Will DCA be a Complete, Well Rounded and Full Day Park after the New Rides Open?

Will DCA be a Complete, Well Rounded and Full Day Park after the New Rides Open?

  • Yes

  • No, it will still need another major family attraction/ dark ride or two

  • No, it still needs at least another coaster

  • No, it needs a couple more attractions with heart like the stuff over in Fantasyland

  • No, it needs 1-2 more quality well themed lands on the Simba Lot

  • No, it needs a Transpo ride like the Train, Twain or Main Street Vehicles (RIP Red Car Trolley)

  • Two or more of the above (please explain)

  • Nothing they feasibly do can make it a full day park in my eyes

  • It already is a Complete, Well Rounded and Full Day park

  • Other (please explain)


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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I'd fully expect Avatar to have a thrill aspect and height requirement. Coco probably not.

Coco is aimed at family audiences. Avatar is aimed at tween and up. They're not going to make the only Avatar attraction here Nav'i River Ride 2.0.

Shangai POTC does not have a height requirement. Does any Disney boat ride in the world have a height requirement?
 

CaptinEO

Well-Known Member
Yeah the focus shifting away from fun/ whimsy/ to tech and hyper immersive single IP lands definitely has something to do with it.

Coco and Avatar will be two family dark rides/ boat rides with no heigh requirements that the park desperately needs. High capacity dark ride that’s not an E ticket? That seems kind of niche. What ride at Disneyland would you say fits this description? Do the Fantasyland dark rides have great capacity?
So I should have also mentioned and factored in square footage as that is really the trend now taking up massive plots of land for low capacity attractions.

For example Snow White has a capacity of 1100 per hour with a 6200 sq ft building. Rise of the Resistance has a 1500 per hour capacity with a 165,000 sq ft building.

In that space you can fit 26 Snow White's and a theoretical capacity of 28,600 people per hour vs RotR's 1500. Now don't get me wrong, of course you want different types of rides in a park. But at the end of the day Disney seems only intent on massive rides that are not people eaters.

Probably can attribute this to WDI needing to show off as well as incentivizing long queues with paid lightning lane (Disney is in a position where they create problems and charge the customer to resolve it).

In summary, the dark rides are amazing people eaters per square foot and WDI is too intent on having their execs appear on ABC TV specials to show off how lifelike the skin of a cartoon character can look on a 20 million dollar animatronic people will see for 10 seconds per ride.

Sources:


 
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mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So I should have also mentioned and factored in square footage as that is really the trend now taking up massive plots of land for low capacity attractions.

For example Snow White has a capacity of 1100 per hour with a 6200 sq ft building. Rise of the Resistance has a 1500 per hour capacity with a 165,000 sq ft building.

In that space you can fit 26 Snow White's and a theoretical capacity of 28,600 people per hour vs RotR's 1500. Now don't get me wrong, of course you want different types of rides in a park. But at the end of the day Disney seems only intent on massive rides that are not people eaters.

Probably can attribute this to WDI needing to show off as well as incentivizing long queues with paid lightning lane (Disney is in a position where they create problems and charge the customer to resolve it).

In summary, the dark rides are amazing people eaters per square foot and WDI is too intent on having their execs appear on ABC TV specials to show off how lifelike the skin of a cartoon character can look on a 20 million dollar animatronic people will see for 10 seconds per ride.

Sources:



26 Snow Whites!! It’s crazy when you put it like that. lol. Especially when the capacity is so close. Which is kind of surprising it’s that close tbh. Those numbers dont account for how many people are being held in the queue right? Something to consider but to your point the people in the queue aren’t riding. But the park walkways are emptier.

So let’s say that with modern regulations that something like Snow White would need to be twice the size that’s still 13 Snow Whites. I think there a lot of reasons that they don’t go with this approach anymore. You and I have mentioned a few of them. I don’t think you could give the most recent billion dollar box office movie a small scale dark ride. I think the two scenarios you could do it are with an attraction based on an older golden era film or if they were to open a land with a few attractions simultaneously. But I still think that land would need to include an E ticket and then maybe 2 modern “Snow Whites” at least double the 1955 size.
 

CaptinEO

Well-Known Member
26 Snow Whites!! It’s crazy when you put it like that. lol. Especially when the capacity is so close. Which is kind of surprising it’s that close tbh. Those numbers dont account for how many people are being held in the queue right? Something to consider but to your point the people in the queue aren’t riding. But the park walkways are emptier.
Capacity doesn't count people waiting in a queue that is true. Yes arent the numbers insane?
So let’s say that with modern regulations that something like Snow White would need to be twice the size that’s still 13 Snow Whites. I think there a lot of reasons that they don’t go with this approach anymore. You and I have mentioned a few of them. I don’t think you could give the most recent billion dollar box office movie a small scale dark ride.
I don't see why not though? They did this with Winnie the Pooh, Monsters Inc, and Little Mermaid in recent memory.

