Theme Park Enjoyment Index for OCTOBER 2024 (Hurricane Milton, Huge Epic Universe News, & MORE!)

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!

One last note – this will be the last edition of TPEI for 2024. The last Saturday of November is reserved for the award winning Theme Park Turkeys of the Year series and we close out December by saying goodbye to things we lost in the theme park world in our In Memoriam special.

*Hurricane Milton Hits Florida

Hurricane Season in Florida technically goes from June 1st through November 30th, but for the last decade plus,  the majority of “big ones” that have come through the state have mostly landed in September and October. That rang true this past month as Hurricane Milton formed in the Gulf of Mexico on October 5th. It wasn’t long before Milton was quickly upgraded to a Category 5 – the highest level a Hurricane can be in terms of force – and many cities on the west coast of Florida had mandatory evacuations. Thousands of the Floridians who left the gulf coast went to Orlando to brace themselves from Milton, however the track of Milton was projected to go through Orlando on its way to the east coast.

Both Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando closed their parks early on Wednesday, October 9th and kept them closed on Thursday, October 10th. Before Disney and Universal closed, guests in the parks got to see some interesting things as the two companies prepared for the upcoming storm, including lighting fixtures being zip tied to posts…

Snack and merchandise kiosks tied down…

…and various outdoor carts being wrapped up in cellophane.

With October being the high season for Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights, a whole bunch of HHN street theming had to be “buttoned up.”

My beloved skill game prizes also needed to be removed.

The “good news” for Florida is that Milton entered the state downgraded to a Category 3 Hurricane. This may not seem like a huge difference, but each up tick in the Category is an exponential change in potential damage. Thankfully, by the time Milton reached Orlando, its wind and rain effects were a fraction of what the state feared was coming. Damage to the theme parks was minimal. You’ll notice in the photo below that Mickey is facing the park entrance of DHS…

…Milton gave ol’ Mick a small budge to the North East. Imagineer Jim Shull says that this Mickey was designed to turn to prevent damage from strong winds.

One aspect of hurricanes that people outside of Florida might not know is the amount of tornadoes that accompany these storms on the outer bands. Milton brought a record number of tornadoes to Florida, with the majority coming on the Treasure Coast of Florida, where I live. Milton was such a large storm that we on the east coast were getting hit by tornadoes even before the eye of Milton made landfall on the west coast. While well over a Million Floridians lost power during Milton, the first 200,000 who lost power were due to the tornadoes on the east coast.

While I had some loss of power and a lot of debris cleanup, I was one of the lucky ones in Florida because others in the theme park community had it much worse, especially those who lived on the west coast.

Living in Florida during a Hurricane is an experience like no other, and something we tried to get across during our article on Hurricane Milton relief efforts. But after the storm passes, you can rest more easily and get back to the normalcy of theme park social media…

That’s right, the theme park community is in rare form after a storm, and we definitely do get some fun stuff…

Spider-Man taught us for many years that with great power comes great responsibility, and all of us have great power in the palm of our hands with our smart phones. Some use those phones as a force of good, others use them to go viral. Thanks to AI, anything you want to create can now be created, leading to an amount of disinformation never seen before in our lifetimes. Just days before Milton, Hurricane Helene ravaged several states including Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. After the storm, a picture went viral of a little girl in a lifejacket holding a puppy. Many people seeing the photo got deeply emotional, but it turns out, the photo wasn’t real. The photo was created by AI.

Now, we could use that as a learning experience and give people tools to help them sift through the nonsense…OR we could take a page from Jurassic Park, using what others have done and take the next step.

The above photo by noted theme park rabble rouser @schmoofy was “viewed” over 14 Million times on Twitter alone. However, that wasn’t even close to the amount of views a bunch of AI generated photos of the Magic Kingdom being flooded got.

The reality is that while both Disney and Universal did get a lot of rain, no parks were flooded and the only areas where you would even notice more water than usual was in the lagoons.

*Disney Done Good

Now, let’s hop in the DeLorean for a minute, rev that baby up to 88mph and head back to 2016, when Walt Disney World was hit by Hurricane Matthew and we saw the debut of the infamous Hurricane Box.

