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*Magic Key Renewals Unlock Chaos

To fully understand what happened this month over in Anaheim this past month we need to see how we got here. So we consulted with Disneyland and BelVita expert @hastin to present for the first time ever… AN OFFICIAL TPEI TIMELINE!!

January 14th, 2021 – Disney Cancels Annual Passports. It may seem like a decade ago now, but it wasn’t that long ago when Walt Disney World reopened from the Covid-19 shutdown, but Disneyland remained closed. With no reopening in sight, the company cancelled its Annual Passholder (AP) program and will issue refunds. Current Disneyland APs are now known as Legacy Passholders, and will keep their perks and discounts until a new program is announced.

April 30th, 2021 – Disneyland Reopens. No APs are available at first, but after a couple of weeks Disneyland debuts  a So-Cal resident deal. Disney teases that a new system is coming that is a “loyalty program,” which earns a playful jab from its friendly competition…

August 3rd, 2021 – New Magic Key Offerings are Announced. Rumors and Innuendo suggest that Magic Keys were created and rushed to the market due to the lack of fall 2021 bookings. The new Annual Pass program was going to be called MAGIC KEY and there would be four “keys” available: Dream Key, Believe Key, Enchant Key, and Imagine Key. All four “keys” require park reservations. To read a good summary of that entire situation CLICK HERE.

August 25th, 2021 – New Magic Keys Sold, Online or In-App Only. Disneyland begins selling Magic Key, but you can’t buy them at a ticket booth. Everyone knew the actual introduction of the “Keys” would be an unmitigated clusterf—- and Disney didn’t let us down. The company was obsessive and STRICT about the Keys being available online. Guests waited in virtual queues for hours just for the opportunity to spend their money with Disney. Many had problems during their experience, with one person even getting charged dozens of times.

Our Disneyland expert @hastin had a one-day park ticket that he wanted to upgrade to a “Key,” and kept getting the runaround from Cast Members who told him to “keep waiting.” Finally, at around 6:00PM, Disney let guests line up at ticket booths to provide upgrades. Park Reservations were a bit rocky at first, and it wasn’t long before things got much worse…

October 2021 – Magic Key Park Reservations are Limited and Frustrating. October was the first real stress test of the new system. Magic Key Park Reservations started selling out. Guests couldn’t get into the parks on the weekends, which frustrated many locals. This became especially aggravating when Park Reservations for the Magic Kingdom weren’t available to Key holders, but you could purchase a day ticket. The frustration continued into the holiday season.

October 25th, 2021 – Dream Magic Key “Sold Out.” – The Dream Magic Key was the top tier of passes, and the only pass with no block- out dates. It becomes “sold out” and unavailable to purchase. Disney CEO Bob Chapek says that the Magic Key system is doing “very well” during a finance call.

November 24th, 2021 – Believe Magic Key “Sold Out.” – Just before the holiday season, Disney decides that the 2nd top tier Key (which includes a parking discount) is now “sold out” as well. Rumors and Innuendo say this could have been done to prevent a holiday rush by locals.

December 16th, 2021 – Lawsuit Against Disney Becomes Public. The lawsuit alleges Disneyland Resort’s Magic Key program deceptively advertises “no block-outs” and claims that Disneyland didn’t advertise that passes have separate reservation buckets than day tickets. The complaint was originally filed in the Orange County Superior Court on November 9th by Magic Key passholder Jenale Nielsen, however it was moved to the United States District Court on December 15th reportedly because the matter exceeds the sum of $5 million and because Walt Disney Parks and Resorts is based in Florida while the plaintiff is based in California.

This lawsuit doesn’t get approved for Federal Court until May 16, 2022, which leads us to…

May 31st, 2022 – ALL Keys “Sold Out.” – In what felt like a way to prevent day-ticket and multi-day ticket holders from upgrading tickets over the busy summer season, all tiers of Magic Key are now “sold out.”

July 17th, 2022 – First Pass Renewal Window Opens with No News. In years past, Annual Passholders had the opportunity to renew 40 days before their pass was set to expire. Passholders who bought their Magic Keys in 2021 were now approaching that renewal window but there was no option to renew. Disneyland says that passholders will be “able to renew later this Summer,” but provides no news on the passholder situation. Many people think that due to the lawsuit, Disneyland may cancel the Magic Key program.

