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Hyperion Wharf: any news?
- Thread starter go3epcot
- Start date
lebeau
Well-Known Member
No, no. PI 2: Electric Boogaloo
Gaston's Pecs
New Member
THIS! Maybe they can get Ozone & Turbo to make a guest appearance.
janoimagine
Well-Known Member
Ahhh .... I see what you did there.
MarkTwain
Well-Known Member
NoChesterHester
Well-Known Member
Great... just like my local mall.
DTD was always shops and restaurants. The draw of PI gave people something else to do other then just shop at overpriced unimpressive stores or eat at overpriced unimpressive restaurants.
Although I believe HW was a flawed concept, at least it was going to try to interject a theme into the dead area. A turn of the century waterfront village would have at least been interesting. I still fail to understand how Downtown Disney is any different then my local lifestyle center style outdoor mall???
71jason
Well-Known Member
In fairness, it has a lot more Disney-branded merchandise. And does your local mall really have TWO cheesily-themed kids' restaurants? (Although it probably does have a ton more quick-serve options.)
DTD Marketplace serves a niche--a filler day for people on property who haven't bought a ticket to the parks (or a filer evening for those who bought a ticket to a park that closed at a ridiculously early hour...Animal Kingdom, I'm looking in your general direction).
It's fine for that purpose. But it's also about as big as it can get to satisfy that purpose. Wal-Mart of Disney could probably stand to be a bit bigger, and another quick-serve or two would be great, but overall, you're probably not well served trying to open even more Disney and lifestyle stores across the length of DTD. There's just a limit on the potential variety.
That said, PI also served a niche--adults who want nightlife. That need is not being served currently. Granger just had 12,000 people on-property; they had to bus them off to CityWalk to find something to do at night. Convention-goers, newlyweds, Spring Breakers, parents who brought grandma to babysit...a significant number of guests don't want to go to bed at 10 p.m. on vacation, and while PI may not have been the ideal geographic location to serve them, it was at least adequate for 19 years. I don't see anything else every really fitting in that area, why not give nightlife another go, learning from the mistakes of the past.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Dogma fan?
Very well said. One way to learn the mistakes of the past, would be to make sure that whatever nightlife you re-create on the island at night needs to be able to be all-ages during the day. If you can't use the space to make money during the day, don't open it. An AC restaurant is the perfect example of a concept that would be perfect for day and night. After 10:00pm, you make it adults-only.
The other thing would be to make sure the area can be open for passthrough, unobstructed and safe for all-ages no matter what time it is. Clubs should be re-opened, but only 3 or 4 of them tops. The rest of it should be retail and entertainment accessible to anyone at any time.
Mike730
Well-Known Member
I see where you're coming from, but I have no Johhny Rockets', Rainforest cafes, or any restaurant anything like them in any mall within an hour from me. So for me that's something kinda cool. Also, I agree with you completely if you read the second half of that quote.
The one thing I've never understood is why do we need the differently named "zones" to DTD any more? It's fine to give a geographic location (when a tourist needs to find a specific business), but the idea of 3 completely different concepts is doing nothing but holding DTD back. I understand why they did it in the first place, but it's time to put an end to the 3 different areas.
You'd think the knowledge that PI was like a roadblock, keeping tourists from going from one end of DTD to the other, would be reason enough for TDO to get rid of the different themes. After all, wasn't that one of the main reasons PI was shuttered in the first place?
CityWalk doesn't have different "zones" and it works perfectly as one congruent area. It's time for TDO to get rid of the 3 different zones and start promoting one product – Downtown Disney.
You'd think the knowledge that PI was like a roadblock, keeping tourists from going from one end of DTD to the other, would be reason enough for TDO to get rid of the different themes. After all, wasn't that one of the main reasons PI was shuttered in the first place?
CityWalk doesn't have different "zones" and it works perfectly as one congruent area. It's time for TDO to get rid of the 3 different zones and start promoting one product – Downtown Disney.
