Andrew25
Well-Known Member
You can see some of the TV commercials here (click on the video link for a playlist)
Basically they should have just advertised Islands of Adventure on its own as an entirely separate park at Universal, instead of lumping it all in to this weird naming idea for the resort.
It's insane how much they messed up promos, because Universal could have easily just changed the wording to include "the ALL-NEW Islands of Adventure Theme Park at the Universal Studios Escape Resort! Book now at one of our amazing onsite hotels!"
Universal is a much more "solid"
VB was never meant to act as a separate theme park and draw similar crowds to the regular parks, that was just marketing talk. They never expected that park to compare to IOA/USF in anyway... it was just a marketing gimmick.Indeed. The big lesson from Potter wasn't, at least as far as I can tell, that Disney needed to fight harder with Universal to win guests. It was that there was still considerable room for growth in the Orlando theme park market that Disney had written off as a mature market.
I'm also old enough to remember all the chatter about Islands of Adventure back in the day and what it would mean for WDW. While Universal did grow into a more credible resort destination following its opening, that took some time and WDW continued to grow alongside it. Similarly, all the talk of Volcano Bay as a next-level water park such that it almost counted as a separate theme park in its own right didn't quite pan out and attendance at the Disney water parks kept growing even if VB also ultimately proved successful. I am getting a similar feeling from all the hyperbole around Epic Universe as some kind of theme park revelation that will act as a magnet drawing crowds over from Disney, leaving them scrambling to try and win them back. I feel the biggest issues Disney is facing in attracting guests are already apparent before Epic Universe is in the picture.
It'll be interesting to see what THEA attendance reports say for this past year as VB was very busy and Disney's water parks are in this eternal open/close situation.
I agree that there is a lot of exaggeration when it comes to Epic's impact on WDW... but there is definitely concern over Universal taking a day from a lesser desired park like DAK. 3 Universal dry parks is more than enough to convince a family to outright skip WDW if they prefer.
MK will still be "king" in Orlando... but all the other Orlando parks will be fighting against each other. The one thing I'm interested in knowing is how Epic impacts Universal Studios' impact itself as it will then become the least desirable park of the 3. Will people "add" a day for Epic or just replace USF?