How would YOU fix DCA?

[Californian Elitist]

Pixar Pier is worse than M:BO. That’s why it gets more complaints.

 

[SplashJacket]

Pixar Pier is worse than M:BO. That’s why it gets more complaints.

Visually, I would disagree. M:BO is just a fantastic attraction. The attractions in Pixar Pier don’t punch anywhere near M:BO, so it doesn’t defend it from the criticism, also, no attractions additions or changes were meaningful from the transformation to Pixar Pier.

M:BO is largely forgiven because it excels in one area, so weaknesses elsewhere are overlooked. Pixar Pier is more heavily scrutinized, even though I’d say the outsides of everything at Pixar Pier are better

 

[Californian Elitist]

Visually, I would disagree. M:BO is just a fantastic attraction. The attractions in Pixar Pier don’t punch anywhere near M:BO, so it doesn’t defend it from the criticism, also, no attractions additions or changes were meaningful from the transformation to Pixar Pier.

M:BO is largely forgiven because it excels in one area, so weaknesses elsewhere are overlooked. Pixar Pier is more heavily scrutinized, even though I’d say the outsides of everything at Pixar Pier are better

Correct, M:BO is a fun ride, so it’s forgiven a lot, despite it being unpleasant to look at. Pixar Pier is both visually unappealing and horrible in “theme”. And it makes no sense. Triple whammy.

 

[PiratesMansion]

It’s weird that Pixar Pier seems to get more complaints than Mission Breakout. The Pixar Pier change was a lateral move where the land was aesthetically upgraded and thematically downgraded. At the end of the day it’s still a land full of rides, kinetic energy and nice vistas.

Mission Breakout is the oil refinery macaroni tower eyesore seen from almost anywhere in the park. It also killed a great, Disney quality ride that happened to also make sense at DCA. Pixar Pier added a “new” ride and the Incredicoaster retheme didn’t change the core experience of Screamin like Mission Breakout did to TOT. Pixar Pal Around is an annoying name but it isn’t any different from my ride experience on MIckeys Fun Wheel.

I wouldn't argue Pixar Pier is an aesthetic upgrade. I'd say at its best it's an aesthetic lateral move, but its worst aspects drag it down. Mission Breakout isn't perfect and is more noticeable throughout the resort as a whole, that's true. But that also is the fault of the resort for placing Tower where they did, and I remember at least a few posts over the years complaining about being able to see Tower from Main Street well before it was changed. So it was in a bad spot before it became Guardians, but the changeover could certainly make it seem more offensive to some.

Guardians doesn't bother me as much because it took what was an inferior ride when compared with its Floridian counterpart and at least does something different and distinctive with it, and the different ride profiles add to its rerideability (I suppose you could say that I feel about the Guardians ride profiles the way most of you feel about the "multiple beginnings" gimmick from Indy). Maybe it's a one trick pony now, but it's such a fun trick that I don't much care. I shouldn't like Guardians as much as I do, but one friend I visited the resort with was obsessed with it, so we ended up riding it all the time and that definitely colored my opinion of the ride.

I would counter that the core experience of Screamin' did change-as I said before, I used to ride accompanied by a fun soundtrack. Now I ride with characters jabbering in my ear for much of the ride, including an overenthusiastic eight year old and I get the "treat" of being "immersed" in stick figures that may or may not occupy tunnels that are far less aesthetically pleasing than they used to be. If I've made clear that the soundtrack is *the* thing that puts DL's Space Mountain above the rest for me, surely it makes sense that I'm downgrading Incredicoaster for the changes to *its* soundtrack that I don't care for? As I've said in the past, I was never in love with Screamin', but at least it sort of made sense and wasn't actively annoying to experience in the way Incredicoaster (where even the NAME annoys me) is.

Kind of a hot take I guess especially after Tron. You could call Space, BTMRR and Barnstormer/ Gadgets a wash really. So really you’re saying Matterhorn > SDMT and Tron. While I wouldn’t trade our lineup for MKs because the Matterhorn is Disneyland objectively I’m not sure I can say Disneyland has the better lineup.

Big Thunder and Barnstormer/Gadget's are definitely a wash. Space is not. They are roller coasters in the dark in a building that looks similar, but otherwise the experiences are completely different. As noted above, MK's Space is essentially Matterhorn in a box. It definitely has its merits and for a ride as iconic as it is, it is actually probably a little underrated by many Disney fans, many of whom wouldn't be coaster fans outside of Disney parks and thus protest against MK Space's perceived "roughness" or "aggression" because it's an older ride that has actual drops in a way that DL's largely does not. There's plenty of reasons why people might like MK's Space more, and that's fine-I'm not trying to say they can't like it more. But as I said, the one-two punch of DL's station environment and soundtrack put it over the top for me.

