214. Seth Kubersky on the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland and World of Frozen

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There’s a lot happening at the Disneyland Resort, especially as Disney prepares for major investments in their parks in the next decade. They just added the Adventureland Treehouse, which takes a classic approach to the longtime attraction. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure should open next year to replace Splash Mountain, and plenty more changes are on the way. The perfect guest to talk about everything that’s going on is Seth Kubersky, co-author of the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2024.

Seth is my guest on this episode of the Tomorrow Society Podcast to talk about everything happening at the Disneyland Resort. We chat about how those parks are different than Walt Disney World and why Disney Genie Plus works better in California. He also helps explain the DisneylandForward situation and how it might impact the resort in the future. Disney has teased additions focused on the Avatar films and many other attractions that could happen with the right approvals. I also get Seth’s predictions for when we might see the Avengers E-Ticket attraction at Disney California Adventure.

Seth also recently visited Hong Kong Disneyland to explore the new World of Frozen expansion at that park. We talk about the Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs family coaster and how it compares to other thrill rides from Disney. He also explains the differences between this updated version of Frozen Ever After and the original at EPCOT. We conclude the podcast by talking about the upcoming Fast and the Furious coaster at Universal Studios Hollywood and how it could impact that park.

Show Notes: Seth Kubersky

Purchase a copy of the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2024 in paperback and Kindle versions.

Follow Seth Kubersky on Twitter and Instagram; listen to Seth on Attractions Podcast.

Support the Tomorrow Society Podcast through a one-time contribution and buy me a Dole Whip!

Transcript

Dan Heaton: I’m here today with an author, podcaster, writer extraordinaire, who has written so many books about Disney and Universal regularly. This is his third appearance on the podcast, though it has been quite a while. He was actually on episode five of the show if you can believe it. Today, our focus is the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland. We’re going to talk about a lot of fun stuff with theme parks. It is Seth Kubersky. Seth, thank you so much for returning to the podcast!

Seth Kubersky: Dan, it has been way too long. Thank you for that very warm introduction. I feel very hyped.

Dan Heaton: Yes! Can you believe it’s been eight years since the first time you were on?

Seth Kubersky: I cannot; it has been I think since the second last time I was on it’s been at least five years. And that’s crazy. How are we both still doing this all these years later.

Dan Heaton: I don’t know what to think about that, especially in my case. But regardless, I’m excited to talk about a lot of fun stuff with Disneyland. But before we even do that, I saw that you recently had the chance to travel to Hong Kong and got to see the World of Frozen in person. So I’m curious just upfront. Like what was that experience like and what did you think of it?

Seth Kubersky: It was a mind-blowing, once-in-a-lifetime experience. I have to shout out Matt Roseboom at Attractions Magazine for tapping me when their offer came through from Disney to send someone to attend. First of all, I don’t recommend the flight to anyone, especially in coach. It is an expensive flight. It is a long flight and basically worked out to about 24 hours each way. One stop going the one way and then two stops going the other way. And with a 13-hour time difference from here in Orlando that’s jetlag that you don’t underestimate. But if you put that aside, it is a strange and marvelous and magical and kind of bizarro park.

You can tell that it was originally built during the Pressler era of build it on the cheap in, you know, opening in 2005 but then has been greatly expanded to metamorphosis sized over the years. The best metaphor for it visually is how they took an exact model of the original tiny little Sleeping Beauty Castle in Anaheim and just plop the giant new castle on top of it and it’s ambitious and in some places really beautiful and other places really kind of clunky and janky is the word that kept coming to mind.

It is through the mirror you know through the looking glass experience for a domestic, a US Disney Parks person to watch something that looks so familiar and then you realize it’s not familiar at all like they have a Space Mountain that technically is a clone of Disneyland’s Space Mountain.

But you walk straight into the side of it. There’s no ramp up to the top and then you just walk straight into the side of the big cone and all sorts of weirdness like that. It was a great park to spend a day in. It is not a multi-day park. Even with Frozen which is spectacular. It’s still in you know a nice add on to a visit to Hong Kong, which is a world class spectacular city. If you’re going to go all that way, spend more time in Hong Kong than you do in Hong Kong Disneyland. That’s my advice.

Dan Heaton: I think that makes sense. Yeah, because even what I’ve seen, it’s just like you know, they’ve added cool stuff like Mystic Manor and then they have Toy Story but then they have it’s a very odd collection but I’m curious too because I’ve watched online videos of the Wandering Oaken’s Sliding Sleighs coaster and in one sense I’m curious for your thoughts in person because you know, as you know, online videos are always the best way to have ideas about attractions, but it looks stunning and beautiful. What was it like for you to do this because I have some comparisons in my head, but I don’t know if I’m seeing it right.

