Doing Disney?

 If you scan the posts on this blog, you might see the ones saying that I wrote a book called Doing Disney, which tried to be a guide for people who "do Disney" in the same way that we do -- a week at a time, every year or two.  Who might want to make the most of their time in Disney World, and maybe take advantage of a few little hacks, nothing too extraordinary or secret, that might allow them to get a little more out of that week.

I updated the book (before it was published by Theme Park Press) a few years ago, shortly after FP+, Memory Maker and My Disney Experience became things.  And we recently visited again, in early August of 2021 (this year), and I thought, a lot has changed with the pandemic and the lack of FastPasses, the reduced window for dining reservations, the requirement of park reservations, and the virtual queuing system for the Star Wars land's flagship ride, Rise of the Resistance.

So I launched into writing a revised Doing Disney edition taking these changes into account.  And as I was revising, Disney announced Genie!  And Genie Plus!  These things will replace the My Disney Experience app, as near as I can tell, and they will introduce paid FastPass, known as "Lightning Lane."  So now you get to pay something around fifteen dollars a day per guest in addition to your already-expensive ticket in order to get on the rides.

And not only that, but "premium" rides will have another charge associated with them.  Does that not sound great?  As far as I could tell, these rides will include Seven Dwarves Mine Train (?), Frozen (?), Rise of the Resistance, and Flight of Passage, at least.  (The reason for the question marks by the first two is because those rides are good, but they're hardly even the best rides in their respective parks so why do they get labeled as "premium" or whatever they're labeling them?)

Do the math.  A family of four, spending six days in the parks, will now pay an extra sixty dollars a day, $360.00 total, to get Lightning Lane access.  Not unlimited access either, as far as I can tell (though I could be misinterpreting this).  You still have to reserve your FastPasses.  You can buy Genie Plus starting at midnight the day before your park visit.  You can reserve your rides starting at seven am the day of your visit.  

When are we supposed to sleep?

Why not just raise the price of the ticket $15.00?  Is this for all those park visitors who are paying a hundred bucks for a day for the privilege of walking around the parks, spending money on food and merchandise, and getting to see parades and fireworks?  

Honestly, this is ridiculous.  If this is what Bob Chapek is all about, please get rid of him sooner than later.  Because in my somewhat informed opinion, these cash grabs are a recipe for disaster.  

Shame on you, Disney.  Shame.

New book!

Who has this book to read?

I have this book to read! 

Looking forward to it.

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Bad Disney!

I find something to like about almost everything Disney does.  I even liked The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Prince of Persia and John Carter.  I thought they told okay stories, looked good, were relatively well-acted, and fun in their own shallow way. 

But Artemis Fowl...  This was just bad! 

Okay, the fairy city looked nice.  Some of the sets were cool.  But it removed everything that made the book a fun read, and turned it into something that...sucked.

The performances did nothing for me.  Josh Gad's giant dwarf was okay, I guess, but felt forced.  The kid who played the lead was wooden.  Hayden Christiansen bad?  Worse, I think.  (I didn't think Christiansen was that bad.)  Dame Judi Dench even seemed bad. 

The script was bad.  It generally made no sense.  The way the characters were written, their relationships were glossed over.  They jumped from point A to point Z with nothing in between.  I didn't care about any of them.  The plot had no logic to it at all. 

I rarely pan anything so thoroughly, but here we are.  Disney, you failed on this one.  I don't know whose fault it is.  The director's?  He's generally well-respected, and it's hard to believe that this pile of -- whatever it is -- came from his hand.  Thor was much better, and that's generally not one of the highest rated Marvel movies.

The end sets up a sequel in some sense, but I doubt that will be getting made. 

And good thing, if it was to be anything like this.

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Doing Disney taken by Theme Park Press!

Quite a while ago, my "guidebook" DOING DISNEY was accepted by Theme Park Press for publication. 

Now it's available in soft-cover and in ebook formats. 

DOING DISNEY!

Theme Park Press Edition 

New book by Nick Pobursky

There's another book from the author of WDW-themed HOLLOW WORLD:

SPECTRE THIRTEEN

Here's the description: 

Head of Security. Husband. Father. Hero.
Charlie Walker is back in Nick Pobursky’s electrifying sequel to his bestselling Hollow World!

It’s been three years since Charlie thwarted a terrorist attack on Space Mountain and kicked evil mastermind Spencer Holloway off the top floor of Bay Lake Tower. And aside from occasional annoyances from his frenemy Habst, things have been relatively quiet for the ex-detective. That is until one of his staff is found brutally murdered, a crime for which Charlie is wrongly accused. With the help of his friends in the CIA’s X-ray Team, Charlie must clear his name and fight his way through a gorgeous and sadistic villain’s cat-and-mouse game; a game that will test every ounce of his physical, emotional, and mental strength. But this time, if Charlie fails, it’s not just one ride that’s in danger, it’s the entire Walt Disney World resort….

Enjoy it!

TOMORROWLAND - The Movie...My thoughts

Hello!  Been a while since I posted anything here, let alone something related to Disney.  Here are my thoughts on the recent film TOMORROWLAND...

