Rivers of Light General Discussion and Photos

[Nick]

So, like "Nope!" they aren't even touching this show with a ten foot pole because of how much effort it will take to fix and they hope if they don't say anything everybody will just forget it was a thing that was suppose to happen? Or, like "Nope!" because Disney is scared to announce another date but they are ACTIVELY working on getting this to the public as quickly as possible?

They're still working on the show daily. They don't want to have to extend Jungle Book past summer.

 

[Badgeking]

They're still working on the show daily. They don't want to have to extend Jungle Book past summer.

Ok good! Hopefully I will get lucky and be able to see it while I am there from Sept. 15-22.

 

[Nick]

Ok good! Hopefully I will get lucky and be able to see it while I am there from Sept. 15-22.

They are still having a lot of trouble with it though, so just because they don't "want" to extend JB doesn't necessarily mean they won't unfortunately.

 

[Badgeking]

Well, only 47 more days of scheduled JB show and JB dinner packages. Still no word on Rivers of Light. Also a little concerning that none of the current nighttime stuff is planned past Sept 5th. Are they giving up on night time stuff until Avatar opens next summer and by then hopefully RoL will be ready? Seems fishy...

 

[Mad Dog]

Well, only 47 more days of scheduled JB show and JB dinner packages. Still no word on Rivers of Light. Also a little concerning that none of the current nighttime stuff is planned past Sept 5th. Are they giving up on night time stuff until Avatar opens next summer and by then hopefully RoL will be ready? Seems fishy...

Interesting, since they advertised the night activities in AK very heavily in the marketing brochures for end of August through December vacations. If they go back to normal closing hours there will certainly be a lot of unhappy angry tourists.

 

[twodoodles]

I specifically rented DVC points for a night at Animal Kingdom Villas, in order to be nearby to experience the new evening entertainment at AK...but I am beginning to think we'll be better off enjoying a day at the resort instead of using a day on our park tickets at AK. We are there Oct 30, so if we are lucky, things might have progressed by then!

 

[Nick]

RoL is out testing during park hours once again... Or at least the Tiger and Turtle floats were (among possible others):

Supposedly significant progress has been made. I have to think they want this to open not to long after JB closes, but they certainly aren't going to make an announcement about it again until they are 100% confident it can run smoothly twice a night, every night. Which could mean any announcement for it's (second) opening date could come very close to the first showing.

 

[Badgeking]

This is great news!! One of the reason's I decided to book a Disney portion during my Orlando vacation was to see RoL. Hopefully this is up and running sometime during the week I am there Sept 15-22.

 

[Nick]

This is great news!! One of the reason's I decided to book a Disney portion during my Orlando vacation was to see RoL. Hopefully this is up and running sometime during the week I am there Sept 15-22.

Definitely temper expectations. Don't expect anything and if it happens, it happens.

Here's more testing this morning though:

 

[Badgeking]

Can't believe we still don't have anything sort of official update on the project. Didn't they say they would provide a blog post update by the end of May? Been noticing around the web some various "news" reports about how the highly promoted night time events at AK seem to already be a failure with the park closing earlier and earlier as the rest of the year goes on. You would think Disney would be trying to avoid bad press like this.

 

[Galaxy Defender]

Can't believe we still don't have anything sort of official update on the project. Didn't they say they would provide a blog post update by the end of May? Been noticing around the web some various "news" reports about how the highly promoted night time events at AK seem to already be a failure with the park closing earlier and earlier as the rest of the year goes on. You would think Disney would be trying to avoid bad press like this.

It is likely hard to do an update when you're not sure yourself. I think Disney also wants to avoid raising expectations and dashing them again.

 

[Nick]

 

[GAcoaster]

I'd guess they're trying for a soft opening this fall with a grand opening just before Christmas and the big crowds that they'll want to spread across the property. Especially without the Osborne Lights this year.

 

[Badgeking]

Seems like if they are doing big testing like this during the day (are the two main actors on the boats?), they want to get this open ASAP! My guess is they are going to do a very long soft opening without any sort of announcement to make sure things are running BEFORE they announce the first "official" performance and invite the media. They really kinda did things funny the first time by inviting media down and not really doing any sort of soft opening shows and giving out the date before they knew it was running fine.

If testing like this keeps up, hopefully we get soft's in a few weeks that run from mid Sept. thru beginning of Nov. so they can officially open it a couple weeks before Thanksgiving before crowds come down.

 

[Galaxy Defender]

Seems like if they are doing big testing like this during the day (are the two main actors on the boats?), they want to get this open ASAP! My guess is they are going to do a very long soft opening without any sort of announcement to make sure things are running BEFORE they announce the first "official" performance and invite the media. They really kinda did things funny the first time by inviting media down and not really doing any sort of soft opening shows and giving out the date before they knew it was running fine.

If testing like this keeps up, hopefully we get soft's in a few weeks that run from mid Sept. thru beginning of Nov. so they can officially open it a couple weeks before Thanksgiving before crowds come down.

Disney's fiscal quarter ends September 30th. I think we all know that those attendance numbers are not good. Disney would dearly like to have this open to help on those numbers even if it's only a couple of weeks before the end of the quarter.

 

[GAcoaster]

I don't think it will be though. That's why they gave all the CMs two free tickets to use by that date, hoping to boost the numbers.

 

[Nick]

This is shooting to opened by the end of October. Late night "soft openings" to invited guests (mostly CMs) will start soon.

 

[Badgeking]

Do we think public softs might be going on by mid Sept? Going to be there Sept 15-22 and would LOVE to be able to see this show. It's one of the reasons I wanted to go to WDW this year and was so bummed when I heard it got delayed.

 

[Nick]

Do we think public softs might be going on by mid Sept? Going to be there Sept 15-22 and would LOVE to be able to see this show. It's one of the reasons I wanted to go to WDW this year and was so bummed when I heard it got delayed.

Rumors seem to have it that there won't be public softs, just private. It will then have a grand opening when they feel comfortable.

 

[Nick]

If this is true, we could finally be getting close:



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