News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[spaceghost]

Pretty hard to do that when they’re destroying the theme and cohesion in that area of the park.

What can I say, I'm an optimist!

 

[splah]

RSR is an excellent attraction and I'm sure this will be as well, but what we're all saying is that it "feels" wrong. The setting, apart from a few pieces of rockwork that look like car parts, is just woods and trees. It's not transportive (pardon the pun). I could book a trip now to go ATVing in the the west, but I can't go back to the Old West. I can't go to the beasts village, i can't go to a cartoon circus, etc.

the magic kingdom should be the park with the most history, weight, and nostalgia.

I am also concerned their answer to universal is to be more like universal. encanto and the smaller cars ride are the only young children rides they are adding and when you look across the global portfolio it is all high thrill rides. the parks are morphing and leaving behind what made them successful to chase an expanded demographic

 

[surfsupdon]

This is really going to destroy the frontier.

Man how I hate IP.

 

[doctornick]

Are you okay ???

Because I’m so lost and confused why you are freaking out over this change.

I’m just astounded over some people reactions of this project.

I’m adamantly against removing the waterfront. It literally will destroy the ambiance and views from Liberty Sq and the Frontierland “town”.

And also important, it yet again is Disney spending craploads of money to replace rather than expand at WDW. Over and over and over again, we see billions of dollars spent with marginal gains (if any!) in capacity. There is a ton of unused land available at MK - build on that instead of replacing. Actually make additions.

 

[doctornick]

How can anyone continue to post on here and say that Cars Land is not increased capacity???? The attractions there will see more guests in one month than Tom Sawyer Island does in a year. This is insane.

Hey, you know what would increase capacity more? Cars and RoA/TSI.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

It’s pretty simple math, actually.

TSI + LB + Cars = Y
or
Cars = X

Which sum is higher capacity?

The difference is likely negligbile. Very few guests ever venture out onto to TSI. The Riverboat is another story.

This Cars expansion of Frontierland will add 2 attractions that guests will actually want to experience, and I would assume at least one QSR/TSR option and a snack stand or two, and probably a merchandise location. VS a nearly vacant island & the Riverboat.

I will miss the Liberty Belle, I think it does provide some great kinetic energy and hope that it can be somewhat replicated with this.

Also this seems to make it easier to open up the connection to Villains Land and future expansion.

 

[Starship824]

The backlash to this actually hasn't been bad outside this forum. Even among major Disney fans the reception I've seen everywhere else has been positive or mixed at worst. Especially since the concept art seems full of greenery, rockwork, and water features in a way that will keep a lot of the energy and focus on nature that we have now while setting up significantly more practical access to Villains and potential other new expansions

It's taking a beautiful land with an unpopular theme that's impractical to expand and turning it into what (assuming the reality is even half as good as the concept art is which admittedly is not a given with Disney but what they showed today seems rather realistic even if not FINAL) will be a beautiful land with a more popular theme that's very easy to expand

Even as someone who never wanted them to touch the river, seeing the art put a lot of my fears to rest and makes me think that much of what made them so nice will still be there just in a new form

I guess you're right. Whatever they actually end up building has to blow away. What is currently there now though this cannot be cheap in any way possible. Reading through this forum and Twitter is making me way more angry and sad than I really need to be. Hopefully they add in a lot of water elements and rest areas to keep at some of the peaceful part of the park. Honestly the more I think about this the more conflicted I feel and I really don't know what to think until it actually happens. Unfortunately there track record with these things has been pretty bad recently although with the fact that they brought back Bruce Vaughn and hired a bunch more people recently gives me a little hope.

 

[UNCgolf]

This is not the Door Coaster thread so I'm not going to really push it in here any more than this post.

Slinky Dog Dash commands a 38-inch height requirement. This is a height most 4 year olds can achieve. A number of guests to the parks are under this height limit, but man, I can't imagine taking a family down to Orlando unless at least one/majority of the kids were at least 4 years old and had credibly developed the capacity to form memories. It's not as family friendly as not having a height requirement, but it's pretty close!

Slinky Dog Dash is... fine. For being "fine" it commands a frankly egregious wait time. What does that mean? There is a general demand for attractions that meet or exceed that quality and flavor of experience that is being severely underserved.

Disney does want people to have happy and successful feeling visits, because it gets them to spend more money. The theory around this is complex, but be honest with yourself: have you ever completed every attraction in DHS in a normal day in it's post 2019 configuration? Probably not! Have you ever had the same visit twice, where you do the exact same attractions the same amount of times? Probably not! Do you think every guest has the same goals in a given park visit as you? I would hope not!

There are groups who want to go specifically to enjoy the Toy Story rides. There are groups who want to go to see the stuff added since their last visit. There are groups who want to cover all of the roller coasters. There are groups who want to see all of the shows. There are groups who want to buy as much crap in Galaxy's Edge as they can cram in the plane trip back. I want to ride Tower of Terror at least 3 times.

Meanwhile, while the attraction will generate 15,000 new experiences a day, over a tail beyond probably 9 months at most, it will not drive more than 15,000 additional unique visits a day.

More guests will have more satisfactory trips with this addition. They'll either have this specific new experience to enjoy, or will benefit indirectly from the crowds that go to it and leave other attractions available. If a family finds the idea of the Door Coaster too intense, but not Slinky Dog, they will likely enjoy a significantly shorter wait time than if the Door Coaster didn't exist. If a family feels like they need to ride at least one of the two roller coasters, they'll benefit for the same reason. If they don't want to or can't stand in line for either, they'll enjoy lower demand from people who now feel better served by having the new ride.

