Disney Theme Parks/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Adaptation Displacement: Some people complained that Jack Sparrow wasn't in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, not realizing that the movie was based on the ride instead of the other way around. To appease them, Disney put Sparrow in the ride, along with Barbossa (replacing Paul Frees' iconic pirate captain), the image of Davey Jones, and snippets of Klaus Badelt's movie score. Reactions from longtime fans of the ride were... mixed.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: More of an alternate story interpretation, but for Pirates of the Caribbean, the old man in the bayou is reminiscing about the days of pirates, which is why it goes from the bayou to skeletons to real pirates.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: *Groan* They're adding Disney Princess meet-and-greet attractions to Walt Disney World? I swear, we've already had enough of those bitc-a Little Mermaid dark ride? A Beauty and the Beast restaurant? *Rousing applause* Best expansion ever!
    • Wait, the meet-and-greet attractions will replace Snow White's Scary Adventures instead of taking up new buildings? Maybe this expansion will suck after all-Hey, the roller coaster through the Seven Dwarfs' mine looks awesome!
    • Changing up Star Wars again, including Star Tours now, is this all George Lucas does... wait, we'll actually be traveling to planets now? Multiple plan since the ride changes everytime you're on? Darth Vader will be part of the ride?! Aw YEAAAAHH!!!
  • Base Breaker: Stitch is an odd example; as a character and star of one of the more popular Disney Animated Canon efforts, he's generally well liked -- especially in Japan. However, the Replacement Scrappy status of his ride and the fact he's become a Sixth Ranger to the Fab Five have gotten a rather mixed response.
  • Complaining About Attractions That Haven't Opened Yet: An expansion to Animal Kingdom has been announced, featuring attractions adapted from the polarizing, non-Disney-owned Avatar. Fans do NOT seem pleased.
  • Crack is Cheaper: Beyond the expenses one would normally expect for a theme park/resort vacation, the Disney parks feature a notorious amount of specialized, often collectible merchandise (hence the Foxtrot joke about Souvenir Land at the expy Fun-Fun Universe) and "experiences" (i.e., princess makeovers, character dining, behind-the-scenes tours) that cost even more.
  • Creator's Pet: Duffy the Disney Bear. Imagine a character who isn't connected to any of the Disney Animated Canon and/or Pixar films. Hey, Figment, Phineas and Ferb, and Captain Jack Sparrow are well liked, right? Well, the problem is, this character isn't FROM any of the rides, shows, or live-action movies. He exists solely to sell merchandise, Tastes Like Diabetes, and yet has more presence in the parks than Darkhorses like Flynn Rider, Scrooge McDuck, and Brother Chucked characters like Hercules, Quasimodo, Tarzan and most of the Disney Villains, who usually only appear for Meet and Greets at the Halloween parties. In addition, he's also managed to outlast a character from a popular and ongoing video game series co-created by Disney.
    • This is mostly a result of Duffy being a Cash Cow Franchise in the Tokyo parks with desperate efforts to re-create the success abroad without realizing the cultural differences.
  • Dork Age: Disneyland had one in the mid-1990s through 2003 when it was run by Paul Pressler, a man who thought people came to the parks for shopping and dining, cutting off a lot of the upkeep budget, closing down classic yet expensive to maintain rides (like the Submarines, Skyway and Motorboats), an ugly rusty colored redo of Tomorrowland and the poor replacement of the Main Street Electrical Parade with Light Magic. This was also the era in which California Adventure opened...
  • Drinking Game: Drinking Around the World at EPCOT. Really. Based on the experiences of others, you don't want to go clockwise, starting with Mexico's Tequila Cave...
    • Dispite what you hear, you CAN drink in Disney World, just not inside the Magic Kingdom.
  • Ear Worm: Most attractions with some sort of musical theme are like this, especially It's a Small World.
    • It's even worse at Christmas time! They mix in "Jingle Bells" as well!
    • "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow/Shining at the end of every day!"
    • The Enchanted Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room.
