Disneyland Resort Update: Make Rivers of America Great Again

Disneyland Resort, Anaheim, CA

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Folks, we have a special treat today, as our Disneyland Resort construction update is being written by a very special guest, who reached out to us via Twitter to offer his services for a week despite his very, very busy schedule performing very important tasks of authority and leadership.  Our guest writer wishes to remain unnamed, because he is an exceptionally humble and subservient human being who avoids attention, but he wanted to assure everyone that he has the best and most exceptional of update writing credentials, and that he very much looks forward providing the very realest facts about what’s going on around the Resort.  Without further do, I present to you today’s very great, very tremendous update.

Thank you very much for assembling here today to read this fantastic update.

I want to thank Westcoaster for this opportunity here.

We all know the fine folks at Westcoaster do excellent work.  Tremendous work.  The best work of any theme park blog organization out there.

But lemme tell you something, they asked me to come here and write this update, and they had these talking points for me.  They had everything all organized with when I was to talk about what and where and whatnot.

And I said, “Nah.  I’m not gonna do that.  I’m gonna talk off the cuff.  Just tell it like it is.”

Cuz that’s what the people want to hear, right?  Not some formal, stiffly presented dissertation on construction.  Ya know, my uncle was in construction, and when I was young—this is true—when I was very young, I was probably like seven or eight, but you know what my uncle said? 

He told me, “Son,”—I was his nephew, but he really enjoyed calling me ‘son,’—he said, “Son, construction is doing work with your hands… your very large and highly proficient hands, and it’s not about the brain.” 

And ya know, people always tell me how large my brain must be because I think so much—I’m always thinking of things, thinking of ways to make things better, because that’s what people want. They want better things.  The best things.

So my uncle told me that construction is manual labor—work with hands—you know manual means “of the hand,” did you know that?  It’s true. Totally true.  Can totally look it up.  Ancient Greeks thought of it.

So construction is of the hands, and that’s where the true art comes.  So it’s not about some brainiac telling you what to do—though you know, I totally respect brainiacs, I love ‘em.  They’re some of the best people here, tremendous people, believe me.  But construction isn’t about brains, it’s about building something and putting your heart into it.

So I’m just gonna tell this update like it is, like my uncle used to tell me.

And folks, the sad truth about the way it is, is: the state of our Disneyland is the saddest it's been in many, many years.

Everywhere you look, you can see how we’ve fallen.

You go out, and you got safety concerns.  Families wondering if they’re gonna get shot if they come to the parks.  They just took this poll, and you know, and this is true, 74% of all Disneyland guests are worried that their child might be kidnapped at the park and turned into dolls at It's A Small World.  74%!  That’s incredible.  You wouldn’t believe how many people are worried.

You also got buildings that have fallen into disrepair.  They’re so old they gotta just get rid of them, because you can’t do anything to save them.

And what’s so sad, it all happens in no time at all.  You can’t even get ready for it.  One week the House of Blues is here, and two weeks later, it’s all rubble.

You got these big commercial outfits moving their stores out to other places, I mean it’s unbelievable how that hurts the local economy.

There are stands and vendors that have shuttered their doors too.  It’s all just horrific, I tell ya. 

Old mom and pop stores forced out of business forever—the other day, just someone came up to me, and you know I’m always looking to talk to real people, and these guys—this couple—this real couple, they come up to me and they ask me, they say, “I just had to close down my store that I’ve run for sixty years.” And I tell ya, it just breaks my heart.  Absolutely breaks my heart you know?  

And they tell me that they just want things to go back to the way they used to be, and they can’t see it happening anymore.  It’s so tragic.  Absolutely heartbreaking. Very sad.  Cuz what can you do?  You can’t do anything.  You just give them a hug and wish them the best.

And you see all these cuts, these cost cuts, and it’s just all because all the money is going to China.  Can you believe this?  They’re trying to hide it, but you can find this.  All these things that are supposed to go to Disneyland, they’re sending overseas to China.  Shanghai… they’re just abusing us and taking advantage of us. 

You want to know why all these things are closed down at Disneyland, you can thank Shanghai.  I go there all the time, I fly there, ya know—first class of course, and you can do it a lot when you’re like me.  And I see it.  I see where that money goes, and they take it, and they manipulate it, start calling it different names like “Yuan” or “RMB” instead of dollars—whatever happened to that, anyway? Just having stuff in dollars.  Now you got all these other things, you can hardly keep track of it.  I wish they’d just go back to everything being dollars. 

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that we’re losing all this trade and all this money to China.  That’s money that should be being spent here, and it’s not.  It’s outrageous!

And other people tweet me, and you know, people love doing that… they love going all beep bop boop bop on their phones to me, and they say, “Hey, it’s not all bad. Look at the new stuff that’s around. They just opened another Starbucks not too long ago.  A second one just in Downtown Disney!  That means things are going well.”  Gimme a break.  Starbucks is the most overrated coffee chain in the entire country.  They’re just a flunky corporation that lost to Coffee Bean, and they’re not willing to recognize it.

