Disney’s CEO Race, Disneyland Handcrafted, & the COVID Experiences Fans Still Miss
Disney fans are never short on opinions—and this week, Eric and Lauren dig into three conversations lighting up the internet: who should replace Bob Iger, whether Disneyland Handcrafted lives up to the hype, and which Disney World experiences disappeared during COVID that fans still wish would return.
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In This Episode
- Disney’s CEO succession: who fans think should take the job—and why the choice matters
- Disneyland Handcrafted: what it gets right (and what feels missing)
- A Hallmark movie filming at Walt Disney World—and the guest-room keepsakes fans spotted
- The COVID-era Disney experiences that never fully came back (and what fans still miss)
Disney’s CEO Race, Disneyland Handcrafted, & the COVID Experiences Fans Still Miss Transcript
Lauren Hersey: Welcome to Disney and Hers, the show about what’s happening in the Disney community from his, hers, and your perspective. I’m Lauren. And I’m Eric. And each week, we break down the stories Disney fans are reacting to online, why they matter, and what they tell us about Disney right now.
Lauren Hersey: All right. So, coming up on today’s episode, we are digging into the Disney stories that fans are weighing in online right now. So, that includes who fans actually want to take over as Disney’s next CEO. We’re also talking about the new documentary that just recently dropped that looks back at how Disneyland was built by hand. And we’re also taking a look at Hallmark filming at Disney World and what’s reopening across the parks and what never came back after co
Eric Hersey: And I think there’s no better place to start at the top of the show than at the top of the company, maybe the top of the hierarchy and leadership here. So, let’s talk about Disney’s CEO succession plan. Lauren, you found a nice little story on the LA Times. I think everybody was sharing it. What can you tell us that’s going on with the, I guess, the new CEO that’s possibly coming up?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, and I have to say, I’m really excited to talk about this first because it’s juicy. It’s right in my wheelhouse. So, the LA Times just puts out this article, and it’s nothing really new here, but Bob Iger is preparing to step down at the end of 2026 because his contract is coming up. And the board is moving to name its new chief executive. And, you know, we’re thinking that this could happen within the next month or so. And they’re handling it with kid gloves because of the last transition of power. And honestly, Disney does not have a great track record at transitioning power. I mean, I think Bob Iger was supposed to originally retire in like 2015, and now he is… is he 72? So, the time has come. But anyways, they’re in capable hands because Disney’s chairman, his name is James Gorman, and he’s formerly the Morgan Stanley CEO, and he is overseeing the whole process. I mean, when he was brought in, this was the top of the list for him. And he has the track record to prove it. So what we’re seeing is that there’s four technically—let’s say technically—internal candidates. We all know that Josh Dearo is who we’re all thinking is at the front of the race here. And that’s largely because right now he’s managing parks and he’s managing the video game part of the business, and he’s leading the charge on that $60 billion park and cruise expansion we’re all really excited about. But there are some other players as well. You have Dana Walden who is considered to be, I mean, second, I think, to Josh right now. Where Dana comes into the picture is right now she is the co-chair of Disney Entertainment along with Alan Bergman who is also the co-chair. And then we have Jimmy Petero, and he leads another sports-focused business unit for Disney. So, you really have to have a well-rounded person to be able to take the reins here. So, what are you seeing, Eric? What are people saying online?
Eric Hersey: Well, I think we’ve always heard and known that Josh Dearo was kind of the chosen one, at least from a public perspective. I mean, I could pick him out of a lineup. You put the other ones in front of me. I haven’t seen them on camera, per se. I don’t necessarily know what they look like. And truth be told, until you were telling me, I’m not entirely sure what they did. But on the other hand, Josh Dear, he’s got his own little resort room, welcoming everybody to the Walt Disney World, and I’m sure he’s doing the same at Disneyland. And he’s been around a lot, and you see him kind of carted out. He seems like he matches a good, I guess, profile. So that’s where a lot of people are either talking about or asking. So I thought it was pretty interesting that, to start off, in October of 2025, Bloomberg did release a report that suggested that it was down to pretty much Josh and Dana, right? They polled over 700 industry experts and most of them believe tomorrow would be the next CEO. But we don’t really care about Bloomberg and their 700. What we care about is our online creators, people like Mickey Views. You know, Braden put out a poll a couple of days ago asking on Twitter, you know, would it be Josh, Dana, or someone else? And 88%—at the time I captured the screen, and I voted—I think it would be Josh. Dana only got three and someone else is nine. Any speculation there? Would you expect anything else, Lauren? I mean, you thinking the same, where Josh is kind of the front runner, at least from a public persona?
