News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opening day reports - Disney's Hollywood Studios

[ColdSarsaparilla]

Of course. They likely made reasonable determinations on what may be needed now and during peak times.

Okay, but that would mean their reasonable determinations may have been incorrect.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

No I get that the IP’s are not comparable and that would be a fare point to make. My issue is that you’re almost asserting that your just trying to get to the bottom of all this. However you completely ignore ANYTHING that would give evidence contrary to your opinion that should be used to make a valid overall conclusion.

Whatever the IP, masses of people are t going to take their kids out of school, 1,2 and three weeks into the year. That’s just a fact.
Pandora and Carsland opened at peak family vacation times.
Surely you have to admit that should be factored in there somewhere correct?
I have no clue about the hurricane but just common sense would tell me it has SOME effect as well.
But I don’t know 100%, so I didn’t use it in my post. As a father to young children and has a wife who teaches, Vacation time I do know 100% has an impact.

I’m giving all your reasons due consideration and I agree with some.

Here’s the one I can’t get a good excuse for: are there not enough rabid Star Wars fans not in Southern California left to bust through the “AP wall” and fill Disney land for 3 months??

Can’t get that one processed yet

Whoever decided it wouldn’t matter if the land opened with one ride needs to be fired. They assumed fans wouldn’t care. I think they do.

Or two rides...to be honest. This is the mediocrity of Iger and chapek...build for the future

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Its not a college football game. I don’t have a side but actual facts. I just think all facts should be taken into consideration.
So Sirwalterraleigh, can you answer these 2 questions.
Do you think not having the big, much hyped e-ticket not open with the land has any impact or non at all?
Do you think having the reservation system at DL which blocked all GA attendees from getting into the land the entire first month, as well as blocking out AP’s had ANY impact at all?

Did I say “you”?

I’m just saying what happens on these threads for 4 months

 

[DisneyJayL]

Pppsssttt... Ima let you in on some insider info... There's a CAT 4 hurricane barreling towards Florida.

There is?

So there is a Cat 4 and Cat 2?

 

[planodisney]

Okay, but that would mean their reasonable determinations may have been incorrect.

In business you don’t plan things like this for the most likely scenario you plan for the worst case scenario. Unmanageable crowds beyond anyone’s expectations would be what they planned for. I think this met reasonable expectations, not the worst case scenario.
And marketing wise, it was a huge success. Despite what yokels like us are chattering about on here today, the narrative from yesterday’s opening in the mainstream media was, “look at these insane crowds”. “5 hour waits for Star WArs attraction and that’s after 2 hour wait to get into the land”.
Those were the headlines pushed out in the media yesterday.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

It was sooo surreal being on the Falcon.

 

[Clyde Birdbrain]

There is?

So there is a Cat 4 and Cat 2?

What are you saying? Dorian is currently a 2, but it is expected to be a 4 when it gets to Florida.

 

[DisneyJayL]

What are you saying? Dorian is currently a 2, but it is expected to be a 4 when it gets to Florida.

View attachment 403670

I was joking. It's expected to be a 4, but that doesn't mean it is one now.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I think this is it.

 

[Disney Dad 3000]

With a trip planned for mid-October, i'm hopeful the land is still settled at this type of wait or less, especially for the shops/cantina.

I think no matter the excuses, there has to be some type of disappointment with both openings. From a fan perspective, it's great because you aren't spending a whole day of your vacation for one attraction. I can remember the discussion though with what most of thought was going to be jampacked land for weeks/months on end (which could still happen at HS). There are a lot of variables at play here with both parks and their openings that no doubt will have detracted from what their opening days" could have been" in the eyes of management. I imagine there are folks that not only put off to wait for RotR, but also decided to skip this year altogether and figure on their next trip in 2020 they could get not only 2 SW attractions, but Rat and Mickey. Imagine there will be some die-hards that did DL so have no need to see WDW.

