Piraten in Batavia, or how other parks are eating Disney's lunch

[Magenta Panther]

So there's this park in Germany called Europa. Not long ago, a devastating fire burned down part of the park. One ride, called Piraten in Batavia, was among the casualties. But the family that owned the park was determined that, not only would the ride be rebuilt, it would be built better (what Walt used to call "plussing", a term the Robert Iger Company has no comprehension of).

This is the result:



My god, that ride is beautiful. The queue alone is beautiful. Perhaps the ride's narrative isn't as strong as our own Pirates in its various locations, including the new version in Shanghai, but holy crap the themeing and ambience and immersion. It's incredible. Again, a non-Disney park blows the current Imagineers' efforts away. And this is why I gripe so much. Can you watch this ride and detect any cost-cutting? Any cheapness or laziness involved in its AAs or backgrounds, its lighting and use of water? This is what happens when a company that genuinely cares lets its artisans do their thing without what Walt called "the sharp-pencil boys" interfering. Makes me sick. I wish with all my heart that Disney will someday wow me the way this ride, and the new Rookburgh area in Phantasialand with its incredible steampunk motif and amazing Charles Lindbergh hotel, do. That hasn't happened since the Tower of Terror, and we all know what Chapek wanted to do to THAT.

Again, it makes me sick. And breaks my heart.

 

[Chicken Guy]

I have to start visiting other parks besides Disney... this looks astounding and I haven’t even gotten to the ride portion yet! It gives me hope to know there’s brighter horizons for themed entertainment somewhere outside the bubble.

 

[pheneix]

So there's this park in Germany called Europa. Not long ago, a devastating fire burned down part of the park. One ride, called Piraten in Batavia, was among the casualties. But the family that owned the park was determined that, not only would the ride be rebuilt, it would be built better (what Walt used to call "plussing", a term the Robert Iger Company has no comprehension of).

This is the result:



My god, that ride is beautiful. The queue alone is beautiful. Perhaps the ride's narrative isn't as strong as our own Pirates in its various locations, including the new version in Shanghai, but holy crap the themeing and ambience and immersion. It's incredible. Again, a non-Disney park blows the current Imagineers' efforts away. And this is why I gripe so much. Can you watch this ride and detect any cost-cutting? Any cheapness or laziness involved in its AAs or backgrounds, its lighting and use of water? This is what happens when a company that genuinely cares lets its artisans do their thing without what Walt called "the sharp-pencil boys" interfering. Makes me sick. I wish with all my heart that Disney will someday wow me the way this ride, and the new Rookburgh area in Phantasialand with its incredible steampunk motif and amazing Charles Lindbergh hotel, do. That hasn't happened since the Tower of Terror, and we all know what Chapek wanted to do to THAT.

Again, it makes me sick. And breaks my heart.

Europa Park is the best run and most fun to visit amusement park on earth. They get better at themed rides every year. And the old and cheesy stuff kinda just adds to the charm.

Great ops. Amazingly clean. Reasonable prices. They’re wonderful.

 

[Heppenheimer]

I regret not visiting Europa Park when I lived in Germany, since it was only about 2 hours on A5 south of where I lived.

 

[Virtual Toad]

Simply amazing. Compare it to DCA's new Spiderman "ride" and you have to wonder if A) Disney is even capable of producing solid, original, incredibly themed attractions anymore; and B) why in the world would a true creative want to work for a corporation that operates on a mindset of building attractions solely for their value in advertising existing product lines-- at the lowest possible cost and creative effort possible to maximize ROI?

 

[Inspired Figment]

Simply amazing. Compare it to DCA's new Spiderman "ride" and you have to wonder if A) Disney is even capable of producing solid, original, incredibly themed attractions anymore; and B) why in the world would a true creative want to work for a corporation that operates on a mindset of building attractions solely for their value in advertising existing product lines-- at the lowest possible cost and creative effort possible to maximize ROI?

Poor current management and their lack of respect for their past legacy

Oh, and in regards to B.) The company’s ‘past’ works, legacy & reputation regarding creativity and their attention to detail & quality.

 

[Virtual Toad]

Poor current management and their lack of respect for their past legacy

Oh, and in regards to B.) The company’s ‘past’ works, legacy & reputation regarding creativity and their attention to detail & quality.

