Talking Mickey leaving Town Square theater

[rpb718]

When you select the FP+, all it says is Meet Mickey Mouse at Town Square Theater. I really can't remember if there was any mention of him talking on the info page for the FP+. Makes me wonder if folks not expecting a "talking" Mickey were taken aback. I would have been pleasantly surprised.

We'll be down in late April to say goodbye to "talking" Mickey. Hope he's still able to reciprocate.

 

[thinkerbell]

We took our grandson 4 years ago when he was 18 months old. It was so very magical! He watched Mickey Mouse Club House so he really loved the hotdog dance. He just kept saying “hotdog, hotdog” over and over. Mickey took his hand and walked him over to do the hotdog dance. His statements were canned but it was so magical watching his interaction with our grandson. He was mesmerized. We are going this summer with our daughter’s family again. Our newest grandson will be 18 months old at the time and we have already been telling his older brother that he was going to have to teach him the hotdog dance so they can show Mickey. This will be the oldest ones third trip so he remembers him talking. It will still be magical but it just makes it so much more real to little ones (and big ones too) when he talks.
They took away the night time parade too! If they keep raising the prices, they shouldn’t keep taking stuff away.

 

[hakepb]

It’s disappointing. I think young children actually appreciate talking Mickey the most...in their mind, all characters should talk.
(Like how my young nephew left the meet saying, “I really liked that Mickey!”)

Hopefully they can tap into some newer voice recognition technologies. (Like how Alexa can control everything in your house) and bring back a more automated, talking Mickey.

 

[Hannahinwonderland]

I'm not a huge fan of talking Mickey PERSONALLY, but that is a magical experience for plenty of kids and adults alike. I'm very disappointed about this.

 

[Shanti]

My son loved meeting the talking Mickey. That was a joy for me to watch. It was one of our most magical experiences at WDW, ever.

This is sad.

I'm glad we have a lot of memories of doing things at WDW that have been/are being taken away. They need to stop taking more and more things away. It's getting old.

 

[Robo]

Hopefully they can tap into some newer voice recognition technologies. (Like how Alexa can control everything in your house) and bring back a more automated, talking Mickey.

They have tried a lot of tech over several years.
Most yielded some really “raggedy” results.
Getting the "wrong" response from a guest's question can make the
whole experience be counter-productive, embarrassing (to both the guest and Disney) and downright worse than just not offering the errant experience in the first place.
What they finally ended up with (in the current form) was super complex and
hard to maintain (tech-wise and financially.)

 

[My3SweetSuns]

Welp...
Based on the info here, I will definitely NOT be modifying fast passes to see him next month...lol

 

[ShadeDK]

When reached for his reaction on this development, Talking Mickey had no comment....

Glad we saw him - it was a unique experience.

I suppose this means that the trial run of more talking characters at DL (such as Donald) is canned as well?

 

[Robo]

When reached for his reaction on this development, Talking Mickey had no comment....

Glad we saw him - it was a unique experience.

I suppose this means that the trial run of more talking characters at DL (such as Donald) is canned as well?

Actually, Donald would be very easy to allow to converse with guests.
It would take far fewer CMs and relatively “low” tech.
And, nobody understands Donald, anyway!

 

[Sweettears]

"Talking Mickey" is actually a huge expense compared to the amount of "return" per number of guests.
The venture takes a multitude of CMs with specialty training to operate each "Talker."

Whether they decide to continue TM or not, I always though that it was kind of foolish to spend that kind of personnel budget on such a limited attraction.

How do they determine the return on something like this. I have visited WDW at least two or three times since it’s introduction and can honestly say that they have done an awful job of promoting the attraction. I still believe it was a type of test on the technology and it’s popularity. Could be off base.

 

[Sweettears]

Actually, Donald would be very easy to allow to converse with guests.
It would take far fewer CMs and relatively “low” tech.

Who you talking about Robo boy?

 

[chloelovesdisney]

Talking Mickey is one of my son's favorite attractions, I'm so sorry to read this. It's always a special interaction and well worth the expense to run this unique experience, imo. Boo Disney.

 

[ArwenMarie]

We weren't fans of Talking Mickey. That's when one of my kids decided that the characters were, well you know Mute Mickey, no problem. Talking Mickey? Nope!

Seriously though, it's a shame to see this one go away. It did seem to be popular and it made the MK Mickey greet a little more special

 

[JAMIESMITH]

We actually avoided talking Mickey. I didn’t want to try to explain why he was the only talking non-face character or why he only talks at that one location.

 

[Ohminnie]

Did talking Mickey always have only canned responses? The first time we met him (in either 2015 or 2016) his responses did not seemed canned. My son was around a year old and wanted to be held. Mickey made a comment about how my son should take advantage of that because when you’re 18 you’re expected to move out and something else along those lines of not growing up. It was an odd interaction from Mickey, to say the least.

However, we tried again last year and our son basically started hyperventilating when it was his turn because he was so excited. It was adorable. Mickey said he was glad to see us again and it was just really magical. He had our son go around the room with him pretending they were a train. Our son has been obsessed with trains ever since! He even found a toy train with Mickey on it while we were there and just had to have it!

We ended up trading our Mickey fp+ for seven dwarfs on our trip last month and the line was always too long so we never made it to see him. I’m glad I have two fp+ for our trip at the end of the month now!

 

[PrincessWithABlaster]

Well. After spending a lot of my day making test FPs I’d just decided to make Talking Mickey one of our FPs on our last day. Since our first day is 4/29, maybe I’ll schedule it for then.

 

[hiroMYhero]

Did talking Mickey always have only canned responses?

Yes. That’s the only way in which Talking Mickey has been able to speak.

 

[ShadeDK]

Actually, Donald would be very easy to allow to converse with guests.
It would take far fewer CMs and relatively “low” tech.
And, nobody understands Donald, anyway!

Didn't see the DL talking characters myself, but everything I read suggested that they were a hit - particularly Donald. The three of them appearing together (Mickey, Minnie and Donald) to talk with guests as well as interact with one another apparently took away some of the awkwardness of solo Talking Mickey.

Haven't seen anything about them though since the trial run in early Fall - but if TM is going away for cost reasons I'd suppose the DL characters won't return either.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

We saw Talking Mickey once a few years ago. I thought it was a pretty cool trick. The queue times have deterred me from going back to see him since

 

[DWeav]

Is there actually a link or report on this or is this speculation?