Chroniq

This is incredible. 35 Million visitors this week. To put this in perspective for people that aren't sure how big TPR has become. Twice as Many people than will visit Magic Kingdom in Florida in the entire year of 2014 in one week. 81 Percent of all the people that will visit Orlando in total this entire year. The same amount of people that will visit Magic Kingdom and Tokyo Disneyland in an ENTIRE year in one week. If TPR were a theme park and had that many unique visitors every week, each year- They would have more visitors in a year than every other theme park currently operating- combined. Actually- TWICE as many. One in every 80 people that use the internet in the ENTIRE WORLD experienced a TPR post this week.. 2.8 Billion total versus 35 Million in aggregate for TPR. Only slightly less viewers than the games 5, 6 and 7 of this year's world series -combined. Would be the number 1,2,3 and 4 top rated show in America this week- combined... You guys nailed it this week.. I tip my hat. I think you actually hit the tipping point. Congratulations! -Chris " Calls it like he sees it and honestly saw you working your but off this week" Con

Our family hopes everyone has a very happy holiday and a Merry Christmas.

Looks like Universal has another winner on their hands. I remember when Forbidden Journey opened and the lines were nearly to the park entrance, but this ride has four times the capacity and still had wait times of 450 minutes. It took 160 minutes to get through the single rider line? WOW! Years ago, many enthusiasts thought it was stupid for Universal to build anything Harry Potter related. That was a funny time. Now we have one of the most detailed theme park environments in the US. I need to make a trip down to check it out myself. -chris "and I actually don't like harry potter, but this ish looks awesome" con

Best practices says you continue doing both. On the forum gives immediacy to entrenched customers that enjoy reading current news and commenting on it in real time. The park index adds completeness to potential new customers that are just familiarizing themselves with your product. To choose one or the other eliminates potential viewers.

^^Do you have a particular price range? There are a number of nice hotels that aren't super expensive in Nassau County as well. Check out Homewood suites in Nassau.

Seriously, Disney should hire zamperla to build all of their rides. It takes Disney 3 years to build a kiddie coaster. Zamperla knocks out a major ride during a couple lazy weekends. I'm impressed.

50 pages later I realized that I'm not a coaster nerd.

^Same thing with us on our recent trip. We were able to get on any ride we wanted (except for toy story/anna/ellsa/and the parade/fireworks stuff) after we used up the original three. Some rides were later at night, but there were no problems. I keep trying to decide what "best practices" are regarding the new system. Do I book my first three as early as possible even if lines are light at that hour, or do I book during that 11:00-2:00 spot where lines are the worst? It will be interesting to see how game theory plays out with the new system.. That being said, the ability to add more fastpasses was flawless and there was a lot of availability even included the "tiered" e-tickets.

^Well played. My inlaws bought a bunch of them for CJ and I rocked my "passholder slider".They liked the ability to customize their bands. They thought it was fun. Honestly, I kind of hate the idea of paying $12.95 for 3 pieces of plastic, but then again, I paid $9.95 for a vinylmation park 1 chaser that later made me $500.00 profit, so who am I to judge. Like you said, I'm pretty sure the only people that really hate Magic Bands at this point are the ones that loved abusing the old system.

^Honestly too, If you look at these photos, they are actually a great example of why fastpass+ actually works. When the system is completely working, it distributes the crowds in such an incredible way that even standby wait is minimized.

No exaggeration!

@Robb- Had friends at hollywood studios that were dealing with the same issues. Who knows. Maybe it was a fluke for those two parks. But none of our phones could access anything and all kiosks were down. Again though, Disney will figure this all out. Events like this are only beneficial to the system.. Something breaks and they fix it and learn how to stop it from happening again.. Robb- Couple questions for you- Being a father, do you love the flexibility of fastpass+ like I do? Do you think the new system is better than the old system for the majority of guests? and will you ever buy a magic bandit or accessory for your magic band? I feel like that begins to step into the weird part of Disney fandom.

