DHS DHS Soundstage 1 Renovation - Toy Storia Mania expansion

[spacemt354]

Well, there will be an exit coming out of that area correct? So it will be obvious that the ride extends through that building, meaning if they don't extend theming, it will look very odd.

Putting in a carbon copy of a screen ride in an empty building may be cheap and easy, but I hope they don't forget about things like this. It makes a difference.

I will say the one thing Disney doesn't cheap out on is theme. They theme everything, even bathrooms.

I would thing the same toy story facade would extend to SS1, unless whatever is planned to go next door at the backlot (monsters inc perhaps?) has it's line begin in the front of SS1.

Whatever it is I have faith it will be themed

 

[CDavid]

I will say the one thing Disney doesn't cheap out on is theme.

Uh, there are exceptions...

 

[Cesar R M]

I do hope your source is accurate, but I would correct them when they refer to ride rehabs as plussing or enhancing. Ride rehabs, in my definition, bring a ride back to 100% operating ability. 110% would be plussing. Sadly, ride rehabs haven't been taking place nearly as systematically as they should have been. So, a rehab that does take place makes people think things have been enhanced. Fixing the Yeti, for example is far from plussing.

I actually wonder if they might start using the magicbands for other stuff.
Just like Universal has special things for their wands.

 

[Next Big Thing]

I will say the one thing Disney doesn't cheap out on is theme. They theme everything, even bathrooms.

I would thing the same toy story facade would extend to SS1, unless whatever is planned to go next door at the backlot (monsters inc perhaps?) has it's line begin in the front of SS1.

Whatever it is I have faith it will be themed

Well if TSPL is coming, it could potentially be an easier transition as well if TSMM suddenly extends that far down.

 

[jt04]

This (bolded) is the problem. YOU are proving nothing.

EDITED to add, DLR just came off a major investment, has continued to see major investment in maintaining the parks, and is approaching the doorstep of further major investment. No imaginary pendulum has swung away from them, and more certain still is the fact that none need swing in only one direction at any time. Disney has always had the power to invest in both DLR and WDW at the same time. If at any point they are not doing so, it is only because they choose not to.

Yes, and I expect Iger will soon file a patent for a perpetual motion machine. No wonder some think he should move on to bigger challanges when he leaves the house of mouse.

Naturally I can't "prove" anything with just a keyboard and a connection. So I guess more and more cranes popping up around WDW will have to suffice for what I said was always going to happen. The chicken littles were wrong. TDO gets the last laugh.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Well, there will be an exit coming out of that area correct? So it will be obvious that the ride extends through that building, meaning if they don't extend theming, it will look very odd.

Putting in a carbon copy of a screen ride in an empty building may be cheap and easy, but I hope they don't forget about things like this. It makes a difference.

You're hundred percent right. You have to have an exit for that track. Same with Soarin.

Warning, tangent ahead.....

It just makes me wonder why these attractions weren't built with capacity in mind in the first place. It's simple math… You & me and anybody else can pretty much figure out what he's attractions can handle just by doing math and a little research here and there. You compare that to average daily attendance which is also easily figured out with math and you realize pretty quick that they were never built to handle a significant percentage of the daily audience.

For example, Soarin! 87 per theatre, so 174 per cycle for both theatres... assuming every seat is full. 5 minutes per show. Add in one minute for load, one for unload so thats about 7 minutes per cycle. So roughly 8 or 9 shows per hour. (We'll say nine for this example). Leaves us with 1566 guests/hour, over 12 hours thats 18,792 guests out of the 30k or so estimated guests that attend Epcot daily. Thats pretty much if its maxed out and guests actually load/unload quickly. You start dealing with pokey guests w/ slow load times and those numbers drop pretty fast. (Drop to seven cycles an hour and its 1200 guests and we drop to 14,400/day. Yikes.)

Theoretically, if you take the load/unload time out & just hit repeat, you could do 12 cycles an hour, then you hit 2000/hr but thats never going to happen with only 2 theatres.

So lets add a theatre here..... 87x3=261. 261 by the same 9 shows brings us to 2349/hr & x 12 hours gives us 28,188..... So essentially adding 10k of capacity for an entire day. Even dropping to 8 cycles/hr keeps you above that 2000/hr threshold.

So what does that all mean? They build an E-ticket that wasn't designed to handle E-ticket crowds. No matter how fast you load/unload guests, you're never going to be able to handle those crowds with two theatres.

I cant find the numbers on TSMM beyond 4 people per car, 6 minutes for a ride. If anyone knows how many vehicles they cycle in that six minutes, you could calculate pretty quick their HRC as well. Either way, the overall conclusion that is drawn is that it simply cannot handle the crowds it draws.

