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

[HauntedPirate]

Plus it is guaranteed to be popular. The company is not about to take any big risks in the parks. But a relatively-cheap update to a ride that needs to be refurbished anyway and can be marketed as a “new ride” even though it’s been around for 30 years and is quite popular? Easy sell.

Very sad yet spot-on.

"New ride capacity? We don't need no stinking new ride capacity!"

 

[celluloid]

Also, I don't think the current Disney budgeting and upkeep could be trusted to create or operate most of DL's or TDL's effects.

As mentioned earlier, capacity will be even worse for a long time if this and Tree of Life are closed for awhile. It won't even be worth the sum of the result for all the downtime and neglect to new venues the park will face for years.

 

[Incomudro]

It is a sad state when one of the biggest attraction situation for WDW is a rethemed ride of one that is 30 years old.

If you like Indy better, fine, many do. But that is quite the statement that it is what is coming to big a big change to the park.

That I feel is the crux. It is not like Tokyo Disney Sea where in less than ten years later from the ground up in a new setting to compliment a theme park's other many E Tickets.

This is a retheme.

And the lazyness of this irritates me.
I just know it went - "Well... Indiana Jones is on the same ride system as Dinosaur."
"So... We can retheme Dinosaur to Indy, and it'll work because the crumbly looking buildings are similar to other crumbly looking buildings in Animal Kingdom!"
"The park goers will accept that, and we've already got the ride in California."

 

[celluloid]

And the lazyness of this irritates me.
I just know it went - "Well... Indiana Jones is on the same ride system as Dinosaur."
"So... We can retheme Dinosaur to Indy, and it'll work because the crumbly looking buildings are similar to other crumbly looking buildings in Animal Kingdom!"
"The park goers will accept that, and we've already got the ride in California."

Exactly what is happening.

 

[J4546]

imo Indy is one of the best rides ever made and Im glad to see it (hopefully) coming to AK as part of a south american continent transformation. I would like to see another one off ride added to the land, a flume or something water based to go along with the indy, encanto darkride, and smaller spinner. But I really do like the concept art of this new area. If I could, Id still like to have DInosaur exhibits in each continent with fossils and stuff.

 

[KDM31091]

It's kind of crazy that the best they can come up with is a retheme based on a 30 year old ride. Yes, it's most likely cost effective, but is it really going to be that huge of a draw as compared to Dinosaur? Dinosaur still gets plenty of guests. Why not just put the money in and fix Dinosaur up?

 

[TheIceBaron]

Galaxy's Edge boosted DHS attendance? Must be some fuzzy math going on there because 2022 DHS numbers (10.9 million) are still below 2019 (11.48 million), when GE was still just a Bob Iger tweet away from being announced as open.

Seeing as how GE opened at least partially for a good chunk of 2019 (with Toy Story land also being recently opened) explains perfectly why it had better attendance than 2022. By 2022 GE was no longer new. I also imagine if you looked at Jan and Feb 2020 those monthly numbers were probably better than previous years. Pandora also clearly increased AK attendance.

 

[Fox&Hound]

Indy is MUCH better ride than Dinosaur in every way. I think it will bring the crowds and people will be excited to ride it.

 

[Incomudro]

Indy is MUCH better ride than Dinosaur in every way. I think it will bring the crowds and people will be excited to ride it.

It does seem to be a better ride than Dinosaur, even though it's on the same track.
Still doesn't belong in AK.
Dinosaurs do belong in Animal Kingdom.
Disney doesn't care anymore, and as you said - neither do you and a large portion of park goers.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Seeing as how GE opened at least partially for a good chunk of 2019 (with Toy Story land also being recently opened) explains perfectly why it had better attendance than 2022. By 2022 GE was no longer new. I also imagine if you looked at Jan and Feb 2020 those monthly numbers were probably better than previous years. Pandora also clearly increased AK attendance.

