True. By the time EU debuts, it will have taken only twice as long to build as WDW took to retheme/build New Fantasyland at the Magic Kingdom -- for a whole new park with 5 lands and 3 hotels, from scratch, and all the associated infrastructure!
What I wish Disney would take inspiration from isn't just the timeline, though. When I look at the attractions Universal is putting into Epic Universe, one things jumps out at me. I feel as if the designers sat down, thoughtfully looked at each IP (or theme) individually, and asked themselves, "What adventure or journey or event from this movie (or theme) do I most wish I could experience for myself?" The answers then dictated the appealing attractions they designed: I want to fly on a dragon! I want to pound down some ale and then go for a sail in a Viking longboat! I want to explore a spooky castle! I want to feel what it's like to be inside my favorite Nintendo games! I want to experience the Battle at the Ministry of Magic! I want to ride a comet through space!
You'd think that this kind of planning discussion would be a no-brainer, but I feel like Disney World has stopped engaging in it when they plan attractions. That, or there are some unqualified weirdos in their board rooms, shouting out things like, "I want to find ingredients for the foods manufactured using sustainable methods by co-ops who engage in fair labor practices!," "I want to learn about the water cycle, by observing how it leaks from broken pipes and floods walkways!," or "I want to participate in an exciting race through space or a computer or the matrix or something, except that I won't actually be racing against anything, and the experience shouldn't last more than 60 seconds or be accessible to the majority of park guests in a given day!"
I'm sure Epic Universe won't be perfect, and will have its positives and negatives like anything else (e.g., I'm already worried that the "portals," while really cool-looking, will be huge choke points), but I can't help but feel like its planners are much more in touch with what guests might actually want to see than WDW is at present. Ideally, they'll also have designed these attractions with sufficient capacity to handle the number of guests who will want to experience them during times of typical attendance (meaning, after the initial surge the first year or so, when everyone wants to try the new things), but time will tell.
