Project Stardust - How the "Cleanup" campaign will affect Disneyland - OCR/SCNG

Darkbeer1

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/01/...tar-wars-galaxys-edge-and-its-massive-crowds/

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Disneyland vice president Kris Theiler and Disneyland art director Kim Irvine gave members of the media a tour of the small but important changes being made to the 64-year-old park that they hope will ease congestion in often-crowded areas of Main Street USA, Fantasyland and Adventureland.


The media tour took place early Tuesday morning, Jan. 22, before the park opened to the public for the day as forklifts rolled down Main Street USA, trucks pulled trailers filled with colorful plants and Disneyland’s gardening team updated flower beds for Valentine’s Day.

Project Stardust

Project Stardust — mash-up of Star Wars and Pixie Dust — takes a comprehensive park-wide look at operations, infrastructure and crowd management with an eye toward improving efficiency, traffic flow and access.

With little room to grow, the goal of Project Stardust is to repurpose and reallocate the precious and finite existing space within the boundaries of the park. Work began on the project two years ago with Disneyland crews focusing on expanding walkways, trimming planters, maximizing attraction queue capacities and corralling strollers throughout the park. The work will continue in earnest until Galaxy’s Edge opens in June.

Project Stardust is one of several ways Disneyland hopes to manage attendance and control crowds at the park, Theiler said. Disneyland recently increased prices on its tiered ticketing system in hopes of shifting visitations to off-peak periods. The park continues to make adjustments to the annual passholder blackout calendar with an eye toward managing crowds during the Star Wars crush this summer and beyond.

Rather than make sweeping changes with Project Stardust, Theiler decided to institute incremental improvements and assess their impact on influencing visitor behavior. The goal: Make any alteration to the park seem like a natural fit that has been in place since Disneyland’s opening day in 1955.

No detail was too small for scrutiny. Disneyland’s operations, facilities and maintenance teams have had long conversations about the appropriate angle for curb cuts on Main Street USA, Theiler said. Visitors entering Disneyland today will spot construction walls in front of City Hall where planter work is under way and the Emporium gift shop where curb work is being done.<<

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A decorative scrim added in early February will wrap the scaffolding on the front of the castle in an early concept illustration of the castle by Disney artist Herb Ryman. The scaffolding on the back of the castle will be covered with an image of Prince Phillip battling the Maleficent dragon amid thorns and flames. The massive Maleficent illustration will be based on an animation still from the original “Sleeping Beauty” film, said Irvine, the art director for Walt Disney Imagineering’s Disneyland office.

Thanks to a few forced perspective tweaks, the 70-foot-tall Sleeping Beauty Castle will appear even taller once work is complete. To facilitate the visual illusion, the castle has always had larger stones near the bottom and smaller stones near the top. When the castle rehab is finished, the paint will be darker on the bottom and gradually lighter on the top, enhancing the forced perspective effect.<<

>>To help reduce crowding, the Dole Whip stand in front of the Enchanted Tiki Room will be closed on busy days, with fans of the popular treat directed to the new stand in Tropical Hideaway.<<

More at the link, and don't forget, the Southern California News Group has multiple newspapers, so you can always check another paper if you have reached your limit at one of them.
 

Phroobar

Well-Known Member
Too bad they didn't name their crowd control initiative, "Project Thanos".

tenor.gif
 

Stevek

Well-Known Member
Of course, they could always just stop selling APs and put a sane limit on how many guests are allowed in, but...
Too much money flowing through Mickey's veins now. Cash cow for Disney that they are unlikely to ever get rid of. Trim here and there, yup, but cut, don't see it.
 

The_Mesh_Hatter

Well-Known Member
It doesn’t seem like a bottleneck now, but the bridge over Splash is going to become a major thoroughfare once GE opens. Perhaps it’s time to consider getting rid of the Splash queue space on the bridge and moving the entrance inside Critter Countey proper across from Pooh.
 

SuddenStorm

Well-Known Member
Very interesting. Excellent marketing for a project that has mostly consisted of removing planters and seating- changes that hurt the visual appeal and guest experience on days that arent unusually busy.

Wanna utilize space better? Turn the carousel theater into something that actually gets people off the street.

Shorten (don't remove) the autopia to free up space in the motor boat cruise area, and add a new ride or two. Reroute the monorail if needed.

Lower the amount of Fastpasses provided to get more guests in line vs walkways. I love Fastpasses, but Disney's infrastructure wasn't designed to handle guests waiting in a line while waiting virtually for another.

Turn Pooh into a ride people actually want to experience to get more people in Critter Country.

Add shows people want to see to the Magic Eye Theater and Fantasyland theater- those high capacity theaters can get people off of the walkways.

Have more frequent performances at the Tomorrowland Terrace to Jeep that venue full.

Run the canoes for more than a few hours a day.

Beef up the Disney Gallery to have exhibits park fans actually want to see, to help encourage visitation.

And better yet? Build more quality attractions in DCA to further encourage guests voluntarily visit for longer each day + actually offer night entertainment there.
 

Stevek

Well-Known Member
Very interesting. Excellent marketing for a project that has mostly consisted of removing planters and seating- changes that hurt the visual appeal and guest experience on days that arent unusually busy.

Wanna utilize space better? Turn the carousel theater into something that actually gets people off the street.

Shorten (don't remove) the autopia to free up space in the motor boat cruise area, and add a new ride or two. Reroute the monorail if needed.

Lower the amount of Fastpasses provided to get more guests in line vs walkways. I love Fastpasses, but Disney's infrastructure wasn't designed to handle guests waiting in a line while waiting virtually for another.

Turn Pooh into a ride people actually want to experience to get more people in Critter Country.

Add shows people want to see to the Magic Eye Theater and Fantasyland theater- those high capacity theaters can get people off of the walkways.

Have more frequent performances at the Tomorrowland Terrace to Jeep that venue full.

Run the canoes for more than a few hours a day.

Beef up the Disney Gallery to have exhibits park fans actually want to see, to help encourage visitation.

And better yet? Build more quality attractions in DCA to further encourage guests voluntarily visit for longer each day + actually offer night entertainment there.
Yup, they really need to be running all attractions and shows at max capacity. I'm guessing Magic Eye just gets more Star Wars stuff to tie into GE opening. I'm hopeful that PTN and WOC will be up and running as well and pull some of the crowds over there.
 

DanielBB8

Well-Known Member
This is quickly turning into get rid of people and Fastpasses rant. This is a temporary condition until the next big addition to ramp everything to a higher level.

And better yet? Build more quality attractions in DCA to further encourage guests voluntarily visit for longer each day + actually offer night entertainment there.
But you’ll complain about the sky high attendance at DCA when it happens. It’s going to happen because Superheroes Land is coming.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
This is quickly turning into get rid of people and Fastpasses rant. This is a temporary condition until the next big addition to ramp everything to a higher level.

But you’ll complain about the sky high attendance at DCA when it happens. It’s going to happen because Superheroes Land is coming.

Serious question. Are you that corporate shill guy that posts our comments on Twitter?
 

SuddenStorm

Well-Known Member
This is quickly turning into get rid of people and Fastpasses rant. This is a temporary condition until the next big addition to ramp everything to a higher level.

But you’ll complain about the sky high attendance at DCA when it happens. It’s going to happen because Superheroes Land is coming.

I do my best to avoid complaining about the crowds- since I firmly believe that complaining about crowds while still visiting the park is a bit hypocritical.

DCA still has a far smaller attendance than Disneyland, it needs to step up and become a place people are willing to spend a full day.
 

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