DHS Monster Inc Land Coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios

[UNCgolf]

I really wish New Fantasyland included a true E ticket dark ride. Imagine if in place of Belle’s we got something like the BatB ride at Tokyo?

I think Little Mermaid was supposed to be an E ticket, or at least a D+, especially considering how much they spent on it at the time.

Obviously the execution wasn't there, though.

 

[pdude81]

Better than Big Thunder, Space Mountain, and Matterhorn? I'd agree that it's better than Goofy's Sky School and Barnstormer/Go-Coaster.

Goofy's Sky School is terrifying

 

[Professortango1]

I think Little Mermaid was supposed to be an E ticket, or at least a D+, especially considering how much they spent on it at the time.

Obviously the execution wasn't there, though.

D ticket in the facade of an E. It's the same ride as DCA's, but DCA's has the more subdued humble facade building. I do love the WDW facade, but it does get people prepared for an experience that the ride doesn't quite live up to.

 

[BrianLo]

Better than Big Thunder, Space Mountain, and Matterhorn? I'd agree that it's better than Goofy's Sky School and Barnstormer/Go-Coaster.

These all have various levels of re-tracking desperation needs. There’s a certain thing to be said about making rides smooth to open them up more to the public, which is probably why some people avoid them but not slinky.

The calculus may look different after they are addressed and fixed.

 

[WaltWiz1901]

I think Little Mermaid was supposed to be an E ticket, or at least a D+, especially considering how much they spent on it at the time.

Obviously the execution wasn't there, though.

I said that almost verbatim a page back:

If concept art and at least one early ride layout are any indication, Mermaid could've potentially been an E-ticket, yet got value-engineered into a C+/D-ticket
and honestly should've remained an E, especially since it was marketed as such and was at one point the only ride announced to be part of New Fantasyland

Considering they switched plans from an (assumedly) all-out trackless dark ride to a more standard Fantasyland dark ride executed as an Omnimover pretty early on in the design phase (evidently somewhere circa 2008), I find it funny that they were hyping the latter as an E, even though the former would've almost definitely warranted it (and in the Magic Kingdom, been more in sync with the scale of its facade).

 

[Professortango1]

These all have various levels of re-tracking desperation needs. There’s a certain thing to be said about making rides smooth to open them up more to the public, which is probably why some people avoid them but not slinky.

The calculus may look different after they are addressed and fixed.

Slinky may be smoother, but I would never say it is better than any of the Disney mountains; especially in terms of a "Disney attraction." Nobody says Astro Blasters is better than Indiana Jones Adventure because its smoother. Big Thunder in DL is pretty smooth, as is Space.

 

[BrianLo]

Slinky may be smoother, but I would never say it is better than any of the Disney mountains; especially in terms of a "Disney attraction." Nobody says Astro Blasters is better than Indiana Jones Adventure because its smoother. Big Thunder in DL is pretty smooth, as is Space.

Oh no I'm not saying that, but I think the original comment you were replying to implied the attraction was currently the best accessible one for the whole family. I think all three of those attractions have become less accessible as of late and therefore not an attraction appealing to the "whole family". Particularly Matterhorn and WDW Space.

I'd probably say Grizzly Gulch is currently the best if we went worldwide, even if others are perhaps better in their functional forms.

 

[UNCgolf]

D ticket in the facade of an E. It's the same ride as DCA's, but DCA's has the more subdued humble facade building. I do love the WDW facade, but it does get people prepared for an experience that the ride doesn't quite live up to.

The Disney World facade/queue definitely doesn't help it, but they spent $100+ million on the one at Disneyland. That should have been enough to get an E ticket.

I said that almost verbatim a page back:

Considering they switched plans from an (assumedly) all-out trackless dark ride to a more standard Fantasyland dark ride executed as an Omnimover pretty early on in the design phase (evidently somewhere circa 2008), I find it funny that they were hyping the latter as an E, even though the former would've almost definitely warranted it (and in the Magic Kingdom, been more in sync with the scale of its facade).

Yeah. Thing is, there's no reason the Omnimover couldn't have been an E ticket too -- Disney has had multiple Omnimover E tickets. But so much of the interior just looks cheap.

