Mike S
Well-Known Member
"If you build it, they will come".
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The Spirited Seventh Heaven ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
But but Uni numbers are crap, an expert said so on here.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Alright, hitting on my somewhat delayed thoughts on how Disneyland was last week...
-Radiator Springs continues to be a massive crowd pleaser. Stand basically anywhere you want along the street and just listen for a few moments to the guests. I noticed a lot of Fathers especially are simply blown away. Continues to deserve the praise as what 21st century Disney can do if/when they want to. I still really, really enjoy RSR, I might tip my hat to TDS's Journey if pressed, but RSR is wonderful, more family friendly and kinetically pleasing. Disneyland is all about the outdoor kinetics, viewpoints and photo-ops. Radiator Springs Racers is easily their best offering yet.
-Can't wait to hear more about Monstropolis eventually from @WDW1974. DCA needs to continue its momentum and this continues to be a strange DCA 1.0-esque corner of the park.
-Long lines at Alice all day long (in part because Pan was in a three day refurb). I'll reiterate what has mostly been said before that they really did a great job with this one. Toad will probably benefit the most from these updates to give some more life to its scenes.
-Speaking of Fantasyland, it's really amazing the number of attractions they've crammed into that small parcel of land. Not every land needs an E-ticket to be worthwhile, having 10 or so C tickets certainly helps!
-First time I've been on their version of Big Thunder. Also a really worthwhile refurb (this seems to be a common theme at Disneyland). This ride will continue to be fantastic for more decades to come thanks to the investment.
-Matterhorn on the other hand... ouch. It's time for a retrack of the whole thing. It's too bad they are wasting so much time on the Subs, this should have been the ride to get a a new track, new effects + projection mapping in time for the 60th. Love or hate SDMT, but it's a far better ride in its current form then Matterhorn.
-First time with Mickey's Magical Map as well. It's cleverly designed in the sense that it is very, very easy to remove segments, or just update. Basically a Princess park and bark show (think a stage show version of Philharmagic). It's a little short quite frankly so I wouldn't be all that surprised for them to just add a Frozen segment sometime soon (the crowd basically went wild for whatever new Princess showed up). The Magical Map is cool, but the Animation when Mickey is in the map is just godawful. They really should just make him a cartoon version if they can't get the full sized foam head to look right. Otherwise I thought it was pretty enjoyable all around.
-Really great cast members, apparently they've all really been enjoying the pass holder blackouts and medium level summer crowds. I was wearing a HK Disney shirt and that garnered comments from seemingly every cast member that noticed me. Two completely separate cast members clearly thought Hong Kong was in Japan until I stared at them blankly and corrected them when I figured out the confusion. One asked if the rides are all in Japanese... So-Cal geography education continues to impress.
-First Pixar Play Parade viewing, it was actually really impressive. Soundsational despite being on the way out is great (the soundtrack is pretty similar to Happiness is here, perhaps that bolstered my like of the parade). World of Colour, Fantasmic and Magic can all conceivably be attended in the same evening with park hopping (I did that two years ago), makes for a packed but great night. Once a night parade returns they will continue to have evening offerings locked up between those two parks.
Some Pet Peeves...
-I grow increasingly irritated with parties that can't enter queues all at the same time. Don't know why it bothers me so much, but if you leave members behind perhaps you could go back to them as opposed to having them shove their way forward.
-A lot of people roll into the park with 3 or 4 of those "I'm celebrating X, or Y" pins ready to go on their person. I'm glad it's their birthday, anniversary and first visit all in one, hope they still get their AP dining discounts too.
What's Not so good...
-Club 33 is sloppily executed absolutely. That said what you may have seen circulating recently are targeted, focused photos that pick out the small blights. It doesn't excuse the sloppy (and to my eyes I don't think it's even completed yet) work, but the good news is that you can't see it unless you go looking for it.
-The eternal debate, what is the "best" Disney park worldwide? There are really only two candidates, Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea, but I think as they both currently exist the answer is Disney Sea. That's because in order to be the "best" you shouldn't have something so large that I can point to and say this is the absolutely worst example of "X". That X is Tomorrowland. Disneyland has the worst Tomorrowland of all 5 castle parks, and let's not kid ourselves that any of them are even that good to begin with. Tokyo, Paris, MK, HKDL and DL in my opinion, in that order.
