Harry Potter....and it looks amazing

Spike-in-Berlin

Spike-in-Berlin

Well-Known Member
khelinski said:
I think though, if Disney had the cash and wanted to hurt Universal for good - they add another theme park to the mix (instead of another f'n hotel!)
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I'd say no way. That would just mean a THIRD half-day park after DAK and DHS (and not to mention a troubled EPCOT) because they never would build a full-day-park right from the beginning as it would cost billions. Much more clever would be a major expansion project that finally makes DAK and DHS a full-day park and bring new rides to EPCOTs WS and MKs Adventureland and Tomorrowland.
 
headhoncho34

headhoncho34

Member
Spike-in-Berlin said:
I'd say no way. That would just mean a THIRD half-day park after DAK and DHS (and not to mention a troubled EPCOT) because they never would build a full-day-park right from the beginning as it would cost billions. Much more clever would be a major expansion project that finally makes DAK and DHS a full-day park and bring new rides to EPCOTs WS and MKs Adventureland and Tomorrowland.
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There are plans for a major expansion to DHS and DAK. They should announce them the day after the Wizarding World opens.
 
Ragetti

Ragetti

Member
It looks great... that's for sure. But is getting in the queue for a ride that many people cannot or will not ride the only way to see this? That's a bit of a shame. I would like to have seen Hogwarts as an attraction in and of iteself (maybe a family friendly dark eide?), rather than a shell for an intense thrill ride than many Potter fans aren't up to.
 
Pete C

Pete C

Active Member
Ragetti said:
It looks great... that's for sure. But is getting in the queue for a ride that many people cannot or will not ride the only way to see this? That's a bit of a shame. I would like to have seen Hogwarts as an attraction in and of iteself (maybe a family friendly dark eide?), rather than a shell for an intense thrill ride than many Potter fans aren't up to.
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Forbidden Journey is not an intense thrill ride...don't know where you heard that.
 
tirian

tirian

Well-Known Member
raven said:
Hate to tell you but TDO has little to do with any of that. And "sloppy seconds" can be related to any park, not just WDW. Disneyland and Paris Disneyland put in ToT after the success of WDW's version. Space Mountain was also a WDW original.

As far as "an attraction based on a fading television show whose popularity is waning" what do you say about the Simpsons?
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Unfortunately, "The Simpsons" will live forever in syndication and on home video. :lol:

AI won't recover because of its nature—once the winner is chosen, who cares about watching reruns? Even Simon knows it's time to quit the show.
 
dxwwf3

dxwwf3

Well-Known Member
I too was skeptical about Universal bringing in an old and tired franchise like The Simpsons, but the attraction is so good, it doesn't matter. American Idol Experience on the other hand, is a terrible, terrible attraction IMO and won't be around in 5 years.
 
SSE

SSE

Member
WDW1974 said:
Sometimes WDW CMs like to believe their resort is run with a plan by good people who know what they're doing. That and a healthy dose of pixie dust helps one get through a day, I guess.
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I am a WDW CM and I don't know about other CMs, but my friends and I know that WDW is run by many incompetent people that have no business running a theme park. Most people from the managers of the attractions to the executives of the resort as a whole know anything about what should be done. The resort isn't even about being safe anymore or putting on a good show for the guests. Everything is about EFFICIENCY now. Who cares if animatronics aren't working or certain scenes have no audio as long as the ride vehicles themselves work put those guests on and get them off as fast as you can. I love Disney a lot otherwise I never would have worked for them, but they do so much wrong these days and I just hope that one day we will get a leadership team that actually cares and wants to blow everyone away with what they can do.
 
