the Tomorrowland managers to work with the troubled Space Mountain Fastpass instead of pulling the plug on it, in addition to offering Fastpass on Autopia this summer. The concern is that two Fastpass attractions near each other will flood the area with visitors. As the regulars know, it is already congested in Tomorrowland, and Fastpass dumps more people out of the queues looking for things to do. The crux of the problem seems to lie with the attraction everyone likes to avoid, Innoventions. With its sagging attendance Innoventions is only pulling in a couple thousand people a day during the week, and between 7,000 and 9,000 [tops!] on busy Saturdays. As a point of reference, Pirates gets 26,000 to 31,000 riders and Pinocchio or Snow White gets 8,000 to 10,000 riders on busy Saturdays. During Christmas vacation, the Country Bear Jamboree had days when it outpaced Innoventions attendance by over a thousand. The Bears only take four Cast members [CM's] to run with both theaters running, while Innoventions mind-numbing exhibits have literally dozens of CM's operating them. As if that isn't bad enough, Innoventions numbers are going nowhere but down month by month, too. Most Passholders have already been in to see it, and don't return after one lackluster visit. The majority of current Innoventions visitors are out-of-towners who haven't seen it yet, or locals who don't know what they are getting themselves into. Innoventions has very few repeat visitors obviously, something readers may want to note was brought up here as a looming problem many times before. The Innoventions folks thought that when Space Mountain started putting the "Visit Innoventions" tagline at the bottom of the Fastpasses... ...that people would head right on over after getting them. Well, that didn't happen. So now Innoventions is trying to get the "Honey I Shrunk the Audience" CM's to give Innoventions a few plugs during their pre-show spiels to their lobby full of waiting visitors. [And by the way, that may be the reason behind the rumor that Compaq got the sponsorship on the new Fireworks show as a freebie or "make good." It may be that Disney couldn't deliver the numbers of eyeballs they promised for the Innoventions exhibits Compaq paid so handsomely for.] Anyway, area managers have been lamenting the fact that there isn't a "real show or attraction" in the Carousel Theater that could soak up the 25,000+ people a day that building was originally designed to handle. The America Sings / Carousel of Progress revolving theaters used to load 200 visitors every four minutes. If there was some entertaining show in there that could entice people in to spend their Fastpass virtual waiting time there, Tomorrowland could be a much more pleasant place to visit with two big Fastpass rides next to each other. As it stands now, Innoventions will continue to see it's attendance numbers fall while more and more Fastpass visitors wander around Tomorrowland looking for something fun to do until their boarding time. If only they had Plectu's Galactic Revue! Or even a chance to win a jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety Bird! Speaking of FastPass... Apparently the goal at Orlando's Magic Kingdom is for each land to have a Fastpass ride. Tomorrowland has Space, Fantasyland has Pooh, Adventureland now has Jungle Cruise, Frontierland has Splash. That leaves Liberty Square and Toontown. Liberty Square is home to the riverboat, Hall of Presidents and the Haunted Mansion. The plan is to offer Fastpass on Haunted Mansion, since the other rides aren't conducive to Fastpass. With Fastpass, they would always run two stretching rooms. One stretch room would be for Fastpass, and one for Standby. If the Fastpass line gets too long, they would hold the Standby line for a few minutes and load both stretch rooms with Fastpass. (They are called "ER's" at Disneyland, short for "Elevator Rooms".) According to folks out there, they have a problem with "babysitting" the younger CM's who work the Haunted Mansion during the evening shifts. It is possible to leave both sets of doors open at Orlando's stretch rooms, since they are not actually moving anywhere, unlike Disneyland's elevators. If you get a few immature CM's working together, they simply leave both sets of the stretch room doors open and have the visitors walk right thru the stretch room and ahead to the boarding area. Basically, the CM's don't have to do the spiel, or stand in the room with the screaming ticket holders. Orlando's parks don't have a large base of Passholders, and many of their visitors don't know better, so people rarely complain at City Hall or say anything about the odd Mansion entrance. Once the Leads were taken in the mid 90's, this new practice began happening. