No the Magic isn’t gone but it’s at 25%

[Smugpugmug]

I do love Hagrid’s and think it stands up to anything Disney has made when it comes to coasters. I don’t think Universal has touched Disney on immersive theming during rides, though. Rise of the Resistance is the most impressive theming I’ve personally ever seen.

Harry Potter World is the only Universal world that seems like something Disney would put up. Everything else at Universal I don’t think would ever pass muster at Disney, from a theming perspective.

For me it's the fact that Hagrid's has physical animatronics and has technology that up to that point has never been utilized on a coaster before is what makes it so great. Guardians and other Disney coasters have their own strengths but if I were to pick which one to ride again I'm choosing Hagrid's in a heartbeat.

Agreed. Wizarding World is the best themed land I have ever seen in a theme park and yes that includes Pandora and Galaxy's Edge as well. Everything else is fine but not on the same level. Nintendo World does look like a gamechanger though if Orlando does get the same version as the one in Japan.

 

[john7994]

If you look at Disney’s latest attractions, though, they are working on cutting into Universal’s edge on the thrill rides.

They’ve added family attractions (Remy, MMRR), but have also added a lot of thrill rides (RotR, Smuggler’s Run, Guardians, and the upcoming Tron ride). IMO, their latest thrill rides blow anything Universal has to offer out of the water, except for Hagrid’s, which I think stands up to Disney’s rides.

I don't generally disagree ... as did Universal with in pulling off the best Theming at Harry Potter World of both parks (my opinion) - not to mention pulling a Disney in the money grab of splitting the two parts across two parks.

In the end, I think Disney had to do something to step it up ... The Land wasn't going to keep people at bay much longer

All that said, as much as people want to compare, I often find myself still re-using the categories of Young Family vs. Older family orientations in general terms. Obviously, there is a lot in between - like myself. I ain't gettin on no Velocicoaster or going to Universal's Halloween stuff - haha. But, I do like the Harry Potter area and a few other elements of Universal.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

1. I purposefully used 2019 numbers so that they would not be impacted by events.

That's exactly why I said what I said. 2019 means nothing now. We already know and have known that in the past WDW commanded more attendance than Universal. That does not come into play with discussing conditions now with EP and Genie+/ILL because those conditions in 2019 don't exist anymore and it will never be the same again.

And I mean this in a way both positive and negative. A drop in attendance today does not in fact mean less people are visiting WDW even if WDW used fire marshal capacity numbers because each and every day they can choose to reduce the number of park reservations for each park such that even after 2pm (or 1pm for DL) there's less and they can artificially lower the attendance. Your point stays the same regardless that you can probably assume even with park reservations in place WDW and DL have more visitors although Universal seems to be gaining some visitors in almost a revenge way against WDW with people fed up with WDW and wanting to try out Universal

2. I spent a day at Universal this past week to go to Harry Potter World. Frankly, there is absolutely no comparison between the product Universal is putting out and Disney. Harry Potter World was terrific and I thought my daughter would have enjoyed the Dr Seuss area, but the rest of it was honestly depressing, IMO. It looked random, like IP had just been vomited onto a theme park without any regard for flow, or cohesion. The signage was unimaginative, the employees didn’t seem into it at all …

You know the thing is it's not an insult against Universal the way you may be attempting to present it as. Marvel Island for example Universal has licensing rights there such that WDW can't have unless xyz occur.

But I'm not sure you can't not (double negative I know) be nit picking WDW, I know people are on a different forum picking apart how in the heck are they going to fit Princess and the Frog over there in Frontierland or Critter Country. And then there were people all sorts of worried about sight lines with the Skyliner and Disney sure didn't care about how it looked to have that going through their parks and parking lots and resorts. Then there's Toy Story land that you have an advantage of a building they could transition to it on one side but the other side transitioning to Star Wars it's not uber hidden, one moment you're in Batuu and the things whoa it's brightly color toy set.

