News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[Jrb1979]

I lament this change from an aesthetics standpoint - I have print on my wall of a photo I took of the steamboat and TSI that I adore - however, the reality is that from a capacity standpoint, that space has been severely limited and underused for an extended period of time. I know that change is hard, the but the bottom line is that MK needs more rides, to provide more capacity, to take the burden off the other attractions. This is a move that will add significant operational capacity to the MK, which will improve the experience for most guests. I will hold out hope that what goes in for Cars attractions maintain some level of theme and cohesion in that area of the park.

Yes it needed more rides, but it's needs filler rides too. Not everything needs to be an E ticket. That's the issue I have with this. You need to Rivers of America and Dumbos of the world as well as the E tickets. Not everything has to have a 3 hour wait in the park.

 

[Quietmouse]

Playin' around with free tools...

View attachment 808959

Call me crazy but the concept art is beautiful for cars land. Super curious how that water fall landscape will look like.

 

[October82]

The only real problematic thing about TSI is how inaccessible it was and how far behind modern safety standards it was

Honestly I think the Island has been doomed for a while purely because of how inaccessible the paths are. I don't think there's a single square foot of sidewalk on that island that is up to ADA standards or capable if handling more than the couple dozen guests the island gets in a day. And generally if one part of something gets updates beyond basic maintenence, then the whole thing needs to be re-inspected and brought up to modern codes for accessibility and for safety.

If I'm right (which admittedly I could be off) then Disney was likely faced with the choice of either entirely redo the island, let it rot taking up half that side of the park and remaining a lawsuit waiting to happen (I've literally found a rusty hatchet in the fort before sitting on a bench), or tear it out and give us an entire new land plus easy access to 2-3 HUGE land sized expansion pads. Tom Sawyer was never long for the world in its current form

I'm just happy the Cars area, despite being Cars, seems focused on exploring a peaceful natural environment full of rock work and water features.

Disney has built several modern and accessible 'adventure areas' - most recently in Shanghai. A tasteful update was more than possible even from current Disney management.

 

[choco choco]

the other thing that grinds my gears (pun intended this time) is just the scale of things these days. this new ride is going to massive. everything is huge and spread out. i would love it if disney gave us a classic darkride scale. you can get the illusion of speed by having things closer to you.

would we be losing our marbles if cars was brought in at a physically smaller scale?

also, also enough with the mini lands. i'm over them

Normally, I'd agree with you (I think everything Disney themes these days is over-scaled) except in this situation. Because, ironically, for here my math shows it might actually be the opposite. By my interpretation of the artwork, Magic Kingdom's Cars Land is about 4.25 acres and will have to include the two full attractions, queue space and themed areas, and walkways. Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure is its own dedicated 5 acres. I'm actually worried the main Jeep ride is too small. Because they have to fit the other stuff in, there's not enough square footage or boundary space there to really take advantage of the speed and vistas the way the Cars ride in California does.

If so, it would continue a troubling trend Disney has of building of new attractions that are too short in length: just at Magic Kingdom you'll have Tron and the Seven Dwarfs Coaster and Tiana's (the full ride is grandfathered into a previous ride's length, but they really only designed enough content to fill up half the ride); at Animal Kindom they have the Navi Boat Ride; or the Frozen Ever After at Epcot; or the Tokyo's new Tangled Ride.

 

[MrPromey]

can someone connect the dots here - why was coco scrapped from beyond big thunder and why does that equal cars?

If I had to take a guess, I'd say merchandise from Cars is probably more lucrative?

Coco was a rich colorful beautiful movie with a touching original story that was an artistic masterpiece but Disney probably expects to sell more in Mater hats alone in the parks than they'd get from an entire collection themed to Miguel and Pixar's version of Día de Muertos.

That's not even touching on the actual toy cars aspect for die-cast, radio controlled, play-sets, etc.

Although the movies were never a re-watch for my son (born a year after the release of Cars 2) the way others have been for him, my son's favorite "matchbox" style car was a Lightning McQueen I still have with about a quarter of the paint chipped off from all the mileage it got.

For movies that, IMHO, weren't really all that good or original story-wise* they provide infinite merchandising opportunities. Lasseter famously had his own wall of toy cars so I'm pretty sure that is the basis for the company being so enamored with the franchise.

Another thought is that since the movies were more about world-building with vehicles than story, they're also an easy thing to adapt to attractions since you just get in a car and ride around and see stuff and that's all you really need for a concept. You can pretty much go as big or as little as you want from there.

If you think about it, that works with Cars in a way it doesn't with say, a ride based on... Princess and the Frog, for instance.

*largely saved by good voice acting, some comedy and a lot of visual puns

 

[Architectural Guinea Pig]

I lament this change from an aesthetics standpoint - I have print on my wall of a photo I took of the steamboat and TSI that I adore - however, the reality is that from a capacity standpoint, that space has been severely limited and underused for an extended period of time. I know that change is hard, the but the bottom line is that MK needs more rides, to provide more capacity, to take the burden off the other attractions. This is a move that will add significant operational capacity to the MK, which will improve the experience for most guests. I will hold out hope that what goes in for Cars attractions maintain some level of theme and cohesion in that area of the park.

