You sure?
Wait times were extremely low at Walt Disney World this Fourth of July. Data shows they were the lowest in a decade!
blogmickey.com
Apparently not, as I didn't track last year's crowds. In past years, the parks were packed around July 4th. They also still block out half of that week for two of the lower AP tiers. So I wonder if they expect this year to be different. Crowds seem heavier this year so far than last year.
If you're categorizing the Beaver as a "simplistic prop" since it only has 2 or maybe 3 functions, then the figures in Splash Mountain need to be looked at again. With your simplistic prop definition, every single Bre'r Bear animatronic would be a prop since he had very few functions and then every single bullfrog would be in the same position as well. I don't know, even if there are only 20 legit audio-animatronics, every single figure that was shown in the Imagineering video is leaps and bounds ahead of most figures in Splash. Even the sheer size of the animatronics are massive compared to what was there before. I think the scenes will fill out nicely with all the different characters.
I've done my research regarding Splash. I know what i'm talking about here. Even several of the simple Brer Bear figures have more motion than that Beaver has, and I don't even count Brer Bear as an animatronic either. As it stands though, the idea that Splash Mountain only had a dozen or so genuine AA's is completely false. Every single figure in the finale alone was a genuine and complex AA. WDW had about 17ish figures in that scene alone, while Disneyland had 26 (plus one single static Mr Bluebird, but i'm not including him as part of the 26).
WDW's Splash Mtn in total had approximately 55 genuine animatronic figures. That isn't including props such as spinning beehives, several of the Brer Bear figures, the hanging possums, turtle fountains, gophers popping out etc. I'm classifying animatronics here as having at bare minimum Tiki Bird complexity. In Splash Mtn's case, Mr Bluebird and the small squatting bullfrogs are the ride's least advanced genuine animatronics. And no, that Beaver is not remotely as complex as any of those frogs or Mr Bluebird. Those can swivel, bob up and down, tilt their heads back and forth, blink and move their eyeballs, move their mouths etc. All in sync with music/voice audio. Even without the audio sync, those would still be quite complex. Disneyland had 25 or so more AA's than WDW due to receiving additional hand-me-downs from America Sings that WDW didn't get copies of (a small handful of these missing characters would later reappear in Tokyo's version of Splash). Bringing its count up to the mid 70s. Again, same standards of movement applies here, I am not counting anything static or barely moving. They have to contain more than just a couple of axes of complex programmed motion.
A lot of these figures were also not of mere Tiki Bird complexity. There were a lot of large figures with a wide range of motion. Like the Swamp Boys. Almost all of the other animals of their size or above were similarly complex. And even a handful of the smaller critters such as the larger Brer Frog, Porcupine and Raccoon had a good amount of motion.
I've been quite up-front about my expectations for Tiana. 20 or so A1000's isn't going to be acceptable to me if the majority of the other critters only repetitively wobble or spin on one or two axes. Simple props like those have their place, but there has to be an acceptable amount of more advanced ones too. I don't mean all A1000's either. Just filling out the scenes with Splash-quality figures would be welcome, they still look good to this day when maintained.
Are you counting Audio animatronics (AAs) or just animatronics as you're using both terms interchangeably and there is a different between them? AAs are programmed to audio whereas animatronics are just moving figures.
Also it's become apparent that the "17 animatronics" thing was actually 17 new critter characters that will be audio animatronics. With at least the number of different Tianas we've seen from the Imagineering video, Tiana's Bayou Adventure is getting way more than 20 animatronics. The ones we've had confirmed so far are: 17 critters (at least 2 of the beaver character confirmed) + at least 3 Tianas (probably more)+ Louis (probably more), Charlotte, Eudora, Ralphie, Naveen
I know the distinction of the "audio" part. My posts are referring to range and complexity of motion however, there doesn't necessarily need to be any accompanying music or vocals for them to still contain complex programmed movement. If you see me use the term "AA", I use it more as an abbreviation to describe a complex programmed figure. In actuality, Disney developed the term not so much because the figures necessarily were synced to audio, more because the programmed motion was stored on old audio tape reels. Of course, modern AA's aren't programmed with these old school tape reels anymore, but the term has stuck.
Unfortunately, Disney often throws around the term AA loosely. Even when something has very simple repetitive single-axis movement or even static props. Like again, how they've claimed Splash had "over 100 audio animatronics", which is complete BS as they're counting things such as spinning beehives there. Splash most definitely had a lot of genuine complex animatronics, many of them synced to audio (like I said, 55-75 depending on the version). But it does go to show how dishonest Disney can be with the term. They've so far promised "dozens of audio animatronics" for Tiana. And i'm beginning to suspect that that they're stretching the truth by including simple or even static props like those seen in Little Mermaid. Or the many dozens of static Stormtrooper mannequins in Rise.
I hope there's a lot more than 17 reasonably complex figures in Tiana. Again, not everything needs to be an A1000 (I don't even really want that TBH), but ideall there would be a lot of midrange animatronics as well ala Splash.
