Disney adds "Extra Magic" park hours for the holidays, which sounds extra bad
Aux Features Theme park
It’s been a long year, fraught with anxiety and isolation and uncertainty, and the nagging dread of impending fascist apocalypse. But Disney has just the thing to cure your 2020 blues: Extra Magic. The corporation has decided to extend holiday hours at Epcot and Magic Kingdom during the first week of December, per a report in USA Today. These so-called “Extra Magic” hours will afford park visitors the opportunity to extra-spread this extra-shitty virus in the corporatized comfort of a family-friendly theme park with just a few teensy reminders of the pandemic—namely, there will be no events that draw large crowds, like Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party or the Castle Dream Lights holiday show. Visitors will still be able to take photos alongside their favorite Disney characters and Santa Claus, but social-distancing will be enforced. What better keepsake for this stupid experience than a photo of your child wearing a mask while Goofy safely stands six feet away.
As the COVID-19 death toll reaches 200,000 in the U.S., government officials continue to make decisions that are not in the best interest of the people, but in the best interest of corporations and their bank accounts. But hey, Magic Kingdom will be open later for one whole week this December, so that’s nice.
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No surprise. I’ve been predicting for months that people are going to go nuts this holiday season trying to find “extra special” things to do with their families and corporate America will exploit that desire to the fullest. Offer any activity with the word “holiday” affixed to it and people will literally climb over each other to get to it. I live in a rock solid Democratic city and county but the restaurants around here are packed solid every night of the week. The very same people who rant about anti-maskers have their own masks off and are chattering away like monkeys. Everyone is getting way too comfortable. Once cabin fever kicks in things are going to get really ugly.
Why even eat out now of days just take it to go. Especially in hot weather outdoors.
Yes, a lot of the same people who blame everything on Trump and his supporters (not that they don’t share most of the blame) are not doing their part to help either, taking the whole family shopping, dinning and to public places when they know this is exactly what they should be avoiding.People’s desire to got back to normal is the reason why may not really get to for a long time.
I am definitely do not live in a Democrat-majority place, but I have, at the very least, been happy to see a nearly-total compliance with the mask mandate…except for restaurants and social gatherings. You would think the cognitive dissonance—this is fun but, you know, very deadly—would be enough to put people off these types of activities (especially with restaurants where take-out is available), but powerful biases (most likely affect and social norms bias at work) give people just enough justification to ignore the klaxons and sirens going off in their head. And then if they don’t get sick right away from their common-sense-flaunting misadventure, it just emboldens them to go bigger next time.
I assumed this type of behavior was the basis for the dire predictions about rising deaths in the fall, because Fauci has too much tact to say “because there are still too many fucking idiots in this country”.
“Holiday Dynamite Chilli!”
I am all for following the precautions, but you can’t eat and constantly put your mask back on at a dinner table. I’ve only gone out to eat 3x since March, always in very small groups, and once we stand up to move anywhere we put masks back on. I think it’s reasonable as long as restaurants don’t pack too many tables and continue to operate at lower capacity. I think the real problem is going to be now that the weather is getting colder (at least here in NYC) and “indoor dining” comes back, and other indoor activities get pressured to return. I have no problem staying home again and only visiting a select few people I’m close to.
Serious question for the AVClub: why so much crapping on Disney specifically and no mention of Universal Studios? Universal reopened before WDW and by all accounts has had more people going to their parks. And Disney is much bigger and more spread out than Universal Studios, so they have more room to spread people out.
I was wondering the same. Must be because NBC/Universal/Comcast is just a small, Mom & Pop, operation and not the giant corporation that Disney/Marvel/ABC is.Also, if these are the same as the non-pandemic “extra magic hours” then they are only open to Disney Resort guests and crowds are substantially smaller during these extended opening times. I have read that the vast majority of people in the parks right now are Florida residents with some of the hotels still closed and the rest of them operating at a fraction of capacity. So this would probably be the safest time to visit a Disney park since they will be nearly empty.
Also no long lines.
Based on everything we’ve read – and an article I just consulted before posting my first comment – even with the parks open they are not even reaching their maximum “pandemic capacity” the vast majority of the times. Crowds are very low and you’re right, extra magic hours are only for resort guests anyway. (Full disclosure: we’re avid Disney World fans — but the hypocrisy of the AVC’s coverage would irk me anyway.)
We are also big fans and probably would have gone this October or January/February if not for the pandemic. We still haven’t seen Pandora or Galaxy’s Edge and part of me says now is the time to go because lines are short, but it’s not really safe enough, it’s not the full experience, it’s still expensive, and it’s Florida, so 14 day quarantine upon return. I can’t make those scales balance anywhere near enough to do it.
We saw Pandora last year – we were at the parks for a couple days leading up to my BIL’s wedding (which was not on property). It’s honestly very cool considering that I don’t give a single crap about the movie. If/when you do go, see it at night — just walking around is really cool, there’s lots of faux bioluminescent stuff.