Agree on the poor current management. What worries me about point "B" is that the current management is far too tempted to destroy that legacy and reputation to focus on low-cost and questionable quality attractions and lands that serve as nothing more than mere synergistic marketing tools. I could see it being incredibly frustrating for a creative to work in that environment.

Disney has the tools, legacy, and essentially unlimited financial resources to produce attractions that live up to the company's legacy. But too often their modern efforts come off as lackluster. They're holding back-- and with attractions like Spiderman-- which is essentially on par with Legoland's Ninjago ride-- it shows.

 

[Mrchips0401]

So there's this park in Germany called Europa. Not long ago, a devastating fire burned down part of the park. One ride, called Piraten in Batavia, was among the casualties. But the family that owned the park was determined that, not only would the ride be rebuilt, it would be built better (what Walt used to call "plussing", a term the Robert Iger Company has no comprehension of).

This is the result:



My god, that ride is beautiful. The queue alone is beautiful. Perhaps the ride's narrative isn't as strong as our own Pirates in its various locations, including the new version in Shanghai, but holy crap the themeing and ambience and immersion. It's incredible. Again, a non-Disney park blows the current Imagineers' efforts away. And this is why I gripe so much. Can you watch this ride and detect any cost-cutting? Any cheapness or laziness involved in its AAs or backgrounds, its lighting and use of water? This is what happens when a company that genuinely cares lets its artisans do their thing without what Walt called "the sharp-pencil boys" interfering. Makes me sick. I wish with all my heart that Disney will someday wow me the way this ride, and the new Rookburgh area in Phantasialand with its incredible steampunk motif and amazing Charles Lindbergh hotel, do. That hasn't happened since the Tower of Terror, and we all know what Chapek wanted to do to THAT.

Again, it makes me sick. And breaks my heart.

 

[Mrchips0401]

This German park and specifically the ride posted here is quite lovely in all its detail. I wonder how many acres large and other rides in that park equal this one specific ride. After experiencing this one ride will I be equally impressed with not one full day of park experienc, but days on end during a WDW experience?

 

[Skibum1970]

I actually look at Efteling as another comparison. They have rides like Symbolica (cool trackless), Dreamflight (dark ride), and some other rides that are interesting. Symbolica cost around $40M (per Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge) and is pretty much as impressive to me as MMRR. If other parks can build these rides without spending hundreds of millions, why can't Disney?

 

[JIMINYCR]

Sad that Disney isnt being affected by the German parks attraction by drawing guests away. Uni and the other nearby venues dont draw enough away for it to be too bothersome to them. So why try harder, why spend to improve, why discover and implement better attractions to wow guests, when they will come no matter what and accept what they find once they go through the turnstiles.

 

[cjkeating]

Europa Park is amazing. I'd suggest anyone who has the opportunity to go. I visit for three days every two years and have never had anything other that a great time.

 

[Chicken Guy]

Sad that Disney isnt being affected by the German parks attraction by drawing guests away. Uni and the other nearby venues dont draw enough away for it to be too bothersome to them. So why try harder, why spend to improve, why discover and implement better attractions to wow guests, when they will come no matter what and accept what they find once they go through the turnstiles.

At some point we have to draw a line and decide when enough is enough. A lot has changed since 2015 when Galaxy's Edge and Toy Story Land were first announced, which is what I consider to be the beginning of Disney's new business model. The Disney we fell in love with long ago is gone. Look around. It's depressing, but it's true, and we read about it every day. Absurd prices; poor maintenance; increasingly generic shopping and hotel venues; screens as substitutes for real dark rides; a blatant disregard for physical design and cohesive site planning; less entertainment offerings; a discrete refusal to create original attraction concepts in favor of obvious product placement and marketing stratagems; a company that purposely and knowingly rips out beloved fan-favorite attractions, replaces them with mediocre experiences or sometimes nothing at all, and then sells merchandise for those demolished classics as if to pour salt on our wounds- as if, in an ultimate display of tone deafness to their core fanbase, they expect us to love them no matter how much they take away. It insults me as a Disney fan to see Universe of Energy and Great Movie Ride shirts or mugs on shelves in various stores on property. I want to be done with this place; the narrative has gotten too negative. Disney gave me a strong love for themed entertainment- and through EPCOT, for imagining our future as a society- from birth, but I want to spend my days visiting parks where I can look forward to what's coming ahead and not regret the losses of what once was. I think if we ever want to see the company we once loved change its ways, we all have to make a similar decision someday.

