DAK 'Encanto' and 'Indiana Jones'-themed experiences at Animal Kingdom

[meggo819]

And to some degree, the walking trails are often no stroller allowed.

Really? We haven’t experienced that at Animal Kingdom. We did have to park our stroller at Epcot for the Moana attraction, but it had only been officially open for a few weeks at that time. So I assumed that might only be temporary.

 

[celluloid]

Really? We haven’t experienced that at Animal Kingdom. We did have to park our stroller at Epcot for the Moana attraction, but it had only been officially open for a few weeks at that time. So I assumed that might only be temporary.

Could be a seasonal thing with crowds but yes, they used to have greeters asking you at certain locations.

Rafiki's Planet Watch is kind of a hassle in itself. It is understandable for sure, but it made it difficult.

I have also not been back in years now.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

It’s a ride in a park with only 5 rides. It’s fairly busy most of the time. I don’t think this is a case of trying to make the ride “more popular”. It’s not like it’s Carousel of Progress in the Magic Kingdom or something.

It has consistently been one of if not the least popular ride in the park (aside from Triceratop Spin I suppose) for years. Even now when it’s gonna be closing, it hasn’t jumped much in attention compared to everything else. Now to be clear I’m not saying it SHOULD go, I love it and think it serves a purpose. But that’s why it, and the rest of Dinoland with it, is going.

 

[GoofGoof]

Really? We haven’t experienced that at Animal Kingdom. We did have to park our stroller at Epcot for the Moana attraction, but it had only been officially open for a few weeks at that time. So I assumed that might only be temporary.

Could be a seasonal thing with crowds but yes, they used to have greeters asking you at certain locations.

Rafiki's Planet Watch is kind of a hassle in itself. It is understandable for sure, but it made it difficult.

I have also not been back in years now.

My kids are 17 and 14 now so it’s been a while since we went with strollers but if I remember correctly we did not bring the stroller on the trails or to Rafiki. We parked in the big lots nearby in the 2 lands. We usually rocked one of those double strollers so probably had no desire to push through those areas anyway. We usually had the kids walk within lands but used the stroller for the long walks between lands or out of the parks. I do understand that if a kid is asleep in the stroller it may be nice to be able to keep the stroller and walk through.

I can honestly say that we spent more time at AK then any other park not called MK when my kids were stroller age. This was before Pandora so 2 less rides (1 that kids could ride). My kids loved animals and zoos so they were happy to spend lots of time looking at the animals even when they couldn’t do EE and Dinosaur was pretty scary. Losing the playground is a pretty big loss for that age group. It was a cool play area that my kids really loved.

 

[GoofGoof]

It’s a ride in a park with only 5 rides. It’s fairly busy most of the time. I don’t think this is a case of trying to make the ride “more popular”. It’s not like it’s Carousel of Progress in the Magic Kingdom or something.

Dinosaur is the same ride system as Indy at DLR. On average crowd days Dinosaur rarely has a wait over 20 mins and is often a walk on even when they list a wait time. Indy at DLR averages somewhere closer to a 40 min wait. AK has 7 rides. DL has more than 5X that. In a park with so few rides you would assume it would have an artificially high wait compared to popularity of the ride itself. That does not appear to be the case.

I think there are probably 2 reasons. First is the Indy ride itself is better. Indy is a popular IP and and the ride is fun. Dinosaur has large stretches of darkness which work into the story but makes it less interesting to ride. Indy has more stuff to look at. Dinosaur is less repeatable too for the same reasons. The second reason is Dinosaur is in a land that a lot of people skip completely today. It’s the only attraction in the land that attracts less people outside of the stroller crowd. Indy is right in the middle of Adventureland so a lot more foot traffic.

Once this project is complete Indy will be in a land that will likely be much more visited with another ride that will almost certainly be popular and the ride itself (assuming it’s similar to the DL version) will be more interesting and repeatable. I think that will make the wait times more similar to the DL version than Dinosaur. Not sure that’s a good thing but at least the queue will almost certainly be well done.

 

[KDM31091]

I kind of lose people when they equate high wait times to popularity. Some things are very slow loading and therefore tend to have very high waits (Frozen Ever After, Peter Pan). Conversely, fast loading attractions can seem less popular since you tend to fly through the queue (say, Pirates). I would not say Pirates is any less popular than Peter Pan in a total popularity standpoint, yet judging by wait times, Peter Pan would be considered far, far more popular in most cases. That's why I find that logic flawed.