    • It might not have a tune, but how about "Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas." They actually sell T-shirts that say this along with an image of Mickey and the monorail.
      • Along the same lines: "Remain seated please. Permanecer sentados por favor."
    • The music playing in Innoventions Plaza. Gah!
    • DISNEY'S...ELECTRICAL...PARADE!!
      • Or, for us older kids: "The MAIN STREET...ELECTRICAL...PARADE!!!"
    • Two old-school cuts from EPCOT: "Veggie, fruit-fruit! / Veggie-veggie, fruit-fruit!" and "I-MAAAAAAAAAA-gin-AAAAAAAAA-tion!"
    • How can the Animal Kingdom parade not be mentioned? "So sing it out (and bark and growl and screetch and roar), and dance along!"
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Figment over at EPCOT, the Hitchhiking Ghosts in the Haunted Mansion.
    • Peter Pan's flight actually seems to be quite popular. Guides will tell you that it fills up the quickest next to Space Mountain and Splash Mountain.
    • ElecTRONica was suppose to be removed at Summer's end AFTER the movie came out but due to popularity it's run was extended to summer of 2012.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: There never was a replacement for Main Street Electrical Parade called Light Magic that involved Celtic remixes of Disney songs and stepdancing characters.
    • Nor was there a replacement for Journey into Imagination that removed Dreamfinder, reduced Figment to a cameo and insulted the guests' intelligence right at the beginning of the ride.
  • Fan Dumb: It's near-impossible, if not absolutely so, to find a non-Disney-run "fan" (and the term is used lightly) site that doesn't have a dedicated group of at least a half-dozen people, if not the entire forum as a whole, devoted entirely to pointing out how dreadfully bad anything at all that Disney changes in the parks must be, even if it's a change that hasn't even happened yet. Expect at least one person to whine along the lines of "Once again, WDI [Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative force behind the parks] has failed/screwed up/proven they're nothing but Corrupt Corporate Executives" every time they so much as install a lightbulb that's a slightly different hue from the one that preceded it in the same location. A lot of this can actually summed up to two words...NostalgiaFilter.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Disney in general is very popular in Japan. Even Tokyo Disneyland, the first park to open overseas, was done in the style of the American park, compared to the massive changes made to Disneyland Paris a decade later. Disneyland and Walt Disney World in the US still receive a massive amount of Japanese tourists, who treat the American parks as a sort of "Mecca".
    • When Dave Barry went to Tokyo Disneyland, he was amazed at this. Why would the Japanese feel nostalgic about The Gay Nineties version of small town America?
  • Hate Dumb: There are people who hate the park for not being "Thrillish" or "Adultlike" enough without realizing how one, many of the customers are LITTLE KIDS and two, you actually CAN buy alcohol at several Disney Theme Parks.
  • I Am Not Shazam: Because the Magic Kingdom park at Disney World was the only park there for 11 years, many people did refer to that park itself as Disney World even after the other parks started opening. "We went to Disney World and EPCOT."
  • The Imagineers Think of Everything: Even the most mundane elements of the resorts adhere to strict themeing. Really, where else on the planet are you going to find miniature golf courses with such elaborate backstories? The one time they really dropped the ball on this, we ended up with California Adventure, and now they're paying the 2 billion dollar price to rectify the situation.
  • Memetic Mutation: They're going to add a loop!
    • The WDWMagic community has The Ladder, whose presence at any construction site is a good sign for the upcoming attraction or, in it's initial appearance during Mission Space's construction, being the epic ride itself.
    • Please stand clear of the doors; por favor manténganse alejado de las puertas.
  • Misaimed Marketing: The Character Greetings are a good idea. Meeting the villains? Well, Evil Is Cool, but some villains who many consider to be Complete Monsters might be a bit too terrifying.
  • Misblamed: It happens; many an Urban Legend around the park stated stuff that Walt did that he didn't have as much involvement in. Really minor and/or innocent examples. One common one was that Walt ran and owned the company named after him. Yes, he was the creative driving force, but no he wasn't the person running the company; that was actually Roy. You can read more on Snopes for the urban legend that he made a film telling his employees what to do after his death.