Looking forward, two lessons to be learned: 1) When you don't build it right the first time, it bites you worse later on. 2) You need rides with large capacities as well as lots of attractions to spread the crowd out. Else no one is going to be spending money (revenue!) because theyre all stuck in line.... and they'll remember how they stood in line forever and wont come back.

3rd lesson? The creative types need to translate their needs for capacity into some sort of dollar figures for potential lost revenue to get it through to the financial guys. You lose money when people wait in line for an hour or two because they're not buying stuff elsewhere. You can increase your per guest room spending potential simply by not having super long lines.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I do hope your source is accurate, but I would correct them when they refer to ride rehabs as plussing or enhancing. Ride rehabs, in my definition, bring a ride back to 100% operating ability. 110% would be plussing. Sadly, ride rehabs haven't been taking place nearly as systematically as they should have been. So, a rehab that does take place makes people think things have been enhanced. Fixing the Yeti, for example is far from plussing.

Fixing the yeti should be filed under "Build it right the first bloody time"

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

Yes, and I expect Iger will soon file a patent for a perpetual motion machine. No wonder some think he should move on to bigger challanges when he leaves the house of mouse.

Naturally I can't "prove" anything with just a keyboard and a connection. So I guess more and more cranes popping up around WDW will have to suffice for what I said was always going to happen. The chicken littles were wrong. TDO gets the last laugh.

You did not say cranes were going up because you had knowledge that they would, you said it because you hoped they would. TDO gets no laughs because they are a business and meeting the demand of their clients is nothing to laugh about. This is not a zero-sum game. Nobody WANTS TDO to be making poor (or worse, no) investment in the Florida property. TDO providing it's guests with good product is good for us, and doing what's good for us is good for them. We get the last laugh because we've been telling them that all along, and it seems only now are they realizing how it will benefit them.

You clearly have no idea how a company, let alone this one, works. If you think we don't see it, you are wrong.

 

[Next Big Thing]

It just makes me wonder why these attractions weren't built with capacity in mind in the first place. It's simple math… You & me and anybody else can pretty much figure out what he's attractions can handle just by doing math and a little research here and there. You compare that to average daily attendance which is also easily figured out with math and you realize pretty quick that they were never built to handle a significant percentage of the daily audience.

I'll read the rest of your post in a minute, but to the bolded part, it's simple. TDO is lazy and simply copy and pasted both TSMM and Soarin from DCA, a park that, at that time especially, drew much lower crowds.

They didn't take into account the fact that Epcot and DHS are two of the most visited theme parks on the planet and both lack rides that are accessible to the whole family. Well, Epcot not as much, but it could use more.

Both Soarin' and TSMM should've been built with third tracks/theaters from the start, but lack of common sense is what got them into this situation.

 

[PhotoDave219]

You did not say cranes were going up because you had knowledge that they would, you said it because you hoped they would. TDO gets no laughs because they are a business and meeting the demand of their clients is nothing to laugh about. This is not a zero-sum game. Nobody WANTS TDO to be making poor (or worse, no) investment in the Florida property. TDO providing it's guests with good product is good for us, and doing what's good for us is good for them. We get the last laugh because we've been telling them that all along, and it seems only now are they realizing how it will benefit them.

You clearly have no idea how a company, let alone this one, works. If you think we don't see it, you are wrong.

I find the misnomer of TDO to be pretty laughable. There isnt a "Team Disney Orlando" anymore beyond the people who run the front lines of the parks. The rest is simply "OneDisney" and it starts at the door of Tom Stagg's office.

Maybe 10-15 years ago when Orlando had some sense of local control it was a thing, but its no longer a thing today. All George K & Coleglaizer are doing in their parks is sailing the ship and keeping the revenue pouring in at the margins that are expected of them. To think that they have some influence on park expansion... well thats pretty laughable as well.

 

[GoofGoof]

I'll read the rest of your post in a minute, but to the bolded part, it's simple. TDO is lazy and simply copy and pasted both TSMM and Soarin from DCA, a park that, at that time especially, drew much lower crowds.

They didn't take into account the fact that Epcot and DHS are two of the most visited theme parks on the planet and both lack rides that are accessible to the whole family. Well, Epcot not as much, but it could use more.

Both Soarin' and TSMM should've been built with third tracks/theaters from the start, but lack of common sense is what got them into this situation.

I agree 100%. These rides should have been built with larger capacity to begin with. This change is just correcting a mistake.