*****

Having read quite a bit about Walt Disney, I may be seeing this recent Disney film with tinted glasses.  I remember being inspired by the stories that Disney put on film and on TV in a myriad of ways back in the 1960’s, when I was inspired by the stories and the music to write my own stories and to learn to play the songs.  I didn’t take my inspiration for my love of science from Disney (directly); it was the space program that grabbed me and made me want to learn.  Yeah, I was one of those kids who wanted to be an astronaut.  I dreamed about traveling to the Moon or to Mars, or to even more distant places.  My interest was fed by writers like Asimov and Heinlein and Clarke (the so-called Big Three) and by Charlton Heston movies like THE OMEGA MAN and PLANET OF THE APES.

It wasn’t till I started to study Disney that I realized how interested he was in the space program himself — and in scientific advancement!  He made promotional films for NASA to help generate popular support for the project to put a man on the Moon, and in his parks was this area he called “Tomorrowland.”  Tomorrowland celebrated the future by promoting the achievements of corporations in that direction.  It had exhibits like “The House of Tomorrow”, a futuristic “People Mover” and its retrospective tribute to technology, “Carousel of Progress.”  I didn’t know about these things till relatively recently because I didn’t go to Disney World until 1975, and then as a member of my high school band who was less concerned with appreciating what I was seeing than with the existence of high school girls from other band programs in other parts of the country.

So what’s all that have to do with TOMORROWLAND, the movie?  I believe there is something of Walt Disney’s persona in this film.  And that something is “Optimism.”  Walt Disney was a futurist, according to Ray Bradbury.  A forward-thinking man who had his eyes on solving the problems of the world with technology, through corporations.

The movie isn’t as focused on corporations as agents for positive change, but it has the same optimism about the future that Walt had.  If I understood correctly, the story is that scientists figured out how to access an alternate dimension of reality and then proceeded to create a world where science was king — where just about anything was possible.  (Sort of goes with Walt’s old “If you can dream it, you can do it” mentality.)  In fact, the film starts with a boy inventor traveling to the World’s Fair that Disney used as a testing ground for so many things that found themselves into his parks, including the aforementioned Carousel of Progress and the “it’s a small world” attraction.  (At that fair, for the Illinois exhibit, Walt and company built an audio-animatronic Lincoln that people reported rose and stepped into the audience, shaking people’s hands – of course it did no such thing but, well, that’s how imagination works I guess.)  He makes his way to Tomorrowland with the help of a pretty young girl and a pin that she gives him.

Cut to the future – our future – where our space program is being dismantled and where pessimism reigns.  What’s the best an intelligent young man or woman can hope for in this world?  It certainly isn’t the Moon, or Mars.

In the film’s case, the intelligent young person is a high school girl who becomes intrigued by a pin she finds among her belongings after she is released from jail — she was arrested for sabotaging the machines that are destroying the launch platforms at Cape Canaveral.  The pin shows her a shining land of science and technology that is beyond her wildest dreams, and she must find it.

The straightforward adventure story that follows is competently written and it plays out in an entertaining manner.  But it was the concept behind that adventure — the idea that you can make a difference, that your brain is more powerful than anything else, and that amazing things can be accomplished if our best and brightest put their minds to it — that intrigued me.

And it wasn’t just me.  My kids were intrigued by the ideas, by the inspiration that they were able to take from the story.  I have smart kids, and we’ve always talked about accomplishing big things through intellect (not in those words, obviously), and they saw in this film something more than an unrealistic adventure story.  It’s the same sort of feeling we have when we leave EPCOT or Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom.  There’s an enthusiasm after those visits, a feeling that anything IS possible, in fact.

I found a review on a sometimes-Disney site called FutureProbe and I’m going to just quote the end of it:

The lesson our characters should have learned is that Tomorrowland isn’t a place you escape to, it’s something you make wherever you happen to be. The movie shouldn’t have ended with a bunch of robot children setting out to bring people to Tomorrowland, but with them setting out to bring Tomorrowland to the people.

I agree with the sentiment, but I think it’s being nit-picky about the final message. So what if the robots are setting out to bring the best and brightest to Tomorrowland instead of rejoining the real world? In a sense, they are metaphorically doing exactly that – inspiring the young people to create the future instead of accepting it and “gaming the system” for their own benefit. Maybe “Tomorrowland” is MIT or Harvard or University of Illinois for some particular teenager, and maybe it’s going to work for an environmentally aware company. Maybe it’s just getting the best out of yourself instead of coasting.

In any case, I found a lot to like about this movie.  I’m not going to argue that it’s the greatest piece of filmmaking ever, but it’s more than an entertaining story, or at least it can be.

*****
(This is cross-posted from my "Scott Dyson" blog which is where I talk about my writing and my books. Stop by if you want to see what I've been up to with my self-publishing efforts.
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Two stories on KDP Select promotion! Please go grab them!

I am running a promotion of two of my short story packages on Amazon for Kindle.  The promo runs from today till Monday, February 2, 2015.  Over those five days, both titles (which contain SIX short stories!!) will be completely free!  Please download them!  Even if you don't want to read them, download them!  Thanks.  Links are below.

 

THE GATEWAY (and AMERICA'S PASTIME and HOT SPOT)

                                JACK'O'LANTERN (and THE MOMENT and SARAH'S PUPPY)

Thanks for looking/downloading them!  Hopefully you will enjoy them and maybe even leave a review! 

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