News Primeval Whirl, Stitch's Great Escape and Rivers of Light permanently closed

[boardwalk22]

Magic- Treehouse or Country Bears/Shooting Gallery.
EPCOT- Figment or Gran Fiesta Tour or maybe even The Seas
DHS- Star Tours or Rockin' Roller Coaster
DAK- TriceraTop Spin

I'd be surprised if they nixed The Seas. With the way they are scaling back EPCOT's plans, I would say they could keep anything that is even remotely popular.

 

[Fox&Hound]

As in the first one.

Between RoL and Fastpass+ that’s quite a few bonuses not paid. At least they're being honest in a PR fluff way. Shame; the original RoL had potential and some lovely music.

Marni, do you mean RoL is going away as in that particular show or they have no foreseeable plans to perform ANY show on the water? It would be such a waste to go through all the work to build the seats and then let is just sit there....

 

[WEDway Inc & Company LLC]

I'd be surprised if they nixed The Seas. With the way they are scaling back EPCOT's plans, I would say they could keep anything that is even remotely popular.

I’m not saying demo it, but I could totally see them completely updating the ride

 

[JohnD]

Hopefully they can come up with a replacement for RoL that will actually work and be a good show.

So what’s next to be axed? Unpopular thought but HEA? Very expensive to run when they could just have Once Upon A Time with a small amount of pyro. Also Harmonius sounds like it will be like HEA on water.

My picks:
MK: Aladdin -- open up Adventureland as it was intended to be. There's already the Dumbo spin ride
EP: Figment -- currently worst ride on property. I'm all for closing it now so long as an Imagination 1.0 replacement is on "the horizon"
HS: Indy -- I understand it's a people eater but making movies is no longer the focus of HS. Plenty of property to turn into something else at a later date.

 

[boardwalk22]

I’m not saying demo it, but I could totally see them completely updating the ride

True, true. It may even bring more of a draw if there was just a brief refurb or something of the like.

 

[marni1971]

Marni, do you mean RoL is going away as in that particular show or they have no foreseeable plans to perform ANY show on the water? It would be such a waste to go through all the work to build the seats and then let is just sit there....

No plans for a replacement at the moment. Given the current climate that’s possibly to be expected.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

As long as it's a great ride (Haunted Mansion, Pirates (originally) and Space Mountain) then it doesn't matter if it has an IP or not (ride wise). I do think Disney will definitely lean towards IP's for the most part when it comes to their rides in the future though. It makes sense financially. They can sell more merchandise with characters like Ana and Elsa.

And as long as it works with the theming (Ratatouille), I'm sure most of us are alright with it.

Pirates, HM, and SM all fall into the list of exceptions. Ghosts and Pirates are both stock characters. They are also both legacy attractions that date back (almost) to the park opening. Fifty years ago, all of MK was new. If pirates (first) opened in 2020? Hah, I doubt it would be welcomed as it was in the 70's. Guns, drinking, burning cities, oh my!

SM is a coaster. Most coasters don't need theming to be popular. In many places, even Primeval Whirl is popular. Elsewhere it is called a Wild Mouse. Some parks have added theming, but many haven't. Check out: Atlantis Spin (Bali Safari), Crash Test (Ocean Beach Pleasure Park), Crazy Mouse (steel Pier, Brighton Pier, Hirakata Park, Playland (NY), Del Grosso's, Azur Park), Mad Mouse (Bell's, Joyland, Arnolds), Wild mouse (a number of parks) and many more....

AK's version was never all that popular, so in that sense I'm not surprised to see it close. I'm a little surprised though, because it is an amusement park staple. AK's likely would have survived with better theming and if it had been just a tad smoother. Maybe if they had re-themed the whole area to a movie like Up.

 

[rle4lunch]

Here is a look at Primeval Whirl today.

Cast were getting pictures in-front of the ride, although no walls yet.

Primeval Whirl overview

Primeval Whirl overview

www.wdwmagic.com

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, PW.

 

[Goofnut1980]

If you actually attempt to do everything at DAK. As in, ride every ride, see every show, do the trails, take your time to soak in the atmosphere, and eat a quick service and full service meal, DAK is absolutely an all day park. I'm tired of everyone complaining about "half day parks" when the real answer is that this is your Nth visit to WDW so you've already seen everything so you don't want to do all of it, and you have a Fastpass for FoP, Everest, and Safaris and maybe do one or two other things and leave.

Islands of Adventure has more major attractions, but guess what, if you have an express pass or go on a slow day, or only do the top tier attractions, you can see it, too, in a few hours.

To me it just isnt as magical. To each there own. And yes the next trip is trip 78 for me. I have been a few times. So there are natually things I do not personally want to see every trip I take. But if others like it, that's great for them. For me it is just meh.

 

[Chip Chipperson]

Yes the spinner is the only thing operating.

View attachment 484308

It looks like a sad County Fair.

 

[MinnieWaffles]

I guess someone's never going to get their chilli dog back.

