News Tron coaster coming to the Magic Kingdom

Dan Deesnee

Dan Deesnee

Well-Known Member
I can see Universal going full steam ahead with Epic Universe. I read an interesting article about 6 months ago talking about how times like this are when you want to go ALL IN on investing in new attractions and rides. The thought being that as things improve and get back to normal in 2-3 years instead of waiting and having not much new once people are travelling again, you will be debuting brand new attractions to pull in the massive crowds.

It makes sense. Why stop / slow / delay production now? It will just make the low crowd issue drag on even longer. Then once people are travelling again, you won't have anything new to attract them for 2-3 years. If one park invests now and opens some new amazing stuff in 2022-2024, they will wipe the floor with the parks that have nothing new debuting between 2023-2025 due to covid delays / cancels.

The reason for delays is always cost savings, but that is short sighted. Increase debt levels and keep the new projects moving along and if anything, ramp it up. That is how you crush the competition in the next 5 years.
 
orky8

orky8

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
I can see Universal going full steam ahead with Epic Universe. I read an interesting article about 6 months ago talking about how times like this are when you want to go ALL IN on investing in new attractions and rides. The thought being that as things improve and get back to normal in 2-3 years instead of waiting and having not much new once people are travelling again, you will be debuting brand new attractions to pull in the massive crowds.

It makes sense. Why stop / slow / delay production now? It will just make the low crowd issue drag on even longer. Then once people are travelling again, you won't have anything new to attract them for 2-3 years. If one park invests now and opens some new amazing stuff in 2022-2024, they will wipe the floor with the parks that have nothing new debuting between 2023-2025 due to covid delays / cancels.

The reason for delays is always cost savings, but that is short sighted. Increase debt levels and keep the new projects moving along and if anything, ramp it up. That is how you crush the competition in the next 5 years.
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They've already announced Epic Universe is paused. Not that I disagree with you, as in two years when Covid is over and people are really itching to travel, would be a great time to have this open.
 
Dan Deesnee

Dan Deesnee

Well-Known Member
orky8 said:
They've already announced Epic Universe is paused. Not that I disagree with you, as in two years when Covid is over and people are really itching to travel, would be a great time to have this open.
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Yep I saw that. Wouldn't shock me though if they are either just saying that and continuing to move forward behind the scenes to not tip their hand to Disney (this is a high stakes game in a very competitive industry). It also might just be paused but I could see it getting back up and going forward quickly and I would wager they don't make too many cuts to what was planned. Just speculation.
 
R

Ripken10

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
Yep I saw that. Wouldn't shock me though if they are either just saying that and continuing to move forward behind the scenes to not tip their hand to Disney (this is a high stakes game in a very competitive industry). It also might just be paused but I could see it getting back up and going forward quickly and I would wager they don't make too many cuts to what was planned. Just speculation.
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Disney and Universal will not be enemies when it comes to encouraging people to come back. As much as we want to believe they are, both companies will benefit from each other moving forward at least till a form of normal returns.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
Yep I saw that. Wouldn't shock me though if they are either just saying that and continuing to move forward behind the scenes to not tip their hand to Disney (this is a high stakes game in a very competitive industry). It also might just be paused but I could see it getting back up and going forward quickly and I would wager they don't make too many cuts to what was planned. Just speculation.
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Huge layoffs have hit Universal Creative. Kind of hard to secretly keep moving as you were when you don’t have those people any more.
 
Dan Deesnee

Dan Deesnee

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
Huge layoffs have hit Universal Creative. Kind of hard to secretly keep moving as you were when you don’t have those people any more.
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Well we don't have the specifics. I would imagine a lot of the Creatives who got let go might have been more critical to later stages of the Epic Universe development.

And let's not kid ourselves here. Disney and Universal for sure want tourists flooding back into the parks but they are running multi billion dollar businesses. I don't think either of them wants the other to fail / die off entirely but Universal would love to be the top park. Just depends on how fearful they are of investing big right now, the near and mid term future, debt levels, etc. etc.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
Well we don't have the specifics. I would imagine a lot of the Creatives who got let go might have been more critical to later stages of the Epic Universe development.

And let's not kid ourselves here. Disney and Universal for sure want tourists flooding back into the parks but they are running multi billion dollar businesses. I don't think either of them wants the other to fail / die off entirely but Universal would love to be the top park. Just depends on how fearful they are of investing big right now, the near and mid term future, debt levels, etc. etc.
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Epic Universe was about to start vertical construction. That’s fairly late into design.
 
Dan Deesnee

Dan Deesnee

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
Epic Universe was about to start vertical construction. That’s fairly late into design.
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This is the quote that has everyone speculating that Epic Universe is delayed years:

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh recently stated during the J.P. Morgan Investor Conference
All things considered, it’s a big capital swing, so better to really march forward with that when we have just a bit more visibility on what’s going on with the economy post-COVID. I can’t tell you when that’s going to be when we revisit it.