Buzz, Star Tours, Orbitron and the old People Mover track is the worst choke point in the entire park. It's unpleasant to navigate and an eye sore. Even if People Mover could be reused, it shouldn't be. Of course it's in no part helped by the Subs currently being walled off making the land that much more unsightly. Innoventions is like the microcosm of bad Epcot. Their version of Buzz is terribly mediocre. I'll give the bonus that Autotopia is at least pleasant and has an interesting layout (unlike Tokyo especially), but I too cheer for it to go. In fact I'm a big proponent if they decide to rip everything out but (maybe) the Subs, Space mountain and Star Tours at this point.
No Disneylander in their right mind could convince me a Star Wars Invasion and Space Port overlay is conceivably worse than what they have. The ship sailed on Tomorrowland a long time ago and it's a broken model. If what we sort of know comes to fruition I will absolutely agree Disneyland is the number one theme park worldwide. For now it's relegated to runner up (which by all means is a pretty great place to be). TDL, TDS, DL and DCA are probably Disney's four best parks period in my mind, you can't go wrong when choosing either resort over WDW.
-Radiator Springs continues to be a massive crowd pleaser. Stand basically anywhere you want along the street and just listen for a few moments to the guests. I noticed a lot of Fathers especially are simply blown away. Continues to deserve the praise as what 21st century Disney can do if/when they want to. I still really, really enjoy RSR, I might tip my hat to TDS's Journey if pressed, but RSR is wonderful, more family friendly and kinetically pleasing. Disneyland is all about the outdoor kinetics, viewpoints and photo-ops. Radiator Springs Racers is easily their best offering yet.
-Can't wait to hear more about Monstropolis eventually from @WDW1974. DCA needs to continue its momentum and this continues to be a strange DCA 1.0-esque corner of the park.
-Long lines at Alice all day long (in part because Pan was in a three day refurb). I'll reiterate what has mostly been said before that they really did a great job with this one. Toad will probably benefit the most from these updates to give some more life to its scenes.
-Speaking of Fantasyland, it's really amazing the number of attractions they've crammed into that small parcel of land. Not every land needs an E-ticket to be worthwhile, having 10 or so C tickets certainly helps!
-First time I've been on their version of Big Thunder. Also a really worthwhile refurb (this seems to be a common theme at Disneyland). This ride will continue to be fantastic for more decades to come thanks to the investment.
-Matterhorn on the other hand... ouch. It's time for a retrack of the whole thing. It's too bad they are wasting so much time on the Subs, this should have been the ride to get a a new track, new effects + projection mapping in time for the 60th. Love or hate SDMT, but it's a far better ride in its current form then Matterhorn.
-First time with Mickey's Magical Map as well. It's cleverly designed in the sense that it is very, very easy to remove segments, or just update. Basically a Princess park and bark show (think a stage show version of Philharmagic). It's a little short quite frankly so I wouldn't be all that surprised for them to just add a Frozen segment sometime soon (the crowd basically went wild for whatever new Princess showed up). The Magical Map is cool, but the Animation when Mickey is in the map is just godawful. They really should just make him a cartoon version if they can't get the full sized foam head to look right. Otherwise I thought it was pretty enjoyable all around.
-Really great cast members, apparently they've all really been enjoying the pass holder blackouts and medium level summer crowds. I was wearing a HK Disney shirt and that garnered comments from seemingly every cast member that noticed me. Two completely separate cast members clearly thought Hong Kong was in Japan until I stared at them blankly and corrected them when I figured out the confusion. One asked if the rides are all in Japanese... So-Cal geography education continues to impress.
-First Pixar Play Parade viewing, it was actually really impressive. Soundsational despite being on the way out is great (the soundtrack is pretty similar to Happiness is here, perhaps that bolstered my like of the parade). World of Colour, Fantasmic and Magic can all conceivably be attended in the same evening with park hopping (I did that two years ago), makes for a packed but great night. Once a night parade returns they will continue to have evening offerings locked up between those two parks.
Some Pet Peeves...
-I grow increasingly irritated with parties that can't enter queues all at the same time. Don't know why it bothers me so much, but if you leave members behind perhaps you could go back to them as opposed to having them shove their way forward.
-A lot of people roll into the park with 3 or 4 of those "I'm celebrating X, or Y" pins ready to go on their person. I'm glad it's their birthday, anniversary and first visit all in one, hope they still get their AP dining discounts too.
What's Not so good...