August 10th, 2022 – Disney’s Earnings Report Says “Unfavorable Attendance Mix.” – The finance meeting heard ’round the world… Disney World, as the parks division reported a whopping $7 Billion in revenue. It was indicated that things were going well in Quarter 2, other than an “unfavorable attendance mix.” Magic Key holders immediately assumed Bob Chapek was referring to them (although several other ticket deals were being offered at the time, including a California resident deal). This went about as well as you can imagine and the meme flood gates opened.

August 16th, 2022 – Magic Key Pass Renewals Announced. – Disney, after being hounded on social media and essentially having to go silent due to every single comment on their posts – no matter what subject – being from guests upset about Magic Key renewals, finally releases details about Magic Key renewals.

The new terms and conditions of the Magic Key program are overhauled to prevent another class action lawsuit for basically ANY reason. Now the company requires any complaint to be solved via individual arbitration. Disney seemed scared, with basically every situation possible being distinctly spelled out in the terms.

Essentially admitting a level of defeat on the lawsuit, park reservations for passes are renamed “Magic Key Reservations”, and legal details around a specific bucket of Magic Key reservations are made. The Top Tier pass goes up $200 to $1599 and now includes 12 block-out dates around the holidays. Also, the renewal window was shorted from 40 days to 30 days and they will NOT let you renew a pass even one minute past its expiration date (despite WDW Passholders getting a 30 day grace period post AP expiration.)

With Disney’s new price increases being announced, several of their distinguished competition reminded guests of other options in the area…

Surprise surprise, when the day came for people to renew, Disney’s computer team was ready to handle the challenge as always…

TPEI Score: – 99  Everything Disney Parks has done during its latest management regime seems to be designed to either A) make the park going experience miserable for guests to the point where we will pay more money to overcome the obstacles that Disney created B) make life miserable for the Cast Members or C) make more money more Tippy Top Management.

*Chapek Wasn’t Done Yet…

One of the most shocking things of 2021 was the fact that the Walt Disney Company put more effort in Disney+ Day last November 12th than it did for the entire Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary, and that’s a shoot brother! As it turns out Disney+ Day for this year comes even earlier, and it brought out one of the all time greatest quotes from Our Dear Leader:

Not only was the term “synergy machine” not being used as a line in a Judd Apatow slapstick comedy, but Chapek once again tried to make the term “activations” sound like something a human being would say.  Any time Chapek or someone from Imagineering uses “activation” in a sentence, I feel like it is some long con being played by aliens who have taken over the bodies and seeing exactly what they can get away with before the rest of us say, “waaaaaait a minute….” People may mock Gen Z and their words like slap, drip, or yeet, but I’ll take them 6 days a week and twice on Sundays over corporate nonsense like paradigm, disrupter, and ping, but most of all activation (<— written with complete disgust.)

Not only would Disney+ Day bring debuts to the streaming app such as the latest MCU hit movie (Thor: Love & Thunder), a movie that appears to be a future episode of How Did This Get Made (Pinocchio), and a whole bunch of stuff that means absolutely nothing (we’re looking in your direction Dancing with the Stars: The Pros’ Most Memorable Dances.) However, the biggest debut on Disney+ will be the introduction of a new ad-supported tier.

The ad-supported tier costs viewers $7.99 a month. In December 2019, when Disney+ made its own debut, the cost was… $7 a month.

TPEI Score: – 2 “Much anticipated” ads my @$$.

*Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day… (but it was built faster than Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana)

Another month has gone by and Disney has yet to finish with the WALK THROUGH ATTRACTION Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana. Disney did release some new pictures letting us know that the project was, in fact, nowhere near done.

Meanwhile, across town….

TPEI Score: – 2 If you had to bet your own money, would you take something being finished in Universal’s upcoming EPIC Universe before Journey of Time Standing Still, Inspired by the Construction of This Attraction? I would.

*It’s Lil Boo’s World, We’re All Just Living In It

On the opposite end of the construction spectrum, let’s head on over to Universal Studios Florida where the company is in full gear getting ready for the upcoming Halloween Horror Nights event.

Early this month HHN props started popping up around the park and a very noticeable character was noticed by guests…

That’s right, Lil’ Boo, the breakout star of last year’s HHN. One could make a good argument and this point that in many ways Earl the Squirrel (of Univesral’s Christmas celebration) and Lil’ Boo are the “Mickey & Minnie” of Universal. After years of needing to license other company’s IP  – or worse, characters Universal may “own” but have absolutely zero relevance in today’s Pop Culture like Woody Woodpecker and Betty Boop – Universal now has a unbelievably popular 1-2 punch of “characters” that fans adore.

You know we needed a 1,500 foot aerial of this icon.

Every day you go to USF, something new was being put up.