A chief complaint with people right now (and you can even see threads about it) is why does Disney throw IP at all these rides (yes exceptions exist of course), where's the imagination to it and then the cloning they do..yes Tron will be great I'm sure but Tron is a clone, Remy is nicely themed in Paris at Epcot but it's also a clone, they didn't do a Guardians retheme of ToT but they have Guardians Space Mountain 2.0 at Epcot now, Frozen is a retheme and sure they put it in a logical spot but they were just cashing in on how popular Frozen was/is. Transition-wise WDW does tend to do it better but then again that's looking at it in a presumptuous way that Universal cared about that quite as much. They do a good job at certain parts of their transitions like Jurassic Park areas but people who tend to frequent Universal aren't docking them on that as if it lowers their experience.

Each park has their things they focus on, that's fine by me.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Parks like Dollywood have the right idea. Charge basically the same for all day unlimited "express pass" as regular admission, there is a slightly cheaper option for riding all the express rides one time as opposed to unlimited. Then let the rest deal with standby. I don't mind paying but I want a guarantee to skip the lines. Genie+ is a paid crap shoot.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

not to mention pulling a Disney in the money grab of splitting the two parts across two parks.

In a practical way it made sense to do two parks but I'm not sure it was purely a money thing, I mean yes they do get more money with a park to park ticket and I do think they were fully aware of that but in terms of immersion eventually planning for Hogwarts Express AND having the space to do it to make the ride something people will be please with it sorta limited their options.

Before Hogwarts Express they just had part of the train in Hogsmeade you could take pictures with and people loved doing that and a TM was there all in character and everything. It's part of that experience of watching them in the movies reading about their journey in the books and getting to see it IRL.

And as far as theming I'm sure someone would have called them out had they had a land in between them if they had done Hogwarts Express and 2 lands in 1 park. Realistically real estate wouldn't have allowed for that but they saw how successful Hogsmeade was and that people were clamoring for more of that.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

On the topic of immersion I just thought of something. I can't for the life of me remember what road it was or what parks the road lead to (entrance to DHS parking lot maybe and another park I just can't remember) but anyways it's where the Star Cruiser entrance is at. I was a bit surprised to see that from that road the back part of the spires/rocky formations they left it just open so you can see the supports. I thought..geez that seems a bit lazy in so much that it sorta gives you that reminder that it's not real when that's the last thing you want for that expensive of an experience. It's not in the parks but it did seem out of place.

 

[john7994]

In a practical way it made sense to do two parks but I'm not sure it was purely a money thing, I mean yes they do get more money with a park to park ticket and I do think they were fully aware of that but in terms of immersion eventually planning for Hogwarts Express AND having the space to do it to make the ride something people will be please with it sorta limited their options.

Before Hogwarts Express they just had part of the train in Hogsmeade you could take pictures with and people loved doing that and a TM was there all in character and everything. It's part of that experience of watching them in the movies reading about their journey in the books and getting to see it IRL.

And as far as theming I'm sure someone would have called them out had they had a land in between them if they had done Hogwarts Express and 2 lands in 1 park. Realistically real estate wouldn't have allowed for that but they saw how successful Hogsmeade was and that people were clamoring for more of that.

To be honest, and in the end, it made no difference to me what their "real" motivation was - I admired it and thought it was clever what they did. It's not like I was going to boycott it. I still ponied up the money like everyone else did.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

To be honest, and in the end, it made no difference to me what their "real" motivation was - I admired it and thought it was clever what they did. It's not like I was going to boycott it. I still ponied up the money like everyone else did.

I totally get ya, wasn't thinking it would just commented because you had positioned it like a Disney money grab move. In this case I don't think they were purely at it for a money grab perspective. No matter what abc's went into it it sure was a smart move!

 

[john7994]

I totally get ya, wasn't thinking it would just commented because you had positioned it like a Disney money grab move. In this case I don't think they were purely at it for a money grab perspective. No matter what abc's went into it it sure was a smart move!

