News 'Encanto' and 'Indiana Jones'-themed experiences at Animal Kingdom

[GoofGoof]

I kind of lose people when they equate high wait times to popularity. Some things are very slow loading and therefore tend to have very high waits (Frozen Ever After, Peter Pan). Conversely, fast loading attractions can seem less popular since you tend to fly through the queue (say, Pirates). I would not say Pirates is any less popular than Peter Pan in a total popularity standpoint, yet judging by wait times, Peter Pan would be considered far, far more popular in most cases. That's why I find that logic flawed.

On the topic of Dinosaur, if you want to do the wait time argument, it typically is 30 minutes or so midday and stretches to 60+ on busy days. Is it the most popular in the park, no. But is it ridiculously unpoular and begging to be replaced? also no.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope the Indy version is great but recent track record has me worried for a cheap overlay.

I don’t disagree that wait time is less useful when comparing 2 rides with very different capacity like Pan and Pirates but with Dinosaur it’s easy enough to just compare it to its operational clone at Disneyland. The Indy ride there has a very similar capacity (maybe the same?) but has much longer waits so I think it’s fair to call that ride more popular. As I said before I think that’s not just the theme/IP being more popular. There is way more foot traffic past that ride at DL vs Dinoland at AK.

 

[CoasterCowboy67]

I kind of lose people when they equate high wait times to popularity. Some things are very slow loading and therefore tend to have very high waits (Frozen Ever After, Peter Pan). Conversely, fast loading attractions can seem less popular since you tend to fly through the queue (say, Pirates). I would not say Pirates is any less popular than Peter Pan in a total popularity standpoint, yet judging by wait times, Peter Pan would be considered far, far more popular in most cases. That's why I find that logic flawed.

On the topic of Dinosaur, if you want to do the wait time argument, it typically is 30 minutes or so midday and stretches to 60+ on busy days. Is it the most popular in the park, no. But is it ridiculously unpoular and begging to be replaced? also no.

I hope I'm wrong and I hope the Indy version is great but recent track record has me worried for a cheap overlay.

Wait times are signs of willingness to ride. At 40 minutes people find it worth it to wait for Peter Pan, which drives the wait time higher. Less popular rides don’t have that same kind of desirability, and so people are less unwilling to wait as long

The load time is irrelevant to the guest experience. You’re saying a 30 minute Pirates wait is pushing more people through than a 45 minute Peter Pan wait. But people don’t know or care about that. They only see a posted measure of how long they need to wait to ride and then determine if it’s worth it to them

I don’t get the arguments against wait times as one of a few strong measures of popularity. You have to go out of your way to reject a metric that both analytically and intuitively align with reality of what people find popular

 

[GoofGoof]

Wait times are signs of willingness to ride. At 40 minutes people find it worth it to wait for Peter Pan, which drives the wait time higher. Less popular rides don’t have that same kind of desirability, and so people are less unwilling to wait as long

This is a way to look at it, but only once demand exceeds available capacity. For a low capacity ride like Pan people are still willing to wait 40 mins while a ride like Tea Cups which has a similar capacity has much lower waits. You can probably safely conclude that Pan is more popular than Tea Cups. For a ride like Pirates or in this case Dinosaur the capacity is 3X higher so low wait times does not automatically mean that Pan is more popular than those rides. You have to probably figure in crowd levels too which is harder to do across parks. So a low wait at dinosaur does not automatically mean it’s less popular than Pan. I think it’s fair to compare Dinosur to similar capacity rides but unfortunately for AK there are not any. EE is probably closest and is clearly more popular so not a fair comparison.

 

[celluloid]

I don’t disagree that wait time is less useful when comparing 2 rides with very different capacity like Pan and Pirates but with Dinosaur it’s easy enough to just compare it to its operational clone at Disneyland. The Indy ride there has a very similar capacity (maybe the same?) but has much longer waits so I think it’s fair to call that ride more popular. As I said before I think that’s not just the theme/IP being more popular. There is way more foot traffic past that ride at DL vs Dinoland at AK.

Also you can't quite compare it to DL's Clone of ride system for many reasons, but a major one alone because DL has millions more visiting DL itself than AK.
If it were Apples to Apples under the same logic. AK as a park would be a failure because it sees millions less a year.
It would be like saying AK's parking lot is too expensive to park at because there are less cars parked there than DL.