Meanwhile, over in Islands of Adventure, the All Hallows Eve Boutique has been fully decorated for the season and includes a larger than life Lil’ Boo.

But that’s not all folks, here’s the real blockbuster. Brace yourselves, you might wanna sit down.” – J Jonah Jameson, Spider-Man: Far From Home

Just as we got some AMAZING merchandise featuring Earl the Squirrel last holiday season, this year for HHN we are getting a ton of Lil’ Boo merchandise, including a sipper!

Longtime readers of the SATURDAY SIX know how much we appreciate artists. We have done many spotlight features on the talented men and women of the theme park community, which you can access by CLICKING HERE. That’s said, this is one area both Universal and Disney have come up woefully short on. Even the most die-hard theme park fans can’t name the actual artists  who do so much of the work we appreciate in the parks because they are simply not credited. Some, such comic book artist Adam Kubert, snuck their name into places they did work for like Marvel Superhero Island, but most are never officially recognized despite the amount of joy they bring to us all.

This year we got a nice surprise though, as earlier in the month Katie Rice of the Orlando Sentinel wrote a feature on the creator of Lil’ Boo, artist Emory Alvarado.

It’s always great seeing something Disney or Universal related covered in magazines or newspapers, but when they get the cover or front page it becomes truly special. It couldn’t happen to a better or nicer person than Emory.

Something even more amazing in the current “NDA” world we currently live in is the fact that Universal has allowed Emory to release her own line of merchandise featuring the character she created. This may be unprecedented in the theme park world, but hopefully it is just the first step into a Brave New World where both Disney and Universal allow their creative talent to push on the gas pedal instead of the corporate machine applying the brakes.

Be sure to check out Emory’s online store to check out some amazing shirts, stickers, posters and more (did you know Emory even has an original short story featuring our favorite little pumpkin that is fully illustrated by her? You gotta see this.)

I also appreciate the distinction of Universal using Lil’ Boo in their description of the character and Emory using Li’l Boo. Even better? I had to make a ton of changes in this very article because I originally used L’il Boo in all the descriptions. Seriously. Thinking about that distinction reminds me of the passionate discussion I had with Babydoll explaining to her how Bacini spells his name vs how he signs his autograph.

We’re going to have a whole bunch of HHN related content in these very pages over the next two months, but before we go we’ll take a look at a couple things that we greatly enjoyed seeing at USF as they prepare for the world’s greatest Halloween event. First up, this wonderful signage for the upcoming nighttime lagoon show: Ghoulish!

Look at some of the insane details in this sign, probably 99% of the guests will never even notice. Straight up respect for that level of craft.

Another hugely underrated part of HHN is that the event is celebrated across property. Each of the onsite hotels will usually offer something exclusive to guests and this year we are seeing CityWalk get involved in a bigger way with the debut of the Dead Coconut Club. We’re not even sure what this is yet, but I know I like it!

Now let’s get to MY personal favorite part of HHN….

Universal is now going all in on the food booths at HHN, with this year presenting even more elaborately themed outdoor kitchens.

The concept of “filth” is one that is popular in any Halloween setting, but I’m not sure how well it works in a place where you are serving food. Time will tell on that.

Well you know I‘m going to have to get this burger….FOR RESEARCH~!

Some things may be even more scary than severed body parts…

Last year we did an article on Artists Inspired by Halloween Horror Nights and one of the artists featured was @juandesignz. Juan created some amazing wands last year featuring HHN icons such as Lady Luck, Jack the Clown, and Chance. This year Juan was inspired again by HHN with a whole new set a wands. Our first batch features original fan-favorite characters such as Lil’ Boo, Boris Shuster, and the Tooth Fairy.

Another set features the Universal Classic Monsters. These are just fantastic and would be a must buy if Universal sold them in the parks.

TPEI Score: +122 I can’t tell you how many YEARS that I avoided Halloween Horror Nights like the plague because I’m not a “horror guy” and figured that’s all that it was. The Walking Dead finally got me into the door and I realized it was so much more than shock horror and instead is one of the most creatively designed theme park event I have ever seen, and it gets better and better every year.

*What Might Have Been…

A lot of people criticize social media for being too negative, but for the most part I’m of the feeling that your experience is pretty much what you make of it. For me, social media is filled with a bunch of wonderful people and access to information I would have never known about before. If you are a Disney theme park fan, there are a whole bunch of former Imagineers and creative people that not only share their thoughts and history of the company, but you can also interact with them. Take for example Tom K Morris, a former Disney Imagineer who  – among other things – designed the incredible Sleeping Beauty Castle in Disneyland Paris (which pound for pound is the most gorgeous of ALL the Disney castles.)

