News 'Beyond Big Thunder Mountain' Blue Sky concept revealed for Magic Kingdom

MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
gorillaball said:
I agree with some of your points, others I'm highly skeptical of - call me delusional, maybe that's accruate.

I do agree that some Disney super fans discount the popularity of Mario.

However, as has been said 100 times and needs said 1000 more times, a great IP or great move does not equate to a great land any more than a mediocre IP equates to a bad land. EXECUTION matters above all else.

Now your attendance numbers I'm just not seeing. I wouldn't doubt UO and IOA jumping Epcot/HS/AK... but when I see your list has Disneyland at #5 it makes me question the validity of the entire thing. Below #'s from the 2019 PUBLISHED TEA reports, not some partial period that may or may not be in the middle of a pandemic.

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I agree completely about how a great IP does not carry a land or attraction. Both Toy Story Land and the majority of Galaxy's Edge show current Disney management's belief that the IP can make up for execution with their own projects, though.

Universal on the other hand, has a pretty good recent record with their handling of IP based attractions so I do have a little more faith in them right now.

I'm the first to admit I've soured on Disney but that doesn't mean I want to see them fail or that I'm rooting for the competition. What I want is for them to go back to doing great things rather than trying to extract pennies out of guest while working on new systems to shuffle people around like mindless cattle.

My semi-recent showing of appreciation for Universal stems from having APs with them for the fist time in about a decade and being utterly shocked at the improvements to conditions in those parks and how much less stressful a visit there is compared to what I've come to expect a park experience to be from going to Disney.

I feel like I was a frog in a pot of water that was slowly set to boil and didn't appreciate how hot it was getting until I got thrown into another one that wasn't being heated.

For what it's worth, those aren't my numbers, they're the most current numbers from TEA as found in the link I referenced in my initial post. 🤷‍♂️
 
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orky8

orky8

Well-Known Member
MrPromey said:
Couldn't agree more.

The best thing for Disney fans was Universal coming to Florida and spooking Disney, even if they did show up intially with kind of a thud.

That said, they've been locked in this blue ocean strategy for a couple of decades now where they seem to think they're essentially, impenetrable which is horrible for fans/customers.

It's hard to tell what reality is anymore with youtubers and mommy-bloggers losing their over a new cupcake or pair of Mickey ears like it's the second coming but their forced enthusiasm does seem to have an impact on the perception many fans have on the state of things.

Again though, to bring it back to the point of the thread, I don't think the MK needs additional investment at this time (Beyond Big Thunder Mountain) while the other three need way more than they're getting.

The Universal stuff, if they are not careful, is just going to widen the divide that already exists between MK and the other three.
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The bolded is where I disagree. MK needs added capacity. People are going to keep coming to MK and Disney needs to stop playing their artificial shell game to try to shuffle them around but instead add attraction capacity. BUT, it doesn't need to be expensive E-ticket draws. It needs to be more C/D tickets, like Little Mermaid (but hopefully better done). They need large capacity attractions to help suck up the people that are coming rather than continuing to degrade their product/make it more expensive to try to push people away. A theater show (with a main street bypass as a bonus). A (gasp) nighttime parade. Things that will suck up people and give them things to do. Clone the Disneyland dark rides if they want to make it look cheaper on paper.

Data I found online says MK attendance in 2009 was roughly 17M people, in 2015 and onwards (not counting 2020/21 covid years) it was 20M and almost 21M in 2019. There was a 20% rise in attendance and no real capacity increases. Going back further and I imagine the numbers are even more dramatic. Since the additional of Splash Mountain 30 years ago, Magic Kingdom has not increased its attraction capacity. Attendance, though, has increased dramatically. Magic Kingdom needs to bring attraction capacity to visitor ratio back to a reasonable level.

And, yes, the other 3 parks better get building to compete with Universal - I completely agree with you on that element from previous posts - because I do believe Universal is about to steal large amounts of attendance from those parks.
 
MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
orky8 said:
The bolded is where I disagree. MK needs added capacity. People are going to keep coming to MK and Disney needs to stop playing their artificial shell game to try to shuffle them around but instead add attraction capacity. BUT, it doesn't need to be expensive E-ticket draws. It needs to be more C/D tickets, like Little Mermaid (but hopefully better done). They need large capacity attractions to help suck up the people that are coming rather than continuing to degrade their product/make it more expensive to try to push people away. A theater show (with a main street bypass as a bonus). A (gasp) nighttime parade. Things that will suck up people and give them things to do. Clone the Disneyland dark rides if they want to make it look cheaper on paper.

