I don't know if it's had much impact on WDW as of yet. Attendance wise, it hasn't. People may be taking 1 day out of their WDW trips to see WWOHP, but there isn't nearly enough there to justify more than that, if a side trip to Universal wasn't planned already.
I happen to agree on one thing - Putting Harry Potter into Universal Studios would be a mistake. There is more than enough room to expand at IOA (Lost Continent). You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. Sure, Harry Potter is popular, but if you throw it everywhere, you're bound to get backlash and overkill from people who aren't die hard fans or those who simply don't care.
The biggest difference I see between Universal and Disney is that when Universal retires an attraction, they always seem to replace it with something good. Disney on the other hand, often retires attractions and replaces it with nothing, or with something that is inferior to it's predecessor.
I disagree with you there. I think putting Potter into US is a stroke of absolute genius.
You said it yourself, in your first paragraph. Families are only diverting to IOA for a day right now. They rent a car in the middle of their WDW vacation for one day. They drive to IOA, go straight to WWOHP and return back to WDW. From Disney's perspective (and this is likely reflected in market research when assessing the impact of WWOHP), these people purchased Magic Your Way tickets for their entire stay. (even if they cut a day off, the ticket prices are structured in a way that the difference is minimal). These families are also staying on property the whole trip. They only thing they are not doing is going to the theme parks for one day of their trip. This is *exactly* how my family did it back in October.
At the end of the day, Disney's bottom line is not impacted severely by people going off to IOA for a day. In fact, any loss of revenue by these people can easily be publically blamed on the economy. Disney has been going on for almost a solid 2 years now, claiming that the WWOHP isn't making an impact. But you'd have to be a fool to believe that, considering what I said above. There's been an impact...absolutely there has.
So now Uni hatches this plan to get rid of Jaws. They're installing Diagon Alley, with (reportedly) an "E ticket" that rivals Forbidden Journey and a train ride to the other side. The problem is, you need a 2-day park ticket to ride that train.
Uh oh.
Now, here's where Uni's plan is pure genius. If you want to see both sides of WWOHP, you need to plan a second (maybe third) day there (or pay double - what vacationing family would do that?). All of a sudden, families that were traveling to WDW for 5-7 days with a mid-trip stopover at IOA, taking Magical Express both ways...will stop doing that. Instead, families will now take ME *one* way and shorten the WDW portion of their trip by 2-3 days. The other half will be spent at Universal, in one of Uni's hotels, where families will visit both sides of WWOHP over the course of these 2-3 days. This is EXACTLY how my family intends to do this, when they open up the phase II of WWOHP.
That's pure genius to me. Uni has figured out a way to draw away absolutely die-hard dedicated WDW families, like mine, for more than just a day. They've figured out how to get my family to sleep on *their* property...and in doing so, they've figured out how to get me to spend my money at Citiwalk.
I welcome anyone to tell me this isn't going to hit WDW hard....I don't see how it doesn't.
