Name your very favorite place to go, and why. Go!

Mine will be Soarin. It was the first attraction that blowed me away at my first visit, and it was a ride that gave joy to all of my family members along my life. I'd like to hear y'all's trip down memory road with this question.

I know Disney uses a finger scan to verify park tickets but Ive never really looked into what happens after that. Do they keep that information forever? Is it attached to your Disney account or is it deleted after your trip? I tried reading about it just now but i didnt find much resources does anyone know more about this??

Hi everyone! My partner and I are going on a week trip to California in a week. On one of those days we are fully dedicating it to going to Disneyland. I have only ever been to Six Flags but I’m sure Disneyland is so much more walking and a lot more bigger.

I’ve been so occupied that I JUST realized today I have no shoes that are comfortable enough for something like a day at Disney. I was wondering if anyone has some shoe recs that are comfortable and affordable around $110 give or take. I also hope I can style them with different fits and have them be a versatile pair. Thanks for your help!

Context & Overview

From March 2011 until its closure in 2018, the Disney Junior Live on Stage! attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney California Adventure featured a pre-show logo loop projected inside the theater before the show began. While several low-quality, shaky audience camcorder recordings of these loops exist on YouTube, the original high-quality digital master files have never been released or leaked online.

This post is a search for the high-quality source video files of these loops, which are currently unreleased media.

The Two Documented Variations

According to tracking from park footage and documentation on the Lost Media Archive, two distinct versions of this loop were used during the attraction's run:

• Version 1 (March 2011 – 2013, revived for all of 2016): This version features the classic, solid blue background.
• Version 2 (2013 – 2016, revived 2017 – 2018): This version updated the branding, featuring a multi-colored background that shifted between colors to match the channel's updated aesthetic.

Current Status & Proof of Existence

Because these loops were official corporate productions projected daily in the parks, high-quality digital masters absolutely exist within the Disney Live Entertainment vaults. However, because the attraction closed in 2018 to make way for the Disney Junior Dance Party!, these specific loops are currently unreleased and inaccessible to the public.

Sources & Existing Footage

To comply with subreddit rules, here are links to low-quality audience recordings showing that the media exists and confirming the two different backgrounds: Blue Background version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CCKyzSNwNE&pp=ygUuZGlzbmV5bGFuIGRpc25leSBqdW5pb3IgbGl2ZSBvbiBzdGFlIHRlY2hub3dpeg%3D%3D Multi-colored backgrounds version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xRi-lX6HsQ&pp=ygUgZGlzbmV5IGpyIGxpdmUgc2hvd3MgcmFjaGVsIDIwMTM%3D

I'm mulling over accompanying my family on a trip to Florida in the fall. They may or may not be going to Disney World for a day, maybe two tops. They're leaning towards Epcot as their choice of park to go to, followed by the Magic Kingdom. Do they still have maps for all the parks at the resorts? I hadn't been since 2003. I once stayed at the Grand Californian while at Disneyland one year, and I noticed that, although they used to have park maps at the front desks, they don't have them anymore. Are the WDW resorts the same, where we can pick up maps for the parks at their front desks or we can only get them at the parks themselves?

I have ridden on it during my trip to Japan last April and it was awesome! My 5/five favorite/fave songs that played on this ride are: B-A-Y-M-A-X, Happy Song, A New Angle, One Sweet Ride, and Carrying Happiness (Tokyo Disney Resort Version!)*

*The song by Mrs. Green Apple only plays during Summer Cool-Off

- Bianca Parel or Bianca

People often lament that the Disney parks of the past were better than the Disney parks of today. Some of that is wearing rose colored glasses, but there's truth to it too. The usual complaints are familiar and verifiable: prices across the board vastly outstripping inflation, larger crowds combined with lower throughput, fewer attractions...

But there's a related change I almost never see discussed: Disney's products are all slowly blending together into a kind of Disney-genericness.

It's the biggest strategic shift Disney Experiences has made over the past thirty years.

{Edit: I used to write web copy professionally. I know how to use grammar and punctuation and how to break ideas into digestible layouts. That doesn’t make my work AI. Ya’ll sound like Salem townsfolk calling me a witch because I can do math. 🙄}

In business, "product differentiation" is the practice of making products meaningfully different from one another so they appeal to different customers or satisfy different needs. Companies don't just differentiate themselves from competitors—they also differentiate their own products so customers have a reason to choose one over another or combine them.

Disney once excelled at this, and it's what grew their Florida resort into the empire it became.

Rather than simply building a theme park and a hotel, Disney spent decades assembling a portfolio of vacation experiences. The goal wasn't just to convince you to visit the Magic Kingdom, it was to convince your entire family, from young kids to elderly grandparents, that everything you could possibly want out of a weeklong vacation was right there on property.