Gfhweb

Gfhweb

Member
SSE said:
I am a WDW CM and I don't know about other CMs, but my friends and I know that WDW is run by many incompetent people that have no business running a theme park. Most people from the managers of the attractions to the executives of the resort as a whole know anything about what should be done. The resort isn't even about being safe anymore or putting on a good show for the guests. Everything is about EFFICIENCY now. Who cares if animatronics aren't working or certain scenes have no audio as long as the ride vehicles themselves work put those guests on and get them off as fast as you can. I love Disney a lot otherwise I never would have worked for them, but they do so much wrong these days and I just hope that one day we will get a leadership team that actually cares and wants to blow everyone away with what they can do.
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The interesting thing about what you have said here to me is that this seems to be the exact slump that the parks were falling into in the early 90's. The vision and dream Walt had for the parks had been forgotton and things as simple as trash and repainting of things were starting to be skimped on. Facets which make disney so unique and so impressive are the little things such as the paint on randrails that is almost always fresh and not rubbed away from the thousands of tiny hands running along it following parades everyday. I feel like Disney seems to fall into a cyclical pattern that they have a leadership that lets things like this fall behind and gets so focus on the business aspect of things that they forget that no business model can provide the one thing that guests come to Disney trying to find, Magic. Michael Eisner realized this and it was why things were stepped up so much during the glorious years of the disney decade and the expansion of the parks with the addition of MGM Studios, now Disney's Hollywood Studios. In summation though I feel that if this is happening it only means that soon a new visonary leader will step in and make the parks and guest experience better than it has ever ben before.
 
tirian

tirian

Well-Known Member
SSE said:
I am a WDW CM and I don't know about other CMs, but my friends and I know that WDW is run by many incompetent people that have no business running a theme park. Most people from the managers of the attractions to the executives of the resort as a whole know anything about what should be done. The resort isn't even about being safe anymore or putting on a good show for the guests. Everything is about EFFICIENCY now. Who cares if animatronics aren't working or certain scenes have no audio as long as the ride vehicles themselves work put those guests on and get them off as fast as you can.
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It is VERY true that lower and mid-level managers know what's wrong but cannot do anything to fix it, and many of the front-line CMs are frustrated with how the resort is run like an old machine with little hope of improvement.

A park management friend explained it this way: it's difficult to trust TDO when half the MK's restaurants are always closed, the Space Mountain refurb wasn't completed right, SSE isn't finished, the Imagination and Energy pavilions are a joke, and DAK is still a half-day park with a malfunctioning main attraction. That's when I reminded her about PI. :lol: Then she launched on the merchandising disasters throughout the resort and said, "No wonder we can't sell any of this stuff! It's terrible!"


SSE said:
I love Disney a lot otherwise I never would have worked for them, but they do so much wrong these days and I just hope that one day we will get a leadership team that actually cares and wants to blow everyone away with what they can do.
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So do I. There's a lot of good left at WDW, and I respect many of the managers (and some of the executives, believe it or not). It is still a world-class resort. But everyone with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality needs to be shoved into retirement and replaced with a team that CARES.

No matter how good WDW still is, anyone who regularly visited since the 80s knows how great is used to be. Refurbs, attractions, and high-quality entertainment for all ages were a rule, because the leadership team wanted to present the best possible product. A new day parade seemed to debut every two years. Execs understood everything "Disney" encompasses, and didn't reduce it to a one-shot formula. The current team doesn't seem to understand anything except marketing princess merch to preschoolers. :(

The funny thing is, WDW's attraction roster was arguably more kid-friendly during its last golden age than it is now; EPCOT Center was mostly omnimovers, and the only thrill rides on property were the MK mountain range.

Someone needs to remind today's TDO—and all of the Walt Disney Co—of one of Walt's great quotes: "If you aim for kids, you're dead."
 
dxwwf3

dxwwf3

Well-Known Member
tirian said:
So do I. There's a lot of good left at WDW, and I respect many of the managers (and some of the executives, believe it or not). It is still a world-class resort. But everyone with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality needs to be shoved into retirement and replaced with a team that CARES.

No matter how good WDW still is, anyone who regularly visited since the 80s knows how great is used to be. Refurbs, attractions, and high-quality entertainment for all ages were a rule, because the leadership team wanted to present the best possible product. A new day parade seemed to debut every two years. Execs understood everything "Disney" encompasses, and didn't reduce it to a one-shot formula. The current team doesn't seem to understand anything except marketing princess merch to preschoolers. :(

The funny thing is, WDW's attraction roster was arguably more kid-friendly during its last golden age than it is now; EPCOT Center was mostly omnimovers, and the only thrill rides on property were the MK mountain range.