I think some of you guys are unnecessarily harsh on the Matterhorn as a ride experience because it's old and thus not particularly refined in its layout or tracking, and ESPECIALLY because the sleds aren't as comfortable as they used to be. The only time I did the ride with the old sleds I was seven, so for better or worse I've "adjusted" to the modern Matterhorn experience, and it's probably easier for me to have done so than for people who had more experience with how it used to be. I still think it's great, and if there's one castle park opinion I will never lose, it's that every castle park should have been built with a Matterhorn.

As I've said several times in different threads, Tron is fun but not my favorite. Because of the speed at which you travel, the portion in which you go outside, and because you are launched rather than traveling up a lift hill, it feels very short (and despite it being somewhat similar in its specifics, I've never felt that way before about RNRC, so I'd say the outside portion of Tron, while visually cool, is responsible for a lot of this feeling for me). To me the whole experience feels shallow and like it was designed for Instagram more than it was to be a cohesive experience. Add in the fact that it's currently the new ride at a park that requires boarding groups or paying for an Individual Lightning Lane to experience (and the fact that basically any given attraction at Magic Kingdom is flat out harder to do than it is at Disneyland because the park has less capacity relative to demand than DL does) and it's a hard pass. I already did it in Shanghai, so I already know more or less exactly what the experience is like, and because the ride isn't one that particulary excites me and it's in what is probably for me the least pleasant Disney theme park to deal with, it doesn't at all move the needle for me.

When you do get to WDW I will be interested to hear your thoughts on the coasters and which castle park you feel has the superior lineup. I'd give WDW the win overall when it comes to coasters, just not in Magic Kingdom.

Right. I was looking at it more from the perspective of Space being a wash at both parks as it seems that just as many people prefer WDWs version with the better queue, ride layout and drops to Disneylands smoother version with soundtrack. BTMRR is basically the same except DL has the new effects on the third lift hill that never work. So in essence what he’s saying is Matterhorn is better than Tron and 7DMT. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never trade Matterhorn for both of those rides for the nostalgia and historical value alone but I’m not sure I could say that DL’s coaster lineup is objectively better or more fun than MK’s.

At no point did I say my opinion was objective. Mine is just as subjective as everyone else's here.

 

[mickEblu]

I wouldn't argue Pixar Pier is an aesthetic upgrade. I'd say at its best it's an aesthetic lateral move, but its worst aspects drag it down. Mission Breakout isn't perfect and is more noticeable throughout the resort as a whole, that's true. But that also is the fault of the resort for placing Tower where they did, and I remember at least a few posts over the years complaining about being able to see Tower from Main Street well before it was changed. So it was in a bad spot before it became Guardians, but the changeover could certainly make it seem more offensive to some.

Guardians doesn't bother me as much because it took what was an inferior ride when compared with its Floridian counterpart and at least does something different and distinctive with it, and the different ride profiles add to its rerideability (I suppose you could say that I feel about the Guardians ride profiles the way most of you feel about the "multiple beginnings" gimmick from Indy). Maybe it's a one trick pony now, but it's such a fun trick that I don't much care. I shouldn't like Guardians as much as I do, but one friend I visited the resort with was obsessed with it, so we ended up riding it all the time and that definitely colored my opinion of the ride.

I would counter that the core experience of Screamin' did change-as I said before, I used to ride accompanied by a fun soundtrack. Now I ride with characters jabbering in my ear for much of the ride, including an overenthusiastic eight year old and I get the "treat" of being "immersed" in stick figures that may or may not occupy tunnels that are far less aesthetically pleasing than they used to be. If I've made clear that the soundtrack is *the* thing that puts DL's Space Mountain above the rest for me, surely it makes sense that I'm downgrading Incredicoaster for the changes to *its* soundtrack that I don't care for? As I've said in the past, I was never in love with Screamin', but at least it sort of made sense and wasn't actively annoying to experience in the way Incredicoaster (where even the NAME annoys me) is.

