Careful! I was questioned in the WDWmagic court of law for even thinking there was a plan that would keep the riverboat at MK!
*sarcasm aside* I know we were close to having Star Wars expansion next to star tours (crazy concept) which would have obviously left the back of DHS open for other ideas.
I’m almost willing to bet… and maybe Martin can answer…. The cars road rally in Paris is an extremely budget cut version of a concept that was created for DHS.
Because a cars land with Lights Motors and Catastrophe Canyon would have been pretty darn impressive!
People need to understand two realities.
Projects are literally still being worked on as they’re being built. They have no idea how the exact finished product for a dark ride will be, sure they have plans done, but you’re tweaking everything as you’re building it.
The second thing is that Disney has literally endless Blue Sky concepts for every park. Not so detailed necessarily as to go full “Ideal Build-Out” with it, but they’ll have all these pitches and storyboards and even layout ideas.
To actually develop a full-fledged project takes up a lot of staff and time, but there’s also projects that have been abandoned or revived and modified that were past the blue sky phase.
The Door Coaster is textbook for this.
I mean even Tropical Americas existed in some form before.
So like, it wouldn’t surprise me if for Shanghai’s second park and Abu Dhabi, they lift ideas from WestCott for instance.
Honestly Disney’s future is so bright film and theme parks and gaming wise.
We’ve sort of lived in these dark ages under Iger, but Iger still saved the company from being bought out like Warner, and for that he’ll always be viewed as supremely integral to Disney’s legacy.
Like Eisner, I feel he became worse because if you live long enough as the hero, you’ll eventually become the villain.
Unless you’re like a Jobs/Musk/Roy Walt Disney/Jensen Huang, but those are so few and far between.
I think Josh is really going to get the job done. I love the way the Disney fandom has just totally embraced him and giving him a chance.
Tropical Americas is going to be SO good as will Monstropolis, fixing their two “half-day” Orlando parks in a massive way in literally just a couple years.
EPCOT has upcoming unannounced projects as does MK’s Tomorrowland, so it’s like, they’re literally fixing everything.
And the gaming push by Josh, and he seems to not be prudish like Iger.
I imagine he wants to build like all the theme parks in Fortnite or something.
Imagine just going to the parks exploring, I built theme parks in Minecraft, but a fully intentional modern gaming platform for their theme parks would be a game changer.
And then you tie everything in and cross promote better.
We know that this decade is really fixing their pieces, but the 2030s will be unabridged expansion.
I’m happy because when I have kids someday, if the parks really are going to get more after this round like their budgets suggest, the parks will just be awesome. And even if they expand none in Orlando will ever feel totally closed off except for like a Indy Stunt Show/Speedway/Circus Tents replacement.
Like if you just build a single ride it’s not that invasive or like created a totally new area like Fantasy Springs did at Tokyo.
The era of endless construction walls affecting actual park spaces will actually come to an end which is neat. No one really talks about it, but it’s not a good look to close a third or a quarter of a park with walls. Necessary, but only because they needed better bones in the core areas, or utilized underutilized space.