Lauren Hersey: Well, I mean, Josh is the front runner largely because, you know, the theme parks, he’s highly visible. Dana is, I mean, TV and media and Hollywood, and having relationships with directors and producers and agents—like that’s really her specialty, which is more behind the scenes. And I feel like Josh has been branded by Disney as the friendly face behind the theme park. So am I surprised? No. But does that mean that Josh is the best one to lead the company? Not necessarily. But by Mickey View’s poll, no, I’m not surprised.
Eric Hersey: Well, we got another poll out there that’s not necessarily affiliated by any means. And I think this is the one that maybe even South Park made fun of recently. I don’t know, Lauren, if you’re familiar that you can pretty much bet on anything now. Like, there’s websites out there that allow you to basically put up any type of wager and you can bet on those. And the one I found was what I think it’s pronounced koshi. But generally, I typed in “who will win the next CEO” online, and I was trying to find out what options there are. And of course, this pulls up, and you can bet right now based off of those four candidates. And right now the odds-on favorite is Josh by a pretty decent amount. You can bet 74 cents right now if he’s going to be the odds-on favorite at 65%, where Dana is at 20 and you can bet 23 cents. Allan is 11, and then James is a nine cent, so he’s got a 10% chance. So if you’re in the betting game and you’re interested in this, I’m not sure what kind of legal ramifications. I’m sure there’s some type of disclaimer that I would have to read about gambling. But for the most part, that’s another interesting poll of what people online are thinking, not just necessarily in the Disney community. But the question is, like, we know Josh, but is he the right candidate? Lauren, are you seeing people pro and con online why he should be or shouldn’t be?
Lauren Hersey: I mean, yeah, a lot of people, like I said, are pro Josh because of the visibility, but there’s negative too. So, you know, under Josh’s leadership, we got the park reservations, which, you know, not all of us love, especially like annual pass perspective. Now, I know that they have lightened up on that at Disney World, but it is still very much a thing at Disneyland. Under Josh, we also got the Lightning Lane, Genie Plus, like all of that. And you know, as true as we like our fast passes, we’ve seen the prices of things like food go up and the quality go down. Removing entertainment, removing some of the perks that we love. So, those are some things that people are like, “Meh,” they don’t love Josh tomorrow for, like, and is that more of what’s to come? So, question marks on both sides.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. And we saw that echoed. I grabbed a screenshot here of Park Journey on X, and it’s saying, “Seeing a lot of people begging for Josh. Why?” And like you said, and he basically said negative park operational changes made under Josh, which is the reservations, lightning lane reduction and food quality, removing entertainment. And why does he always get a pass? Well, I also thought that it might be important for us to look to see what he’s done. I know I’ve been following him since he was at Disneyland, but I kind of looked at a little bit of his resume here. And currently, like you said earlier, he’s the chairman of the Disney parks experience and products, and that’s been going on since the pandemic. And that handles things like the Disney cruise, the products and licensing, and then the global parks. Prior to that, he was the chairman of Disney parks experience in North America and global, but he was most recently the president of Walt Disney World, and then prior to that, the president of Disneyland Resort. But what did he start his early career with? I mean, that’s as much as I’ve been following. Do you know anything he’s done prior to?
Lauren Hersey: Well, I mean, he’s been at Disney a long time, but, you know, he’s kind of a smarty fan. Got an MBA from Stanford and worked in corporate strategy, consumer products, which is really good as well. He joined Disney in the late 90s. So tried and true here, like he understands a lot of the really important aspects of Disney in this modern environment. The thing that he doesn’t have that I mentioned earlier is the ties to Hollywood and the entertainment side of the business. And so, how do you address that?
