Walt Disney World Archives - Page 4 of 10

June 4, 2021July 10, 2021

AVENGERS: Custody War – Disney & Universal’s Co-Parenting Plans for MARVEL Super Heroes

“Avengers… Assemble!” Well… if only it were that easy.

Forget Thor and Loki; Wanda and Agatha; Iron Man and Thanos. When it comes to Marvel superheroes, one of the most cosmic clashes of all time isn’t been heroes and villains at all. Instead, it’s between two entertainment titans engaged in a decades-long war over control of Central Florida, now embroiled in an unlikely custody battle over a teenager from Brooklyn… with web-slinging powers.

For those outside theme park fandom, it’s one of the oddest bits of “fine print” in modern pop culture: that somehow, despite Disney’s $4 billion purchase of Marvel outright in 2009, the company is forbidden from using its own heroes at its flagship resort. To make matters worse, not only is Disney practically powerless in leveraging its pop-culture-dominating IP in its own theme parks, but those heroes have somehow been ceded to their comic-book-esque archnemesis just a few miles north.

So how can Universal hold Spider-Man hostage? What’s the legal asterisk that explains the slow drip of Marvel heroes into Disney Parks across the globe… including Florida? What does the future hold for Disney and Universal’s uneasy co-parenting of Marvel heroes in theme parks? Like all custody battles, it’s… complicated. So we may as well start at the beginning…

Stories in the Extra Features and Special Features collections of Park Lore are all about connections – they’re the threads that interlace between the Lost Legends, Declassified Disasters, Modern Marvels, and Possibilitylands you’ll find in our Main Collections. In other words, these features are for people who really want to dig deep.

This article and hundreds more are available for Gold and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Gold and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

Log In or Join Now

Pages: 1 2 3 4

March 24, 2021February 9, 2022

Potter… Nintendo… Star Wars… WHAT’S LEFT?! 12 Untapped IPs Perfect for Theme Park Lands

For at least the last few decades, multimedia companies like Disney, NBCUniversal, ViacomCBS, and WarnerMedia have been engaged in an all-out war. The goal? Purchasing, licensing, conglomerating, trading, and protecting the most precious resource of the 21st century: intellectual property. In fact, one of Park Lore’s recent Extra Features took a look at 9 surprising IPs that are now officially Disney’s thanks to its acquisition of 20th Century Fox!

But away from the studio, one battlefront in the ongoing IP War has been Disney and Universal’s respective theme parks, where a new era of “Living Lands” has plucked places right from the highest-earning franchises in history like Harry Potter, Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney Princesses to go head-to-head in billion-dollar theme park projects.

A few years ago – after so many major acquisitions – we might’ve wondered aloud, “What’s left?!” Then came Nintendo. How had we missed it?! Nintendo was the kind of integenerational, widely-recognized, timeless brand and character catalogue few movies can match. It’s perfect for creating an immersive world. And of course, it doesn’t hurt that between Mario and Donkey Kong alone, Nintendo’s top two franchises have amassed $40 billion in revenue (more than the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe)…

The surprising coup of Nintendo has left lots of theme park fans wondering aloud, “What else have we missed?” and more importantly…

This article and hundreds more are available for Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members who help support this ad-free, clickbait-free, quality-over-quantity collection with a monthly membership. Park Lore Members can access more than a hundred Member-exclusive articles, unlock rare concept art and construction photos in every story, stream audio across the site, tune into podcast exclusives, and receive an annual member card and merch in the mail!

If you choose to join Park Lore’s community of Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum Members, you’ll instantly unlock this story (and of course, a lot more). You can learn more about joining and supporting Park Lore (and browse all the available Extras and Special Features) in the “Memberships & Perks” menu above. If you can’t afford a Pass, please contact us; we’ll make some magic happen.

Log In or Join Now

Pages: 1 2 3

February 27, 2021June 25, 2024

MyMagic Minus: The Rise and Fall of Disney’s Billion Dollar Pre-Planning MagicBand Empire

Standing in the sunset glow of Batuu… alone; gazing up at fireworks from a Main Street that’s… empty; a family perfectly sized to capture that Splash Mountain photo… with no pesky strangers in the log. Anyone who’s made the mistake of mentioning “Disney World” in earshot of a smart speaker or so much as Googled the possibility of a trip will quickly find their browser filled with these rosy images of a Disney Parks vacation. In the alternate reality Walt Disney World depicted there, there’s an unspoken guarantee: your family will find a Disney trip as effortlessly magical as all those ABC sitcom families in the ‘90s did.

