A Spirited Dirty Dozen ...

[Mike S]

I can't count.

Let's not forget Star Wars Land where both rides will be screen based as well.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

Let's not forget Star Wars Land where both rides will be screen based as well.
View attachment 146789

...i still kinda wish Star Wars would have more than two rides. I feel like we are waiting for this awesome sw land and two ride queues will be like, the whole day. I'm expecting a mob scene when it opens. Screens or no screens!

 

[Cesar R M]

And not all of us will think it stinks. Pineapple Express, This is the End, and The Interview are all movies I enjoy and this one looks funny as well.

I havent seen the interview. I wonder if its worth all the drama it caused.

 

[Mike S]

I havent seen the interview. I wonder if its worth all the drama it caused.

Nope. Kim Jong Un just can't take a joke. His father could though.

 

[misterID]

Let's not forget Star Wars Land where both rides will be screen based as well.
View attachment 146789

Just as long as it's not....just screens.

 

[WDW1974]

Sorry, my internet is trash and the multi quote feature just went belly up.

Yes @brb1006 I saw the parade, rather liked it. Solid offering, but hope it is expanded. More acrobatics from some of the dancers than I think I've seen before.

I'll get back to whomever was asking about Roaring Rapids. It and stunt show I'll do Saturday. At a certain point the crowds picked up (not awfully) but I transitioned to just walking around and exploring.

@WDW1974 - sorry, meant big three Fastpassable attractions. Should have been more clear. Obviously PoTC is THE attraction but it doesn't have or need FP. All the other attractions seemingly can be easily handled with a smart touring strategy and even still didn't really seem to generate disgusting wait times. Also I'm staying off property, closer to the city center. The snowflake/cupcakes need to stay on property as I think they would hate actual Shanghai. I know the fanboys are rushing here for something 'new', but if people can't handle a visit to Tokyo I don't know why are earth they are showing up to China.

Pirates doesn't need FP anywhere. Of course, it was added at MK to justify MM+ and has been added again (they tried it once and found out it was a disaster) at DL. Funny, BTW, that the park that was built with all top technology so it could be wired for a MM+ system on Day 1 doesn't have it and never likely will.

Other than the parade, did you see any of the other entertainment/shows/pyro? Thoughts on merchandise? Seems better than Tokyo, but lots of 'cutsie' crap (that we all have here now too).

I don't want to commit to thoughts too prematurely because I want to do more exploring and let it settle a bit. Probably I'll piecemeal them some more until Sunday as my second day is Saturday. I think the bones of a good park are there. I think it is coming together a bit better than trial visits once everything was actually running. It's big, huge actually. The West side has the issues with glaring holes in attractions. If Toy Story and Marvel/Alice/Everest come in the next 3-5 years and go where I'm assuming they will I think that will fix a bit of the Swiss cheese feel.

I don't personally mind that it's different. I wanted different. I dislike the MiceAge article that I can summarize as where is X, Y, Z from Disneyland. I hate that mentality, it's so freaking boring to expect a clone of Disneyland. It was a garbage idea for Hong Kong and it will never live up to the original as a result. I'm glad they did something bold and wildly different even if some areas are questionable, some are definitely new and exciting. It is NOT a charming park, like HKDL is though, as a result. That I can agree with. BUT, Treasure Cove and Adventure Isle are crowing achievements and prop up the behemoth. They are Disneysea level lands (in some instances better than the batting average of the Disney Sea lands).

Yes, but there is different that takes things to a new level in design sophistication and there is different just to be different and put your mark on a castle park. From talking to people in the biz, they seem to feel that was largely the case here. Too much poor design and 'randomness' ... another said to me that "John Hench would be horrified. It's a park of contradictions and is presented as if that is somehow a good thing."

I admit that Treasure Cove and Adventure Isle interest me more than everything else in the park combined.

I also think you're being hard on HKDL. It was designed as a DL clone. And it is beautiful and has added plenty over the years. But even when I visited for the first time just before it was three years old, it had charm, it had good bones. You could tell.

Looking at this park from maps and drone flights, it just looks like lots of stuff (some very nice) all thrown into a pot.

I guess what I am saying is it feels like they threw out the book on building a castle park, but didn't create a better model. A different one to be sure.

Organizationally the day was impressive. It seemed like every other CM had a suit with them and they were also about enjoying the park. Tons of Chinese families with young girls in princess dresses and boys in Marvel fare. It is early days though so we'll not the best slice of general public. People were generally polite and organized *for china* and CMs were truly no nonsense to the locals (which I think is good). They were quite nice to foreigners.