Eric Hersey: Yeah. And I think this would be, I mean, as a park fan, first and foremost, I think that’s where I primarily get my love for the Disney brand is through the park. So, you kind of want somebody that’s going to focus on parks, but that’s not, I mean, right now, it’s probably the biggest aspect of their business. But you do need someone that’s kind of creative. These are the individuals that are going to be greenlighting projects or kind of pushing money that way. And I thought it was very interesting. I went to Reddit to find some and there was a marshmat basically kind of commenting on that it’s not just about getting somebody that understands the park or even created. They stated it’s essentially find someone that respects both creativity and finances, or someone else with almost the same authority who can counterbalance. And the examples, of course, are Walt and Roy and then Eisner and Wells. So wonder if we could see a duo. I mean, it sounds to me like Josh might be the creative, but then again, you know, I don’t know. He’s more parks. But Dana sounds like she might have run-ins with studios, so it’s interesting. I don’t know if they would do something like that, but it seemed to really work during the heydays, you know, with Walt and Roy and Eisner and Wells.
Lauren Hersey: What didn’t work with the the cha the CHP era, and just focusing on the finance and cutting off the legs of the creative side of the business—that’s the lifeblood of what made Disney the way that it is. So if I had to take a guess of Rooney here, my bet would be, if I had my 74 cent bet, it’d be on Josh. And then leaving Dana as co-chairman of Disney Entertainment because that is still such an important part of the business and content strategy. And, you know, I think they’ll probably leave Jimmy and ESPN and sports content. But that is what I’m thinking at this exact moment.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. Well, I think there was a nice little Reddit chain here I found on the movie subreddit, and it’s basically talking about the Disney Succession. And the top upvote was this Asha Bree says, “I hope they pick me. Seems like a nice gig.” And that had 443 up votes.
Lauren Hersey: So, she’s in the running. She might be a 1%. We might be able to put half a penny a yen on her. I know we’re not talking about Bob Iger and what just came out with his pay structure and his bonuses, but I think you think it’s a nice gig until you’re living and breathing it. Like Disney is such a goliath when it comes to media and entertainment and consumer products, and there’s so many business lines under within this one company. And they’ve botched the transition of power a handful of times. This is a really, really, really important moment for Disney. And if you’re looking at the stakeholders—because as the CEO, that is your fiduciary responsibility—I think that they need to make sure that the shareholders feel confident in their decision. So, it’s going to be really interesting, and we will be keeping you posted as this moves along.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. And I think that you talking about all these different elements that you got to handle, and one of the things there was a pretty important decision that was made that was kind of odd. This kind of leans into the next story that we have, which is the Disneyland handcrafted documentary, which was released on Disney Plus but also released on YouTube simultaneously. Which was an interesting play with, you know, JPE always wanting to get people into Disney Plus and really focusing on streaming. But it’s like, all right, we got this product here that we got our fans excited about, but we’ll give it away for free also on YouTube. That was kind of interesting. Lauren, what do you know about this new Disneyland documentary? I know you’ve watched it. What is it and where did it come from?
Lauren Hersey: Well, I knew that you were super excited about it, so that’s what put it on my radar. But essentially what it’s doing is taking viewers behind the scenes as to Disneyland’s creation. And correct me if I’m wrong here, but they have this—it was this archived footage that they’ve now enhanced—and they’ve made the documentary. And like, I kind of think maybe they missed the mark a little bit in the narrative and the storytelling, but I was blown away at what they were able to do and to create in such a short period of time back in 1955. So, I think a reason that people were really looking forward to this documentary specifically is it was directed by Leslie Eyeworks and that it really is focused around the artists, the crafts people and the imagineers that brought Disneyland to life. And so you really do get to see some of the behind the scenes, unpolished footage from this time. To my knowledge, it was really Disney Plus. And I was surprised, Eric, when you said that it was also put out in its full form on YouTube. That felt strange. There were a number of things that felt strange about this documentary, but namely that.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. One of the things that felt strange to me is that I know I’ve known for about a month or so because there was some of the, you know, vloggers and podcasters and authors and everybody in the Disney space. There was a whole bunch of them that got pre-screenings and interviewed Leslie and had pictures on Walt Disney Studios with her and all this. So I knew it was coming out and I was jazzed about it because it’s all the archival footage. It’s a lot of the stuff that was left out during the Imagineering story when she was putting it together. She didn’t realize they had so much. So, we knew this was coming out. It was announced at D23, I believe. But it was really funny because it was like a day before that it’s pushed and it was just an onslaught on X and Facebook of the creators that were promoting this, which I thought was very interesting because, you know, obviously when something comes out and the advocates and the fans, we will comment like, “Hey, did you watch this? Love this blah blah blah.” But it was like the day before. So, it was very interesting that it was like, “All right, Disney must have used a lot of these influencers and said, ‘Hey, we’ll give you a pre-screening or hey, can you post about this?’” DSNY newscast, which we watch: “It was Disneyland Handcrafted by Leslie Eyeworks, is now streaming on Disney Plus and also available watch in 4K on Disney’s YouTube channel.” Exclamation point. It just seemed very like publicity said, “Hey, comment this.” Scott Gustin, who posts a lot on X: “Disneyland Handcraft to begin streaming tomorrow on Disney Plus and YouTube with the film going live at midnight PT.” And then Boardwalk Times, Tony Baxter on Disneyland handcrafted releases tomorrow on Disney Plus and Disney YouTube. It’s just, it was very weird.
