Disney’s Year in Review 2018

We have just finished one of the most exciting years in the history of the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) and Disney theme parks. It was a record-setting year financially, and Disney opened a couple of new themed lands, too. As we all chug egg nog, shake our presents, and watch Hallmark Christmas movies, let’s take this opportunity to reflect on a remarkable year. Here were the most important things that happened for DVC members in 2018.

Toy Story Land
The addition of new themed lands at American Disney parks is rare. Over the previous 10 years, we’d only witnessed two, New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom and Pandora – The World of Avatar at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. During 2018 alone, Disney doubled this total by opening two more. One of them is a re-theming of a former land, but the other one is entirely original, at least to American audiences.
Toy Story Land opened on June 30, 2018, and altered the perception of Disney’s Hollywood Studios seemingly overnight. That park has struggled in recent years due to the perception that it’s lacking in ride volume. In terms of quality, any place with Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith, and Star Tours is doing fine. When Disney closed The Great movie Ride, however, quantity became a valid criticism.
The introduction of Toy Story Land solved the problem. Guests can now visit Slinky Dog Dash, Alien Swirling Saucers, and a modified line queue for Toy Story Mania!. The theming for the entire area is immaculate, as guests “shrink” down to the size of toys, causing the entire world around them to seem larger than life.
Toy Story Land even came with a terrific new restaurant. Woody’s Lunch Box is true counter service in that it doesn’t have any indoor seating. It’s just a counter with some outdoor seating in the surrounding area. The dishes here will return you to your youth, as it’s comfort food like tater tots and grilled cheese sandwiches, only elevated by Disney chefs. This restaurant is the perfect complement to the overall theme of Toy Story Land.

Pixar Pier
The other new themed land was formerly Paradise Pier at Disney California Adventure (DCA). Imagineers are currently in the process of renovating this section with new attractions. The process should take until 2020, but Disney officially introduced it on June 23, 2018. Yes, in a span of seven days, Disneyland and Walt Disney World both opened new themed lands.
Pixar Pier’s theme is exactly what it sounds like. In future years, DCA will have two main aspects, Pixar and Marvel. The new pier sets the tone for the Pixar portion. The shops and restaurants here feature your favorite Pixar characters. For example, the Abominable Snowman from Monsters, Inc. has rebranded with Adorable Snowman Frosted Treats. Anger from Up has decided to use his rage-induced flaming head to sell hot dogs at Angry Dogs. Charm is on full display everywhere at Pixar Pier.
Disney repurposed a pair of existing attractions as anchors for Pixar Pier. The former Mickey’s Fun Wheel is now the Pixar Pal-A-Round, where each gondola stars a different Pixar character. The E ticket attraction was once California Screamin’, which tied into the overall park theme of California.
In June, California Screamin’ re-emerged as the Incredicoaster, just in time for the release of The Incredibles 2. The roller coaster winks at one of the storylines from that film, as baby Jack-Jack, the youngest of the Parr children, goes on a babysitting adventure. His dozens of superpowers allow him to escape from Edna Mode, forcing the rest of the family to employ their abilities to chase after him. The kinetic nature of the ride blends perfectly with the highly detailed theming. The Incredicoaster is an instant classic and in the conversation for best overall Disney roller coaster.

The Next Land
With all due respect to Toy Story Land and Pixar Pier, the next themed land is the one that has everyone’s attention. Star Wars Land should do for Hollywood Studios what Pandora did for Animal Kingdom, only to the nth degree.
Disney has carefully controlled the news releases for this area, which we now know is named Star Wars Land: Galaxy’s Edge. During 2018, park officials also revealed that the planetary setting for this place is Batuu, a place on the edge of civilization. Due to its placement far away from the Empire/First Order, it’s a popular place for smugglers. Fittingly, the location of the Batuu settlement is Black Spire Outpost.
When park guests visit Black Spire Outpost, they’ll have their choice of two new attractions. The name for one of them is Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run. The other is Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance. Internally, Disney has described Millennium Falcon as the E ticket attraction, but the prevailing belief is that both ride experiences are unprecedented.
We learned a few other interesting items about Star Wars Land during the past year. A restaurant called Oga’s Cantina is part of Smuggler’s Outpost, and the area will include a high-end character show as part of the meal. Finally and most importantly, we now know that Disneyland will open its version of Star Wars Land first. It’ll debut in the summer of 2019, while Walt Disney World will get their own Star Wars Land later in the fall of next year.