I understand your point, but the issue is that everything you mention would be better served if it was different kind of attraction. The Door Coaster is a worse solution for all of these issues than something else.

Basically, the Door Coaster is maybe a B solution to everything you're discussing, whereas a major D or even E ticket dark or boat ride would be an A solution. It's not the best fit from a capacity or operations standpoint.

That doesn't mean it's a bad idea, just that it's not the absolute best one if they actually want to significantly help the park. If they're removing Muppets to add it, it just compounds the problems.

 

[basas]

Hey, you know what would increase capacity more? Cars and RoA/TSI.

And here I thought I was the only one thinking that!

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Hey, you know what would increase capacity more? Cars and RoA/TSI.

I’ve said it in here before and will say it again, Disney saw the opportunity to replace an under-utilized, under-performing and frankly unknown/unpopular location at their busiest theme park and replace it with something that guests will enjoy. It allows them to continue to expand “Beyond Big Thunder”.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

but to me the tea leaves suggest because they wanted to remove RoA and TSI because they were viewed as “problematic”.

Well the River is just a River - it’s not problematic. The island with 2 mills and a cabin isn’t problematic. Coke corner / Casey’s corner - it’s just a name. Drop Tom Sawyer that’s fine. That doesn’t explain this.

The key thing is they decided to remove RoA/TSI first and use that location, then decided on an IP.

Did they?

Also not trying to argue with you at all - sounds like you’re on to something I’m just crazy confused by this.

If this was so expensive and they weren’t sure what to do with beyond - why not move forward with Moana while they decide?

 

[eddie104]

How can anyone continue to post on here and say that Cars Land is not increased capacity???? The attractions there will see more guests in one month than Tom Sawyer Island does in a year. This is insane.

Haha…a lot of posters on here are refusing to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

If you support or defend this project it’s blasphemy.

 

[doctornick]

I’m sure there was a concept sketch that included keeping the riverboat and this attraction - big thunder in Paris anyone?

There definitely was a way to make this more of a win-win.

It isn’t a “win-win” for the people approving if their goal is to get rid of the riverboat and TSI.

 

[Brian]

Sorry if this was already posted. I'm about 25 pages behind and am not going to be able to catch up.

Not exactly "breaking news", just an interesting catch.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

It isn’t a “win-win” for the people approving if their goal is to get rid of the riverboat and TSI.

Why would it be someone’s goal to get rid of the riverboat? Haha.

 

[doctornick]

Well the River is just a River - it’s not problematic. The island with 2 mills and a cabin isn’t problematic. Coke corner / Casey’s corner - it’s just a name. Drop Tom Sawyer that’s fine. That doesn’t explain this.


Did they?

Also not trying to argue with you at all - sounds like you’re on to something I’m just crazy confused by this.

If this was so expensive and they weren’t sure what to do with beyond - why not move forward with Moana while they decide?

I’m just going with what @PREMiERdrum has said and others have hinted at.

I agree that I can’t explain it. The entire decision making process seems completely illogical - but sadly that’s not new at WDW (eg MMRR replacing GMR instead of a new build)

 

[el_super]

And also important, it yet again is Disney spending craploads of money to replace rather than expand at WDW. Over and over and over again, we see billions of dollars spent with marginal gains (if any!) in capacity. There is a ton of unused land available at MK - build on that instead of replacing. Actually make additions.

People are only going to visit 10 or 15 attractions in a day at a park, tops.

If you keep adding attractions at the top of the list, some attractions are just going to fall to the bottom of the demand list.

Eventually they will pass the point of it being worth the dollars spent to keep them running and maintained.

If you kept things opened, and ran the place like a museum, you would reach a point where people were paying 3x or 4x the current admission cost, on attractions they have no intention of seeing or spending time on.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The difference is likely negligbile. Very few guests ever venture out onto to TSI. The Riverboat is another story.

This Cars expansion of Frontierland will add 2 attractions that guests will actually want to experience, and I would assume at least one QSR/TSR option and a snack stand or two, and probably a merchandise location. VS a nearly vacant island & the Riverboat.

I will miss the Liberty Belle, I think it does provide some great kinetic energy and hope that it can be somewhat replicated with this.

Also this seems to make it easier to open up the connection to Villains Land and future expansion.

The difference in cost is not negligible. A big part of the reason that all four Walt Disney World are severely lacking in capacity is because of Disney’s poor use of money. It’s a whole vicious cycle that they refuse to break. Getting less bang for your buck is not a good thing. It’s a root cause of all of the pressure to not spend on the parks, to cut back on operational costs and remove services and experiences. A premium is again being paid for less.

 

[lentesta]

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.

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.

 

[Pi on my Cake]

Reading through this forum and Twitter is making me way more angry and sad than I really need to be.

This forum (and the internet in general honestly) can start to doom spiral and catastrophise pretty quickly. I hate that people use "touch grass" as an insult because it really is such a healthy thing to do. Log off, talk to people irl, interact outside of your usual group. Heck, even just hopping to a different sub-forum (we got fun games on the imagineering side) can sometimes be enough. Or even just simply stepping away from the internet and doing something different. It's incredibly easy to get caught in a spiral of anger over things and then find a space online with other angry people so you can all make each other angrier.

Maybe it will look terrible, maybe it will look great. Maybe there was a better option, maybe this was the only practical way to accommodate the major expansion the park needs.