Josh D'Amaro gives the Keynote address to the 2020 IAAPA Expo - gives updates of new attractions & Star Wars Hotel

UPDATE : Just before noon 11/16, Disney Parks Blog posted their offical summary of the speech, including a lot of cool pics and video

OLDER INFORMATION FROM Monday Morning before the Official Disney poast!

New image from inside Guardians of the Galaxy Ride

Ratatouille to open in 2021

Spiderman Web Slinger at DCA and Disney Studios Paris

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Link to a Blog detailing all he had to say

Some highlights

Regarding commercial, they planed on 2020 being an amazing year

They had undertaken unprecedented capital expansion projects such as Zootopia at Shanghai Disneyland.

“And just like that, it felt like the world came to a screeching halt.”

Josh says that they plan on bringing back much of the entertainment that they had to discontinue.

They have chosen to speed up some of the work they were already doing such as the transformation of Splash Mountain into a Princess and the Frog attraction.

He discusses how the Four Keys have evolved to include “Inclusion.” It is being added to Safety, Courtesy, Show, and Efficiency.

“This represents transformative cultural change.”

The kickoff to Walt Disney World’s 50th anniversary will happen next year. He will share details at a later date.

They will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of Shanghai Disneyland and the 15th anniversary of Hong Kong Disneyland.

He also shows pictures of the rooms inside Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser.

Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic Rewind vehicle footage shows how the coaster car combines a roller coaster with an omnimover as the vehicle can spin like a Doombuggy.

Josh says they will open Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure in 2021.

They are continuing with the EPCOT Transformation.

Disney’s Hotel New York - The Art of Marvel will soon open at Disneyland Paris.

Josh highlights the upcoming Spider-Man Attraction and shows a video of the attraction vehicles in motion.

He also discusses the NBA Bubble. They had to replace 100s of beds and raise 100s of shower heads due to the players’ heights.

They took advantage of the downtime to perform necessary work such as sending the cruise ships to drydock which will save Disney a lot of money.

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Star Wars Hotel Room- First look of a real room (cabin)

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I was initially excited at that truncated headline. But that’s literally all it says. It will open in 2021. I feel like this is not really news.

This was a speech to industry insiders

Disney will give the big news at an event of their own

There are two coming up in the next few weeks where opening dates could be announced.

This week’s D23 Fantastic Worlds Event

https://d23.com/d23-event/fantastic-worlds-celebration-week/

December 10 - Walt Disney Company Virtual Investor Day

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God I hope that’s true…

I hope we get one more ride in as-is before it goes into refurb.

Curious who paid for that.

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More interesting would be are they going to lower the shower heads now that they are gone?

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First real look inside Space 220

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Did I miss mention of firm plans for opening on this?

There were no mention of any specific opening dates in today’s speech.

It was a pre-recorded opening keynote address for the IAAPA EXPO, the amusement park industry trade show.

I was hoping that they would have announced something last Thursday on the Financial Y/E call.

Let’s see what comes out on the December 10th Investor Day.

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Attention all lovers of Disney IT, Tilak Mandadi Executive Vice President, Digital and Chief Technology Officer, AKA the man in charge of Disney IT will be giving a speech as well at 1 PM.

Here’s the description.

Digital + Physical + Data + Story = Theme Park Metaverse

Tilak Mandadi, Executive Vice President, Digital and Chief Technology Officer for Disney Parks, Experiences and Products shares how Disney is unlocking new layers of storytelling, creating perennial guest relationships and reimagining the theme park experiences and operations with the convergence of digital, physical and data