DHS Monster Inc Land Coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios

[Animaniac93-98]

Might be the wrong forum but not adding Play was probably the right call. Instead of locking the dome into a playground setting, it could be used in the future to hold an actual ride. Not that it will be but one can hope.

That I agree with, but now I feel like they could have had the queue, load, exit gift shop for Cosmic Rewind in that building (or a new one in the same spot) instead of Energy

 

[HMF]

That I agree with, but now I feel like they could have had the queue, load, exit gift shop for Cosmic Rewind in that building (or a new one in the same spot) instead of Energy

That might have been as preferable to replacing Energy as Energy was preferable to Time Racers.

 

[HauntedPirate]

I don’t know why we’re pretending that original EPCOT (and original Disneyland for that matter) were not full of advertising attractions. Companies weren’t sponsoring attractions out of the good of their heart.

This is an incredibly naive comment. Advertisers wanting something for spending millions on an attraction?

UoE didn’t teach anything other than outdated log lines from Big Oil companies that they knew even then wasn’t true.

Really? And you know this... how?

"We must continue to conserve and extend today's energy sources, and develop a broad mix of alternatives for the future."

"It calls for practical and affordable new sources (of energy) for tomorrow."

Other energy sources/topics mentioned in the original ride:

Geothermal
Wind
Solar
Hydroelectric
Nuclear (fission)
Nuclear fusion

And who would have thought that a company primarily focused on oil (in 1982) would have focused on that? Just unacceptable.

Thus endeth today's lesson.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Guardians is one of the most popular rides at the resort. Very few people would argue that it’s worse than an updated version of UoE. Most would highly prefer it.

Well, unless they’re too young or too old or the wrong shape or have a history of certain medical problems or are prone to nausea or are traveling with someone who’s too young or too old or…

Or if they like their theme parks to be themed.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Well, unless they’re too young or too old or the wrong shape or have a history of certain medical problems or are prone to nausea or are traveling with someone who’s too young or too old or…

Or if they like their theme parks to be themed.

It's themed to some non-descript super heroes or something.

 

[plutofan15]

Well, unless they’re too young or too old or the wrong shape or have a history of certain medical problems or are prone to nausea or are traveling with someone who’s too young or too old or…

The same can be said for all of the following attractions.

-Mission:SPACE
- Soarin'
- Test Track
- Barnstormer
- Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
- Space Mountain
- Tiana's Bayou Adventure
- Tomorrowland Speedway
- TRON
- Alien Swirling Saucers
- Smugglers Run
- Rock-n-Roller Coaster
- Slinky Dog Dash
- Star Tours
- Rise of the Resistance
- Tower of Terror
- Flight of Passage
- Dinosaur
- Expedition Everest
- Kali River Rapids

 

[Chi84]

Well, unless they’re too young or too old or the wrong shape or have a history of certain medical problems or are prone to nausea or are traveling with someone who’s too young or too old or…

Or if they like their theme parks to be themed.

I know the World Showcase is themed but the rest of Epcot hasn’t been for a long time. Unless you consider food festivals a theme.

 

[WorldExplorer]

It’s been said many times, but an emphasis on coasters and other restrictive thrill rides quickly and dramatically limits the audience for a park. If a family of guests have a couple rides that they can’t all ride together, fine. You’re getting your money’s worth elsewhere. But if Grandpa and Grandma and Little Fauntleroy and Nauseous Uncle Randy have to spend half the day sitting on a bench waiting, suddenly a visit to the park looks a lot less enjoyable for the whole family. This has always been Universal’s problem and they’re idiots for not moving to correct it when they began to compete with Disney head on. It was never Disney’s problem… until about a decade or so ago, when a confluence of forces, particularly the rise of paid ride reservations, caused their philosophy to shift. So we get the brilliant idea of thrill coasters themed to family properties like Muppets and Monsters.

I want to highlight the disability angle here, because thrill rides really don't mix well with it. Disney does a lot of really great stuff for disabled people, but the rides aren't the bright spot.

There are two types of "accommodations", wheelchair access vehicle (push the chair onto the ride) and transfer access vehicle (get out of the chair, use a slightly modified car to board), plus a sprinkle of rides that just don't really have anything (Soarin', Dinosaur, Haunted Mansion, etc.). The wheelchair car is extremely helpful for some people, but for obvious reasons cannot happen on thrill rides, especially not rollercoasters, so they all go with the transfer car. It's just not safe to wheel a chair onto a rollercoaster and strap it in, but they can make a door that can swing open on the side of the cart without compromising anything.

While both count as accommodating and the transfer car definitely helps certain people, the reality is when you're with someone that really needs the wheelchair vehicle, the transfer vehicle isn't much of an improvement. Having to get up and finagle your way into the cart then get up and finagle your way out of the cart for every ride is very tiring and can feel mortifying because people always stare. In practice, for some of them, there really isn't much difference between getting on the transfer car and getting into a non-modified car at all.