Lauren Hersey: It’s almost like it’s actually not that weird, like if you look at how influencer marketing actually works. And not to go too far down that rabbit hole, but if Disney is hiring you to make a post on their behalf as an influencer or a content creator, you’re typically given some type of brief with talking points because they still want it to appear as if this was, you know, an honest review or an honest promotion or whatever. But looking at these side by side by side here, these look like they’re just hitting their beats to get paid.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. No, no, no. And I’m not faulting anyone. And truth be told, that’s what the job is. And I’m not even saying they were paid influencers. It was just real funny how they all kind of came out. Boom, boom, boom. After the film, on the other hand, that’s a different story. So, I did grab a couple screenshots. Disney tourist blog basically said Disney dieh hard Disney fans will love this doc. OSHA inspectors will hate it. So yeah. Yeah, that’s pretty accurate. And then the theme park obsession on X was like I’m a wreck. That was one of the best things I’ve seen on Disneyland. Disneyland Handcraft is an absolute jewel of a documentary and you can watch it, do it. The footage is incredible, inspiring, and so uplifting. So many wow moments for sure. I’m not sure that I agree with the wow moments. I will certainly say lots of cool footage that was never released. It was interesting. I love the stuff Leslie Eyeworks has done. I would say that wasn’t quite Imagineering story to me. What was your quick overview, Lauren, on how you thought it went?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, I’m sorry. I didn’t love it. I’m a giant Imagineering story behind the attractions fan, and I’m wondering if this was truly just kind of what was left over and they didn’t have the strong narrative. Now, I appreciated the timelapse footage and how quickly it came together, but that wasn’t even the narrative. I’m just wondering if I watched the same thing that the theme park obsession did on X. And I mean, maybe we are not—so we’re a little bit more Disney World people. We love Disney. We love the history. We love all of that. And this played perfectly with the 70th and everything. I just wasn’t left with, wow, that was the greatest documentary I’ve ever seen.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, it was literally—so I watch a lot of retro WDW and lots of home videos of other people that are just relics of the past, and it felt more like watching someone’s home video. And I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think the style was interesting. They didn’t show any talking heads. It was all voiceovers. And I understand you wanted to, you know, cram in as much footage as you possibly could in that hour and a half. So, you didn’t necessarily want to go, “All right, here’s Harper Gooff talking or Marty Scholar talking.” Like they just had the overview. But I also felt like there was something about doing it in 10 months that I almost felt like if you watch the Imagineering Story episode 1, there was so much more emotional drain and pull and understanding what was at stake. And although they did it well in this, it was just more of like… there, I guess maybe since we knew how it ended that everything went well. I don’t know. It just felt like there wasn’t as much drama and maybe it was a lack of human faces that we needed to see. I’m not too sure. But the interesting thing is, like, I was like, “All right, I thought it was great. I’ll probably watch it again at some point in time. It’s not going to be my Imagineering story that I will watch all the freaking time.”