Seth Kubersky: It was kind of beat for beat of the Flying Hippogriff at Universal, but with surprisingly more G forces, much better visuals. And honestly like if you if you like Hagrid’s, I’m sorry, not Hagrid’s but if you like the Flying Hippogriff at the Wizarding World, I don’t see why you would complain about this because it basically the same sort of thing. People line up for an hour for the Gadget Go Coaster in Toontown at Disneyland, and that I think is shorter and a lot less forceful than this. This has got some unexpected kick around the corners. It is only 90 seconds and maybe 30 seconds of that is the actual you know, gravity time.

But it’s a fun, little ride, and it’s perfect for who it’s intended for. You have to look at that ride in context of the entire park that has as you mentioned, or it’s got Mystic Manor, which is a kind of slightly scary, Haunted Mansion-esque ride that you know, doesn’t have a height limit but might be a little too much for some little kids. And you’ve got Big Grizzly, which is basically their version of Big Thunder Mountain. Again, a height requirement and too much for little kids. And Space Mountain. This was their first thrill ride appropriate for kids who were like 75 centimeters. Everything else was over 100 centimeters. So for your, you know, intended as its first kid starter.

They could have just thrown it up and not put a mountain around it and that would have kept everyone’s expectations really low. But as the Imagineers explained it to us it’s actually multi-functional. The queue for the ride and the Playhouse in the Woods Theater, which is this interactive. show that happens indoors with projection mapping. That’s modest but very well done. That all takes place inside this whole building that the mountain is just surrounding so it’s actually a really clever use of space. And yes, it is the most over decorated kiddie coaster on the planet.

But I don’t think that’s a reason to hate on it. Like, I don’t think that it was like, Oh, well why don’t they just spend that money making it twice as long or three times as long as like, that’s not the purpose of it. You know, the purpose is it’s your kids’ first roller coaster.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Because the thing I was always thinking of it more was in terms of Seven Dwarfs Mine Train without the dwarfs. I think people overthought that a little bit.

Seth Kubersky: It does have a cute little, minimal animatronic at the beginning. Very similar to that bowing Hippogriff on the Hippogriff coaster, which is a step above, you know, Goofy’s Barnstormer or any of the other that I would compare it to. And, you know, you can’t underestimate the head chopper rock work and coming around the curves next to the waterfall for you know, it feels a lot better than it looks on a POV video. That’s for sure.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah. I did do Flight of the Hippogriff recently and I remember it is pretty well themed yet I remember coming around going “wait that’s it?” This looks cooler than that, but that is am interesting comp I hadn’t thought of before.

Seth Kubersky: I will also say that a lot of people have dismissed Frozen Ever After as just a clone of the Epcot ride. I feel like after writing them both many times and talking to the Imagineers, the Epcot one is like the rough draft version. You know, the Epcot is the D ticket version. This is the E ticket version. If nothing else, it’s not a recycled Maelstrom trough. It’s a brand new track and boats built by Intamin that are built for capacity. You know, they can do almost 2000 people an hour, which is the one in Epcot we dream about to do. The drop is serious. It’s like almost twice as high and it’s a double down. Like, not only does your butt catch airtime, like there’s a lap bar there for a reason.

But my phone caught airtime and flew off my gimbal and landed back in the boat. Thank God, that would not have been good to be stranded in Hong Kong without my phone which had you know, all of my travel stuff. So yeah, they plussed the heck out of that ride. For everything from the having the real sculpted faces on the human characters, to better lighting to just better pacing. It’s like a minute and a half longer and there’s not like a whole new scene. It’s just every scene gets a little bit more room to breathe and you don’t feel like you’re just being rushed through it. I thought it was really, really a great improvement in every way. I wish they could go through the Epcot version and overhaul it to bring some of the effects and the sets up to that standard.

Dan Heaton: Well, that’s good to hear because I did not look at them side by side but I did watch the new one. You know the main thing I thought was like again, it also it felt like this could just be me not watching this on my side, but the scene seemed to be a little more detailed. I felt like there are parts of the Epcot one that don’t have much. They’re just a little more well done with the background and everything around you just felt kind of like it had extra life to it.

Seth Kubersky: Everything has more depth. Even the queue has a lot oc things that were just one little window or one small building in the Epcot queue or stretched out to a whole corridor or a whole little village square. The same is true of all the sets in the ride. You know my favorite improvement is in Epcot at the end of the backward section. It’s like they just sort of forgot to paint a whole corridor and you’re just like in a black hallway for a while.