On that we can agree!

 

[mercuryvenus]

That's exactly why I said what I said. 2019 means nothing now. We already know and have known that in the past WDW commanded more attendance than Universal. That does not come into play with discussing conditions now with EP and Genie+/ILL because those conditions in 2019 don't exist anymore and it will never be the same again.

And I mean this in a way both positive and negative. A drop in attendance today does not in fact mean less people are visiting WDW even if WDW used fire marshal capacity numbers because each and every day they can choose to reduce the number of park reservations for each park such that even after 2pm (or 1pm for DL) there's less and they can artificially lower the attendance. Your point stays the same regardless that you can probably assume even with park reservations in place WDW and DL have more visitors although Universal seems to be gaining some visitors in almost a revenge way against WDW with people fed up with WDW and wanting to try out Universal

You know the thing is it's not an insult against Universal the way you may be attempting to present it as. Marvel Island for example Universal has licensing rights there such that WDW can't have unless xyz occur.

But I'm not sure you can't not (double negative I know) be nit picking WDW, I know people are on a different forum picking apart how in the heck are they going to fit Princess and the Frog over there in Frontierland or Critter Country. And then there were people all sorts of worried about sight lines with the Skyliner and Disney sure didn't care about how it looked to have that going through their parks and parking lots and resorts. Then there's Toy Story land that you have an advantage of a building they could transition to it on one side but the other side transitioning to Star Wars it's not uber hidden, one moment you're in Batuu and the things whoa it's brightly color toy set.

A chief complaint with people right now (and you can even see threads about it) is why does Disney throw IP at all these rides (yes exceptions exist of course), where's the imagination to it and then the cloning they do..yes Tron will be great I'm sure but Tron is a clone, Remy is nicely themed in Paris at Epcot but it's also a clone, they didn't do a Guardians retheme of ToT but they have Guardians Space Mountain 2.0 at Epcot now, Frozen is a retheme and sure they put it in a logical spot but they were just cashing in on how popular Frozen was/is. Transition-wise WDW does tend to do it better but then again that's looking at it in a presumptuous way that Universal cared about that quite as much. They do a good job at certain parts of their transitions like Jurassic Park areas but people who tend to frequent Universal aren't docking them on that as if it lowers their experience.

Each park has their things they focus on, that's fine by me.

Disney has always had IP in the parks. That’s been the case from the very beginning. So I’ve never understood that supposed criticism.

 

[mercuryvenus]

For me it's the fact that Hagrid's has physical animatronics and has technology that up to that point has never been utilized on a coaster before is what makes it so great. Guardians and other Disney coasters have their own strengths but if I were to pick which one to ride again I'm choosing Hagrid's in a heartbeat.

Agreed. Wizarding World is the best themed land I have ever seen in a theme park and yes that includes Pandora and Galaxy's Edge as well. Everything else is fine but not on the same level. Nintendo World does look like a gamechanger though if Orlando does get the same version as the one in Japan.

Disney has multiple rides with technology that’s never been used before. Rise is a great example. Guardians also uses totally new technology.

 

[Smugpugmug]

Disney has multiple rides with technology that’s never been used before. Rise is a great example. Guardians also uses totally new technology.

In terms of the preshow elements plus the actual ride experience in Rise, I agree. In terms of the actual ride minus the preshow I disagree somewhat. Pooh's Hunny Hunt in Tokyo Disneyland opened in 2001 and uses the same exact trackless ride system as Rise. The free fall drop shaft in the ride was also used in Tower of Terror first. The combination of all of those elements is where it is innovative.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Disney has always had IP in the parks. That’s been the case from the very beginning. So I’ve never understood that supposed criticism.

Yeah I think the point is it feels less and less imaginative and original feeling and more slap on this theme because we think it'll make bank. In that respects at least on a good amount of rides I get that criticism.