I expected a nightmare and it was probably a better than average day I've had at the parks in terms of navigating crowds. Thus some commentary will be a bit more influenced towards positive I'll admit.

That's enough for now!

Thanks. I love reading the first hand reports and appreciate the time you've taken. Hope your second day was great!

 

[Stripes]

Just as long as it's not....just screens.

...and it won't be.

 

[WDW1974]

Just a random SDL thought, but the test of how it operates, how well its CMs handle Guests, how well attractions run ... all of that will be seen in the weeks and months ahead.

After the Disney execs and the CCP officials have left. After the media is gone. After the monied lifestylers who can visit any Disney park/resort for any reason at any time have written their glowing opening reports.

After all, there was a time when The Disney-MGM Studios was a great park too. A park that DIS cared about too. So ... we'll have to see how things go.

 

[ChrisFL]

Yes, but there is different that takes things to a new level in design sophistication and there is different just to be different and put your mark on a castle park. From talking to people in the biz, they seem to feel that was largely the case here. Too much poor design and 'randomness' ... another said to me that "John Hench would be horrified. It's a park of contradictions and is presented as if that is somehow a good thing."

I admit that Treasure Cove and Adventure Isle interest me more than everything else in the park combined.

I also think you're being hard on HKDL. It was designed as a DL clone. And it is beautiful and has added plenty over the years. But even when I visited for the first time just before it was three years old, it had charm, it had good bones. You could tell.

Looking at this park from maps and drone flights, it just looks like lots of stuff (some very nice) all thrown into a pot.

I guess what I am saying is it feels like they threw out the book on building a castle park, but didn't create a better model. A different one to be sure.

Agreed, it feels like something is missing that HKDL has...maybe it's too different and we're not used to it yet?

I haven't been to SDL but just watching tons of footage so far. It does seem from the wide shots that there's a severe lack of trees.

 

[WDW1974]

Apparently once Disneyland Forever ends its run it will be replaced with Fantasy In The Sky.

Is this known as a fact? I've heard this as a rumor thus far and not happy as my next visit to Anaheim will be in the fall.

 

[WDW1974]

A few things I did not know! They aren't hugely crazy but I'll spoiler tag anyways.

Spoiler

-The Barbarosa's Bounty quick serve looks into the ride reminiscent of Blue Bayou.
-Camp Discovery is HUGE. I'm looking forward to the rope course which is absolutely extensive. There is also an equally massive walking path which is probably a good 750 meters meandering all through the mountain to explore.
-There are a few more waterfalls than just the main one.
-That TRON preshow-esque screen that changes from opaque to a view of the ride is amazingly executed and probably one of the biggest "wows". It's an effect I've never really send before. I had to force the line to wait (they basically wanted me to force open the automatic door and didn't understand why we were stopping). It got a great reaction though when it happened.
-Buzz is on the ground level... I know stupid... but I always thought it was on the top floor in my minds eye.
-The ponds out in front of tomorrowland are going for more mixed patches of tall grasses than flowers. Sections are going to be more reminiscent of the movie when she first plops into the field.
-I didn't know the Alice maze had an cave 'show scene'.
-The castle interior is still somewhat an open air thoroughfare.

Can people rhyme off a few of the best quick-serves for me around the world? I'm having a hard time coming up with them off the top of my head. The East side quick serves are stellar...

I know @WDW1974 has commented a bunch on the lack of table service spots, but it's not really noticeable when you have really top designed quick serves.

Nothing in the spoilers are really needed, but I appreciate the thought. As to food, obviously quality is most important. But I still believe you need more than one full serve location in a castle park (any park really). I was shocked when I heard this because I had assumed two of the QSRs were going to be full serve (you can guess which two!)

All the fantasyland rides were 5 minutes for the first couple hours and the most FP are back there. I unintentionally did SDMT as my first ride of the day as PoTC wasn't yet operating (around like 11:40 something). I couldn't help but think of the mommy bloggers as I was leaving the area that Pan and SDMT were still 5 minute waits. I'm sure their heads would have exploded that I was riding a half-empty train and had the boat to myself on Pan.

Wait times did go up, but Fantasyland is a long walk to get to and with the media setup in the hub you had to walk by a heck of a lot of shiny new things to get to it. Does not surprise me crowds take a while to get back there.

I think every park is different when it comes to favorites. I'm not sure that SDMT and, moreso, Pan will be favorites in Shanghai just because they are elsewhere. About the only UNIversal thing seems to be that people around the world like Soaring over it!