Here it’s like you know you’ve got you know this transition from the ice palace into the snowy mountains and you instantly see up above and it’s just a much more immersive environment in every way. You know, the miniature castle that you see at the end has so much more depth to it and even getting in the final moment with Anna and Elsa and Olaf singing. It just, you know like slammed right into it and then right out of it. You get enough time to really see the scene. Just better pacing overall really shows you like what a difference you know editing in the theme park sentence can make in terms of timing.

Dan Heaton: And you think the new animatronics, I think they look better.

Seth Kubersky: Oh way better in person. I remember when the ones in Epcot opened. You know opening day they looked really good. We talked about this with the Imagineer in the queue. It was we took a tour and he said that they were an experiment that worked out great in the lab. We’re lower worked out great on opening day. But the problem was that it was such a delicate balance of the aging of the molds, the aging of the projectors, keeping the projectors constantly in focus and at the right light temperature as they age that it wasn’t realistic for their maintenance teams as hard as they tried to keep them looking the same.

So I don’t think it’s like, he pointed out that the animators loved it because they could do full facial expressions that they couldn’t do with mechanics at the time, but now that they’ve got these all electric servos that are a lot smaller and lighter weight and take a lot less power than the systems that they were using 10 years ago. The stuff that we’ve seen in Hondo Ohnaka that’s like in the animatronics that they have in the Frozen ride.

So like when you look carefully at Elsa. It’s not just their mouths are opening and closing anymore. But there’s actually kind of like a dimple, a pinch to their cheeks, where their their face kind of can lift up into a smile as they talk that you know it’s hard to totally capture on the video but it’s eerie upfront how much more expressive just whether it’s having more flexible skin texture, or you know better mechanics, electro servers under the skin. It’s some really Westworld stuff. It’s pretty good.

Dan Heaton: Well, we’re a long way from the faces of the Little Mermaid ride. I think we’ve extended a lot past that scary those scary creepy eyes that we used to have.

Seth Kubersky: Yeah, well you know, I still kind of like the projected eyes on Sebastian. But yeah, it’s always a moving target. Every time a new advance comes out. We’re kind of dazzled by it. Then a few years down the road we’re like that’s not, it doesn’t look quite as good anymore, does it?

Dan Heaton: All right. Well, I want to make sure we talk about Disneyland because that is what you’ve had come out.

Seth Kubersky: Yes, the Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2024 is available now. At the unofficialguide.com and all fine booksellers. Thank you for the shameless plug.

Dan Heaton: We’re done! So I mean, I’ve recently been multiple times, but just kind of an overall question for you personally. I mean, when you compare that to Walt Disney World, I mean, what are some of the biggest benefits today to when you visit Disneyland versus where a lot of people are going more to Florida, especially on the East Coast?

Seth Kubersky: Sure. I’m one of those people who lives here in Orlando. But if you asked me I would rather hop on a plane and go to Anaheim and spend the day there then drive across town. Especially if we’re talking about going to the Magic Kingdom. You know, there’s there’s a kind of philosophical and mystical side to comparing Disney World and Disneyland where, you know, I’ll be one of those people that says that Disneyland still has that kind of magic touch of, Walt’s fingerprints, and has a charm, an intimacy, a personal warmth that Walt Disney World doesn’t have.

My wife always yells at me when I use this metaphor. But I say that Walt Disney World is Walmart and Disneyland is Target. You know, they they are both essentially selling the same products but they are doing it in a way with a different tone and a different kind of feeling that they leave you as a customer, though. I haven’t been in a Target all that recently.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I think I think with Target that metaphor worked really well 10 years ago.

Seth Kubersky: It doesn’t work as well anymore. Now it’s different. We do all our Target shopping on the app. Literally just parked the car outside, stick it in their trunk, and I haven’t been inside it. Yeah, so that metaphor maybe has not aged well since the pandemic. But I will say that, since the pandemic, visiting both the parks has gotten a lot more complicated, but it’s way worse at Walt Disney World than it is at Disneyland. Disneyland trying to catch up recently, crowds have gotten way stiffer.

You know, they’ve added some unwanted new features at Genie Plus at Disneyland. Why did they need it on the Little Mermaid ride? Why? But for the most part, you know if you compare head to head the you experience the level of friction at Disneyland versus Disney World. I’m still giving the nod to Disneyland as being a more user-friendly experience.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I agree. I mean, having been to Disneyland recently, I mean, I did not love having in order to use a Magic Band having to get the Magic Band Plus, which I found to be kind of stupid. But regardless, I found Genie Plus to be so much more valuable at California, especially at the Disneyland park itself where stuff would just still be available and so I’m curious. I’m sure I’m guessing you agree. Why you think it’s just so much better there versus in Florida?

