2hours to get to my car...

[CoasterKing]

What did WDW do with the subs from the old 20,000 Leagues ride? I mean I would think they could use them to move folks across the lagoon :ROFLOL:

How sweet would that be?

Now that would be cool !!

CoasterKing :king:

 

[zulemara]

I have been to Mk in the past where the monorails were completely down. They had busses and trams running to the parking lot. Busses to TTC, trams to the parking lot. Disney has a plan, and while it may appear poorly implemented, it does work. There are flat out, a lot of people in peak times and this makes it seem as if nothing is moving.

Transportation works their butts off when things go haywire.

Now, is there still a 3rd ferry boat? When we were there last sept and oct, there was generally only 1 running? And where is the drydock?

In the off season, mid day when monorails are running, they will sometimes run only 1 FB. There is a certain threshold they use to determine it.

 

[David S.]

But I find it interesting that this type of "Grand Entrance" - making guests dependent on a transportation queue to enter and leave the park - was not duplicated for the Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong Magic Kingdoms. Perhaps experience in Florida showed them that while aesthetically interesting, this approach can cause logistical problems.

HahaI love how people twist truth to try and make an opinion have some back up to it. The reason those parks don't have the same build up is more than likely due to space! None are anywhere near the same size as Walt Disney World and all of them have land that is at a premium far more than WDW so it wouldn't make sense along with the fact that the number of people arriving at those parks by car is much less so they do not have the huge carparks MK has. The whole sense of arrival is different at those parks due to the scale of them.

I wasn't "twisting truth". It is FACT that they didn't try this approach again. I used the word "perhaps" to indicate that it was indeed speculation on my part that the reason, or at least part of the reason, for not doing this again could have been due to the logistical problems that can be caused by the set up at WDW. So I never claimed my theory about the reason why they didn't do it again was a fact. By your logic you are "twisting truth" as well, because you state the reason is "more than likely" due to space, but you do not know for sure whether or not the logistics and lessons learned from the WDW set up played a role as well.

 

[uklad79]

They could have bought land to reproduce the same effect, especially at DLP. But they chose not too.

I am sure the purchase price of the land in Orlando versus the other places had something to do with that plus the fact only the American resorts are wholly owned. Trying to sell the concept of a lake on premium priced land to partners in the other parks would have not been considered. WDW has the blessing of huge amounts of land so adding the land wasn't an issue.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

I am sure the purchase price of the land in Orlando versus the other places had something to do with that plus the fact only the American resorts are wholly owned. Trying to sell the concept of a lake on premium priced land to partners in the other parks would have not been considered. WDW has the blessing of huge amounts of land so adding the land wasn't an issue.

This is absolutely the reason. Thanks for typing it out so I didn't have to. :wave:

 

[uklad79]

By your logic you are "twisting truth" as well, because you state the reason is "more than likely" due to space, but you do not know for sure whether or not the logistics and lessons learned from the WDW set up played a role as well.

Nope I would say that I am using common sense and fact based on the size of the other parks and the ownership structure of them. :animwink:

 

[flynnibus]

I am sure the purchase price of the land in Orlando versus the other places had something to do with that plus the fact only the American resorts are wholly owned. Trying to sell the concept of a lake on premium priced land to partners in the other parks would have not been considered. WDW has the blessing of huge amounts of land so adding the land wasn't an issue.

There is no 'blessing' - it's a privilege BOUGHT. They could have done the same by buying up huge tracts of land in France too - but the type of park they wanted to build was different.

If they wanted huge tracts of land, they could have built the park somewhere else (just like part of the decision on where to build WDW was based on how much land they wanted).

They altered the design - not cut back based on what they had available. No other park since WDW has been built to be an inclusive vacation resort like WDW was.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

There is no 'blessing' - it's a privilege BOUGHT. They could have done the same by buying up huge tracts of land in France too - but the type of park they wanted to build was different.

If they wanted huge tracts of land, they could have built the park somewhere else (just like part of the decision on where to build WDW was based on how much land they wanted).

They altered the design - not cut back based on what they had available. No other park since WDW has been built to be an inclusive vacation resort like WDW was.

The Florida land was bought using shadow companies in small tracts, basically "under cover of darkness". Nobody knew what was going on. It was bought for pennies on the dollar.

That could never happen in this day and age. In France or anywhere else. I don't know what they paid for the land outside Paris, but it was considered in the middle of nowhere at the time, and I'd be willing to bet it cost hundreds of times more than the Florida property did, and it's probably 1/10th the size, IF THAT.

THE COST OF LAND WOULD PRECLUDE AN ELABORATE SET-UP LIKE IS CURRENTLY AT THE MK.

