News Monster Inc Land Coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios

[celluloid]

Last time I checked, Disney owns the theme park market share/attendance numbers in Florida. It isn’t much of a competition. If Disney and Universal were in a heated competition for “king” of the theme park business in Orlando, with attendance having been relatively equivalent, then yes, they would definitely “need” a response. This is not the case. The way they are responding is more so them saying Universal in no way determines our creative output in the parks. As a company, we are sufficiently established enough that we chart our own decisions. Our park improvements have nothing to do with our neighbors down the street.

If you think that is how they respond. I have a New Fantasyland to sell you as an all new creative and totally not a response to Hogsmeade. (Remember when Imagineering videos had Honeydukes Candy Jar from Universal behind him on the shelf?"

 

[celluloid]

Just as a frame of reference, in the 18 months before and after IoA opened, back when Uni was a much more distant competitor to Disney, WDW opened Pooh, Buzz, Test Track, Fantasmic, and Rock n Roller Coaster. Oh, and Animal Kingdom.

And for those that do not know, we can go back even further and a more distant competitor than that and see how Disney responded in a rush once they knew Universal was going to build a park in Orlando.

FL has had an environment friendly to zoos and aquarium operations. People are kidding themselves if they think that Disney was not competing with Zoos, Aquariums, Sea World and Busch Gardens since day one. A business never says "We really have no competition."

You can still be number one in attendance but want more attendance and ancillary money.

Time marches on. EPCOT has not had a major E ticket now for already two and a half years and none are under construction. Guardians is not SW or Potter in scale. Its one ride cannot hold down the fort forever. By the time the stagnation attempts to fix DHS and AK, they will have suffered, and EPCOT will be taking likely the biggest hit from EPIC as all three do to some degree.(not to mention all of the other hits like hotels guest spending and water park shift.

 

[SteveAZee]

I actually think it’s pretty smart. Most visitors have limited vacation time. If we imagine the average vacation is 7 days, next year, people will be giving 1 of those days to Epic probably at Disney’s expense. So, while the actual number of visitors will likely increase next year, the average number of days in a Disney park per guest will likely fall. So, it’s a smart time to take some rides down and have new ones ready to launch annually starting in 2027 once Monsters Unchained is no longer flashy and new.

Perhaps LLPP is, to a degree, a response to EU. If someone's trying to cram both Disney and Universal into 7 days, Disney's making it easier (and more lucrative) to do that.

 

[JD80]

If Disney were to build a fifth gate, how many more millions of people will they get in the first year and the next 10 years after that?

2023 had 50.7M guests. WDW peaked at 60.7M guests in 2019.

Do you think a 5th gate can bring 10M more people a year and grow on that? Is another park that maintains 10M guests a year worth the investment from the POV of TWDC? (I don't think anyone outside TWDC knows)

If I had to make a guess, they are spending building on existing park to bring up capacity and the park experience. You always have to be building to maintain guest satisfaction and they have to make up a lot of ground.

If they were going to be building a new park, it won't be until this decade of expansion is over.

Or the new CEO demands it. lol

 

[celluloid]

If Disney were to build a fifth gate, how many more millions of people will they get in the first year and the next 10 years after that?

2023 had 50.7M guests. WDW peaked at 60.7M guests in 2019.

Do you think a 5th gate can bring 10M more people a year and grow on that? Is another park that maintains 10M guests a year worth the investment from the POV of TWDC? (I don't think anyone outside TWDC knows)

If I had to make a guess, they are spending building on existing park to bring up capacity and the park experience. You always have to be building to maintain guest satisfaction and they have to make up a lot of ground.

If they were going to be building a new park, it won't be until this decade of expansion is over.

Or the new CEO demands it. lol

I don't think people want a new gate. They want Iger and his leadership to have kept the development and operational standards.
Iger's era is ending with a huge game of catch up due to stagnation.

 

[JD80]

I don't think people want a new gate. They want Iger and his leadership to have kept the development and operational standards.
Iger's era is ending with a huge came of catch up due to stagnation.

Define "people" in your statement. People as in the people on this board? I agree then.

Normies? They don't know what they want, but a "new gate" is shiny and would get a massive spike in attendance. As we know, the operational issue is that places like MK that would see a surge of new guests doesn't have the capacity for that.

 

[celluloid]

Define "people" in your statement. People as in the people on this board? I agree then.

Normies? They don't know what they want, but a "new gate" is shiny and would get a massive spike in attendance. As we know, the operational issue is that places like MK that would see a surge of new guests doesn't have the capacity for that.