Even going back to 2018 attendance was only up 500k. Not even close to what Pandora did for AK. GE was basically a dud for attendance, because the location was completely made up (zero connection for 99.9% of guests), the lack of other things to do that aren’t shopping when it opened (remember that Rise was VQ-only, so if you didn’t get one it was MF and done), and lack of overall kinetics. Yeah, it looks good, especially at night, but once you’ve done Rise… what else is there?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Even going back to 2018 attendance was only up 500k. Not even close to what Pandora did for AK. GE was basically a dud for attendance, because the location was completely made up (zero connection for 99.9% of guests), the lack of other things to do that aren’t shopping when it opened (remember that Rise was VQ-only, so if you didn’t get one it was MF and done), and lack of overall kinetics. Yeah, it looks good, especially at night, but once you’ve done Rise… what else is there?

Even if Galaxy’s Edge was the expected draw it still would have been a dud for attendance because, despite spending billions on it, the park can’t really handle many more people.

 

[erasure fan1]

It's kind of crazy that the best they can come up with is a retheme based on a 30 year old ride.

I don't know, it seems fairly right on the money for Iger and crew.

 

[rle4lunch]

You guys clamoring that Dinosaur should stay are probably the ones who thought that Maelstrom was a good attraction as well. While I hate the cheapness that Disney uses on some things, the Indy overlay is smart. I can only hope that it has upgraded effects and a different storyline than DLs

 

[LSLS]

Even if Galaxy’s Edge was the expected draw it still would have been a dud for attendance because, despite spending billions on it, the park can’t really handle many more people.

THIS. This is why I never bought the idea that it was going to be this giant increase in attendance people predicted.

 

[drizgirl]

Even if Galaxy’s Edge was the expected draw it still would have been a dud for attendance because, despite spending billions on it, the park can’t really handle many more people.

So at the time, how many days a year were the parks at capacity?

And if either of those lands expanded beyond previous boundaries, they actually increased the max capacity of the parks.

 

[Incomudro]

You guys clamoring that Dinosaur should stay are probably the ones who thought that Maelstrom was a good attraction as well. While I hate the cheapness that Disney uses on some things, the Indy overlay is smart. I can only hope that it has upgraded effects and a different storyline than DLs

I never thought Maelstrom was a great attraction.
I do think Dinosaur is.
I certainly believe dinosaurs belong in AK.

 

[lazyboy97o]

So at the time, how many days a year were the parks at capacity?

And if either of those lands expanded beyond previous boundaries, they actually increased the max capacity of the parks.

Capacity of a theme park is not determined by area like the typical maximum occupancy calculation of a building.

 

[UNCgolf]

You guys clamoring that Dinosaur should stay are probably the ones who thought that Maelstrom was a good attraction as well. While I hate the cheapness that Disney uses on some things, the Indy overlay is smart. I can only hope that it has upgraded effects and a different storyline than DLs

Maelstrom was mediocre but it was better than Frozen Ever After -- especially when factoring in placement/location, but I actually think it was a better attraction regardless.

 

[Bocabear]

Maelstrom was mediocre but it was better than Frozen Ever After -- especially when factoring in placement/location, but I actually think it was a better attraction regardless.

I would have to disagree...Maelstrom was a nice attraction, but painfully short and very disjointed... I was totally against putting Frozen in World showcase, but I cannot say the ride is worse than Maelstrom. Lengthening the flume and adding an additional scene helped, thought Frozen still has some issues...It feels a bit more complete than Maelstrom. FEA is a good start, but doesn't quite get there.... But I can't say that Maelstrom was a better attraction.....

 

[UNCgolf]

I would have to disagree...Maelstrom was a nice attraction, but painfully short and very disjointed... I was totally against putting Frozen in World showcase, but I cannot say the ride is worse than Maelstrom. Lengthening the flume and adding an additional scene helped, thought Frozen still has some issues...It feels a bit more complete than Maelstrom. FEA is a good start, but doesn't quite get there.... But I can't say that Maelstrom was a better attraction.....

I think Frozen is equally disjointed, and also looks barren/unfinished compared to Maelstrom.

I think FEA is one of the worst designed rides at WDW, though -- it's really more about that than Maelstrom. It has nice AAs (and even those are brought down by the projection faces), and that's basically it. It's sole appeal is the inclusion of Frozen characters and Frozen songs; there's nothing else there.