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

Is this known as a fact? I've heard this as a rumor thus far and not happy as my next visit to Anaheim will be in the fall.

It's what I was told this week. Sucks.

 

[WDW1974]

Simple. It's all about ownership and performance. They don't have the same vested business interest in Tokyo and HK/Paris continue to be financial blemishes.

This is it for the international Disney Parks business. It's either Third times the Charm or their 3rd strike.

If Shanghai is successful, you'll never hear the end of it. If it flounders for the next several years it's going to be swept under the rug like their other failed international ventures.

Bob wants his parks legacy to be the CEO to finally get the International parks to make money. Will it happen? I think everyone has already registered their votes on that a long time ago. To say everything rides on Shanghai is not an understatement.

Shanghai will be successful. How successful and how quickly are the only questions. And Disney has a huge interest in the businesses of all the parks and resorts. DLP is now 80% owned by the company (and that number will only go up). It is in essence, their park. That's why money is finally flowing and so much work is being done. And Disney doesn't want to give up on HKDL just as it was becoming profitable ... the CCP is pushing DIS to place SDL first for political and financial reasons.

Tokyo is a bit different because it is a licensed park, but royalties are a huge deal and Disney wants the OLC to continue running it to the highest standards and loves all the new product they are paying Disney to design and build in the next decade.

One more tiny anecdote. The number of times I've basically been asked if I'm doing HKDL and Tokyo before or after SDL and in what order. Then I proceed to say I'm just staying in China. You'd think I have two heads by the looks I receive.

I always proceed to say that would be way too
much Disney and enjoy the reaction.

You must get that most Disney fan who are willing to brave the scary world beyond the Pacific and visit Asia are going to do so largely for those parks. Only a small minority are like Tom Bricker who will spend weeks in places like Kyoto. That said, I'd be surprised if the Brickers aren't taking a few days in HKDL to check out the new SW stuff for summer and be the first US Lifestylers to photograph and report on it!

I really can't see a trip to Asia where I ever did all three resorts. I can see two. Likely either the two Chinese resorts or HKDL combined with TDR. But it would only be part of a longer/larger vacation.

The trip I want to do with @Lee would be Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau because I know three of those places very well and the fourth would be new to us all. I love Disney's parks, but not enough to do a globe-hopping trip just for them. That would be a waste to me.

 

[WDW1974]

Since similar questions have been asked of me, I am going to copy my long post regarding the organization of Shanghai Disneyland that I just posted in the thread I started on Shanghai Disneyland.

---

When I say that Tomorrowland is a disorganized mess, I am not referring to the aesthetics or attraction line up. Spatial organization is about how spaces are created, how program elements are situated and how people move about the space. Tomorrowland ignores six decades of good theme park design, but that should not be shocking given its lead (whose Mark VII project started with telling Bob Gurr to pound sand and ended with a monorail fleet one short that did not fit on the beam way and had no ventilation). Since I have made similar comments and been asked to expand on them elsewhere I am going to take the long way around to answering this question so that I can repost it where appropriate.

In the design of architectural spaces there are two primary concepts relating to how objects (most typically walls) shape space: space making objects and objects in space. The classic example of space making objects are old city squares or typical urban streets. They are well defined in the boundaries and image by their surroundings. An object in space would be something like a barn sitting in a field, the expanse is what really defines that place. Theme parks are very much built around the definition of space, space is where theme is expressed and the experience of a theme park is one of moving through a carefully choreographed series of spaces that create an emotional resonance.

In order to handle crowds Disney's strategy has typically been to expand the space. At the EPCOT Center this worked because Disney rather fully embraced the notion of an object in space. Each pavilion is a discrete entity and the intended focus of one's experience. Walking through Future World or around World Showcase is intentionally a secondary experience. The space works to define the separation. Even if World Showcase was built out each pavilion would still surround the large walkway and massive lagoon, and entering this large space would still occur in between the experience of each pavilion.

At Tokyo Disneyland, trying to fit the larger spaces into the traditional Disneyland framework has created a degree of awkwardness. There are large corridors that plow through the park and the experience is somewhat disconnected. This disconnect is most notable with Westernland where there are just too many conflicting notions of scale that still don't quite work well even when the expanse of the frontier would be a desirable experience. Potentially learning from their weirdness, the Euro Disneyland project properly rethought crowd management by introducing more variety to the means of moving about the park. The most famous example of this is the arcades which flank Main Street, USA but how many people realize that Liberty Arcade is part of a larger series of covered walkways which extend into Frontierland proper?

