Pocohontas Out, Lucky In

[MJMcBride]

One rumor noted by Jim Hill in the now released 2007 Unofficial Guide is this: Pocohontas and her Forest Friends at DAK will be replaced by a show featuring Merlin the Magician with Lucky the Baby Dragon. As you know, Lucky is currently a free walking dinosaur AA seen at DAK and other parks. I guess they would add some horns and wings.

This would eventually be the jump off point for the Beastly Kingdomme. Thoughts anyone?

 

[DannyDisneyFreak]

This kinda makes sense since they are ending the sword in the stone event at MK, Merlin has to get another job.

 

[2Xited4Disney]

This is strange

 

[Chuck S]

If they go ahead with the Merlin thing, I'm wondering if the dragon will NOT be the dino AA but a new one. The dino takes up a lot of room with the cart he uses for balance, and it would look "funny" to have a dragon pulling something like that. It could be a rehab of an old Figment AA, just repainted. It would be smaller and "perched" upon some base, like a rock or something.

 

[Another Voice]

This would eventually be the jump off point for the Beastly Kingdomme. Thoughts anyone?

At this point I think we can say that Beatly Kindgom has joined Edison Square and Discovery Bay in the "places that were to be but won't be now" zone. The main attraction in the area - the dragon rollercoaster - was made bigger and better by the same designers over at Universal's Islands of Adventure, and the Unicorn Maze lacks the PowerPoint appeal and clonability that Disney demands of their new attractions.

With the opening of 'Everest' Disney has also abandoned the "real stuff, fantasy stuff" aspect of the original park's design (where "Africa" and "Asia" were entirely real and "Beastly Kingdom" and "Dinoland" were entirely fantasy). If there is an expansion at Animal Kingdom, it expect to see another geographic area - like Australia or South America.


P.S. There are whispers that there is a much larger "walking" AA figure about. This one has all the all of the control and power equipment "inside" instead of in a cart. It is supposed to have walked on four legs, a feature that was it's main problem. In addition to housing a bunch of stuff and providing the drive wheels, Lucky's cart is supposed to have done all the steering as well. Getting its larger four legged cousin to walk in a straight line is pretty easy - but getting it to turn corners or curves (say, in the parage route it was originally supposed to have been built for) turned out the be a challenge. Wheels are easier to control than legs. A limited walking ability wouldn't be as much of a problem for a stage show.

 

[MJMcBride]

I don't disagree about Beastly Kingdomme not being in the cards. They do seem to be spreading the mythological stuff around the park. I still wonder if there will be a Narnia land at DAK. Cross Promotion oppurtunities abound.

This rumor also makes sense from the aspect of cute baby dragon plushes.

 

[Another Voice]

Narnia is a problem because the rights are owned by Walden Media. Disney has a distribution deal for their Narnia movies, but everything else is going to come with a huge royalty. And Walden has just signed a major deal with Fox to distribute all their future movies through them. There's little incentive for Disney to hype plush sales at a park when a good chunk of money that will go to fund movies for a competitor.

But really the problem goes back to Animal Kingdom. It’s original purpose was to both bring new guests to WDW and to lengthen the guests’ stay. It didn’t do either – and the question now can any park really do it even if Disney did invest much more money into the place. WDW pretty much maxes out the average American’s vacation as it is.

Right now it seems that Disney is fairly content to try and get AK up to a “two meal” park – a place where the average length of stay would be breakfast-lunch or lunch-dinner. At that length you got the guest to drop coin for food, some snacks and some a pretty good shot merchandise. For Disney this would mean the guest should see 5 to 7 shows and attractions during a stay.

You’ll probably see a long pause after Nemo – Now With Songs!. Some shows will be cycled out so there’s something “new” occasionally, but any major expansion won’t happen until it’s decided the park is in major trouble again (or Busch Garden comes up with a really cool new ride).

Anyway, you were supposed to see dragons earlier but none of you went to see Riegn of Fire at the theaters (lucky you).

 

[MJMcBride]

Narnia is a problem because the rights are owned by Walden Media. Disney has a distribution deal for their Narnia movies, but everything else is going to come with a huge royalty. And Walden has just signed a major deal with Fox to distribute all their future movies through them. There's little incentive for Disney to hype plush sales at a park when a good chunk of money that will go to fund movies for a competitor.

But really the problem goes back to Animal Kingdom. It’s original purpose was to both bring new guests to WDW and to lengthen the guests’ stay. It didn’t do either – and the question now can any park really do it even if Disney did invest much more money into the place. WDW pretty much maxes out the average American’s vacation as it is.

Right now it seems that Disney is fairly content to try and get AK up to a “two meal” park – a place where the average length of stay would be breakfast-lunch or lunch-dinner. At that length you got the guest to drop coin for food, some snacks and some a pretty good shot merchandise. For Disney this would mean the guest should see 5 to 7 shows and attractions during a stay.

