A Spirited Perfect Ten

[Mike S]

Ya, Disney cant play the Frozen card anymore without looking extremely desperate (if they havent hit that point already) and with a lack of any actually exciting theme park news that doesnt involve recycling the words "coolest summer", Star Wars is their Paladin with 18 charisma and 97 hit points which can use the Helm of Disintegration and do 1-D4 damage as their half-elf Mage wields his plus-5 Holy Avenger.....oh wait, Paladins cant use the Helm of Disintegration, never mind. They will probly screw it up and just make an up charge event that will have fans drooling to spend $50 for scrambled eggs and bacon.

 

[ford91exploder]

While most of that is true, we are talking about Star Wars here. You can throw ALL the statistical data out the window. ALL of it. People will be camped out. People will be all cosplayed up and gingerly touching the tips of their light sabers as they nerdgasm all over the pavement.

Considering that Universal is not only crushing it at the box office but they are also stealing most of the limelight for theme park announcements too, Disney is gonna have the PR machine in overdrive with the after burners blasting at full throttle. I wouldnt be surprised if we see Jennifer-Fickley-Cupcake-I-use-a-much-younger-photo-of-myself-for-my-avatar-Baker dressed up in a golden-bikini to excite the fanbois and have them tweeting every time they change their underoos

If any of the idiots in upper level management have any shred of a brain cell left and they can stop diddling themselves while staring at stock price increases and tiered ticketing structures, maybe we will see some decent cross promotion in DHS and get more than just Jabba the Hut cupcakes.

Don't worry there will be no cross promotion at DHS, DL perhaps unless Mikey C puts the kibosh on it, TWDC has become a IP and Real Estate holding company, To this DAY they are INSISTING that Orlando is a mature 'no growth' market. Yet UNI did a 50% increase based on @ParentsOf4 note and it was ALL driven by enhancements IN THE PARKS. Does not sound like a 'no growth' market to me, It sounds like a company who has forgotten how to grow organically and will increase profits by financial engineering rather than by imagineering.

 

[FigmentJedi]

There is also the existing visitor center which could be removed to open up another large space.

Honestly, the visitor center would make a more fitting entrance for JP River Adventure, using the updated building from Jurassic World. You walk into the lobby before heading down the "Hammond Creation Lab" corridor past the labs and control room before heading back outside to board the rafts.

By doing this, you open up the old visitor center site as an expansion pad, along with the old Triceratops Encounter area. And if you really get short for space, you can use Camp Jurassic (though I think it's better to keep it because it has good themeing and it's a welcomed area for parents to let kids run around and blow off some steam).

But enough armchair "creative-eering." FWIW, saw Jurassic World over the weekend. It definitely gets the job done as a summer blockbuster action flick, but there were so many annoyances on a range of things. Left the theater a bit disappointed. It was better than JP3, but not sure I would say it was better than Lost World.

I'd still prefer the visitor's center as a standalone space rather then just being an attraction queue.

 

[ford91exploder]

Looks like the social media mommy twitter is going on overdrive today to drown out the bad publicity in the article

Yup, Mommy tweeters in overdrive, But the damage is done and besides those of us here the mommy tweeters have no followers yes I'm talking about Fadra and company did she get to 2000 page views yet???

 

[ford91exploder]

I doubt that. Even Kong is taking about two years. They would have to start construction pretty much immediately, not to mention design everything unless they had that done beforehand just in case the movie was a huge success.

Not impossible for that scenario to be reality, During MDE's tenure the promotions and rides were planned to coincide with theatrical release, And in a theme park war a good offense is worth it, If WDW keeps on it's current trajectory UNI will be the 4 day park and WDW will become the 1-2 day park.

Good friends of ours just got back from a 'Orlando' trip they are HUGE Poly/WDW fans, But this trip since Disney had nothing new they did 4 days at UNI and ZERO at WDW oh and 3 days diving at Key Largo, BTW they are IN the upper 2 brackets which WDW considers - 'Most Desirable Guests'.

 

[wdisney9000]

Don't worry there will be no cross promotion at DHS, DL perhaps unless Mikey C puts the kibosh on it, TWDC has become a IP and Real Estate holding company, To this DAY they are INSISTING that Orlando is a mature 'no growth' market. Yet UNI did a 50% increase based on @ParentsOf4 note and it was ALL driven by enhancements IN THE PARKS. Does not sound like a 'no growth' market to me, It sounds like a company who has forgotten how to grow organically and will increase profits by financial engineering rather than by imagineering.

Disney has become the snake eating its own tail.

They raise their prices high enough to force guests to stay offsite to save money which in turn allows said guest to discover Uni which then takes a day or more away from Disney which leads to Disney being upset about loosing market share and having their customers discover a theme park that actually builds attractions and offers quality at an affordable price, which then leads Disney to spend $2 billion dollars on rubber bracelets to try and trap guests into staying on property, which then bombs in terms of revenue boosting, so they fall back to $9 cupcakes galore, raising prices and slashing budgets to offset the bottom line and keep shareholders happy but they wrap it up in a shiny box with Super heroes on it and ship it you and tell you it was all done to "enhance" your experience!

Meanwhile, USO follows the basic recipe of adding to the parks and their profits, and turnstyle clicks continue to rise.

 

[Frankie The Beer]

I think it looks fantastic BUT... this is Star Wars. I want old school film experience.

I hate to say this because it will date me, but I saw Return of the Jedi on 70mm, it was at the time the most incredible movie experience of my life. Sadly I believe technology has surpassed those golden days of cinema but I'll always remember fondly that trip, even in the days of digital, IMAX and 3d.

 

[The Mom]

I understand that it's hard to stay on track when a thread is not following a straight track, but perhaps we can try to keep the Universal discussion i8n the Universal forums? Thanks.

