There’s excellent news about Walt Disney World character experiences, as extra are returning to Magic Kingdom this month and in February 2023. Here we’ll cowl what’s coming again, Genie+ Lightning Lane additions, plus commentary about causes, implications and what’s nonetheless lacking.
Let’s begin with the excellent news, as a few meet & greets quietly returned to Magic Kingdom over the weekend. Back in Storybook Circus, the Meet Daring Disney Pals as Circus Stars at Pete’s Silly Side Show is now again. That means the meet & greets for Daisy Fortuna and Minnie Magnifique (on one facet) and the Astounding Donaldo and his daring stuntman pal the Great Goofini (on the opposite facet) have reopened. These are wonderful, under-the-radar meet & greets, with enjoyable Easter Eggs within the queue and funky costumes–glad they’re lastly again!
The oblique explanation for that is doubtless the conclusion of celebration season at Magic Kingdom. Since August 12 of final yr, Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party pulled a whole lot of performers to these arduous ticket occasions. That was an enormous a part of why Town Square Theater and Princess Fairytale Hall noticed wait instances spike and Lightning Lane stock lower–these events had important staffing necessities, and useful resource reallocation because of this.
Keeping the momentum going, Walt Disney World has introduced that the final two main character experiences will return within the subsequent month.
First, Ariel’s Grotto will reopen January 22, 2023. This is the Little Mermaid meet & greet, with a location carved out close to the exit of the Under The Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid attraction in Fantasyland.
Following that, the Enchanted Tales with Belle will reopen February 19, 2023.
For those that are unfamiliar with it, Enchanted Tales with Belle is an elaborate character expertise (for lack of a greater time period) in New Fantasyland. When this attraction debuted a few decade in the past, it was much-maligned by Walt Disney World followers, a lot of whom criticized it as a waste of area or had been disenchanted that it wasn’t a darkish experience.
It’s secure to imagine a lot of these critics don’t have babies. For our half, we’ve been huge followers of Enchanted Tales with Belle since day one. While solely children and their mother and father are prone to love the substance of the expertise, everybody will probably be impressed by the know-how utilized and parts of the storytelling.
Personally, I believe Enchanted Tales with Belle is a superb evolution of meet & greets–I simply want it higher blended the character element and storytelling with a little bit of humor. (Similar to the Frozen Sing-Along, which works on completely different ranges.) Enchanted Tales with Belle is nice for its target market, however not fairly nearly as good for all ages because it could possibly be. (And adults essentially will probably be within the viewers, since children don’t go to Walt Disney World sans mother and father.)
The Ariel’s Grotto meet & greet and Enchanted Tales with Belle will each be added as Lightning Lane choices to the Genie+ service on their respective reopening dates. This will probably be along with the standby traces, which each character experiences can even supply.
This makes the already loaded Lightning Lane lineup at Magic Kingdom even higher. It’s already far and away the very best park for the paid FastPass service at Walt Disney World, which is owing to higher capability than every other park–and at a greater variety of sights. (Still not so good as Disneyland, however the one Walt Disney World park that’s even remotely shut.)
It has been some time because the FastPass+ days and rather a lot has clearly modified since. To the very best of my recollection, each Ariel’s Grotto and Enchanted Tales with Belle had been medium-priority FP+ choices. My preliminary guess is that the identical will maintain true for Lightning Lanes.
We’ll replace our Magic Kingdom Genie+ Lightning Lane Rankings shortly after Ariel’s Grotto and Enchanted Tales with Belle return, however my intestine response is that each of those needs to be slotted above Princess Fairytale Hall. These are each decrease capability and better demand than these devoted princess meet & greets. (Town Square Theater additionally wants a downgrade in these rankings–that has fallen in precedence since celebration season ended.)
