People Waiting at WDW for Harry Potter?!

[joshl33]

Expansion

That is true they could not expand WWOHP backwards but the whole lost continent area in front of it that consists of a in my opinion of a terrible Sinbad stunt show and Poseidon's Fury building also in my opinion underwhelming and not well visited and a bunch of outside shops. A very large area indeed that could be added to the Wizarding World. At least 3 large attractions could be placed in this area.

 

[fosse76]

I don't know if Times Square gets more people than WDW, but I don't have a hard time believing it. It's kind of an apples/oranges comparison, though, when you're comparing an open-air space to attendance at gated theme parks.

Yes, you can, and it is most certainly an appropriate comparison. Times Square is a singular destination that over 32 million tourists visit (it doesn't include locals who pass through). Just because it's not gated doesn't change that.

I'm sure there are sidewalks in China and India that see more people pass through in a year than WDW could ever dream of.

Irrelevant. The numbers measure tourists. And Times Square is a destination point. People go to see the area itself...they aren't simply passing through on their way to work.

It is a good reminder that when you talk about "tourist destinations" (and WDW being #1), you should specify what you mean by that (gated destinations vs. unrestricted urban locations).

Again, not relevant. In terms of shear numbers, WDW is not the most visited destination. It doesn't matter if you have to pay to get into anything else. The numbers are measuring tourists, not locals.

Beyond attracting tourists, they're really not in the same business at all. (For that matter, places like Times Square or Paris aren't in "a" business at all. They're central locations for any number of merchants to ply trade.)

It doesn't matter if they aren't in the same business. The question regards "most popular tourist destination." You're trying to argue that because Times Square is not a theme park it doesn't count. Sorry, but it does.

 

[fosse76]

I agree - I'm not sure I would call Times Square a vacation destination....

Well, we can call it an attraction if you want, but it still has more visitors than WDW. As does Washington, DC and Paris, France.

 

[EpcotServo]

They really have no expansion options do they? I'm not that familiar with Universal property, but I was under the impression that Potter was built right up against a High School (like the back of Hogwarts is about 50ft from the school football field)

I'd say it's akin to Studios here at Disney, it has places to go, but important things would have to be removed or relocated. Universal is quite large.

 

[wm49rs]

They really have no expansion options do they? I'm not that familiar with Universal property, but I was under the impression that Potter was built right up against a High School (like the back of Hogwarts is about 50ft from the school football field)

I guess they know where to find the kids who have ditched class then....

 

[ctxak98]

Here's the thing.....yes universal has created a whole land of harry potter with great detail and an awesome ride based on things from the movie......I'm glad disney didn't take up a whole ride based on harry potter. Disney is better than that! Yes the ride is cool but disney is about creating and making it up and telling a story. Like tower of terror, that is not based off a movie only a t.v show and then created into a great ride. Harry potter already had a basis for what they were doing! To me disney is always a mile ahead based off what they do! But I have to admit harry potter is a good ride and hopefully disney will keep imagineering awesome and inovative things.....and I'm sure they are going to

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Here's the thing.....yes universal has created a whole land of harry potter with great detail and an awesome ride based on things from the movie......I'm glad disney didn't take up a whole ride based on harry potter. Disney is better than that! Yes the ride is cool but disney is about creating and making it up and telling a story. Like tower of terror, that is not based off a movie only a t.v show and then created into a great ride. Harry potter already had a basis for what they were doing! To me disney is always a mile ahead based off what they do! But I have to admit harry potter is a good ride and hopefully disney will keep imagineering awesome and inovative things.....and I'm sure they are going to

Like brining back a crap old film

 

[_Scar]

I rememer on DD seeing a big wall and a school on the other side of it. Looked like an elementary school, but I don't know for sure.

Also, I think they've got enough room where it isn't jam packed in.

 

[UnrealFire]

Yes, you can, and it is most certainly an appropriate comparison. Times Square is a singular destination that over 32 million tourists visit (it doesn't include locals who pass through). Just because it's not gated doesn't change that.