And I tweet back—cuz sometimes, ya know, they like it when I tweet back, because it’s like I’m being intimate with them, like grab 'em by the phone like I know them, it’s like I’m talking to them just like normal—and I tweet and ask them, what’s gonna happen when you have your Starbucks and then you need to use the restroom, and even the restroom is closed because that’s how bad things have gotten?  What do you do then?  And there’s no response.  They never respond.  All these guys with fake news, they never respond.

But go and look at our infrastructure.  You know I’m right.  No one uses our monorails anymore.  Did you know, and I just looked this up, so it’s true, but did you know that over the past ten years, monorail ridership has decreased 85%?  It’s all true, right there.  You can see it.

Trains aren’t great either.  They hardly run anymore.  Just look at it.  Ya gotta see this… Big Thunder.  It was broken down all of last week.  Just look at this.  Couldn’t keep it running at all.

And our roads are just a mess.  They’re always closed.

You can’t get anywhere these days because they’re just falling apart, you gotta do detours.

And they try to cover it up, you know, put little things in front so you don’t notice how bad thing are, but it’s just to fool people.  Crooked Pencil Pushers they are.  It’s terrible.   What a group of terrible people. What a group of scum.  They’re just trying to hide how bad our infrastructure has become.

But ships too, just look at our ships.  They’re half of what they used to be.

We send all of our jobs and money out of the country, they can’t even afford to have complete ships anymore.  Just look at it, it just makes you want to lock somebody up, it’s so criminal.

Don’t even get me started on our towers.  I know a thing or two about towers, and what’s happening here is unforgivable.  Did you know that over the past four months, all Disneyland Resort Towers have lost 127% of their Terror?  Can you believe that?

No one should have to stand for that.  It’s all a travesty.  Very bad. Tremendously bad.

And the thing is that no one cares.  Everyone doesn’t care, because they’re distracted.  The Main Street Media isn’t reporting on these real problems, because they’re focused on this new area, this new land they call it.

They call it this—get a load of this—they call it “Star Wars” Land… like “ooooooo, Star Wars!” 

Gimme a break.  That doesn’t even make sense.  How can stars make war anyway, they’re stars.  Trust me, they can’t make war.  Not gonna happen.

But these folks, the gush and oooh and aaah over this new land, and you know what’s really happening?  It’s hurting us.  It’s hurting a specific part of the park that used to be fantastic and the very best.

It’s hurting the Rivers of America.  I’m saying it.  No one else is brave enough to say it—everyone’s too afraid… they think they’re gonna offend someone… but I’m not afraid of that.  I’m just gonna say it.  They’re killing us.  Absolutely.  Us… the Rivers of America… they’re killing us.

Cuz lemme tell ya something… you get so excited about Star Wars Land, but that place is crawling with illegal aliens.  It’s true.  It’s 100% true.

People think Star Wars Land will be so fantastic, but guess what, it’s right next to the Rivers of America, and it presents a threat. 

Look what it’s already done.  The River, this gorgeous, this magnificent River—which I’ve sworn to protect, by the way.  I said that last year, I said I’d protect it.  But this incredible river, it’s already been cut.

Did you know, and the scientists can verify this, but did you know that 2/3 of the Rivers of America has been taken away thanks to Star Wars Land.  It’s true, trust me.  It’s absolutely fact.

And it’s criminal what they’re doing, and it’s criminal what they’re hiding, cuz lemme tell ya, when Star Wars Land is sending their aliens over, they’re not sending in their best.  They’re not sending you.  They’re bringing smugglers. They’re bringing bounty hunters.  Their Sith Lords.  And some, I assume, are good Jedi.  But most of them, they’re nasty people.  Nasty, nasty people.

That’s why I’ve gone ahead and inserted myself in this project, because as you know, nobody knows construction like me, and to protect the Rivers of America, I’m going to build a wall.

It’s going to be a huge wall.  The grandest wall, you’re not gonna believe it. Nobody builds walls better than me, believe me.  This will be the greatest wall in theme park history.

I will build a great, great wall on our northwestern border, along Star Wars Land, to protect us from that hive of scum and villainy that lurks on the other side. 

It’s gonna be tall.  So tall.  You’ve never seen a wall this tall.

And I’m going to make Universal pay for that wall. Mark my words.

The aliens are not going to come through that wall unless it’s securely.  We will have control points—the best control points, they’ll check everything—and believe me, I can provide the best, because I use them myself, and they’re very thorough, you know? 

They’ll make sure none of the bad ones come over.  The Dark Side will not pour through our wall.

And don’t let people tell you it’s just gonna be a fence either.  That’s totally false and untrue and just lies spread by terrible organizations.  Organizations that are a disgrace.

But this wall is going to be the most magnificent, most spectacular wall ever created at Disneyland.  It’s going to be better than any berm that Walt wanted.  

And don’t get me wrong, Walt was a great guy—I knew Walt, ya know.  He and I used to grab lunch over on Sunshine Plaza every second Sunday of the month, and he’s tell me his ideas about movies and parks, and I’d tell him my advice on them.  This one time, I told him about this movie he was developing about a boy who never grows up, I said to Walt, “Ya gotta make the kid fly.  Think of how many children will get hooked on it?  Kids love flying!”  And he did it.  He made the guy fly.  

