I would be very disappointed to see the removal of the Tiki Room. It is one of the classic attractions at Walt Disney World parks in general. I do understand it doesn't draw the huge guest numbers they might wish for, but it serves it's purpose. Which is to entertain guests of all ages, and be a short entertaining attraction.
Disney World is getting on a slippery slope of removing beloved attractions, which could upset so many people that it puts a rain cloud over their experiences in the park in the future. Lots have discussed that they don't forsee a major attaction being able to go in where the tiki room birds are, but while I think that is true, with the Magic Carpets nearby, and the dole whip sales nearby, I'm not sure you could put anything there that's really all that popular and not cause a huge bottleneck. Though I am not a fan of losing attractions, I would much prefer the Swiss Family Treehouse be repurposed then the Tiki Birds. People when they tour the treehouse can get distracted, and not see a step, and then trip or fall. That coupled with it being open at night I would think would be a large risk that I'm not sure why Disney needs to take. I like the Swiss Family Robinson movie, and like the treehouse, but if something in Adventureland had to be explored I'd prefer the Treehouse. A suggestion I would make to Disney is to advertise the history of the Tiki Room, displaying in the queue the history and the legacy of the attraction. Many people at Disney World go through it like it's an average theme park. They don't understand some of the things they are riding or experiencing are themselves historic and major attractions. Case in point, in the movie Jurassic Park, when Ian Malcolm is talking to Hammond about the park malfuctioning, Malcolm cites the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. In an iconic Universal movie, they cited a Disney ride. The reason was, everyone understood what Pirates was, and that's the reason the joke worked. If he had just mentioned the new trendy rollercoaster, few would have gotten the joke, as the vast majority of the audience never would have ridden it. People love the Sci-Fi Dine in Theater at Hollyuwood Studios because of it's throwback to drive in movie theaters, and even though all they show in the theater is commercials and trailers for sci-fi B movies, people love it because they understand it's not supposed to be Avatar, it's supposed to be stuff from the 50s. Some tourists go into the Tiki Room expecting Soarin' and disappointed when they don't get it. Tiki Room makes no real mention of it's legacy, or history. To a newbie at Disney World, they might honestly think that Pandora and Tiki Room were made at the same time. The difference is that Avatar obviously was made more recently since those B movie commercials, but a structured building, especially one that doesn't age as much because Disney cleans and tries to upkeep the attractions as best as possible, misleads people by not showcasing it's own legacy and history.
People always want the trendy and hip and popular. The difficulty of that, to some degree, is that you will always be racing to build something new or hip, tearing down things that mattered. The Enchanted Tiki Room has stood in the Magic Kingdom since opening day. Every single person who has ever walked into that park, has had the opportunity to experience it, and many could have been entertained or even inspired by it, just as Walt was inspired to do Animatronics from a a small robotic bird cage he had purchased. If a father as a child visited the Magic Kingdom, he could have been 5 when he first sat down in that theater, and now 30 years later, he can point up to the ceiling as he's holding his child's hand, and watch as his kid gets to experience it as well. With the new hip and trendy rollercoaster you can't do that. Even the mindset of those thrill rides is that they are only temporary, because in a few years they'll become mundane in comparison to other trendier rides. By devoting your attention to the new and trendy, your basically acknowledging whatever you build there will only be temporary, because the week it becomes "lame" it has to be taken out for something edgier or cooler. I might argue that Mission Space is already seeing some of the effects of that. Though it is unlikely Disney could hold onto every attraction or ride, obviously it can't, Tiki Room has a legacy with Walt Disney personally, the history of animatronics and the parks, as well as the Sherman Brothers theme song. All of those are reasons why keeping the Tiki Room is beneficial. I can name numerous, attractions throughout Disney World that don't have any of those elements going for it, let alone all of them. The Tiki Birds recently got their own comic book.
I'm all for exploring new thrill rides or experiences, and though Walt Disney himself said Disneyland would never be completed, and that it would always be changing, Walt Disney World offered him and his company the advantage of space. I think if Disneyland can handle having a Tiki Room, in a park who's real estate is monumentally more condensed, Walt Disney World could find the room. Yes, Tiki Room is a throwback, and I can gurantee you that Casablanca at a movie theater today isn't going to get the people in the seats like The Fate and the Furious does, but that doesn't mean it's bad or flawed. The difference is though, we as consumers can view Casablanca anytime we want on our TVs or even smart phones now. Tiki Room is a buiding. People can't just pick it up and put it in their video library. Every once and a while a classic movie will return to the big screen for an anniversary or film festival, but that's an easy change of a film reel. If Tiki Room is removed, the liklihood of it ever returning, which in a way would be Disney admitting they made a mistake, is highly unlikely. That's why people are mad or greatly saddened to see a beloved attraction leave.