Seth Kubersky: I think the number one difference is that in Florida, you have to get up at 7am. You can still do it from your bed, but stabbing that phone and making that first reservation and creating that expectation where about 50% of people going to a Disney park on any given day. We’re buying this I don’t know if they if that statistic is still accurate, but as of a few months ago that was that was right.

So if half of everyone is getting up and 7am and instantly stabbing and getting the Genie Plus for the most popular ride and you know you’ve seen you’re seeing the you know things like Slinky Dog and Jungle Cruise instantly at 7am start dispensing things at five and 6pm already versus at Disneyland where you can’t do this until you step inside the park which creates a natural buffer preventing the system from getting overloaded.

Meaning that you can actually get these and use them multiple times during the day. At Disney World they pretty much admit that if you get three Genie Plus passes in a day that’s about what you can expect. At Disneyland you know I’ve easily done 7, 8, 9 in a day. So I also feel that they do a better job of managing the intermix of standby versus Genie Plus in order to kind of keep both groups at bay. So no one’s too outraged whereas at Disney World they kind of seem to delight in just like stopping and letting 99 you know people through Lightning Lane for every one at standby.

Yeah, I just think the management of is better the setup of it is better. You know that not giving the hotel guests such a preference and priority on the individual lightning lanes. You know not having the same advantage that they have in Orlando. I think they’re always just balancing the system and making it more fair and less.

Dan Heaton: Oh, yeah, I mean, just for me having bought the tickets with Disney Plus and not having to worry about it. But then also like you said we were there. Even at DCA, I think we got like four or five I mean there are the attractions but at Disneyland and I was with a family of four we were not rope drop to close , but I bet you we still used eight or nine each day and if some of the rides hadn’t been down, we would have probably even done more but that was just how it’s gone with Disneyland lately unfortunately.

Seth Kubersky: Hot tip, when the right is down is the best time to grab a lightning lane, right? When you have a pass for an attraction that isn’t working especially if it’s one of the big ones like Matterhorn or Indiana Jones or Space Mountain. I’ve had mornings where I’ve farmed the Matterhorn because the ride didn’t open on time but they were still dispensing lightning lanes. You can end up with multiple multiple experience Fastpasses good the whole rest of the day pretty much you know any Lightning Lane ride they used to be a usable at non lightning Lane rides in Disneyland I think you can still that do that in DCA but they closed that loophole because it was too good. To be able to use it on Alice in Wonderland or you know, something like that. So I think they tightened up on that.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, they always eventually find the loopholes.

Seth Kubersky: There are still ones out there and you can still farm. If you see a lightning Lane attraction that is down, but still giving out passes. Grab that, because when that time comes, you’ve got a golden ticket that you can use all the rest of the day.

Dan Heaton: For sure. Well, I want to ask you about a few new things that have just come recently one very recent, which is the Adventureland Tree House, which I’m still kind of amazed they did this to have it be inspired by Swiss Family Robinson, I think only at Disneyland for a new attraction. But I’m curious you mentioned you’ve been there recently.

Seth Kubersky: I think I probably just missed it. Literally there less than a week before it opened. I was out there during the Halloween season. I got to walk around and take some pictures from a distance but the walls were still up. It was I think less than a week after I exited but you know I’m amazed is that it is only kind of lightly inspired by Swiss Family Robinson. You don’t have to really know anything about this Family Robinson and to to appreciate what they’ve gone it’s almost like an original IP.

That’s just as much Swiss Family Robinson as kind of Society of Explorers and Adventurers easter eggs that are kind of hidden in the air. But you know, it’s good to see the Treehouse returned to its roots pun very much intended. The Tarzan overlay, even when all the effects used to work was never all that great. And I love seeing the waterwheel you know returned and also I love seeing that pathway cleared they when they turned into Tarzan they dropped the big new entrance in the middle of the walkway and it really did bad things for crowd flow. So that alone was worth the whole refurb.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I mean that might make it almost worthwhile in itself just because the I remember going when Tarzan was there, and one I felt like every time I went anywhere all I heard was the music from the treehouse like that Tarzan music was full on we had all day but yeah, I think it’s cool that they’ve tried to do something different because there were rumors about Encanto and everything else which I like and can’t do as a movie, but this I feel like is going to just kind of fitting in with some of the other you know, ones around there that are not so IP themed. You know, I think it fits really well but I’m against especially for modern Disney for them to do it was very cool.

Seth Kubersky: And I think that one of the things that makes Disneyland special is these kind of little C ticket, B ticket attractions that you know, no one is other than the vloggers on opening day no one is going to Disneyland just for the Adventureland Treehouse. But these are the kind of little attractions that you know actually form kind of core memories sometimes even more than the big E tickets do in people’s and bringing back something that reminds them of something from their childhood or even from their parents’ childhood, I think is stronger than your grafting just another currently popular IP on top of it that’s going to age out in a decade.

