Why Disney Is Quietly Letting 3D Die in the Parks (Ep. 562)

The Disney Dish with Jim Hill

Jim Hill Media Podcast Network

Places & Travel, Leisure, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Construction at Animal Kingdom’s upcoming Encanto attraction is finally starting to pop above the fence line, and Jim and Len do what they do best - stare at aerial photos until they start seeing ride-height changes and possible “big thing” anchors. Then the show veers into a surprisingly tight math problem: is it actually cheaper for an American couple to fly to Japan and do Tokyo Disney than it is to do a weekend at Walt Disney World? (Spoiler: the internet is almost right, which is somehow worse.) NEWS• Aerial photos suggest the Encanto ride site at Animal Kingdom may include a ride-height change (and at least one very suspicious hole in the ground).• Orange County tourist tax collections hit a new record for October, up 15 percent year over year - yes, people are still going to Orlando.• Disney Cruise Line Port Canaveral numbers show strong October sailings - Disney Magic at 81 percent occupancy, Treasure and Wish at 89 percent.• Hallmark and Disney team up for the first in-park holiday movie, “Holiday Ever After: A Disney World Wish Come True,” arriving in 2026.• Disney’s surprise AI headline: a reported $1 billion OpenAI investment tied to Disney characters appearing in Sora, and what Disney might really be building toward. FEATURE• Why Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure (and its Paris counterpart) reportedly switched from 3D to 2D - guest comfort, visibility, and the ongoing cost of 3D glasses.• The long history of Disney’s ever-changing 3D eyewear “story names,” from MuppetVision safety goggles to opera glasses and beyond.• The wild near-miss: Avatar: Flight of Passage allegedly came close to becoming 2D, and how producer Jon Landau pushed back. For this episode’s full show notes, click here. HOSTS• Jim Hill - IG: @JimHillMedia | X: @JimHillMedia | Website: JimHillMedia.com• Len Testa - IG: @len.testa | Website: TouringPlans.com FOLLOW• Facebook: JimHillMediaNews• Instagram: JimHillMedia• TikTok: JimHillMedia PRODUCTION CREDITSEdited by Dave GreyProduced by Eric Hersey - Strong Minded Agency SPONSORThis episode’s Disney-ish News is sponsored by UnlockedMagic.com - from our friends at DVCRentalStore.com. If you would like to sponsor a show on the Jim Hill Media Podcast Network, reach out today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Big Tasty is back at McDonald's, but now it's a double.
0:05.1	It's the beefiest Big Tasty of all time ever!
0:09.3	Oh, got a bit intense there. The new Double Big Tasty, now at McDonald's.
0:15.1	Available to the 4th of Jan, 2026 from 11 AM, price and participation may vary, subject to availability.
0:20.0	Welcome back to another edition of the Disney Dish podcast with Jim Hill.
0:23.8	It's me, Lentesta, and this is our show for the week of Schmer's Day, December 15th, 2025, on the show today.
0:30.1	In news, what can aerial photos of the Encanto construction site tell us about the ride?
0:35.7	And in listener questions, is it cheaper for the average
0:38.3	American to visit Walt Disney World or Tokyo Disneyland? Then in our main segment, Jim tells us
0:43.2	about the history and future of Disney's 3D films in the parks. Let's get started by bringing
0:48.1	in the man who says that, in retrospect, singing, do you hear what I hear at his hospital's
0:53.4	psychiatric ward was probably not the best
0:55.5	choice of Christmas carols. It's Mr. Jim Hill. Jim, how's it going? It's going well, Len, but that has
1:01.2	always been a questionable Christmas carol. I mean, if you remember it all, it starts off with
1:07.7	the night wind talking to the little lamb, who and then talks to the
1:11.5	shepherd boy, and who then talks to the mighty king. And it's an elaborate game of telephone,
1:17.8	Len. Telephone, exactly. You can't trust anything anyone says. There we go. There we go. So by the time
1:22.9	the king is talking to people everywhere, do you know what I know? I'm totally clueless. All right. And by the way, you're up in a balcony. You have really poor acoustics. You know, you said something about a scar, a shining in the style. It's miscommunication set to music. I don't know what's going on here. There we go.
1:47.5	All right, Jim, let's do a quick shout out to all of our subscribers.
1:50.7	Thanks to everyone who subscribes over at patreon.com slash Jim Hill Media,
1:57.7	including Matthew Flynn, Lori Keel, Sandra Farmer, Scott Bradbury, Alley Girl 79, and Brooke Rothenberg.
2:02.9	Jim, these are the Imagineers working to ensure Hollywood Studios' upcoming Magic of Disney Animation attraction is as accurate as possible when explaining to guests how animators
	...

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