On the topic of Dinosaur, if you want to do the wait time argument, it typically is 30 minutes or so midday and stretches to 60+ on busy days. Is it the most popular in the park, no. But is it ridiculously unpoular and begging to be replaced? also no.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope the Indy version is great but recent track record has me worried for a cheap overlay.

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

I think a big part of Dinosaur’s lack of popularity is people simply not knowing it exists. Even with Genie and MDE and all that, many people instead still just wander the parks without any prior research or even a map. Ever since Dino-Rama opened, the crowd flow directs people there and then out the other end of Dinoland. And I suspect that when asked on GSR surveys, many people who didn’t know it existed think they’re being asked about something in Dino-Rama.

So the biggest pull to Indy might just be the new crowd flow patterns, and, hopefully, the top of the Mayan temple being visible from the land’s central plaza.

I wonder if Dinosaur’s ridership or ratings will increase upon the closure of Dino-Rama and the blocking off of that area.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

I think a big part of Dinosaur’s lack of popularity is people simply not knowing it exists. Even with Genie and MDE and all that, many people instead still just wander the parks without any prior research or even a map. Ever since Dino-Rama opened, the crowd flow directs people there and then out the other end of Dinoland. And I suspect that when asked on GSR surveys, many people who didn’t know it existed think they’re being asked about something in Dino-Rama.

So the biggest pull to Indy might just be the new crowd flow patterns, and, hopefully, the top of the Mayan temple being visible from the land’s central plaza.

I wonder if Dinosaur’s ridership or ratings will increase upon the closure of Dino-Rama and the blocking off of that area.

Yeah the layout of the area is really a detriment to the ride. How to get to it is not at all intuitive with the way the paths are designed. It feels very tucked away, hidden. Like you’re going somewhere you aren’t supposed to until you’re right on it.

 

[GoofGoof]

I kind of lose people when they equate high wait times to popularity. Some things are very slow loading and therefore tend to have very high waits (Frozen Ever After, Peter Pan). Conversely, fast loading attractions can seem less popular since you tend to fly through the queue (say, Pirates). I would not say Pirates is any less popular than Peter Pan in a total popularity standpoint, yet judging by wait times, Peter Pan would be considered far, far more popular in most cases. That's why I find that logic flawed.

On the topic of Dinosaur, if you want to do the wait time argument, it typically is 30 minutes or so midday and stretches to 60+ on busy days. Is it the most popular in the park, no. But is it ridiculously unpoular and begging to be replaced? also no.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope the Indy version is great but recent track record has me worried for a cheap overlay.

I don’t disagree that wait time is less useful when comparing 2 rides with very different capacity like Pan and Pirates but with Dinosaur it’s easy enough to just compare it to its operational clone at Disneyland. The Indy ride there has a very similar capacity (maybe the same?) but has much longer waits so I think it’s fair to call that ride more popular. As I said before I think that’s not just the theme/IP being more popular. There is way more foot traffic past that ride at DL vs Dinoland at AK.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

I kind of lose people when they equate high wait times to popularity. Some things are very slow loading and therefore tend to have very high waits (Frozen Ever After, Peter Pan). Conversely, fast loading attractions can seem less popular since you tend to fly through the queue (say, Pirates). I would not say Pirates is any less popular than Peter Pan in a total popularity standpoint, yet judging by wait times, Peter Pan would be considered far, far more popular in most cases. That's why I find that logic flawed.

On the topic of Dinosaur, if you want to do the wait time argument, it typically is 30 minutes or so midday and stretches to 60+ on busy days. Is it the most popular in the park, no. But is it ridiculously unpoular and begging to be replaced? also no.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope the Indy version is great but recent track record has me worried for a cheap overlay.