This isn't a difficult concept.

It's much easier to spend acres and acres and acres of EXTREMELY CHEAP land just to deliver a story than it is to spend acres and acres and acres of land at current market prices.

Add on to that the fact that TWDC is lazer-beam focused on increasing revenue for shareholders, and there you go. There's a different company mindset than there was 40 years ago.

The Seven Seas Lagoon probably had a price tag well under a million dollars when completed, including cost of land and construction. Much easier to stomach than building a lake for at least tens of millions of dollars somewhere else.

 

[David S.]

Nope I would say that I am using common sense and fact based on the size of the other parks and the ownership structure of them. :animwink:

But my point was I wasn't "twisting truth" like you accused me of. I was admitedly speculating. :animwink:

 

[zulemara]

WDW and DL were the only parks designed by Walt. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he wanted the big build up across the lake to MK. When they decided to move forward with WDW, they kept true to his design plans. The rest of the parks had no Walt influence so the company did things differently.

 

[Victor Kelly]

Thanks to all for the answers on the ferry boats.

Now.............What are the names? I am having a serious brain fart right now.

 

[David S.]

Thanks to all for the answers on the ferry boats.

Now.............What are the names? I am having a serious brain fart right now.

I'm pretty sure the General Joe Potter, the Admiral Joe Fowler, and the Richard F. Irvine. All three men played a HUGE role in the development and construction of WDW. The last two names listed were the original names of the Liberty Square Riverboats, before the Fowler was retired and the Irvine was renamed Liberty Belle to give it a name more in tune with the Liberty Square theming.

 

[menamechris]

WDW and DL were the only parks designed by Walt. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he wanted the big build up across the lake to MK. When they decided to move forward with WDW, they kept true to his design plans. The rest of the parks had no Walt influence so the company did things differently.

And quite frankly - none of the other parks are worthy of that kind of build-up. None of them are telling the type of story that would require a lagoon. People also don't realize how beneficial the parking lot spaced out from the park really is to them. It staggers the crowd. Lines to get out the park and resort would be much more chaotic with the number of people leaving at park closing. So you can wait in a line for 10 minutes to get on a monorail or ferry - or you could wait an hour sitting in your car to get out of the parking lot like a lot of other theme parks..

 

[flynnibus]

The Florida land was bought using shadow companies in small tracts, basically "under cover of darkness". Nobody knew what was going on. It was bought for pennies on the dollar.

No - it was bought for normal market rates at the time for the area. It simply wasn't inflated by the presence of Disney until late in the project when the OS was closing in on the activity and fingering Disney, so Disney went public with the plans.. and then had to pay inflated prices for the remaining properties.

Pennies on the dollar means they bought it under market value.. which they didn't. They simply paid market value of rural, undeveloped FL property.

That could never happen in this day and age. In France or anywhere else. I don't know what they paid for the land outside Paris, but it was considered in the middle of nowhere at the time, and I'd be willing to bet it cost hundreds of times more than the Florida property did, and it's probably 1/10th the size, IF THAT.

THE COST OF LAND WOULD PRECLUDE AN ELABORATE SET-UP LIKE IS CURRENTLY AT THE MK.

We're talking only 200 acres... this is not a huge piece of property. It's not prohibitively expensive to do something like this (people dedicate this much space to simple parking for large projects). It's smaller then a common golf course project! - it's simply not considered essential the plan anymore.

If your claim was true - no one could ever build a golf course, build a stadium, build an airport, build a factory, etc. But they do, and they do it all the time. Inability to secure the land isn't the deciding factor or lack of land. It's simply a question of 'is the use of that space for that purpose important enough to justify it's impact on the project'. Disney seems either satisfied with one resort in the world with lots of non-theme park activities... or over the concept all together as they have yet to duplicate the concept of the original WDW development of a theme park, range of on-property hotels, large # of recreation activities, all within a company controlled bubble.

Constructing a lagoon of that size without other uses such as hotels, recreation, or practical construction purposes would be a waste.

The concept of the original WDW development as an all inclusive resort with a large group of interconnected, hotels and recreation simply hasn't been repeated by the company. And it's not because they can't afford the land for a lake or the land isn't available. It's simply not desirable enough in their plans to accept the impact on the overall property.

They could simply repeat themselves and build in an undeveloped area and buy up a huge property... but they haven't. They've opted more for a more theme park dominated property with high-end hotels and adjacent shopping, a stones throw away from major metropolitan area with every project since.

It's probably still a whiplash effect from the DLP debacle of over building the non-theme park portion of the project too early and out of balance with the rest of the project.