May 14 - 20, 2023
I’m going to start off with the biggest news out of this week…On May 18th Disney announced that the Galactic Starcruiser (AKA the Star Wars themed hotel) in Walt Disney World is closing. It’s last voyage will be September 28-30. Disney contacted those that had voyages scheduled after that date and gave them first dibs on rescheduling or cancelling. The final voyage is now booked at 100% capacity. Whatever dates are remaining will go on sale to the general public starting May 26th. Remember those emails or rumors you may have heard about with discounts? For example, guests who have the Disney Chase credit card had a 30% discount offer? Well, that is no longer. Disney is charging full price for the final bookings. WDWNT put out a great video where this was mentioned. Several Disney YouTubers have made videos as well. I’m a fan of Ordinary Adventures and they are sad to see it close, as am I. It was priced out of my budget but I was looking to go once they announced the discount recently. Now I won’t be able to. If you have gone, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear about your experience.
But that’s not all folks…the Walt Disney Company has also announced that the Lake Nona Project is now being cancelled. If you don’t know, Lake Nona is an area near the WDW complex where Disney was going to relocate their Imagineering department. They had a large plot of land and were planning to move 2,000 employees with an average salary of $120,000 each to the area after constructing buildings. The project was expected to cost roughly $1 billion. This was first announced a couple of years ago. My suspicion is the start of the project was delayed as this was during COVID, and now given the shift in the political climate in Florida and their reactions towards Disney specifically, they saw this as more of a burden than a boost. In fact, some Disney employees had already moved to the area.
These two major announcements came one after the other and gave me whiplash.
In digital entertainment news, Disney+ will be taking down several pieces of content. All over the internet the one thing I keep seeing people bring up is that they’re taking down the recording of Harmonious Live. I watched it and I really liked it, so if you haven’t seen Harmonious and want to, now is your chance. In semi-related news, the barges have been removed from the lake in EPCOT and are in the process of being destroyed. While I’m glad to have the sight lines back in EPCOT (the barges being out at all times were an eyesore), I’m saddened by the barges being completely demolished instead of repurposed somehow. I suspect the same may even happen to the Starcruiser at this point. So much money was invested in the project; there is so much technology. That building has no windows…every “window” is a digital screen showing space…but I digress. Other shows that will be taken down, possibly forever (as they did not have physical copies available for purchase) are the show Willow and The World According to Jeff Goldblum. I didn’t watch Willow but Jeff’s show was interesting. If you have Hulu you should know that some content will also be pulled from there. You can click the link above for more information. I will be sad to see Disney Fairy Tale Weddings gone. I enjoyed watching it, and one of the hosts was Twitch who sadly died from suicide in December 2022.
While these are disappearing, something major is coming to Disney+. Starting May 31 you will be able to watch all 3 (and the disavowed 4th that I despise) Indiana Jones films via streaming! I cannot wait.
It’s a tough week in Disney news, y’all.
In some good news, if you’re a D23 member you should keep an eye out on your mailbox. The season D23 magazine has gone out. There are three different covers. I got The Little Mermaid cover, which is very nice. There are lots of great articles inside that I am very excited to read. In other good news, Magic Kingdom has the fire-breathing Maleficent dragon back! No word yet on when that effect will return to Fantasmic! in Disneyland.
Now let’s talk about the future…Disneyland Forward. You may have heard about the plans to expand the Disneyland/DCA area over the years. There was the infamous Wescot at one point that was proposed. Well, the newest iteration of this is being called Disneyland Forward and y’all, this one seems legit. DisneyFoodBlog (if you don’t know them you should. Great resource for Disney info and informative YouTube videos. Oh, and it’s not just about food) has an excellent write-up with graphics so you can see how the layout of the property has changed and how it might change in the future based on the new proposal.
Ok, just a few quick bits of info and I’ll end it for this week.
Avatar: The Way of Water will be on Disney+ starting June 7th
Hong Kong Disneyland’s World of Frozen opens in November
There’s a new trailer for Haunted Mansion
That’s it. I can’t type anymore lest I risk carpal tunnel syndrome. There actually is more news, more updates, but I’m choosing not to include them all. If there’s anything special you’d like to be kept up to date on, let me know!