Tag: Disneyland

Disneyland launches “Dole Whip Donut”, but there’s a catch

The Dole Whip – a frozen pineapple flavored soft serve (I guess it’s not actually ice cream, but rather a grainy ice cream style product) treat is available at Disneyland I guess (my familiarity with the stuff is from having it in Hawaii, #humblebrag) and has spawned a newly released bit of sugary glory:

The Dole Whip Donut.

Except – Not so fast…

It looks good and I’m sure it’s delicious, so I’m not trying to be a buzzkill when I remind that: this really only a Dole Whip product in name only. There’s no actual Dole Whip in or on it. It’s just a pineapple donut. And that’s what I found interesting about this, because it changes the story from “amazing new confection item at an amusement park” to a case study in “the power of branding”.

A genuine “Dole Whip donut” would chiefly – duh – include the Dole Whip frozen soft serve product within or around, presumably a donut.

This food item is not that.

It’s a donut stuffed with pineapple fruit filling, topped with a creamy pineapple icing and a tall swirl of fluffy “marshmallow-y” meringue, according to the Disney Food Blog – which totally sounds like an excellent treat – but calling it a “Dole Whip donut” when its really a pineapple donut cupcake, is misleading.

I still intend to eat one.

Disney issues curious promotional art for upcoming Star Wars Land

As if you haven’t heard: The Walt Disney Company is adding a Star Wars Land to Disneyland. They’re doing so by clearing out some super outdated “old west” style attractions that no one has given a crap about since 1969 and replacing them with the space-themed goodness that modern minds crave.

A long-overdue updating of a long since stagnant portion of significant land area of the Disneyland park + utilization of the Star Wars intellectual property recently acquired by the Walt Disney Corporation isn’t anything strange.

What’s odd is the promotional art for it… Who would have guessed that it would look anything like this?:

The promotional art Disney has released for Star Wars Land is curiouser and curiouser, lacking any of the Death Star or Corusant style metal-tech seen in Tomorowland (where the Star Wars themed ride Star Tours still resides) and going instead for organic earthy representations of tall treehouse style towers (the likes of which we’ve never seen in any Star Wars films) bordering open courtyards with aliens milling about.

A zoomed out version of the same location shows the area to be a city among cliffs with termite hive style spires protruding from a decidedly singularly themed location – again – with style and architecture not present in any of the mainstream Star Wars media.

With all the planning that goes into such a major and permanent design, it makes one wonder what the thinking was in creating this specific look. Disney Chairman Bob Iger said of the unveiling, “We are creating a jaw-dropping new world that represents our largest single themed land expansion ever. These new lands at Disneyland and Walt Disney World will transport guests to a whole new Star Wars planet, including an epic Star Wars adventure that puts you in the middle of a climactic battle between the First Order and the Resistance.”

Star Wars Land will appear to mostly manifest its 14-acre footprint in currently non-attraction utilized land on the theme park property and only replace Big Thunder Ranch, Big Thunder Ranch Barbecue, Big Thunder Ranch petting zoo and Big Thunder Ranch Jamboree. Since 10 out of 10 people reading that didn’t even know any of those things were things in Disneyland, I’d say it was the right choice, even though it’s interesting to see Disney pull a corporate version of the plot of Toy Story (Read: “Strange Things are Happenin” to Fronteirland).

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