Big Thunder and Barnstormer/Gadget's are definitely a wash. Space is not. They are roller coasters in the dark in a building that looks similar, but otherwise the experiences are completely different. As noted above, MK's Space is essentially Matterhorn in a box. It definitely has its merits and for a ride as iconic as it is, it is actually probably a little underrated by many Disney fans, many of whom wouldn't be coaster fans outside of Disney parks and thus protest against MK Space's perceived "roughness" or "aggression" because it's an older ride that has actual drops in a way that DL's largely does not. There's plenty of reasons why people might like MK's Space more, and that's fine-I'm not trying to say they can't like it more. But as I said, the one-two punch of DL's station environment and soundtrack put it over the top for me.

I think some of you guys are unnecessarily harsh on the Matterhorn as a ride experience because it's old and thus not particularly refined in its layout or tracking, and ESPECIALLY because the sleds aren't as comfortable as they used to be. The only time I did the ride with the old sleds I was seven, so for better or worse I've "adjusted" to the modern Matterhorn experience, and it's probably easier for me to have done so than for people who had more experience with how it used to be. I still think it's great, and if there's one castle park opinion I will never lose, it's that every castle park should have been built with a Matterhorn.

As I've said several times in different threads, Tron is fun but not my favorite. Because of the speed at which you travel, the portion in which you go outside, and because you are launched rather than traveling up a lift hill, it feels very short (and despite it being somewhat similar in its specifics, I've never felt that way before about RNRC, so I'd say the outside portion of Tron, while visually cool, is responsible for a lot of this feeling for me). To me the whole experience feels shallow and like it was designed for Instagram more than it was to be a cohesive experience. Add in the fact that it's currently the new ride at a park that requires boarding groups or paying for an Individual Lightning Lane to experience (and the fact that basically any given attraction at Magic Kingdom is flat out harder to do than it is at Disneyland because the park has less capacity relative to demand than DL does) and it's a hard pass. I already did it in Shanghai, so I already know more or less exactly what the experience is like, and because the ride isn't one that particulary excites me and it's in what is probably for me the least pleasant Disney theme park to deal with, it doesn't at all move the needle for me.

When you do get to WDW I will be interested to hear your thoughts on the coasters and which castle park you feel has the superior lineup. I'd give WDW the win overall when it comes to coasters, just not in Magic Kingdom.

At no point did I say my opinion was objective. Mine is just as subjective as everyone else's here.

I didnt say you said your opinion was objective . I said objectively I’m not sure I could say DL has the better coaster lineup. Meaning if you take all the nostalgia, history and all the other stuff out of the equation and judge based purely on the ride experience of DL’s 4 coasters vs MK’s 5.

As far as Space I called it a wash as it feels there are just as many people who prefer the WDW version with the drops. I have a strong suspicion I might prefer WDW’s Space.

 

[TomboyJanet]

The allusion to being character driven vs location driven determines the success of single-ip lands.

Across 11 films and dozens of shows, Star Wars doesn’t really have repeated or iconic location. The most notable is the Cantina, maybe Jabba’s palace, the Jedi Temple, the Falcon, and big ships.

Galaxy’s Edge masterfully gave us a star destroyer and the Falcon, but Star Wars lacks a large environment you want to explore. The Jedi Temple or even the senate building aren’t really on a scale you can replicate.

So honestly, perhaps they should’ve built Galaxy’s Edge to be on the Wookie or Ewok planets, since they’re A) not barren environments and B) exist at replicable scale.

I digress, moral of the story, Star Wars is not a location-driven story in the slightest. It’s mainly characters and story driven.

On the flip side, properties like Cars, Harry Potter (which has movie after movie take place in the same castle), Nintendo games where your character selection doesn’t matter, but it’s how you interact with and move through the environment in their various platformers or even in Mario Kart where the only variability between matches is the chosen maps.

As people have complained, Avatar’s characters are not the most iconic or recognizable. People ask the “first name test” where you need to recite the first names of the main characters, and while Sully may be the easiest to remember, I honestly fail pretty hard.

But that’s because Avatar is entirely about the environment. It’s an environmental film. In WoW, Cameron wanted a movie that heavily occurred in the water, and that’s what he got. As such, replicating the environments, as seen in Pandora at Animal Kingdom, can capture the essence of the movie in a really impactful way.

The characters in Avatar are more a vessel to showcase the environment and a message, than individually significant. Which largely is what makes it such a great land.