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. That's what you get when you "empower" people, but don't have a supervisor constantly at the attraction to watch over college kids dressed up like maids and butlers. Disneyland had problems with controlling irresponsible CM's when the Leads went away too. At Disneyland's Haunted Mansion without Leads, it was easy for the CM's to drop positions or only run one elevator so that they got more breaks but increased the waiting time for visitors. Due to peer pressure, it only takes one or two rowdy young CM's working the lower seniority evening shifts to wreak havoc on an attractions designed capacity, all for the sake of a few extra breaks. Attractions CM's already enjoy a leisurely break schedule, getting a break or a lunch every one to one and a half hours. But you can never have enough breaks, can you? Thankfully, Leads returned to the Haunted Mansion last Fall. Visitors can rest assured now that the ride is running at it's full staffing capacity and they won't be subjected to any unnecessary waits. Indy is still steamrolling ahead for an early April Fastpass opening Who knows where the standby queue will end up?! It should be interesting. But Indy Fastpass will definitely increase the patronage of the Jungle Cruise and the Tiki Room. Let's hope they both get a well-deserved and lavish refurbishment with a small chunk of the growing Fastpass profits. Speaking of Tiki as a matter-of-fact... Tiki Room musings - will it be redone? ...you all remember how we've discussed here that Fastpass has sent visitor spending up-up-up, and that is why Fastpass is going in like gangbusters at all the parks, right? Money that would hopefully let them get a breather and let them fix things? Well, the entrance hut to the Tiki Room lanai that rotted away at its foundation and had to be removed after it collapsed onto the juice bar is still just sitting behind the Indy show building.
Facilities now says that they don't need to rebuild it and reinstall it because the Enchanted Tiki Room may theoretically be redone some time in the future. [News to all of us isn't it?] And it supposedly also adds an "airier" feel to the lanai without the entrance facade. They just want to construct a simple sign to post above the turnstile. So, for now, the Tiki Room entrance hut sits there forlornly, rotting away even more. Sad, huh? I have an idea... why not put in a carnival booth with jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety Birds! Why the push on pins... Regis doesn't have the real answer it seems. Do you know how much WDW made off of pins once Pin Trading got going in a major way last year? Just over 10 million dollars in pure profit! Disneyland hopes they can get at least a couple million a year off the Pin Trading craze. There will be a new Merchandise manager and assistant manager position created just to handle Pin Trading. Once you've got your Fastpass, they want to make sure there's something for everyone to do. ...and now bricks too! And, have you heard about the "Magical Walk of Memories" brick pavers for sale for the new plaza in-between the two Parks? The cost per paver is $150. And you get a choice of a medallion on them too. How nice. There will be 47,000 pavers available for sale, and they expect to sell them all by 2001. 47,000 brick pavers at one hundred and fifty bucks a pop. You do the math, readers. Character push for the 45th takes its toll Word is coming out about how the new character-heavy 45th promotion is taking a toll on some CMs.
If Snow snaps at Junior come July, now you now know why. ;) Maybe she would like a jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety Bird. New Disneyland Resort logo on the way Some new signage floating around backstage at the park is now sporting a new logo for the Disneyland Resort. It has the word "Disney" in the WDW style Disney signature handwriting, then the word "land" in a very plain and almost Epcot looking modern script. Then the word "Resort" is seen in blocky letters beneath. It's a bit jarring at first, especially since we're all used to the classic Disneyland logo in use since the 50's. But this isn't the new logo for Disneyland Park, just the logo for the entire Resort. We knew it was inevitable, didn't we? Rainforest Cafe tidbit Also, the hush-hush word being told to CM's given a Downtown Disney preview is that the Rainforest Cafe will sport a giant glass atrium, and have real plants, birds, fish and small mammals in it, in addition to the standard animatronic elephants and apes. WDI apparently has helped design this location, and wants to make sure that it is light years ahead of the nearby and much more mundane South Coast Plaza branch. Have you heard the tenant for Paradise Pier's Avalon restaurant? The not so well kept secret and rampant rumor is that Wolfgang Puck is going to be the restaurateur there. He didn't want to be in Downtown Disney because you miss the lunch crowd out there in the mall. Wolfgang had been talked about as a Downtown Disney tenant for some time, yet was mysteriously absent from last Fall's announced list of tenants. He'll have a nice view of the Golden Zephyr instead. [Better hope that view doesn't include jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety Birds at the carnival booths.] A new CM entrance is being built near the new costuming building. It is going in underneath the Monorail beam and will have security turnstiles like a modern subway station. A fence will be installed under the remaining Monorail beams near the CM entrance. The entering CM will scan their ID thru the turnstile, the turnstile will then read their ID, clock them in for their