 

[MyTwoPrincesses]

100%
According to this site, the average WDW stay is 6 days long (https://www.westgateresorts.com/blog/how-much-disney-vacation-cost/). The notion that Disney should be expecting people to add $600/person on average to avoid the standby lines is absolutely asinine.

Universal’s lower visitor numbers and shorter average time spent in the parks means they can get away with charging stupidly high prices for Express Pass and not needing to spread crowds out with return times.

WDW is really not comparable to any other theme park in the world. The top 5 theme parks by attendance in North America in 2019 were all Disney properties, and the individual WDW parks occupied spots 1, 3, 4, and 5. Disneyland was number 2 and California Adventure was number 8.

I think that's the issue for them. Most people get at least a 4 day park ticket. Most people won't spend $150+ x an average of 4 people PER family PER day ($600/day) to use the Express Pass option. For big family trips of 10 people, you are talking $1500 per day extra. If they offer it at a price similar to other theme parks, people will spend less time at Disney World. Further, if it works as well as Express Pass, people will be incentivized to maybe get a 2 day park hopper and spend the money on Express Pass. It starts to eat into the cost of hotel rooms and tickets and food in the park

They cannot offer it as a Deluxe perk because they have way too many Deluxe rooms compared to Universal. The system will not work as well. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don't have enough attractions for a workable Express Pass system. WDW is designed to be a week long trip with a mix of rides and experiences that do not involve waiting in line. That's not how Universal or Hershey Park or other theme parks are designed.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think that's the issue for them. Most people get at least a 4 day park ticket. Most people won't spend $150+ x an average of 4 people PER family PER day ($600/day) to use the Express Pass option. For big family trips of 10 people, you are talking $1500 per day extra. If they offer it at a price similar to other theme parks, people will spend less time at Disney World. Further, if it works as well as Express Pass, people will be incentivized to maybe get a 2 day park hopper and spend the money on Express Pass. It starts to eat into the cost of hotel rooms and tickets and food in the park

They cannot offer it as a Deluxe perk because they have way too many Deluxe rooms compared to Universal. The system will not work as well. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They don't have enough attractions for a workable Express Pass system. WDW is designed to be a week long trip with a mix of rides and experiences that do not involve waiting in line. That's not how Universal or Hershey Park or other theme parks are designed.

Over at Universal there was the parade although I think they just retired that, they also have streetmosphere stuff going on (we watched construction workers musician style which was fun). Then you have Blues Brothers, then there's the nighttime show, animal actors show, they used to have fear factor, etc. Bourne show eats a lot of people at one time which is nice.

Even with a week I don't think you could experience stuff without Genie+ unless you wait in at least some large lines especially since you can only go through once with Genie+ or LL per day. You may be able to do a slower pace but it sure doesn't seem to be helping people having more days although there's also things that hadn't been up and going to absorb people's attention.

When you talk to people who frequent Universal a lot they aren't typically buying EP for many days in a row (usually a day or two or they do the Premier hotel), but with WDW you feel like it's your only choice but to get Genie+ or fork over ILL every time you want to ride FOP or Rise and for Guardians you've got two choices VQ or ILL presently or you're going to be in some heavy lines. Even 1 day of EP (especially if you've got park to park) and you're going to accomplish stuff with exception to waiting for two rides at the moment. Having Genie+ for a day or a combo of that and ILL plus restrictions on park hopping and for many they just can't accomplish much. I think Disney actually has enough attractions for an EP system but they would probably need to allow their big attractions to be standby like Universal does presently. Rise and Guardians at the very least be standby only, over at MK 7DMT could be standby and at AK FOP could be standby for a time at least. That way it allows other rides a bit of a break. I do think DHS needs more stuff to do, it suffers there because of it. Needs more stuff to take attention away from the rides because that's all you're really doing there is waiting in line til the nighttime stuff.

 

[mercuryvenus]

Yeah I think the point is it feels less and less imaginative and original feeling and more slap on this theme because we think it'll make bank. In that respects at least on a good amount of rides I get that criticism.