Dan Heaton: Well speaking of IP, an area that I really enjoyed when we were at DCA right before this happened was the Pacific wharf area where it was like I love the Bakery Tour which is still there, but some of the even the little places where you get drinks and food it just seemed so nice, especially when it wasn’t like peak time and now has been re themed to San Fransokyo and I saw they were starting to do it but hadn’t yet but I’m curious. I’m curious again, not big attractions or whatever. So it still has kind of the same vibe but how has that changed at least?

Seth Kubersky: I will say there has definitely been a vibe shift. So you know you and I appreciate those quiet little corners of the parks where you can escape from the crowds and you know find a little solace find a little zen. Theme park executives do not like those spaces because they do not have a very high you know, return on investment per square foot.

They are much happier now because that place is hopping it you know they have not really added anything of significance other than a Baymax meet and greet and about half the time Baymax experiences issues with his batteries and needs to go backstage for a healing hug and can’t come out so like if your whole purpose in life is to see Baymax a check it out earlier in the day because he gets his sets delayed or canceled. Some more than your average meet and greet.

Other than that, there’s nothing new but they’ve just brought attention. They’ve brought energy and they’ve brought people; it is always packed now, which is interesting because the restaurants are serving very similar menus to what they did. They haven’t radically changed. But I will say that all the tweaked items, all of the new items that I tried I thought were really really good.

I thought there were definite improvement. I already loved the Pacific wharf Cafe for the bread bowl soups. And I was a fan of their New England Clam Chowder, but the new Miso Clam Chowder I think is actually much better. The the old New England Clam Chowder was had a lot of kind of flour and butter flavor, and the new one you get a lot of the smoky and this of the bacon and the umami from the nice coming through and I actually like the texture even better.

Dan Heaton: Well, I am happy that the food and even what I could tell the food seems to still be solid. It’s mainly just because even when we went there like it was early, I was like this is really nice. And then at lunchtime I was like ah, so now it sounds like lunchtime is like all the lunchtime and dinner.

Seth Kubersky:. Yeah, it has turned into a really popular spot. And it’s no longer the quiet little pass through into Cars Land that it used to be which is a shame. But my number one tip is all of the restaurants there take mobile order and it is like I frequently like I sat there and placed a mobile order from my phone and had it before people I saw at the end of the line even got up to the front of the line to order. So make make mobile ordering your friend.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah, it helped us there and at Disney World, same expense, except for at a few places is very, very helpful. Well, I would ask you about one that is not there yet, but is coming of course which we were there actually on the last day of Splash Mountain not by design and oh my gosh, that park. Oh my gosh.

Seth Kubersky: I did know that they had a similar situation in Walt Disney World with people desperate to be in the last boat for Splash Mountain and making fools of themselves on for social media purposes. You know, I was never the hugest fan of Splash Mountain. I do think it’s a very good log flume ride, not a ride that I would ride every time I visited unless it was really hot out and then I would use the single rider line because I wouldn’t wait in that line when it was very hot out. I do hope the single rider line survives the conversion to Tiana’s.

Dan Heaton: I hope so, too. Can I ask you a random Splash Mountain Disneyland question.

Seth Kubersky: I can give you a random answer. It might not be right.

Dan Heaton: Has it always gotten you more drenched than in Florida? Because when I went I don’t know if there were water levels were just off because it was the second to last day when I went rode it. But I got so drenched in 60-degree weather like and not at the end. It was the middle go down and go up hill. I’ve ridden Splash Mountain in Florida, but never had literally water over my head. Is that something about Disneyland’s version or is that just near the end they’re not trying?

Seth Kubersky: Disneyland has a different boat setup than Disney World. We’ve got the side by sides versus the single riders. That double dip down into the laughing place I think you’re talking about is definitely susceptible if your boat is loaded front heavy on the way up front and not on the back. That that one will get you you know, they’re both luck of the draw. The big final drop has, over the years had various amounts of splash on the bottom intentionally during you know, summer season. They sometimes turn it on, but that’s not much fun when it’s 60 degrees.

I can empathize because when I was at Universal Hollywood for Halloween Horror Nights, just at sunset. Just as Halloween Horror Nights was about to get started. I decided I’ll just jump into single rider line for Jurassic World because you don’t get that wet on that ride. I got seated in the front corner and hit that rogue wave on the mid ride little drop and spent the entire Halloween Horror Nights walking around with wet socks and wet underwear. Zero out of 10 do not recommend.

Dan Heaton: Yeah Jurassic World was closed when I was there which I was disappointed but that maybe that saved me from another soaking.