I want to add that Disney paved the way to close Autopia by adding this Car attraction. We could be seeing even more expansion opportunities on the east side of the park, which could include new attractions for Fantasyland, Tomorrowland, and perhaps a new natural water feature... This could all be the start of a real long-term investment into the parks. They obviously had to do some planning on what would replace Autopia, and this is going to be both popular and more environmentally friendly.

 

[choco choco]

I prefer to replace Liberty Square with Cars and leave the area north of Big Thunder for another future expansion.

Those moves give us 3 new things (Cars, Villains, and the future land).

The other option seemed to be keeping LS and putting Cars in the area north of Big Thunder. That would give us 2 new things (Cars and Villains).

I think those are really the only two choices we get right now. I mean, sure, we could add more land for more things, but given what we know right now, those are the two choices.

So I value the future of that undeveloped land higher than I value what's in Liberty Square right now. Keeping in mind that the originals of these attractions still exist in Disneyland, I'm super comfortable saying that.

Why can't they build it here?

• Frontierland? Check.
• By the train station? Check.
• Mostly movable backstage infrastructure? Check.
• Good sightlines? Check.
• Increase guest front of house square footage (i.e. capacity increase)? Check.
• Can be built off of in the future? Check.
• Access to backstage service road? Check.
• Can construct with minimal interruption to current park operations? Check.
• More available space than the rivers around Tom Sawyer Island? Check.

Was there no discussion about this space?

 

[MisterPenguin]

They were clearly waiting and watching to see what kind of a threat Universal's new park might pose before committing to anything.

They were waiting until they had enough money.

They were loss-leading with D+, buying Fox, buying out Hulu partners, and enduring the pandemic. They had no free cash to do more than what they did in the past five years. But now they will.

 

[MisterPenguin]

I wonder how many people on this thread actually work for Disney and are paid to defend the decision to remove the island and the river.

As many here who get paid by Uni to crap on everything Disney does.

 

[Tay]

So the ride is basically RSR but with trucks to fit the “ country” theme of Frontierland? Lol! I know the clueless execs thought this was such a great way to bring Cars to Frontierland.

 

[hopemax]

Sorry for the crude graphic.

Here's a chart showing the average ratings and 95% confidence interval, by age group, for the attractions we're discussing, from the Unofficial Guide/TouringPlans.com reader surveys.

View attachment 808942

These are the age groups we survey:

• Pre-school children (up to age 5)
• Grade school children (ages 6-12)
• Teens (ages 13-19)
• Young Adults (ages 20-30)
• Over 30's (ages 30-64)
• Seniors (ages 65+)

The horizontal line is the average rating for that attraction for that age group.
The vertical line is the 95% confidence interval for that age group.

A decent rule of thumb is that if the confidence intervals don't overlap, the result you're seeing is probably due to some underlying truth, and not (for example) random chance/noise in the sample/etc.

It's a 5-point scale, with 1 bad and 5 excellent. (Take that, DEFCON.)

Radiator Springs Racers is on the left in mint green.
Tom Sawyer Island is next in salmon pink.
The Liberty Square Riverboat is in baby blue.
Hall of Presidents is in lemonade yellow on the right.

Every age group except pre-schoolers rates Radiator Springs Racers substantially higher than any of the other attractions.

It's not close.

Teens prefer Radiator Springs by almost 1.4 points over the next-closest attraction in a 5-point scale.
Young Adults prefer Radiator Springs by almost 1.2 points.
Over 30's prefer Radiator Springs by almost a full point.
Seniors prefer Radiator Springs by almost half a point.

If you want the parks to make people happy, Cars is likely to do that way more than anything that's there now.

If they are able to ride.

I find it interesting that all 3 of the other attractions rank at least 3/5. That’s what these smaller attractions are supposed to be. Satisfying filler material, that they likely experienced with minimal effort or wait. And this is at least an hour’s worth of entertainment. Replace them with a headliner and what isn’t captured by your rating system is how worn out people are from another 90 minute line or annoyed by another $15 pp LL and wondering what to do next after their 4 and a half minute ride, and where to head when they get tired of crowds, need some AC or decompression without heading back to the hotel.

 

[MisterPenguin]

What about the five years before that other than the notable second swing at a Potter Swatter?

Coasting. And buy backs.

And convinced that with rising attendance everywhere (and it was), anything new Uni did wasn't a real threat.

But, this isn't the "Disney Shaking in Their Boots Over EU" thread.

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

WELP... lets see what we have here.... per THIS design-

1) This appears to be the entrance into the load/unload building/area. It may or may not be modeled after the Old Faithful Inn at Yellowstone. Judging by the geysers in the image toward Big Thunder, this is likely the inspiration.

2) This is the start area (beginning of the ride).

