Okay. Makes sense. Cavalcades were a bonus at EP anyhow. They never had a parade to begin with.
Epcot had a parade - tapestry of nations and it was great.
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My love of Tapestry of Nations is on par with the Main Street Electric Parade. 
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Yeah. Sorry. My use of never was confusing. By āneverā I only meant pre COVIDā¦as in, they didnāt take away a parade at EP to swap in calvacades.
Iām torn - I agree and disagree with some of these comments. I have had no issues at all. From making the reservations, getting the hotel I wanted, getting the park reservations I wanted the day I wanted them, dining reservations when I wanted, cabanas, Boo Bash Tickets, etc.
I have not experienced any issues, so Iām happy about that.
However, I am a bit upset about Club Level and dessert parties - those are the things I wanted this trip, but I wonāt pay for Club Level with such limited service. Anyway, I fully intend to enjoy my trip! 
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We all live in a bubble ā and potentially itās a toxic one.
Let me use an analogy.
I read and listen to a lot of news. From the UK and the US. I despise whatās happening in UK politics. It makes me so angry, despairing and disillusioned that I often fantasise about moving to another country.
But wait a minute. If I just (maybe selfishly) look at my own life, well itās really not that bad. A lot of the things that make me angry have no impact on me. For example: Iām horrified by whatās happening in Texas right now. But why on earth should I be taking any interest in it? Itās nothing to do with me. Itās not my battle.
My point is this. You can feel depressed by the seemingly endless cuts and cash-grabs and so on that are happening at WDW. But when youāre actually there, is the magic really gone? Sure DME is convenient and it saves some money, but is it really an essential feature of the vacation? Itās a bloody long walk to get to the DME desks. And itās really just a coach, in a cool-looking wrap. (Though not always even that.)
If Chapek said, āMaintaining Cinderella Castle is too expensive and we havenāt found a way to monetise it. So weāre dismantling it and replacing it with a single-story table-service restaurant themed on Ant Man and the Wasp, and offering a $119 prix fixe menuā then you could say, OK magic gone. (Actually, some of you would be screaming āTake my money!ā and frantically clicking at 6am 60 days out.)
In the only four years since I joined this cult, what changes have there been? Parking charges at on-site hotels. Boo! Cancellation of DME and FPP and DDP. Boo! Boo! Boo! Opening of Pandora, TSL, SWGE, the Skyliner. The frankly tired front half of EPCOT is being completely reimagined. GOTG is being built. A huge extension to the France pavilion, with a headline ride, is just opening. Tron is moving to completion at MK. Thereās a new nighttime spectacular at EPCOT on the way. And at MK.
It feels like thatās a whole lot of pluses and only a few minuses. You want DME back? Fine, which shall we sacrifice in return? Pandora? SWGE?
ETA ā Canāt believe I nearly forgot to take the opportunity to say this. Want to know whatās not magical? Reading endless fricken trip reports full of awesome photos and knowing that for over five hundred days youāve been banned from going to WDW. You can whine all you like about DME going. At least you can still get to WDW by Uber. I canāt get there at all. And your damned president has shown zero interest in changing that.
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Hi MouseMatt,
I think you could use a good vacation, hang in there
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Technically, Iāve just had one 
and I do have two DLP trips in the next eight months to look forward to. Iāve (sort of) (not really) made my peace with WDW August 2022.
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I donāt think it has lost the magic (this thread title so needs the spelling fixedš¤£)
I have been going for 10 years now, (9 tripsā¦5 of those over the last 2 years) I have enjoyed every trip - even the one where we froze to death on a 1 day pre-cruise trip to MK.
What I most enjoy, there is is always something new to see an do.
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Dāoh!
Iāve thought about this a lot today, and yes, butā¦
The fan community keeps complaining about all the changes, about the price hikes, and the subtraction of benefits; but everyone is still going to go back. Disney knows it.
We can complain all we want about Chapek, we can downvote the DisneyParks G+ videos to oblivion, but if we all continue to go and (even if begrudgingly) buy into G+ then Chapek comes out smelling like a rose. So many people love to talk about Chapekās 2 year contract and how thereās no way heās going to get a renewal at the rate heās going, but if he continues to bring in money by the boatload heās going to get extensions and longer leashes to do whatever else he wants.
