You're putting WAY too much faith in what Jay said. Never a good idea.
Let me lay it out here...
Avatar is barely moving. They haven't even finalized the attraction menu for it yet. It may happen....it may be postponed...or it may vanish. (Cameron doesn't care about the timeframe, he only cares that he gets what he wants attraction/quality-wise if it ever happens.)
Regardless, they are currently looking at major expansion at DHS NOW. Not in five ir six years. Far sooner. Like potentially breaking ground in a matter of months.
Assuming Avatar happens within the next year or two, both projects will be under way at the same time. Yes, simultaneously with Shanghai and Mr. Stark's thing at DL. And another new ship or two isn't far away either.
James Cameron is a very detailed oriented person, he'll want the time table to work for Avatarland and Avatar 2,3 . . . can't see him not caring about the timeline. Practically, if a DHS Carsland was put on the front burner, it would divert certain resources from Avatarland, such as cash.
Not sure what scale of time you're talking about, here you say that a new ship "isn't far away", and then in this same thread you say,
I don't mean to say that they are prepared to order ships in the near future.
But, I do know that the cruise line is a cash machine for the company, and expansion within the decade is quite likely.
So either a new ship isn't far away, or they *might* build one in the next decade due to the profitability?
Technically, Disney could break ground with an expansion of DHS "within months" or maybe it will happen in the next decade?
Say they decide to do both Avatar and Carsland. They want Avatar on under $400mil. Say another $400mil for Carsland. That's $800mil, spent over about three years. $200mil per year for capital investment at WDW isn't a huge pill to swallow.
That said, if I were to guess, I can see Carsland jumping to the front of the line while the whole Avatar mess gets sorted out. Purely a guess.
Despite this debate about pulling off Avatarland and Carsland at the same time, you should also consider the work that will need to be done on Shanghai. Beyond conceptualization and design, and even including that, WDI would need to expand their labor force that much more to tackle *3* projects happening at the same time.
We know Shanghai will open in 2015/6, and that Avatarland is aiming for a similar date, beyond $$$, there is the talent pool factor, and the reality that doing construction projects in different locations at the same time will be more expensive than if done sequentially. Doing Avatarland and Shanghai at once, essentially, will be hard enough without trying to also break ground on Carsland in a "couple months" in DHS, or whatever big project is being hinted at.