You’ll probably see a long pause after Nemo – Now With Songs!. Some shows will be cycled out so there’s something “new” occasionally, but any major expansion won’t happen until it’s decided the park is in major trouble again (or Busch Garden comes up with a really cool new ride).

Anyway, you were supposed to see dragons earlier but none of you went to see Riegn of Fire at the theaters (lucky you).

I thought Disney had the "theme park" rights to this series and would distribute the future Narnia movies.

As for DAK, I think it did "max" out the vacation times of most people. But I think without it, some (not all but some) would take a day to go to Sea World or the Universal Parks. I think that it kept those people at WDW. And I agree it did not not "attract" new visitors except maybe locals in its first year or so.

I also agree with you that the object is to get DAK to be a full day park, but I think it will take more than just the Nemo show. I feel a new land, with a new animal exhibit, E ticket ride and minor attractions, will eventually be added to make it a "full day" park. Who knows if thats North America, the Beastly Kingdomme, Australia, or something else.

As it is, I can't make imagine DAK gets a lot of 1 day ticket buyers. A new land may help that to some extent.

 

[Another Voice]

I don't know about the "theme park rights" per se (it's not like I get to see contracts anymore), but this is Hollywood and any use of the Narnia characters will require payments to Walden Media (and, I assume, they will be paid on to the estate of C.S. Lewis). Disney has to pay royalties to Pixer for use of Buzz and Nemo, Disney even has to pay CBS/Viacom for the 'Twilight Zone' part of "Tower of Terror". It might not be a lot of money, but Disney counts the pennies these days.

The problem with making Animal Kingdom a "full day" park instead of just lengthening the guest's stay within the gates goes back to the length of the guest's entire vacation. I generaly believed that guest's didn't add on an extra day to see Animal Kingdom. Instead they went to AK instead of seeing something else.

Yes, some of these days were carved out from Universal and Tampa - but far too many of the days were carved out from a second day at the Magic Kingdom or Epcot or from the water parks. AK didn't expand the guests' spending, it just shuffled it around.

There's the fear that making people stay longer at AK will just mean they spend less time at other WDW gates. It's a very tough balancing act. Sure the guests are going to be spending the same amount of money, but Disney dropped $700+ million on the Animal Kingdom. You don't get a return on the investment unless total WDW revenues increase, not just change cash registers.

Instead I think we'll see a continuation of the full-day/half-day park split we have now. Guests at Animal Kingdom and Disney/MGM Studios will continue to leave those parks early for Magic Kingdom or Epcot, some to Downtown Disney.

 

[MJMcBride]

Instead I think we'll see a continuation of the full-day/half-day park split we have now. Guests at Animal Kingdom and Disney/MGM Studios will continue to leave those parks early for Magic Kingdom or Epcot, some to Downtown Disney.

I would think they would want to make it and MGM a full day park to get more single day purchases. I would think the single day passes are virtually nil for this park. Maybe they got a short time boost from the local population to check out EE, but in the long run they need more here if thats a goal.

 

[dbm20th]

Between the noise of MJ's Ak cheerleading and AV's axe grinding, I would like to get back to the topic, which was JH's rumor that he published in the UG....

Regardless of the BK angle, who cool does this sound? If AV is right, and the dragon is a huge free standing AA, this would be amazing as a stage show! A dragon come to life? If done well, this show, along with Nemo, EE, Dinosaur, LK, Bug's Life, Kali and the rumored night-time lantern parade, would really make AK a cool place to be at night.

They need a couple of more things, however. MJ, I know the Bronx Zoo does some night displays, including some great Tiger stuff, wouldn't that be an option? Could they light the Tiger area in Asia without disturbing the tigers?

 

[Another Voice]

From what I've gathered, the point of the "free walking" AA figures were as parade elements. I don't know if the larger figure was built with anything specific in mind (a dragon, a dinosaur, etc.) or if it was just a proof-of-concept rig. A lot of this work happened right around the time ABC was hyper-hyping the mega-expensive 'Dinopotia' series. But since that one caused its own KT layer, not a lot has been heard. For the most part, the technology in the "free walking" AA figures have been used in motion picutre production for years. The real effort has been trying to make it reliable enough to meet the needs of a theme park - it's one thing for a bunch of technicians to baby something for a single twenty second shot, it's another to expect it to put on ten shows a day with minimal maintenance.

The Animal Kingdom was desgined as a full operation park; night operations were in the plan from the beginning. The only thing being left out were fireworks (for the obvious reason) - that's why the parade route was lined with all kinds of show lighting because that was going to be the "end of day" event. Poor attendance when the park opened quickly resulted in shortened hours, a practice that has more or less stayed in place. On certain days and for special events the park has remained opened at night.