Lauren Hersey: Or Waking Sleeping Beauty, which we watch on repeat like
Eric Hersey: Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t quite fit there, but am I the only one? So, I went to IMDb and it is out of 196 ratings as of right now, it’s an eight out of 10, which is tremendous. But I also think that like, all right, our feeds are usually a vacuum of, you know, it’s who we interact with. So, obviously, we’re going to get a lot of Disney stuff. And I just saw non-stop about Handcrafted. It’s still not like breakthrough to anyone that’s not a theme park fan. Out of a popularity now, one being the most popular movie or film, it’s 1,368. So, it’s not the most popular thing in the world. It’s still getting beat out by many. And the other thing that I thought was very interesting was when you go over to Rotten Tomato, it has 100, it has 50 plus ratings on the popcorn meter. All right, it does not have a single tomato meter rating, which means there’s no critics that actually reviewed this yet. And every single person that watched it and reviewed—and I read all the comments—they’re all Disney fans. They’re all dieh hard Disneyland Disney theme park fans. So, at the end of the day, if you’re a theme park fan, you’re enjoying it. But those that are not are probably not watching it or have not watched it and it’s not even on their radar. So, the only other thing that I kind of wanted to bring out because I thought originally I’m like, “All right, this was great, but I think Defun Land probably did it better, you know, in many aspects.” Defun Land had a very interesting Epcot-like building story. And I was like, “All right, well, they put it on YouTube, so that gives us some public data.” Lauren, any idea of how many—it’s about four or five days old—any idea how many views we got just on YouTube, the free version of this documentary?
Lauren Hersey: No, like 5 million.
Eric Hersey: No, it’s 290,000, right? We’re four days old. It’s 2909 90,000 views on YouTube, which is nothing to sneeze at. But the most recent Disney, I mean—
Lauren Hersey: Right. Right.
Eric Hersey: Well, I mean, obviously you have the Disney Plus. We watch it on Disney Plus, so we’re not in that. But there’s a lot of people that would watch it for free on YouTube, right? The same crowd. So, I grabbed the most recent defunct land video, which is Disney’s living characters, A Broken Promise. And now granted, that is 4 hours and 18 minutes long. It’s the longest one I think he’s ever done. It’s been out for two months. It’s got 3.5 million views. So you’d run the math to figure out which would do better—Disney’s creative or a documentarian, you know, a Disney documentarian through defunland. And truth be told, the documentarian defunland does actually view better in the long run. So Disneyland handcrafted was averaging about 72,000 views per day, but that’s like the early surge. Disney’s Living Character Initiative was about 58,000 views per day, but that’s the average throughout the entire lifespan. So, if you kind of really look at it, on average, we think at the two-month total for this handcraft, it’s going to be about 1.2 to 1.6 million views. So, kudos to Defunland for, I think, doing—get him a documentary on Disney Plus.
Lauren Hersey: That’s what I’m saying, right?
Eric Hersey: And we will really never know, playing the other side of the coin here, because we don’t know how many people watch on Disney Plus and they’re no longer sharing any numbers—unless it’s something good that they want to highlight from a media perspective. So I guess we will never know. But D Funkan, if you’re not familiar, he is an amazing creator and so we encourage you to check those out as well. And we’re going to take a quick commercial break here. And on our way back, we’re going to talk about that Hallmark movie that you’ve seen everybody posting about the Polynesian and over at Echo Lake and all over the place. But we’re also going to look at some things coming back that has been gone since CO. But we’ll also discuss some elements that never did make it back from CO right after this.
Eric Hersey: And we’re back.
Lauren Hersey: All right. So, now we’re switching gears and I know that we are in January, but we are still talking Christmas because a Hallmark movie is finishing up. I’m assuming being shot at Disney World in Orlando and people are really, really excited about it. And the reason I personally wanted to bring it up during the show today is, Eric, did you see the cute little cards that people were getting in their rooms at the Polynesian, letting them know that the movie was being shot? And it was just, to me, a very cute keepsake.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. I didn’t see them per se. I remember somebody talking about it, and I’ve really seen a lot of screenshots and people from the balconies taking pictures, and that’s been going on for maybe a month or so. What’s interesting is I actually just listened to the Disney dish with Jim and Len, and of course Jim is an insider when it comes to Hallmark. He knows everything because Nancy knows everything about Hallmark.
Lauren Hersey: I was going to say Nancy’s like the insider
Eric Hersey: And right, let’s give credit where credit’s due. But it was interesting because this is not being done like a typical Hallmark movie. He was talking about how, like, they’re in and out. Like, to make money on Hallmark movies, you got to be in and out. And as you can tell, there’s been a lot of footage and everything in December and now we’re in January. So, they must have taken their break and they’re coming back. And I also thought it was interesting because I did see somebody the other day online saying, “Why is the Polynesian still decorated for Christmas?” And I said, “Wow, that is pretty late.” It all comes together now. What were they saying on the cards? Anything specific or just cute little keepsakes?