Plenty of Resort Changes
Recapping an entire year of Disney park news is challenging due to the sheer volume of changes that transpire. Rather than discuss each one in exhaustive detail, I’ll hit the highlights in this section.
The most important announcement for DVC members is one that won’t even open until 2022. We already know that Disney’s Riviera Resort will debut next fall as the 15th resort. Disney is already looking ahead to what comes next after that. They recently started clearing out the former River Country water park area.
At Destination D, park officials confirmed that the 16th DVC resort is named Reflections – A Disney Lakeside Lodge. It’s still more than three years away from opening to the public, but Disney has revealed that it will have a nature focus, even more than Disney’s Wilderness Lodge.
Speaking of Wilderness Lodge, Reunion Station opened earlier in 2018. Designed as a “member gathering place”, the private lounge struggled in the early months due to some restrictive usage policies. Disney later relaxed them, providing other DVC members with an opportunity to visit the facility.
Another DVC resort change is a less happy one. Disney once again increased the prices of one-time points. Only a couple of years ago, members could purchase up to 24 additional points for a modest cost of $15 each. Since then, DVC has raised rates twice. You’ll now pay $19 per point when you need extra points for your trip.
Disney almost added another new resort, but those plans fell apart in 2018. Park officials had gone so far as to close some businesses at Downtown Disney in anticipation of breaking ground on a new Disneyland resort.
This property would have had DVC villas available, thereby adding to the currently limited inventory at the Happiest Place on Earth. Unfortunately, the city of Anaheim reneged on a promised tax incentive over semantics, forcing Disney executives to kill the project. It’s a regrettable but unavoidable turn of events.
Disney also changed some parts of the hotel room experience. For starters, they introduced remarkable technology that allows you to open your hotel door by using your smartphone! I won’t lie. The first time we tested out this process, I felt like a wizard uttering the phrase, “Open sesame!”
The other big room changes are fascinating. Corporate officials triggered a new plan to reduce their environmental footprint. They removed plastics from several locations, including straws at restaurants and bags at stores. They also stopped using plastic bottles for sundries like shampoo and soap in hotel rooms. Instead, refillable containers have replaced them. According to Disney estimates, they’ll use 80 percent less plastic thanks to these changes.
Disney signed a new sponsor in 2018, too. Generally, such negotiations don’t impact DVC hotel rooms, but this one does. From now on, Whirlpool is the official appliance of The Walt Disney Company. As a benefit of this new agreement, many DVC hotel rooms will have outdated appliances phased out in favor of high-end Whirlpool appliances.
The other interesting alteration of Disney hotel room policy involves the Do Not Disturb sign. For security reasons, hotel employees have changed these signs to say “Room Occupied”. The implication is that cast members maintain the right to enter your room as needed. No, your privacy hasn’t vanished. It’s a needed security measure in the wake of high-profile terrorist incidents like the one in Las Vegas where a nutjob had stockpiled a ton of guns in his hotel room.
Disney changed one other aspect of a hotel stay this past year. They introduced resort parking fees for the first time. Guests pay a set daily amount depending on the resort where the stay, with Deluxe accommodations charging the most. DVC members with cards are happily exempt from these charges, though.
DVC members tragically did lose a couple of wonderful things/people during 2018. Sammy Duvall’s Watersports, a staple of Disney’s Contemporary Resort, closed for good. DVC members are no longer able to rent a boat and enjoy an aquatic adventure here.
While losing a wonderful business for hobbyists is sad, it pales in comparison to the real tragedy of 2018. Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa’s favorite son, Richard Gerth, passed away in June. He was 92 years young and impacted the lives of literally thousands of people during his tenure as a Disney cast member. Many of the people reading this could share stories of encounters with Gerth, who befriended everyone he met. His loss will be felt at the Grand Floridian, but memories of him will linger for decades to come.

