People Waiting at WDW for Harry Potter?!

[sweetpee_1993]

For people like me & my family, crowds even a fraction of what's in those pictures from opening day are enough to keep us away for a loooong time. If the "land" is that small I'd rather go a few years from now when everything's calmed down and the new has worn off, if at all. We love the HP stuff plenty but not enough to go thru all that. No way.

The wait to get into even the "land" reminds me of shopping at the outlet center in Cypress, Texas. More than once on a weekend I've seen a line wrapped around the buildings just to gain entry into the Coach store to keep capacity issues at bay. Once in the store it was a zoo and the line to check-out was at least 30 minutes or longer. As much as I adore my Coach bags I ain't about to go thru all that for one.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

If the lines are like that in late August, I'll be simultaenously impressed and disappointed... Impressed that it has staying power and disappointed because there is no way I'll be waiting that long...

Exactly.

 

[ThreeCircles]

If the lines are like that in late August, I'll be simultaenously impressed and disappointed... Impressed that it has staying power and disappointed because there is no way I'll be waiting that long...

They won't be. 2 hour wait today from this guy who's Tweeting: http://twitter.com/skubersky .

 

[unkadug]

Not a zombie my friend, but an intelligent business minded person. I am by no means a "disney can do no wrong" type of guy. Competition is good and a strong Universal means a strong Disney.

My point is this. 16 hour wait = very poor planning and preperation no matter what park. Also, what happens if Harry Plopper isn't a generation transcending fad? Universal has married itself to JK Rowling and will be stuck no matter what having to sink money into something that may not be worth it in the LONG RUN. Remember, it is not how long the lines are on the opening weekend, but what matters is how long the line is 1 year, 2 year, 3 years down the road.

I would like to know how you are so positive that this will be a "game changer" and it will "continue to draw crowds." I would also like to know what proof you have that this will happen. All you have spouted is your ILOVEHARRYPOTTER views with no actual intelligible argument as to why this will be the case.

Obviously, intelligent reasoning has no place in this thread.

 

[ThreeCircles]

Here's some figures, estimates of course, from 2009:

1. Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom: 17.2 million +1.0%
2. Disneyland: 15.9 million +8.0%
3. Epcot: 11.0 million +0.5%
4. Disney's Hollywood Studios: 9.7 million +1.0%
5. Disney's Animal Kingdom: 9.6 million +0.5%
6. Disney's California Adventure: 6.1 million +9.5%
7. SeaWorld Orlando: 5.8 million -6.8%
8. Universal Studios Florida: 5.4 million -12.0%
9. Islands of Adventure: 4.5 million -13.8%
10. Universal Studios Hollywood: 4.3 million -6.0%
11. SeaWorld San Diego: 4.2 million -12.6%
12. Busch Gardens Tampa: 4.1 million -12.3%


For IOA to even beat DAK, which brings the lowest attendance of the WDW parks, their attendance would have to increase by 5.1 million visits. Or, by 113%. It doesn't take much reasoning power to understand that an increase like that is not going to happen. An increase will happen, of course, but nothing of that extent.

Interesting to see that IOA only drew in 400,000 more visitors than Busch Gardens. :lol:

 

[mrbghd]

Obviously, intelligent reasoning has no place in this thread.

You are right, my fault. OMGHARRYPOTTERISAWESOME. That should be more appropriate, huh.

 

[brianplace]

reality

and yet imagine how much they could have made... look at what could have happened... If they would have been able to forsee how popular it would be, they would have surely swallowed pride and a little extra budget to get it done. If a park in as much debt as UO could do it, Disney could have done it better... but they failed to think forward, as they have and continue to do. Do you think anything in the FLE will have a 16hr wait on opening day? if so you are delusional. There is nothing Disney can make that would be competitive for at least a decade. nothing as culturally penetrative and significant. They dropped the ball. The apologists who cant see that are delusional. period.

Let's see if the waits are still this long in a year. I think Disney made the right business decision here - they are still light years ahead of Universal in terms of overall draw and revenue. Potterland is just a blip in the overall Universal revenue stream.

Universal's overall revenue is a fraction of Disney World's, and Universal has a billion dollars in debt. Potterland is almost a hail mary pass.

 

[RobGraves]

Rob Graves from HHNVault? Is that you? o:

One in the same....

 

[floridabill]

Let's see if the waits are still this long in a year. I think Disney made the right business decision here - they are still light years ahead of Universal in terms of overall draw and revenue. Potterland is just a blip in the overall Universal revenue stream.

Universal's overall revenue is a fraction of Disney World's, and Universal has a billion dollars in debt. Potterland is almost a hail mary pass.

Yea I want to know how they didn't fold while building this land, did the debt grow to that cause of potter?? or did it get even bigger now?? I think someone wrote on here the land cost 500 million!!???!! and forbidden journey alone was 200 mil!!???!! so 700 mil doe al that How did they do it?? lots of negotiating and refinancing with the banks maybe?

 

[Figment1986]

Rumors have already been flying around my building (Universal Creative takes up half of it), that expansions are already in the works. And just wait until Christmas time! Because Christmas is such a big deal in the fiction, the land will make it a big deal as well.

:lookaroun my guess would be whats left of lost continent would eventually be absorbed into it in a few years... though that would absorb mythos into it but maybe ending sin bad and adding that to potter would be nice.

 

[WDW Vacationer]

Im not one to call "photoshop" when I see an unbelievable picture, but come on... I would have had to seen this with my own eyes to believe that CBS would have run this. Nothing against danlb_2000 nor am I insinuating that you did this, but I just cant believe this one is legit.

EDIT: I do believe that people would show up at DHS and ask for Potter. Very plausible.

I don't think CBS would leave the apostrophe out of World's twice. :lol:

 

[RobGraves]

Yea I want to know how they didn't fold while building this land, did the debt grow to that cause of potter?? or did it get even bigger now?? I think someone wrote on here the land cost 500 million!!???!! and forbidden journey alone was 200 mil!!???!! so 700 mil doe al that How did they do it?? lots of negotiating and refinancing with the banks maybe?

How did Walt build Disneyland when he was almost broke?

 

[IHeartArt]

It's funny looking at everyone saying that Disney's right at thinking that Harry Potter is a flash in the pan. Walt said the same thing about the Beatles.

One in the same....

Freakin awesome man!

 

[ChuckFromCanada]

Wow is that whats going on I thought those people were in line to see the Hemisphere Dancer...much more interesting than Harry Potter.

 

[unkadug]

I don't think CBS would leave the apostrophe out of World's twice. :lol:

I don't believe it is a Photoshop job. CBS news website isn't really run by the news department. The news department just furnishes the stories. The website comes up with the headlines and teasers.

The page has since been revised.http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6595564n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

 

[Biff215]

We're going down next week and I would have loved to check this out, and I have never read one of the books or seen one of the movies. But lines like that make it much easier for me to stay on Disney property. I used to have an annual pass to UO but now haven't been back for almost 8 years. Just nothing interesting enough to get me to leave Disney!

 

[bigeternity]

They still have the headline wrong.

 

[Disneyson 1]

No matter how small, there shouldn't be a wait to get into a land PERIOD, no matter how small. Let's see how this pans out...

 

[peter11435]

Yea I want to know how they didn't fold while building this land, did the debt grow to that cause of potter?? or did it get even bigger now?? I think someone wrote on here the land cost 500 million!!???!! and forbidden journey alone was 200 mil!!???!! so 700 mil doe al that How did they do it?? lots of negotiating and refinancing with the banks maybe?

Everything was 200 Million.

 

[RobGraves]

Everything was 200 Million.

Do you have receipts for that?