Specially priced 2-Day Ticket to EPCOT and Disney's Animal Kingdom now available

WorldExplorerAug 02, 2023

Post-covid I saw an ad featuring hugging Timon. I guess trying to time a photo with him on a boat thirty feet back and waving at the general area doesn't look very enticing.

HauntedPirateAug 01, 2023

The cringe in their ads over the last 8-9 years has been astounding. Walking right up to Mickey and hugging him, seeing Cinderella like you mentioned, and a dozen other examples of things that are just outlandishly contrived. That being said... seeing a baby take its first steps to Mickey in 1996 is hard to top on the onion-cutting scale. :cry: But back then, there's a chance there could have been a Mickey walking around the park like that.

HauntedPirateAug 01, 2023

Because knocking the building down was the only solution? They could have done that 20 years ago.

TheMaxReboAug 01, 2023

my favorite is always the one with the kids just walking up and seeing Cinderella in the grass near the Castle with no one around her and gets to go up and hug her

MrPromeyAug 01, 2023

This is just a quiet acknowledgement of where their attendance problems are. I know a lot of traveling guests would love a discount on two days of their stay but that's not what Disney wants. They're not looking to cut the weary traveler that was coming anyway, a break on two days out of their vacation. What they want is people who will go to the two parks they're directing them to who won't also go to MK and Hollywood Studios to clog them up which is exactly what a traveling guest would be doing. To that end, I think their target is anyone they can get to go to Epcot and AK and JUST those two parks who weren't otherwise going to be going and whoever that is, is probably within a three hour drive since most people doing a stay-over trip to WDW, aren't going to be content with that. Epcot probably has the highest up-sell potential with it's food and booze options being a major aspect of what they "offer" for that park experience so their hope is probably that they get locals into that one at a discount and then make more off them at the registers inside where anything sold is better than nothing - same as the old Epcot after 4 pass which was basically about trying to bring locals in to eat and drink, too. Whether it ends up working or not is anyone's guess but what it shows is, they're starting to get creative on how they try to fix what are increasingly becoming undeniable attendance concerns they clearly have. The traditional fix would be to keep updating and adding to these parks to make them more appealing so they can better compete with the other two but they're not interested in that level of investment, apparently. The fact that they added two high-profile attractions (well one was a replacement, I guess) recently and Epcot still isn't pulling in the people they're after there tells you how much work that park still needs but apparently won't be getting in the foreseeable future.* *Then again, when the first half of the park loses it's 7+ year sponsorship with WALLS Inc., that might have a some impact, too.

MrPromeyAug 01, 2023

You'll need to have someone back at the valve turning it open and closed in sync with your hand motions but if you decide to do your own rendition of "I Am Moana" while enjoying the splendor - and I really hope you do - you better record it to share with all of your WDW Magic Frien... (emies). ;) 👍

TalkingHeadAug 01, 2023

Would love to know how many of these they actually sell because on the face of it I don’t get what audience this promo is supposed to appeal to. Retirees in Haines City? Twenty somethings in Seminole County?

FordloverAug 01, 2023

I considered a trip to see JOW, but instead my plan is to crank up the Moana soundtrack, turn on my sprinkler system, then wander around my backyard. I figure I'll get 70% of the in park experiences of JOW at nearly infinite savings, plus I won't have to stand in line for an hour or two, and won't have to avoid any fist fights. Win/win in my book. Maybe when the discounts get to be an actual value again, not holding my breath...

JoelAug 01, 2023

I can't find it on YouTube right now, but my all-time favorite example in the Disney hilariously false advertising genre is a commercial from the early 90s. It shows a family entering their room (at an unspecified resort, maybe Grand Floridian? Just a fake set?) for the first time. The bell hop opens the french doors to the balcony for a grand reveal of Cinderella Castle, which is so close and at an angle that would only make sense if the hotel had been built on the space currently occupied by Cosmic Ray's. I wonder how many people booked theme park views back then and were disappointed to learn you can't just rappel off your balcony and make a beeline for Peter Pan's Flight in the morning. At least it cost a lot less back then. Back on topic, almost nothing could get me to go to Florida in August/September, but I hope they'll start coming out with some incentives like this for non-FL residents.

MrPromeyAug 01, 2023

Cool - I'm just saying I don't think most of us would look at that and the discount and say "lets go!". Maybe some would for CRW and Ratatouille if they haven't already done those but I don't think this one's going to move the needle as long as they don't over-hype it* but it is one more thing to do while there that's not 20-30 years old. ... Not that every experience needs to be a draw. Things that eat people but don't bring more people to the parks is exactly what they need more of, especially at the two parks not featured in this deal. I have other issues with this attraction but it not being an e-ticket absolutely is not one of them. *which... well, you know. :/

TheMaxReboAug 01, 2023

Guess in my mind I am thinking the second - I don't know anyone who sees this as a "big new thing" .... But is *something* new and maybe some curiosity just to check it out, even if a relatively small thing

MrPromeyAug 01, 2023

Again, I'd say only if the marketing is deceptive. $75 a head to get in, with a desire to check this out being the main driver? Nope. Maybe $75 a head to get in and do other stuff and maybe check this out, again, if it's not mobbed but that might be the difference between a local mindset and someone from out of state who might not be able to come back for years.

TheMaxReboAug 01, 2023

Definitely not something in it's own .... But if seeing this deal and then knowing there is something hadn't seen since their last time there might make it a bit more appealing to check it out is all

MrPromeyAug 01, 2023

As a relative local, it's absolutely nothing I would plan to pay a gate entry around checking out. It's something we'd see if we were already in that park and it weren't mobbed with people but otherwise, nothing about this screams must-do to me. That said, I've been following this for years like everyone else on this site so I probably have a better idea of what it is than a typical local guest would and Disney has a well established record of ever so slightly deceptive marketing with billboards and commercials about what an experience is presented as being vs. what it actually is. Believing their marketing for instance, you'll be actually riding a banshee in Animal Kingdom. Obviously, nobody thinks you are riding a real creature that doesn't exist but the ads make it seem like you'll be in some sort of creature ride vehicle - not a motorcycle-like brain wifi router. Similarly, when ToT opened, the commercials all clearly showed actors portraying guests standing in an elevator shaft that fell and Alien Encounter, a sensory experience was shown to also be a highly visual experience with things reaching out at people and oozing slime visibly eating through metal that was never a part of the actual attraction.* Similarly, billboards have suggested 7DMT could be an actuall thrilling coaster more on level with Everest and that Slinky Dog Dash was also something way more than it actually is. With all that in mind, they might trick a few people by making this seem like something it's not, too. A few of the billboards that offer the vague experience you can expect in Pandora: The ToT commercial: Part of the original Alien Encounter commercial: Not trying to indict Disney, here. Universal was all too happy to do the same kind of thing in selling the Hagrid's ride, for instance. Just pointing out how they can market/spin almost anything. *I get the motivation for some of this - like with AE, it's hard to explain that experience in a visual medium when the majority of the experience is targeted at every other sense. Obvously, ToT would not be safe if people were just openly standing in a regular elevator vehicle but these are how they portrayed them which, isn't what the actual expriences were and I remember going with people who were actually dissapointed when they saw the rows of benches and lap bars (this was when only the back middle seat used a seat belt).