 

[BrianLo]

But the point still stands that Celebration Place loves it when someone calls them out on their crap and it gets buried by nonsense....

The only thing I drew from your blackout analysis is that it may be effective. The goal of the blackout is to make a potentially over-capacity day less busy... and it works generally.

You really can't run a controlled trial to draw any other conclusions.

 

[Frankie The Beer]

Spirit also gives lengthy updates about UNI in his threads.

Spirit drops news but does not drone on and on about Uni. I have seen multiple times people speculate about what might be coming to Universal in the coming decade in this thread that I think I can quote things verbatim, and after a while, it does get annoying when there is a whole sub forum dedicated to Universal that for the most part is dead. I see @PhotoDave219 point, I get it, Universal is spending money, great, we all win, Disney wins because of it as well. Deep down, I personally don't want this thread to become another tired and played out Disney verse Universal thread, it gets old. I think we as a forum are better than that.

Now if only Comcast/Universal can have a hit movie and actually raise their stock price.

 

[Funmeister]

I understand that it's hard to stay on track when a thread is not following a straight track, but perhaps we can try to keep the Universal discussion i8n the Universal forums? Thanks.

Does that include cheesesteak discussions too? #PhotoDaveIsMyHero

 

[Mike S]

Spirit drops news but does not drone on and on about Uni. I have seen multiple times people speculate about what might be coming to Universal in the coming decade in this thread that I think I can quote things verbatim, and after a while, it does get annoying when there is a whole sub forum dedicated to Universal that for the most part is dead. I see @PhotoDave219 point, I get it, Universal is spending money, great, we all win, Disney wins because of it as well. Deep down, I personally don't want this thread to become another tired and played out Disney verse Universal thread, it gets old. I think we as a forum are better than that.

Now if only Comcast/Universal can have a hit movie and actually raise their stock price.

They just did, it's called Jurassic World. Maybe look it up sometime. And not being a shareholder I couldn't care less about stock price. I'll happily take amazing new attractions though and I'm guessing it's the same with other Orlando visitors.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Spirit drops news but does not drone on and on about Uni. I have seen multiple times people speculate about what might be coming to Universal in the coming decade in this thread that I think I can quote things verbatim, and after a while, it does get annoying when there is a whole sub forum dedicated to Universal that for the most part is dead. I see @PhotoDave219 point, I get it, Universal is spending money, great, we all win, Disney wins because of it as well. Deep down, I personally don't want this thread to become another tired and played out Disney verse Universal thread, it gets old. I think we as a forum are better than that.

Now if only Comcast/Universal can have a hit movie and actually raise their stock price.

Everything always turns into a Disney vs Universal because of the same people.

It makes me not want to go there.

 

[Cesar R M]

Last year, they kept removing them. It started out that the MK was blocked out most days, but like on Monday, they'd lift them for Saturday and Sunday. I got in the habit of checking almost every day. I thought it was weird that it was only the weekends that got lifted.

At least that's better when they throw up the blockout date at the last minute. I was watching, very carefully during Mark Hamill weekends during SWW, and one of the three days wasn't blocked out, which kind of surprised me...until maybe a week before, maybe even less. We had comp tickets so we could still go on our planned day, but because they left it so late, I could see how Disney employees from elsewhere in the country had planned a trip because it wasn't blocked out, or invited family...and then got a nasty surprise when they got to the park. The park was crazy, so it probably needed to be blocked out, but it should have been blocked out from the beginning. Kind of surprised that Frank Oz weekends this year weren't blocked out.

maybe they are relying on the MyMagic bookings to know which date to block now?

 

[PhotoDave219]

maybe they are relying on the MyMagic bookings to know which date to block now?

Scroll back a few pages, I posted some data....

 

[Cesar R M]

Well, that was incredibly fast. Even for Universal
View attachment 97061

I will not go to the actual site to avoid spoilers.

if that thing is built.. I'm sold!

 

[wdisney9000]

But the point still stands that Celebration Place loves it when someone calls them out on their crap and it gets buried by nonsense....

If I may shift gears here for a moment. A small, but important (to me at least) side note, is to recognize that while Disney is not only alienating their core customers by targeting higher income households and placing a primary interest in them, they are also short changing their own employees by blocking out 99% of the summer season for them and their families.

They have let MK become so crowded by neglecting the other parks and creating enough draw to them, that now they make their hard working, low wage earning, mostly college student employees suffer. It seems the company will allow everyone to suffer from their lack of knowing how to properly run a theme park before they do anything about it.

 

[DisneyOutsider]

So I've come across a wild and unsubstantiated rumor that I felt is almost certainly false and doesn't deserve it's own thread.. so I figured I'd feed it to the sharks in here and see how fast they can rip it to pieces:

A tiny political blog I've never heard of is claiming to have a source claiming that Disney is behind the abrupt (and quite frankly strange) closure of Sweet Briar College in Amherst County, Virginia:

https://athensschool.wordpress.com/...he-sweetbriar-closing-disney-america-is-back/

"We are hearing from a source in position to know that this beautiful land is the reason that Sweet Briar is closing. Because there is a buyer ready to move quickly and quietly to purchase the whole lot, historic buildings and all. This buyer has the immense economic power and major influence to keep the related decisions silent, immediate, and final. Who? Well, it has a lot to do with a similar land deal of about 3,000 acres that got scuttled about twenty years ago. According to our source, the reason Sweet Briar is closing is to make way for:

 

[Cesar R M]

This film has been a resounding success for Universal Studios. It opened at $70-80 million above expectations.....that never happens!

indeed.. and it just propels Chris Pratt even further in the stardom.

 

[Tony Perkis]

indeed.. and it just propels Chris Pratt even further in the stardom.

You mean Bert Macklin.