Trafalgar Square gets even more visitors per day than Times Square.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

They really have no expansion options do they? I'm not that familiar with Universal property, but I was under the impression that Potter was built right up against a High School (like the back of Hogwarts is about 50ft from the school football field)

I could see the whole of Lost Continent being changed into HP... Or they could go out into the lake potentially. That doesn't take into account what backstage area they might be able to re-purpose if they found it profitable enough to do.

EDIT TO ADD: Moving or replacing DD would be possible, too... That would create a TON of room, and I could see it happening if they saw enough dollar signs coming as a result.

 

[mgf]

ctxak98 mentioned something I have been thinking as the pictures leaked out. In general, I think I am less than "blown away" by HP because it was a tested concept. The first movie came out in 2001. Since then, audiences around the world have seen and critiqued the tangible world of Harry Potter. Additionally, the park designers had the added benefit of building upon the major studio money poured into set design and effects. I am not saying this situation is unique to Universal (i.e. Star Wars, Indy, ToT, World Showcase for those who travel) or that the product was not well executed. Looking at pictures alone, however, it seems a bit too familiar to be earth shattering. Basically, in my mind, Universal did a great job reproducing the movie set in Florida, which makes sense.​

 

[slappy magoo]

I agree - I'm not sure I would call Times Square a vacation destination....

I guarantee you, when I'm walking down Broadway through Times Square to get to Penn Station so I can go home, the people in my way staring at the buildings and spending ridiculous amounts of money for Toys R Us and M&Ms "because it's the big New York stores, when are we ever gonna come here again?" are rarely locals.

Times Square IS a vacation destination. I will say it may be a moot point for this discussion because Times Square itself is not something you pay admission for whereas the Disney Parks require admission. But it IS and always will be for many people a vacation destination.

 

[SleepingMonk]

Here's the thing.....yes universal has created a whole land of harry potter with great detail and an awesome ride based on things from the movie......I'm glad disney didn't take up a whole ride based on harry potter. Disney is better than that! Yes the ride is cool but disney is about creating and making it up and telling a story. Like tower of terror, that is not based off a movie only a t.v show and then created into a great ride. Harry potter already had a basis for what they were doing! To me disney is always a mile ahead based off what they do! But I have to admit harry potter is a good ride and hopefully disney will keep imagineering awesome and inovative things.....and I'm sure they are going to

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

Didn't Disney just build a Toy Story ride, a Nemo ride and have plans for a Little Mermaid ride, etc....

Movie>>>>>>Ride.

What am I missing here?

 

[slappy magoo]

ctxak98 mentioned something I have been thinking as the pictures leaked out. In general, I think I am less than "blown away" by HP because it was a tested concept. The first movie came out in 2001. Since then, audiences around the world have seen and critiqued the tangible world of Harry Potter. Additionally, the park designers had the added benefit of building upon the major studio money poured into set design and effects. I am not saying this situation is unique to Universal (i.e. Star Wars, Indy, ToT, World Showcase for those who travel) or that the product was not well executed. Looking at pictures alone, however, it seems a bit too familiar to be earth shattering. Basically, in my mind, Universal did a great job reproducing the movie set in Florida, which makes sense.​

What you seem to not realize is that, in the film world of Harry Potter, the cast, paid actors all, can fake being scared, or thrilled. They can pretend the tinted water they're slugging back is buttered beer. Uni could take the concepts of set designs from the movies, but they still had to create an immersive experience.

Plus, let's face it, ye olde Disney MGM studios used to have tours that featured drives through facades for houses on sitcoms, and a blue-screen attraction (Superstar Television) that allowed guests to look (for everyone watching, but not the guest interacting) that they were on I Love Lucy, or Frasier, or Home Improvement (I got to be Al). These were popular attractions in their day. So too, once upon a time, was Mickey's House in Toontown, which was a creative queue for a meet and greet. So for Uni to create a HP environment so attuned to detail that people feel like it's as much of an experience as the rides themselves - and there ARE rides and not just a minimum wage slave jockey dressed like a Hogwart's student posing for pics at the end of it - is something to be commended, and something which Disney should be looking at as something to be bested.

