Audio (provided for hearing impaired) The Parks EPCOT beat Magic Kingdom on attendance Thursday, and it did it with a bad hand. Test Track, Spaceship Earth, Frozen Ever After, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, and Figment were all spending chunks of the day down, according to Lightning Brain’s daily park report. A 16.5 minute median wait, roughly 10 percent over EPCOT’s own summer baseline, was enough to leapfrog the Kingdom anyway. This performance proves the park does not need a great day to win the ranking. Planning your Disney trip? Download Lightning Brain from the App Store or visit lightningbrain.app to optimize every minute of your park day. Meanwhile the actual guest experience keeps getting quietly rewired at the reservation desk. The Beak and Barrel, the Pirates of the Caribbean tavern in Adventureland, and GEO-82, the lounge inside Spaceship Earth, have both added a Walk-Up Waitlist button in the My Disney Experience app, per AllEars, Disney Food Blog, Disney Tourist Blog, and BlogMickey. These are two of the toughest ADRs at Walt Disney World. Availability opens as capacity allows, which is Disney-speak for “don’t count on it, but check anyway.” Disney Tourist Blog notes the change lands roughly a year after the feature debuted elsewhere in the resort, so this has been a long time coming for guests who have been refreshing the app at exactly 6am with no luck. None of this is happening in a vacuum. Inside the Magic reports another Disney resort has pushed admission pricing to a new high following summer attraction cuts, part of a broader pattern of rising costs across tickets, Lightning Lanes, hotels, and parking. Attendance at Walt Disney World has reportedly softened as a result, even as Disney Experiences overall keeps performing. The walk-up bar news and the price-hike news are two sides of the same guest-value conversation. Disney is making the small stuff easier while making the big stuff pricier. The Shows Moana opens in theaters Friday, and Disney did not undersell the moment. The live-action reimagining, directed by Thomas Kail and starring Dwayne Johnson and Catherine Lagaʻaia, premiered at the Hollywood Bowl in a production The DisInsider describes as a full-scale celebration of Polynesian culture, music, and the world of Motunui. The Walt Disney Company’s own feature on the film emphasizes an expansive creative collaboration with talent from across the Pacific Islands, a point Disney clearly wants front and center in the film’s rollout. Choosing the Hollywood Bowl over a standard premiere venue was a statement. This was designed to be an event rather than just a release. Over in the Marvel corner, Inside the Magic reports that Spider-Man: Brand New Day is tracking toward one of the biggest domestic openings of 2026, according to Deadline’s early projections. Tom Holland’s next outing as Peter Parker is generating buzz months before its debut. Two very different franchises share the same underlying message: Disney’s theatrical strategy this year is swinging for spectacle, whether that’s a Pacific Islands premiere at an iconic amphitheater or Marvel chasing an opening-weekend record. The Business Alisa Bowen is leaving her post as president of Disney+ to become Fubo’s next CEO, MickeyBlog reports. The timing is the story here. This move comes less than a month after Disney purchased a 70 percent stake in Fubo and merged the service with Hulu + Live TV. Bowen succeeds Fubo co-founder David Gandler, who is also stepping down from the company’s board after leading it for more than a decade. Installing a veteran Disney+ executive at the helm of a newly Disney-controlled streamer allows Disney to put its own person in the room to shape how that merger actually plays out. Disney Cruise Line is telling a similar story of quiet expansion elsewhere. The Disney Destiny made her inaugural call in Sint Maarten on July 1 during the ship’s first 7-night Eastern Caribbean voyage out of Fort Lauderdale. Grisha Heyliger-Marten, the island’s Minister of Tourism, Economic Affairs, Transport, and Telecommunication, hinted during the visit that this was the start of a bigger ramp-up in Disney Cruise Line port stops, according to both Lightning Brain and DCL Blog. Inaugural calls happen constantly in the cruise industry and usually mean nothing beyond a nice photo op. This one reads differently. When a government tourism minister starts hinting at more visits on day one, the port is angling for a long-term relationship instead of a one-off welcome party. The Details Gideon’s Bakehouse lost its art director this week, and the Terribly Odd brand has closed, according to WDW News Today’s daily recap. The same recap notes Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party tickets for 2026 are now on sale for hotel guests, with pricing revealed, and that Level99 at Disney Springs is extending its operating hours due to high demand. Small items individually, but together they sketch a Disney Springs that is still reshuffling its retail and entertainment mix even as holiday event planning kicks into gear. Shanghai Disney Resort’s Toy Story Hotel is getting fresh attention from Disney Parks Blog, timed to Toy Story 5 hitting theaters. The pitch is full immersion, larger-than-life character details and themed spaces built around the idea of guests shrinking down to toy scale. It is a reminder that Disney’s international resorts continue to lean hard into single-franchise immersion in ways the domestic parks rarely attempt at hotel scale. D23 has released its official merchandise collection for D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, running August 14 through 16. All ticketholders will have shopping access, not just attendees at the physical Disney Store location, per D23’s own announcement. For a fandom that treats event-exclusive pins and apparel as currency, expanded access matters more than the product lineup itself. Sources Lightning Brain AllEars Disney Food Blog Disney Tourist Blog BlogMickey Inside the Magic Walt Disney Company The DisInsider MickeyBlog DCL Blog WDW News Today Disney Parks Blog D23 Designed, trained, and directed by humans. Produced by Lightning Brain’s AI. Learn how we make this: https://lightningbrain.app/how-we-make-this Post navigation American Adventure’s Bare Bones, Disneyland’s Billionth Guest Fireworks Go Rogue, Iwerks Passes, Fort Wilderness Gets Modern