 

[GoofGoof]

Also you can't quite compare it to DL's Clone of ride system for many reasons, but a major one alone because DL has millions more visiting DL itself than AK.
If it were Apples to Apples under the same logic. AK as a park would be a failure because it sees millions less a year.
It would be like saying AK's parking lot is too expensive to park at because there are less cars parked there than DL.

I agree it’s not exactly apples to apples. Disneyland park has millions more visitors for sure and is generally open longer each day, but it also has about 35 rides vs 7 at AK so the crowds at DL are much more spread out. As I said before I do think that one of the reasons Indy is probably more popular than Dinosaur is because it’s in a much more popular land tucked between Jungle Cruise and Pirates on the path leading to Haunted Mansion, Splash and eventually the other way into Galaxy’s Edge. Clearly that route gets a lot more foot traffic than Dinoland in AK. So it may really be that Dinoland itself was a lot less popular and the Dinosaur ride wasn‘t enough of a draw to bring crowds in.

The good news is in 3 short years we will actually have a better comparison. If the Indy ride at AK ends up with similar lines as Dinosaur had we will have our answer that Dinosaur wasn’t the problem. My money is on Indy being a lot more crowded with longer waits. We still won’t know if it’s just that the ride is a better draw or the overall land is. My guess is both will be true. It would have to be a terrible swing and miss for Encanto to be less appealing than the carnival area it is replacing so I expect a lot more people in the new land.

 

[celluloid]

I agree it’s not exactly apples to apples. Disneyland park has millions more visitors for sure and is generally open longer each day, but it also has about 35 rides vs 7 at AK so the crowds at DL are much more spread out. As I said before I do think that one of the reasons Indy is probably more popular than Dinosaur is because it’s in a much more popular land tucked between Jungle Cruise and Pirates on the path leading to Haunted Mansion, Splash and eventually the other way into Galaxy’s Edge. Clearly that route gets a lot more foot traffic than Dinoland in AK. So it may really be that Dinoland itself was a lot less popular and the Dinosaur ride wasn‘t enough of a draw to bring crowds in.

The good news is in 3 short years we will actually have a better comparison. If the Indy ride at AK ends up with similar lines as Dinosaur had we will have our answer that Dinosaur wasn’t the problem. My money is on Indy being a lot more crowded with longer waits. We still won’t know if it’s just that the ride is a better draw or the overall land is. My guess is both will be true. It would have to be a terrible swing and miss for Encanto to be less appealing than the carnival area it is replacing so I expect a lot more people in the new land.

Well millions in advertising and etc will ensure opening years are likely larger in crowds. Also if it has issues of downtime, it will be interesting.
If Disney closed Dinosaur for a year and gave new show scenes and spent millions on promoting it as plussed. We would naturally see some sort of bump as well. Not on the scale of what they are doing but neither the scale of changes either.
For sure the new enhancements will draw people to it. That is more a ROI situation because of course something new and promoted will have novelty and enhancement at the bare minimum.

No matter what the merch sales or spendjng lernguest that rides will make them happier, but it is interesting how all of this was approved as Dial of Destiny showed the legacy alone is not as strong as Disney would hope for continuing.

It is also not equal in that Indy likely costs more to operate, even with so many things broken, Dinosaur has been even more neglected then it.

As you said, unfortunately Countdown to Extinction was solid anchor marquee but did not have supporting nearby to bring people to it.

Success would have bread success.

 

[GoofGoof]

Well millions in advertising and etc will ensure opening years are likely larger in crowds. Also if it has issues of downtime, it will be interesting.
If Disney closed Dinosaur for a year and gave new show scenes and spent millions on promoting it as plussed. We would naturally see some sort of bump as well. Not on tje scale.of what they are doing but neither the scale of changes either.
For sure the new enhancements will draw people to it. That is more a ROI situation because of course something new and promoted will have novelty and enhancement at the bare minimum.

No matter what the merch sales or spendjng lernguest that rides will make them happier, but it is interesting how all.pf this was approved as Dial of Destiny showed the legacy alone is not as strong as Disney would hope for continuing.