Someone needs to remind today's TDO—and all of the Walt Disney Co—of one of Walt's great quotes: "If you aim for kids, you're dead."
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Excellent, excellent post!

Those in charge of the Magic Kingdom need to be reintroduced to that quote.
 
SSE

SSE

Member
Besides for attractions that are not receiving the attention they deserve my biggest problem with TDO is the merchandise that they choose to sell all around the resort. I'm not sure if they are the ones that ultimately decide what will be sold or displayed in the stores or if it is dictated to them from Burbank, but I hate how everything is pretty much the same. I don't like how they have all the generic merchandise in every store on property and either very little or no merchandise that is themed to the area it is in. I will admit that I do enjoy vinylmation, but there need to shove it in every store drives me crazy. I don't feel like I have been taking out of reality and placed in this amazing world when anywhere I go I see vinylmation everywhere, generic mickey t-shirts, high school musical and Hannah Montana dvds. I used to love Villians in Vogue because I thought it had cool stuff in it for villians, but now that store is basically just a Nightmare before Christmas/Vinylmation store with a boardgame with villians thrown in there.

Another pet peeve of mine with Disney is how they will sometimes use Walt's image and quotes to promote something, which doesn't seem to have any creativity at all in it. They need to all be put in a classroom and be taught the meaning behind the quotes.
 
Skip

Skip

Well-Known Member
SSE said:
Besides for attractions that are not receiving the attention they deserve my biggest problem with TDO is the merchandise that they choose to sell all around the resort. I'm not sure if they are the ones that ultimately decide what will be sold or displayed in the stores or if it is dictated to them from Burbank, but I hate how everything is pretty much the same. I don't like how they have all the generic merchandise in every store on property and either very little or no merchandise that is themed to the area it is in. I will admit that I do enjoy vinylmation, but there need to shove it in every store drives me crazy. I don't feel like I have been taking out of reality and placed in this amazing world when anywhere I go I see vinylmation everywhere, generic mickey t-shirts, high school musical and Hannah Montana dvds. I used to love Villians in Vogue because I thought it had cool stuff in it for villians, but now that store is basically just a Nightmare before Christmas/Vinylmation store with a boardgame with villians thrown in there.

Another pet peeve of mine with Disney is how they will sometimes use Walt's image and quotes to promote something, which doesn't seem to have any creativity at all in it. They need to all be put in a classroom and be taught the meaning behind the quotes.
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This is something I feel Universal really excels at - keeping unique, relevant merchandise in its stores. Some examples:

*Plethora of Revenge of the Mummy-specific and Egyptian-themed merchandise in Sahara Traders
*Twister and farm-stuff in Aftermath
*Nickelodean stuff galore in the Nickstuff
*Some great, unique Jaws items throughout the Amity carts
*Tons of Men in Black/alien stuff in the MIB Gear
*Simpsons merchandise at the Kwik-E Mart
*Terminator items at Cyberdyne Styles
-Lots of specialty shopping at the Irish shop in New York, The Brown Derby, Oakley, etc...
-Spider-Man stuff at the... Spider-Man Shop (okay, maybe that name needed more work)
-Great, nostalgic comic book items and toys at Marvel Alternaverse
-A surprising amount of unique merchandise for some not-so-relevant characters at Toon Extra
-Great educational/entertainment based merchandise at the Jurassic Park stores
-Some AWESOME foreign and specialty items in the Lost Continent stores, such as Treasures of Poseidon and all of the carts in the Sinbad Bazaar
-Before Dueling Dragons left, it had a Dragon's Roost which sold an unbelievably cool amount of unique collectibles and apparel (I myself have two high-quality "fire and ice" dragon baby sculpts)
-Great Seussian items of all kinds and sorts in the various shops of Seuss Landing
-And now, with Harry Potter, a bulk of unbelievably cool unique items from the universe

...you'll notice each park has its own main store (Studios Store & the Islands of Adventure Trading Company) and Citywalk also has a main store (Universal Orlando Store) that sells a little bit of everything as well as your more generic Universal/Islands of Adventure items. Right now at Disney, all of the shops are like the Emporium, with the same generic crap lining every aisle. Disney could learn a lesson from Universal and perhaps sell some more quality merchandise.
 

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