But, Disney has consistently used phrases like "for all ages" in their promotion of Enchanted Tales, and this is clearly not something that has that kind of appeal. They also liked to say that we would be exploring Beast's castle, but guests actually see very little of it (and their representation of the castle leaves much to be desired). It is evident that they have tried to repackage the experience as something more cross-demographic simply by putting it in a show building. Perhaps those phrases have just been carelessly used by marketing and social media, but, nevertheless, words do have meaning. Even so, my expectations aren't really the issue. I wasn't expecting much (but I admit that I hoped they would do a little more than just copy the old show). I just brought all that up as a critique of how Disney set up people outside the target audience up for disappointment.
What does matter is this: I trust Lee's word on these matters, and I'm shocked to see that the general sentiment is that they overspent. It's evident from the shoddy theming in the castle that all of the money went to the animatronics (which I concede are nice as standalone pieces), the queue, and the magic mirror, which means that WDI clearly did not prioritize making an environment befitting these effects. They overdid it in some areas and came up short in others, but even had the quality was been more even, it still would be taking up a disproportionate amount of park space. The number of people on these boards ready to shower praises over this shoddy piece of workmanship substantiates the his point that the target audience would have been satisfied with something less expensive and that required less real estate. The target demographic is not underserved at MK, and the new attraction investment since Everest has skewed heavily toward this audience, which Disney already has a lock on and makes the investment in this attraction seem superfluous.