Seth Kubersky: But it was worth it to see that animatronic T-rex at the end is truly other than maybe the T-rex that they have in Beijing park that chases after you. That’s the best, best animatronic I’ve seen.

Dan Heaton: Well, I wanted to ask you too about Tiana’s just based on everything you know how interested you are. I know you mentioned that Splash it wasn’t like a favorite. But how interested are you in Tiana’s and based on what you’ve heard it? How cool does it sound to you?

Seth Kubersky: I think some of the marketing that they’re doing on it is, you know, over emphasizing the co op and the food ingredients angle. I don’t think that really is what excites Disney fans. I think they should pay more attention to the fact that they’ve got the original voice cast back recording you know, new versions of the songs recording dialogue, and then it’s going to be animatronic heavy. From what I have heard. This is not going to be another screens ride. This is not going to be something with with minimal animatronics. I also hear that they’re not just re-skinning the old America Sings. They’re going to finally let them rest in peace. I mean, those war horses, you know, they literally built back in the 60s. Some of them have survived. They deserve a noble retirement.

They deserve to go to that farm where they sent sent your puppy as a child. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. No, those animatronics are from what I hear not just going to be recycled yet again, but they are building new animatronics and a whole bunch of them. They’re not going cheap. So and also I’ve seen really exciting things about the way they’re going to use lighting and projection mapping to bring the area to life.

I really enjoyed the food that I ate at this new restaurant that was the French market. It still looks more or less like the French Market with a little you know extra decoration but their jumbalaya is great. They’ve got a good vegan gumbo that I can recommend if you are not a meat eater. The only thing that I didn’t love was the lemon icebox filled beignet. Cuz the hot venue, the cold filling and it just kind of all leaked out everywhere. That was a little bit of a letdown. Everything else I’ve had on that new menu is good. So if the rides is good as the restaurant is I’ll be happy.

Dan Heaton: Excellent. Well, another thing that is coming here which may not be as exciting well, I mean it can’t really it’s building from a low mark is the new version of the Paradise Pier hotel version of the Pixar Place Hotel. I’ve never stayed at Paradise Pier; when we went we just stayed at the Hyatt House, which is very highly rated in your book and was awesome. I’m curious. Do you have any hope that this new Pixar Place Hotel will because the thing is they’re still going to charge less than Grand Californian and Disneyland but still a lot. I’m just wondering if it’s going to help out. I’m sure it’ll draw more interest but make it a better hotel?

Seth Kubersky: I am very familiar with this hotel and I will be gentle in what I say because my company the Unofficial Guide we have DVC points and so I stay there rather often. It is not its first makeover. It might not be its last, but it certainly is not a new hotel, because this hotel predates Disney it is a very non Disney hotel that Disney purchased, you know, back before California Adventure was built and has tried to slap a new coat of paint on it every 10 years or so. I hope this coat of paint peels slower than the last. You know from the outside. The only thing that really makes it Toy Story is the bright primary colors that they’ve kind of slapped on the exterior.

There’s you know, some character to the lobby with the Luxo Jr. Lamp statue. But this is this is pretty much a standard business convention style hotel that just happens to be located across the street from Disney. But if you are looking for something that feels like a Disney resort, even though they’ve added Finding Nemo characters to the rooftop pool you know they don’t even have really any Disney theming to the only restaurant in the hotel they’ve given it over to a chain chicken and waffles restaurant. So you know if you want it to be immersed in Disney, that’s not the hotel I recommend for sure. And it is cheaper than the Grand and the Disneyland Hotel.

But it is not cheaper than hotels that are on Harbor Boulevard whose rooms are just as big and who are much shorter walk from the front gate of the park. The one caveat I will say the one kind of ace in the hole is the combination of one access to early entry getting into the theme parks 30 minutes early can be a huge advantage if it’s a busy time of the year. And number two they do have a private entrance directly into the backside of California Adventure for Paradise Pier or sorry Pixar Pier.

Pixar Place guests and that is a huge plus, except for the fact that they always kind of understaffed, the security and the turnstile people they’re at early entry so depending on how close up you are in the line, it might actually take you longer to get into the park and to your first attraction of the day from that gate than it will just walking along way and going in the front entrance.

At the end of the night though, it’s a great bonus to be able to just walk straight out after World of Color when everyone else is going out the front of the park and you just go out the back cross straight to your hotel. So that is a big plus.

Dan Heaton: Oh yeah, I’m sure you know even some of those hotels on on harbor which are very nice and stuff. Getting there kind of in the evening. When people are leaving.

Seth Kubersky: Oh yeah, that crushes people exiting the park can be really intimidating. Especially if you got a kid in a stroller or someone who is disabled. Yeah, that can be really unpleasant.