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW. I do think part of the reason Indy is more popular is not just the IP it’s the ride’s story, overall environment and the large sections of darkness on dinosaur. I don’t know if the AK version of Indy will be as good as the DL version since it’s not a clone. I hope it is. If it is at least as good it will be wildly popular at WDW too.

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW.

I think the “hidden” location might also influence how’s it’s perceived. If, for instance, the original, on-all-cylinders CTX had been prominently located in Tomorrowland (which, incidentally, would be pretty cool and thematically fitting), I think there’s a good chance it would‘ve been one of the more popular attractions at MK.

Maybe not, though. Maybe I’m under-appreciating the weakness of all that empty/dark space, etc.

 

[KDM31091]

I think the “hidden” location might also influence how’s it’s perceived. If, for instance, the original, on-all-cylinders CTX had been prominently located in Tomorrowland (which, incidentally, would be pretty cool and thematically fitting), I think there’s a good chance it would‘ve been one of the more popular attractions at MK.

Maybe not, though. Maybe I’m under-appreciating the weakness of all that empty/dark space, etc.

Of course, there’s also plenty of empty dark space on Tiana, so… to me no guarantee the new/reskinned Indy ride won’t be the same way.

I’d love to be wrong but I’m just skeptical to think it’s going to be amazing. I’m making peace with losing Dinosaur, as sad as it is, but IMO it’s much more likely this will be a lateral move rather than a huge improvement, given recent projects being almost all bad and low budget unfortunately

 

[JohnD]

I'm going to WDW the last week in October. I'll make a point to ride DINOSAUR one last time. But am looking forward to the new Indy ride.

 

[celluloid]

If you google top rides at Disneyland most of the lists out there have Indy in at least the top 10 with many in the top 5. It’s just opinions from whoever made the lists, but it’s consistently popular. I don’t think most people consider Dinosaur a top 10 ride at WDW. I do think part of the reason Indy is more popular is not just the IP it’s the ride’s story, overall environment and the large sections of darkness on dinosaur. I don’t know if the AK version of Indy will be as good as the DL version since it’s not a clone. I hope it is. If it is at least as good it will be wildly popular at WDW too.

It was also the last major E ticket DL has gotten before rise.Fairly iconic and arguably the most thrilling ride in the park with the IP to assist. After Indy and before Rise did not really have much on that scale at Disneyland proper.
Nothing at DCA pre cars was going to move Indy much.
Dino was Def in WDWs top ten for years. Promotion and fan. Everest and Soarin in the early 2000s to 2005 started to change that list.

 

[RKpb]

I'm probably the minority on this but I just don't get the Indy ride. I rode it a few times at Disneyland and its just a dark ride with lights and noise, sorry I just don't get it and how this somehow equates to the Movie theme; and wasn't really a great overall thrill ride anyway. It's hard to me to understand how this is anywhere near being a popular ride worth spending dollars to duplicate. The current dino ride kills the Indy ride IMO.

 

[KDM31091]

It was also the last major E ticket DL has gotten before rise.Fairly iconic and arguably the most thrilling ride in the park with the IP to assist. After Indy and before Rise did not really have much on that scale at Disneyland proper.
Nothing at DCA pre cars was going to move Indy much.
Dino was Def in WDWs top ten for years. Promotion and fan. Everest and Soarin in the early 2000s to 2005 started to change that list.

Exactly. Dinosaur is/was very popular. They just never gave it the love it deserved. It's an iconic and popular theme that if executed well/updated, would be very very popular. They just don't want to put that kind of effort in unfortunately and rather just slap an IP in. *

*Yes, technically the Dinosaur attraction is sort of IP, since it ties into the movie, but the connection is very loose and doesn't affect the story any. It could be a generic Iguanadon rather than the one from the movie and it would make no difference.

 

[KDM31091]

I'm probably the minority on this but I just don't get the Indy ride. I rode it a few times at Disneyland and its just a dark ride with lights and noise, sorry I just don't get it and how this somehow equates to the Movie theme; and wasn't really a great overall thrill ride anyway. It's hard to me to understand how this is anywhere near being a popular ride worth spending dollars to duplicate. The current dino ride kills the Indy ride IMO.