This is total conjecture, but I wonder how the openings and reception would have fared if they were reversed and HS opened Memorial Day with the full summer crowd and the freshness, and DL opened yesterday without all of the blackouts.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

EDIT: Also, some have said it failing sends a message to corporate about the overall quality of the land. That to me is not accurate. They pulled this land off to nearly the quality level they set out to (minus droids and street actors). The land may be a failure in some peoples eyes but to Disney, it's exactly what they wanted it to be

I agree. I'm not an Avatar fan, but Disney brought some of their best work to Pandora. Same with GE. The level of detail and quality is something that Disney was missing for the better part of the 00s. The anamatronics lately have been amazing. Everyone in my group did a double take thinking that Hondo was played by a real actor.

Who knows also; the street actors and droids might come up eventually. They've added performances in Pandora since opening.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

This is total conjecture, but I wonder how the openings and reception would have fared if they were reversed and HS opened Memorial Day with the full summer crowd and the freshness, and DL opened yesterday without all of the blackouts.

Probably better. TSL had massive crowds in June.

 

[StarWarsGirl]

I know we all don't like this site for various reasons...but they had the only video of this I can find..!

The droid that's part of the Coca-Cola stand actually moves! We need more of this Disney!! It would be cool if those droids that are fenced off move their heads and such once in a while..

But...but .. it's the Twitter feed of the site that shall not be named.

 

[ColdSarsaparilla]

In business you don’t plan things like this for the most likely scenario you plan for the worst case scenario.

They didn't expand the HS parking lots and entrance plaza as well as try to time Gran Destino and the gondolas with SW:GE for the worst case scenario, IMO.

 

[DisneyDefenders]

Wondering if the fact that there are zero reservations available for the cantina from now through February, is an indication of how successful the land is?

 

[brettf22]

To add my 2 cents to the sea of opinions.

Great land. Just what DHS needed. Lots to explore. Incredible details. The MF:SR ride is a hoot. But for me, there is one problem, as many others have pointed out.

It’s not Star Wars. Or rather, it’s not the Star Wars I know and love. I have no connection to these characters. Even my 14 year old son (who can also recite every movie) has no idea who Hando is. You could replace 90% of it with generic sci-fi characters, and it would not make much difference to me.

One telling anecdote. I saw lot of little girls dressed as Rey. But when the official Disney Rey character walked down the street, not one person (other than I) even turned to look at her. She just walked through the crowd, undisturbed.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll spend a lot of time there on every trip. But to me, it’s not a home run. Maybe a double. Hopefully RotR will stretch that into a triple.

 

[Rickcat96]

Wondering if the fact that there are zero reservations available for the cantina from now through February, is an indication of how successful the land is?

There's only 6 tables in there....

 

[MisterPenguin]

So, let's say that for a 10-hour park day, there was a line all day long just to get into the land. Would that be considered a success? Because, that's what DHS had from 5a to 3p, namely 10 hours of people waiting to get into the land (through a virtual queue -- the boarding parties). It then had seven more hours of being relatively busy. And that's after a week of AP previews... a full week for mostly locals to keep the land busy all day long. And that's after all the very die-hard SW fans went to DL to get it out of their system. I don't know how anyone can say that wasn't a success.

Is WDW panicking because Pandora had longer lines? Well, I remember people saying how, in the opening week, Pandora failed to live up to expectations and WDW wasn't happy... until the numbers came in and showed a significant increase in DAK attendance for the year that didn't cannibalize the other parks.

And finally, who here attended all those pay-for previews at DL or DHS that we were told Disney would be sure to do? If you said Disney was definitely going to do that... maybe you shouldn't be so quick to prognosticate on how the SWLs are going to do. Maybe I should do a forum search for those predictions...

 

[bryanfze55]

I’m giving all your reasons due consideration and I agree with some.

Here’s the one I can’t get a good excuse for: are there not enough rabid Star Wars fans not in Southern California left to bust through the “AP wall” and fill Disney land for 3 months??

Can’t get that one processed yet

Or two rides...to be honest. This is the mediocrity of Iger and chapek...build for the future

Disney was building lands with two or fewer rides long before Iger or Chapek were a thing.

 

[Hawg G]

Here's an Idea, Let's wait till Christmas. If ROTR and Falcon have 10 min waits......then we can panic. I'll be back if something happens on Twitter.

They won't have 10 minute obviously.

But Disney didn't spend a billion dollars to open mediocre rides that will draw moderate lines after a couple months.