When did Disney go too far?

May 18, 2025, 11:41 PM

I think that the "Disney Difference" is almost certainly dead. Most of the magic of the parks is tucked away into small pockets from before the Bobs took over.

I had mostly given up on Disney when they announced and botched a sad EPCOT overhaul, but a lot of you guys abandoned ship way sooner or are even holding out hope today.

So my question to you: when, if at all, do you think Disney started to lose its magic and regress into what it is today?

Replies (17)

May 19, 2025, 7:41 AM

Whatever anyone may think, the sea of people are still showing up, so the parks (which is only a part) are doing fine. Clearly they lost a lot of revenue during the shutdown, and they have eliminated many perks to compensate I would assume. Magic Express, package delivery to hotels, for example. To me the biggest problem they have now is catering to the extremely wealthy, and it may cost them dearly in the long run. It is simply very hard to do the parks (at least WDW) for less than a small fortune. Add the expense to the number of down time of major attractions, and I am simply choosing to go the parks less. The problem is even when they increase prices, people are still showing up, and the current iteration of the line management system is insane. But that Star Wars hotel is the perfect example of going too far. It is like in the restaurant business. People will only pay so much for a hamburger, so you have to find ways to keep the cost down.

Edited: May 19, 2025, 1:25 PM

The cost for a One day park is hard to take.

We like Universal and the Buy Two Get two deals.

Sometimes we want to hit Animal Kingdom for a Day and a One day pass is very expensive. Plus you have top select the exact date???


Disney also took away perks as mentioned - Magic Express, early park entry but still charge too much for a basic room.

We stay at a resort (Sheraton) and get a full suit - Two bedrooms - Two bathrooms - kitchen - Living room - 7 pools for about $200 per night....
You cant find that on any Disney hotels...

Plus they have now captured TH Creative and won't give him back....

May 19, 2025, 12:04 PM

Great post VelocicoasterFan.

There are a few things which irk me, none more so than having the spontaneity removed with pre-booking everything and spending the day looking at an app. Shouldn't the whole experience be pure escapism not rove around like a pre-programmed android?

As mentioned previously, the squeezing of every $ out of us at every opportunity diluting value for money on an annual basis is difficult to accept.

The unnecessary political correctness at Magic Kingdom with PotC, Splash Mountain and the fireworks announcement.

But for me, Disney started to lose its magic when they replaced The Living Seas with a useless and cheap The Seas with Nemo & Friends. This was a portent of things to come - attractions with individuality replaced or re-themed with anything to add a Disney character.

However, Disney won't mind any of the above if the masses continue to flock to the parks increasing revenue, therefore, satisfying the shareholders. The unique and personal touch started to erode with Eisner and continues unabated.

May 19, 2025, 12:07 PM

Don’t get me wrong, I still love Disney, but they really, really make it difficult. The cost is high, and I may not have a problem paying, but it is a LOT of work and you are still connected to your phone. This is simply not fun, and fun is the reason you go there. The way they do things now is making a visit for most people either unattainable or a once in a lifetime trip.

And my goodness please tear down the Disneyland gift shop by the Haunted Mansion.

Edited: May 19, 2025, 1:25 PM

I think there's an extremely clear point in time when Disney stopped caring about the 'Disney Difference': Rise of Resistance opening less than 2 months before COVID shut everything down.

When Galaxy's Edge opened summer of 2019, I was able to check it out less than 2 months later. When Rise of Resistance opened at the start of 2020, I had plans to check it out less than 2 months later, but COVID happened and I wasn't able to ride it until over 18 months later. By that point, the world had changed so much and so much had happened that a lot of the initial hype had died out.

Obviously it wasn't anybody's fault that there was a pandemic, but I think it sent a message to Disney leadership that "spending a ton of money on trying to make the best theme park ever doesn't necessarily lead to increased profits".

This is why we ended up getting a half-baked version of Avenger's Campus (without an E-Ticket) in Summer 2021, and since then things have only gotten worse...

May 19, 2025, 1:22 PM

Brian Emery writes "Plus the[y] have now captured TH Creative and won't give him back...."

To which I reply: I miss TH so very much as well. His strong opinions were invigorating and I had a ton of fun arguing with him through the years. There's nothing like a good old-fashioned internet forum debate!

Please come back, TH Creative!

May 19, 2025, 3:45 PM

Yeah, actually, it was fun when he was still around.