 

[dweezil78]

Here's the thing.....yes universal has created a whole land of harry potter with great detail and an awesome ride based on things from the movie......I'm glad disney didn't take up a whole ride based on harry potter. Disney is better than that! Yes the ride is cool but disney is about creating and making it up and telling a story. Like tower of terror, that is not based off a movie only a t.v show and then created into a great ride. Harry potter already had a basis for what they were doing! To me disney is always a mile ahead based off what they do! But I have to admit harry potter is a good ride and hopefully disney will keep imagineering awesome and inovative things.....and I'm sure they are going to

Uh... explain Carsland and Flik's Fun Fair at DCA then along with the various Toy Story areas opening up at other Disney parks internationally. At least Universal can get away with it as they were founded on the idea of bringing the movies to theme parks -- what's Disney's excuse?

All of you who are talking smack towards Universal and trying to find fault with Harry Potter are smoking CRACK. Of course it is busy right now, it's one of the biggest pop culture franchises of the last decade and just had its grand opening right as summer is starting. Did you really expect it to not have outrageous waits?!? As a wise man named Gob once said, C'mon!!! Even Indy, 15 years later, is seeing 90 minute waits, so that's nothing shocking.

The truth is Universal DID innovate with this baby and has created an experience that no current Disney attraction can seem to match -- and that none that are in the pipeline even seem to aspire to. Instead of nitpicking it to death you should all be excited as hell to try it out and experience a giant leap forward in theme park technology and storytelling.

The reality is, you all should really be upset with Disney who instead of innovating in any way is bringing us a beautiful-to-look-at yet most likely boring-to-experience Fantasyland update with a by-the-numbers dark ride using a ride system from 1967. How innovative...

 

[Buried20KLeague]

It may not be that simple, because it depends on how WWHOP affects people's decisions to come to Orlando. For example, here are three basic scenarios in my mind (and many subsets of these):

1) WWHOP causes people who were planning on spending a week at Disney to go to Uni for a day or two. Disney loses revenue on these people.

2) WWHOP causes people to come to Uni that never had any intention of going to Disney. Disney's revenue unaffected.

3) WWHOP causes people to come down to Orlando or causes people to come to Orlando more frequently because there is more to do. These people, while in Orlando, also visit Disney. Disney gains revenue.

We simply don't yet know how this will work out or which scenarios are going to predominate in the long run. I hope WWHOP lights a fire under TDO to finally unleash WDI, but I'm not sure from a revenue standpoint that is what we are going to see.

The people that waited 7+ hours to get in last weekend, I think were category 2 people. Personally, I am a category 1 person. My sister-in-law is a category 3 person. And, lets consider this, I am a category 1 person so I will either extend my Orlando vacation or Disney will lose a day or two of revenue from me (probably the former, so their revenue will be largely unaffected). My sister-in-law is a category 3 person. Disney will gain at least a day or two of revenue from her (and those early days of revenue make more money-i.e., a two day pass is much more money for Disney per day than a 5 day) but may even get 4-5 days of revenue.

I think it is very possible WWHOP will not only NOT hurt Disney's bottom line, it may even help it. Would it have been helped even more if Disney actually had WWHOP, perhaps, but we still don't know. "Revenue lost is revenue lost" is not the entire story when it takes investment to make revenue. I bet UNI will have a much higher return on this investment than Disney would have had if it did WWHOP AND it's even possible Disney is going to be getting a return on UNI's investment, which is just free money. We just don't know yet.

I should have been more specific... profit lost is profit lost. Obviously revenue incurs a cost, but at the end of the day, there's certainly a margin to be had, and I would assume it would be healthy (though none of us will ever really know for certain).

I mostly was looking at it from Disney's point of view, and how they seem to operate. If they see attendance rise at a competing park, I'd venture to say that they'd consider those people as lost profit. Even more so, if their park numbers stay stagnant through '10, or even decline.

I would tend to agree with your 3 categories of visitors, too... But I would venture a guess that the vast majority of them would be category 1... Because that seems to be the majority of how people vacation in Orlando that visit both company's parks. It seems logical that that would be the continuing trend.