With Matthew bearing down on Florida, food everywhere was being cleared off the shelves at Walt Disney World. Lines appeared at the hotel food courts that seemed impossible to believe were true (but they absolutely were.) At the time, the food court at Port Orleans French Quarter was in the process of being refurbished, and there WDW was offering a $12.99 boxed meal that included a sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips, and a cookie. Pictures of the paltry boxed lunch hit social media and news outlets, including the Orlando Sentinel, with most of the reaction being very unfavorable to Disney.

One thing people may not realize is that the Disney hotels are not really set up for EVERYONE at the resort to eat there at the same time. It is generally assumed that many of the guests will be eating elsewhere, either at the parks, Disney Springs, or somewhere offsite. When the parks close for Hurricanes, there’s nowhere else for the guests to go, so the few places at the hotels offering food become slammed.

It turns out that Disney learned their lesson after Hurricane Matthew and are much better equipped to handle this particular crisis.

How good of a deal is that above? You get an entire loaf of bread and full jars of peanut butter & jelly for a total of $10 compared to a $12.99 peanut butter and raspberry jam sandwich at the newly opened Cake Bake Restaurant at Disney’s Boardwalk.

What’s crazy is that sandwich was originally going to cost $18 until the Cake Bake shop was shamed into lowering some of their more ridiculous prices. Who says bullying doesn’t work?!

Meanwhile, special Hurricane Meal Boxes also made their return, but in a much better way than back in 2016.

*Epic Universe Gets Opening Date

Thanks to blogger-in-the-sky @bioreconstruct and the Permit Princess Alicia Stella, we have been following the construction of Universal’s Epic Universe for the past several years in a way that we’ve never been able to do for a theme park before. We’ve known for a while that Epic Universe was coming in 2025, but this past month we finally got an official date for the grand opening.

We also got the ability to book rooms at Grand Helios, which included some shockingly low price points for a hotel that has a dedicated entrance into Epic Universe.

We live in a pretty cynical society, especially in a theme park community which has been hammered over and over by Disney in recent years with nickel and diming price increases (including this past week!) Because of that, several people wrote that – when it came to Helios Grand – prices “starting from” was doing a lot of heavy lifting and that we regular people would never see reasonable rates.

My experience with hotels at Universal paints a different story, including a stay at Cabana Bay Beach Resort earlier this year…

Turns out, the pricing at Helios Grand was competitive, surprising even theme park blogging icon Tom Bricker. Whether Universal (and their hotel partner, Loews) are going for a good first impression or this pricing is going to be a long term strategy is yet to be seen, but it’s certainly refreshing to see in a theme park world where we see stuff like the following…

Universal also released some preview videos of the upcoming park and Eagle Eye’d viewers like Scott Walker noticed some fun details, including one that should make any fan of Back to the Future happy…

Universal also made some Epic Universe announcements at the New York Comic Con. First of all, I hope that both Universal takes more advantage of the major comic book conventions and make the theme parks a presence there. Disney definitely has it’s own thing with the D23 Expo, and it would be good for Universal to get their product out there as well.

Interesting things we learned include: the smallest buildings in the Wizarding World Paris is taller than the biggest building in Diagon Alley, jump scares would be used in the Monsters Unchained queue in Dark Universe, and guests will have interactions with Universal Classic Monsters the Phantom of the Opera and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

After a huge day of announcements and reveals, Universal social media made a closing post having some fun with their competition down the street (for those who don’t know, during several of the last Epic Universal announcements, Disney chose those days specifically to announce new bus wraps at their resort.)

TPEI Score: +10 With people acquiring opening day tickets and reservations to Grand Helios, Epic Universe feels more real than it has ever been. What an exciting time to be a theme park fan.

*Amazing Bio Fact (#3,278 in a series)

Every time you think you know everything there is to know about Bioreconstruct, he drops another bombshell on you that is just incredible. This month, after the announcement of Epic Universe’s opening date, Bio dropped this nugget letting us know that he has been to the grand opening of 13 different parks around the world!

Of course, with Bio being Bio, turns out it was actually 14 parks because he was also there at the opening of the Holy Land Experience!

*Dinoland USA Gets Closing Date

This month Disney gave us a date when half of Dinoland will be closing for the upcoming Tropical Americas expansion.