People as in those who mostly post on this board. Those who would be reading it.

A new gate for WDW would be shiny and new like anything, but what they would charge for a fifth day add on and what IP they have yet to oversaturate as well as how they would staff it make it unfeasible.

Not so much that MK would surge is that the others would be a ghost town, particularly AK and EPCOT.

 

[JD80]

People as in those who mostly post on this board. Those who would be reading it.

a new gate for WDW would be shiny and new like anything, but what they would charge for a fifth day add on and what IP they have yet to oversaturate as well as how they would staff it make it unfeasible.

Not so much that MK would surge is that the others would be a ghost town, particularly AK and EPCOT.

2023 - EPCOT was the second most popular park.

I'd love to get some insight in how people split up parks.

• Percentage of people who park hop and visit all 4 parks in a trip
• Percentage of people who have 4 park days, one for each park
• Percentage of people who visit all 4 parks and double up on 1 (or more).
• Percentage of people who visit and have less than 4 park days.
• Percentage of people who visit and have more than 4 park days but don't visit one park.

That'll show you how much additional parks would suffer.

 

[celluloid]

2023 - EPCOT was the second most popular park.

and in 2008 Sea World had higher attendance than Islands of Adventure. Then IOA quit being stagnant.

See my post about time marches on.

2023 had result of over a billion invested in it between Guardians of the Galaxy, Rat and Moana/renovations/night time show changes under way from two years of openings.
We could get into the split where we also know that many did not pay their first day price at EPCOT. And many segments under that did not have it as their third either.

But you don't have to go into all that, because of the part about time marching on.

 

[Moth]

Something announced that we missed or a project not announced yet?

Depending on scope, closing dates and budgets, you might see SSE 5 in late 2026. Don't count on it, but it's a possibility depending how fast they wanna work on it. If they do a retrack and close it mid-late 2025, I don't see that opening til mid 2027 though at the earliest.

I'd hedge more bets on Inside Out integration into WDW for 2026 than that.

 

[JackCH]

There's nostalgia for a classic Disney park that had 2 rides and 4 shows and horribly misnamed.

Literally this a mystery to me lol. Don’t understand how people don’t see the current park as better than that one. I loved MGM back in the day but DHS, even with all its flaws and definite need for more, is so obviously better to me.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Literally this a mystery to me lol. Don’t understand how people don’t see the current park as better than that one. I loved MGM back in the day but DHS, even with all its flaws and definite need for more, is so obviously better to me.

I still call it "The Nation of Seminole."

 

[GoofGoof]

Depending on scope, closing dates and budgets, you might see SSE 5 in late 2026. Don't count on it, but it's a possibility depending how fast they wanna work on it. If they do a retrack and close it mid-late 2025, I don't see that opening til mid 2027 though at the earliest.

I'd hedge more bets on Inside Out integration into WDW for 2026 than that.

SSE makes me nervous. It definitely needs some love and it could be an improvement but it always makes me nervous whenever they mess with a classic attraction. If they plan to take the ride down in 2025 that may be why there hasn’t been much info on the lounge there. We’ve seen updates on construction in the Pirates lounge at MK but nothing on SSE (unless I just missed it).

Inside Out makes so much sense. It’s kinda crazy it hasn’t been added to Imagination yet, especially after the sequel was a success. Will they redo the ride itself or just add an Inside Out movie to the theater? Figment may have more hardcore fans than Muppets. Could get ugly if he is replaced.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Literally this a mystery to me lol. Don’t understand how people don’t see the current park as better than that one. I loved MGM back in the day but DHS, even with all its flaws and definite need for more, is so obviously better to me.

Having a bunch of short rides with long waits does not make up for losing so much entertainment, stores worth visiting, things to look at in-between rides and shows, an animation studio making movies, and the general staleness the park has now. This doesn't even get into show quality issues on rides like ToT.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Inside Out makes so much sense. It’s kinda crazy it hasn’t been added to Imagination yet, especially after the sequel was a success. Will they redo the ride itself or just add an Inside Out movie to the theater? Figment may have more hardcore fans than Muppets. Could get ugly if he is replaced.

Or something gets quickly thrown together based on Inside Out for the former Wonders of Life.

 

[GoofGoof]

If anything comes close to a three year build time it would be the Tropical Americas. The important thing to remember we can split hairs on build times, but to the regular guest, Primeval Whirl has been closed since 2019.

In my mind, the time it takes to replace an attraction is the date the previous attraction is closed to the date the new attraction is open. Let’s say they manage to open the tropical Americas by 2028, that is about 9 years in the case of Primeval Whirl.