Not to mention comparing popularity at DL isn't apples to apples. Indy at DL is basically one of the only real thrill rides in the park since all their coasters are quite tame by thrillseeker standards. So of course it's popular. Not necessarily just because it's Indy, but because it's a more aggressive ride to balance out the many calm ones.

I don't dislike Indiana Jones, but it feels like a franchise whose popularity has peaked, so it seems rather odd to be bringing in a brand new attraction based on it at this point. 20 years ago, sure.

 

[celluloid]

I don't dislike Indiana Jones, but it feels like a franchise whose popularity has peaked, so it seems rather odd to be bringing in a brand new attraction based on it at this point. 20 years ago, sure.

I will be completely honest. While it is a good ride. I was dissapointed when I finally rode in 2013. I guess decades of hype would do that.

When I was fortunate enough to go to Tokyo Disney Resort last year, I enjoyed their version much more. I thought the execution was better and the effects that were there were better maintained.

Your final point is very valid here. They were expecting Dial of Destiny was going to be a hit. The thing failed harshly for its budget and it is awkward timing.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I've never been on Indiana Jones. Do we have reason to believe all the stuff people say makes it better will be added here?

I highly doubt the physical effects that make Indiana jones will be included. The real fire, the fog, the “moving backwards” illusion, etc.

I wonder if we will even get the rolling boulder.

 

[WaltsTreasureChest]

I don't dislike Indiana Jones, but it feels like a franchise whose popularity has peaked, so it seems rather odd to be bringing in a brand new attraction based on it at this point. 20 years ago, sure.

With that logic, should we avoid creating any rides based off characters or films that arent currently trending?
The Muppets aren't particularly popular right now either—should we completely disregard them? I love Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, even though Snow White isn't very relevant in today's pop culture. Still, the ride is fantastic and a lot of fun. I believe that regardless of the age of the IP, if a ride is well-designed and features beloved characters, its peaked popularity shouldn't matter. There are many iconic Disney characters that may not be trending at the moment but still deserve an amazing ride experience.

I for one would love to see new rides at WDW based on The Jungle Book, Mary Poppins, and Roger Rabbit, just to name a few. Just because those films are older and may not be as relevant today as they once were doesn’t mean they don’t deserve a place in the park.

 

[Sorcerer Mickey]

I highly doubt the physical effects that make Indiana jones will be included. The real fire, the fog, the “moving backwards” illusion, etc.

I wonder if we will even get the rolling boulder.

I'm fairly certain this ride is supposed to be something new, given the focus around Mayan ruins and a mythical creature. My bet is something very closely resembling a dinosaur.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I will be completely honest. While it is a good ride. I was dissapointed when I finally rode in 2013. I guess decades of hype would do that.

When I was fortunate enough to go to Tokyo Disney Resort last year, I enjoyed their version much more. I thought the execution was better and the effects that were there were better maintained.

Hard disagree, while the queue is indeed nicer the main showroom is darker and just generally less impressive. I thought the TDS version felt like a downgrade when I first rode in 2019 and had the same opinion last month.

 

[Karakasa]

With all this talk of potential closure dates... Obviously there are no guarantees until Disney says something, but insiders: is there a chance Dinosaur might still be open in early 2025? Like, Jan-Feb? Was thinking of making one last one-last-trip; don't wanna buy tickets and book flights/hotel only to find out "surprise, it's closing January 2".

I highly doubt the physical effects that make Indiana jones will be included. The real fire, the fog, the “moving backwards” illusion, etc.

I wonder if we will even get the rolling boulder.

Leapfrogging off this post: I think people are assuming it's gonna end up being a clone of DL/TDS, but given there are apparently aspects of the way the ride is built that would make a "mirror" 1:1 clone impossible, I don't think it will be. The story is different enough that it wouldn't make entirely too much sense to be the same. There's not going to be one big room in the center, for instance, that's closed off in Dinosaur's architecture IIRC.

That said, I would be very surprised if there isn't some boulder reference at some point. If it's not replacing the static jump-scare Carnotaurus, there'll be a screen with Indy running from one while you run into whatever the mythical creature ends up being. I know your post is more about the quality of effects Disney might put in (projections/screens vs. practical), but, I'm just spitballing ideas here.

One thing I wonder... to further differentiate the two rides, is it possible to like, take the ride cars and turn them around? Then it would technically be the same track, but mirrored AND reversed.