Lauren Hersey: It was cute little keepsakes letting people know that they were still filming at the Polynesian. So if you were staying there at the time, that was just something that they were sliding under your door. And I mean, like, the movie as a whole, this is not new news that this is happening. But it makes, I think, a lot of sense from like if you look back to Walt and being an early adopter and entering the TV space. Like if nothing else, this is an incredible promotion for Disney World because, you know, if you watched a Hallmark movie over Christmas, it’s all about the magic of a small town. So why not the magic of Main Street?
Eric Hersey: Yeah. Yeah. In Polynia. And the funny thing is, so I was over on the—I mean, I found a lot of this on Facebook. There were a lot of posts of pictures from, you know, of the characters. And Lacy Shabert is—I mean, I can’t say I’ve watched a lot of Hallmark. But it turns out she’s from Mean Girls, right? She’s like the queen bee of Hallmark.
Lauren Hersey: If you think of Hallmark, you think of Lacy. And I think it’s Sherbar.
Eric Hersey: Okay. All right. Sorry if we like butcher that, but anyways. Yeah. So I think outside of the Hallmark movies, she’s probably most widely known from Mean Girls.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, that’s what one of the comments here says. Probably one of the cooler things I’ve seen in my life: the filming of a Hallmark movie at the Polly. I grew up watching Mean Girls and now watch Hallmark movies every Christmas. So, this was a dream to witness. So that was on a wonderful Disney resorts Facebook forum. And then Britney and the Beast, I think, captured some photos. That’s an Instagram handle of what? Lacy, Travis Van Winkle, and Richard Kind. Richard Kind is—I know him because he was in the California Adventure opening ceremony video—but he’s also known from A Bug’s Life and he’s Bing Bong. So all types of cool photos. And also, you can go over to Tik Tok—that’s where I was at. If you go to Tik Tok and just type in Disney Hallmark movie, all types of shots, anything. You could probably just piece this together and get the whole story based on all of the Rob.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. I mean, they’re at Echo Lake on one. It looks like they might be at the Japan Pavilion on another. Lots of the Poly. So, you can grab it all together. But if you’re into Hallmark, I think that’s coming out at the
Eric Hersey: Well, obviously this Christmas, right?
Lauren Hersey: This Christmas, yeah.
Eric Hersey: All right. Well, good. Good. Because I think you’d be surprised how quickly they can turn these things around. I mean, we’re not making a Marvel movie here. Like typically you want to be in and out within like a month, a couple months. But we get probably a little bit more of a budget backing this because we are at Disney. But they will have this out by this season, I am sure.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah.
Eric Hersey: One question I have is, will they have a scene in the tea room over at the Grand Flo? Lauren, what do you think?
Lauren Hersey: I don’t know because it wasn’t open until recently. So I guess you never know.
Eric Hersey: Yeah, they—so you broke this to me because I’m not even too familiar with it. I know you’ve done this before, but the Alice in Wonderland tea experience is set to open here. It’s coming, what, March 19th, and you can make your reservations February 19th. But why does this matter? No offense, but this isn’t something I’m talking about. I don’t know how many people are talking about it. What is this experience and why the heck do we care?
Lauren Hersey: Okay. Well, I will tell you why I care and why I think y’all will care is that the reason I care is I have very, very fond memories of taking my daughter when she was little with my mom and doing the Alice in Wonderland tea experience. And they, you know, they have the little tea sandwiches and you have a proper tea. And, you know, for little kids, they had like, you know, a kids version and you got your tea, which would have been like chocolate milk out of like a Mrs. Pots teapot. It was very cute. But the reason that it’s news now, I think, is one of those last-mile things that got ripped out of our grasp during CO. And it made its way back. And I mean, we had so many things that went away during CO, whether it be perks or rides, shows, attractions. And this was the final one that I was like, are they ever going to reopen the tea room? Because I mean, with the whole renovation of the Grand Floridian lobby, I thought maybe it had to do with that. I don’t know why now specifically, but I am thrilled that it’s coming back just in time for spring break.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don’t see myself ever really participating in this, but there were a lot of things. I mean, you’re talking about things that were taken away CO, and it was interesting. I think that sparked our debate, or at least conversation, of like what is left? Is there anything left that was taken away over time? I mean, Bippity Boppity Boutique came back, right? That was one of the ones that was gone. I think the barber shop was taken away. Like, is there anything else that you can think of that was taken away and not brought back yet?