One more thing to add- From a family with child point of view-FastPass+ rocks. We can wake up when our son wants to and move around the parks at our own pace and still be ensured that we get to meet mickey, or ride toy story mania, or get the expedition everest ride. Honestly, it's perfect for our family... If I could change one thing about MyMagic+ it would be to let me skip entering the pin in for purchasing less than $10 dollars. I believe they talked about this idea when it was first announced. I want to scan and go.

^Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is definitely a hit (at least currently). On May 2nd when they announced the FP+ dates, the entire system crashed, completely. We were at Animal Kingdom. Let me paint you a picture- I arrived at a fastpass+ kiosk since the mydisneyexperience app would not work on my iphone (due to the demand). The cast members told me that the entire system was completely down and I should just jump in a standby line. Killimanjaro Safari went from 20 minutes to 120 minutes (in the rain) and they just let everyone through the fastpass + line without even scanning magic bands since they were completely not working. It was one of the craziest days I've ever spent at a park with pure confusion for cast members and guests. Since magic bands are still in a test and adjust phase, I'm sure Disney will learn from this experience to be able to quickly ramp up when demand is needed. But yeah. Too Long, Didn't Read? 7DMT is in such high demand that it broke fastpass+ yesterday. Also a bit off topic- The same people have now been queueing in line for the past four days straight to get a ride. Those people are nuts. -chris

Here's a photo I took recently of Avatar construction- It has REALLY begun.

Just heads up- It looks like magic bands have rolled out to all annual passholders. Just log into mydisneyexperience.com, customize yours and they are on there way.

This is kind of a no brainer- but do grey outs cause any permanent brain damage...

Good luck everyone.. These are always so much fun. I sincerely encourage everyone to read through the previous threads to get an idea of how Robb does his clues.

Any chance any TPR members will be able to get over to SeaWorld on Sunday and record the kidrock performance (or at least the beginning?)

I'm not particularly a fan of either, but isn't it fair to say that they now have BIGGER acts? According to Wikipedia Kid Rock has sold 23.5 million albums.. I recently read an article about how he constantly sells out week long cruise ship trips as well. Allen Jackson sold 60 million. The only artist that cancelled so far that has comparable album sales are the Beach Boys (or what's left of them). This should be interesting.. It's almost like SeaWorld is just going balls out and spending more money to book even higher profile acts.. well played seaworld, well played.

congratulations!

Bert- off topic completely, but because of your post yesterday I watched 3 of those docs. (half of them aren't on netflix yet)... Just wanted to say thank you for that.. Enjoyed them except for the "act of killing".. Couldn't get into it.. So thanks again for that post of possible nominees. Made for some great movie watching lat night.

So Blackfish didn't get the Oscar nomination.

I wonder if Blackfish will get an academy award nomination... "Waiting for Superman" was a captivating documentary in 2010 that was so one sided and fabricated that the academy refused to nominate it... So my question is, will blackfish get nominated? What's your take?

I'm just going to throw my hat in the ring here and discuss an issue that many people may have missed. Yes it's blackfish related. One of the things that hasn't been discussed is the current situation at CNN and why blackfish is getting the media attention it is. As many of you probably know, Ted Turner/CNN essentially created the 24 hour news cycle in America. CNN was the ratings leader for years and controlled the majority of viewership in the US for cable news channels.It was hard news with little editorial. A few years ago, Fox News figured out that if they'd "editorialize" their news and pick a particular slant they'd strongly appeal to particular demographics/viewers and by giving an opinion their ratings went up dramatically. What happened? CNN went from first to worst (well actually 3rd, but that sounded more dramatic).. For whatever reason American's love their news with a strong opinion. Last year Jeffery Zucker - (former president of nbc/universal entertainment) was hired to bring CNN out of the dumps. His take was to remove as much of the hard news as possible and attempt to emulate Fox News' format. This entire "Blackfish" thing and all of its sensationalism is simply his effort to raise CNN ratings and make them the "FOX NEWS FOR LIBERALS". Here's an interesting article that kind of addresses these things (nothing black fish related, but kind of gives and idea of why CNN is doing what they are doing) http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2014/01/10/jeff-zucker-cnn/4422177/ Chris "mods, I know I'm a bit off topic, sorry" Con