Of course, anyone who’s actually been to Central Florida will tell you that those dreamy plans quickly evaporate upon arriving on Walt Disney World soil. There, reality checks you fast. Pathways surging with people; restaurant reservations sold out six months in advance; multi-hour queues in parks notoriously short on rides yet packed with E-Tickets; transportation, ticketing, theming, and infrastructure from the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s butting up against one another in continuous conflict.

In the mid-2000s, record crowds (and record prices) were beginning to break the spell of “The Most Magical Place on Earth,” sullying Disney’s reputation for courtesy, efficiency, and show. MyMagic+ was the sleight of hand that would bring the magic back… An abstract-but-ambitious billion dollar undertaking, Disney World’s all-at-once modernization was meant to add ease and simplicity back into a visit; to make Disney World as frictionless as promised; to leave guests effortlessly traversing (and spending money) across Disney’s Central Florida campus. Did it work? Well…

Pages: 1 2 3

December 16, 2020June 22, 2023

“Yep, That’s Disney Now:” 9 Surprising Acquired IPs En Route to Disney+… and Maybe, Disney Parks

CONTENT IS KING – that was the title of a 1996 editorial by Bill Gates, who wrote that the Internet would disrupt entertainment in a way unmatched since the home television a half-century earlier. He reflected that in television, “the long-term winners were those who used the medium to deliver information and entertainment.” To Gates’ thinking, the Internet offered the same opportunity… and as such, he suggested that the wise would invest in entertainment on the then-new World Wide Web.

Now, a quarter century later, we can see that Gates’ prediction wasn’t just right on the mark; it was practically prophetic. Spurred by the 2010 opening of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, we can see the battle of content play out as Disney and Universal each reach for high-earning film (and video game) franchises to translate into “Living Lands” stocked with in-universe souvenirs and snacks But even as billion-dollar theme park projects clash in battle, the war is even larger. The “Content Wars” have redefined entertainment in the 21st century. Accelerated by the pandemic, streaming has usurped all other forms of traditional media, and he who has the most valuable IPs has the lead.

Pages: 1 2 3 4

November 10, 2020February 22, 2021

MOUSE HUNT: 5 Giant Hidden Mickeys You Can Only Spot From the Air… Or Google Maps

Hidden Mickeys… Whether you consider yourself a seasoned Imagineering insider or simply a vacationeer who loves an annual trip to Disney Parks, chances are you have been on the hunt for Hidden Mickeys – the elusive, I-Spy-ready icons splashed throughout the rides and attractions of Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Famously formed by a circular center topped by two circular ears (resembling the iconic silhouette of Mickey, of course), the hunt for Hidden Mickeys had produced blogs, books, tutorials, YouTube videos, and more.

And while you can spend hours and hours searching out these silhouettes while waiting in line or re-riding your favorite attractions, they aren’t always formed by fine china curiously arranged on a dinner table, pebbles in pathways, or Mickey-shaped paint splatters…

Pages: 1 2

November 7, 2020March 16, 2021

Rides of the Renassaince: The Surprising Shortage of E-Tickets from Disney’s ’90s Classics

Nostalgia is a force more powerful than gravity. If you ask just about anyone on Earth, movies, music, television shows, video games – and yes, Disney Parks – used to be so much better. At this point, it’s really no surprise that each generation is practically repulsed by the media of the next; that our rosy hindsight leaves us sad and sorry for those who grow up without knowing the pop culture milestones that meant so much to us. Basically, everyone on Earth thinks the stories of their own childhood are just objectively the best.

Millennials, though, are probably right. After all, in the 1990s, Walt Disney Animation did the unthinkable: it returned animation to the zeitgeist. After decades of declining returns and meh-movies that threatened to literally bankrupt Walt Disney Productions, 1989’s The Little Mermaid was not just a return to form, but a return to formula. Not since Sleeping Beauty thirty years earlier had Disney tapped so beautifully into a timeless, romantic, artistic retelling of a fairytale. And Ariel was only the start…

Pages: 1 2 3

October 19, 2020May 17, 2022

Snow White’s Scary Adventures: The Many Lives of Fantasyland’s Legendary Fairy Tale Dark Ride

Locked into a chair and cornered by a growling, drooling, bloodthirsty alien… Braving the otherworldly unknown hidden within the historically haunted Hollywood Tower Hotel… Racing through the cataclysmic darkness of the final minutes of the Cretaceous with a hellish Carnotaur giving chase… Navigating the misty graveyard path into the flickering parlor of an abandoned manor…

Long before these frightful experiences were part of a Disney Parks visit, guests were startled, spooked, and downright scared by a Fantasyland favorite that tricked its riders into expecting princesses and happy endings.

