Fantasyland rehab/updated approved!

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AndrewRnR

New Member
tirian said:
Low crowd capacity, frustrated Guests, and weak marketing will certainly affect attendance, as well as Guest satisfaction levels. Theme parks are entertainment, and they don't stay on top by stagnating.
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I visit MK quite often and funny I see mainly happy people. Just listen on the monorail. People of all ages are excited. Frustrated guests are because it is too crowded but not because there is a lack of rides. Heck I usually hear people complaining they can't get on everything! Adding a major new ride won't help. It will just draw more people there.

Yes, they are entertainment. But how are that stagnating if a good majority of people visiting never saw the stuff before or only come every few years? For example take my mother... she saw the snow globe day parade and it without snow globes a few years later - she thought it was a completely new parade.

Just because we all can recite a certain spiel forward and backwards doesn't mean the average guests finds it boring and stall. I'm a huge critic and have an eye for spotting all the little detail problems but recently went to MK with a friend who has never been and her face said it all when we walked onto Main Street. She didn't care the castle float in the day parade has been used and reused. She thought it was "awesome." She thought Fantasyland was great and a highlight of her experience not some ugly-step child of its DL's counterpart.

Again I'm just playing devil's advocate here but I think sometimes us fans (myself included) get so caught up in our huge expectations we forget to put ourself in the average WDW guest's shoes.
 
TP2000

TP2000

Well-Known Member
IlikeDW said:
I have not been to DL, until some of the posts in this thread I have perceived DL as too small to be worth a trip just to see DL. Now I am not so sure.
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Whenever I do that list of attractions at WDW and Disneyland Resort it always surprises folks who have only been to WDW.

I could do the same type of list for major entertainment (parades, night spectaculars, broadway style musicals, fireworks), but it's even more alarming for WDW customers.

And when World of Color opens at DCA in 8 months, Disneyland and DCA will be offering just as much major entertainment daily than the four WDW parks combined. All within a 15 minute walk of each other.

In one summer day at Disneyland Resort you currently have a choice of:
2 day parades (Celebrate, Pixar Play Parade)
1 night parade (Electrical Parade)
1 day street show (HSM3 Street Party)
1 major broadway theater production (Aladdin Musical)
1 night water show (Fantasmic!)
1 fireworks show (Magical!)

By next spring you will have a choice of two night water shows within a 15 minute stroll of each other; Fantasmic! and World of Color.

WDW could definitely stand to beef up their entertainment offerings. At the very least, it's time to freshen up the stuff they have that's been running unchanged since the 1990's with aging technology and effects, cough Fantasmic! cough, cough Spectromagic cough.

I need a lozenge. :cool:
 
The Conundrum

The Conundrum

New Member
tirian said:
Be happy: this is beyond a rumor. Now just pray that it happens.

*And now back to life...*
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Actually Disney better pray that this plan is good enough to get people like me back into the parks spending money. Disney BETTER do it or they will continue to frustrate fans and guests alike until eventually they go out of business. Disney must please the customers not the other way around.

As an aside, I still haven't gone to DCA even though i've gone to Disneyland 100 times since DCA opened becuase I refuse to pay for junk. In 2011/2012 when it gets some REAL attractions I will make my first visit to check it out.
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Some quick thoughts as I munch on a caramel apple that returned tonight from WDW with me!

First, the rumors are true and I would HOPEFULLY expect to FINALLY see some action on the Fantasyland redo that would eat up and retheme the mess known as TTF as well.

Tirian, I believe, was the first who pointed out that this is something likely to happen not because of folks like Inoverherheadmeg, Al 'White Bread' Weiss, Erin 'My daddy built WDW' Wallace or Phil 'I need to be closer to my Escalade' Holmes ... but in spite of them.

Guests are quite a bit (I heard some) because MK simplye doesn't have enough capacity, has too many dead zones, lousy entertaiment ... and god forbid (Steve will tell ya about this) if you have to actually close a major attraction like Space Mountain for an actual rehab what happens (the answer is 20-minute 1 a.m. waits for BTMRR during EMH!)

The capacity issue has finally reached a head just as DCA's major work gets under way, HKDL's got approved and Shanghai is about to be announced (oh, and there are major additions coming to Tokyo and Paris as well, some announced already, some not).

Meanwhile, WDW stagnates. And MK worst of all (and I spent a very large portion of the past 11 days there since the other parks have such early closings, so I saw first-hand during a very, very, very slow summer just how overwhelmed MK can get).

Eric Jacobson (who should again be commended for leading a great redo of HoP) originally projected this at a cost of close to three quarters of a billion dollars, but that was whittled down to the more 'reasonable' half a billion number.

