We at Disneylies are very much of the “Disneyland should never, ever change anything for any reason” camp, to the point that we’re still irritated that most of the castmembers we remember from our childhood are no longer working in the park. For this reason, we are particularly miffed about the recent conversion of Market House (comfy, friendly, free coffee refills) into a Starbucks (vocabulary-offending, inhumanly corporate, possibly a branch of the Illuminati).
First and foremost, Starbucks just doesn’t mesh well with Disneyland’s theme. In fact, Starbuck himself isn’t even a Disney character (he’s owned by MCA/Universal, and changing him into a woman to try and capture the “princess” market does nothing to change that).
Second and foremost, expanding the Market House destroyed much of its charm. Sure the checkerboard is still there, but nobody can play a decent game with their hands shaking after a triple espresso, and setting up the old iron stove to spit out steam and foam robbed it of much of its charm.
Worst of all is what they, third and foremost, did with the “party line” telephones:
Look at the enormous queue — parallel to the coffee queue — that was built just for the party line phone! The whole concept of a line for the party line phone line robs the experience of spontaneity, and the fact that they had it roped off when we visited (because no castmember was available to check that children met the new minimum-height requirement for listening to the phone) added insult to injury.
Tags: corporate evil, Main Street USA, Starbucks