Might sound like a frivolous question, with the obvious answer being "of course they do!"
But over the last week on vacation with my family, I have been thinking about this question, and whether or not it has an obvious answer.
This trip we visited both Universal Orlando and WDW. We are all huge Harry Potter fans and designated the first two days of our trip so that we could see Universal, and then afterwards, we spent the rest of our vacation for a week at WDW.
This was my first visit to Universal in a long time, and first time visiting since joining the site. At least to me, I went in with high expectations for not only the Harry Potter lands, but for the rest of the resort. I wanted to be amazed, and I wanted to see what ingredients Disney was "lacking" and how much the competition had pulled closer and closer to what Disney has been doing over the last few decades.
All in all, I saw two different resorts going after two different demographics.
On the Universal side, I saw them going after thrill junkies, teenagers, and young adults.
On the Disney side, I saw them going after families, children, and any-age attractions.
The one thing that they both had in common was they both went for your wallet (but that was expected)
Anyway, it got me thinking, does Disney need a Rip Ride Rocket coaster traveling through DHS in order to be "cool"? Or does it need 3-D attractions galore in order to bring more people into their parks? I have to say, I have been on intense rides at Six Flags such as Kingda Ka and El Toro and Hershey Park such as Fahrenheit. I thought, if I could ride those, I could ride the coasters at Universal...I was wrong. Dragon Challenge was a challenge. I've never felt dizzy or nauseous on a coaster before, but I did after that. And I did after Rocket as well. I wasn't going to even touch Hulk after those 2 experiences.
From my perspective, the 2 lands that came close to what I would expect from a Disney park were the Wizarding World of Harry Potter-Hogsmeade (minus Dragon Challenge for me) and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter-Diagon Alley. The lands were up there with some of the best work Disney has ever done. The rest of the lands felt like a demographic shift from things that Disney does.
This thread isn't meant to be a Universal bashing thread. It's asking that with the recent additions and expansions to Universal, does Disney need to alter its course in order to appeal to the demographic that Uni is targeting? Or does Disney need to do something else? Clearly they need to do something though.
But over the last week on vacation with my family, I have been thinking about this question, and whether or not it has an obvious answer.
This trip we visited both Universal Orlando and WDW. We are all huge Harry Potter fans and designated the first two days of our trip so that we could see Universal, and then afterwards, we spent the rest of our vacation for a week at WDW.
This was my first visit to Universal in a long time, and first time visiting since joining the site. At least to me, I went in with high expectations for not only the Harry Potter lands, but for the rest of the resort. I wanted to be amazed, and I wanted to see what ingredients Disney was "lacking" and how much the competition had pulled closer and closer to what Disney has been doing over the last few decades.
All in all, I saw two different resorts going after two different demographics.
On the Universal side, I saw them going after thrill junkies, teenagers, and young adults.
On the Disney side, I saw them going after families, children, and any-age attractions.
The one thing that they both had in common was they both went for your wallet (but that was expected)
Anyway, it got me thinking, does Disney need a Rip Ride Rocket coaster traveling through DHS in order to be "cool"? Or does it need 3-D attractions galore in order to bring more people into their parks? I have to say, I have been on intense rides at Six Flags such as Kingda Ka and El Toro and Hershey Park such as Fahrenheit. I thought, if I could ride those, I could ride the coasters at Universal...I was wrong. Dragon Challenge was a challenge. I've never felt dizzy or nauseous on a coaster before, but I did after that. And I did after Rocket as well. I wasn't going to even touch Hulk after those 2 experiences.
From my perspective, the 2 lands that came close to what I would expect from a Disney park were the Wizarding World of Harry Potter-Hogsmeade (minus Dragon Challenge for me) and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter-Diagon Alley. The lands were up there with some of the best work Disney has ever done. The rest of the lands felt like a demographic shift from things that Disney does.
This thread isn't meant to be a Universal bashing thread. It's asking that with the recent additions and expansions to Universal, does Disney need to alter its course in order to appeal to the demographic that Uni is targeting? Or does Disney need to do something else? Clearly they need to do something though.