News Cars-Themed Attractions at Magic Kingdom

[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

 

[MrPromey]

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.

Okay, so in a world where only one can exist in a Florida park and all the rest need to be completely scrapped to make that happen, what you're showing makes a lot of sense.

By making this an either/or discussion, are you saying that is the world that we're in?

(for the record, I'm mostly in the camp that would like to preserve some semblance of the riverfront across the sight-lines of what's there now - I'm not all that married to the idea of keeping Tom Sawyers' Island fully intact and while I think it's a wonky fit to try to make this a part of frontierland, it doesn't feel as wonky as GOTG in Epcot so... baby steps?)

 

[SpaceMountain77]

I find it unfortunate that we are regularly reminded about the blessing of size at the Walt Disney World Resort, but new attractions always come at the expense of existing attractions.

Also, objectively, navigating the EPCOT hub construction for years was awful. If the Cars addition was built Beyond Big Thunder Mountain, as originally promised, it would have been out of sight, out of crowd flows. The reimagining of the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer's Island is going to be a visible mess for years.

 

[Architectural Guinea Pig]

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

Yeah, and now “fans” start moaning and complaining about Epcot losing its theme with an even deeper infestation of IP… seems people can find problems about anything Disney says

 

[MoonRakerSCM]

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.

RSR is ~5.4 acres (showbuilding and all outside track area)...

This entire area (as a big circle from ROA shore all the way around is ~4.0 acres. That is the absolute MAXIMUM space the ride can occupy... if we make assuptions on walk ways and entrance path space (as shown in the ride overview image) it's more like ~3.2 acres. 40% less footprint than RSR.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

The more I think on it, the more I feel like they’re really wanting to differentiate Magic Kingdom and Disneyland. The whole purpose of DL Forward is to make that resort one people want to travel and go see and spend a lot of time at, just like they do WDW. But why would they if Disneyland and Magic Kingdom are so closely related with just a few notable distinctions?

Magic Kingdom has always struggled when held up next to Disneyland. Even at opening, when they were trying to differentiate, you had guests demanding Pirates. They were demanding Disneyland but in Florida. And they got it..kind of sort of. They got a version of it that lacked what made Disneyland special.

For nearly 50 years, this park held strong to being Disneyland’s sister. Then they slowly started to do things that differentiated each park. Galaxy’s Edge to DL, Tron to MK, ToonTown refresh to DL. It was only a matter of time before they started making bigger, bolder moves to make the parks truly stand apart from each other.

And honestly…for me, that can only be good for Magic Kingdom. It can’t be Worse Disneyland forever. It has to get its own completely unique identity because for most of its life, it just hasn’t.

I don’t completely agree with the decision to put Cars into Frontierland (I like their story for it, but it will come down to execution). I do think Rivers of America at MK is nice to look at. But longterm, this will do more good for the park than it will bad, no matter what the feelings of those who cling to a certain version of Magic Kingdom that was never going to last(myself included to some extent, there is definitely an era of this park I miss).

I also think this is going to go a long way in truly justifying this being the most visited theme park in the world. Because at the moment, it seems really strange that it holds that title despite not even managing to come out as the best park of the four at the resort. All this coming—Cars, Villains, Coco if it has survived, Moana if they stick to it—may just actually, finally change that.

 

[TP2000]

I need @TP2000 analysis on this change, can’t even imagine what’d he say.

I've been hosting extended family at the beach this week, so I'm behind the curve. But I just posted some initial thoughts this evening over in the Disneyland version of this thread, where we are thanking God that Rivers of America complex was saved by Star Wars.

But suffice it to say, while I love Cars Land at DCA...

The people who made this creative and operational decision for the Magic Kingdom are idiots. Complete idiots.

 

[McMickeyWorld]

I don't really understand the concern about Disney being less "patriotic." I mean, I'm Mexican, and the Hall of Presidents scares me, but Disney still keeps it and even updates it. Didn't they just add an exhibit honoring soldiers at Epcot a couple of months ago? And Cars is still pretty "American" too. The good thing about this is that they could redo that part of the parade route and the facades.

 

[WDW1995]

I find it unfortunate that we are regularly reminded about the blessing of size at the Walt Disney World Resort, but new attractions always come at the expense of existing attractions.

Also, objectively, navigating the EPCOT hub construction for years was awful. If the Cars addition was built Beyond Big Thunder Mountain, as originally promised, it would have been out of sight, out of crowd flows. The reimagining of the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer's Island is going to be a visible mess for years.

Another thing about this that I think a lot of the cheerleaders are missing. For a significant percentage of our limited natural lifespan on this Earth, MK will be a huge ugly pit. They didn't have to choose this.

 

[MrPromey]

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

I'd settle for them docking Liberty Belle, keeping the front of Tom Sawyer's island to preserve the feel of the surrounding areas that were designed to compliment it and calling it whatever they want while turning it into a peninsula with the back (actually most of the space) filled in, putting bridges across whatever they want and still putting the Cars ride on the other side of that island facade.

Cars in Frotnierland feels weird and wrong to me but that would feel more like a beyond Big Thunder Mountain project even if it's not really beyond it and is just a difference of a hundred and fifty feet or so with what is left also acting as part of the berm meant to hide the attraction from sight-lines that the concept art makes it look like they're planning for part of that space, anyway.

What I don't want is to see autonomous SUVs with faces visible from ground level at Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, or the current Frontierland or what the guest accessible back sides of 7DMT and the Moana walkthrough ended up being like for current Frontierland and Liberty Square.

 

[WDWhopper]

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

Or how about putting all of these new areas and attractions into a new park and spare the existing parks. The existing parks are so big and so filled with E ticket rides, you can really only do about a third of them in one day.