Data I found online says MK attendance in 2009 was roughly 17M people, in 2015 and onwards (not counting 2020/21 covid years) it was 20M and almost 21M in 2019. There was a 20% rise in attendance and no real capacity increases. Going back further and I imagine the numbers are even more dramatic. Since the additional of Splash Mountain 30 years ago, Magic Kingdom has not increased its attraction capacity. Attendance, though, has increased dramatically. Magic Kingdom needs to bring attraction capacity to visitor ratio back to a reasonable level.

And, yes, the other 3 parks better get building to compete with Universal - I completely agree with you on that element from previous posts - because I do believe Universal is about to steal large amounts of attendance from those parks.
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I get your point.

Me saying they don't need to be investing in the MK is an overstatement of my position.

What I should have said was, they need more investment across the whole property but the other three is where they need it most because again, those are going to be the ones Universal potentially hurts and they're reservation system trying to push people from MK to the other three isn't going to work if people aren't planning vacations that are exclusively MK.

If you only have one or two days earmarked for the mouse and you want to go to MK, is them trying to push you into Epcot going to make you pick Epcot?

Maybe, maybe not but I wouldn't want to be an executive with my bonus tied to those odds.

So yeah, I think they need to expand everywhere but the attraction list for MK already dwarfs the other three (shows included).Just looking at the park maps, there is WAY more to do in MK already so of course, nostalgia, magic™, park-eveyone-thinks-of aside, of course, guests are going to choose the park that appears to offer the most bang for their buck when they don't know where to go unless someone is a big Star Wars fan and wants to roll the dice, there.

Put another way, if you bulldozed the other three today, MK would continue to thrive. Does anyone here feel that any of the other three would continue their current numbers if that was the only Disney park left in Florida?

I don't and I think that needs to change.
 
D

drizgirl

Well-Known Member
Touchdown said:
It’s not anymore. DCA has more quality attractions than any of the non castle parks at WDW. If you asked me what non castle park I would want to spend 1 day at, my first choice would be Epcot, but choice #2 would be DCA. AK and DHS are half day parks. DCA is a full day park.
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Agreed. It's no Disneyland, but it has way more to offer than the 3 non-MK parks at WDW.
 
the_rich

the_rich

Well-Known Member
Alanzo said:
Not to pile on but if you can afford it a three day trip to Disneyland Resort with little kids is amazing in terms of rides, ease of getting around, and dare I say it, weather.

The hotels themselves are definitely less resort like though.
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It's definitely a more relaxing vacation than wdw. While I enjoy being in the bubble, I do appreciate the cheaper hotels and less traveling in California. And yes the weather is definitely better, much less humidity.
 
C

celluloid

Well-Known Member
Touchdown said:
It’s not anymore. DCA has more quality attractions than any of the non castle parks at WDW. If you asked me what non castle park I would want to spend 1 day at, my first choice would be Epcot, but choice #2 would be DCA. AK and DHS are half day parks. DCA is a full day park.
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Attendance disagrees.

The recent ground up built attractions such as Webslingers certainly did not help.

It is a short walk directly across from the second most visited theme park on the planet, and people don't want to go more than they want to go to Universal Studios Hollywood and others.
 
the_rich

the_rich

Well-Known Member
celluloid said:
Attendance disagrees.

The recent ground up built attractions such as Webslingers certainly did not help.
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I dont think its a half day park anymore. I really enjoyed webslingers and the campus in general. The new e ticket is just gonna elevate it. The only part of the park I don't enjoy is past toy story mania. Plus it has one of the best lands disney has ever built.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
MrPromey said:
We'll see what future numbers hold and go from there - I'll be happy to admit I was wrong if I'm wrong. That said, caps seem like they would have affected the MK the most if they were going to have a major impact on any of Disney's park numbers, wouldn't they?

Why didn't they?
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You are really misconstruing these numbers, I think you are too distracted by the numerical rankings from that website chart.

MK attendance was down about 40% from 2019-21, AK 48%, Epcot 38% and DHS 26%. The Magic Kingdom in gross attendance lost MORE guests between 2019 -> 2021 attendance data than actually attended the other parks in their entirety. There are almost 9 million people missing from MK's usual attendance figures.

USO was down only 18% and IOA 12.5%.

What everyone else is trying to patiently explain is that losing less guests changed the rankings, but was overtly policy based and hard to gauge. For even more extreme policy based 2021 restrictions, no one in their right mind thinks USO will continue to overtake Disneyland and Tokyo Disney/Sea. That's pure lunacy.

That said, probably IOA has gained attendance share, most definitely DHS has and probably DAK has lost some positioning. Whether that translates in 2022 is anyone's guess, but there's a reason AECOM actually didn't change the rankings in the 2021 figures, because they knew they were time capsule pandemic related nonsense data.
 