@ProfPlum what do you mean "unnecessary political correctness"? Old rides were problematic and are being fixed/replaced. That's improvement

May 19, 2025, 4:36 PM

VelocicoasterFan,

At MK at WDW they removed one of the scenes from PotC so not to potentially cause offence to a handful of people, completely re-themed Splash Mountain as it may cause offence to a handful of people and the firework announcement of "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages...." was replaced by a gender neutral introduction as this too may cause offence to a handful of people.

May 19, 2025, 8:17 PM

I think Bob Iger was the right guy for the job in 2005 and did a good job for his first decade turning the company around, but he has made two major mistakes, and they are very common mistakes that many leaders make. First he stayed too long, and second when he did put in a successor he picked the wrong person.
Disney needs a new CEO to come in and shake things up. They now just operate operate as a content factory and lost all mojo they had: starting with the fact that it seems they can't make good movies anymore. They got addicted to just making the same movies over and over again and making sequels, and they have fatigued the hell out of that, and apparently aren't even good at it anymore. The well is dry.

In regards to their parks I can say the culture changed a lot when Tom Staggs was moved away from the parks and they were given to Bob Chapek (not when Chapek was named CEO, but when he was put in charge of the parks). All of a sudden the mentality went from "long term quality additions" to "lets milk the F out of these people as much as we can, and if we don't meet our arbitrary yearly metrics, we are going to cut things out of the projects we are currently working on." I can tell you from working in the management ranks at Disney this was exactly the turning point for the parks and they never really recovered from it.
Here are some examples: Avatar was under Tom Staggs. Now granted it may not have made sense to build a land based around this franchise and was clearly a desperation move to respond to Harry Potter, and IDK how much Tom Staggs had to do with the decision to build an Avatar Land, but when it became a project he let the people do what they do without stepping in with his input where to cut corners. As a result you got a massive business success even off of a franchise nobody really cared about.

Then you have things like Star Wars and Avengers, unquestionably two of the most popular IPs of all time, much much more so than Avatar, which opened to mixed reviews to put it nicely. I mean what was the difference here? The person in charge. Look at the additions Disney did to the Polynesian when Tom Staggs was running things compared to when Bob Chapek was running things...I mean...c'mon. I didn't know Tom Staggs but I have heard stories when he would advocate to do things right for the sake of the long term, Bob "I always meet my metrics" Chapek was literally the exact opposite. Most everybody that worked in the parks/hotels disliked him, so it didn't surprise me that after he was put in charge of the whole company the people in Burbank organized a coup to overthrow him lol.

It's impossible to know what any new CEO would do because they all have to fall in line when there are people above them. Everyone thought Bob Iger (who was Eisner's COO) was going to be a continuation of Eisner, he of course never spoke out against anything Eisner did, but when he was appointed CEO he came in and ran things totally differently. I worked under Josh D'Amaro at two different stops in my career but I have no idea what he would do as CEO, its not like he's ever going to speak out against Iger/Chapek even though he may be thinking it. So i'm not really comfortable advocating for any specific person. I just think its long past time for a change.

May 20, 2025, 12:12 AM

It's hard to pinpoint one specific year, but I would say the 2011-2016 range was really the transition period from what Disney had been to what Disney is now. That's when we started to see less focus on original creations coming from within the studio in favor of franchised projects often using acquired properties, a push for IP presence over attraction quality within the theme parks, and a decision to start playing politics by altering things to how they would be if created today even if the original version was never really an issue to begin with. Some of this flew under the radar of longtime fans, but after everyone was forced to take a year off due to the pandemic, the altered state of Disney was glaring and could no longer be ignored. Additionally, as the quality declined, the cost of the experience rose, further reducing the value of a vacation to Disney.

As for me, my awareness of the transition probably came around 2017, which was the year I first visited WDW. Despite all the hype about the world's greatest theme park resort, after five days I left feeling massively disappointed in two of the resort's four parks (Epcot and DHS), and even though I enjoyed the other two, I didn't really feel a strong desire to return. Subsequent visits to Florida have only included at most two days at WDW, while every trip I have spent just as long (if not longer) at competitor UOR despite it having half as much. Simultaneously, I noticed my enjoyment of Disneyland diminishing, heightened by the realization that I was getting far more out of the reprisals of the Main Street Electrical Parade than I was of anything else the resort had added recently. I took a couple years off being an AP and bought one again in late 2019 for the opening of Galaxy's Edge, but we all know what happened early the following year. Since then, I have returned to Disneyland three times for single day visits, and honestly no longer feel it is worth spending the money without a notable new attraction to experience (though my supreme disappointment with Tiana's might make me wary of even those going forward).