Jenny makes a great point in that Animal Kingdom already has a TON of extra land that could be used for expansion, but to make way for the Indiana Jones and Encanto-based attractions, the park is getting rid of the kid-friendly land based around dinosaurs. I’ve said many times in this fine blog series that the two things that never go out of style for kids are dinosaurs and dragons, but apparently Disney disagrees because on January 12th next year, the area of Dino-Rama (which includes TriceraTop Spin, Fossil Fun Games, and Chester & Hester’s Dinosaur Treasures) will be closing to make way for Tropical Americas construction.

Don’t get me wrong, Dinoland USA is far from perfect. No theme park land should need a 45 minute backstory to explain why its “supposed to look cheap.” It may also be the first land in theme park history to get better when closing an attraction and replacing it with literally nothing (RIP Primeval Whirl, which closed BACK IN 2020!!!)

However, Dino-Rama also had its charm. TriceraTop Spin is one of the few rides you can do with the younger kiddos in a park that has several attractions they can’t ride (Everest/Flight of Passage) and some you may not want to do (Kali River Rapids.) A spinner can be a classic family ride experience for generations, just look at Dumbo over in the Magic Kingdom.

Now, there is some debate in the theme park community over skill games at Disney and Universal. Some say they reflect poorly on theme parks, and belong at places like Six Flags or other amusement park money grabs. Others – like your humble author – see them as a Hill To Die On, and can really add enjoyment to a park experience.

Fossil Fun Games in Dino-Rama featured E-Ticket game vouchers. As far as I’m concerned, these vouchers also make a cheap souvenir from your theme park vacation and something you can look back at in a scrap book and have fond memories of.

The Fossil Fun Games also went from the outhouse to the penthouse several years ago with the debut of prizes you could win that are themed to Dinoland USA. These included adorable plush featuring the iconic Cementosaurus…

A cute triceratops plush for TriceraTop Spin…

Lucky the Iguanodon from the DINOSAUR attraction…

Mickey and Minnie wearing Dino Institute shirts…

…and even the dinosaur from Donald’s Dino-Bash! Just incredible fan service and right up there with the best prizes at DCA’s Pixar Pier skill games and the ones at Universal’s Springfield USA.

Presenting: The Wall of Dinos.

Have to love this tribute to Dinoland by our favorite tiny artist, Jaime S.

TPEI Score: – 4 Animal Kingdom has so little to do (comparatively speaking) that it boggles my mind that Disney feels the need to get rid of an entire land just to add something new to the park. Not just any land either. NAY NAY. The most kid friendly land in the park. Don’t get me wrong, I love Indiana Jones and think Encanto is fantastic, but man this is a gut punch we  haven’t experienced since losing Jedi Training Academy, Star Wars Weekends, and the Osborne Lights for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.

As a reminder; DINOSAUR, the Boneyard, and Restaurantosaurus will NOT be closing in January and instead will be closing at a future date. With that in mind, there was an announcement this month that something NEW is coming to Dinoland…

*C’mon EPCOT, are you kidding me?!!

When EPCOT got its Mission Accomplished moment earlier this year with the opening of World Celebration (or whatever that neighborhood is supposed to be called,) the park looked as good as it has in a long time. In addition to the spectacular lighting package installed on Spaceship Earth, lights were installed on the ground as well. One particular set of lights combined to produce the 5 Ring EPCOT logo. From the air it looked terrific!

On the ground the lights looked great as well.

Today, the lights don’t look nearly as good…

In fact, just months after the lights were installed onto the pavement, guests started to notice some weird stuff going on with them. Like the strips coming out of the ground.

Nothing a piece of tape can’t fix!

I’m over here having flashbacks back to 2019 when Toy Story Land opened and the place started immediately falling apart.

TPEI Score: – 2 We’ll have to go back to our old pal John McEnroe for our thoughts on The Place Formerly Known as EPCOT Center…

*The collab we didn’t know we needed…

WORDS FROM BLOG MICKEY: Bioreconstruct is a legend for the Disney fan community, and being able to enjoy a 45-minute flight over Walt Disney World and the upcoming Epic Universe theme park was an awesome experience. Beyond the experience of being able to see a master in his craft, I had some cool moments of my own during the flight.