Yep, for generations of visitors who grew up with Snow White’s Scary Adventures, it was a test of bravery to come out the other side with eyes open… A terrifying classic in the century-old spook house tradition, this Fantasyland favorite wasn’t just a tribute to the first of Disney’s animated features and its royal heroine, but to Walt’s own fascination with fear…

So as we dive into the full story of this Walt Disney original, we’ll explore not only its permutations that span three continents, but its gradual pruning at the hands of modern Imagineering. Is Snow White’s Scary Adventures really gone? If you dare, head with us into the dark woods to find out…

And before we head off, remember that you can unlock rare concept art and audio streams in this story, access over 100 Extra Features, and recieve an annual Membership card and postcard art set in the mail by supporting this clickbait-free, in-depth, ad-free theme park storytelling site for as little as $2 / month! Become a Park Lore Member to join the story! Until then, let’s start at the beginning…

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6

September 3, 2020June 18, 2021

“Just Open The Line!” “Make It FastPass Only!” Nope. The Case for Rise of the Resistance Boarding Groups.

NOTE: This Special Feature was written in February 2020, just before Walt Disney World’s theme parks closed due to COVID-19 and the parks’ capacities were heavily altered. Park capacities as well as the throughput of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will have changed, but as a defense of Disney’s batched virtual queue (“Boarding Groups”) and its potential continued use on “high demand + low capacity + low reliability” rides, this Special Feature will remain unedited.

Imagine you lead Walt Disney World’s operations team.

You preside over the operations of the world’s most talked-about theme park experience – Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance… a single attraction so sought-after, families are willing to set 4AM alarms on their vacation to rouse kids from their peaceful slumber just to get a chance to see what’s inside; a ride unanimously called the world’s most ambitious; the attraction that’s literally redefining the capabilities of a theme park experience before our very eyes; the ride everyone wants to ride.

Now all you need to do is figure out how to get people on board.

We’ve all seen it on Facebook, Twitter, or Disney Parks discussion boards: “Just open the line!” “Make it FastPass only!” Would it really be that easy? Well, next time you see those comments, send them this article… Because today, we’re going to tackle this problem once and for all. With some detective work, we’ll see exactly what the future may hold for the queue of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.

Pages: 1 2

September 2, 2020February 2, 2021

Editorial: Disney Parks Should Get Rid of FastPass. Hear Us Out With Our 7 Reasons Why.

NOTE: This Editorial feature was written before the COVID-19 pandemic saw Walt Disney World’s phased reopening in July 2020 with FastPass disabled. It’s being presented in its original form here, but consider how Walt Disney World’s virtual queue system now has the opportunity for a “hard reset.” Will FastPass come out the other end at all? There’s a lot that remains to be seen… but we sure hope Disney recognizes these seven factors that made FastPass a pretty frustrating experience…

There’s almost nothing that can compare with the endorphine-drenched sensation of sailing past a full queue for your favorite E-Ticket with a FastPass in hand (or in-app). Since 1999, Disney’s FastPass service has truly redefined a day at the parks for a generation of Disney fans. The problem is that the ways it’s changed your favorite park aren’t always for the better.

FastPass has become so deeply engrained in Disney Parks operations, it’s hard to imagine visiting a park without it. And yet, there’s an argument to be made that if FastPass flashed out of existence, a visit to the happiest place on Earth may be happier. I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out… Let’s start at the beginning to see why Disney created FastPass, then dissect the seven ways that FastPass might be making your day at Disney Parks worse…

Pages: 1 2 3

August 15, 2020September 23, 2021

The Disney Institute: Behind Eisner’s Brainy Plan to Rethink What Walt Disney World Could Be

When’s the last time Disney did something different? Like, really unexpected? Something so out of left field – so completely out of the box – it felt like a reinvention and a risk? Think back to the days before box-office tie-ins and IP lands. When’s the last time Disney made a move that truly surprised and excited you? Disney English? The Disney Cruise Line? The Disney Vacation Club? Maybe!

But one thing’s for sure: one of the bravest, boldest, and most surprising moves at Disney in the last few decades is one that’s no longer around (except that it is) that you can no longer visit (except that you can): The Disney Institute was a really-for-real reinvention of what Disney could do. And today, it’s gone… kind of. Just image: Would you be willing to visit Walt Disney World but skip its theme parks entirely to visit a self-contained informal education campus where you could pursue new interests and dream hobbies?

So what was the Disney Institute? A program or a place? A campus or a course? Did you study there or stay there? Did it close or continue? And for that matter, is it a Lost Legend missed by those who experienced it, or a doomed Declassified Disaster whose failings we should learn from? The answer is… yes. Today, we’ll dig into the unusual history of one of Michael Eisner’s more far-flung pet projects; how it was conceived, where it came to life, why it disappeared… and how you can still experience it today.

Pages: 1 2 3 4