To me, and likely to those monitoring the stock market / macroeconomics, this is a great sign that construction will likely resume fairly quickly. The situation with covid might meander on for 2 years, but the economy is already in the midst of staging a strong recovery. If he had said "We're waiting till the situation with Covid is resolved or improved substantially" then yes that would be worrisome.

Big corporations are reporting earnings right now and numbers have improved substantially since Q2, as has the economy. Some areas of it are still down from February, obviously, but the pace of improvement is pretty rapid. https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/united-states
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
surfdawg said:
I think a lot of AP Disney locals will be switching their passes to other Central Florida Parks, or just cancelling any form of annual passes all together due to the virus and the worsened economy that's looming ahead. It's going to be hard for many to continue paying such a premium when SEAS is debuting two new coasters next year, one of which is going to be one of the best in the world. Uni is also going to debut another top ten coaster with Velocicoaster, it's going to be a hard sell to convince pass-holders to stay in the Disney bubble when all of the competition is ramping it up with unique, thrilling additions, while Disney slows construction and chooses to keep attractions closed. Especially when all of their competitors offer passes that appeal to locals for a much lower price.

It makes sense to not debut attractions this year, but come next year if the world is even in a slightly better place, Disney is going to be setting themselves up on a trajectory towards failure. In the 2010's, we saw Universal absolutely wipe the floor with Disney by continually pushing the limits and creating new and unique attractions nearly ever year. While the quality of some of them can be questionable, *glares at F&F*, there's no denying that this rapid expansion method accelerated Universal from being just another park down the road to a full on vacation destination, and a threat to WDW. If they continue to sit idle and let their competitors build these new and unique attractions while Disney works at a snails pace on the same four attractions that have been announced since nearly D23 2016, I don't think this is going to be the best decade for the parks.

However, Tron looks cool. A little redundant to put an indoor roller coaster right next to a classic indoor roller coaster, if anything it just makes SM looks vastly outdated in comparison, but still cool nonetheless. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if this addition is going to allow them to close down SM for an extensive refurb to the likes of DL in 2005 with new on-board audio and re-tracking. Tron is definitely going to be an absolute must-ride at the resort, and will help add even more capacity to the already vastly overcrowded MK.
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I didn't realize that so many WDW AP holders were just in it for the coasters.
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
This is the quote that has everyone speculating that Epic Universe is delayed years:

Comcast Chief Financial Officer Mike Cavanagh recently stated during the J.P. Morgan Investor Conference
All things considered, it’s a big capital swing, so better to really march forward with that when we have just a bit more visibility on what’s going on with the economy post-COVID. I can’t tell you when that’s going to be when we revisit it.

To me, and likely to those monitoring the stock market / macroeconomics, this is a great sign that construction will likely resume fairly quickly. The situation with covid might meander on for 2 years, but the economy is already in the midst of staging a strong recovery. If he had said "We're waiting till the situation with Covid is resolved or improved substantially" then yes that would be worrisome.

Big corporations are reporting earnings right now and numbers have improved substantially since Q2, as has the economy. Some areas of it are still down from February, obviously, but the pace of improvement is pretty rapid. https://www.focus-economics.com/countries/united-states
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There is more than that one quote, including direct statements that the project is being delayed. It’s not speculation.
 
Dan Deesnee

Dan Deesnee

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
There is more than that one quote, including direct statements that the project is being delayed. It’s not speculation.
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You're not getting what I'm saying. Not saying it's not delayed, clearlyy it is. What I'm saying is it could pickup construction quicker than many might realize. Based on his comments, and the quickly improving economy.
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
I get wanting to spread costs out over time and wanting to maximize the marketing value of opening a new ride, but Epcot is a disaster right now. I mean, they know we can see all the construction walls and the Big Blue Box, right?

Again, I don't understand why they can't do a secret "beta test" opening of rides like, this as Rat. Still do a big "Grand Opening," when crowds come back, but low-key open now to work out the kinks and to give guests something to do.
 
_caleb

_caleb

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
You're not getting what I'm saying. Not saying it's not delayed, clearlyy it is. What I'm saying is it could pickup construction quicker than many might realize. Based on his comments, and the quickly improving economy.
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The economy might be improving, but it's a different economy now.

www.slideshare.net

McKinsey Survey: US consumer sentiment during the coronavirus crisis

Optimism has increased to levels not seen since April, but spending intent remains depressed as consumers navigate remote learning and anticipate continued dis…
www.slideshare.net www.slideshare.net
 
D

doctornick

Well-Known Member
Dan Deesnee said:
You're not getting what I'm saying. Not saying it's not delayed, clearlyy it is. What I'm saying is it could pickup construction quicker than many might realize. Based on his comments, and the quickly improving economy.
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They literally are moving some of the plans (Nintendo/Mario) to the other parks in the interim which means at least part of Epic Universe would need to be completely redesigned. And, as mentioned, they’ve gutted their design staff much like Disney has. It doesn’t seem likely that EU will happen anytime soon.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’d prefer to see it happen sooner rather than later)
 

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