But again — Disney has always used IP in the vast majority of the attractions. That’s been the case since Disneyland opened up.

IMO, the newer Disney attractions, despite using IP, have in fact been exceptionally imaginative and original in terms of the technology they’ve utilized. Disney’s strength has always been using well-known stories/themes and taking them to new heights. That’s what Walt Disney did from the very beginning with Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc.

 

[Smugpugmug]

Over at Universal there was the parade although I think they just retired that, they also have streetmosphere stuff going on (we watched construction workers musician style which was fun). Then you have Blues Brothers, then there's the nighttime show, animal actors show, they used to have fear factor, etc. Bourne show eats a lot of people at one time which is nice.

Even with a week I don't think you could experience stuff without Genie+ unless you wait in at least some large lines especially since you can only go through once with Genie+ or LL per day. You may be able to do a slower pace but it sure doesn't seem to be helping people having more days although there's also things that hadn't been up and going to absorb people's attention.

When you talk to people who frequent Universal a lot they aren't typically buying EP for many days in a row (usually a day or two or they do the Premier hotel), but with WDW you feel like it's your only choice but to get Genie+ or fork over ILL every time you want to ride FOP or Rise and for Guardians you've got two choices VQ or ILL presently or you're going to be in some heavy lines. Even 1 day of EP (especially if you've got park to park) and you're going to accomplish stuff with exception to waiting for two rides at the moment. Having Genie+ for a day or a combo of that and ILL plus restrictions on park hopping and for many they just can't accomplish much. I think Disney actually has enough attractions for an EP system but they would probably need to allow their big attractions to be standby like Universal does presently. Rise and Guardians at the very least be standby only, over at MK 7DMT could be standby and at AK FOP could be standby for a time at least. That way it allows other rides a bit of a break. I do think DHS needs more stuff to do, it suffers there because of it. Needs more stuff to take attention away from the rides because that's all you're really doing there is waiting in line til the nighttime stuff.

I would actually be okay with that at least for Rise and Guardians, but I know it'll never happen because ILLs have proven to be huge moneymakers for Disney. They'll never give that up if it means having a better park experience. I know the standby only lines won't be short but it'll be better than it is now. I only waited a max of 15 minutes for Velocicoaster in the morning and 60 late afternoon for Hagrids. Yeah the Hagrid's line was long but it was consistently moving. I never stopped moving for more than 1-2 minutes at a time.

Agree that Hollywood Studios needs more to do. The expansions are great but they build rides that have too low of a capacity for the crowds and they remove rides that were HUGE people eaters such as the Great Movie Ride. If anything they should remove that area where Launch Bay and the Disney Junior show is and build 1-2 new attractions.

 

[mercuryvenus]

I would actually be okay with that at least for Rise and Guardians, but I know it'll never happen because ILLs have proven to be huge moneymakers for Disney. They'll never give that up if it means having a better park experience. I know the standby only lines won't be short but it'll be better than it is now. I only waited a max of 15 minutes for Velocicoaster in the morning and 60 late afternoon for Hagrids. Yeah the Hagrid's line was long but it was consistently moving. I never stopped moving for more than 1-2 minutes at a time.

Agree that Hollywood Studios needs more to do. The expansions are great but they build rides that have too low of a capacity for the crowds and they remove rides that were HUGE people eaters such as the Great Movie Ride. If anything they should remove that area where Launch Bay and the Disney Junior show is and build 1-2 new attractions.

Oh no, I hope they never take away the Disney Jr show! My daughter LOVES that show.

I do think DHS has a good number of shows that take people away from rides: Beauty and the Beast, Frozen singalong, Indiana Jones, MuppetVision …

 

[lugnut33]

Regarding the section where you talk about the potential Genie+ being lower than previous iterations: I just fundamentally disagree with this assertion that you (and many others on this board) are making. There are recent YouTube videos where Molly (All Ears) walks into MK and does every single attraction using Genie Plus. She has shown you can do that at every park. Even further she does the same thing in other videos but makes it more of a "perfect day" experience instead of just trying to ride everything as fast as you can. We visited towards the tail end of spring break when crowds were very heavy and we were easily able to do all major attractions at both MK and DHS very easily in half days at the parks.