May 20, 2025, 7:27 AM

Prof Plum,

The changing of the wording of the fireworks announcement affects almost no one. Inclusive language, no matter how stupid, is not a sign of Disney's decline.

The scene change is less inconsequential, but understandable nonetheless. I do believe it hurts the ride, but Disney has a reputation to uphold, more so than any other theme park. Something like this would have come back to bite them.

And I think that argument holds true for the Splash Mountain retheme. Disney has a reputation, and you hardly hear about any Disney ride offending anyone. So if a ride has a reason to offend anyone, well,... Changes have to be made.

One last point - all of these changes that you listed happened well after most people considered the Disney Difference "dead". If you're saying that these three things were major factors that made you lose hope in Disney, then I question what you thought of the Epcot overhaul.

May 20, 2025, 8:43 AM

The loss of Staggs is spot on. While I do think that is absolutely it, I do think the mentality changed somewhat before that. The parks were always a premium cost, but the level of customer service was incredible back in the late 90’s to about 2010. Companies would send executives to Disney to see how to do customer service. I can cite dozens of situations from back then how the cast members would go way out of their way. Then it shifted from ‘how can we benefit the guests’ to ‘how can we benefit us.’ I think it was the advent of the Magic Bands. Great concept, and I liked that you didn’t need a wallet at a pool/water park, and it was also a ticket and room key; however, it also did other things. They changed fast pass to FP+. Customer service fell off and is continuing.

On another note they have made some really great new attractions (and the same time building the horrible, terrible, Haunted Mansion gift shop in Disneyland- no, I will never let that go). While people may not like the current films, remember that they had a long run of pretty massive flops like John Carter and Lone Ranger.

I think they can turn it around. Yes, build a fifth gate in WDW. Build more things like Shades of Green, maybe one for public school teachers and expand Shades of Green and add law enforcement or first responders. Find a better line management system that does not require a constant connection to a phone and an engineering degree to make reservations.

May 20, 2025, 12:24 PM

Me personally I'll go with dropping the classic FastPass for LL and Genie. Overcomplicated and too expensive, a blatant cash grab along with more IP stuff in the parks.

Also early 2000s moving from the original intention of EPCOT Center to more dull entertainment stuff. Just lacking magic although last Disneyland visit showed they can still provide some true fun.

Edited: May 20, 2025, 6:15 PM

VelocicoasterFan - read my initial reply. I am explicit when I believe it started to change. The Disney Magic started to be diluted with Eisner and has continued unabated ever since. My second reply was specifically to your follow-up question.

Ultimately, pre-Eisner all guests were made to feel "special" in some way, hence the magic, during and post-Eisner we are simply paying customers. As Disney has got greedier by the year we are now paying customers to be exploited. The magic and the Disney "Difference" has gone but there is still enjoyment, entertainment and thrill but not as much, I'm afraid, as we have also lost that special ingredient, spontaneity.

May 21, 2025, 8:36 AM

Spontaneity in a Disney park? Hasn't happened in decades for me.

You're right, Prof Plum, but I would like to add that customer service and the food have been better in the last few years whenever we go to Disney parks.

May 21, 2025, 9:28 AM

First of all this is a very interesting and challenging post from VelocicoasterFan.

I can't argue with the informed comments about Disney management and I concur with ProfPlum with regards to the changes made in respect of political correctness. My view on that issue is whether or not something is actually offensive in the first place.

I think perhaps some of what's gone wrong with Disney began with forces outside of their control but which they then exploited.
As mobile technology raced ahead we found that we are all controlled by it. We can't even park our cars without a mobile phone.
Disney , post-pandemic, made changes to way the Parks work which made life a pain in the you-know-whats.
Want a fast pass ? Want to order food ? Want anything at all ?
You have to do it remotely and in advance by phone. Then they charge extra for the privilege. Where's the spontaneity? Where's the fun ? Everybody walking in the Parks staring at their screens instead of enjoying the Park. Crazy.

May 21, 2025, 11:21 AM

@tim Hillman: I agree on the food. Whatever else on Disneyland visit, we got some great meals from sit down to fun places like Bengal Barbacue so no complaints.


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