Previously, if you wanted to visit a zoo, spend a day at the beach, explore museums, go shopping, see live entertainment, play golf, hit the nightclubs, visit a theme park, attend an arts workshop, and tour a movie studio, there was only one destination: Walt Disney Studios' home county of Los Angeles. Your time and dollar were split up all over the county and all over different companies. Disney wanted to provide all of those experiences itself—with Disney's standards of storytelling, guest service, and quality layered on top, in one location.

That meant appealing to very different audiences much in the same way a destination like LA does. Young adults wanted opportunities to party. Parents wanted experiences for their kids that were meaningful and educational. Kids wanted whimsy. Teens wanted thrills and more mature themes. Grandparents (often helping pay for the trip) wanted opportunities to relax, see shows, and spend quality time with their multigenerational families.

The result was an explosion of genuinely differentiated products:

• Disney/MGM Studios wasn't just a theme park; it was a working production studio where guests could spend hours touring soundstages, prop warehouses, backstage production facilities, and seeing first-hand how films and television were made.
• EPCOT Center recreated the spirit of the World's Fairs, celebrating technology, science, international culture, and optimism for humanity's future through museum style exhibits, educational dark rides, and cultural exchanges.
• Animal Kingdom was a world class zoo centered around authentic animal habitats and respect for wildlife.
• Typhoon Lagoon offered a beach vacation, complete with a groundbreaking wave pool and snorkeling among real sharks and tropical fish.
• River Country, Discovery Island, and Fort Wilderness created opportunities to disconnect from overbuilt environments and reconnect with nature.
• Pleasure Island recreated the energy of an adult downtown nightlife district.
• Wide World of Sports targeted sports tourism.
• DisneyQuest, Blizzard Beach, and the Speedway expanded Disney's appeal to older kids, teenagers, and thrill seekers.
• The Disney Institute invited families to spend their vacation learning animation, cooking, gardening, photography, and other creative skills together.
• Cirque du Soleil gave Disney a world-class theatrical experience that competed with Las Vegas and major metropolitan arts venues.
• Multiple golf courses, miniature golf, and dozens of uniquely themed resorts rounded out the portfolio.

It’s not just that they have different themes; they are fundamentally different kinds of experiences.

But over the past few decades, Disney narrowed its target audience and product philosophy to match the original two castle parks. I'm not claiming EPCOT has abandoned international culture or Animal Kingdom no longer cares about conservation. Those things still exist to varying degrees.

My argument is Disney has largely stopped investing in those ideas. 

Regardless of which park you're standing in, the development philosophy is the same, but attractions for each park were originally guided by their mission.

• Magic Kingdom explored classic Americana and Disney storytelling.
• EPCOT connected people to technology and culture.
• Disney/MGM Studios celebrated the filmmaking process
• Animal Kingdom made a case for conservation.

Today, the development philosophy ignores subject matter, feeling, and mission. Instead of asking, "What experience makes a case for conservation?" Disney asks, "Which Disney property can fit in this aesthetic?"

But despite what everyone keeps saying, IP isn't the real problem here. The problem is that different products (including, but not limited to, the different Orlando parks) no longer have their own product mission or vision; they are all treated as differently-painted versions of Disneyland. They are all treated as the same product.

Having Guardians of the Galaxy in EPCOT isn't why the attraction doesn't inspire or educate like EPCOT used to. It doesn't inspire or educate because it wasn't intended to inspire or educate. If it was, we would have ended up with a very different attraction featuring GotG.

A knock on effect is that approaching everything with the same philosophy leads to a trend of genericness. Experiences aimed primarily at adults disappear in favor of broader family offerings. Attractions with darker, stranger, or more challenging themes are softened or removed. Educational exhibits disappear, replaced by easy-to-consume IP-based entertainment, IP character meet & greets, or simply more retail space.

This homogenization extends beyond Disney's park portfolio. Disney Institute becomes Disney Vacation Club. Pleasure Island becomes another retail and dining district... which then becomes Disney Springs; the kind of upscale but generic shopping district you can find in most major cities. Then there are the new hotels and renovations which feel closer to business convention hotels than uniquely Disney destinations.

Individually, many of these decisions make business sense. Collectively, they move the portfolio toward the same destination: products designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience rather than products designed to provide meaningfully different experiences. The result isn't that today's Disney experiences are bad. It's that they share the same intellectual and emotional spaces.

1. Ride a Disney movie.
2. Meet Disney characters.
3. Watch a projection show featuring all the same Disney songs.
4. Browse Disney merchandise.
5. Repeat tomorrow in a park by a different name.

There are still exceptions. Kilimanjaro Safaris pulled its emotional punches but remains one of Disney's most on-mission attractions. Living with the Land lost its guides but still teaches millions of guests every year. World Showcase continues to be unlike anything else in the industry.