  • Most Wonderful Sound: Please stand clear of the doors. Por favor, mantenganse alejado de las puertas.
  • Munchkin: There is a certain class of fan that treats a day at the park like a game. Most time on rides and least time in line wins. With the addition of FastPass, the strategy has become even more Serious Business.
  • Narm Charm: A lot of the rides/shows, combined with a healthy dose of Nostalgia Filter.

Walt Disney: All right. I'm corny. But I think there's just about a-hundred-and-forty-million people in this country that are just as corny as I am.

    • "It's a Small World." Little kids actually tend to like it.
    • The Jungle Cruise became this when the animatronics did not age well, and they re-tooled the script to generally mock them.
  • Nightmare Fuel: At a kids park? Buddy, you better believe it!!
  • Obvious Beta: Some criticisms seem to be merely because of maintenance and construction - "When I last went there; half the park was walled off", "*insert ride here* were closed so everybody swarmed Mullholland Madness/California Screamer/Soarin' over california/Other attraction here", "The halls are too narrow because it's all under construction." This gives the feel of an Obvious Beta but really; construction and maintenance has to happen sometime.
  • Replacement Scrappy: Nigel Channing at EPCOT's Imagination pavilion, who replaced Dreamfinder, a tough act to follow even for Eric Idle.
    • And don't get us started on Stitch's Great Escape, which replaced the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter.
    • Back in the 1970s, The Walt Disney Story became a Replacement Scrappy when it opened in the building that previously occupied Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln. As a result, Disney decided to replace The Walt Disney Story with a shorter tribute (that bore the same name), followed by Mr. Lincoln's video and speech. (Currently, the attraction begins with mementos and videos from the history of Disneyland, instead of a Walt Disney tribute.)
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: They're currently trying to do this with California Adventure. New additions include a re-themed entrance, a trolley system, a new land based off of Pixar's Cars, the first The Little Mermaid themed ride in Disney Park history (surprised it took this long!), World of Color. In terms of getting more business for the park, it's actually been working so far, mostly due to World of Color.
  • The Scrappy: The American Adventure is an adventure in name only.
    • No, no, no, if you want a Scrappy, look at Hester and Chester's Dino Rama, a spoof of Souvenir Land - and not a very good one at that.
    • As far as more traditional Scrappies: Ah, Duffy the Disney Bear. Apparently a huge hit when he was introduced in Tokyo Disneyland, he was brought to America in 2011 to many delighted cries of, "Who the hell is that?" and "Why is he everywhere?" It appears as though America does not get the appeal of this new character, who is Mickey Mouse's little plushy friend who he sleeps with on lonely nights (we couldn't make this stuff up if we wanted to). It doesn't help the fact that, especially in EPCOT Center, he is also The Wesley, and a particularly ubiquitous one at that.
      • For an older generation, Stitch. He started out overtaking the niche left open when Roger Rabbit became a victim of offstage studio politics. Now he's practically part of the Fab Five! Then again, one of the main reasons the little blue guy got to that point is because he's one HELL of an Ensemble Darkhorse, making him more of a Base Breaker. Hey, at least he's actually from the Disney Animated Canon.
  • Sending Stuff to Save the Show: The Pleasure Island Adventure Club. At the moment, fate undetermined.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Some of the attractions, especially the original ones in the California Park seem like boring stuff compared to other theme parks that came after and catered more on the thrill side, rather than immersive side. The park thrives a lot on the Nostalgia Filter as it isn't uncommon to see parents taking their kids to the parks and talking about how they went there when they were their age.
    • Several rides actually have a lot more staying power than you would assume - It's no secret that people LOVE Space Mountain, or Splash Mountain. But you know what ride is still one of the most popular, even amongst adults? Peter Pan's Flight.