And then this other time—this was later, after Walt had passed away—rest his soul, that Walt.  Good man. Great man.  A real legend.  Really made an impression in the movie industry. Bigly.

But this other time, they execs—you know, I’m always talking to execs, because they value what I have to say.  They say, “Hey, you’re so successful at everything you do, how do you do all that?” So I give them a few tidbits here and there.  Ya know, just a few crumbs to be nice.

But the execs asked me about this movie about this giant black pot or kettle or something like that?  I can’t quite remember—normally, my memory is excellent. Like an elephant. My mind is so sharp.  Real sharp.  But for whatever reason, this one’s a little blurry.

But they ask me what I thought about making a movie about it, and it’ll have the best state of the art effects and be dark and be a new direction and really amaze people.

But I said, “Hey, if the story doesn’t catch people… doesn’t appeal to their emotions, it’s not gonna be a hit.”

And you know what, it wasn’t.  It was a flop. Big flop.  The floppiest.   And it was sad. So sad.  Almost made the studio go under.  This was in the 80s, you know, and they had all these head hunters trying to get them.

And lemme tell ya something, they even came to me and offered to sell the whole thing to me.  Big deal.  Woulda been the biggest.  Offered it to me for $250 million, which was a lot at the time, and I turned it down.  I told them, “You guys make magic for so many people, and you have to figure out a way to keep things going so you can continue that magic.”

Of course, I did give them some more advice.  Trade secrets and stuff. Ya know, that whole thing.  But it was sad when that movie flopped.  So tragic.

And the thing that made me so angry, so incredibly mad, where all the people in the rival studios, they were on the roofs of the studios, and they were celebrating. 

I remember this—I was reading Variety, about this movie failing, and Disney was ruined.  And I look across the street, and these guys are on the studio roofs just celebrating.  Are you kidding me?  People are going to lose their jobs… their livelihoods.  I couldn’t believe it.  It made me sick to my stomach.

But back to that wall, it’s gonna be great.  So grand.  You’re all gonna love it.  And again, I’m gonna make Universal pay for it.

I mean, obviously, not at first.  There are processes for this sort of thing.  Its called negotiation.  The art of the deal.  But we’re going to have to have the Annual Passholders pay for the wall at first.  We’ll take it out of the pass prices.

What’ll happen is that I’ll repeal the Passholder Payment Plan, to increase the up front funds. 

I mean, you all know the Payment Plan has been a colossal failure.  Complete disaster.  Nobody likes it, ya know.  They did a poll of all the Annual Passholders, and 89% said they thought the Payment Plan was a bad idea.  They said they saw their payments go up over the years.  A lot of people can’t even afford Annual Passports anymore.  Isn’t that crazy?  Can’t even afford it. 

You didn’t see this happening before the Payment Plan.  That’s a fact.  You can do the research yourself.

So we’re going to repeal the Payment Plan and replace it with the market alternative of buying the whole thing, because that’s how things work.  It’s business, and I know business.  I think I’ve been pretty successful myself.

But don’t worry, Universal will compensate us for the price of this wall, and we’ll refund that compensation back to the Annual Passholders.  So that way, they won’t really be paying for the wall.

But that’s negotiations I’m working on now—that I’ve already made a lot of progress on too. 

I’ve set up a trust already that will transfer all of the increased Annual Passholder funds to the wall construction project, and I won’t touch them, I won’t look at them, but we’ll have my uncle the construction guy control the funds, and he’ll make sure they’re put to good use for the wall. 

So we’re going build that glorious wall.  And make Universal pay for it. 

We’re also going to renegotiate the Marvel deal so that we can bring back the superhero jobs we’ve lost. 

I’ve been talking to the Marvel execs, about all these superheroes that have left the county over the years.  I told them, you gotta bring these guys back.  You can’t just take them elsewhere because it’s cheaper.  And those guys, they’re smart guys—they know when to listen to someone telling them to right thing—so they’re going to bring more superheroes back, like the real Marvel classic guys, like Aqua Girl and Hercules and Sonik and The Blade, so that we can have a healthy superhero economy.

Finally, we’re also going to round up all the Radical Pin Traders.  We’re going to round them up and expel them from the Resort.  And we’re gonna vet them thoroughly to make sure they’re safe and aren’t a threat.

You know these Radical Pin Traders, they’re always assembling in Frontierland.  They gather, and you have no idea what they’re doing.

But we’ll make sure that they pose no threat.  Even if we have to use Dole Float Boarding—which, by the way, is NOT torture—you can check the international statutes on this… there is nothing preventing this.

We’ll make sure that Disneyland and the entire Resort becomes a welcome place where everyone can once again have joy and fun and feel the best about their time.

In conclusion, I’d like to thank everyone for their time and attention.  God bless Disneyland, and God bless the Rivers of America!

That wraps up today’s update.  Our guest writer will not be taking any questions and requests that comments and inquiries be directed to his newly appointed Secretary of Park Maintenance Quality and Standards,  Paul Pressler.

Thank you very much.