Remember, all links in TPEI open up in a new browser window. So feel free to check stuff out, we’ll be here when you get back!

*Turns out Harmonious wasn’t the least favorite thing we saw in World Showcase Lagoon this year…

Any time a story from the theme park world goes “viral” and I get texts from family and friends from out of state asking “Have you seen this?”… it’s never good. This past month we got another doozie for the Poor Guest Behavior file as Florida Man jumped into World Showcase Lagoon.

Rumors and Innuendo suggest that Florida Man jumped to the lagoon on a bet. Filmed by /disfamily_adventures, they reported hearing the man offered $6,000 to jump into the water. That’s definitely not chump change, as $6,000 could get you a week’s vacation at Walt Disney World (at a Value Resort, and you’d still need to win another bet to buy park tickets.) Unfortunately, the $6,000 will need to be spent on something else as the man was quickly scooped up by Disney security when getting out of the water and surely was quickly trespassed off property.

In case you can’t tell, the back of this guy’s shirt is the state of Florida represented as a gun, which begs the question of what Disney security is actually looking at when people come into the park.

TPEI Score: – 50 While I appreciate the effort by anyone trying to get a last minute inclusion into next month’s highly anticipated Theme Park Turkey of the Year Awards, guest behavior is getting out of control. Thankfully Disney’s competition across town brought some levity to this ridiculous situation by having a well timed tweet while this story was spreading everywhere…

*Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge Gets Limited Time Magic

Disney turned some heads this month when Disney revealed the existence of free roaming Star Wars droids on TikTok.

The droids were then brought out for a test in front of guests out in Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

The cute little guys were a HUGE HIT…

…but unfortunately were a one day test. The droids then walked themselves right back into The Disney Vault where they joined another one day wonder, the dragon which flew over Fantasyland.

TPEI Score: It’s a wash. Now, in theory the debut of these awesome robots in Disneyland would be a huge blow to the BE FAIR TO FLORIDA movement. However, Rumors & Innuendo suggest that these robots will be making future appearances on both coasts. Big, if true.

*Disney100 Shines

Recent “celebrations” by Disney have been beyond bad. Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary and EPCOT’s 40th were – in my opinion – a monumental waste because these type of anniversaries don’t come along often. However the case could be made that maybe Disney was saving everything good for this year’s celebration of the  centennial celebration for The Walt Disney Company.

More quality merchandise has come out for Disney100 than WDW 50 and EPCOT 40 combined. This month we also saw the release of six all-new illustrations that looked at Disney through various eras of the last 100 years. Illustrated by none other than SATURDAY SIX favorite, Sam Carter.

Check these babies out…

Speaking of great Disney related artwork that dropped this month, here is the art guests would see when making Park Passes (something that will be going away in the near future.) I love this minimalist style, as it reminds me of another of my personal favorite artists, Rob Yeo.

The biggest Disney100 reveal of the month came via the absolutely AMAZING Once Upon A Studio short film, which is now available to watch on Disney+. Here’s a trailer Disney put out teasing this Must Watch short…

Once Upon A Studio clocks in at under 10 minutes, and is one of the best shorts that Disney itself has done in years (Pixar has been putting out some really great shorts for decades now, also available on Disney+). The overall story was Disney animated characters coming to life after all the animators had left the studio. Over 500 characters make an appearance, spanning the entire history of Disney animation.

I mean, c’mon, you have Mr. Toad riding the Magic Carpet from Aladdin, how great is that?!

The short concluded with all the characters having a picture taken in front of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building.  Just amazing stuff and well worth going out of your way to watch.

TPEI Score: + 10 Disney is KILLING IT with Disney100. No notes.

*The Future of AI

This past summer the entertainment world was rocked by two major strikes. One by the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG). The WGA strike started back in May and was finally called off at the end of September. The SAG strike started in July and is still ongoing. As consumers, while we don’t see too many effects of either strike right now, it won’t be long before we start seeing some MAJOR gaps in the world of television and film. Disney itself has already started to move things around, including postponing the movie Deadpool 3, which was originally scheduled to be released in May of 2024 and is expected to be a massive financial success.

There are many reasons why both the writers and actors went on strike, and one reason for both was the looming use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by the studios. Disney+ got its hand caught in the cookie jar, when people posted a quick snippet of the film Prom Pact, which made it’s debut on Disney+ back in March. This clip, which only last a couple of seconds, purported to show what it can look like when a movie uses AI to replace a background extra, and it was awful. Some reporting after the fact revealed that the extras in this particular scene weren’t created using AI, but by other forms of visual effects. Either way, it looks horrible and if this is the future of filmed entertainment, it’s time for me to start reading books.