That response from Alex basically ignores everything you and I have said in this entire thread and blows off your completely reasonable question without any consideration at all. It’s very disappointing.
As soon as Universal Studios schedules “Extra Magic” hours we’ll happily scorn them, too.
You did not answer my very reasonable question. This isn’t about Extra Magic Hours (which, as others have pointed out, don’t really increase crowds), but about why I’ve seen *zero* mention of Universal and other parks in Florida in between your breathless snark about Disney.
It’s not extra Magic hours dip shit. They added one hour on to the closing time. Stop getting your news from the Av club, fucktard.
having attended both parks, I feel like besides attracting comparable crowds, Universal attracts the type of non-mask wearing “patriots” that would be highly effective super-spreaders, so yeah this is a good question.
My guess would be because this is an article about something that is going to be happening in relation to the Disney parks, so they’re talking about Disney and not Universal Studios.And also, who the hell has ever given a damn about Universal Studios?
Oh please, they pull in related topics to this sort of thing all the time, and it’s a broader question than just this one article – I’ve seen ZERO criticism of Universal (or SeaWorld, or whatever) on this site. Only Disney.There are hardcore Universal fans out there – I may not be one, but they do exist.
Because the AV Club doesn’t really give a shit about theme parks or the larger complexities of what the industry is doing in the wake of the coronavirus, it just wants a quick “Disney Bad” article it can pump out in under 10 minutes (notice how its 2 paragraphs and barely says anything specific) and can blast out to get a bunch of clicks, and it lets the writers bolster their feelings of being anti-corporate rebels as they continue to hawk amazon products and work for a private equity firm.On some level I think so much of the reason that “Disney Bad” is such a common topic is because Disney has such consistent branding that your average person can establish a history and reputation for the company, while I’d argue if you walked up to a random person, even somebody who considers themselves pretty plugged-in to media, they would struggle with saying who owns Universal. This allows Every thing that a Disney subsidiary does to be attributed to them, while the other huge conglomerate subsidiaries aren’t written into a larger trend. For as bad as Disney can be (and they can be *bad*), the more I read the trades and study up on industry history, the more of a sense I get that they aren’t really all that different than the others, and its only really because you can contrast their actions with the Brand that they get more heat, and even that’s darkly funny because the other studios lust after the level of Brand Disney has.
I don’t understand why people are still getting bent out of shape by a little synechdoche. Disney is the most notable member of the set of amusement parks and is used to represent the entire set.People try to invoke some conspiracy theory or payola, but lets be real: no one is paying off Gawker sites for anything.
I know that AVClub loves to shit on Disney, but this post is dumb. The “Extra Magic” hours concept has been around for years, so that’s nothing new. Park rules during those hours are the same as any other time, it’s just that only people staying at Disney resorts can be there. Which means the number of people in the parks during those hours is less than the normal amount, which is already much lower than normal because of COVID.I understand the argument that going to Disney right now is a bad idea. But Extra Magic hours doesn’t make it worse.
What you said.
The folks at Disneyland should put a mask on that statue of Uncle Walt.
Those kids have a “so you’re wondering how I got here …” look.
This is really horrible news considering all the reports on how Disney is a major COVID-19 hotspot, and all of the data suggesting that the parks are essentially super spreader events.Oh, that’s right no such data exists. Disney has done a remarkable job in mitigating risk, forcing mask compliance on employees and guests, and keeping their stuff clean. Poultry processors, public schools, and the Sturgis rally should study up on what Disney has learned.
this reminds me of the fantastic old Simpsons joke where Marge asks one of the employees at “Not-Disney World” how cool it is to celebrate New Years Eve every night and he says “kill me”. BTW there is no fucking way someone hasn’t contracted Covid-19 at DW or DL yet, they’re just much better at keeping it under wraps while they work on mitigating the damage to their titanic bottom line.
You don’t know a fucking thing. Go back to jerking off to anime.
Disneyland has been closed since March 14th with no opening date announced yet. So it is pretty unlikely that any visitors have gotten COVID there in the last 6 months.
I have been to Disney World twice since they re-opened, for extended stays.Am I crazy? Perhaps. But I felt infinitely safer at Disney than I do where I live. Everyone is masked. Everyone undergoes temp screenings (they aren’t perfect, but at least they get rid of symptomatic carriers). Everything is cleaned religiously. And because everyone is following the rules, the social pressure is insane on people to, you know, FOLLOW THE RULES! Plus they have plainclothes cops who will whisk you out of the park if you try to go all Trumpy on them.If the rest of the US followed the Disney protocols, we wouldn’t be in this mess…..except Disney Springs. Eff that. Drinking and precautions don’t mix. If you go to Disney, I wouldn’t recommend Disney Springs after dark. Went by it once, wouldn’t go again.
You stupid fucks were predicting massive outbreaks linked to the reopening of Disney world yet here we are months later with no outbreaks linked. Shut the ever loving fuck up, you shit stain of a human. Peoples jobs depend on the parks being open and they are demonstrably safe. Shove your fear mongering up your prolapsed asshole you call a mouth.