This is simply not true.
Journey of Water was filler for the Festival Center plan. The Festival Center made absolutely no financial, programmatic or operational sense. For most guests it would have been a concrete plaza with a concrete ceiling.
Non-water based interactive experiences absolutely could have fit within the CommuniCore West building. The capacity had been there. There were also alternative plans that would have featured more capacity in better form than what they ultimately cobbled together with CommuniCore Hall. They also would have been a lot easier and cheaper to accomplish than putting a bunch of water on top of a basement.
It doesn’t have anywhere near enough capacity to meaningfully reduce demand elsewhere in the park.
You claim all of this wild stuff about Journey of Water like it inducing demand for the park and shifting patterns, but also claim absolutely nothing could have improved visitation to Tom Sawyer Island.
You are right that it's not enough capacity to meaningfully reduce demand. But it does atleast slightly shift the demand. People aren't going from France to specifically go to Moana. But they might stay in Future World for an extra 20 minutes, maybe an extra 40 if they see Moana the character meet and greet is currently out. This does a good job at separating the large clumps as some people rush to very different sections of the park while incentivizing staying in Future World (I saw multiple families stay in Future World for quite a while going through Moana, the little play place, and the current Goofycore hall) these little activities kept those kids happy and out of the regular ride lines while taking up ridiculously little space. I believe based on the estimates I'm seeing, Moana has a similar overall capacity to the riverboat (150 at a time with 10-15 minutes spent) for again a FRACTION of the space with kids definitely asking to specifically go to Moana. This of course is not counting the Moana meet and greet.
Journey of Water is not a major demand sink, I'll fully admit that. But it definitely changes some peoples walking patterns as they stay for longer in the more attraction dense "Future World" and naturally staggers people.
And yes. I don't think anything meaningful could have been done to TSI to make it improved visitation to justify the space. This is 14 acres. That's an insane amount of space. That's more than Toy Story Land or Pandora. You can fit 2 Trons and 2 Remy Expansions in that. You can fit all of Galaxy's Edge in that. You can fit Mexico + Norway + have room to spare in that.
Why in the world would the most visited theme park in the world leave that space for a riverboat that can barely crack 900 riders an hour if the boat was jam packed? The people spoke, the average guest wants more rides and less ROA.
There are major problems in making TSI better.
1. You need to wait in line to ride a small raft to a little play area with not much for the average guest to do. Then wait in line to ride it back. This is taking up at minimum about 30 minutes with it being hard to advertise what there is to do.
2. What theme do you even use to make it better? I'm gonna cut it short. Kids do not care about Tom Sawyer now. I would need a new theme to actually improve. What theme could it even be that would make sense? Coco? Encanto? You need an attractor over there and Tom Sawyer is not going to do it.
3. You have limited space for full refurbishments. Operating on a small island in the middle of a river in the most busy theme park in the world is... tricky to say the least. Getting any construction equipment through there would be a pain.