Recently, Tom sent out the following tweet and accompanying picture: “Site plan for Persian resort originally planned between where Tron is and Bay Lake. Monorail route would travelled through Tomorrowland.”

For many Disney fans, seeing something like this is MIND BLOWING. We’ve heard countless stories from historians over the years about how Disney had originally planned a Persian themed resort, but that it was never built. Now we can actually see the plans and how the resort would have fit into the big picture. Even more amazing, if Disney had went through with this plan how it would have also changed everything else, such as the monorail going through the Magic Kingdom and into Tomorrowland!

TPEI Score: + 8 Seeing nuggets of information drop like this out of nowhere just truly make my day. I want to repeat my stance that – for the most part – social media is what you make it. If your feed is filled with nonstop negativity, that might just be what you are drawn to. There’s an expression that goes along the lines of, “If you come encounter one jerk during the day, you just met a jerk. If your day is filled with meeting jerks, YOU may be the jerk.” This is especially true for men (women on social media have to deal with nonsense no matter how well they curate their feeds.)

*Oops! I Did It Again….

Speaking of the Sleepy Beauty Castle in Disneyland Paris that Tom K Morris designed, checkout this stunning stained glass window version that was created for Disneyland Paris and being sold as part of a limited edition run of 50 copies for  the cost of 1000 € each (whatever that means.) Pretty cool right? I know I want one.

However, a funny thing happened. After the news came out that Disney would be selling this stained glass Sleeping Beauty Castle, a person on social media reminded people of something they created LAST YEAR. Now, one might be inclined to think “people can think of the exact same idea” except that Disney has lost any benefit of the doubt by this point with the amount of times they have shamelessly stolen the ideas created by fans on places like etsy. We even covered a high profile case of outright theft from a YouTuber for a show on Disney+ earlier this year.

While we’re on the subject of crazy things we are seeing “again,” let’s check out Orlando Magazine’s Best of Orlando issue for this year. As a reminder, our award winning THEME PARK TURKEYS OF THE YEAR 2021 covered Orlando Magazine’s Best of Orlando 2021. In that edition, the Top Three THEME PARK RESTAURANTS were listed as 1) Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza 2) Be Our Guest Restaurant 3) Baseline Tap House.

For me personally, #2 was a no-brainer. It’s a controversial take because many think the restaurant is trash now, but I’ll knight up for the dinner experience at Be Our Guest Restaurant every day of the week. It’s an experience, similar to Space 220, Hoop Dee Doo, Whispering Canyon and others. Especially when taking friends and family who have never been before. Now then, BaseLine Tap House, which came in at #3 is certainly pushing it when it comes to being called a “restaurant.” Baseline offers a total of four food options, and one of them is simply “almonds.”  You can’t even get mad at that though because #1 is Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza in Disney Springs. So the best theme park restaurant not only ISN’T in a theme park, but it’s a restaurant which has over 250 locations in the U.S., including 20 alone in Florida? WHAAAAAT?! What was #4 on this list? The McDonalds by the All-Star Resorts?

So let’s check out the winners of 2022….

My first reaction?

My second reaction? Jaleo is great. Period. Hard Stop. THAT SAID, why are we calling this a “Best Theme Park Restaurant” if a restaurant in Disney Springs can win? Then we get Blaze Pizza again. For whatever reason this year it is simply Blaze Pizza whereas last year it was Blaze Fast-Fire’d Pizza. However, look at how the locations are written in the magazine. Jaleo is in “Disney Springs, Orlando” but Blaze Pizza is in “Lake Buena Vista, Orlando.” What is going on here? Mythos at #3 is perfectly acceptable, and at least isn’t “the popcorn cart outside Test Track.”

TPEI Score: – 1 As if we needed a reason for why people don’t read magazines any more.

*Guy Selga Goes to Paris

TouringPlans’ own Guy Selga went to Disneyland Paris this month for the first time ever. You can read more about his experience by CLICKING HERE.

Again, I encourage you all to read Guy’s write-up of his experience as a first time visitor, but one thing he kept out of the story is what I liked the most. France is known for their fine dining, and where else are you going to get a better meal but than at Planet Hollywood? Look at this Disneyland Paris branded Planet Hollywood hand sanitizer… indescribably beautiful.

I’m something a “themed sanitizer” collector myself.