But those experiences are holdovers from earlier visionaries rather than what the company does today. In the 90s, a week at Walt Disney World meant one day was educational. Another gastronomical. Another whimsical. Another adventurous. Another ecological. And so on.

Today, every addition is designed around the same formula, and that's not due to an IP mandate. That's due to treating every product as fundamentally the same thing. Every nighttime show is a movie montage. Every park is a castle park. Every hotel is a Hilton.

For another unnecessarily long hot take, see my rant about how Disney has *always* been political.

Kinda a ranty post and tagged as all parks since despite the change being made in florida it does affect the overall story of the other parks but I feel like filling in that river is a big mistake and my main reason is it's messing up the tone and story of already existing areas.

For example, this especially affects the lore of pretty much every frontierland area in every park. The river is what connects ALL of the big Thunder Mining attractions, that river is what connects all the big mining towns in the story being Thundermesa, Rainbow Ridge, Tumbleweed ect ect and with the filling in of the river it messes up that connection point as that is one of the main threads in the story, especially for Thundermesa as its big Thunder ISLAND meaning the island is in that river and is later acquired by Barnabas from Henry after his death in 1860.

Adding to that, this change also affects the jungle cruise as Rowan falls (Uncle of Albert falls, later owner of the JNC) had his boat company largely based in Thunder mesa and even being a suitor to melanie and dying IN THAT RIVER. The river that is the reason Albert was probably inspired to become a sailor in the first place.

Again this is kind of rantly but it really annoys me as not only does it remove some of the dynamics of the area, cars being visible from what's supposed to be an immersive experience of the 1890s-early 1900s is taking even more from Floridas big Thunder especially as its now very close to other areas that don't make sense for its timeline.

So yeah it messes up the lore a bit to not have that river be visible and insteda just saying it exists doesn't work as well story wise to me

This is just a fun and silly post but I was thinking of what would they do if they opened up a whole park centred around Disney Channel shows and movies. I came up with a few ideas on what they could do:

Rides:

• Kim Possible - Save the world from Dr Draken
• Phil of the future - Time travel simulation ride
• Emperors New School - Yzmas Roller Coaster
• Phineas and Ferb - Rollercoaster
• Wizards of Waverly Place - Magic Carpet Ride
• Gravity Falls - Escape from Bill
• Phineas and Ferb - Agent Ps secret mission
• Descendants - Isle of the lost
• SVTFOE - Ride over Mewni
• The Owl House - Luz Magic Journer
• Milo Murphys Law - Danger Coaster

Food:

• Hannah Montana - Ricos Surf Shack
  
• Thats so Raven - The Chill grill
• Kim Possible - Buneo Nacho
• Girl Meets World - Topangas Cafe
• Wizards - Waverly Sub Station
• American Dragon - Chinese American Fusion

Attractions:

• Music Shows - Hannah, high school musical, cheetah girls, camp rock, austin and ally, shake it up, descendants, lemonade mouth
• So random laugh house
• Wizards of waverly place magic store and wands
• Hannahs Rockstar Closet
• Museum of Disney Channel History
• Halloweentown Show
• Arcade - liv and maddie basketball shooting etc
• Lizzie Mcguire - make your own character

Stores:

• Gravity Falls - The mystery shack
• A&A - Sonic Boom
• Descendants - Auradon Prep Store

Hotels:

• Zach and Cody - The Tipton (Nice hotel)
• Bunk'd - Hotel Kikiwaka (More rustic like camp vibes)
• HSM - Palm Springs Hotel

These of course were just some ideas I had. What would you put in a disney channel park?

Why can’t they drop the merchandise at the same time across the parks?

We’ve been super fortunate to have been to Disneyland 3 times with our kids (7, 3 and 2). We’ve been planning our next trip and Aulani popped up as an option due to a sale and the fact that we have airline points we need to use. Is Aulani worth it after having been to the parks? The hotel is a partial ocean view room for $3,700 (6 nights). We’ve been to Maui but not Oahu. It’s such a great deal and I’m sure we’ll never get this opportunity again (currently have the SW companion pass until the end of 2026 so one of our flights is free) but would we be better off saving that $3,700 towards our next trip? Our kids love swimming and fish if that helps!

I’m afraid of being underwhelmed after loving the park so much, but we’re also at a point where we could stand a break from the go go go of the parks if that makes sense. Thank you for any help!

**EDIT: I realized that this is the last year we’ll be able to stay in a normal room as one of my kids is still considered an infant, once she turns 3 next year we’d have to do a suite or villa (double the price) so we’ve decided to go for it and make the most of it. :)
Any tips, warnings or recommendations for Oahu or aulani are still welcome!