DAK 'Encanto' and 'Indiana Jones'-themed experiences at Animal Kingdom

[Moth]

I think the exclusion of animal enclosures from TA is due to the proximity to the transportation hub/parking and possible noise concerns affecting the QOL for the animals.

It's one thing if it's something like a crocodile or more... urban birds (storks) there, but things like Capybaras or parrots, heavily noise reliant animals, would probably be stressed being near car and bus horns.

 

[SamusAranX]

I just saw a post on Instagram claiming that Joe Rhode has been trying to get a Tropical America land greenlit for Animal Kingdom, with many of his pitches replacing Dinoland, for years.

Call me skeptical, but I doubt that Joe - the guy behind Animal Kingdom and who probably understands it better than anyone - ever said, "You know what we should do? We should remove dinosaurs from the park and shoehorn in two IPs that don't fit in the park!"

MAYBE he wanted to do a South America land that actually focused on animals, but I doubt the Indiana Jones retheme of Dinosaur and an Encanto ride were his idea.

Not really, no. It's gonna have the same number of attractions (they're replacing three attractions with... three attractions), and if you're like me and don't care about Indiana Jones and Encanto, you're likely not going to want to see the new rides, so that takes even less time off your visit to the park.

Fair point. But wasn't the Fantasia boat ride going to focus primarily on the "Pastoral Symphony" and "Dance of the Hours" segments? Y'know, the ones about mythological creatures and animals respectively? I don't even know if there were going to be any scenes from Fantasia 2000 in it.

I think with the shorter operating hours, it’ll be close again, but like you said, it’s merely bringing it back to what it was before.

If you’ve never been to AK, and like shows, it’ll be close.

You will now have:

FoP
NRJ
Encanto
IJ
The safari
Animal exhibits
ZBT
Festival of the lion king
Nemo show
Everest
KRR (I’m being generous here)
The carousel
Multiple good food options

9-6pm can be filled

Repeat visitors nope. So that why I think, one more E ticket and a couple more C’s and you may have the best non-castle park in the states. And I add the caveat that those attractions fit the parks vision.

 

[doctornick]

Otherwise, why spend all the billions in capital when they can just add 20 more Tea Cups for a fraction of the cost at MK to help improve efficiency.

While I wouldn't suggest 20 tea cups (or dumbo type spinners, etc) exactly, I absolutely think WDW would benefit from building a crapload of B and C tickets over more E-tickets. Especially DHS and DAK who have solid headliners but very weak/few complimentary rides.

Probably more realistically, I think they largely should be building about 2 or 3 smaller rides to go along with any large/expensive E-ticket they build. Like the carousel seems like it will be nice, but why couldn't they keep the mechanism of TS and also have a spinner in the land for a total of 4 rides?

 

[JD80]

3 to 6 can easily be filled with sitting at the nomad lounge.

 

[SamusAranX]

I think the exclusion of animal enclosures from TA is due to the proximity to the transportation hub/parking and possible noise concerns affecting the QOL for the animals.

It's one thing if it's something like a crocodile or more... urban birds (storks) there, but things like Capybaras or parrots, heavily noise reliant animals, would probably be stressed being near car and bus horns.

I mean easiest way to add an exciting E-ticket and keep dinosaurs in the park would have been a crocodile chase. For an extra LL of $99.99 you’re deposited on a 50 yard terrace and then a croc is released. Outrun it to escape.

Thrills?
LL revenue?
Meets park vision?

 

[lazyboy97o]

While I wouldn't suggest 20 tea cups (or dumbo type spinners, etc) exactly, I absolutely think WDW would benefit from building a crapload of B and C tickets over more E-tickets. Especially DHS and DAK who have solid headliners but very weak/few complimentary rides.

Probably more realistically, I think they largely should be building about 2 or 3 smaller rides to go along with any large/expensive E-ticket they build. Like the carousel seems like it will be nice, but why couldn't they keep the mechanism of TS and also have a spinner in the land for a total of 4 rides?

A big part of the problem is that they just can’t deliver such small attractions on anything close to a reasonable budget. Emotional Whirl Wind at Disney’s California Adventure, which was a reskin of an existing ride system, cost several times more than most pay for the entire ride new, even with a custom shell. Walt Disney Imagineering can’t deliver at a price point where something would be fine to not induce new demand.

 

[Timothy_Q]

While I wouldn't suggest 20 tea cups (or dumbo type spinners, etc) exactly, I absolutely think WDW would benefit from building a crapload of B and C tickets over more E-tickets. Especially DHS and DAK who have solid headliners but very weak/few complimentary rides.

Monstropolis especially should have a spinner

 

[SamusAranX]

Monstropolis especially should have a spinner

I still don’t understand why MLF wasn’t brought over

Then they could have easily put in an IP show replacement at magic kingdom. Wall-E writes itself

 

[doctornick]

Monstropolis especially should have a spinner

Yes, the area where basically the large Stage 1 store was located seems like ample room to add a smaller flat ride which would have been a solid compliment to Monstropolis

 

[MR.Dis]

At the current price of $200+ per ticket, a family of four pays out $800+ plus food/merchandise. No park should have fewer than 25 attractions for a full day of entertainment. Currently only MK meets this threshold. Until this threshold is met in all WDW parks, talking about a new gate is not an option.