Lauren Hersey: Well, I mean, my favorite was the spa at Saratoga Springs. So, they were under the senses umbrella and that never came back. They’ve switched up like the Bibbidity Baba Boutique experience. I don’t know that that—I don’t think it ever came back to Disney Springs. I could be wrong there, but I think it’s just in the castle now. And then at the Grand Floridian, you used to be able to also get a princess experience within the Grand Floridian proper. And now that has been kind of rebranded as, you know, children or adults, and it’s like kind of a spa service where they’ll do your hair and makeup. And so there are a lot of changes as far as the health and beauty went, but most of the attractions, they eventually returned after, you know, the social distancing and it was a slow rollout. So we saw Fantasmic came back, Festival of Fantasy Parade, but we never did get back like Move It, Shake It. We lost that during the pandemic, right? We had, I think, those little cavalcades instead though, right?
Eric Hersey: Yeah.
Lauren Hersey: So it took a long time, like you said, for the barber shop to come back, but that’s kind of in the health and beauty space. And I mean, again, that was a warm and fuzzy for us. Like, we got our son’s first haircut there. So, most of the other, like, restaurants like that, they took a long time to fully get back. Something else that I personally miss because I have like the fond memories is, do you remember the Jedi training academy?
Eric Hersey: I do. And the citizens of Hollywood.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. Well, I don’t see the citizens of Hollywood ever coming back. I think they moved way beyond what’s happening with, like, actors.
Eric Hersey: Equity actors, right? Like it was just more money to do that and just wasn’t. But the Jedi one is interesting that they never brought that back. And I guess maybe because Galaxy’s Edge, like I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like they’ll ever bring it back. But there’s that open space and it didn’t seem like it would cost a lot. But then again, you only had maybe 20, 30 kids that could do it each, right? It didn’t bring them any money.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. How about—hey—what about the Sorcerers of Mickey? Like the cards at Magic King. Sorry, I’m just thinking of all of the things that we lost that I’m still salty about.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. No, that sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom never came back and maybe they got sick and tired of giving us new packs every single time we came, acting like we didn’t have any. No, but—and then there was two of them that I thought—and it might even close prior to this, right? Stitch’s Great Escape, right? Has been sitting there. And this is what I was wondering. I’m like, did that close beforehand? I know that we’ve once met an Elvis Stitch during a, you know, Halloween party, and I’m thinking we’re meeting Stitch in general there.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric Hersey: During CO even, right? So, I think at the end of the day, like they closed that down. We know that attraction’s down. But I got in a wormhole. I’m like, “All right, what’s inside Stitches now?” Right? So, of course, I go to our popular subreddit for Disney and find that there was a question asked, and every time I walk into Tomorrowland, I pass the old Stitch’s Great Escape and the curiosity peaks and urge to walk in the old show space is strong and very curious, they say. Essentially, what’s going on here? Is the skin stitch animatronic still there? Has it been converted to another space? So, then we get into the comments of Reddit and immediately one comes up and says asbestos. That’s why they haven’t converted into something else. So, is that true or is that just, you know, speculation? We get pretty deep in here. So it’s somebody who says, I was going to say this because the updated building code law says they’re literally have to tear down the entire building if they did any renovations of that section. And mind you, that means the people mover would go down. That’s a pretty big building, right? So, they say it’s stroller parking now. And then somebody immediately goes in there and says false. You just need a licensed contractor to remove it. It’s prohibitively expensive for most because of the safety requirement needed for removal. Asbestos in a solid state is essentially harmless, says the user here. And the problems come breathing in the dust created from insulation being ripped apart. So that could be nasty. And then somebody else comes in here to false their false, which I love. Tears tales of a mouse minion says there was a project underway pre-COVID and it was set to be announced the day the announcement was made that WDW would be closing for COVID. So project was put on the back burner and never basically came back. And their source was a former co-worker they worked with as a project coordinator for WDI. So there’s NDAs, so we’re not going to find out about it. I do remember there being a Wreck-It Ralph conversation, right? There was going to be like some type of simulation racing game there. But maybe we could tap Jim Schull. We’ll see if he knows. Who knows? Probably signed NDA, so we’re never going to find this stuff out. But we’re just gonna have to find this Tales of a Mouseion and see if they’ll give us some information. So that was one. There was another one, Lauren, that we witnessed that it just seems like it’s a lot of wasted space, and that’s the Rivers of Light.