My strong guess is that you'll see that come down even further.

But Mermaid should come (hey, they can save money by doing Shanghai's at the same time with DCA's already on the way) and you can likely look for 2-3 other moderate (can't say major, even though some folks at WDI feel otherwise) attractions as well as a thorough updating of the awful F-Land 'look' of today.

Because of who is behind this, I just don't see how it doesn't happen at this point. The questions are the scope ... do they spend $500 million or do they just do Mermaid and some facade work and say screw the rest? Or do they budget $400mil?

But please all you TDO apologists, don't think for a second this is the work of WDW's exec 'leadership' team because that group would have trouble leading you to survival from Tom Sawyer Island (and that's if they actually knew what and where said island was/is).

Anyway, I do feel there can be some reason for excitement because it isn't an if anymore, it's a 'how much?' and a 'when?'

And you better believe that little wizard Potter IS a factor, but not the biggest anymore ... not when MK simply doesn't have enough to do ... not when if they leave it as is by 2014 it could truly be the sixth-best MK on the planet.

Anyway, off to recover from all the magic ... will be back later in day/week with more indepth thoughts ... and some more management bashing (very well earned) for the monorail fiasco. Not enough pixie dust in all of WDW to solve that one!
 
jakeman

jakeman

Well-Known Member
The Conundrum said:
Maybe because we don't comment on rumors and speculation? Plus most of us actually have something called lives
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Orly?

The Conundrum said:
If Captain EO comes back I will never ever badmouth Disney again.
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The Conundrum said:
If this rumor turns out to be legit I would still be curious what Disney is hoping to accomplish here?
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The Conundrum said:
As im sure your no doubt aware those rumors have been around for at least ten years now
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The Conundrum said:
I have reason to believe this rumor is false
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Ragetti

Ragetti

Member
DisneyDellsDude said:
Go to Disneyland and that area of SoCal if you get a chance. It's great - definitely worth the trip if you're a huge Disney fan; and you'll see how great a Magic Kingdom type park can be, and that WDW's Magic Kingdom could use some work!:)
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I hadn't visited DLR until I went there for a conference. Now I've been back a couple times. It's a place of contrasts for me. On the one hand, it's packed with goodies. The attractions are great (love the Indy ride) and being a POTC fan, it was fantastic seeing DLR's version which is (sadly) superior. OTOH, DLR feels much less like a destination to me. There's less sense of it being a place apart. Also, I was STUNNED by how small the castle there is! But I do love it there, and any Disney Parks fan needs to see it to see how much can be done with so little if the commitment is there.
 
CoasterKing

CoasterKing

Member
Wonder if all these rumors that are being leaked from Disney are coming out now to try to combat all the bad publicity from the Monorail accident??

CoasterKing :king:
 
Hobnail Boot

Hobnail Boot

Well-Known Member
This is great news. The Magic Kingdom is the park I visit the most, but after visiting Disneyland the past two summers (and again in a week!), I have found our park, and especially Fantasyland, to be lacking. I'm crossing my fingers hoping they go for a similar, but not exact, medieval town look and add a lot more greenery to the area like Disneyland Paris. I have to wonder though, with a Fantasyland being built soon at the new Shanghai Disneyland, will our new look be similar to theirs? It's just a thought that crossed my mind considering the proximity of the construction times.
 
J

JamieD

Member
I just returned from a visit to WDW and am glad to hear that FL is up for a refurb. I too, have always thought that DL was "better" than MK. I think WDW on the whole offers more, but just castle to castle, I've always preferred DL. Fantasyland has more and just has a better feel. While I like MK, its FL gives me a "strip mall" sort of feeling, where DL's takes me away. Mr. Toad's Wild Ride is the house from the movie! IASW looks like a destination and grand attraction! Maybe it's because I know that Walt had his hands on every part of DL, but the entire park seems to have more character and that nostalgic Disney-feel. Space is certainly a blessing for MK, but knowing that makes you feel like DL is doing more with less. And that's not to say that that "feeling" is anything close to reality. I have always gone to WDW (5 times as often as DL) and always will, but there's a special and unmistakable feel from the original Disneyland and Fantasyland is a big part of that!
 
WDWFigment

WDWFigment

Well-Known Member
For what it's worth, and I know I am a little late to the game now, but I can't remember the last time Drew was wrong about something. Although usually it is character information, he is beyond credible as far as sources around here go.

This sounds like it should really be great for WDW!
 
Rosso11

Rosso11

Well-Known Member
Could this project be so big because it is using money that was already being put aside for the Night Kingdom project that has now been shelved? If I remember correctly it was a similar amount of money that was being rumored to be used for that project.
 

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