  • Special Effects Failure: Sometimes during shows, the special effects don't work as planned. not to mention sometimes during rides, the special effects don't properly display or fail. Sometimes; if a special effect in the ride doesn't work the cast members don't bother to fix it until closing so a lot of people can see something wrong.
    • The Jungle Cruise gets this a lot. Perhaps the most out of the original attractions. Originally; it was meant to pretend to be a jungle cruise, but nowadays everyone just mocks the special effects. Storybook Land does have some of the same plants that were there in the 1950s. (They only grow a quarter of an inch every couple years!) but the idea was to see the plants. Plus it's not like the display of the small sets in said ride really do anything other than look cool. (Which they are!)
    • One particular mention. In EPCOT; they replaced "The Living Seas" with a Finding Nemo themed attraction, with a couple of the seagulls programmed to move their beaks and shout "MINE" every now and then. One time, it malfunctioned. Hilarity Ensues.
    • During one showing of Finding Nemo The Musical, one of the "Bubbles" on the side suddenly shuts off. What shows up next? A Blue Screen of Death [dead link].
  • Take That, Scrappy!: A quick one is thrown to Jar Jar and Gungans in the queue to Star Tours.

C-3PO: [after an ad for Naboo] I found those Gungans somewhat annoying.
[R2-D2 beeps]
C-3PO: Not just Jar Jar, all of them.

  • Tastes Like Diabetes: Portions of fireworks shows and parades. And we wouldn't have it any other way.
    • Some probably feel the same way about It's A Small World
  • Theme Park Decay: The No-Longer-MGM-But-Hollywood Studios park has geared most of its more recent attractions ("Playhouse Disney Live", a giant pin-trading kiosk placed awkwardly in front of the park's original iconic Chinese Theater replica, the inevitable High School Musical live show) towards pre-teens and very young children. This seems very odd to some visitors, given the movie-making theme of the park at large. Meanwhile, the rides and shows that actually fit the theme are (while still good, and fan-favorites) getting on in years. Furthermore, remember when it was an actual working studio?
    • Also, both California Adventure and, oddly, Disney World's version of Tomorrowland seem to have a lot of tenuously linked rides and shows based upon Pixar movies. Granted, that's where there's room for them, but it's still odd.
      • California Adventure was actually criticised for "not being Disney enough"...not to mention if you think about it; it might be a nice place to put pixar-and-recent-themed attractions given that space is limited in that specific park. (Disney did not actually have a lot of money and was almost broke when they bought the land. This is why a lot of attractions are sponsored by companies such as Dole, Mattel, Brawny, and why the park is practically surrounded by third-party hotels that have little to no association with Disney; compared to other parks where they were able to build their own resorts.)
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Disney park fans (especially Disney World fans) have this attitude a lot, though it's sometimes justified. Take Journey Into Imagination's disastrous revamps at EPCOT (and the ride's creators seem to agree with them!)
    • Sometimes it even reaches Ruined FOREVER proportions. Visit any Disneyland message board and find the discussion about the 2009 changes to "it's a small world". You can't miss it—it will be dozens of pages long and dripping with so much acid that you'll need to put on a haz-mat suit before you click the link. And the thing is, as video of the refurbishments have surfaced, it turns out that you probably wouldn't even notice most of the alterations unless you purposefully looked for them. (But look at the vitriol in the comments in the link...)
      • Another anal example involves the 2009 music for the Disney Electrical Parade. "Oh noes! They're using a different synthesizer! Even though the melody hasn't changed, Disney's greatest parade of all time is now Ruined FOREVER!"
    • Part of the criticism behind some of the changes has to do with the thinly-veiled Product Placement they've brought to the rides.
      • Doing away with classic attractions to accomodate more recent movies and tv shows.
    • Stitch's Great Escape gets a lot of flack for not being the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter.
    • Davy Jones and Jack Sparrow's inclusion in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. See also: Ruined FOREVER
    • Mickey's Toontown Fair has been torn down to make way for a new circus-themed section named Storybook Circus. Chances are it'll get some really bad flack for, not replacing a ride, but an entire section of the park.