Shanghai Disneyland takes the large walkway strategy of Tokyo Disneyland and turns it up to 11 by trying to combine the World Showcase strategy. This though is a contradiction. A themed land is not a series of discrete experiences but one singular experience. A strong land acts as one and is therefore most suitable to defined space. One moved amongst and along the objects which define the space, which define the theme. The lands of Shanghai Disneyland have no definition. Imagine Main Street, USA as only half of its western side and the rest all being open space. The park throughout lacks definition. Objects sit in relation to little else and are supposed to be connected with other objects that off in the distance (a situation which will only grow worse as the foliage matures). This openness of space is made worse (most notably on Mickey Ave and Fantasyland) by overly reducing the scale of the buildings. Forced perspective (while often cut short to only be such) is not just reducing the heights of upper levels of a building. That is merely a means and it is in fact supposed to be an illusion. Effective forced perspective as traditionally used by Disney creates the illusion of multiple levels without such levels actually being habitable. Throughout Shanghai Disneyland such illusions do not exist. The upper floors are clearly way to be small for their to be occupied space. The result of buildings that are too small in very large spaces is that the non-human scale of both the building and the surrounding space is emphasized.

Finally, we get to the mess that is Tomorrowland. Like the rest of the park it follow the open space and defined edge pattern. It avoids the overly diminutive buildings issue but does't really fix them by lacking any sort of real definition to its scale. The land is the tossed into a blender by introducing the Armchair Imagineer's dream of multiple levels. Multiple levels look cool. They are part of the kinetics of a vibrant city as there is an interplay in the activation of horizontal and vertical space. Multiple levels though are not a big thing in theme parks, even when crowds are a concern, because they jumble the explicit shaping of the guest experience. Notions of push and pull, weenies, etc. all get complicated when there are many ways about and are seemingly tossed aside in Tomorrowland. There is no clear distinct path of travel. There is no clear means of moving about the land. It is a massive plaza and edge which abuts another plaza. There is no hierarchy of forms or places, too much tries to be important and it muddles the whole. There is no clear path that takes one directly through the land. TRON Lightcycle Power Run is best visible and accessed coming from the south (Gardens of Imagination / Mickey Ave) but this is practically a dead end situation. This is the upper level walkway that also access the main dining facility of rate land and the Jet Packs and attraction but it has no real connection the massive plaza below. Yes, there are stairs, but they are not part of the means of travel. This lack of hierarchy is then repeated by the lower level which lacks strong edges to give it definition and must be navigates entirely by signage. The light cycles are not dominate in view when entering and when they do finally asset themselves as the marquee attraction he design suggest an entry far removed while the person and object of desire are so physically close.

On the whole the park has failed at its organization and employed no well designed weenies. Since the edge condition is the dominate defining characteristic there is little to no visual hierarchy as everything sits rather independently. The Princess Sorority House and Roaring Mountain are the two most clearly visible landmarks throughout the park but also fail to act as weenies. There is no clear means of getting to either. The Gardens of Imagination (I guess random stuff tossed together is now considered imaginative) object direct movement towards Enchanted Storybook Castle. Roaring Rapids' entrance is not at all near its mighty peak, but would be passed on the journey if entering from the Gardens of Imagination. Treasure Cove is the only land that really starts to create any sense of defined space and its spectacular E-Ticket attractions turns its back on this peacemaking with the entrance instead located at the edge and facing Fantasyland.

What a great academic post that explains in detail what many people have been saying. Probably my favorite thing you've ever posted here. I'm sending this to a few folks I think will be very interested in it. Speaks very well to the ''throwing out the book'' school of design/layout that others have mentioned.

Any thoughts on the entertainment/food/merchandise at the park/resort?

Oh, and I certainly appreciate the DLP arcade becoming part of Frontierland. I use those restrooms in it on every visit ... multiple times!

Another question since you mentioned Bob Gurr ... I could have sworn I saw him in the background of a photo, but didn't see anything reported on that. Do you know if he was there?

 

[ChrisFL]

@WDW1974 Long term, do you think this SDL park will improve relations at all between the CCP and the U.S.. It seems daft but I think an "olive branch" of a major American company and also words from POTUS are a good thing.

I'm thinking 15-20 years down the line to see what China looks like as it opens up more to capitalism and western things.

 

[WDW1974]

Speaking of people not at the opening of SDL who were instrumental in its building ... Michael Eisner ... Jay Rasulo ... Tom Staggs ... Nick Franklin ... Mike Crawford ... just for starters.