And shut up, I liked Primeval Whirl, and never skipped it while at AK

You can twist times any way you want. Yes, Pandora took over 6 years from announcement to opening and yes if Tropical Americas opens in 2027 as planned it will have been 8 years since Primeval Whirl closed. That doesn’t change the amount of time to build from ground break to opening for any of these projects.

I hope with your pure logic you are correct and all the project are built and opened in record time.

It wouldn’t be record time, it would be expected time. Nobody should argue that Disney is fast tracking projects or that it should take 3 to 4 years to build a land. It’s a deliberate, slow pace but it’s actually quite predictable. Outside of delays due to Covid Disney has actually been quite accurate when announcing when rides and lands would open. Once ground breaks and/or Disney announces an opening year they usually hit it. This was true for Fantasy Land Expansion, Pandora, SWGE, Toy Story Land. Yes, almost everything slated to open around or just after 2020 was delayed but those were outliers. It’s a false narrative that Disney sets timelines and then consistently fails to hit them. Delays of months maybe but with a few exceptions not years.

All that being said they have not announced an opening year for Monsters. I fully expect Tropical Americas to open by end of 2027 and I assume that if they break ground on Monsters next year and announce an opening in 2028 that they will hit that target as well.

 

[Moth]

Inside Out: If the target is 2026, it's Magic Eye due to the work being less than the work needed to get WoL back in good shape. Something something budget. Figment isn't leaving the ride though. He never will, that's the one line upper management knows they can never cross, because Figment merch moves.

SSE: Lounge will likely be its own beast apart from the ride itself, I don't think they announced it last D23 without knowing SSE the ride is gonna go down.

Monsters Inc: Hedging bets on 2027-2028 opening. Gut feeling.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Inside Out: If the target is 2026, it's Magic Eye due to the work being less than the work needed to get WoL back in good shape. Something something budget. Figment isn't leaving the ride though. He never will, that's the one line upper management knows they can never cross, because Figment merch moves.

SSE: Lounge will likely be its own beast apart from the ride itself, I don't think they announced it last D23 without knowing SSE the ride is gonna go down.

Monsters Inc: Hedging bets on 2027-2028 opening. Gut feeling.

Monsters Inc land should go pretty quick as the show building is outside existing park boundaries/in the parking lot so should be efficient construction and the areas in the park don't appear to be a ton of modification.

Not saying it would be a couple of years, but 2nd half of 2027 is certainly possible - though if Tropical Americas is 2027 they may hold this off to spread it out a little ... So more likely it is the big marketing thing for 2028, then Cars Land for 2029, and Villains for 2030

 

[GoofGoof]

Inside Out: If the target is 2026, it's Magic Eye due to the work being less than the work needed to get WoL back in good shape. Something something budget. Figment isn't leaving the ride though. He never will, that's the one line upper management knows they can never cross, because Figment merch moves.

SSE: Lounge will likely be its own beast apart from the ride itself, I don't think they announced it last D23 without knowing SSE the ride is gonna go down.

Monsters Inc: Hedging bets on 2027-2028 opening. Gut feeling.

My personal preference would be Inside Out to WoL and then MV3D relocated to Magic Eye but I have no actual say.

So the SSE lounge can open even with the ride closed? How do you get into the lounge? I assumed it was a staircase somewhere in the post ride exhibit area.

 

[JackCH]

Having a bunch of short rides with long waits does not make up for losing so much entertainment, stores worth visiting, things to look at in-between rides and shows, an animation studio making movies, and the general staleness the park has now. This doesn't even get into show quality issues on rides like ToT.

I think SGE does all of the things you listed better than old MGM did.

Losses worth noting: GMR (ouch), Backlot Tour (meh, it got old pretty quick), Muppets (ouch, but I get it), Lights Motors Action, anything I'm missing?

Gains: RotR (one of the highest rated attractions ever), MMRR (A great dark ride that most people rate as one of their favorites), Slinky Dog (a decent family coaster, but too crowded for sure), Aliens (a fine C-ticket), Door Coaster (sure to be popular), new Monsters show.

I get it, the park needs more expansion and less replacement, that is a valid criticism.

But Streets of America was perhaps one of the most "stale" areas of any park I have ever been to in my life. Just lifeless. And the backlot tour lost its luster after a couple of rides to almost everyone I know.

MGM was my favorite park as a kid and I hated GMR closing. But aside from GMR I have been fine with the other things they have closed. It needs more, especially in AC, but it has improved over the years, even if it didn't improve as much as it could have.