The only way things change is if people change their spending habits. Donāt renew your AP, donāt go to Disney for a year. One of the few things our country does really well is our National Parks Service, take a year and go see the Redwoods, or Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, RMNP, Glacier NP, the Appalachians or the Smoky Mountains. Youāll save a ton of money and you can see some amazing things. Or if you feel like you just have to give Disney your money go on an Adventure by Disney.
The parks will still be there next year, and they will have heard the discontent much louder through the loss of revenue than any amount of keyboard clatter.
Alas, thereās simply no way to convince a sizable enough of a crowd to not go to a Disney park for a whole year. Itās too ingrained in too many peopleās personalities.
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Overall I agree with your sentiment and I am sorry you are blocked from coming at all.
I am going to make a small argument for DME (and when I say DME, I mean the bus and the luggage transfer). This was the one change at Disney that actually made it onto my non-Disney Faceboom threads. People I didnāt even know had been to Disney felt strongly enough to comment. A lot of them were dads. My husband was a huge DME fan.
Air travel with young children is stressful. INcluding strollers, car seats, luggage, etc., makes it more stressful. So being able to role into the airport pick your stoller up at the gate, walk that long walk to DME, hop on the bus, go to the resort and 2 hours later your luggage magically appears? Pure pampering.
The parks still hold their magic, but it is touches like DME that converted us from infrequent to more frequent visitors. Disneyās business model seems to want to weed out the āmultiple times a year non-Florida residentā but I am not sure they want to weed out the every 2-3 year visitors. I wonder, without services like DME if they will get the same conversion rate (one and done vs weāll be back). Maybe they will. If the rest of the product stays strong, they definitely will.
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Definitely agree that losing the Magical Express service is a big hit to flying in and feeling youāre in the Disney bubble immediately. We really missed the luggage service on our trip this year and Iām sure will miss the bus service even more starting in January. Hopefully it is something they reconsider and bring back a viable alternative to let us immediately immerse in that Disney bubble once againā¦
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I bet in a year they will introduce a Disney āconciergeā shuttle like they were doing with the Minnie vansā¦ and then charge an arm and a leg for it.
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If they do the luggage auto-magically to/from the airport, I might consider it. Without that part of the service, Lyft/Uber should provide solid competition that will preclude them from going too nuts on price.
Although I think long-term there are plans for a train to Disney Springs as a possible alternative. Although I donāt think itās clear how that works with luggage at all as of yetā¦
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I keep hearing this, but I donāt think the logistics of things makes this seem very reasonable. It means all guests would have to take the train to DS, and then be transferred to some other transportation to their resort. Would they just use existing Disney Springs buses? They would need to run far more, if thatās the case.
And as you mentioned, what about luggage?
And when you leave your resort to head home, you, what? Take another DS bus, which takes you to the train station?
How often will the trains run? Will this means much longer delays as you wait for the next train, and then once you arrive, waiting for the next bus?
I think the idea of relying on the train isnāt really much of an alternative at all, unless Iām missing something. Regardless, thatās years away.
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Agreed - I donāt understand how the train is overly attractive really. If Disney auto-magically handles my luggage then it at least gets interesting. If they donāt, I canāt see hopping a regular Disney Springs bus with all my luggage which would mean special buses which is then pretty much the same as Magical Express beyond I guess a shorter trip.
And of course Iām now reading the Brightline train may not be available until 2026 which makes MDE disappearing at the end of this year all the more bizarre. Although I guess they can use the Covid excuse to explain it so weāll be more forgivingā¦
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DLP has its own train station. For an upcharge (obviously) you can leave your bags at the station and they will be delivered to your room. This leaves you free to head straight to the parks. Of course in this case the parks are within walking distance.
On the return journey your bags are taken to the train station so that you can spend your last day in the parks and then head straight to the station without having to go back to your hotel.
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What they need to do with regard to the train is connect the Skyliner to DS and build a line all the way to AK and all the resorts in between. They need to have a luggage service at the airport, or at least at the DS train station, so that when people arrive at DS they are either taking a bus, boat, or Skyliner to their resort (or their first park) and their luggage will meet them at their room. Luggage could be transported by Disney in vans or trucks.
If people are arriving at DS with luggage in hand and having to find their own way to their resort, itās going to be a nightmare.
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