BLOG MICKEY: One special moment that I had was actually two moments, both having to do with some of my recent photography of scale models. First, flying over Disney’s Animal Kingdom I saw DinoLand USA from above and had some flashbacks to the recent D23 Expo when I took photos of the scale model of the upcoming Tropical Americas land.

BLOG MICKEY: The second moment was a bit more visceral, and that was flying over Epic Universe. I had previously taken hundreds of photos of the scale model available at Universal CityWalk, but now I was seeing it from 1,000 feet in the air. Knowing that the model closely resembles the hard work that countless workers and artists are bringing to life made me put down the camera for a few seconds just to appreciate what we’re months away from experiencing: a brand new theme park!

BLOG MICKEY: Two closing thoughts, starting with Epic Universe. It’s not easy to photograph and we should all be in awe of what Bioreconstruct does monthly or even semi-monthly. I’m an experienced photographer at this point, and comparing some of his photos and observations of the construction site versus what I’m looking at in Lightroom is impressive. Being able to tell a story in a photo is one thing, but planning and executing that photo is another, made entirely more difficult by a (sometimes) bouncing helicopter flying 1,000’ away or more. Kudos to the work Bio puts in for us so consistently and I am in awe of his work ethic.

The final thought that I was left with was just how beautiful everything is from the air. Yes, you see parts of Walt Disney World that the company would rather keep hidden away, but an appreciation for what was built was hard to ignore, whether that be supporting infrastructure, attraction show buildings, or themed elements – it all looks so beautiful and impressive from the air. It’s a difficult task to capture
photos that represent that beauty, and an impossible task to capture the feeling, but here are a few of me trying to do just that…

BLOG MICKEY: I’d like to close by adding, this was not my first helicopter flight. However, it was the first helicopter flight that I’ve taken since the day that the theme parks shut down due to COVID-19 in 2020. It was surreal to be back in the skies over Walt Disney World for the first time since the historic shutdown of the theme parks and a pandemic that impacted everyone, and I couldn’t have done it without a better person by my side in Bioreconstruct.

Speaking of Bioreconstruct…

This should come as no surprise to anyone, but our man Bio had another month of great photos from Universal and Disney, including this fantastic one that features part of the Universal Orlando skyline.

Bio’s big picture shots are always my favorites, and here we have a photo of Disney’s All-Star Resorts in relation to the nearby Blizzard Beach and (further away) Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Incredible!

Here’s a closer view of Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and in the background the EPCOT Resort Area and EPCOT itself. That blue hotel building in the left hand center of the photo is the Walt Disney World Swan Reserve, which we did a comprehensive article on last week. Trust me, this is a hotel that is well worth checking out when you’re looking at places to stay during your next Disney vacation. Million dollar view and then some.

How about an infrared look at the Magic Kingdom?

We also have an infrared look at EPCOT.

There’s something about the shots like this one above EPCOT that appear like you’re looking down through clouds. Those type of pictures blow my mind.

One of Bio’s many specialties is capturing anything special in the sky, like this gorgeous shot of the moon over Islands of Adventure.

But then Bio goes next level and gives us shots of things like a comet. HOW DOES HE DO IT?!!!

Let’s close our Bio section with a look at one of the absolute best things he does with a camera (in my book): various birds in – and above – the parks.

I can’t even believe Bio saw a Pelican at Universal, let alone be able to get a shot this stunning.

At the parks, I’d be like “look at the bird,” but Bio knows its a double-crested Cormorant.

*Technology, AMIRITE?

With both Universal and Disney relying more on screen based technology than ever before, we’re going to start seeing them experience the same type of computer glitches we go through back at home. This month at the Islands of Adventure “boo-tique” Halloween store, a different screen than usual appeared to distract from the usual theming…

Here are some more of my favorite screen-based issues from over the years, including this bonkers stuff seen at Toy Story Midway Mania…

Spaceship Earth is designed to be a look at communication through the years, and with as much as Silicon Valley has gone to screw up Google and any form of internet search we have, this closing scene at SSE is pretty much spot on now.

France Pavilion having an HDMI issue…

…but the all time greatest “malfunction” may be this one at Expedition Everest, showing us that the Yeti has gone 404.

*Will The Bubble Pop?