Other Disney/DVC News
Let’s start this section with the big one. DVC is under new management. Jeff Vahle became President of Disney Signature Experiences in April. His duties include oversight of Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, and Disney Vacation Club. He replaces Ken Potrock, who became President of Disney Consumer Products Commercialization. Thus far, the transition has been seamless.
Disney also introduced a long overdue new booking system for DVC members. It features a much richer feature set and dramatically improves the process of booking a DVC vacation. The new system has caused a bit more downtime than in previous years, but that’s to be expected for any technological change. It takes time to correct all the minor hiccups in the programming.

Miscellany
Let’s close with the final four major news items of 2018. The first is that Disney updated their admission ticket pricing. The intricacies of the new system are difficult to summarize intelligibly. The gist is that it’s the logical conclusion of surge pricing, the practice Disney employed a few years ago. You now pay based on the date of your visit.
Some days cost more since Disney wants to keep attendance as flat as possible. The idea is to charge more on the most crowded days and charge less on the emptiest days to entice guests to alter their standard visitation behavior.
Transportation represents another way that Disney visitor behavior has changed. Ride-sharing services have cropped up in recent years, offering guests a way of skipping the erratic buses and boats. In 2017, Disney introduced Minnie Vans, but these adorable vehicles were only available at a few resorts.
Over the past year, Disney expanded the service to all official resorts, DVC and non-DVC alike. Airport pick-up and drop-off is now available, too. Minnie Vans also switched to a different pricing model, one with a flat fee. Then, they altered it again to charge a (lower) flat fee plus a per-mile cost. Both of these changes led to higher pricing overall for Minnie Vans. The remarkable success of the vehicles has emboldened park officials to charge more.
While Disney adds several new restaurants each year, most of them are at the parks or Downtown Disney/Disney Springs. A couple of notable entries arrived at resorts over the past year. Wilderness Lodge introduced Storybook Dining at Artist Point, a Signature Dining character meal starring Snow White and a few of her Seven Dwarfs. The Evil Queen even makes an appearance, although you should probably give her a wide berth.
At Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort, huge changes are afoot. The closest hotel to the upcoming Riviera Resort, Caribbean Beach added a couple of new restaurants that will become popular with DVC fans. Centertown Market serves Caribbean-inspired dishes, while Sebastian’s Bistro has a quirky conceit. Sebastian the crab hosts a dining experience wherein the main course is…seafood. It seems cannibalistic to me, but early reviews are glowing.
The final DVC story of the year is expansion of the Moonlight Magic concept. These special parties are nighttime extravaganzas where DVC members are the exclusive guests. Disney keeps a park open for the evening, and the only people who get to visit are those of us who are program participants. It’s a terrific, free benefit.
Disney offered more Midnight Magic dates than ever before in 2018, and they’ve already promised even more during the coming year. Amusingly, they did change the food policy midway through the year. During the first few events, guests could eat whenever/whatever they wanted.
Apparently, DVC members were too hungry for Disney’s preferences. So, you now get meal vouchers for each attending member of your family. These vouchers are good for an entrée, a side dish, and a non-alcoholic beverage. The whole thing is very Disney. They want to give you something to thank you for being a part of DVC…but they also don’t want you to eat too much. Disney is like a loving parent that worries you’ve gotten too soft in the middle.
After 2,300 words of news updates, you can see that a lot happened to Disney during calendar 2018. The stunning thought is that 2019 is currently poised to become an even bigger year. Star Wars Land will garner headlines like nothing we’ve seen from Disney during the 21st century. It’s the biggest deal for the company since at least the opening of Animal Kingdom if not Walt Disney World itself!