shift, and unlock the turnstile to let the CM thru. A Security guard will also be stationed at the new building to check for costumes being taken out by CM's thru the single and easily controlled exit. The CM Shuttle buses will load and unload just past the new building. This will make it much easier to prevent CM's from stealing costumes. It is still ridiculously easy to leave Park property with any type of costume you can get. Just step up to the window, ask for a costume you are fond of, and walk over and get onto the Shuttle and leave the property. The Shuttle drivers are employees of Super Shuttle and could care less what you bring onto the bus, just as long as you stand behind the yellow line near the door. The next morning when the Costuming CM asks you if you still have such and such costume, you just say "Oh yeah, I already turned that in." Or "Oh, I threw that in the hamper in the locker room." It's as easy as that. But this new security entrance building under the Monorail beam is the solution they should have spent the money on before they opened the new costuming building. Instead, they waited six months to put in a permanent fix, and lost untold amounts of valuable costume pieces. The following items were moved from the contents page to here: A quick parade update... Still no date has been set for new music - but it now appears they may take it down for a month or so after the Easter holidays so they can rework it. The complaints at City Hall are continuous it seems, and they are getting the message loud and clear from customers about it. Things they may do: Rework the score and choreography, and wire the parade units for sound. As mentioned before, the new score may be a mix of all sorts of stuff - more bits and pieces from Fantasia 2000, and a little bit of Tarzan music score too. It should be interesting! For you collectors... It appears that Eric Robison is now working on a Fantasmic lithograph for the Disney Gallery [located upstairs from Pirates]. Some quick tidbits and date changes... The Village Haus will host the Early Entry Breakfast in place of the Tomorrowland Terrace from 2/28--3/9 during the Terrace's refurbishment / The latest estimate for the current phase of the Main Entrance work to be completed (32 ticket windows open, 8 turnstiles open) is March 8th. That about does it for now, either I will now play with my jumbo-sized electric-yellow plush Tweety-Bird, or I'll see you all at Disneyland! D-I-G Update 2/22/00 - What's the third park gonna be in Anaheim? / New ticket media coming / More on the Main St. Theater rehab / Pirates event rumors There's been lots of updates lately - but then again, there's lots of news to pass on. Here's the latest, with some of the tid-bits brand-spanking new, and a few other items just left out of previous updates due to time / space considerations. It's a short one - but don't forget / miss yesterday's update too, directly below this one - with the first DCA ride preview. Atlantis is the theme... ...of what now looks like a water park that going to go up on Harbor Blvd. at the strawberry field. This should be next on the agenda for the Disneyland Resort if WDI can bring their budget down a bit to please the higher ups, who felt they wanted to do "too much" this time around. Plans are supposed to be pretty firm on this, once DCA opens is probably when they will target a debut for it. In the past, Imagineer Tony Baxter has chatted about this when asked, and has almost always said one of the things holding back a water park here in Anaheim has been the weather - it's just not as ideal year-round as it is in Orlando. My guess here is they have come up with some new concepts that will insure the park will offer a bit more year-round usability. Of course, Magic Mountain and Knott's now / will have water parks so it would make real sense that Disney feels a bit prodded in this area, and will try to hold on to visitors that may head their direction a bit longer with this. Granted, it wouldn't be as exciting for some as the all-steel coaster Villains park idea they keep throwing around, but it isn't a sports complex either, thank goodness. New ticket media... The Disneyland Line apparently has detailed this, and CM's [cast members] in recent open houses have been chatting this up, here's what they have heard so far: Disneyland is going to the same type of ticketing system Walt Disney World now uses - plastic-type wallet sized cards - that can be easily swiped in turnstiles as you enter / exit the two parks. March 6th is the date they are aiming for - when the new ticket booths (or at least half of them) and the old exit turnstiles open up. The best thing? No more hand-stamping, or waiting in line behind some family with multiple five day passes that must all be signed - the new used ticket will have a hold electronically punched through it. The new ticket booths were designed with TONS of CM feedback, too. The Main Entrance ticket sellers will have many of their current concerns fixed. More Main St. Cinema news... There should be a meeting going on today with Eisner and the company who is working on this project. For myself at least, it's great news this isn't going to be turned into another shop, like