 

[Marc Davis Fan]

I think it was effective with the Hester and Chester gift shop but when everything else opened, it just overpowered the main theme. I mean, today, after passing through the Dig, that's what you see. The e-ticket ride is off to the side and largely hidden by growth* and could almost be missed by someone casually walking in.

It's actually kind of funny (not in a ha-ha way) to think that for a land devoted to dinosaurs in a park that is was focused on real, actual animals, the only part of the entire land that really does the dinos any justice is the queue for the Dinosaur ride.

Anyway, since the majority of the themed part of that land became the "tourist trap", that's effectively the face of Dinoland and similar to the way much of the original California Adventure didn't work, it turns out, that creating a "theme" to mimic a crappy shoddy experience that most people come to Disney to avoid, isn't the best of ideas.

I'm sure someone somewhere thought that being able to use a "theme" as an excuse to go cheap with attractions was a clever loophole but in the case of AK, it's the wart on Mona Lisa.

*Not to say the growth itself is the problem. It's obviously there in part to hide the massive show building the attraction itself is housed in.

THIS!

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The land had potential before Dino-Rama. Not only did Dino-Rama destroy the land's aesthetic as you described, but it messed up the crowd flow so that a big percentage of guests now completely miss the land's actual main attraction.

Not only should they remove Dino-Rama in its entirety, but they should fix the pathways so that guests are actually funneled to the land's true centerpiece. The percentage of AK guests who are never aware of Dinosaur's existence is ridiculous. Fixing that problem would almost be like adding a new e-ticket to the park.

The truth is, even from the beginning, the placement of Dinosaur was one of the weirdest design decisions that Disney had ever made in a theme park. It should have been the land's "weenie," just like the EE mountain is for Asia, the tree in front of KS is for Africa, etc. But at least improving the guest flow would make more people aware that it exists...

 

[SilentWindODoom]

What a waste of the stadiums for RoL

At least it cleared up a ten year mystery.

They have the IP for Planet of the Apes. That'd be kind of cool.

I didn't even think of Fox acquisitions.

I vote for a land based on the time travel segment from the greatest Treehouse of Horror special!



Crap, do they work under the same deal as Marvel?

If things were normal This would be great but they aren't. If only they could fill it with some cheap off the shelf boardwalk rides because even that might stretch the budget . Its a decent size area so something of the Wakanda or Zootopia type of project would be cool but I can't imagine they're in the right place in the foreseeable future.

Zootopia would be nice. The Theatre in the Wild has always been a weird gray area and a Zootopia overlay could probably take it over and retheme the exterior.

I could see them moving the spinner to somewhere else in the park with new decoration. It's cheap to operate and is one of the few rides people under a certain height can do.

There's gotta be a small area of Discovery Island they could fit a spinner with different colorful animals.

 

[FigmentJedi]

THIS!

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

The land had potential before Dino-Rama. Not only did Dino-Rama destroy the land's aesthetic as you described, but it messed up the crowd flow so that a big percentage of guests now completely miss the land's actual main attraction.

Not only should they remove Dino-Rama in its entirety, but they should fix the pathways so that guests are actually funneled to the land's true centerpiece. The percentage of AK guests who are never aware of Dinosaur's existence is ridiculous. Fixing that problem would almost be like adding a new e-ticket to the park.

The truth is, even from the beginning, the placement of Dinosaur was one of the weirdest design decisions that Disney had ever made in a theme park. It should have been the land's "weenie," just like the EE mountain is for Asia, the tree in front of KS is for Africa, etc. But at least improving the guest flow would make more people aware that it exists...

Imagine if instead of hiding the show building with a row of trees on the roof, they created a rockwork ridge of fossil layers marking off the K-Pg extinction line or one of those buttes where they arrange white rocks into the town initials/symbols like you see all the time out west. There's a lot of ways the prehistoric road trip placemaking could have been strengthened if budgets weren't so tight in the park's original construction and first few years.

 

[MythBuster]

Replacing either is understandable and fine, the issue is that they're closing without a substitute planned

That's the problem now, they are not looking to replace, just shutdown to save money.

 

[po1998]

Yes the spinner is the only thing operating.

View attachment 484308

How DInoRama ever got green lit is beyond me? It is one area that if it was bulldozed and nothing put in its place but trees/landscaping and benches, it would be a drastic improvement.

 

[wdwmagic]

How DInoRama ever got green lit is beyond me? It is one area that if it was bulldozed and nothing put in its place but trees/landscaping and benches, it would be a drastic improvement.

Need for quick ride capacity is why it was built.

 

[po1998]

Need for quick ride capacity is why it was built.

So far below WDW standards.

 

[CircusPeanuts]

So far below WDW standards.

It was a *very* different era in the company. The economy was trash before 9/11 and then that made it worse. Disney was releasing direct to video animated movies like Lady and the Tramp 2 and Hunchback 2 like they were going out of style. Not saying it makes it right, but context is important. Look at the original Disney Studios Paris which opened around the same time if you want to see the true meaning of value engineering - way worse than anything people complain about today.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

I'm assuming RoL will return in some other form in a year or two, the R&D along with the infrastructure that went into building the show just does not warrant total abandonment. Just my opinion, but time will tell.