5th gate anyone.......?

L

lightguy

Active Member
Well, I wasn't planning to comment, but sure, why not. I have no idea if they are or aren’t going to build a 5th gate, but if they are, it will be a minimum of 5 years from announcement to opening. Here's a couple thoughts:

If you've maxed out what you can charge for tickets, and you've maxed out what you can make with add-ons, how do you continue to grow your product? Volume. And what do you need for more volume? You need space. Do they have the space in the current parks to substantially grow their volume of guests? IDK, but my gut says no. Can they add on to the existing parks? Sure, there's space- though I think the MK is reaching its maximum infrastructure capacity and there's not a lot of easy ways to expand main street, the hub and the transportation to/from the entrance more than they already have.

So how would you grow your volume- besides lowering prices (or maybe coupled with some lowering/deals)- probably with a killer theme that everyone wanted to experience. We know it would be IP heavy, so what kind of a theme could they come up with for a whole park? .....What’s one of the most popular times of the year at both Disney and Universal? Halloween. How could we incorporate that into a park with a lot of IP. Oh wait, every movie they ever made has a villain.

The best idea I’ve ever heard is to do a villain’s park. It’s perfect- it’s for older kids/adults, perfect for bigger rides, it’s got a Halloween feel year-round, you have massive amounts of untapped characters and IP to fill it with. One option would even be to do it as an anti-Magic Kingdom (Dark Kingdom), complete with castle. The possibilities are nearly endless.

Will they do it??? Who knows.
 
michmousefan

michmousefan

Well-Known Member
I would imagine that if they were going to build a fifth park, there would be some substantial hiring at WDI right now, and *somebody* would have leaked that something "big" was under way. But we haven't had any of that substantiated chatter, have we? Therefore... unless it's for the 75th anniversary of WDW, I don't see a 5th gate materializing. at least not anytime soon.
 
L

lightguy

Active Member
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When the day comes that they build a 5th gate- whenever that is- this is where it will be. This site is already an approved location for resort development, it's larger than the area of the MK, including support spaces (not including parking), it has existing major road infrastructure, the Epcot monorail line runs down the road along it's frontage (3rd Monorail park!!!!) and you could use the back of the exisitng MK parking lot as shared parking. Infrastructure costs would be low. Just sayin...
 
MisterPenguin

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Again... the media folk who haven't been following the ins and outs of the land use documents see "5th Gate" and then say "Disney is planning to build a 5th gate."

And none of these so-called 'journalists' have been able to get a quote from Disney about such a thing.

As said above, a 5th gate has been part of the land use docs since 2010, and they're now again part of the 2030 land use docs. It's not new. It's not a promise. It's a contingency in case Disney wants a 5th gate at some undetermined time in the future.

A 5th gate would cannibalize existing parks. A 5th gate would be at least $6B, and then have continuing extra overhead and ops costs. All the current parks have room for growth. Lots of room.

A 5th gate would not stop retheming of older rides that:
  • are not Disney movie IP
  • are falling apart
  • or have lost the general public's interest but are nostagically clung to by vocal "Disney fans."
The $60B promised capex spend was specifically said to be for existing parks around the world -- that they each get something new.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
lightguy said:
View attachment 791345
When the day comes that they build a 5th gate- whenever that is- this is where it will be. This site is already an approved location for resort development, it's larger than the area of the MK, including support spaces (not including parking), it has existing major road infrastructure, the Epcot monorail line runs down the road along it's frontage (3rd Monorail park!!!!) and you could use the back of the exisitng MK parking lot as shared parking. Infrastructure costs would be low. Just sayin...
Click to expand...
That area has been somewhat available before EPCOT was built. There must be a reason why they haven't used it by now. But if they did, wouldn't that make that area one big theme park where MK would run into it, and it would run into EPCOT which already runs into DHS?

I wouldn't think that using any of MK's parking lot would be all the "low cost" to be able to safely connect to anything on the other side of World Drive. With all the land owned by Disney I think it would be easier to build and theme a park in a spot a little less developed to keep it somewhat separated from the others. And what would one imagine the theme would be? They have the Castle park, the mish mash that is currently the front of Epcot, the Worlds fair section of Epcot and the movies park, not to mention the Animal park. What is left other than an all out Thrill park with high flying coasters and no theme other than the name of the coaster. On top of that since the "rumor" is that they can't draw enough people into the current parks, what is going to entice other people to spend massive amounts of money (which would then be higher) to come there.
 

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