 

[ChrisFL]

Since similar questions have been asked of me, I am going to copy my long post regarding the organization of Shanghai Disneyland that I just posted in the thread I started on Shanghai Disneyland.

---

When I say that Tomorrowland is a disorganized mess, I am not referring to the aesthetics or attraction line up. Spatial organization is about how spaces are created, how program elements are situated and how people move about the space. Tomorrowland ignores six decades of good theme park design, but that should not be shocking given its lead (whose Mark VII project started with telling Bob Gurr to pound sand and ended with a monorail fleet one short that did not fit on the beam way and had no ventilation). Since I have made similar comments and been asked to expand on them elsewhere I am going to take the long way around to answering this question so that I can repost it where appropriate.

In the design of architectural spaces there are two primary concepts relating to how objects (most typically walls) shape space: space making objects and objects in space. The classic example of space making objects are old city squares or typical urban streets. They are well defined in the boundaries and image by their surroundings. An object in space would be something like a barn sitting in a field, the expanse is what really defines that place. Theme parks are very much built around the definition of space, space is where theme is expressed and the experience of a theme park is one of moving through a carefully choreographed series of spaces that create an emotional resonance.

In order to handle crowds Disney's strategy has typically been to expand the space. At the EPCOT Center this worked because Disney rather fully embraced the notion of an object in space. Each pavilion is a discrete entity and the intended focus of one's experience. Walking through Future World or around World Showcase is intentionally a secondary experience. The space works to define the separation. Even if World Showcase was built out each pavilion would still surround the large walkway and massive lagoon, and entering this large space would still occur in between the experience of each pavilion.

At Tokyo Disneyland, trying to fit the larger spaces into the traditional Disneyland framework has created a degree of awkwardness. There are large corridors that plow through the park and the experience is somewhat disconnected. This disconnect is most notable with Westernland where there are just too many conflicting notions of scale that still don't quite work well even when the expanse of the frontier would be a desirable experience. Potentially learning from their weirdness, the Euro Disneyland project properly rethought crowd management by introducing more variety to the means of moving about the park. The most famous example of this is the arcades which flank Main Street, USA but how many people realize that Liberty Arcade is part of a larger series of covered walkways which extend into Frontierland proper?

Shanghai Disneyland takes the large walkway strategy of Tokyo Disneyland and turns it up to 11 by trying to combine the World Showcase strategy. This though is a contradiction. A themed land is not a series of discrete experiences but one singular experience. A strong land acts as one and is therefore most suitable to defined space. One moved amongst and along the objects which define the space, which define the theme. The lands of Shanghai Disneyland have no definition. Imagine Main Street, USA as only half of its western side and the rest all being open space. The park throughout lacks definition. Objects sit in relation to little else and are supposed to be connected with other objects that off in the distance (a situation which will only grow worse as the foliage matures). This openness of space is made worse (most notably on Mickey Ave and Fantasyland) by overly reducing the scale of the buildings. Forced perspective (while often cut short to only be such) is not just reducing the heights of upper levels of a building. That is merely a means and it is in fact supposed to be an illusion. Effective forced perspective as traditionally used by Disney creates the illusion of multiple levels without such levels actually being habitable. Throughout Shanghai Disneyland such illusions do not exist. The upper floors are clearly way to be small for their to be occupied space. The result of buildings that are too small in very large spaces is that the non-human scale of both the building and the surrounding space is emphasized.

Finally, we get to the mess that is Tomorrowland. Like the rest of the park it follow the open space and defined edge pattern. It avoids the overly diminutive buildings issue but does't really fix them by lacking any sort of real definition to its scale. The land is the tossed into a blender by introducing the Armchair Imagineer's dream of multiple levels. Multiple levels look cool. They are part of the kinetics of a vibrant city as there is an interplay in the activation of horizontal and vertical space. Multiple levels though are not a big thing in theme parks, even when crowds are a concern, because they jumble the explicit shaping of the guest experience. Notions of push and pull, weenies, etc. all get complicated when there are many ways about and are seemingly tossed aside in Tomorrowland. There is no clear distinct path of travel. There is no clear means of moving about the land. It is a massive plaza and edge which abuts another plaza. There is no hierarchy of forms or places, too much tries to be important and it muddles the whole. There is no clear path that takes one directly through the land. TRON Lightcycle Power Run is best visible and accessed coming from the south (Gardens of Imagination / Mickey Ave) but this is practically a dead end situation. This is the upper level walkway that also access the main dining facility of rate land and the Jet Packs and attraction but it has no real connection the massive plaza below. Yes, there are stairs, but they are not part of the means of travel. This lack of hierarchy is then repeated by the lower level which lacks strong edges to give it definition and must be navigates entirely by signage. The light cycles are not dominate in view when entering and when they do finally asset themselves as the marquee attraction he design suggest an entry far removed while the person and object of desire are so physically close.