This is why I disagree with the argument that they should build a new ride instead of expanding TSMM. Adding new rides is never going to correct the capacity problem. It might mask the problem by providing an alternative for people who got shut out but it will never correct the underlying problem.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I agree 100%. These rides should have been built with larger capacity to begin with. This change is just correcting a mistake.

This is why I disagree with the argument that they should build a new ride instead of expanding TSMM. Adding new rides is never going to correct the capacity problem. It might mask the problem by providing an alternative for people who got shut out but it will never correct the underlying problem.

They need both. You need your E-Tickets to be able to handle E-ticket crowds AND you need other attractions to spread people out. You cannot keep them waiting in line for hours. A good, healthy mix is whats needed.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I find the misnomer of TDO to be pretty laughable. There isnt a "Team Disney Orlando" anymore beyond the people who run the front lines of the parks. The rest is simply "OneDisney" and it starts at the door of Tom Stagg's office.

Maybe 10-15 years ago when Orlando had some sense of local control it was a thing, but its no longer a thing today. All George K & Coleglaizer are doing in their parks is sailing the ship and keeping the revenue pouring in at the margins that are expected of them. To think that they have some influence on park expansion... well thats pretty laughable as well.

Yes, that's true. I suppose it makes it all the more sad that Walt Disney World hasn't received more love - the people choosing to invest wisely in DLR are the same who have been investing poorly in WDW.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Yes, that's true. I suppose it makes it all the more sad that Walt Disney World hasn't received more love - the people choosing to invest wisely in DLR are the same who have been investing poorly in WDW.

Well the investments go beyond DLR.... there's HKDL, Shanghai and the latest influx of cash to DLP.

WDW is still the cash cow for P&R. And as long as the guests keep coming, theres not much incentive for them to make any new investments..... or such is the mentality that appears.

 

[Cesar R M]

You're hundred percent right. You have to have an exit for that track. Same with Soarin.

Warning, tangent ahead.....

It just makes me wonder why these attractions weren't built with capacity in mind in the first place. It's simple math… You & me and anybody else can pretty much figure out what he's attractions can handle just by doing math and a little research here and there. You compare that to average daily attendance which is also easily figured out with math and you realize pretty quick that they were never built to handle a significant percentage of the daily audience.

For example, Soarin! 87 per theatre, so 174 per cycle for both theatres... assuming every seat is full. 5 minutes per show. Add in one minute for load, one for unload so thats about 7 minutes per cycle. So roughly 8 or 9 shows per hour. (We'll say nine for this example). Leaves us with 1566 guests/hour, over 12 hours thats 18,792 guests out of the 30k or so estimated guests that attend Epcot daily. Thats pretty much if its maxed out and guests actually load/unload quickly. You start dealing with pokey guests w/ slow load times and those numbers drop pretty fast. (Drop to seven cycles an hour and its 1200 guests and we drop to 14,400/day. Yikes.)

Theoretically, if you take the load/unload time out & just hit repeat, you could do 12 cycles an hour, then you hit 2000/hr but thats never going to happen with only 2 theatres.

So lets add a theatre here..... 87x3=261. 261 by the same 9 shows brings us to 2349/hr & x 12 hours gives us 28,188..... So essentially adding 10k of capacity for an entire day. Even dropping to 8 cycles/hr keeps you above that 2000/hr threshold.

So what does that all mean? They build an E-ticket that wasn't designed to handle E-ticket crowds. No matter how fast you load/unload guests, you're never going to be able to handle those crowds with two theatres.

I cant find the numbers on TSMM beyond 4 people per car, 6 minutes for a ride. If anyone knows how many vehicles they cycle in that six minutes, you could calculate pretty quick their HRC as well. Either way, the overall conclusion that is drawn is that it simply cannot handle the crowds it draws.

Looking forward, two lessons to be learned: 1) When you don't build it right the first time, it bites you worse later on. 2) You need rides with large capacities as well as lots of attractions to spread the crowd out. Else no one is going to be spending money (revenue!) because theyre all stuck in line.... and they'll remember how they stood in line forever and wont come back.

3rd lesson? The creative types need to translate their needs for capacity into some sort of dollar figures for potential lost revenue to get it through to the financial guys. You lose money when people wait in line for an hour or two because they're not buying stuff elsewhere. You can increase your per guest room spending potential simply by not having super long lines.

Not to mention the removal of attractions, you remove stuff... and they will all go to the remaining attractions.
In this case.. Soarin!

 

[flynnibus]

Looking forward, two lessons to be learned: 1) When you don't build it right the first time, it bites you worse later on. 2) You need rides with large capacities as well as lots of attractions to spread the crowd out. Else no one is going to be spending money (revenue!) because theyre all stuck in line.... and they'll remember how they stood in line forever and wont come back.