All of those are comparatively important developments that might bode nicely for each different meet & greets and character eating experiences. As has been famous in different posts on a number of events, Walt Disney World has been experiencing a ‘princess shortage.’ This is one huge cause why meals with face characters–Akershus, 1900 Park Fare, Bon Voyage Breakfast, and even the conventional Cinderella’s Royal Table–have been gradual to return.
While casting necessities range, we’re nonetheless a bit shocked that the above meet & greets would return earlier than increasing meal providers on the aforementioned eating places. The latter straight generate income, whereas the previous are extra supporting gamers, for lack of a greater time period. They’re not devoted meet & greet areas, simply areas in Magic Kingdom the place characters have traditionally appeared.
There’s extra excellent news for these hoping to see the still-shuttered eating places or lacking meal providers return. Disney Programs introduced final week that the long-awaited return of character performer roles has returned to the Disney College Program.
Applications at the moment are open for these character performer function auditions. However, Disney College Program contributors gained’t be in these positions till the Fall 2023 season. Obviously, that’s a good distance off–that means there’s no fast aid from College Program contributors. (In equity, that’s in all probability in regards to the time they’ll be urgently wanted–proper across the time MNSSHP and MVMCP return once more.)
Finally, let’s check out the leisure that was eliminated for the official Walt Disney World web site a number of months in the past:
Animal Kingdom
- Pandora Drummers – Swotu Wayä
- Pandora Rangers
EPCOT
- British Revolution
- Jeweled Dragon Acrobats
- Serveur Amusant
Hollywood Studios
- Citizens of Hollywood
- Jedi Training Academy
- Jingle Bell, Jingle BAM!
- Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular
- Voyage of the Little Mermaid
Magic Kingdom
- Citizens of Main Street
- Main Street Trolley Show
- Meet Alice in Wonderland on the Mad Tea Party
- Meet Gaston at his Tavern
- Meet Tinker Bell at Town Square Theater
Ultimately, it’s nice information that extra Magic Kingdom meet & greets are being restored. This will carry the park near regular as in comparison with pre-closure, at the very least when it comes to character experiences. Ariel’s Grotto and Enchanted Tales with Belle had been two actually huge ones.
However, there’s nonetheless extra to be restored to hit 100% at Walt Disney World. Based on credible rumors we’ve heard, a few of that is by no means coming again. Some exhibits and leisure acts will doubtless obtain oblique replacements or reimagined successors. Others are doubtless simply gone for good, with no replacements (direct or oblique) contemplated.
Our hope is that that is one factor that Walt Disney World administration revisits within the months to return whereas evaluating methods to enhance the visitor expertise. Reducing leisure, characters, and streetmosphere is short-term considering for a enterprise unit that needs to be extra fixated on long-term well being. It’s as if Walt Disney World is teetering on the precipice of insolvency, at the same time as the corporate boasts about how per-guest spending is hitting document highs.
Charging extra and providing much less may be one solution to obtain short-term targets, however there are actually long-term detrimental penalties to that method. This has been our perspective every time leisure has been reduce for the final 5+ years, however it feels well timed to reiterate at the same time as characters are being restored, as the corporate is actively on the lookout for methods to undo a few of the previous harm proper now. Walt Disney World persevering with to revive leisure is a superb repair that might increase goodwill and visitor satisfaction, whereas demonstrating to followers that administration “gets” what makes the parks particular.
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about lodges on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To get monetary savings on tickets or decide which sort to purchase, learn our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets put up. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips put up takes a singular have a look at intelligent objects to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the very best place to begin is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for every part that you must know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you consider these Enchanted Tales with Belle and Ariel’s Grotto reopening in Magic Kingdom? Are you optimistic or pessimistic about WDW restoring “temporarily unavailable” leisure as performer availability improves, or assume that’s irrelevant? Think the character performer roles returning to the College Program bodes nicely for extra being restored (e.g. Seven Dwarfs) to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party? Worried that Walt Disney World would possibly by no means get again to 100% when it comes to leisure? Any questions we might help you reply? Hearing your suggestions–even if you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!