To be clear, I still really enjoy SWGE, but after visiting and revisiting all the premier single-ip lands over the past year, its execution doesn’t stand-up to even the less ambitious competitors. Rise, of course, is still a masterpiece, but I think creating a fantastic ride is much less dependent on the source material than a whole land. I think you can pretty much create a great ride on any IP, but in terms of creating a whole land, the source material, or more accurately the type of source material, is extremely important.

While Avenger’s Campus isn’t really a one-ip land (it’s more dozens of broad IPs strung together, it’s more a narrow one-concept land), but likewise Marvel lacks recognizable locations across its various franchises, so it’s hard to immerse a guest within a Marvel land. That said, I would've preferred the original concept for a New York style land (as originally seen in WDSP concept art), because grounding a property that lacks an identifiable location in an identifiable location does wonders.

View attachment 707486
View attachment 707487

How would a NY land fit in to the CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE? That would drive me crazy because I'm from NY and in my experience all attempts to replicate NY in a theme park have lead to giving me anxiety and flashbacks to running from subway to subway dodging tourists and fake elmos. NY is no Fantasy land folks....it is a dark and dreary place......I'd turn back if I were you

 

[DLR92]

I wouldn't argue Pixar Pier is an aesthetic upgrade. I'd say at its best it's an aesthetic lateral move, but its worst aspects drag it down. Mission Breakout isn't perfect and is more noticeable throughout the resort as a whole, that's true. But that also is the fault of the resort for placing Tower where they did, and I remember at least a few posts over the years complaining about being able to see Tower from Main Street well before it was changed. So it was in a bad spot before it became Guardians, but the changeover could certainly make it seem more offensive to some.

Guardians doesn't bother me as much because it took what was an inferior ride when compared with its Floridian counterpart and at least does something different and distinctive with it, and the different ride profiles add to its rerideability (I suppose you could say that I feel about the Guardians ride profiles the way most of you feel about the "multiple beginnings" gimmick from Indy). Maybe it's a one trick pony now, but it's such a fun trick that I don't much care. I shouldn't like Guardians as much as I do, but one friend I visited the resort with was obsessed with it, so we ended up riding it all the time and that definitely colored my opinion of the ride.

I would counter that the core experience of Screamin' did change-as I said before, I used to ride accompanied by a fun soundtrack. Now I ride with characters jabbering in my ear for much of the ride, including an overenthusiastic eight year old and I get the "treat" of being "immersed" in stick figures that may or may not occupy tunnels that are far less aesthetically pleasing than they used to be. If I've made clear that the soundtrack is *the* thing that puts DL's Space Mountain above the rest for me, surely it makes sense that I'm downgrading Incredicoaster for the changes to *its* soundtrack that I don't care for? As I've said in the past, I was never in love with Screamin', but at least it sort of made sense and wasn't actively annoying to experience in the way Incredicoaster (where even the NAME annoys me) is.

Big Thunder and Barnstormer/Gadget's are definitely a wash. Space is not. They are roller coasters in the dark in a building that looks similar, but otherwise the experiences are completely different. As noted above, MK's Space is essentially Matterhorn in a box. It definitely has its merits and for a ride as iconic as it is, it is actually probably a little underrated by many Disney fans, many of whom wouldn't be coaster fans outside of Disney parks and thus protest against MK Space's perceived "roughness" or "aggression" because it's an older ride that has actual drops in a way that DL's largely does not. There's plenty of reasons why people might like MK's Space more, and that's fine-I'm not trying to say they can't like it more. But as I said, the one-two punch of DL's station environment and soundtrack put it over the top for me.

I think some of you guys are unnecessarily harsh on the Matterhorn as a ride experience because it's old and thus not particularly refined in its layout or tracking, and ESPECIALLY because the sleds aren't as comfortable as they used to be. The only time I did the ride with the old sleds I was seven, so for better or worse I've "adjusted" to the modern Matterhorn experience, and it's probably easier for me to have done so than for people who had more experience with how it used to be. I still think it's great, and if there's one castle park opinion I will never lose, it's that every castle park should have been built with a Matterhorn.