3) This is the area where the vehicles proceed over a bridge and 'plunge' downward swooping counterclockwise underneath the bridge as seen in this released artwork. Note the artwork shows much more open space beyond the bridge vs the overall layout image which suggests the cars head inside a rockwork building underneath the overlying track prior to the bridge-

4) Vehicles exit the small (maybe?) showbuilding here.

5) Vehicles seem to proceed to climb up the mountain (on the east side (side facing the ~hub)) and crest to drop down the opposite side (facing Tiana) as seen in this released artwork (right side background). Note from here the path gets lost in the overall layout image... the vehicles could snake into a showbuilding inside the mountain or may just drop down into a path (somewhere between the ?'s possibly going through water as shown in the image below)... who knows.

6) The vehicles eventually appear to make it over here. It's unclear what exactly goes on in this version of the attraction if it has bridges (goes above or under walkways to Big Thunder/Tiana). The vehicles do appear to dodge geysers along the way and swoop their way around area B. Could have a neat erupting geyser line chasing the vehicles...

7) The finish line 'end' of the ride as seen in this released artwork. This is where Disney proclaims "everyone is a winner today!" but loser guests will secretly never let it down... they know they suck... and so does everyone else on the winning vehicle...

A) This is the entrance path to the ride from the new 'perimeter' path if you will. I assume it's a in/out path as the ride seems to surround the entire central area.

B) This area is interesting... it's a building (I'd think gift shop)... surrounded entirely by the finishing turns of the ride... and there are a bunch of little Guidos seemingly around campfires or something on one side of it... a blue sky concept for a Guido spinner ala Mater's at DCA? Perhaps just character filled artistic filler... hmmm...

C) This path heads off into the 'beyond big thunder area'... possibly off to Villainsland with an eventual loop connection to Fantasyland in the distant future I'd guess.

 

[Tay]

But seriously, why couldn’t they just change the speedway to this Cars ride? Or do what Universal did with Transformers and build up for the racing show in DHS space and have their own Pixar area?

I’m one of those IP in parks lover fans but it makes zero sense to force this IP into Frontierland. I love Cars as well. Pretty much every Pixar movie but a few.

 

[MrPromey]

Coasting. And buy backs.

I guess that's also for the five years before that and the five years before those as well?

Or are we to believe that it's purely a coincidence that two D23s in a row they pulled the "blue sky" trick and all these major announcements for stuff, some of which it's reasonable to believe might not even open this decade, were all made at their last big monetized announcement event before the competition's new park is opening?

And convinced that with rising attendance everywhere (and it was), anything new Uni did wasn't a real threat.

Ah yes, and the monetization of the capacity issues they created by not expanding to deal with that rising attendance at the time.

But, this isn't the "Disney Shaking in Their Boots Over EU" thread.

I know this isn't the "Disney's shaking in their boots"* thread but that's the one post out of about a dozen I've made here today/tonight that happened to make mention of it which you decided to respond to so

*I also don't think Disney's "shaking in their boots" like Universal is going to overtake them but they've got a heck of a lot more nightly rooms to fill than Uni (or anyone else around here, as far as I can tell) does along with those timeshares they want to keep building so any dent that threatens the dynamic of a completely or primarily Disney-concentric central Florida vacation seems like it would pose a serious threat threat of doing damage to their bottom lines outside of the parks far more than in them.

 

[tl77]

They were waiting until they had enough money.

They were loss-leading with D+, buying Fox, buying out Hulu partners, and enduring the pandemic. They had no free cash to do more than what they did in the past five years. But now they will.

The "Reedy Creek/Florida Oversight Committee" transition held things up too

 

[rreading]

I hate this new plan. Makes me sick

But I get it that California was done with TSI - everything has to be accessible and sanitized. This kind of plan wouldn’t have come from an imagineer: it had to come from the top.

It was a beautiful space that gave MK a really special vibe…but I was there two weeks ago and looking west on ROA and seeing the bayou instead of seeing splash already didn’t feel right. So they had already peed in the pool. This is infinitely worse, but the breakdown of theming had already begun

 

[basas]

Disney's doing what it thinks will maximize the money it makes for shareholders over the next 5-ish years.

To your point, there are other ways of approaching these kinds of decisions. And as I said upthread, those discussions are really about what flavor of capitalism you prefer.

I guess they must think that, but I’m at the point where, if I was in a decision-making capacity, if Bob and his team came to me with an idea/suggestion I’d probably do the opposite. Seriously. I’m saying this as a shareholder and strong capitalist. I find most of their recent decisions extremely short-sighted. To be fair, the fan in me probably distorts things a bit, but the stock price don’t lie.

 

[WDW1995]

I'm actually worried the main Jeep ride is too small.

THIS!! With all the drama of paving over ROA, I don't think people have realized yet just how small the ride is actually going to be. There is no way it can deliver an experience that is even just on par with RSR in the footprint they show it occupying in the concept art.

 

[tl77]

Here's some crazy ideas...

Permanently dock the Liberty Belle and turn it into a lounge with live music and a spot for watching parades and fireworks

Keep Tom Sawyer Island but put a Pocahontas area/stage show in the center of it

Build the Cars thing in Epcot next to Test Track replacing the Odyssey