Studios has one ride with a wheelchair cart (Toy Story Mania. Which also has a handicap friendly cannon, to their credit) and the door coaster isn't going to up that number. The Great Movie Ride used to have one, but the replacment doesn't.

Calm, family friendly rides are the ones that can have wheelchair carts. They really accomodate everyone. It's unreasonable to expect all of them to be like that, but having a decent number there as an option between other rides really does a whole world of good for people who need them. And that's just my group's perspective, where struggling your way into rides is possible; there are undoubtably people who are worse off than us and really 100% need the wheelchair cart.

I'm not the type who thinks if someone can't do something no one can, but it does bother me that Disney goes on and on about inclusion but this never comes up, doesn't seem to be in consideration at all, and they are regularly making the situation worse by replacing calm attractions with thrill rides (I'm not shocked, just bothered). When you look at the options you see that almost all wheelchair access ones are very old, with the most recent I'm aware of being Little Mermaid. Animal Kingdom is also sitting at one wheelchair vehicle, and maybe they might bump it up to three (I guess the carousel would be one by default, but doesn't count as adding one as TriceraTop Spin had one) but they didn't put one in the calm boat ride that is Navi River Journey, opting for the transfer cart, so who even knows?


Don't get me started on how awful a lot of the wheelchair spots are at shows...

 

[UNCgolf]

Guardians is one of the most popular rides at the resort. Very few people would argue that it’s worse than an updated version of UoE. Most would highly prefer it.

It is definitely popular, but as I said somewhere above, I'd wager at least 20% of visitors on an average day think it's worse than an updated version of UoE because they can't ride it. Disney's attendance mix is not the same as other parks.

Not that that means that they shouldn't have built CR -- it's fine to have some coasters -- but the $500m they spent on it could have been put to much better use.

 

[BrianLo]

It’s been said many times, but an emphasis on coasters and other restrictive thrill rides quickly and dramatically limits the audience for a park.

My pessimistic read is the resort as a whole is up 2 dark rides, 1 coaster and 1 hotel over this entire investment cycle. Basing that more on their 2019-2022 baseline than the distant past. I’d prefer a 3:1 ratio, particularly since Cars will still be a tad restricted. I don’t think they’ve entirely gone the way of Universal, yet.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I want to highlight the disability angle here, because thrill rides really don't mix well with it. Disney does a lot of really great stuff for disabled people, but the rides aren't the bright spot.

There are two types of "accommodations", wheelchair access vehicle (push the chair onto the ride) and transfer access vehicle (get out of the chair, use a slightly modified car to board), plus a sprinkle of rides that just don't really have anything (Soarin', Dinosaur, Haunted Mansion, etc.). The wheelchair car is extremely helpful for some people, but for obvious reasons cannot happen on thrill rides, especially not rollercoasters, so they all go with the transfer car. It's just not safe to wheel a chair onto a rollercoaster and strap it in, but they can make a door that can swing open on the side of the cart without compromising anything.

While both count as accommodating and the transfer car definitely helps certain people, the reality is when you're with someone that really needs the wheelchair vehicle, the transfer vehicle isn't much of an improvement. Having to get up and finagle your way into the cart then get up and finagle your way out of the cart for every ride is very tiring and can feel mortifying because people always stare. In practice, for some of them, there really isn't much difference between getting on the transfer car and getting into a non-modified car at all.

Studios has one ride with a wheelchair cart (Toy Story Mania. Which also has a handicap friendly cannon, to their credit) and the door coaster isn't going to up that number. The Great Movie Ride used to have one, but the replacment doesn't.

Calm, family friendly rides are the ones that can have wheelchair carts. They really accomodate everyone. It's unreasonable to expect all of them to be like that, but having a decent number there as an option between other rides really does a whole world of good for people who need them. And that's just my group's perspective, where struggling your way into rides is possible; there are undoubtably people who are worse off than us and really 100% need the wheelchair cart.

I'm not the type who thinks if someone can't do something no one can, but it does bother me that Disney goes on and on about inclusion but this never comes up, doesn't seem to be in consideration at all, and they are regularly making the situation worse by replacing calm attractions with thrill rides (I'm not shocked, just bothered). When you look at the options you see that almost all wheelchair access ones are very old, with the most recent I'm aware of being Little Mermaid. Animal Kingdom is also sitting at one wheelchair vehicle, and maybe they might bump it up to three (I guess the carousel would be one by default, but doesn't count as adding one as TriceraTop Spin had one) but they didn't put one in the calm boat ride that is Navi River Journey, opting for the transfer cart, so who even knows?


Don't get me started on how awful a lot of the wheelchair spots are at shows...

Great post.

As someone who sometimes travels with someone who very much needs a wheelchair, I will say the accessibility on Runaway Railroad (a ride I love) is particularly terrible and very emblematic of a larger problem. Trackless dark rides, of all the types of attractions, should have wheelchair access vehicles and an stress-free, preferably separate loading environment. That should be one of the fundamental advantages of a trackless ride. The fact that MMRR doesn’t is a sign of how little accessibility matters to modern Disney.

