Star Wars themed land announced for Disneyland

[GiveMeTheMusic]

According to whom?

Common sense? What's the point in having a second gate if it doesn't pull its own weight and even out demand? Disney tacitly admitted it was a problem by dumping over a billion into redoing/expanding DCA so that it would have some of its own appeal and not just be backfill for when DL was too crowded.

Now we've come to a place where DL and MK have become almost untenably crowded year-round, while the other four domestic theme parks limp along with a fraction of their attendance. Which is better for the company:

DL annual attendance: 16 million
DCA annual attendance: 8 million

or

DL annual attendance: 14 million
DCA annual attendance: 12 million

The latter adds an extra 2 million per year (more money!) while managing demand far better than the first scenario. Adding Star Wars Land to DL isn't going to help, it's going to make things worse. DCA needs serious pull to make any headway against DL next door.

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

Except Epcot Center...Epcot Center was the pinnacle of theme park experiences.

Was is the key word in that sentence, unfortunately.

 

[FigmentForver96]

Was is the key word in that sentence, unfortunately.

I agree, Epcot is now only a shell of its former self. My point was that it was probably the ONLY second gate next to DisneySea to produce the crowds and awe that a Disney park should.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

What's the point in having a second gate if it doesn't pull its own weight and even out demand?

Of course, but the fact remains that Disney said prior to the opening of DCA that its annual attendance for the first year was 7 million. I'm going to assume that number wasn't just pulled out of thin air and that it represented what the park needed to draw in order to be sustainable. I'm also going to assume that for the time being Disney is satisfied with DCAs performance and doesn't intend for it to ever draw TDS type crowds.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Many snack carts only offer one item, so a massive line is only a few minute wait since nobody is deciding what to get at the end of the line.

What about:

"Are you an Annual Passholder?"
"You know it!"
*hands over pass*
"Can I see your ID, please?"
*hands over ID*
"Alright, your new total is..."
*transaction continues for like ever*

 

[Travel Junkie]

Of course, but the fact remains that Disney said prior to the opening of DCA that its annual attendance for the first year was 7 million. I'm going to assume that number wasn't just pulled out of thin air and that it represented what the park needed to draw in order to be sustainable. I'm also going to assume that for the time being Disney is satisfied with DCAs performance and doesn't intend for it to ever draw TDS type crowds.

Key word is its FIRST year. They didn't reach that number until its 11th year and only after they spent more money to fix the park than it took to open it.

They wanted 7 million in the first year and expected steady growth. Had DCA hit 7 million the first year, you could conceivably see the park fairly close to TDS. If you notice the width of the pathways of DCA they are similar to TDS. Disney expected huge crowds at DCA that have not materialized. It was intended to draw numbers similar to TDS.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

They wanted 7 million in the first year and expected steady growth.

Absolutely, but what did "steady growth" mean for DCA back then or even now? My impression is that the park's current trajectory is meeting Disney's expectations.

Had DCA hit 7 million the first year, you could conceivably see the park fairly close to TDS.

Sorry, I don't see that at all.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What about:

"Are you an Annual Passholder?"
"You know it!"
*hands over pass*
"Can I see your ID, please?"
*hands over ID*
"Alright, your new total is..."
*transaction continues for like ever*

Very few pass holders at Tokyo Disney Resort and Disney's obsession with proof is annoying.

Absolutely, but what did "steady growth" mean for DCA back then or even now? My impression is that the park's current trajectory is meeting Disney's expectations.

Sorry, I don't see that at all.

Did you never see any of the hype machine? Stuff like Kalogridis saying people will have to settle for Disneyland because Disney's California Adventure is full? The park was supposed to do more than just have attendance numbers, it's big goal was to turn Disneyland into a multi day resort and justify even more Disney-owned hotel rooms.

 

[Travel Junkie]

Absolutely, but what did "steady growth" mean for DCA back then or even now? My impression is that the park's current trajectory is meeting Disney's expectations.



Sorry, I don't see that at all.

You definitely missed the DCA hype machine pre opening. They were already planning a third gate before DCA opened. DLR was expected to be a WDW style resort by now.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I think it's safe to say Disneyland fans will never love DCA as much as Disneyland, and will never connect to it the same way they connect to DL. I know people who still wish the old parking lot was still there instead of DCA. Look at DCA 2.0. It did wonderful things for DCA, and attendance did go up, but it's still significantly lagging behind DL.

If they want crowds to be half and half between the two parks, Disney will probably have to build another full land in DCA, AND fix up some of the original lands...basically DCA 3.0. Until then, Disneyland will continue to see a majority of the crowds. Putting Star Wars Land (gosh, I hate that they're calling it that) in Disneyland will only worsen this problem, as GiveMeTheMusic already stated. People are complaining of crowds now...just wait until this opens.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

You definitely missed the DCA hype machine pre opening. They were already planning a third gate before DCA opened. DLR was expected to be a WDW style resort by now.

No, I was around, and I was one of the only people saying that there wouldn't be a third Disney theme park in Anaheim.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

Did you never see any of the hype machine? Stuff like Kalogridis saying people will have to settle for Disneyland because Disney's California Adventure is full?

Was it unreasonable for management to expect sellout crowds when the place opened? Look, I'm not trying to defend DCA's mediocre performance, I'm only pointing out that the argument that DCA was meant to attract the kinds of crowds that EPCOT or TDS does is unrealistic and doesn't jive with attendance goals in published statements from Disney prior to the park's opening.

 

[Travel Junkie]

No, I was around, and I was one of the only people saying that there wouldn't be a third Disney theme park in Anaheim.