On the whole the park has failed at its organization and employed no well designed weenies. Since the edge condition is the dominate defining characteristic there is little to no visual hierarchy as everything sits rather independently. The Princess Sorority House and Roaring Mountain are the two most clearly visible landmarks throughout the park but also fail to act as weenies. There is no clear means of getting to either. The Gardens of Imagination (I guess random stuff tossed together is now considered imaginative) object direct movement towards Enchanted Storybook Castle. Roaring Rapids' entrance is not at all near its mighty peak, but would be passed on the journey if entering from the Gardens of Imagination. Treasure Cove is the only land that really starts to create any sense of defined space and its spectacular E-Ticket attractions turns its back on this peacemaking with the entrance instead located at the edge and facing Fantasyland.

I will echo '74's sentiments and thank you for this post. It's one thing for a lot of us to look at something and think "this doesn't look or feel quite right, but I can't explain exactly why" then someone like you comes along and explain it brilliantly.

 

[WDW1974]

I am no longer in China and have now also experienced Orlando's two new mehs, Skull Island: Reign of Kong and Mako.

Ah, you get around. What's wrong with Mako. I sorta know what Kong's issues are!

In no particular order, top five:

• Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure truly is a breathtaking spectacle. From when I saw it the projections were a bit too bright, but it is still amazing.
• The actual coaster ride on TRON Lightcycle Power Run is a lot of fun.
• The central atrium of the Enchanted Storybook Castle is grand.
• Roaring Mountain (is that really its name?) is very impressive along with the view of it from across the water standing in Treasure Cove.
• Seven Dwarfs Mine / mountain actually looks somewhat impressive from a lower angle.

Again, no order, bottom five:

• Gardens of Imagination. What on earth do Fantasia, an American circus, a Princess Sorority House and Fuijan have in common? And why is Fujian so important that it was chosen to be the "distinctly Chinese" sycophancy for this land?
• Very, very poor overall design from people who should know better, see recently posted tome.
• Under built capacity and poor queue design. 120 minute lines should not be spilling far off into the main corridors.
• TRON Lightcycle Power Run queue is absolutely abysmal.
• Very visible back of house, the worst being the back side of Adventure Isle. What is the premium for a back stage, er... park, view at the Shanghai Disneyland Hotel?

Having not seen it but just being generally against the idea, I imagine the Tomorrowland Hotel was a far better concept than the Toy Story Hotel.

Just spoke with a friend in the design business and the one big thing we were talking about was the disconnect there seems to be ... dissonance between so many elements in this park. And you hit on our top example with The Gardens of Imagination. I can understand wanting a garden-like area in Shanghai. Having lived/worked in Beijing, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, I know how rare park areas can be and how beloved they are culturally. But I don't get this area ... this land at all. And isn't the Marvel 'experience' thing also considered to be in this land? Either way, all of this stuff just doesn't fit into any cohesive whole.

Disney is all about storytelling. And today that has sorta become a punchline because the elaborate backstories have taken prominence over actual substance. But Main Street USA has provided not only an entrance corridor, but a cohesive opening act for castle parks from Anaheim to Hong Kong. What is the storyline of Mickey Avenue? How does it set the tone for anything in such a small footprint? Does it exist simply to say DISNEY IP HERE? The sense of place ... does that even exist?

At least, from pics, you can see how the Pirates Cove and Adventure Isle areas attempt to craft a narrative, but how do they fit into the whole?

In many ways, this seems like Disney's IOA ... where things fit because the designers say they do. Even if they don't.

And I can't help but think that Tomorrowland was going for the movie-look and then they went with a watered down look/scale that just sort of seems dropped in there.

 

[WDW1974]

Kong is without a doubt an E Ticket from beginning to end.

An E-Ticket in scope or in quality ... because I know people who are UNI Wand Wavers who say that this is largely more of the same with a great monkey AA in it.

 

[NearTheEars]

Floridas POC? It's an embarrassment - let it burn. If you are speaking of changing out the other 3, no....

Embarrassment? Really? One of many guests most beloved attractions?
I understand it's not as well-loved as the Disneyland original, but far from an embarrassment.