what happened in Walt Disney World. The firm involved is a real leader when it comes to this kind of thing. If things go the way they should, this should be just a terrific job. A previous effort for Disney from them was the EPCOT Innoventions home theater exhibit. Why not take a few moments to visit a site that showcases the work they can do? We can all dream about having a home theater like these in our own homes. Pirates merchandise event rumors... Yes, there apparently will be a Pirates merchandise event, along the lines of the very popular Haunted Mansion and Toad events. Expect a special limited-edition CD, just like the Mansion one they've done, and lots of really expensive merchandise. One thing being explored is being able to actually hold the event on the Columbia itself out on the Rivers of America. Let's also hope they do something nice in remembrance of Marc Davis, who recently passed away. He truly was a key player in creating this attraction. Look for more info soon on this. That about does it for now, see you all at Disneyland! D-I-G Update 2/21/00 - Read the first ride review from DCA - and yes, it's a disappointing one / Eisner's reign coming to an end? / The Parade is a mess, but they are working on it / New 45th Merchandise photos / The next Fastpass ride is... / DCA future expansion plans? / Special congrats to a special couple Here's a quick update for all of that are anywhere but Disneyland this President's Day Weekend. As a bonus, there are now six photo collages throughout this update of new merchandise items the park put out for the 45th this past weekend. Lots of nice stuff, and it all says Disneyland on it [finally!]. I'll try and add prices over the next few days.
Da Bear - Da Bore? Here's the first review of the new Raft ride at Disney's California Adventure [DCA for short] that someone was kind enough to send to me. Sadly it seems to be a heck of a lot more Paul Pressler in what it offers than Walt Disney as far as show quality goes... read on.
Sadly it fits right into what I had been hearing from day one about entire new park - it truly will be a bare bones effort banking solely on the Disney name to draw them in. Reading that review, which I am sad to say will probably only be the first of many similar ones, it brings to mind an e-mail that was sent me by reader Greg O., which shows up just what a hypocrite Michael Eisner, who approved and has supported Pressler's vision of this new park, can be nowadays. Greg writes:
Thank goodness Eisner doesn't have Pinocchio's schnoz problem... he wouldn't be able to turn his head without knocking whole crowds over. But read on...
Eisner leaving this year? Seems like I'm no longer the only one talking about the problems Eisner is going having with the board this year. Ted Casablanca [real name Bruce Bibby] is E! On-line's gossip columnist, and has broken many national stories from his regular Thursday perch on the site. Take a gander at his LATEST COLUMN, it's well worth a read. Any bets who might be the one they ask Eisner to report to? I hear he's bald and hangs out with one of the Dreamworks guys in his spare time. Remember the Main St. Cinema item last update? Reader David E. kindly sent me the following note:
I hope they keep to the plan mentioned in the previous update below, it would be a nice addition to the area.
Parade being worked on... First things first, yes, they are going to fix it. New music is supposed to be in on Friday, the 25th. Needless to say, things are in turmoil, Cynthia is livid, and she has everyone scrambling to fix it and / or prevent a flood of bad press and bad word of mouth. Some changes already made from the preview performance: Fluffy cloud bags and footware gone [essentially de-foofing the Dwarfs], the Blue Fairy now leads the parade [where she belongs], and there are some new dance routines that work a bit better. As I understand it, general 'head in the sand' consensus at TDA since '97 is that Light Magic wasn't a disaster because the concept was flawed, but rather it was the bad press and word of mouth that doomed it's chances for survival. They are scared to death that this is already happening with the new parade. Some really don't think it's quite that bad, but they aren't taking chances. Amazing they just do not want to admit the show was bad huh? Changing the music will mean massive overtime while they re-rehearse the new choreography, staging and timing. The three year budget for this parade begs the question, "But what about a new night parade in 2001?" We'll find out soon enough it seems. Dan S. is one of many people that have been writing and sending me with their own reviews of the parade. So far the public consensus, despite what the O.C. Register may have said, is very disappointing. He's done an even better job than I was able to describe just what is so off and wrong about this show, and has some good thoughts about it too:
Thanks for that viewpoint Dan, it really sums up very nicely what I've been hearing people say once they've seen it. The good thing is we have someone like Cynthia Harris in charge, who really wants to make things right. If Pressler were still in charge, I'd suspect it would run for three years untouched.