Obviously everyone's experience is going to be slightly different depending on many factors such as crowd size, weather, party size and a million other factors but from looking at the data from the thrill rides website there has been nothing to suggest so far that using the current iteration of a "Fast Pass" system gives guests less potential experiences for they day than the most recent version of "fast pass" systems. We'll see if that changes during they busy summer months and as they tweak availability of Genie+

Regarding planning, I don't see it as a major earth-shattering change. With FP+ you could book the three attractions ahead of time but those choices were limited to tiers and the fact that everyone else was also able to pick 3 ahead of time meant that options were could be much more limited after you were able to use your first 3 FP+ and get more. With just a little planning, you can get an idea of which Genie Plus attractions to for first thing in the morning and then also you are able to pick a time that works best for you when you book the $ILL attractions. Again - during our recent Spring Break trip we made plans based on our research here and watching 4-5 YouTube videos and were easily able to get everything we wanted at very close to the times we were expecting.

Regarding "gaming the system" you can all it what you want but those of us who study Disney's complex capacity management systems and share tips on this board are absolutely using principles associated with "game theory" to maximize their share of a limited resource (ride capacity). Making plans, sharing them to be critiqued and sharing tips to maximize potential are not all too dissimilar to the war-gaming our military does or the table top strategy sessions we use at home or work to come up with a plan. I understand "gaming the system" has developed a negative connotation but we are all trying to game the system - which is different than cheating the system.

Like someone else mentioned - this is all about capacity. These systems are all capacity management. Disney can try to change them all they want but smart people on the DIS or Reddit or some other forum are going to come together and figure out ways to maximize potential resource gathering (ride capacity) and share them with like minded WDW obsessed people. As Disney make changes the details of the system will change some and we may not like that as we have become so familiar with the old system, but over the last 15 years most of the strategies have really not changed much.

This is actually a pretty definitive answer.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

But again — Disney has always used IP in the vast majority of the attractions. That’s been the case since Disneyland opened up.

IMO, the newer Disney attractions, despite using IP, have in fact been exceptionally imaginative and original in terms of the technology they’ve utilized. Disney’s strength has always been using well-known stories/themes and taking them to new heights. That’s what Walt Disney did from the very beginning with Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, etc.

You're confusing the argument. It's not the IP part it's how it was done in the beginning and even as late at 10+ years or so. What people feel now (and this is me having read enough comments on it) is it feels lazy. It's not the IP, it's what they've done with it.

Take Frozen, yes it's an IP, but Maelstrom was already themed to Norway area, they rethemed it with an IP they had, sure Frozen is great and all but it can easily feel like they took a route of "hey this made a ton of money let's just put it in the park" whereas before long ago you might have felt differently.

You focus on technology but there's a lot more to a ride than just that and that usually is not what people mean when they say it's doesn't feel original, they mean original stories. Avatar is a working relationship with James Cameron so it's not original stories. Star Wars is not an IP they came up with, they purchased it, Kylo Ren may be new but it's not what started the franchise, even Toy Story is from Pixar as part of a collab with Disney and Disney didn't even own Pixar until mid-2000s. These aren't poor attractions by any means but they are not the same as taking Sleeping Beauty from Grimm tales, creating your own story and building a castle from your story and then making a movie off of that. Or having Pirates, creating a ride then an entire franchise off of that years and years later I might add (although to be fair people were torn on the additions of the movie franchise though I think they kept it to a minimum such that it was not off putting).

I'm just repeating what I've seen, and it was in response to your critique of Universal. WDW did use to be all about originality and imagination and for some fans they feel like that's slipping away in favor of what feels to them more cheap moves.