 

[Touchdown]

Does DL really have many more rides than MK after this? I think it’s closer than you think. Let’s count the unique rides at MK and DL and see how close we get. I’m not counting clones, and I’m not counting analogous attractions (ex. The treehouses) however if a ride is at DL and it’s in another park at WDW and visa versa I will count it as this is only comparing castle parks.

MK: (12)
-Magic Carpets
-Country Bear Jamboree
-Piston Peak
-Villains Coaster
-Villains Dark Ride
-Mickey’s Philharmagic
-Seven Dwarf Mine Train
-Voyage of the Little Mermaid
-Tron Lightcycle Run
-Carousel of Progress
-Monsters Inc Laugh Floor
-Peoplemover

DL: (19)
-Great Moments with Walt Disney
-Indiana Jones Adventure
-Rise of the Resistance
-Riverboat
-Columbia
-Tom Sawyer
-Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run
-Casey Jr
-Pinocchio’s Daring Journey
-Snow White
-Mr. Toad
-Alice in Wonderland
-Storybook Cruise
-Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railroad
-Rodger Rabbit
-Matterhorn
-Submarine Voyage
-Monorail
-Star Tours

It’s not as lopsided as it used to be, and I’d argue that the quality of the MK originals once this edition is done is likely to be as good if not better then the DL exclusives, 11 of the 12 MK attractions I expect to be must rides for me every trip, DL is batting 15/19.

 

[brb1006]

Well the only other "North American nature-related" IP they have is Brother Bear!

They could resurrect Camp Minnie Mickey and have the adored and beloved Humphrey the Bear as the mascot though! :^)

Bambi?

 

[brb1006]

Bambi
One of the best fitting IPs for DAK
It's just not popular enough in Disney's eyes

I remember Thumper and Miss Bunny used to be common meetable characters at AK back when Camp Minnie Mickey was around during the late 2000s/early 2010s.

 

[DrummerxDrummer]

Gosh I haven’t been on this forum in years! It’s good to be back! I think the last time I was on was 2013. Anyways I recently returned from my Disney World Trip which included a few last rides on DINOSAUR before it’s closure. But also I had serendipitously met someone who works in theme park design there who works along side someone who was an imagineer for many years having worked on many big projects for Disney stateside and internationally. Together they have done many things even worked on projects for Universal too. But this person did confirm my speculation that the Encanto Ride would be comparable to that of Mystic Manor in Disneyland Hong Kong. I apologize if this has been discussed before so forgive me redundancy if it has been but I missed these forums so much and glad to be back on here!

 

[brb1006]

Wasn't Beastly Kingdom going to have a Fantasia boat ride, and would have opened just before Fantasia 2000 released?

Yeah, there was going to be a Fantasia boat ride based on The Pastoral Symphony segment that featured unicorns, the Pegasus family, fauns, and other mythological creatures and "Dance of the Hour". I think there's concept art of the Fantasia boat ride somewhere online.

 

[Ayla]

A big part of the problem is that they just can’t deliver such small attractions on anything close to a reasonable budget. Emotional Whirl Wind at Disney’s California Adventure, which was a reskin of an existing ride system, cost several times more than most pay for the entire ride new, even with a custom shell. Walt Disney Imagineering can’t deliver at a price point where something would be fine to not induce new demand.

Why can't they be held to a reasonable budget?

 

[Pizza Moon]

Theme parks fans aren’t trying to make rational business decisions…

Most recent earnings call said theme park investment was one of the lowest ROIs in the 2000s, but now the ROI is the highest across the company. Eventually that won’t be true, but even if it was the lowest, park fans would (rightfully as a fan) ask for more expansion.

They leave so much money on the table.

 

[Pizza Moon]

Yeah, there was going to be a Fantasia boat ride based on The Pastoral Symphony segment that featured unicorns, the Pegasus family, fauns, and other mythological creatures and "Dance of the Hour". I think there's concept art of the Fantasia boat ride somewhere online.

Would’ve been awesome.

I’ve never had an issue with Pandora for this reason either.

 

[FigmentJedi]

Well the only other "North American nature-related" IP they have is Brother Bear!

They could resurrect Camp Minnie Mickey and have the adored and beloved Humphrey the Bear as the mascot though! :^)

Goofy Movie as a pretense to have a Bigfoot ride

 

[Brer Panther]

No offense, but that's kinda on you if you don't make DAK a full day park by not doing certain attractions.

You could say the same thing about all the people who didn't do Dinosaur or the Dino-Rama attractions.

I thought the claim they were trying to make is that Animal Kingdom's small attraction lineup made it a half-day park, not whether or not people do every single attraction.

Such as the story treatment for an Encanto attraction.

Ah, yes, the claim that the ride will indeed focus on Antonio and his animals. I'll believe it when I see it.

Both have been or could be easily massaged to be about “nature”; whether animal or environmental nature.

Do you honestly expect a Moana attraction to be five minutes of Moana talking about animals and protecting the environment? I wouldn't. The general public - y'know, the dimwitted people who clap like a trained seal whenever they see a character from whatever popular Disney movie in an attraction and hate anything not based on an IP, the people who Disney is catering to nowadays - wouldn't want that in a Moana attraction, and Disney knows it. They want the songs from the movie(s), Maui having a shark head, Hei Hei being dumb, the coconut pirate guys... y'know, just a rehash of the movie. It's the exact same reason that I'm skeptical the Encanto attraction will actually be about animals.