New Things Coming to Disney World: Expectations, and the Art of the Spin

 

Last weekend saw a whirlwind of news announced for Disney World (as well as the other parks throughout the world) at Destination D23.  I wrote a post that day that noted everything that had been announced, as well as my immediate reactions to them.  I've had a chance to digest all of these things over the past week, and I wanted to write another post with some more thoughts on what's coming, when and why things were done in this particular way.

If you haven't already read it, please look at the D23 post linked above, as that talks about all the announcements in list form.  I'm going to refer to all of these things in this post with the expectation that you know what I'm talking about (a leap of faith many times, I'm sure).  

Destination D23 Announcements

 

Destination D23 is taking place this weekend at the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World.  This is a convention with numerous panels discussing everything coming up for Disney as a company. We're going to focus only on news related to Disney World, as that is this blog's focus, and there are plenty of new items to discuss.  So let's get to it!

We'll start with some updates on previously announced information, now with more solid dates.

 

Figment Meet and Greet starting September 10 at Epcot

Back in March, the Figment meet and greet was announced as coming "later this summer" along with a few others, most of which have already opened.  I'm not sure why it took so long to get a costumed character to meet in his home park, but here we are.  I do kind of like that this one was announced, along with Figment actually appearing on stage with the presenters, and it will be open right away.  The wait for Figment is over!

 

Top Five "Moments" At Walt Disney World

How do you measure the success (or lack thereof) on a vacation?  Everyone will likely have different measures, though in the case of a Disney vacation, "saved money and avoided crowds" are not likely to be on that list.  I like to think back on our vacations as a series of moments, frozen in time in my brain (and sometimes even in a photo).

Some moments, you simply can't get back.  For me, a lot of those moments revolve around our first trip with the kids.  You can't ever recreate the magic of them seeing the parks for the first time, and I have plenty of "unrepeatable" moments that come from that trip (first time for them on an airplane, first ride at Epcot, first time seeing Illuminations, among many others).