Wait times are signs of willingness to ride. At 40 minutes people find it worth it to wait for Peter Pan, which drives the wait time higher. Less popular rides don’t have that same kind of desirability, and so people are less unwilling to wait as long

The load time is irrelevant to the guest experience. You’re saying a 30 minute Pirates wait is pushing more people through than a 45 minute Peter Pan wait. But people don’t know or care about that. They only see a posted measure of how long they need to wait to ride and then determine if it’s worth it to them

I don’t get the arguments against wait times as one of a few strong measures of popularity. You have to go out of your way to reject a metric that both analytically and intuitively align with reality of what people find popular

 

[GoofGoof]

Wait times are signs of willingness to ride. At 40 minutes people find it worth it to wait for Peter Pan, which drives the wait time higher. Less popular rides don’t have that same kind of desirability, and so people are less unwilling to wait as long

This is a way to look at it, but only once demand exceeds available capacity. For a low capacity ride like Pan people are still willing to wait 40 mins while a ride like Tea Cups which has a similar capacity has much lower waits. You can probably safely conclude that Pan is more popular than Tea Cups. For a ride like Pirates or in this case Dinosaur the capacity is 3X higher so low wait times does not automatically mean that Pan is more popular than those rides. You have to probably figure in crowd levels too which is harder to do across parks. So a low wait at dinosaur does not automatically mean it’s less popular than Pan. I think it’s fair to compare Dinosur to similar capacity rides but unfortunately for AK there are not any. EE is probably closest and is clearly more popular so not a fair comparison.

 

[celluloid]

I don’t disagree that wait time is less useful when comparing 2 rides with very different capacity like Pan and Pirates but with Dinosaur it’s easy enough to just compare it to its operational clone at Disneyland. The Indy ride there has a very similar capacity (maybe the same?) but has much longer waits so I think it’s fair to call that ride more popular. As I said before I think that’s not just the theme/IP being more popular. There is way more foot traffic past that ride at DL vs Dinoland at AK.

Also you can't quite compare it to DL's Clone of ride system for many reasons, but a major one alone because DL has millions more visiting DL itself than AK.
If it were Apples to Apples under the same logic. AK as a park would be a failure because it sees millions less a year.
It would be like saying AK's parking lot is too expensive to park at because there are less cars parked there than DL.

 

[GoofGoof]

Also you can't quite compare it to DL's Clone of ride system for many reasons, but a major one alone because DL has millions more visiting DL itself than AK.
If it were Apples to Apples under the same logic. AK as a park would be a failure because it sees millions less a year.
It would be like saying AK's parking lot is too expensive to park at because there are less cars parked there than DL.

I agree it’s not exactly apples to apples. Disneyland park has millions more visitors for sure and is generally open longer each day, but it also has about 35 rides vs 7 at AK so the crowds at DL are much more spread out. As I said before I do think that one of the reasons Indy is probably more popular than Dinosaur is because it’s in a much more popular land tucked between Jungle Cruise and Pirates on the path leading to Haunted Mansion, Splash and eventually the other way into Galaxy’s Edge. Clearly that route gets a lot more foot traffic than Dinoland in AK. So it may really be that Dinoland itself was a lot less popular and the Dinosaur ride wasn‘t enough of a draw to bring crowds in.

The good news is in 3 short years we will actually have a better comparison. If the Indy ride at AK ends up with similar lines as Dinosaur had we will have our answer that Dinosaur wasn’t the problem. My money is on Indy being a lot more crowded with longer waits. We still won’t know if it’s just that the ride is a better draw or the overall land is. My guess is both will be true. It would have to be a terrible swing and miss for Encanto to be less appealing than the carnival area it is replacing so I expect a lot more people in the new land.

 

[celluloid]

I agree it’s not exactly apples to apples. Disneyland park has millions more visitors for sure and is generally open longer each day, but it also has about 35 rides vs 7 at AK so the crowds at DL are much more spread out. As I said before I do think that one of the reasons Indy is probably more popular than Dinosaur is because it’s in a much more popular land tucked between Jungle Cruise and Pirates on the path leading to Haunted Mansion, Splash and eventually the other way into Galaxy’s Edge. Clearly that route gets a lot more foot traffic than Dinoland in AK. So it may really be that Dinoland itself was a lot less popular and the Dinosaur ride wasn‘t enough of a draw to bring crowds in.

The good news is in 3 short years we will actually have a better comparison. If the Indy ride at AK ends up with similar lines as Dinosaur had we will have our answer that Dinosaur wasn’t the problem. My money is on Indy being a lot more crowded with longer waits. We still won’t know if it’s just that the ride is a better draw or the overall land is. My guess is both will be true. It would have to be a terrible swing and miss for Encanto to be less appealing than the carnival area it is replacing so I expect a lot more people in the new land.