    • The upcoming Fantasy Faire at Disneyland has received some derision due to its replacing the Carnation Plaza Gardens, though others think a Tangled-inspired village sounds like a promising use of an under-utilized piece of land. Disney has also promised to retain the nighttime entertainment and activities.
    • The OSHA-mandated handrails on the outdoors portion of the Alice in Wonderland ride's track have fallen victim to this, since they don't look too easy on the eyes. Disney said they will replace them with rails that will rise and become visible only in an emergency, but did not say when.
    • The "One Park" advertising campaign abandons the idea of making individual advertising and merchandise for Disneyland and Walt Disney World. Instead, commercials feature clips from around the world, and merchandise says "Disney Parks" instead of the name of which park you bought the merch in. The public seems to interpret this as Disney stripping their parks of their individual qualities in the name of brand homogenization. One illustration comes in the apparent fact that products bearing the logo of either Disneyland or Disney World outsell those with the "Disney Parks" logo.
  • Uncanny Valley: The Audio-Animatronics on rides like Pirates of the Caribbean sometimes fall into this.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Certain scenes, particularly those depicting women and minorities, in The American Adventure. Probably inevitable when you decide for some damn reason to bring up everything from slavery to women's rights in a theme park stage show.
    • Pay close attention to the background during the pre-show of The Sum of all Thrills. Can you spot the Mudkip and Bulbasaur? For those of you who don't get it, Pokemon is owned by one of Disney's competitors, Cartoon Network. Not to mention that Disney owns the rights to Pokemon's main competition during the late '90's-Early 2000's.
    • Knowing the background of Splash Mountain can invoke some of this, considering Brer Rabbit's "lesson" is to stay where you're "born and bred in". Not ringing any bells? Before the Civil War, blacks were... strongly discouraged from moving about. With violence.
  • Values Dissonance: The original Carousel of Progress attraction, in which an American family rhapsodizes about the ability of electric appliances to ease the woman's burden of housework. Since much of the attraction's script was written in the 1960's, it never occurs to any of them that her burden could have been eased a long time ago if her husband and children had pitched in more.
    • Not to mention the "I Love Fossil Fuels!!!" Script Wank in Ellen's Energy Adventure. At the end of each of the ride's "acts", an announcer would ask everyone to "stay in your seats or we'll have to shut down the whole show!" Which implies that people had been walking out of the theater!
      • And note that this is actually a safety issue, as the "theater seats" are actually enormous ride vehicles that move from one theater to another. Getting up from ones seat (not to mention being eaten by a dinosaur) is a lawsuit waiting to happen. So you're just going to have to sit there and take the wank.
      • This actually used to be worse. In the original version of the ride (before Ellen was added), there was a long video at the end talking about how great Exxon was and how awesome their lovely oil rigs and tankers were. Three guesses as to why that was removed (just one guess if you live in Alaska).
      • The emphasis on literally fighting obesity in the currently closed "Habit Heroes" game at Innoventions drew a lot of fire from this.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: Many rides including the Pepper's ghost effect on Tower Of Terror, the lights inside Space Mountain and Bigfoot on Everest, but The Haunted Mansion takes the cake.
    • The Paris version of Big Thunder Mountain is more heavily themed than the others.
  • We're Still Relevant Dangit: The entire Disney Dance Crew show. They even turned "A Pirates Life For Me" into a rap and changed one of the lyrics to "Drink up me Gangstas Yo-Ho!"
    • Earlier than that, Disney World had "The Enchanted Tiki Room: Under New Management", in which Iago and Zazu host a Totally Radical '90s-targeted Retool of The Enchanted Tiki Room. It lasted until 2011, when one of the Iago figures became damaged in a fire, leading the Imagineers to make the show much closer to the original Tiki Room.
    • Speaking of the Tiki Room, they mashed up that song with the Macarena of all things. Not in the attraction itself, thankfully.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Disney_Theme_Parks/YMMV?oldid=1633843"