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Why do People Choose to Visit Walt Disney World?

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Why do People Choose to Visit Walt Disney World? Introduction I applied to Walt Disney World’s College Internship Program, was accepted, and begin the program in May 2024. As described on the program website (Disney Careers), participants can live in Disney-owned dorm-style apartments, work as a “cast member” [employee] in one of twenty different roles, and also participate in different classroom activities. The program started in 1981 and is now one of the longest-running internships in the country. My first role was custodial at the Yacht & Beach Club resort. Within the first month, I transferred to attractions, where I have worked at the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at the Magic Kingdom ever since. By the time my program concludes in January, I will have taken over 50 hours of classroom learning and worked approximately 1,000 hours. I have posted 15 weekly articles about my experience at jsfriedland.blogspot.com, and this capstone paper will summarize my thoughts about why peo...
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Aerosmith and the Muppets

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Aerosmith and the Muppets   It's hard to imagine two franchises that are more different than Aerosmith and the Muppets. But both were in related news this week. The Wrap reported that the Muppet*Vision 3D attraction would be closing to make room for a future Monsters Inc. roller coaster (1). They also reported the Rock 'n' Roller coaster attraction would be re-themed as a Muppets ride. So let's break this down into three distinct pieces of news, with a media marketing chaser. First, back in September I wrote about all the announcements at D23 . It turns out, Disney almost announced that Monsters Inc. would force the closure of the Muppets show at D23, but changed their minds last minute (2). They were worried that the announcement would get booed! So instead they showed artwork that didn't really specify where the new Monsters Inc. ride would go. Second, why are fans so upset about a show closing? Gizmodo reports how it was one of the very last projects the Jim Hens...
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Why do People Spend so Much Money at Disney?

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Why do People Spend so Much Money at Disney? For this penultimate blog post, I wanted to reflect a bit on the topic I plan to write about in my final paper, why people keep coming back to Disney and spending so much money. While I will use the final paper to explore the topic with more academic rigor, this blog is a perfect forum for me to write a bit about my firsthand experience over the past week. My family came down for a week-long vacation! My parents drove down with our dog. My older brother, uncle, two cousins, and grandparents all flew down from various parts of the country. Even with my cast member discount, my family spent well over $15,000 on travel, rooms, park tickets, food, and merchandise. Besides just wanting to spend time together, which they could have done for much less money, why spend so much money at Disney? My thesis for the final is that there are at least four primary reasons: escapism, nostalgia, family-friendliness, and variety. Let's see how those apply...
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ABC Holiday Specials Filming

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ABC Holiday Specials Filming Earlier today I had the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes for the filming of ABC's Holiday Specials. As detailed by allears.net ABC has been filming their upcoming holiday specials this week at their different theme parks (1). I was able to participate in the filming this morning at the Magic Kingdom. As the article describes, this was the first year where Main Street was actually closed off to regular guests during filming of the holiday parade; only cast members were allowed for that portion. As an Interactive Media major, I was paying close attention to the filming process, not just the parade. For example, I noted that the production crew always had 4-5 cameras filming the action from different points-of-view. Several bloggers got some photos of the film crew setting up (2). Some others posted photos of the two hosts who were in the park, Julianna Hough and Alfonso Ribeiro (3). Lastly, Disney Tourist Blog shows a few photos of the cameras capturin...
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Discover Disney Attractions

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 Discover Disney Attractions For me, one of the most fun and informative aspects of the Disney College Internship Program is the opportunity to sign up for "Discover Disney" behind-the-scenes tours of attractions throughout the parks. First a disclaimer, because some of the information discussed during these tours are confidential, I will only write about information that is in the public domain, such as what Rock 'n' Roller Coaster looks like with the lights on (1). These tours are generally limited to only 10-20 College Program participant at a time, so monitoring the sign-up website and snagging spots quickly is critical. So far, I've had the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at the following attractions: Big Thunder Mountain (I work there), Kilimanjaro Safari, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Flight of Passage, and Expedition Everest. I am registered for Millennium Falcon in a couple weeks as well. My favorite so far has been ...
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Storytelling by Disney

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Storytelling by Disney Josh D'Amaro is one of the frontrunners to be the next CEO of The Walt Disney World Company (1). I actually met Mr. D'Amaro on one of my first days off. He was just walking through one the of theme parks, and was a super nice guy. He was happy to take a selfie with me and asked how I liked the college program. Back in August, he gave a presentation at the INBOUND conference where he talked about Disney's six steps for storytelling. Cast members had a link to watch through the employee portal, but the video is not publicly available. However, Forbes author Megan duBois wrote a nice article summarizing the speech, and I'd like to quickly walk through the six steps D'Amaro described (2). 1. Emotional Connection.  I have seen this first hand as a cast member on Big Thunder Mountain. Parents will tell their kids about their first time riding the ride, or being in the park. I get to see kids that start off the ride pretty scared come off the ride el...
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Epic News Week!

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Epic News Week!   Back in September, I speculated about Universal's Epic Universe and a rumor about a new skip-the-line option at Disney. This week, news on both topics dominated the theme parks press and were topics of conversation behind-the-scenes as well. Universal announced they were going to open both Epic Universe (1) and their new signature, connected Universal Helios Grand Hotel (2) on May 22. Both will begin selling tickets and reservations this upcoming Tuesday, October 22nd. Universal is trying to control crowd levels by initially only offering multi-day tickets, and even then only one of the days can be used at Epic Universe. The news was big enough to make national outlets like the New York Times (3). The least expensive tickets will start at $352 for off-peak days, rising to $521 for peak days. For a family of four, that could be over $2,000 just for a single day in the new park. Staying onsite at the Helios will start around $300/night, and go way up from there, ...
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