Well millions in advertising and etc will ensure opening years are likely larger in crowds. Also if it has issues of downtime, it will be interesting.
If Disney closed Dinosaur for a year and gave new show scenes and spent millions on promoting it as plussed. We would naturally see some sort of bump as well. Not on the scale of what they are doing but neither the scale of changes either.
For sure the new enhancements will draw people to it. That is more a ROI situation because of course something new and promoted will have novelty and enhancement at the bare minimum.

No matter what the merch sales or spendjng lernguest that rides will make them happier, but it is interesting how all of this was approved as Dial of Destiny showed the legacy alone is not as strong as Disney would hope for continuing.

It is also not equal in that Indy likely costs more to operate, even with so many things broken, Dinosaur has been even more neglected then it.

As you said, unfortunately Countdown to Extinction was solid anchor marquee but did not have supporting nearby to bring people to it.

Success would have bread success.

 

[GoofGoof]

Well millions in advertising and etc will ensure opening years are likely larger in crowds. Also if it has issues of downtime, it will be interesting.
If Disney closed Dinosaur for a year and gave new show scenes and spent millions on promoting it as plussed. We would naturally see some sort of bump as well. Not on tje scale.of what they are doing but neither the scale of changes either.
For sure the new enhancements will draw people to it. That is more a ROI situation because of course something new and promoted will have novelty and enhancement at the bare minimum.

No matter what the merch sales or spendjng lernguest that rides will make them happier, but it is interesting how all.pf this was approved as Dial of Destiny showed the legacy alone is not as strong as Disney would hope for continuing.

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW. I do think part of the reason Indy is more popular is not just the IP it’s the ride’s story, overall environment and the large sections of darkness on dinosaur. I don’t know if the AK version of Indy will be as good as the DL version since it’s not a clone. I hope it is. If it is at least as good it will be wildly popular at WDW too.

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW.

I think the “hidden” location might also influence how’s it’s perceived. If, for instance, the original, on-all-cylinders CTX had been prominently located in Tomorrowland (which, incidentally, would be pretty cool and thematically fitting), I think there’s a good chance it would‘ve been one of the more popular attractions at MK.

Maybe not, though. Maybe I’m under-appreciating the weakness of all that empty/dark space, etc.

 

[KDM31091]

I think the “hidden” location might also influence how’s it’s perceived. If, for instance, the original, on-all-cylinders CTX had been prominently located in Tomorrowland (which, incidentally, would be pretty cool and thematically fitting), I think there’s a good chance it would‘ve been one of the more popular attractions at MK.

Maybe not, though. Maybe I’m under-appreciating the weakness of all that empty/dark space, etc.

Of course, there’s also plenty of empty dark space on Tiana, so… to me no guarantee the new/reskinned Indy ride won’t be the same way.

I’d love to be wrong but I’m just skeptical to think it’s going to be amazing. I’m making peace with losing Dinosaur, as sad as it is, but IMO it’s much more likely this will be a lateral move rather than a huge improvement, given recent projects being almost all bad and low budget unfortunately

 

[JohnD]

I'm going to WDW the last week in October. I'll make a point to ride DINOSAUR one last time. But am looking forward to the new Indy ride.

 

[celluloid]

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW. I do think part of the reason Indy is more popular is not just the IP it’s the ride’s story, overall environment and the large sections of darkness on dinosaur. I don’t know if the AK version of Indy will be as good as the DL version since it’s not a clone. I hope it is. If it is at least as good it will be wildly popular at WDW too.

It was also the last major E ticket DL has gotten before rise.Fairly iconic and arguably the most thrilling ride in the park with the IP to assist. After Indy and before Rise did not really have much on that scale at Disneyland proper.
Nothing at DCA pre cars was going to move Indy much.
Dino was Def in WDWs top ten for years. Promotion and fan. Everest and Soarin in the early 2000s to 2005 started to change that list.

 

[RKpb]

I'm probably the minority on this but I just don't get the Indy ride. I rode it a few times at Disneyland and its just a dark ride with lights and noise, sorry I just don't get it and how this somehow equates to the Movie theme; and wasn't really a great overall thrill ride anyway. It's hard to me to understand how this is anywhere near being a popular ride worth spending dollars to duplicate. The current dino ride kills the Indy ride IMO.