Just listened to the podcast with Len Testa and Jim Hill, where Jim describes in his inimitable, rambling way how Universal developed the Simpsons ride and then continued to develop the area into a land. Universal has something exciting cooking in every park all the time. There may be attractions and lands at Universal parks that haven't been upgraded for a while, but they never get into a state of sad neglect to the point of being a complete embarrassment. The "International Festival of Food and Film" was the weakest part of USF but it was never what you would call a sort spot, and now it's only a memory having been replaced with a fully-themed Springfield USA complete with Kwik-E Mart, Moe's Tavern, Duff Brewery and Krusty Burger. And they didn't "phone in" the menus either, you can get completely original and unique Flaming Moes, micro-brewed Duff Beer and authentic Krusty Kloggers. It's like the Universal management is constantly saying, what's the weakest link here? Where can we spend capital to make the parks better?
Whereas in WDW you have lots of really embarrassing weak spots that generate lots of negative comment. Like Figment, Wonders of Life, River Country, Dino Land, Backlot Tour. Universal's tram tour keeps getting better but Disney's got worse and worse until it was closed down with absolutely nothing concrete underway to replace it ... except for hot air about "a new experience" ... and often they don't even bother to blow sunshine about the things that they close, they just become a kind of unmentionable black hole on the landscape. Even when they commit to an upgrade it's painfully slow. This year the Chinese Theatre gets a paint job. In another year or so the movie part of the Great Movie Ride will be digital ... then at some point even farther down the road some of the scenes will be updated ... maybe. Embarrassing.
Lockedoutlogic has said that Disney is super-focused on selling knick-knacks, because the profit margin is huge. But they're pursuing a really dumb way to enhance souvenir sales. They act like there's no connection between the excitement of rides and themed lands and souvenir sales. A bunch of beancounters and IT managers who apparently never visit the parks think that there is some combination of vacation packaging and ride booking that will maximize souvenir sales by influencing spending habits in ways that are subtle at best, devious at worst. The most exciting swag that I see anyone talking about is "retro" themed merch. That's banking on past achievements, and it's not even very interesting or exciting ... just T-shirts and mugs. Meanwhile Universal works hard at coming up with really exciting, original attractions and lands and then gets the payoff by offering highly original food, drink and merchandise. And they sell it by the ton ... the average spending of guests on butterbeer, chocolate frogs and magic wands is legendary.
So Journey into Imagination is boring and neglected and the theater doesn't show anything except a movie trailer that everyone will have already seen at home, at their local theater, on their tablet computer and on their phone. The really rich, creamy irony is that the "imagination" pavilion is just about the last thing that the Disney management would ever dream of upgrading in any kind of imaginative way.