 

[GoofGoof]

Yeah. Thing is, there's no reason the Omnimover couldn't have been an E ticket too -- Disney has had multiple Omnimover E tickets. But so much of the interior just looks cheap.

100% agreed. Trackless is overrated. It adds too little to the ride in most cases to justify the down time. At least LM as constructed is reliable with very low wait times. The fault is in the show details not the ride system.

 

[TheRealSkull]

100% agreed. Trackless is overrated. It adds too little to the ride in most cases to justify the down time. At least LM as constructed is reliable with very low wait times. The fault is in the show details not the ride system.

I hope Disney is starting to realize trackless is becoming overrated. It's too unreliable. If there's a wait time for a trackless attraction over 45 minutes, I rarely wait for it, due to the fear that some technical error will shut it down for hours.

 

[GoofGoof]

I hope Disney is starting to realize trackless is becoming overrated. It's too unreliable. If there's a wait time for a trackless attraction over 45 minutes, I rarely wait for it, due to the fear that some technical error will shut it down for hours.

I am OK with trackless when it really adds to the ride experience on a ride like Rise but I can’t disagree that it hurts efficiency and availability. It’s a great ride that’s broken a lot. Great Mickey Ride could easily have a track and not lose too much. It would obviously be a different ride without trackless but I think could have been pulled off either way. Same with Rat. LM with an Omnimover seems like a good fit to me. Where they failed is in some of the execution and as others have said a truly epic queue that sets expectations even higher.

 

[WaltWiz1901]

Yeah. Thing is, there's no reason the Omnimover couldn't have been an E ticket too -- Disney has had multiple Omnimover E tickets. But so much of the interior just looks cheap.

Not disputing that they could've executed the Omnimover incarnation on an E-ticket scale, but they still tried to market the final version as one despite the corners cut

I am OK with trackless when it really adds to the ride experience... [...] LM with an Omnimover seems like a good fit to me. Where they failed is in some of the execution and as others have said a truly epic queue that sets expectations even higher.

This early layout (for DCA's installation of the ride) is worthy of note since it shares many of the same scenes as what was built, albeit in a slightly different order:

Actually having the clamshells roam freely and participate in the story, as opposed to passively watching it from the sidelines, would've gone a long way in making for a better, more fun payoff to the already lavish queue, and some of the sets and plot structure indeed feel like they were designed and laid out with this vision in mind (because they were, value engineering notwithstanding).

Some relevant musings by Kira Prince:

The Omnimover is famous for being able to move large amounts of people per hour in its never-ending chain of vehicles. However, it is not famous for being able to move those people with any sort of chronological precision, or isolate any one space from another. Scenes in classic Omnimover attractions loop and bleed into one another for this reason. Thus in order for Mermaid to work at all, the snippets of song must be played on loop, with no guaranteed beginning or ending. This causes several problems. One, Alan Menken writes songs that have very intricate emotional and musical progressions that move in one direction: these aren’t Sherman Brothers’ marches that easily cycle. The extracted snippets that result give recognizable melody but often suffer from a lack of useful information to move the story forward or the audience comes upon them at the end of a grand statement rather than the beginning.

Two, since the audio cannot be physically stopped by a barrier, large buffer zones must be created to transition between song scenes to prevent them from bleeding. Space is a scare resource in attraction design, and these buffer zones in the attraction utilize it poorly, functioning essentially as giant awkward audio crossfades. A problem that’s rendered more egregious by the relatively small building footprint the ride is working with. In a worst-case example a guest could potentially hear a Broadway ballad fade in agonizingly slow motion right in the middle of the climax to the middle of the chorus of a hot calypso-ing crustacean band.
[...]
It feels like the designers had these great ideas for a massive circular ‘Under the Sea’ scene and this really great ‘descent’ under the ocean and held on to them tooth and nail despite the footprint of the building dictating that such ideas would squeeze everything else to the side.
[...]
What would an alternative attraction look like? What would an attraction with a similar budget, audience, capacity and “ticket” level be if the above principles were taken into account? Well to start with it would likely feature most of the music from the film or be an Omnimover but not both. It likely would feature some familiar moments of the film, or offer an aspirational experience from the movie but not try to be the movie. It would try to offer something additional and unique apart from the movie. Perhaps you’re aboard a submarine or enchanted boat and you glimpse the story from a voyeuristic perspective. Perhaps you’re on a voyage through the ocean kingdom in a clam chariot pulled by seahorses. Perhaps, with a story that’s ultimately as simple as the essence of Mermaid is, a simple approach is best a la the classic Fantasyland rides. Indeed I suspect this is what the designers were intending to do, just when confronted with the capacity challenges a simple busbar attraction presents they moved on to a different ride system and tried their best to make it work. Maybe an segmented Omnimover train a la Journey into Imagination or larger vehicles or indeed a larger or more well utilized building would have been a better decision.