I've got to think that that's what UNI was looking for, too. To peel off visitors for a couple days that otherwise they wouldn't have gotten. They've gotta know that WDW is the 900lb gorrilla. And if that was their goal, it looks like they'll achieve it.

I just think there's no way Disney is happy about this. I can envision no situation where, overall, TDO is happy with what is taking place.

 

[Buried20KLeague]

Uh... explain Carsland and Flik's Fun Fair at DCA then along with the various Toy Story areas opening up at other Disney parks internationally. At least Universal can get away with it as they were founded on the idea of bringing the movies to theme parks -- what's Disney's excuse?

All of you who are talking smack towards Universal and trying to find fault with Harry Potter are smoking CRACK. Of course it is busy right now, it's one of the biggest pop culture franchises of the last decade and just had its grand opening right as summer is starting. Did you really expect it to not have outrageous waits?!? As a wise man named Gob once said, C'mon!!! Even Indy, 15 years later, is seeing 90 minute waits, so that's nothing shocking.

The truth is Universal DID innovate with this baby and has created an experience that no current Disney attraction can seem to match -- and that none that are in the pipeline even seem to aspire to. Instead of nitpicking it to death you should all be excited as hell to try it out and experience a giant leap forward in theme park technology and storytelling.

The reality is, you all should really be upset with Disney who instead of innovating in any way is bringing us a beautiful-to-look-at yet most likely boring-to-experience Fantasyland update with a by-the-numbers dark ride using a ride system from 1967. How innovative...

BRAVO. Good post.:wave:

 

[mgf]

Slappy magoo, I was not being critical of Universal at all. The fact they translated film to reality so convincingly is of course very commendable. Notice I attributed the same potential reaction to things at Disney. All I was trying to point out was they built what we have been seeing for the last nine years. The films set the specific look and feel for what JKR outlined in text. In reality, we have known what was coming for nine years. As a bonus, the park had the advantage of advance reviews/criticism, millions of studio dollars spent on design, and a long time line to perfect the product.

This problem is present in all movie-tied attractions. The only real difference for say Carsland or FLE is that the tangible result is being built out of an entirely cartoon/fantasy environment. We have not looked at the real world equivalent of these products for nearly a decade (excluding Broadway).

Universal did a great job with HP and I have no problem saying that at all. The plans just did not come from thin air and neither do all Disney plans. I was just trying to interject a new discussion point into the mix. Perhaps this line of commenting would be better reserved for Eddie’s thread since this one has become a slugfest.​

 

[IWant2GoNow]

Uh... explain Carsland and Flik's Fun Fair at DCA then along with the various Toy Story areas opening up at other Disney parks internationally. At least Universal can get away with it as they were founded on the idea of bringing the movies to theme parks -- what's Disney's excuse?

All of you who are talking smack towards Universal and trying to find fault with Harry Potter are smoking CRACK. Of course it is busy right now, it's one of the biggest pop culture franchises of the last decade and just had its grand opening right as summer is starting. Did you really expect it to not have outrageous waits?!? As a wise man named Gob once said, C'mon!!! Even Indy, 15 years later, is seeing 90 minute waits, so that's nothing shocking.

The truth is Universal DID innovate with this baby and has created an experience that no current Disney attraction can seem to match -- and that none that are in the pipeline even seem to aspire to. Instead of nitpicking it to death you should all be excited as hell to try it out and experience a giant leap forward in theme park technology and storytelling.

The reality is, you all should really be upset with Disney who instead of innovating in any way is bringing us a beautiful-to-look-at yet most likely boring-to-experience Fantasyland update with a by-the-numbers dark ride using a ride system from 1967. How innovative...

Well done on the AD reference! :sohappy::lol:

 

[T-1MILLION]

What good is a line like that? Certainly not good for Universal. Those people are there, but they are NOT spending money in the shops, they are NOT buying snacks, they ARE trapped in a line. It is not a pleasant experience for the guests or for Universal.

With tons of roaming vendors selling all sorts of refreshments, you are very very wrong.