Originally posted by se8472
The thing is CoP is not THAT popular
From what I have witnessed and seen, it's doing remarkably well attendance-wise. What draws most visitors to think it's empty is the lack of people outside the pavilion. Keep in mind that the theatre loads and unloads every five minutes. So because there's no one standing out at one period means that the show just loaded. . . and it will take five minutes to gather another crowd up. And once someone goes up there, and others KNOW that people are going in, the line fills up, and the entire group is emptied in within a few minutes.
Also, there are six theaters in the attraction. This means that, while one theater may be half full at one point of the day, that is just the audience per five minutes. Take each group in all six theaters by five minutes, and that's your better estimate. During peak times in the day (after the attractions with heavy lines are filled up), CoP gets the bulk of its crowds.
Now, to keep people consistently entering the theater would be such a challenge. The system is flawed in that people (1) aren't attracted to the pavilion because it's in the corner of Tomorrowland and (2) because the constant entry/exit rate doesn't pick crowds up until "initiators" upon a newly loaded ride with an empty queue attract other guests to see that, "Okay, this IS an attraction." Compare this to Country Bear Jamboree, which has a clearly VISIBLE guests based on a *20 minute* wait, versus a 5-minute load wait.
Outside of that, CoP is still doing great, according to guest tallies. Remember that CoP was put seasonal after 9-11, when the entire PARK was empty.
Disney did the right thing in opening it up. Their next job is to refurbish the attraction, and add the "wow" factor of better animatronics.
Thus, if Disney is willing to invest in "The only attraction Walt told his Imagineers to keep," their strength in preservation of classic nostalgia and heritage will see through.
Otherwise, if Disney decides to keep CoP seasonal and breaking down, their management better be replaced before they go to the point of putting "Traditions" down to a few hours or putting rap music in Adventureland or putting "I'm Hott" bumper stickers in Tomorrowland shops, or having bad maintence so Big Thunder crashes, or. . .
Oh wait. All of this already happened.
I really want to see it at least one more time, any chance that it will remain permanently open once Stitch opens, due to popular demand?
for WDI to give the ride not just a tiny facelift, but a MAJOR facelift. The theaters need to be better kept, new animatronics, hopefully resembling what the physical features of the originals looked like, and maybe bringing back the full band and orchestra soundtrack. I guess I would call this the "glorifying" process.