The next Fastpass ride is... Indy! It just got the green light for Fastpass. Seems that this was Cynthia's first choice for the next Fastpass attraction, and she got her wish. She was very adamant about getting it on Indy. The queue is going to present major challenges though, it could get pretty funky in there. They are still deciding on several different locations for the machines, including the second floor of the Jungle Cruise boathouse, no joke. That's how weird this setup may be. The soft opening date for Fastpass on Indy is April 3rd, official opening April 7th, just in time for Spring Break. More news as it develops.
Minor correction... Last update I mentioned an ODV popcorn cart was hit by theft, it turns out it was an ice cream cart from what I now understand. One other thing not letting CM's take costumes home would accomplish - not having to see them at McDonald's across the street eating and smoking away in full regalia. One final tidbit about DCA's expansion, among other projects... Someone recently mentioned to me, and it seemed to check out after asking around a bit, about just what is planned in the future for the new California Adventure park. Past comments from WDI have included mentions of eventually eliminating the Timon lot, and moving into that area. But another concept being thrown around is much more ambitious, and frankly surprised even me. It seems that at some future point DCA will also expand out over Disneyland Dr. / West St. [which will be further buried] and sprawl into the Simba and Disneyland Pacific Hotel areas, with the Pacific to be torn down as a result of this at some future undetermined date. If that's in the cards, it may help explain why they put in the Mad Mouse and food areas where they did in the carnival area, so they can easily be gotten rid of if the park were to expand out that way. This expansion would also include some kind of major overhaul of the Disneyland Hotel too - drastic enough to the point it may mean demolition of the towers to rebuild it as a whole new hotel. Interesting no? We'll see what happens on this one. And if the seemingly approved Disney Villains all steel-coaster park is a success in Orlando, we'll probably get one here too - where the current employee parking and strawberry field is at. Thankfully they have cooled to the ESPN park concept they were throwing around it seems. Now if only Pressler would stop advising Imagineers about their lack of futures at WDI, some may actually stay around to get these things done.
In closing, a special congratulations! Join me in celebrating happy couple Jeff and Ilene's engagement this past weekend! Two nicer folks you couldn't meet, and may their upcoming union be a wonderful one for many years to come. If I'm right this is the fourth marriage now from within the group who first met online and then at the park on Sundays for lunch. Isn't it interesting how a common interest such as Disneyland can lead to people discovering a common bond in a whole bunch of other things too? Hmmm, maybe there is something to that Happiest Place on Earth™ stuff after all... That about does it for now, see you all at Disneyland! |
 D-I-G Update 3/8/00: A quickie! New Haunts for the Mansion? / DCA ride problems / Survey says, fix the parade! / Innoventions again / Fireworks / Burbank cuts back even more / Other rumors / Tarzan DVD holding you hostage D-I-G Update 3/2/00: DCA June opening? / No more WDI spending as execs rejoice at IOA's "failure" / Fastpass will crowd Tomorrowland even more as Innoventions attendance keeps slipping / Haunted Mansion operational info / Indy's Fastpass / Tiki blues / With those Pins, who needs Regis? / Pavers too / Character 45th Promotion takes its toll / New Disneyland Resort logo / Rainforest Cafe tidbit / Wolfgang Puck tidbit / Costuming building changes, finally! / Parade redo update / Collectors' update D-I-G Update 2/22/00 - What's the third park gonna be in Anaheim? / New ticket media coming / More on the Main St. Theater rehab / Pirates event rumors D-I-G Update 2/21/00 - Read the first ride review from DCA - and yes, it's a disappointing one / Eisner's reign coming to an end? / The Parade is a mess, but they are working on it / New 45th Merchandise photos / The next Fastpass ride is... / DCA future expansion plans? / Special congrats to a special couple |
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