Why You Keep Seeing Disney in Your Trending Topics

You’ve probably read a trending article or two about Disney recently.

Disney has been in the news quite a bit, from Disney+ news involving Scarlett Johansson to price increases and health and safety changes in Disney World.

Let’s go over some of the biggest, most recent trending Disney topics!

Cost Increases

From the prices of Annual Passes to holiday events, fireworks dessert parties, merchandise, extended hours, paid Genie+, and more, you can probably expect to spend a bit more in Disney World now.

Many Disney World perks that used to be complimentary are either at a price or far less accessible now, like with Extended Evening Hours available to Deluxe hotel guests only. And with the FastPass discontinued and replaced by the Genie+, formerly free services now need to be added to the budget.

The biggest price increases we’ve seen in Disney World this year.

Vaccine Mandates for Cast Members

Disney employees, both salaried and non-union, were required to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to continue employment. But just in the past few days, that mandate was paused. This controversial topic has certainly had Disney trending.

Additionally, Actors’ Equity Association contracted employees also had to be vaccinated by October 22nd. Disney was allowing employees to request medical or religious exemptions, and Cast Members who did not comply would’ve been removed and changed to “yes, rehire” status. Needless to say, this situation is likely to continue to make headlines.

Disney World and Union Leaders come to agreement on Cast Member vaccine mandate.

Disney Genie

The new Disney Genie service launched on October 19 in Disney World, along with the new paid services Genie+ and Individual Attraction Selection (or pay-per-ride). FastPass+ is officially discontinued, and now a previously free service will cost you.

To gain access to Lightning Lanes, or what used to be FastPass lanes, guests must pay. While some people might be okay with purchasing quick access to rides, there’s been a lot of discussion about this new Disney service. Even our readers were split 50/50 on whether they’d be purchasing the Genie+, so it continues to be a hot topic.

8 BIG things to know from the first day of Disney Genie+!

Disney KiteTails

KiteTails, the new daytime kite show, in Disney’s Animal Kingdom is performed daily at the Discovery River Theater, and each 10-minute performance features Disney character kites along with performers with themes from either The Lion King or The Jungle Book. The Disney concept art showed a majestic Mufasa soaring over a crowd, and the show was…not quite what most people expected.

The end result of the show is cute and fun, especially for young kids, but after the debut it became the subject of a lot of jokes, often accompanied by the hashtag “kitefail.”

Mufasa doesn’t look exactly like the concept art

The new show has experienced some…technical issues, like when the Baloo kite got stuck in a tree. Oops.

Naturally, this has led to a lot of new memes.

Zazu’s crash on the Discovery River reminded us of that end of the night Disney exhaustion.

KiteTails IS a cute show, it’s just prone to some silliness. If you have young kids especially, it’s worth checking out at least once.

PHOTOS: Disney World’s KiteTails had a few….kitefails.

Star Wars Hotel

The highly anticipated Star Wars hotel, known officially as Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, has been trending a lot, not always for good reasons. While the 2-night immersive experience sounds incredible, there are still a lot of questions about what exactly this includes, and the price tag is STEEP.

A standard room begins at $749 a person, with increasing prices depending on party size. A family of four is looking at a whopping $5,999 total for a 2-night stay. And Disney Vacation Club members don’t get an easy break either, with rooms beginning at 295 points per person. For reference, you could stay in a Polynesian Bungalow for two nights for the same amount of points for one person staying in the Star Wars hotel.

Still, if you have the disposable income, this unique experience also includes a narrative guests can choose to (or not!) participate in and even potentially change the storyline. For Star Wars fans, this is an amazing opportunity to really enter the Star Wars universe!

Is Disney World’s Star Wars hotel worth the price tag?

These are just some of the ways Disney has been trending lately, and you might have heard of even more! Keep reading All Ears and let us know what you’ve seen trending.