I think Disney has been in this rut of big E Ticket rides that they forget not everyone wants to line up for an hour to go on a ride with their kids.

It seems all they do now is E tickets or outdoor flat rides. Not everything has to be a mega big budget ride, we should be able to have both.
I think the two scenarios you could do it are with an attraction based on an older golden era film or if they were to open a land with a few attractions simultaneously. But I still think that land would need to include an E ticket and then maybe 2 modern “Snow Whites” at least double the 1955 size.
See what I mean though, its a mindset that newer movies need big huge rides. Why not fun dark rides with wooden cutouts? No massive show buildings just standard classic Disney themepark faire.

But I agree I don't think Disney should only make small footprint darkrides, just that DCA is lacking in them, especially once Avatar is being built and Monsters is gone.

I think an issue with DCA is those pier attractions don't serve the same function of something like Fantasyland in theming, capacity, and guest interest. Look how stacked fantasyland is with storybook cruise, the 4 dark rides, and Casey Jr. Meanwhile DCA offers some bad off the shelf commercial rides that seem like they're from Santa Monica Pier.
 

mickEblu

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Capacity doesn't count people waiting in a queue that is true. Yes arent the numbers insane?

I don't see why not though? They did this with Winnie the Pooh, Monsters Inc, and Little Mermaid in recent memory.

I think Disney has been in this rut of big E Ticket rides that they forget not everyone wants to line up for an hour to go on a ride with their kids.

It seems all they do now is E tickets or outdoor flat rides. Not everything has to be a mega big budget ride, we should be able to have both.

See what I mean though, its a mindset that newer movies need big huge rides. Why not fun dark rides with wooden cutouts? No massive show buildings just standard classic Disney themepark faire.

But I agree I don't think Disney should only make small footprint darkrides, just that DCA is lacking in them, especially once Avatar is being built and Monsters is gone.

I think an issue with DCA is those pier attractions don't serve the same function of something like Fantasyland in theming, capacity, and guest interest. Look how stacked fantasyland is with storybook cruise, the 4 dark rides, and Casey Jr. Meanwhile DCA offers some bad off the shelf commercial rides that seem like they're from Santa Monica Pier.

I think it's all about expectations. Pooh is an older, charming property so a smaller scale dark ride is in line with peoples expectations. Anything more like Hunny Hunt in Tokyo and people are blown away. Monsters Inc was a retheme of an existing ride. Little Mermaid was also confined to an existing attractions land. Also look at how many discussions we've had here about how they dropped the ball on Mermaid or how they could/should plus it. Or how they should have went with Tony Baxter's (E Ticket) version. And Mermaid isn't even "new." Expectations for any newer box office smash like Moana would be so high that they could never get away with a small scale dark ride.

So I guess the question is when was the last time a smaller scale dark ride was built for a recent hit film? And the answer is... never. Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Like I said earlier, I believe it would have to be a package deal. You can kind of get away with a Navi River (which is still much grander than a Snow White) when it comes with a FOP and Pandora. And people are still 50/50 on that one. You could get away with a more small charming dark ride for very old IP like Bambi, Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella etc. With those IP, people would just be thrilled to finally get an attraction. It's all about meeting or surpassing expectations. Walk into an unassuming building in NOS and end up dropping down into a 15 minute adventure with Pirates. Use the animated segments from the 40 year old SotS but make it the most bad@$$ flume ride ever. Base the newest attraction at the park on a newer billion dollar+ property like Moana for a Fantasyland dark ride? I don't think that works.

I don't disagree on the Pier. It should have been designed with at least a dark ride or two. Soon it will have three if you want to count Mermaid and TSMM. They should have included a small dark ride with Bugs land too but I guess ITTBAB kind of filled that role. But DCA is just such an anomaly and interesting case. It's why we all spend so many hours talking about it. The head scratching flop that was DCA 1.0, its never ending evolving nature, spending hundred of millions of dollars on rethemes, the fact that is a 100 feet away from Disneyland etc.
 
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SuddenStorm

Well-Known Member
DCA needs something like Disneyland's fantasyland. It doesn't need more thrill rides or low capacity family dark rides.

It needs high capacity simple family dark rides and probably 4-5 of them. Disney seems to not understand this and keeps making big E Tickets for a park that needs something for kids and families.

My assumption is that Disney, at least internally, still views DCA as the teen/adult park- hence the alcohol sales and emphasis on thrill rides. And why the hold Grand Nite there now.
 

MarvelCharacterNerd

Well-Known Member
Shangai POTC does not have a height requirement. Does any Disney boat ride in the world have a height requirement?
Ah, I thought that one did given the rougher looking ride. But I still anticipate this as more of a thrill ride than the Na'vi River thing which even I thought was boring as heck. Though granted, I have no interest in Avatar whatsoever.
 

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