Dan Heaton: Well, I’m done talking about something that’s a little unpleasant. Because you know, I’m curious about some things that might be coming in the future. One I think is because they showed a commercial again at Destination D23. Which is the Avengers e ticket King Thanos attraction for Avengers Campus. I enjoyed Avengers Campus, but I think it definitely needs another attraction. My big question. I mean, I’m interested how excited you are. But when are we ever going to see this though? That’s kind of my big question because they still are kind of slow rolling it which we’re also seeing in Florida. It’s not just a Disneyland thing, but I mean, am I optimistic and saying maybe like 2027 Is that too late or too soon?

Seth Kubersky: I mean, I don’t think 2027 for a attraction of the scale that they are implying that they’re hinting at. There is a good little chunk of real estate behind Avengers Campus tucked behind that Quinjet that is enough for a sizable e ticket attraction, especially depending on what kind of attraction they’re going for. You know, the little bit of concept art that we’ve seen implies something that is, you know, a vehicle that is motion based with screen based elements.

But you know, I have been watching very carefully the Zootopia POVs that have just come out. I think that’s a great example of how you can do a trackless dark ride that feels a little more dynamic than Ratatouille or Mystic Manor. That’s got a good mix of practical sets and also video projections, but then also has a lot of really expressive animatronics and I would love to see some kind of combination like that. Used in an Avengers context. I’m hoping that whatever it is, isn’t purely a simulator ride because in Hong Kong, they’ve got an Iron Man experience simulator ride that is just Star Tours 3d except with a Robert Downey Jr. impersonator. And it ain’t great.

It doesn’t have any of the personality or the rewrite ability of a Star Tours. I know one time there was some very ambitious plans for a jetpack ride that was you know, you would be in a vehicle that would break apart into smaller vehicles. Disney’s wanted to do like a jet pack ride ever since the early conceptions of the space pavilion in Epcot and have never managed to figure out a way to make it work. You know, I guess the closest thing we’ll ever see is the KUKA arms at Harry Potter.

But I’ve still I’ve got my fingers crossed. Will it take another four years? I hope not. Will it take at least another two to three? Probably. So I would not delay your Disneyland vacation. You know, and it’s possible that all these plans will get reshuffled and thrown out the window if the DisneylandForward plan gets approved by the Anaheim government, because that will reshuffle all of their plans about what can go where.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, and that’s my last question on Disneyland. It relates actually to kind of Bob Iger’s strange Avatar hints about what’s coming and kind of using that for Disneyland Forward like you meant I think you’d mentioned in the book, but then also just, what is going to happen like, I mean, if people don’t know I’d love to know really briefly kind of what is the lead for it is and you reference things might change. I mean, what kind of things could change?

Seth Kubersky: There is very detailed planning documents with things like noise tests and environmental reviews. If you want to do a deep dive, you can Google this. It’s all publicly accessible, but the too long didn’t read is that Disney wants to get you in to kind of rezone their property right now they have specific spots that are our you know, hotel has to be here.

Theme park has to be here retail here. And they want to be able to just take all the land they own and mix it all together, which would give them the ability to kind of remake the west side of their property. With the parking lots the surface parking lots surrounding the Disneyland Hotel and Pixar Place Hotel and fill that in with new theme park attractions, which could either be a whole new theme park or you know, extensions to lands expanding beyond the borders of the existing theme parks.

But you know, they have put out a lot of concept art that all has to be taken with a grain of salt. They’re all placeholder ideas that were, you know, the Imagineers that we talked to calm were like, don’t take any of those Disneyland Forward ideas as gospel because that’s we’re sort of filling in what it could be. Not saying what it’s going to be.

They you know, they do say in general terms that they’re looking at, I think up to 16 attractions and they’ve kind of broken down the possibilities, so it’d be a range of big outdoor thrill rides and large scale shows at dark rides pretty much everything you would imagine in a modern theme park. They’ve floated ideas of importing attractions that they have in other parts of the world, Frozen being one of them.

But there’s also ideas about new Avatar attractions, not necessarily clones of the one we have in Orlando. And they’ve also you know, if you look carefully at the plans, you find of the Black Panther statue that the guardian of Wakanda you know, you can see things that may never happen and are kind of just there to give you an idea of what could be there. But between that and the rebuilding of the Toy Story lot and adding new parking east it looks to totally transform and expand what Disneyland offers without changing what their actual borders are.

Dan Heaton: So interesting. I feel like it’s gonna if that really gets approved, it’s gonna get so interesting but also it’s sure going to take a lot of time but still, it could be an exciting next five to 10 years.