COProgressFan
Well-Known Member
Ouch...I can imagine Disney's event planners were thrilled with that. While these large corporate events bring in tons of $$ through resorts and the actual conventions themselves, just think of the money Disney lost out on if a few thousand guests from a huge convention had to go to CityWalk for some nightlife, even just for one night.
Obviously, TDO doesn't really seem concerned with that lost revenue (as evidenced by the still closed PI), though as a shareholder, I certainly am.
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
WOC? No way, at least not in Village Lake. WOC need to have a controlled water environment and not some dirty lake water with boats passing by creating wakes and fish swimming around the water intakes. In order to build a WOC clone they would have to build a lake (large pool) to put it in. Besides that issue, I am sure Disney would not put an attraction that expensive in an area that does not required admission to cover costs. They stopped the PI fireworks when they stopped charging admission to PI and that fireworks show was fairly cheap to operate.
Mouse Detective
Well-Known Member
That's not why PI was shuttered, that's why PI was opened to all. PI used to be gated and people had to go around it to get to the other side. So they ungated it to get rid of the roadblock. And that was the beginning of the end.
And this is one of the things that is so mind-boggling. PI was built because so much money was traveling off property every night to competitors. Yet they are letting even bigger money travel off property now to their biggest competitor. Yet they don't seem to care that it is!
COProgressFan
Well-Known Member
Agreed, this was exactly why PI opened in the first place. And you can be sure that money going to Citywalk, etc. is considerably more than the small change that was going to places like Church Street Station back in the day.
How could they just not care about that and sit idly by for so long?
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
That shocks me that you even say there was a possibility of any level of WOC going into HW/PI/DTD/West side or anywhere there.
This was really in the plans?
yensid67
Well-Known Member
While I like the new, fresh approach to retheme, revamp PI into something different, I will agree that when they opened PI up to all with no admission, THAT WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE END for the nighttime entertainment for Adults on Disney property. PI was opened to offer nighttime adult entertainment for guests AND locals. If the PI project was too expensive to operate as it was, then scale it back or try something other than closing the area and turning it into an area that will only appeal to those same people in Marketplace or West Side. At least with PI area opened it added more guests and local that would spend money in the other 2 areas. If they had to take a few clubs away, that was fine, to make way for a different approach. I think it was a good move while it was a gate admission, it kept those underage out so everyone that was enjoying the area was of age. Take away the fireworks and the bands on the West Side stage and take away a club or 2 and concentrate on making whats left an awesome area for adult guests!
jt04
Well-Known Member
Absolutely right!. It should flow very organically from end to end. There should always be some compelling reason that results in the guest wanting to continue to see what is around the next bend in the path and towards some unexplored horizon. Magic. World Showcase does this well.
71jason
Well-Known Member
I have to disagree with you here. First, I don't see a need for every experience/space at WDW to be open 18 hours a day. By way of example, AK is generally only open 8, bit it still makes money. A better example might be, say, California Grill--only open 6 hours a day. But it would compromise CG's identity to use it for a princess breakfast every morning. Profitable space is profitable space..
This ties into my second disagreement--I think one of the two* biggest mistakes with PI was allowing the "adults only" vibe to be diluted by taking down the turnstiles. Build a bypass (a new, wide sidewalk would be cheap), but don't kill the adult/nightlife centered brand by letting people see kids there all the time.
*-[before anyone asks, the other was allowing the clubs to get stale.]
From a marketing perspective, you're right. But the genius of CityWalk--something TDO management missed when they tried to copy it by tearing down the turnstiles--is that it does have zones, they're just not marked as such. The nightclubs are all isolated upstairs, except Maragaritaville which was always more of a restaurant anyway. Meanwhile, the more family-friendly restaurants--HRC, the sports ones--are on the other side of the lake. CityWalk didn't need turnstiles because its geography effectively accomplished the same effect, keeping the strollers away from the drunks. Any nightlife area at WDW needs to do the same.