-Club 33 is sloppily executed absolutely. That said what you may have seen circulating recently are targeted, focused photos that pick out the small blights. It doesn't excuse the sloppy (and to my eyes I don't think it's even completed yet) work, but the good news is that you can't see it unless you go looking for it.
-The eternal debate, what is the "best" Disney park worldwide? There are really only two candidates, Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea, but I think as they both currently exist the answer is Disney Sea. That's because in order to be the "best" you shouldn't have something so large that I can point to and say this is the absolutely worst example of "X". That X is Tomorrowland. Disneyland has the worst Tomorrowland of all 5 castle parks, and let's not kid ourselves that any of them are even that good to begin with. Tokyo, Paris, MK, HKDL and DL in my opinion, in that order.
Buzz, Star Tours, Orbitron and the old People Mover track is the worst choke point in the entire park. It's unpleasant to navigate and an eye sore. Even if People Mover could be reused, it shouldn't be. Of course it's in no part helped by the Subs currently being walled off making the land that much more unsightly. Innoventions is like the microcosm of bad Epcot. Their version of Buzz is terribly mediocre. I'll give the bonus that Autotopia is at least pleasant and has an interesting layout (unlike Tokyo especially), but I too cheer for it to go. In fact I'm a big proponent if they decide to rip everything out but (maybe) the Subs, Space mountain and Star Tours at this point.
No Disneylander in their right mind could convince me a Star Wars Invasion and Space Port overlay is conceivably worse than what they have. The ship sailed on Tomorrowland a long time ago and it's a broken model. If what we sort of know comes to fruition I will absolutely agree Disneyland is the number one theme park worldwide. For now it's relegated to runner up (which by all means is a pretty great place to be). TDL, TDS, DL and DCA are probably Disney's four best parks period in my mind, you can't go wrong when choosing either resort over WDW.
tahqa
Well-Known Member
So what? That's a silly number to report. Average daily attendance at Islands of Adventure last year was in the 22k a day range or less than the number of people that board the Haunted Mansion every day. Theoretical maximum daily riders on Hogwarts Express is somewhere in the 32k - 33k range (given a 13 hour operating day) and the same is around 41k for Haunted Mansion. So should we be saying that on many days more people board the Haunted Mansion than enter Islands of Adventure?
DisneyFan 2000
Well-Known Member
Who came up with THAT? Mind. Blown. Disney should start taking notes from the guy that came up with this.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Time to withdraw the BS flag from the yeti thread…
I need something more tangible than an unsourced throwaway line. I want to see some sort of evidence before I believe that.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Good point. Also, I would imagine that most people ride the Hogwarts Express (at least) twice since it is a different ride each direction -- that intrinsically would make the daily ridership numbers larger than a ride with only one experience.
When's the last time you were at Universal?
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Media preview.
My point being that I want to see some sort of evidence or hard numbers to back up that assertion.
Well, neither entity will report definitive numbers. Sometimes a personal approach can give one the best feels of the parks....
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
I'm saying an assertion that outrageous needs to be backed up.
TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
That sort of misses the point.
The point isn't that MK is busier than UNI parks; that's a given.
It's that a Universal attraction (which some people derided as a cash grab) is allegedly outdrawing one of the slacking Disney parks.
I'm sure between a personal visit and some contacts you could find out what you're looking for....
tahqa
Well-Known Member
No, it's still a silly number. Let's take the 'slacking' Disney park and look at one of it's most popular attractions... Kilimanjaro Safari. It's capacity is 27000 for a 10 hour day. Last year attendance at IoA was in the 22k range. So should we say that one ride at DAK had more people ride than the average day at IoA? No, because it's a silly number.
Forbidden Journey certainly has days where it has more riders than people entering DAK, but so what. The author is playing with numbers to make a point but that doesn't make those numbers meaningful in any real sense.
Disneybear
Active Member
You're quite right, the ideas that have been proposed for a Frozen overlay in Norway do indeed suggest that no brain was used in this proposal.
Being popular and allegedly outdrawing one of the slacking Disney parks all by it's lonesome doesn't mean it's not a cash grab. It just means it's a successful cash grab. Kudos to UNI!
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TalkingHead
Well-Known Member
Considering the questions that fanbois have asked about the success of the HE and its wait times, I think the number (if it's accurate) is very telling.
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
Im sure a resident expert will be along with incontestable actual facts, sorry opinion, sometime soon.
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
And I bet the count park hopping as multiple entries too.