Seth Kubersky: It will be a long process, but you know, they have said that they want to spend $60 billion on their parks around the world over the next 10 years. You know, and Josh D’Amaro when we saw him in Hong Kong and said, you know, hold on, there’s a lot of things coming and $60 billion will go a long way. So and I know that they are planning on spending a lot of that in Disneyland. I would not be surprised if they spend a lot more of that in Disneyland, especially on a per park basis than they do in Walt Disney World.

Dan Heaton: Well, it’s gonna be exciting. I mean, I want them to spend money on every park but actually in Disneyland given the crowds I saw that resorts seems like it could use a lot more but speak crowds. Also on my last trip went to Universal Hollywood, which I really enjoyed. I enjoyed the Nintendo land say that park needs a lot more things to do, judging from my experience in the lines over like early June, and one of the things they’re doing is this new Fast and the Furious coaster which I am baffled by because you got the hills and the escalators and they’re gonna I didn’t understand it, but I’m curious what interests you about this and how could you think this is going to impact to the party.

Seth Kubersky: This fast and furious coaster, which is about as confirmed as it can be, you know, we have permits people have even made fairly detailed recreations of what it will look like in CGI that you can find on YouTube to get a little preview. It’s going to be unique in the sense that it uses high speed launches with rotating cars, that they’ll be able to you know, control which direction you’re screaming as you drift around the corners.

This is I think, kind of like the biggest mea culpa in theme park history, where theme park built arrived, no one wanted Fast and Furious Supercharged out in which is neither fast nor furious, you know kind of like a what we would call a brand withdrawal where you you take something that the fans of a franchise that have given you billions of dollars and box office receipts desperately want you know, a series of films about driving fast and cars to feel like you are driving fast in a car and not just sitting in a tunnel on a bus.

Finally they are putting you in a car and making you go fast and you know the combination of the launches and the rotation and as you mentioned, the extremely hilly terrain is I think going to make a really unique coaster. I think in some ways it will be comparable to the Velocicoaster. But the spinning element is going to add a whole new angle to it.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, and also they said they could turn the cars I mean, again, the rotation you can rotate it so that it helps with noise because they have a big problem with noise there and that fascinating that they have because they gotta think about if you have that’s one of the reasons they don’t have like outdoor big coasters at that park is because you have residents.

Seth Kubersky: They have some very wealthy neighbors who do not like having a theme park there even though that it’s been there longer than most of them have been alive. But yes, they have put up barriers and done studies when I was there. There were some speakers set up to do noise tests with artificial screens.

But yeah, they’re gonna use every trick in the book to try to have sound bouncing around the mountain because it’s if you haven’t been to Universal Hollywood. It’s on the top of a freaking mountain and sound does carry especially on a clear day there. The only bad thing about this coaster coming is that it is exacerbated the problem that you mentioned, which is that there’s not enough things for the people in that park to do.

The last two big stage shows the Special Effects show and the Animal Actors show, which were very well done and were long, long time traditions at a park going back many decades, and most importantly sucked up big crowds. And yes, there are simply not enough attractions in that park.

You know, Secret Life of Pets is a lot of fun, but it’s relatively low capacity for the parks only family friendly dark ride to the point where you they have to use a virtual line a lot of the time. The whole park definitely needs an expansion you know they’re adding to hotels, or at least are planned, coming in the future and with more on site guests. They’re definitely going to need more things to do.

Dan Heaton: Yeah, I mean, Nintendo was cool, but it’s so small and when it’s crowded. Whoo. That’s a lot of people.

Seth Kubersky: You know my my advice with Nintendo is that when they are offering the upcharge early entry it is worth it. Yeah, that’s the only time you can really enjoy a lot of the interactive games in the in the land in an efficient way without you know fighting other people for every punch block. But, you know, I really loved doing the challenges and competing against Bowser Jr. I think it really adds a repeatability or replayability that once we have a larger version of it in Orlando that has a little more elbow room. I think that’ll be really great, but it’s definitely cramped and confined in in the Hollywood version.

Dan Heaton: Definitely. Well, Seth, I could talk about this all day. That Universal question I think is a good tease for at some point in the future we should talk about Universal Orlando and Hollywood on a whole separate episode. But as of now, I would love for you to let people know where they can find you online and about the many books that you’re involved with.

Seth Kubersky: Absolutely. Well, first and foremost, the Unofficial Guides is the home for my books: the Unofficial Guide to Universal Orlando, Unofficial Guide to Disneyland, Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas, and I’m also a contributor to the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. So I cover all of the bases and the 2024 books are all on sale right now. You can also find me on pretty much every social media platform at the Unofficial Guides or at skubersky.

Dan Heaton: Well awesome, Seth. It had been way too long and I’m sure it will not be as long next time. This was great.

Seth Kubersky: Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

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