As I've said several times in different threads, Tron is fun but not my favorite. Because of the speed at which you travel, the portion in which you go outside, and because you are launched rather than traveling up a lift hill, it feels very short (and despite it being somewhat similar in its specifics, I've never felt that way before about RNRC, so I'd say the outside portion of Tron, while visually cool, is responsible for a lot of this feeling for me). To me the whole experience feels shallow and like it was designed for Instagram more than it was to be a cohesive experience. Add in the fact that it's currently the new ride at a park that requires boarding groups or paying for an Individual Lightning Lane to experience (and the fact that basically any given attraction at Magic Kingdom is flat out harder to do than it is at Disneyland because the park has less capacity relative to demand than DL does) and it's a hard pass. I already did it in Shanghai, so I already know more or less exactly what the experience is like, and because the ride isn't one that particulary excites me and it's in what is probably for me the least pleasant Disney theme park to deal with, it doesn't at all move the needle for me.

When you do get to WDW I will be interested to hear your thoughts on the coasters and which castle park you feel has the superior lineup. I'd give WDW the win overall when it comes to coasters, just not in Magic Kingdom.

At no point did I say my opinion was objective. Mine is just as subjective as everyone else's here.

Personally Matterhorn comfort isn’t that all bad. And I rode the new sleds. I prefer them too.

 

[SplashJacket]

Basically every inch of this photo is guest facing, and yet there really isn't a visually appealing inch.

DCA needs far less fixing than DHS or WDSP (which is actively undergoing its transformation).

 

[PiratesMansion]

View attachment 708231
Basically every inch of this photo is guest facing, and yet there really isn't a visually appealing inch.

DCA needs far less fixing than DHS or WDSP (which is actively undergoing its transformation).

When did they decide on that color for the arch?

It's hideous.

 

[mickEblu]

Just one quick comment if I may… This has been some of the finest usage of the quote feature that I’ve ever seen. From both sides.

 

[truecoat]

Was doing a coaster count the other day, with the last two coaster additions to WDW,
they’ve really pulled away from DLR. In quantity and quality.

WDW:

1. Space Mountain
2. Thunder Mountain
3. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train 2014
4. Barnstormer
5. Tron 2023
6. Slink Dog Dash 2018
7. RnR
8. Cosmic Rewind 2022
9. Everest

DLR:

1. Space Mountain
2. Thunder Mountain
3. Matterhorn
4. Chip n Dales GADGET coaster
5. Incredicoaster
6. Goofys Sky School

Amazing what a difference 9 years can make.

 

[Centauri Space Station]

Amazing what a difference 9 years can make.

Wdw had primeval whirl then too so they were even for a while

 

[Phroobar]

Or they keep the park themed to California and just start random fires every evening

Grizzly River Rapids become Grizzly Mudslide Escape.

 

[CastAStone]

Also DCA is the best domestic park to spend a day at, I don’t understand this thread. Yeah avengers campus need some plus ups and Monsters Inc could disappear and no one would even notice, but it’s a damn good collection of rides and activities with 2 masterfully themed lands.

 

[Californian Elitist]

If DCA is the best to spend a day at, I guess there’s no reason for me to visit the other three WDW parks.

Yikes.

 

[CastAStone]

If DCA is the best to spend a day at, I guess there’s no reason for me to visit the other three WDW parks.

Yikes.

If you can’t appreciate DCA you probably won’t like DHS which is far more thematically unwieldy than DCA and all killer no filler on the rides (save for Saucers). DHS is my second favorite park though. Like DCA, the things it gets right, it nails, and like DCA, it’s vastly, vastly, vastly improved from what it was back when it made more sense.

 

[Consumer]

If you can’t appreciate DCA you probably won’t like DHS which is far more thematically unwieldy than DCA and all killer no filler on the rides (save for Saucers). DHS is my second favorite park though. Like DCA, the things it gets right, it nails, and like DCA, it’s vastly, vastly, vastly improved from what it was back when it made more sense.

DCA made sense in 2015 and was better than what's there today. I don't understand your claims.

 

[Californian Elitist]

If you can’t appreciate DCA you probably won’t like DHS which is far more thematically unwieldy than DCA and all killer no filler on the rides (save for Saucers). DHS is my second favorite park though. Like DCA, the things it gets right, it nails, and like DCA, it’s vastly, vastly, vastly improved from what it was back when it made more sense.

I actually have very little to no desire to visit DHS, so you’re likely right.

I wouldn’t say DCA has “vastly” improved. Not overall.

 

[CastAStone]

2015 and was better than what's there today

Could not possibly disagree more.

 

[Consumer]

Could not possibly disagree more.

I have to assume your primary interest in Disney parks is seeing characters, because that's the only "improvement" to DCA over the last several years. Paradise Pier, Tower of Terror, and Bug's Land were all more pleasant areas than the lands and attraction which replaced them.