 

[peter11435]

Great post.

As someone who sometimes travels with someone who very much needs a wheelchair, I will say the accessibility on Runaway Railroad (a ride I love) is particularly terrible and very emblematic of a larger problem. Trackless dark rides, of all the types of attractions, should have wheelchair access vehicles and an stress-free, preferably separate loading environment. That should be one of the fundamental advantages of a trackless ride. The fact that MMRR doesn’t is a sign of how little accessibility matters to modern Disney.

But MMRR does have a separate loading environment for guests with disabilities.

 

[Casper Gutman]

My pessimistic read is the resort as a whole is up 2 dark rides, 1 coaster and 1 hotel over this entire investment cycle. Basing that more on their 2019-2022 baseline than the distant past. I’d prefer a 3:1 ratio, particularly since Cars will still be a tad restricted. I don’t think they’ve entirely gone the way of Universal, yet.

Since 2017, WDW has added 8 rides by my count. 3 of those - Tron, FoP, and GotG - are more restrictive then any Disney World had previously built in their entire history. Of the rides they are currently building, at least 2 more will be more restrictive then any Disney built prior to 2017. That is not a noticeable advantage over Universal, a park founded on (and foolishly clinging to) an entirely different, almost diametrically opposed, design philosophy.

WorldExplorer’s great post also highlights that none of the rides built since 2017, not even ones like Rat, Railway, and River, are particularly accessible.

 

[Casper Gutman]

But MMRR does have a separate loading environment for guests with disabilities.

It does not have wheelchair access vehicles or even vehicles that are particularly easy to transfer into. I have watched party members have absolutely horrible experiences with the load process. It is a very, very poor design in an otherwise strong ride.

 

[peter11435]

It does not have wheelchair access vehicles or even vehicles that are particularly easy to transfer into. I have watched party members have absolutely horrible experiences with the load process. It is a very, very poor design in an otherwise strong ride.

Definitely agreed on both of those points. They don’t have wheelchair accessible vehicles or vehicles that make transfer easy. I was just pointing out that they have a separate dedicate load area for those transferring which your original post seemed to claim otherwise.

 

[BrianLo]

That is not a noticeable advantage over Universal, a park founded on (and foolishly clinging to) an entirely different, almost diametrically opposed, design philosophy.

Indeed, the prior cycle was clearly worse. Confounded by replacements. Trying to pivot towards a demographic they feel they needed to chase.

Just one correction, Universal was not founded on a diametrically opposed philosophy. It pivoted in the 2000s. The original product was more Disney than current day Disney. The only slight advantage is Universal seems currently unwilling to build anything accessible. Disney has had a few exceptions.

And don’t get me wrong - Epic a ton of fun with two stellar shows.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Definitely agreed on both of those points. They don’t have wheelchair accessible vehicles or vehicles that make transfer easy. I was just pointing out that they have a separate dedicate load area for those transferring which your original post seemed to claim otherwise.

If memory serves, the “separate area” is simply unload, correct? Which presents its own problems.

Oddly, the best “separate load” that springs to mind is the first Potter ride at Uni, otherwise a terribly restrictive attraction with really awful ride vehicles.

 

[UNCgolf]

Since 2017, WDW has added 8 rides by my count. 3 of those - Tron, FoP, and GotG - are more restrictive then any Disney World had previously built in their entire history. Of the rides they are currently building, at least 2 more will be more restrictive then any Disney built prior to 2017. That is not a noticeable advantage over Universal, a park founded on (and foolishly clinging to) an entirely different, almost diametrically opposed, design philosophy.

WorldExplorer’s great post also highlights that none of the rides built since 2017, not even ones like Rat, Railway, and River, are particularly accessible.

Is FoP is more restrictive than Rock N Roller Coaster?

 

[Casper Gutman]

Is FoP is more restrictive than Rock N Roller Coaster?

Absolutely. The seats are very restrictive and there is absolutely no alternative option for guests whose bodies don’t contort a particular, fairly unusual way or don’t fit the restraints. RnR is actually one of the more accessible coasters in operation anywhere - what limits it’s accessibility, of course, is the loops and launch, a somewhat different though related issue.

PS: FoP is almost certainly the most restrictive ride at WDW and there is absolutely, positively no reason it should be except for the fact that Disney didn’t care.

 

[UNCgolf]

Absolutely. The seats are very restrictive and there is absolutely no alternative option for guests whose bodies don’t contort a particular, fairly unusual way or don’t fit the restraints. RnR is actually one of the more accessible coasters in operation anywhere - what limits it’s accessibility, of course, is the loops and launch, a somewhat different though related issue.

PS: FoP is almost certainly the most restrictive ride at WDW and there is absolutely, positively no reason it should be except for the fact that Disney didn’t care.

Oh, didn't realize you solely meant in terms of disabled access. That makes more sense.

And I should have picked that up considering the overall context.