BrianLo

BrianLo

Well-Known Member
Mario is an excellent IP and Encanto seems like it's destined to be another strong evergreen IP. Both should be attendance drivers.

Not everything has to be a competition, but if it is Pokemon is likely the strongest gold standard. Pokemon being a trifecta in media, video games and a wide variety of successful merchandise. Mario is poised to make that jump.
 
Centauri Space Station

Centauri Space Station

Well-Known Member
Touchdown said:
It’s not anymore. DCA has more quality attractions than any of the non castle parks at WDW. If you asked me what non castle park I would want to spend 1 day at, my first choice would be Epcot, but choice #2 would be DCA. AK and DHS are half day parks. DCA is a full day park.
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More quantity yes. Quality? Well it’s more than half flat rides and some are thematic question marks like Incredicoaster or Mission breakout.
 
No Name

No Name

Well-Known Member
EPCOT-O.G. said:
The best way to reduce crowding and congestion at MK is to remind people Disneyland exists
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It wouldn’t matter, the vast majority of people will never weigh the two as options. They’re not going to choose to go to a smaller theme park resort that’s farther away, and that’s not advertised by the company or familiar among their friends/family. Universal or SeaWorld are the alternatives.
 
T

Touchdown

Well-Known Member
Centauri Space Station said:
More quantity yes. Quality? Well it’s more than half flat rides and some are thematic question marks like Incredicoaster or Mission breakout.
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Thematic fit doesn’t factor into my enjoyment of rides.

5 star rides (perfect or near perfect, could ride these all day)
Epcot: 3 (Soarin, Spaceship Earth, Cosmic Rewind)
DHS: 4 (Rise, ToT, Mickey, Mania)
AK: 3 (FoP, Safari, Everest)
DCA: 5 (RSR, GotG, Soarin, Mania, GRR)

4 star Rides (great rides, must do once every visit ideally reride and yes some of the WDW rides here are affected by nostalgia and probably over ranked )
Epcot: 7 (Rat, Frozen, TT, AA, Figment, Nemo, Three Cabs)
DHS: 4 (RnRC, Slinky, ST, Muppets)
AK: 4 (FotLK, Nemo, Dino, NRJ)
DCA: 4 (Incridicoaster, Mermaid, Monsters Inc, Webslingers)

Totals:
Epcot: (3x5)+(7x4)=43
DHS: (4x5)+(4x4)=36
AK: (3x5)+(4x4)=31
DCA: (5x5)+(4x4)=41

Only because of my nostalgia goggles for some Epcot Rides does DCA not beat every Florida Park, and it still has more 5 star attractions (nearly double) then all 3 of them.
 
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MrPromey

MrPromey

Well-Known Member
BrianLo said:
You are really misconstruing these numbers, I think you are too distracted by the numerical rankings from that website chart.

MK attendance was down about 40% from 2019-21, AK 48%, Epcot 38% and DHS 26%. The Magic Kingdom in gross attendance lost MORE guests between 2019 -> 2021 attendance data than actually attended the other parks in their entirety. There are almost 9 million people missing from MK's usual attendance figures.

USO was down only 18% and IOA 12.5%.

What everyone else is trying to patiently explain is that losing less guests changed the rankings, but was overtly policy based and hard to gauge. For even more extreme policy based 2021 restrictions, no one in their right mind thinks USO will continue to overtake Disneyland and Tokyo Disney/Sea. That's pure lunacy.

That said, probably IOA has gained attendance share, most definitely DHS has and probably DAK has lost some positioning. Whether that translates in 2022 is anyone's guess, but there's a reason AECOM actually didn't change the rankings in the 2021 figures, because they knew they were time capsule pandemic related nonsense data.
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I get that. I absolutely do.

Do you get my point?

Even in a pandemic, subject to the exact same restrictions as the other three, MK was still the #1 park by MILLIONS.

Despite consistently being the first one to fill up and be without availability, it still held it's own.

By your very own numbers, AK, the one that consistently had the most open availability, couldn't.

Why?

Why when people were being turned away from the MK and pushed to the other three, did the other three not do better?

You want to have a real discussion and explain things to me, explain that.

Then explain why the TDO should be focusing on adding more to the MK right now rather than falling over themselves to get the others even remotely close to attraction/show parity?

Won't something like the BBTM project just widen the gap between the only Disney park in Florida that appears could survive on its own and the other three?

California Adventure, as derided as it is, has more attractions and shows than any of the other three in Florida and it's newer. How did that happen?
 

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