 

[Virtual Toad]

I want to be done with this place; the narrative has gotten too negative. Disney gave me a strong love for themed entertainment- and through EPCOT, for imagining our future as a society- from birth, but I want to spend my days visiting parks where I can look forward to what's coming ahead and not regret the losses of what once was.

Ten thousand times this. The more Disney strives to tear itself down, the less Disney it becomes. Through their openly-expressed and cynical determination to abandon their own classic core principles of sincerity, optimism, originality and authenticity, they risk losing everything that made them successful in the first place.

Our family is just one example, but we were about as loyal to the Disney brand as you could possibly get. Now we are re-directing our leisure dollars elsewhere.

Mindlessly pushing IPs is all current management cares about right now. But their short-sightedness (i.e. all the things you outlined in your post) risks doing significant long term damage.

It may be years or decades before the strip-mining of the Disney brand has any real financial impact on the company as a whole. But scores of other American brands once seen as ubiquitous and irreplaceable have suffered the same fate.

 

[Skibum1970]

It seems like a type of hubris or maybe something we don't understand. However, they seem to think that they can throw anything out there and we will just eat it up without question. The new Spiderman ride is evidence of that. Just judging from videos (which is a terrible method), the ride is uninspiring and doesn't have any excitement like you would expect a Spiderman or Avengers ride to have. Didn't have to be thrilling but it should have been more. Galaxy's Edge was so expensive and yet we received Smuggler's Run (video game with a motion platform) and Rise, which may be awesome but is unreliable and has terrible capacity for such a popular IP.

It's like the American automotive industry coming out of the 70's and then the 80's. The cars produced were becoming unreliable and underengineered. Foreign cars from Japan were threatening market share and still American companies either didn't respond or responded slowly. They have been playing catch-up ever since. The only difference here is that there are no real competitors yet. UNI/IOA are two good parks but it doesn't feel like a resort where you could spend a week. I can still spend a week at Disney but the cost is starting to get prohibitive.

I just think that Disney can figure out how to build great rides that don't require unbelievable cap-ex and need to think more in lines with how to meet customer demands instead of just throwing crap out there.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Tokyo Disneyland's new BatB ride is very elaborate and lavish from a technical and scale point of view, but still got a lot of deserved criticism.

It's not an issue of budget or technology anymore. WDI today has largely forgotten good ride design and understanding the medium.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

WDI today seems to think IP + tech is what makes for a compelling attraction, even if there's only one or two show stopping examples.

Staging, pacing, layout, set up and pay off etc have all been forgotten, as has designing rides to handle crowds. These were all lessons learned by WED and perfected by the late 1960s. Too bad that self-taught knowledge was thrown out with the second generation of Imagineers in the early to mid-2000s.

 

[ChrisFL]

For them to be able to rebuild all of that in less than 3 years is incredible. Meanwhile Disney starts moving dirt around at the 3 year mark for most of their attractions

 

[darksidefan]

This German park and specifically the ride posted here is quite lovely in all its detail. I wonder how many acres large and other rides in that park equal this one specific ride. After experiencing this one ride will I be equally impressed with not one full day of park experienc, but days on end during a WDW experience?

We go every year (not this one-covid) it is an amazing park and we stay for 4 days each time. Its a beautiful park with lots to do and not pay the Disney prices. 2 hour direct train from Frankfurt airport to the park. Fantastic place to visit.

 

[cjkeating]

For them to be able to rebuild all of that in less than 3 years is incredible. Meanwhile Disney starts moving dirt around at the 3 year mark for most of their attractions

It was actually 2 years and 2 months for them to rebuild the attraction. Unbelievable. As you say Disney would never do that.

Not only that they rebuilt and re-opened the neighbouring Scandinavia area that was burnt to the ground in 13 months and even built a brand new family dark ride in the basement of Scandinavia as an unannounced surprise within 18 months!