What Disney and other studios want to do is scan in background actors once, and then reuse them in perpetuity for different projects down the road. If this sounds like a bad idea, it’s because it is. Using AI or other visual effects like CGI to replace actors is fine for large crowd shots (although anyone who saw the end of the movie Space Jam 2 knows it can look bad there too,) but for up close shots it is terrifyingly bad, and will also put a lot of actors out of work.

TPEI SCORE: – 22 Years from now, I have full confidence that AI is going to be an invaluable tool used by talented creative people to make even better work. Unfortunately, right now AI is a tool being used by uncreative people to save money and/or abused by others who don’t want to put in the hard work to develop artistic talent.

THAT SAID, this month TouringPlans’ own Guy Selga showed us that AI may soon replace traditional Theme Park Photographers. Guy used Bing’s new AI feature to produce some photos. The results may shock and astound you..

Yes, this churro below may have a bone in it, but that’s only because current AI algorithms don’t know that both Disney and Universal de-bone their churros before selling them in the parks. That’s something you only learn by taking an expensive Keys to the Kingdom Tour.

Our next AI generated photo has a couple “issues” that the nitpickers might call out. For example, the phone being held backwards. Also, the food sitting on top of the trashcan includes a churro and a corndog(?) that look like they got mixed together in that machine from The Fly. Also, the Mickey Mouse t-shirt that the blogger is wearing looks downright scary. But other than that stuff, it’s perfect.

Speaking of creepy Mickey shirts, our next AI generated blogger is also wearing one. Check out that snack on the trashcan though! Looks like a giant ball of dough with two Mickey Ear doughnuts. Now that looks tasty! There’s also what looks like a bomb fuse coming out of it though, so AI isn’t quite there yet…

NOW WE’RE TALKING! Okay, Mickey’s feet seem abnormally large, and something weird is going on with his fingers, but nothing that takes you completely out of the picture. The churro size may seem odd to some, but that’s exactly the size I’ve been imploring Disney to make in various online petitions I have started over the years.

The blogger himself is just like us looking into a mirror, it’s uncanny! Time for the Tom Bricker, Blog Mickey, and Brandon Glovers of the world to permanently put their camera bag into the closet, because we can get better and more realistic theme park photos from AI.

*Universal Tests Facial Recognition

Our next story is one that I’m torn on. This month, Universal started testing Facial Recognition at Islands of Adventure. Now, Universal has already announced that the upcoming EPIC Universe theme park would be using Facial Recognition, but this is the first time we have seen it in use at the current parks for something like park admission.

Thought it would be helpful to report my experiences with Universal’s new facial recognition admission system. First scan takes about as long as the current fingerprint scan. Re-entry scanning is impressively swift. Faster than an iPhone taking a photo. Night performance of face scanning not very fast. Image scanned is very noisy, not enough ambient light for a swift scan” – @bioreconstruct

TPEI Score: We’ll see… Here’s my issue. I’m all for the idea of something replacing the current ticketing system at Universal. The finger scan at the turnstiles backs up lines and can be a frustrating experience every single time you go to the parks. Can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve been behind a guest and have to watch the ritual of the Team Member asking them to “try again,” and then wiping down the reader so the guest can make another attempt…only to then ask if the guest is sure that’s the finger they originally used when using their ticket for the first time. ETC. It’s maddening. If Facial Recognition can speed this up, and it seems like it will, then one of my prayers will have been answered (still have another outstanding prayer for the parking garage situation, Universal, just an FYI.) We recently took a cruise with Royal Caribbean and there was Facial Recognition at Port Canaveral when getting off the ship. On my previous cruises, the departure process took about 20 minutes. With the Facial Recognition, it took 20 seconds.

HOWEVER, just seeing what has happened with technology over the last couple years makes me fearful for possible abuse and/or misuse by the parks. I’m willing to admit these fears could be completely unjustified, but we are less than one year removed from Universal going all-in on NFTs and most of you know what I think of that.

QUICK HITS

*Jollywood Nights to debut an E-Ticket Sugar Cookie

We could all think of a thousand things that Disney could do at the parks for little-to-no money that would earn instant goodwill from the fans. They do almost none of them, but one thing they do is add a Santa’s cap to Gertie the dinosaur during the holiday season.