The point is Disney expected DCA to be so successful a third gate would be needed in a very short time. Comparing the quality at DCA and TDS it is easy to assume that TDS would have much bigger crowds, but at the time Disney expected the 2 parks to be much closer in attendance. DCA was supposed to bring massive amounts of tourists in. Even in it's current form DCA hasn't done what it was designed to do initially. Attendance is more in line with 2001 projections but it is mostly locals when it was supposed to be high spending tourists.

 

[Phroobar]

I find it interesting that Disney caps Disneyland park attendance at a very high number. I remember back before Indiana Jones opened, attendance was capped at 50k IMSR. Now they close the gates at 85k. Why do they, that beyond corporate greed, let so many additional people in a place that can not handle that many bodies? The quality of the show suffers. I guess that means more people in the stores making shoplifting even easier.

When SWL does open they will be able to stack more bodies in. Does that mean peek capacity will be 100K? Disneyland does need the capacity increase but the cap needs to stay the same or even lower. They need to create rides and queues that can handle large numbers of people. America Sings used to handle 3500 people per hour. Now the meet and greets of Launch Bay and Marvel HQ can do about 900 per hour. I'm hoping the rides put in SWL will be people eaters like POTC and HM and there will be no Fastpass. I doubt it will happen. Disneyland has lost a lot of capacity since 1977 but increased attendance caps.

A good article over at Miceage about it. http://micechat.com/98999-disneyland-capacity-sponge/

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

I find it interesting that Disney caps Disneyland park attendance at a very high number. I remember back before Indiana Jones opened, attendance was capped at 50k IMSR. Now they close the gates at 85k. Why do they, that beyond corporate greed, let so many additional people in a place that can not handle that many bodies? The quality of the show suffers. I guess that means more people in the stores making shoplifting even easier.

When SWL does open they will be able to stack more bodies in. Does that mean peek capacity will be 100K? Disneyland does need the capacity increase but the cap needs to stay the same or even lower. They need to create rides and queues that can handle large numbers of people. America Sings used to handle 3500 people per hour. Now the meet and greets of Launch Bay and Marvel HQ can do about 900 per hour. I'm hoping the rides put in SWL will be people eaters like POTC and HM and there will be no Fastpass. I doubt it will happen. Disneyland has lost a lot of capacity since 1977 but increased attendance caps.

A good article over at Miceage about it. http://micechat.com/98999-disneyland-capacity-sponge/

I'm not sure where you heard that the gates close at 85K. DL starts phase closing somewhere in the 50K range, with full gate closure well before 85K. The park simply can't handle anything more than that at present. I would imagine once Star Wars is online the park will see a lot more capacity closures.

 

[JediMasterMatt]

In short... Castle park is always going to Castle park. Haters can hate against it all they want; but, to the vast majority of people - a Disney Parks experience isn't the same without stepping foot into the park with a castle at the heart of it.

Even in Tokyo, the opulence of Disney Sea can only dent at the pull of their castle park. That is even resorting to multiday tickets being forced to stay out of the castle park.

DLR is far healthier now that DCA can hold a guest captive for a day (or at least most of it). The real difficulty at DLR is that even if you are having a great day at DCA, you can simply take the two minute walk across the Esplanade to enjoy your favorite attractions. The two different park mindset at DLR isn't the same as WDW or even TDL due to the lack of time investment to park hop.

When DLR gets a 3rd gate, it will come with a bit more of a time penalty to make that leap and then the success of that gate will be based on keeping a captive audience for the entire day.

Until we get to that point, it will be up to the Frozen musical and Marvel to keep the Force as balanced as possible between DCA and DL.

That is unless Disneyland wants to try the crowd steering limit park hopping multiday ticket approach of TDL... and if they did that, they would need to do something about cutting down on annual passes. *Not going to happen unless they really want to price people out.

 

[Phroobar]

I'm not sure where you heard that the gates close at 85K. DL starts phase closing somewhere in the 50K range, with full gate closure well before 85K. The park simply can't handle anything more than that at present. I would imagine once Star Wars is online the park will see a lot more capacity closures.

I did a Hey Google: "what is capacity at disneyland?" I get this:

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...h=1&ie=UTF-8#q=what+is+capacity+at+disneyland

Family, according to Doug's Disneyland page, the Disney Corporation does not post daily attendance figures, and the maximum capacity is about 85,000 people, in addition to 10,000 cast members when running at 100% functioning attractions. It boggles the mind... nearly 100,000 people within 60 acres!Mar 3, 2006

 

[GiveMeTheMusic]

I did a Hey Google: "what is capacity at disneyland?" I get this:

https://www.google.com/webhp?source...h=1&ie=UTF-8#q=what+is+capacity+at+disneyland

Family, according to Doug's Disneyland page, the Disney Corporation does not post daily attendance figures, and the maximum capacity is about 85,000 people, in addition to 10,000 cast members when running at 100% functioning attractions. It boggles the mind... nearly 100,000 people within 60 acres!Mar 3, 2006

That might be a theoretical number, but they won't approach that number IRL anymore. The gates close well before 85K is reached.

 

[Phroobar]

I wonder if this is true from that Samland article:

A theme park is a sponge that sucks up people. It is a finite space that has an infinite capacity as long as there is someplace to put all the guests. If Disneyland were an empty lot you could theoretically put more than a 1.1 million people inside of the 85 or so acres. That gives each person 4 square feet, the rule that Disney uses.

 

[Californian Elitist]

The cap at DL is not 85K, it's 80K.