 

[TheDisneyParksfanC8]

I am OK with trackless when it really adds to the ride experience on a ride like Rise but I can’t disagree that it hurts efficiency and availability. It’s a great ride that’s broken a lot. Great Mickey Ride could easily have a track and not lose too much. It would obviously be a different ride without trackless but I think could have been pulled off either way. Same with Rat. LM with an Omnimover seems like a good fit to me. Where they failed is in some of the execution and as others have said a truly epic queue that sets expectations even higher.

I think trackless tech if used right could be used for a pretty dope Villains E ticket.

 

[Baloo124]

I think trackless tech if used right could be used for a pretty dope Villains E ticket.

I would prefer a slow dark boat ride. The same feel as the caverns in Pirates but all throughout. Let the tone and story be slow and menacing, not a zip right through quickly.

 

[GoofGoof]

I think trackless tech if used right could be used for a pretty dope Villains E ticket.

I would be fine with that if they make it a truly epic E ticket dark ride. Just being trackless isn’t going to make it an E ticket for me.

I would prefer a slow dark boat ride. The same feel as the caverns in Pirates but all throughout. Let the tone and story be slow and menacing, not a zip right through quickly.

I think that would work too. I am less concerned with the ride system and more concerned that they skimp on show elements since the dark ride (if there even is one) could be considered secondary to the coaster shown in the Villians concept art. It’s too early to say anything for sure. I just hope it’s not a coaster and then something like Navi River for the secondary attraction. That would be a big disappointment.

 

[Baloo124]

I just hope it’s not a coaster and then something like Navi River for the secondary attraction.

Yeah definitely not another Navi River. It needs at least one drop if they go the boat route.

 

[GoofGoof]

Yeah definitely not another Navi River. It needs at least one drop if they go the boat route.

….and an actual story…..and some real show scenes…..and more than 1 AA….and bigger boats for much higher capacity

 

[JackCH]

….and an actual story…..and some real show scenes…..and more than 1 AA….and bigger boats for much higher capacity

I still contend Navi is actually great... If it is the third or fourth attraction in a land. It unfortunately is the second, which is why this can't work for Villains either.

 

[Baloo124]

….and an actual story…..and some real show scenes…..and more than 1 AA….and bigger boats for much higher capacity

Wouldn't it be great if we end up getting something similar to Pirates in Shanghai Disney? Having it all included with story, slow moving dark scenes, faster paced drops and launches towards the end. All revolving around villains. Not sure if this would be possible budget-wise as a secondary attraction though.

 

[GoofGoof]

I still contend Navi is actually great... If it is the third or fourth attraction in a land. It unfortunately is the second, which is why this can't work for Villains either.

Capacity is the problem. If you doubled the capacity resulting in a 15 min wait and it was a 3rd or 4th option it still wouldn’t be great but it would be something I’d do anyway. Anything new at MK better consider capacity first. They can’t afford something like Navi there.

Wouldn't it be great if we end up getting something similar to Pirates in Shanghai Disney? Having it all included with story, slow moving dark scenes, faster paced drops and launches towards the end. All revolving around villains. Not sure if this would be possible budget-wise as a secondary attraction though.

I’d rather have that and make the coaster the secondary ride but I don’t get a say . There are so many fun stories they could create around Villians - could be a whole park vs just a land with 2 rides. I think it’s harder to tell a great story with a fast moving coaster. Hagrid is probably the best around, but it’s much easier to make an epic dark ride