A Fifth Park

Epcot needs some serious love and isn't fully built out yet. They're doing some work there but it needs a serious overhaul. I'd love to see more countries in the World Showcase and something done about the empty buildings. I'd love to see an area devoted to Australia in AK.
 
As much as I would love to see it, I'm doubtful there will ever be a 5th gate. The main reason? There is no way they will invest the billions to build it and then spend then what it costs to operate it daily. It doesn't make fiscal sense for them. If the average family typically goes to WDW for a week, and if they added a 5th gate, the average family would still only go for a week. It's not going to change it where the average family now goes for 10 days instead of a week. Sure there are a lot of international guests, but still most guests are American, and American workers simply do not get the amount of vacation time our British and other European counterparts do (allowing them to come for more extended visits). So why spend the money to build and operate a 5th park if its not going to result in the average family spending a few additional nights at their resorts and adding a few more days to their tickets. Your days in the new 5th park will just come from spending less time in the other parks.
 
Agreed that they don't need a 5th park. They need to find ways to draw guests away from MK because that's their big issue. Hopefully Star Wars does that partially, but as Pete said, it's not a full solution.

The additions to Epcot, despite my personal feelings about whether GOTG fits or not, will definitely help get people to that park as well.

Animal Kingdom could use one more big attraction that's familiar to guests, and I think we'll start seeing a gradual movement toward the other 3 parks. TRON is opening at MK but I don't consider that a huge draw.

People will complain inevitably about prices going up, but the crowds have not yet gone down.
 
It's extremely hard to believe that Disney will NEVER build another park. NEVER is a long time and things change, times change. I do agree it's probably not on the current to-do list but I would be very surprised if there hadn't at least been some back room discussions at Disney regarding the next park. The price of building a new park would seem trivial when compared to the acquisition costs for FOX so I'm not convinced Disney is shy about spending money if they though it would enhance the revenue stream.

Regarding the "theme" of a new park, I'm not sure it really needs one. After all, EPCOT is no longer the experimental prototype community of tomorrow, DHS has less and less movie studio stuff and nobody really seems to care all that much. I could envision a multi-themed park, similar to MK where each area is its own self contained "theme". But I confess, I don't have any idea what Disney will or won't do in the future.
 


A fifth park can be a copy of Tokyo DisneySea with "ports" as lands. Journey to the Center of the Earth would be the centerpiece.
 
IP specific parks make 0 sense IMO. If they were going to do that they would've already. You are fixating on one demographic such as a Star Wars fan. Not everyone likes SW which means they won't go to that park. Well rounded parks do much better.

LOL, no I didn't mean to intend I expected an entire park worth of rides, shows, dinning, entertainment, shopping completely around Stars Wars but I guess my comment read that way. But I do think Star Wars land or an extensive Pixar area would have been good candidates for a flagship, an anchor if you will, to a new park.

And, granted I can see why on the other coast, GE is a good fit into HS and also needed to make that park stronger. But DL is the 2nd busiest theme park in the world, it didn't need Star Wars, so I guess I still see it as IF THAT wasn't the tipping point for additional gates or other parks in the US, I don't see anything in the horizon doing it.

I think we agree(?) if they were going to do additional gates here or there, they would have done it already and since they didn't with recent expansions, it would make no sense now.
 
I would love to see something similar to Magic Kingdom, but with a combination of newer and original IPs. An ancient Greece area for Hercules, a Monsters Inc themed area, Zootopia City, etc. So many of these areas are underrepresented in the parks, and 10 to 20 years from now these movies are going to be the ones that the parents grew up with.

I would also love to see more Marvel incorporated, but I think that would be a good candidate for a Studios expansion, maybe behind Rock n Roller Coaster or across World Dr.
 


I would also like Epcot to incorporate more rides that show off science instead of science fiction. Real technology is just as cool as fiction. I would love to see dark rides or simulators showing off things like planes, medical science, robots, and AI.
 
It's extremely hard to believe that Disney will NEVER build another park. NEVER is a long time and things change, times change. I do agree it's probably not on the current to-do list but I would be very surprised if there hadn't at least been some back room discussions at Disney regarding the next park. The price of building a new park would seem trivial when compared to the acquisition costs for FOX so I'm not convinced Disney is shy about spending money if they though it would enhance the revenue stream.

I would also be shocked if Disney hasn't at least had some proposals for a new park. They have the land, and at the moment they have the crowds. But a brand new Disney park could cost them upwards of $1.5 billion, so I think they might need a bit higher crowds to see it as a profitable venture.
 
I don't ever see a 5th park being worth the risk. At some point the economy will take a downturn and when it does that 5th gate would cause Disney to bleed out even more. And, sure, things are cyclical so a downturn begets an upswing and so on. However, it seems to me by not creating a 5th park but improving upon the existing ones Disney is keeping their risk/reward where they want it to be.
 
I think there are plenty of updates/upgrades that could be done to the existing parks. I am having trouble seeing how new attractions couldn't be shoehorned into one of the existing parks.
 
As much as I would love to see it, I'm doubtful there will ever be a 5th gate. The main reason? There is no way they will invest the billions to build it and then spend then what it costs to operate it daily. It doesn't make fiscal sense for them. If the average family typically goes to WDW for a week, and if they added a 5th gate, the average family would still only go for a week. It's not going to change it where the average family now goes for 10 days instead of a week. Sure there are a lot of international guests, but still most guests are American, and American workers simply do not get the amount of vacation time our British and other European counterparts do (allowing them to come for more extended visits). So why spend the money to build and operate a 5th park if its not going to result in the average family spending a few additional nights at their resorts and adding a few more days to their tickets. Your days in the new 5th park will just come from spending less time in the other parks.

With that logic why build a fourth gate?

It makes no sense if they want to build another one they will.

Perfect marketing too a different park for every weekday or hell even every day if you add the two water parks in
 
With that logic why build a fourth gate?

It makes no sense if they want to build another one they will.

Perfect marketing too a different park for every weekday or hell even every day if you add the two water parks in
They don’t just build a park because they want to. The demographics and market needs to be right for it.
 
I'm not sure that they will do a fifth park anytime soon, but if they did, I'd like it to be aimed to the thrill/extreme ride crowd. That's probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but it's one area where Disney is traditionally weak and it would be a legitimate reason to have a separate park. A Maleficent-themed thrill ride with loops, corkscrews, etc. for example, wouldn't fit in that well at any of the existing parks , but it would work fine at a darker themed park. I'm sure Disney could do it right so that the theming was as intense as ever too.
 
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Animal Kingdom was built to lure Busch Garden visitors to stay in Disney. Just like MGM Studios was built to pre-empt Universal's opening
Maybe a little but not really. AK was a hard sell. Joe Rohde and others did everything they could to get it approved. I don't think Busch Gardens has ever really been a worry to Disney.
 
Maybe a little but not really. AK was a hard sell. Joe Rohde and others did everything they could to get it approved. I don't think Busch Gardens has ever really been a worry to Disney.

I do think it played a part in it...I even saw about 20 people wearing Animal Kingdom uniforms who visited Busch Gardens a bit before Animal Kingdom opened.

Then again, I think they built the Living Seas for people to view sea life without taking time out of their Disney vacation to visit Sea World.

Let's not forget the reason that Disney built California Adventure is because Disney wanted tourists to stay at the Disneyland resort instead of spending time going to other California landmarks.
 

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