Jollywood Nights, Disney’s upcoming hard ticket event at DHS over the Christmas season, announced it would be offering a Santa Gertie cookie during the party. For many, this immediately became the #1 reason to go to this “adult-focused” party (whatever that means.)

The memes started flowing on social media…

*Refresher of Blogging Etiquette

We joked earlier about the importance of Theme Park Food Photography, but the reality is this: it’s no joke. It is serious business and the true professionals honor and respect their craft.  We do it for you, Dear Reader.

*Probably Shouldn’t Base Your Credit Cards Off THEME PARKS, But If  You Do…

I imagine several people reading this are owners of a Disney Chase Visa credit card. No judgment here, I have one myself and recently changed my card to the newly offered Captain America design.

We’ve had some fun in this Fine Blog Series over the years with the Disney Chase Visa and its almost non-existent benefits compared to many other credit cards.

Lo and behold, Universal is teaming up with Visa to unveil their own branded credit card which will offer consumers a chance for exclusive perks and rewards. I’ll be honest, if they make a Volcano Bay card it will almost surely become my primary form of payment.

We even have Universal Visa’s first marketing campaign ready to go…

*RetroMagic

The month started off with another next level AWESOME RetroMagic event at Disney’s Yacht Club. RetroMagic has truly become hands-down the best convention for Disney theme park fans.

Several people who you have seen in the SATURDAY SIX and TPEI were on hand for the event, including artist Bunny Wars, who provided hand drawn art for a brand new Cranium Command short that was played during the event!

Check this out, not only was @bioreconstruct at RetroMagic, he helped all of us on social media by applying his patented Bio Arrows on maps to help understand what speakers at RetroMagic were talking about!

You know how much we love the art of SonderQuest, and one of our favorite pieces that Sondy has done features Imagineer Bob Gurr and some of the many ride vehicles Gurr worked on during his career at Disney.

Bob Gurr was at RetroMagic, and SonderQuest was able to get his artwork signed by the man who inspired it!

Former Disney Imagineer Tony Baxter was also at RetroMagic, and SodnerQuest was able to get this print of the Indiana Jones Adventure autographed as well.

Tony Baxter, along with former Imagineer Tom Morris, signed this print of Dreamfinder and Figment. Both Baxter and Morris played key roles in developing the Imagination Pavilion at EPCOT.

The tweet below was completely unrelated to this year’s RetroMagic, but I thought was a fascinating look at a piece of Disney history many of us have heard about on various podcasts, but actually haven’t seen much evidence of.

*@Bioreconstruct Aerials

Earlier this month the SATURDAY SIX presented Flights with @bioreconstruct vol 4, but our iconic blogger-in-the-sky took a whole bunch of more photos we didn’t feature in the article that we’re going to highlight here, including the shot below of MICKEY’S RETREAT.

Maybe I’ve been living under a rock, but this was the first time I’ve even heard about the existence of Mickey’s Retreat. Even stranger, Mickey’s Retreat is located not that far away from the Vineland Premium Outlet Mall, where I went every month for years and still never noticed Mickey’s Retreat was nearby.

Love this shot of Typhoon Lagoon.

This aerial of the EPCOT Resort area is incredible, and features the Boardwalk Resort, the Yacht & Beach Clubs, the Swan & Dolphin, and the newest resort in the area, the Swan Reserve (formerly known as The Cove.)

E-Ticket aerial photo of EPCOT, with the EPCOT Resort area in the top left corner.

Let’s zoom in a little closer to the EPCOT parking lot…

…and even closer. One thing I have to give Disney all the credit in the world on is how efficient they are when it comes to parking. Both the Disney parks and the Disney Springs parking garages are a million times easier to navigate than the seemingly daily frustration you get at the Universal Orlando Resort and SeaWorld Orlando.

This aerial of EPCOT gives a good look at the World Showcase lagoon, showing us the work is well underway for the upcoming Luminous nighttime spectacular.

The next few photos will give us a closer look at what’s going on in the center of the lagoon…

Okay, now let’s zoom back out again to see everything in context. If you want to see even more photos of the luminous barges, be sure to check out Flights with @bioreconstruct vol 4.

Okay, let’s stay over EPCOT and get a bird’s eye view of the recently opened Journey of Water – Inspired by Moana.

This photo below shows the relationship of Journey of Water to the nearby construction going on at CommuniCore Hall.