Lauren Hersey: Oh my gosh, Rivers of Light and the anticipation. Oh, I mean, we didn’t even talk about all the Epcot iterations of that show. But anyways, I mean, Rivers of Light and we lost Kite Tales. Yeah. Rivers of Light was one of those projects that kept getting pushed back, pushed back, pushed back. And I think that they originally envisioned that it was going to be like World of Color, but for animals over at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. And then what happened, Eric? I remember it was like one piece of bad press after another and then it disappeared.
Eric Hersey: Well, we saw it twice. I think it was just miserable and hot and it was crowded. And I just don’t think the water effects ever kind of worked as much as they wanted to. Now, there was some technical reasons. I remember hearing some scuttlebutt of the technical reasons, but it did disappear and there’s that giant open space. And they can’t do fireworks, right? So, of course I said, why was Rivers of Light still down and discontinued? So, we went over in the Walt Disney World tips and tricks Facebook forum. Now, this is about, maybe a year old, but it says, “Does anyone know why they did away with Rivers of Light at the Animal Kingdom? It was such a short time. It was such a nice show,” says Jody. Jody liked the show. Well, Ryan explained that Disney had struggled for years to get guests to stay in the Animal Kingdom at night. Even a nighttime show wasn’t enough to keep the guests in the park, and they can’t do fireworks in the Animal Kingdom for safety of the animals. This is why Animal Kingdom closes at 6:00 p.m. most days, which is true. We’ve heard this. All of the above. Even something like Pandora, which looks lovely at nighttime, is never open or available to us at nighttime.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah, because it’s so—I mean the park always closes at 6. I’m like, why do they have all this bioluminescent or whatever if you are never—
Eric Hersey: I think they tried to do a night show. They had to go, and they just couldn’t keep people there. So the interesting thing is—this will be an obvious cheap plug for the Disney Dish Patreon episodes—there was one two months ago where Jim and Len walk around the Animal Kingdom and this question is asked: what is going on with the Rivers of Light, and are they going to do anything? And what do you, Lauren? What options do you have at nighttime? You have fireworks and you have what else?
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. And you have like a fountain show.
Eric Hersey: Okay. And one other thing that’s starting to spring up around.
Lauren Hersey: Yeah. Well, at Universal, they have the drones and the fountain and kind of fireworks, like a combination. But that’s the only thing I can think of as far as nighttime shows go.
Eric Hersey: Yeah. And that’s the thing I think a lot of us are kind of impressed by. They did the drone show at Disney Springs a year or so ago. There’s lots of drones going on.
Lauren Hersey: So good. Yeah. There’s lots of drones going on over in Paris and they’re performing. So the funny thing is Jim and Len and Jim talked about that the main thing with drones is safety, right? You don’t want a drone come down and hit anyone. So you can’t fly over them, but essentially there is a little pathway from back of house that goes through that little river area where they used to have like the lotuses come out and everything that they could probably get out in the water area into a drone show where it’s not over anyone. So, that could be a possibility. And I would wonder, you know, with all of the enhancements that Animal Kingdom’s getting, they might say, “All right, let’s—we have all this stuff now. We’re going to need to keep the parks open because people are going to want to get into the Tropical Americas and people are going to want to get to Indiana Jones and Zootopia’s there. And we also have this Pandora that’s wonderful at nighttime.” So, maybe we would see a drone show. Maybe they would be able to make it and basically pass, I guess, all the laws or basically get the attorneys to sign off. I think that’s the most important thing. So, if you guys want to hear more from that, I would say go check out the Patreon exclusive show. They talk a little bit more. But for the most part, that would certainly be interesting. But yeah, we never got it back after CO. So, we want to hear from you guys. Is there anything that you want to see come back from CO, or any rumored projects that you know were rumbling around CO that we never got? Let us know. We want to hear from you.
Eric Hersey: But I think on that note, that does it for this episode of D and Hers. For more, you can head over to disenhers.com. There you’ll find our episodes, updates, and maybe a few things we regret saying.
Lauren Hersey: You never know. D and Hers is a part of the Jim Hill Media podcast network and fabulously produced by Strongminded. And if Disney’s your vibe, don’t forget, hit subscribe and remember what you post online because you may end up in a future episode. Thanks for listening.
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Credits
- Edited by Eric Hersey
- Produced by Eric Hersey – Strong Minded Agency
