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Magic Kingdom (General Discussion)

Rumors are going around that the talking Mickey will revert to a silent one in May. :cry:

Mickey Mouse might be losing his voice in Orlando | Blogs
I'm thinking this is a cost savings measure as well. There are more than a few CMs required to help Mickey gain his voice and its a much longer M&G since everyone expects interaction. The throughput of this attraction must be very low, so the cost per guest (bean counters metric) makes it prohibitive to roll out to other characters.
 
From what I understand there has been a lot of guest negatives when children meet Mickey in this location where he talks and then meet him somewhere else and he refuses to talk to them. On top of that, it costs 3 times as much to run this M&G.
That's what I heard, plus the costume weighs more so hurts the Cast Member supporting the heavy computer thingy on their neck, at least from Twitter rumors anyway.
 
Yeah, it may sound like an excuse to cost cut (that they are totally taking advantage of), but there has definitely been a lot of confusion as to why Mickey can talk but Minnie can't. Or why Mickey can talk at MK but not at any of the other parks. Had they continued to roll it out it would've been fine, but it does cost considerably more to run and in my experience, it lowers capacity when they run talking Mickey versus silent Mickey, as the M&G experience is longer.
 
That's what I heard, plus the costume weighs more so hurts the Cast Member supporting the heavy computer thingy on their neck, at least from Twitter rumors anyway.

I've heard that as well, it sounds like a tough gig.

I think Disney will test the waters with this as well, if the guest scores don't drop too much it will be permanent but I think this could be reversed at any time.
 
I think Disney will test the waters with this as well, if the guest scores don't drop too much it will be permanent but I think this could be reversed at any time.
Agreed, they already use a considerable amount of this tech (sans the actual speaking) with the castle shows, which I think look great, with the blinking and mouth motions adding to the show. Unless they can get better at the interaction piece, which is where the complications come in, I think it may be gone for a while.
Anyone know how the tech works for transformers? I know they interact in some way, but is it through another TM?
 
Reminder that Pirates is going down for refurbishment February 26 through March 18, 2018 to alter the "We wants the Redhead" Auction scene.

It will be interesting to finally see that scene in English. The translations of the version in Paris don't give a full picture of the nuance of what's going on.

I hope it feels somewhat organic.
 
Patented Joe Alternative Take: Talking Mickey is temporarily going away to upgrade the technology and expand it. The UG guest surveys rank the talking Mickey m&g as the #1 rated attraction at WDW.
Hope you're right. I really feel it was a step in the right direction for meet & greets.
 

I believe they were chanting that not because the ride hadn't officially closed for refurb yet. The ride was evac'd (or so I heard) and all of those that came to see the ride for one last time started congregating.

This is really all a moot point because 1. Said "redhead" will still be there and 2. Magic Kingdom's PotC will still be the worst.
 
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I believe they were chanting that not because the ride hadn't officially closed for refurb yet. The ride was evac'd (or so I heard) and all of those that came to see the ride for one last time started congregating.

This is really all a mute point because 1. Said "redhead" will still be there and 2. Magic Kingdom's PotC will still be the worst.
I really wish they could've found more room to build our Pirates, it's missing so many great scenes from the original. (I also really wish we'd get a Blue Bayou, that food looks so good).
 
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