Outside of CommuniCore Hall there is going to be an area featuring a statue of Walt Disney. This project is taking so long that Disney has been selling merchandise featuring this statue for months now.

Alright, let’s head across town and see what’s going on at Universal’s upcoming new park…which just may open before Disney finishes their work in EPCOT.

Love this photo taken on the ground showing an amazing mirror glass reflection.

This next photo took me by surprise. I know this entire area of Orlando, but it’s still striking to see The Wheel in ICON Park and its relationship to Universal’s upcoming park.

Of course, Bio had already posted photos taken from inside a cabin on The Wheel months earlier and I had just missed it.

Our boy @SonderQuest also had photos taken from The Wheel showing the other things you can see from a cabin.

Let’s continue our flight up International Drive and check out the Universal Orlando Resort…

Flying over the nearby Islands of Adventure we get this great look at Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure.

The colorful Seuss Landing.

Bio had boots on the ground showing us that even before October was over, Universal was already starting to put up Christmas decorations at the park.

We’ll close this section with another gorgeous sunset photo taken by The Legend.

*Bacini joins the Vicious 6

Last week we covered the story of how Bio helped Bacini – the official dog of DisTwitter – become the All-Time #1 scorer at Universal’s newest attraction MINION BLAST.  You can read that article by CLICKING HERE (it also gives a ton of tips on how to play the game.)

The storyline of Minion Blast is that the Vicious 6 are recruiting their newest member. Once Bacini became #1 All-Time, superstar artist Brian Cooper blessed us with a drawing of Bacini with his new teammates. Bacini is holding an E-LIMINATOR X blaster, the gun used by guests in the attraction.

Digital Maestro Scott Walker then took Brian’s drawing and created a fun photo outside the attraction, where the various members of the Vicious 6 have banners displayed.

But that wasn’t all. NAY NAY. Thanks to the help of his friend Bio, Bacini soon became the first EVER player on Minion Blast to accumulate 100,000,000 points!

We mentioned the use of AI earlier in this article, and here’s a couple more examples of it thanks to @bioreconstruct.

Here’s what EPIC Universe looks like when created by AI. Spoiler Alert: turns out humans are better at this stuff after all.

Bio also had an interesting idea of using AI to interpret one of the most photographed things at Universal, the stunning VelociCoaster!

Speaking of art, artist Hayden Evans let us know about this amazing print of the Haunted Mansion drawn by Eric Tan. This is just FANTASTIC.

Wouldn’t you know it, Hayden himself had a spectacular piece of art based on the Haunted Mansion this month as well.

The Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser had it’s final flight on September 30th, and on October 1st artist @SonderQuest provided this wonderful drawing featuring two fan favorite characters from the ship.

Let’s check out some recent pieces from the LEGO Lord himself, @TheHorizoneer. First up, Spaceship Earth’s Foxy Brown…

Absolutely in love with this Dreamfinder/Figment in the Rainbow Corridor set. Reminder that you can see (and purchase, if available) all of The Horizoneers amazing LEGO sets over at the Horizoneer Design ETSY Shop.

Believe it or not, the RetroMagic event we talked about earlier had a Rainbow Corridor for guests to experience! This is one of those things that Disney could do in a weekend and would receive rapturous applause from fans, but instead would rather spend their time on developing the most sterile environments possible like the Creations Shop.

Let’s close this month with a look at some theme park merchandise. Our first item is this awesome ceramic lily pad set available at Tiana’s Place out in Disneyland. This is definitely something I would love for our house down here in Florida.

Our next item is a blast from the past, and features a t-shirt design based on the “Singing in the Rain” umbrella at DHS (which was removed to make way for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.)

So let’s take a look at a current t-shirt design offered this month by Disney…

Last month’s Theme Park Enjoyment Index: 99
This month’s net change: – 32
Current enjoyment level: 67

Writer Derek Burgan, when not cleaning Len Testa’s pool, can be found reading comic books, watching professional wrestling, organizing his various Tsum Tsums in alphabetical order, and taking his dog Bacini to Universal and Disney.. He will not, we repeat not, be found at a Disney Outlet Store. An official DisTwitter Influencer, you can interact with him @derekburgan

Digital Artist Scott Walker hails from Scotland and is the fifth most famous person from this country following Alexander Graham Bell, Ewan McGregor, Gerard Butler, and Groundskeeper Willie.

Next Week! The SATURDAY SIX Takes a Universal VIP Tour!