lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
Theme parks are a designed experience. Just dropping in warehouses should not be “great” because of under investment intended to push crowding.
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News Tron coaster coming to the Magic Kingdom
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
mlayton144
Well-Known Member
Do you even goto Disney ? What other USA theme parks do you attend and how do you think they compare ?
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
If you're suggesting it has an effect on operations in other ways, then sure, I have no trouble believing that (shifting guests to a different park, changing park hopping patterns, etc.). But when people suggest that opening a new ride means there will suddenly be 20,000 more people in the park every day, that's just not true.
It may have been true at some point in the past, but Disney attendance is high throughout the year now -- and there haven't been any openings in the past decade that moved the attendance needle enough to outweigh the capacity addition.
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Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
Especially in the current VQ era. Sure back in the day people would rush to the park and get in line and clog up everything. But now, it's basically business as usual with 10-15k people scheduled to ride throughout the day.
And FWIW, attendance right now is actually pretty low comparatively. Guardians just opened and crowds are actually pretty pleasant at EPCOT (despite Guardians being utilized to 100% capacity everyday).
Cmdr_Crimson
Well-Known Member
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I think this is partially due to what I've pointed out elsewhere-- Guardians just doesn't attract as many potential riders as other attractions due to its nature (this will also be true for TRON). WDW draws more guests that aren't interested in coasters than other parks, so there's a smaller percentage of guests who care about Guardians than even about a nominally lesser ride like Ratatouille.
There doesn't seem to be any excess of guests who are going to EPCOT specifically to ride Guardians but can't get on -- everyone who really wants to ride doesn't have any trouble getting on.
peter11435
Well-Known Member
I don’t know anywhere where people have suggested numbers as high as 20k (Or even the 15k you had before editing). The most recent addition that truly moved the needle was Pandora which saw DAK entertaining roughly 8k+ additional guests per day. And while you are correct that the attractions of Pandora can more than accommodate those 8k guests it doesn’t exactly work that way. The rest of the parks attractions and infrastructure needs to be able to support those guests as well. And Pandora (and the resort of the park) is not only servicing that additional 8k but also the existing attendance base pre Pandora. Just because guests now have the ability to ride flight of passage doesn’t mean they suddenly don’t want to ride Kilimanjaro Safaris.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
That's a good thing, though, not a bad thing. That still leads to a better overall experience for the average guest. Even if it doesn't lower wait times at other attractions, there are still more things to do in the park.
It would only be a bad thing if the park's infrastructure couldn't handle the attendance increase, or if it actually lead to such a significant increase that it caused large wait time increases throughout the park. That certainly wasn't the case for Animal Kingdom -- especially considering Pandora also added infrastructure -- and it's definitely not the case for EPCOT either.
It could potentially be the case for Magic Kingdom, since they still have dining locations closed most of the time, but that's also why I and others have repeatedly pointed out that the parks need additional dining/shopping capacity as well. It's not solely about attractions.
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I'm new to these parts so sorry for saying something that I imagine has been covered a million times. While I am pumped to ride Tron and Guardians a little bit of me does cringe at the huge boxes that are visible from so many sightlines. Seems to be a 'thing' now. Ratatouille while the least noticebale is the most jarring given it is in a park where in the past Disney went to the time and expense to build the back of a ride in a different theme park a certain way so that even from far away it wouldn't look out of place when seen from just a few places in Epcot.
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
They're referring to recent additions like TRON, Cosmic Rewind, and Ratatouille (and even Galaxy's Edge and Pandora), all of which feature large, unthemed warehouses in full view from guest-accessible locations.
mlayton144
Well-Known Member
I get it , they cut corners on hiding more unsightly areas , most of which are from the outside of the park. I am resigned to this. Does this same poster complain about this approach with universal , etc? When you go there , much of what you see is twisted metals coaster tracks and warehouses - Disney is still be far the best.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
This is what has for many years been a key differentiator for them. That they have cared so little on so many recent projects is worrisome, and that they are still better simply by virtue of what already existed is not exactly encouraging. I really, really hope that at some point they take a step back and better mask some of these structures. It's not reached the point of being unfixable, but they're seriously unsightly.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Actually.... universal is moving in the opposite direction as Disney. The newer additions are excellently themed with older additions (rip ride rockit being the worst offender in my book) being the eye-sores.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Eh, they've gotten better, but they still do things like VelociCoaster that just look hideous to me.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Some people will tell you that Velocicoaster is well themed and fits in perfectly. Even if you accept the theme argument (and I really don't, but that's a separate discussion) it's still an eyesore that detracts from the surrounding area for me.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
Hopefully Disney just generally cools it with coasters at this point since they seem to have become especially awful at hiding the associated boxes. Every non-Magic Kingdom park now has one or two (Cosmic Rewind, Slinky Dog, Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, Expedition Everest), and Magic Kingdom has several tiers for folks of varied levels of adventurousness, from Barnstormer to Seven Dwarves to Big Thunder to Space Mountain to TRON.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I'm hoping they look at Guardians vs. Rise of the Resistance and even Ratatouille and realize that while the occasional coaster is okay, other kinds of attractions are more valuable to their business.
DAK and Epcot each only have one coaster while MK will have 5. If WDW ever wants to balance out intrapark attendance, the other three non-MK parks need more. (It was dumb to add anything to MK, IMO, until the others were beefed up in the ride count.)
Family coasters are always popular. And when you put them in a box, you can increase the theming in the ride and keep the ride running in rain and thunderstorms.
WDW just needs to get better at hiding the box. Or theming it so it 'fits.'
Family coasters are always popular. And when you put them in a box, you can increase the theming in the ride and keep the ride running in rain and thunderstorms.
WDW just needs to get better at hiding the box. Or theming it so it 'fits.'
yensidtlaw1969
Well-Known Member
It seems weird to try to call someone out for their posting history if you're not familiar with it - and maybe you should ask that poster instead of me.
But truthfully, the Universal point is pretty irrelevant, because the standards by which Disney themes and/or conceals their showbuildings have been dropping in the last 20 years, with the last 5 years being precipitous. We're not talking about how their average fares relative to the competition, we're talking about how it fares relative to the standards they set for themselves and the expectations they've set for their guests. They can still be doing better work than everybody else (which is debatable) and still be doing worse work on that front than they ever have in their 67 year history.
It also is a mischaracterization to say that these exposed showbuildings are the result of cut corners - all of the attractions I listed are among the most expensive projects in the history of Walt Disney World. So ultimately it comes down to poor decision making about the use of significant funds.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
I don't think anything will ever balance attendance. The majority of people will always want Magic Kingdom no matter what as part of their vacation, and I don't really think rollercoasters specifically do much to solve that. Flight of Passage is probably the most significant crowd-mover in recent memory and is Soarin' with a cool ride vehicle.