We have the park reservation system, Genie+, and Lightning Lanes to figure out over here. They don’t have any of that in Disneyland Paris, but they’ll get you to pull your hair out in other ways…

We’ll close this section with a book we just received at SAT SIX HQ shortly after this fine blog series went to print. We decided to update the article because the book is that good. Thanks to reader @FADisneyBlog, Bacini and I were sent one of the most treasured books in all of DisTwitter. Because the book is only available at Disneyland Paris (ie: you can’t order of Le Amazon), it is high in demand with Disney collectors, superfans, and of course, award winning theme park bloggers.

TPEI Score: + 4 Wow, our third TPEI story in a row that involves Disneyland Paris. This shatters the old SATURDAY SIX record of “zero times.”

QUCK HITS

*Joey Fatone Duets With a Cigarette Smoking Squirrel

The Eat to the Beat concert series during EPCOT’s Food & Wine Festival is always a big hit with guests. Joey Fatone, a former member of the band N*SYNC is always a fan favorite as he is a local and a theme park fan himself. Let’s be honest, can you picture Billy Ocean, Kenny G, or the members of Air Supply rocking a Toy Story t-shirt like Joey is below? I THINK NOT!

For Eat to the Bet, Fatone’s set is described as “Joey Fatone & Friends” as other singers join him on the stage for various songs. During one performance with fellow N*SYNC member Chris Kirkpatrick, the men were joined by an unlikely third vocalist…

That’s right, a squirrel had jumped on stage and enjoyed the spotlight. But this wasn’t just any squirrel….

This was a cigarette smoking squirrel!

*H2Oh NO!

If you heard millions of screams this past week it was because the company which makes Disney toiletries is going away later this year.

Good news though, DisTwitter has figured out the replacements…

*What’s In A Name?

*Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?

Did you see a recent advertisement from Cici’s Pizza featuring a character that we’ve all seen before? Be prepared, this ad is NEXT LEVEL BONKERS.

WE MUST SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL!

*Imagine? It’s what I DREAM ABOUT every single night…

*Putting the car(t) before the horse…

Like Guy Selga’s Disneyland Paris trip report above, I love seeing the thoughts of people coming to Walt Disney World who haven’t been for while to get their perspective on all the changes we have seen over the last couple years. One guest brought up something I hadn’t really put much thought into before, with Disney cancelling the Magical Express busses, many more guests are now renting a car and self parking at the resorts (queue Bob Chapek’s maniacal laugh thinking about all those parking fees.) One thing that wouldn’t immediately jump to mind, but will be obvious to anyone trying to park now, is how far away you may have to park as compared to previous years. In the big scheme of things its a minor inconvenience, but it’s also one more piece of “frustrating” hay that will eventually break a camel’s back and cause them to choose a different vacation destination rather than returning to Disney.

*She-Hulk Debuts on Disney+

*Sometimes the people selling the stuff have a different name for items than the ones used by the people making the stuff

Old Space Baby reminded me of one of my favorite merchandise stories at the Universal Orlando Resort. Back in 2018, the company released the Amulet of Fear for Halloween Horror Nights. Essentially this was trying to get a piece of the market Disney also wanted with the “Glow With the Show” line. These are products which light up and will “interact” with various elements across Disney and Universal.

It’s fair to say that Universal took a complete bath on the amulet of fear as seemingly no one bought them at $20. They came back the next year for a much lower price…

There was also this playful jab at the Amulet of Fear featured on a faux ad at a HHN bar.

Even later, the Amulet of Fear would be available at a Universal Garage Sale (which you can read more about it in THIS EDITION of Ye Olde Disney Outlet Report). However, the Team Member who entered the Amulet of Fear SKU into the computer had probably seen enough of these plastic skulls and had their own description of the item…

*Sneak Peek at What’s Coming Soon to the Disney Outlet Store…

*RIP Kal David

We close this month on a somber note, as on August 16th we got the news that musician Kal David had passed away. Kal was a renowned guitarist in the music world, but theme park fans know him as the voice of Sonny Eclipse, the galactic crooner himself.

I’ve listened to Kal David on several podcasts over the years and he always seemed like such a wonderful guy who was able to touch our lives in the theme park world. I encourage everyone to check out this interview he did with Attractions Magazine.

Last month’s Theme Park Enjoyment Index: 13
This month’s net change: 22
Current enjoyment level: 35

Writer Derek Burgan, when not cleaning Len Testa’s pool, can be found reading comic books, watching professional wrestling, and taking his dog Bacini to Universal and Disney. organizing his various Tsum Tsums in alphabetical order. 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.