I didn’t even have the strength to go into detail of all of the price insanity at the Disney parks this month. We mentioned the craziness of the Cake Bake Shop Restaurant menu, but we also had Disney itself raising prices on pretty much anything food related, and we had the announcement of Lightning Lane Premier Pass. Just when we thought there wasn’t any more ways Disney could shake money out of its guests, the WDW Annual Pass increase dropped, including a $100 increase to the top tier. It seems – to me at least – that the current strategy of Disney management is to put obstacles in the way of guests and encourage them to buy their way around them. Price increases are fine if you’re providing a premium experience and the customers find value, but I’m not sure I can make that case for Disney right now (at least down here in Florida.)

*Here we go again…

There is probably not a person in the known world who has been misquoted more times than The One Who Started It All, Walter Elias Disney. This is most likely because Walt himself has so many memorable quotes. “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them”… “It’s kind of fun to do the impossible” … and “I only hope we never lose sight of one thing – that it was started by a mouse” are quotes many Disney fans have memorized by heart.

However there is one quote that is constantly attributed to Walt Disney, but he didn’t actually say it. “If you can dream it, you can do it” was coined by Disney Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald and it was written specifically for the fabled Horizons attraction in EPCOT. Disney archivist Dave Smith has debunked this “Walt quote” many times, both in his Disney Trivia From The Vault book and on the d23 website. Even the Disney Parks Blog mentioned this quote constantly being misattributed to Walt when it launched a Horizons retro t-shirt back in 2013.

This month we got none other than the richest person in the world using Walt’s “quote” in a video that was pushed onto hundreds of Millions of people still on Twitter.

Now if Elon – or your Aunt Linda – makes this mistake on Facebook, you should probably let it slide as 99.44% of the non-Disney hardcore fans “know” Walt said this quote. However, when Disney World attributes this quote to Walt Disney on its paper plates? Well, that’s another story, that actually happened back in 2016…

We have done several editions of the SATURDAY SIX Book Club covering the theme park related Little Golden Books. You can check out one edition which features WDW related books (including the Little Orange Bird and WDW’s 50th Anniversary) by CLICKING HERE or you can you check out the article on all the great Disneyland related Little Golden Books by CLICKING HERE.

This month it was announced that early next year a new Little Golden Book will be released taking place in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge! That’s right, you can CLICK HERE to pre-order this baby.

*Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree

This is a rare BREAKING NEWS situation here at TPEI because out in California the Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree soft opened.

The restaurant has a lot of great references to the Country Bears, and even has Teddi Barra’s swing! As a reminder for those who don’t know, Disneyland’s Country Bears attraction closed to make way for The Many Adventures of Winnie Pooh over 20 years ago, so this would be sort of like WDW opening a Horizons-themed restaurant for us in Florida.

Resident Country Bears super fan Guy Selga was on the scene to try the entire menu and we’ll be looking forward to his review!

Speaking of the Country Bears, let’s check out some great art this past month, including this wonderful piece featuring the entire Country Bears Jamboree cast by artist Charlie Mac.

Charlie Mac also did this really cool mashup of Pokémon characters and Disney park attractions including the Country Bears, Haunted Mansion, & Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m not a huge Pokémon guy, but this is pretty cool.

Speaking of next level amazing mash-ups, here we have the iconic Haunted Mansion singing busts mashed up with Muppet puppeteers including Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Wow!

Daniel Beckwith, the artist of the singing busts mashup above, is also the creative genius behind the series The Muppets Celebrate the National Parks. We’ve covered Daniel’s National Park art in this fine blog series earlier this year, but this month he took it up a notch by having our favorite Muppets visit The Grand Canyon and all its majesty. Just amazing.

Grizzly Peak at Disney’s California Adventure isn’t a National Park, but it evokes the feeling of one and I love this piece of artwork by @doohdahling.

Animator Tad Stones posted this piece of art that was part of the the original pitch to Disney for the show Rescue Rangers…

Tad also told a behind-the-scenes story of how his pitch meeting went that is just wonderful…

Tad Stones shared this particular piece of art to help raise money for the charity Christmas For The Children Of Social Services. If you’d like to donate to the charity, CLICK HERE.

Last month’s Theme Park Enjoyment Index: 45
This month’s net change: +5
Current enjoyment level: 50

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.

The end of October means out with the Spooky Season…

…and onto Christmas!