Or one may counter... hindsight is 20/20. You also can't get a refund on overbuilt attractions... nor can you reclaim the space easily. But if something proves successful, you can always add more.

That 1200-2000/hr is the common band you find attractions built for. Not every attraction is a huge people eater like POTC, HM, IASW. So much of that is based on the ride system and pace of the attraction. You can expand capacity by extending attractions... but if your attraction is high intensity or fast action... there is only so much a guest can take in a single cycle. If you doubled the length of the TSMM attraction... people wouldn't be playing by the end because their arms would be numb. So things are always about balance.

You don't want shows to be too short to allow more cycles.. you don't want ride vehicles so big they change what you are trying to do. You don't want attractions so long people feel trapped. Everything is a balance.. and Disney still defined the concept for the industry in terms of headliner attractions with massive capacities. Continuous loading, pre-boarding, etc.

 

[flynnibus]

To think that they have some influence on park expansion... well thats pretty laughable as well.

OneDisney is all fine and all.. but it doesn't explain away the differences in park operation and refresh cycles between the parks. WorldWide Parks is headed out of florida... but just because they are co-resident I would question calls to say they are the same.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Or one may counter... hindsight is 20/20. You also can't get a refund on overbuilt attractions... nor can you reclaim the space easily. But if something proves successful, you can always add more.

That 1200-2000/hr is the common band you find attractions built for. Not every attraction is a huge people eater like POTC, HM, IASW. So much of that is based on the ride system and pace of the attraction. You can expand capacity by extending attractions... but if your attraction is high intensity or fast action... there is only so much a guest can take in a single cycle. If you doubled the length of the TSMM attraction... people wouldn't be playing by the end because their arms would be numb. So things are always about balance.

You don't want shows to be too short to allow more cycles.. you don't want ride vehicles so big they change what you are trying to do. You don't want attractions so long people feel trapped. Everything is a balance.. and Disney still defined the concept for the industry in terms of headliner attractions with massive capacities. Continuous loading, pre-boarding, etc.

I get where youre coming from on this, but if you're building a headliner attraction you need it to handle headliner crowds. 1200/hr is not a headliner crowd.

 

[JediMasterMatt]

It just makes me wonder why these attractions weren't built with capacity in mind in the first place. It's simple math… You & me and anybody else can pretty much figure out what he's attractions can handle just by doing math and a little research here and there. You compare that to average daily attendance which is also easily figured out with math and you realize pretty quick that they were never built to handle a significant percentage of the daily audience...

The issue in my opinion isn't just as simple as the individual ride capacity, it has to do with the role they play in handling the weight of the "World" (pun intended) versus just being another quality attraction for their respective parks. It's easy to sit back and realize that both Soarin' and TSMM are at the low end of the normal E-ticket hourly capacity people eating monsters. The thing is, that major Disney attractions have historically fallen all over the spectrum of hourly capacity. From the Subs at Disneyland to 20k at WDW or even Pan, none of them have been people consuming machines. That's normally perfectly fine for attractions as over time, guest behavior changes and what were once must ride multiple times per day attractions fade into must ride occasionally attractions as new/different/better options come online.

The problems with WDW's Soarin and TSMM are that they ARE carrying the weight of their entire park on their shoulders. Guests that visit either EPCOT or DHS must ride those attractions because there simply isn't enough else that is either new, different, or better to pull them away and hold them. Soarin' and TSMM both work just fine in California because they are both in a park that has many other rides and attractions that pull their fair share of the load or simply there aren't enough of them.

In many ways, adding capacity to either Soarin' or TSMM will compound the overall problems guest face when visiting either park. If more can get on these attractions quicker, they will be back out in the pool of perspective riders. They then will be faced with the same choice of "what to do next" that caused them to choose riding Soarin' or TSMM in the first place. The guest has already decided they would rather ride this attraction once before over the other options... and I believe when presented with the choice again, many will choose a re-ride over the other options.

The fix has to be external to "problem" popular attraction in question. Other options guests deem worthy of investing their time in have to be the solution in the long term. Sure, people may be happier their wait/return time for TSMM or Soarin' have been reduced; but, the park would be much healthier if there was new/different/better options to draw them away and let these attractions naturally fall into the role their capacity was designed for.

 

[PhotoDave219]

OneDisney is all fine and all.. but it doesn't explain away the differences in park operation and refresh cycles between the parks. WorldWide Parks is headed out of florida... but just because they are co-resident I would question calls to say they are the same.

Thats how the ships are sailed.... but neither Orlando nor Anaheim have any sense of control anymore.