The "the animals need their sleep" is, of course, a lie from marketing. Most animals - like the tigers - are more noturnal anyway. Many other animal parks maintain nightime operations including the San Diego Zoo. And their Wild Animal Park offer overnight campouts and hikes in the main habitat (unlike Animal Kingdom, San Diego allows their animals to remain free all the time). I haven't done it yet, but friends who have say there's nothing like the thrill of hearing the lions roar in the dark...and not being really sure where they are.

I've always thought that Disney should have done something similar. A series of tents near the Safari area, with the animals allowed to roam and act natural - to be surrounded by the wildlife. It would be the complete opposite of the Animal Kingdom Lodge where it's an animal pen surrounded by a huge hotel.

 

[dbm20th]

The Animal Kingdom was desgined as a full operation park; night operations were in the plan from the beginning. The only thing being left out were fireworks (for the obvious reason) - that's why the parade route was lined with all kinds of show lighting because that was going to be the "end of day" event. Poor attendance when the park opened quickly resulted in shortened hours, a practice that has more or less stayed in place. On certain days and for special events the park has remained opened at night.

The "the animals need their sleep" is, of course, a lie from marketing.

But the issue of the what the park had upon opening dictated that decision much more then whatever "lie" you want to portray. There was nothing there to keep people happy. No place to eat. Only the Bug's, Dinosaur, and 1 or 2 other things. KS was the center piece, and you really couldn't roam around that in the dark and get much of an experience, now could you? So, they cooked up a reason that sounds better than "you'd be bored".

However, none of that changes this conversation, which is that the center piece has changed. EE is now the draw, and that can run at night and be an even better experience. So, how do we make AK a more complete night experience? AV's idea is a good one. Also the Asia food spot will help. But there needs to be more, and they can't all be e-ticket options. That's why a show seems more plausible then the entire Beastly Kingdom construction.

Then we have a park that actually may draw people in, and keep them there. It would then drive up single day tickets and therefore be a smart investment.

 

[MJMcBride]

The "the animals need their sleep" is, of course, a lie from marketing. Most animals - like the tigers - are more noturnal anyway. Many other animal parks maintain nightime operations including the San Diego Zoo. And their Wild Animal Park offer overnight campouts and hikes in the main habitat (unlike Animal Kingdom, San Diego allows their animals to remain free all the time). I haven't done it yet, but friends who have say there's nothing like the thrill of hearing the lions roar in the dark...and not being really sure where they are.

Most animals go in at night, not to sleep. You are right, that is basically a lie. Instead, they go in so keepers can provide any type of grooming/veterinary care. Also, the animals typically get thier meals "off exhibit" so keepers can regualte which animal get what food or medicine. It also allows them to keep a better watch on the animals and ensure their safety.

 

[allisonswonderland]

I wish Animal Kingdom would get a sea life aspect to it- I know they are getting Nemo and I know EPCOT has the Living Seas but marine life is also animals and I think that would be really awesome, but that is just me and it would pull away from sea world - every time we go to disney I always still want to go over to sea world - if hey would add that and then the rumored Badlands with the park of Thrill Rides they would put Universal out of business - the other thing that AK needs in my opinion is a few good TS restaurants like an Asian place- we go to EPCOT just for dinner a lot of the time but would never to go to AK for dinner - just someo thoughts

 

[MJMcBride]

the other thing that AK needs in my opinion is a few good TS restaurants like an Asian place- we go to EPCOT just for dinner a lot of the time but would never to go to AK for dinner - just someo thoughts

From your mouth to imagineer's ears. Disney has already announced a planned Asian themed restaurant in DAK. I don't know this, but I would assume it will take its menu from various Asian cultures like India, Thailand, Japan, etc.

As for the Seas being in DAK. Its certainly a possibility someday I suppose. Even though Disney built DAK to keep people from going to Busch Gardens and/or Sea World for a day of their vacation, I'm not sure that worked. Maybe one day they will conclude that they actually have to have a Shamu to keep people from wanting to see the other Shamu.

 

[DannyDisneyFreak]

the other thing that AK needs in my opinion is a few good TS restaurants like an Asian place- we go to EPCOT just for dinner a lot of the time but would never to go to AK for dinner - just someo thoughts

The are in the process of replacing the Chakranadi Chicken Shop in Asia with a full service sit down Asian resturant and shopping venue. This will be operated by the chain that operates Rainforest Cafe and is set to open summer 2007.

 

[DannyDisneyFreak]

MJ, we must be crossing brain waves or somthing because we both posted the same reply at the same time.

 

[MJMcBride]

MJ, we must be crossing brain waves or somthing because we both posted the same reply at the same time.

Beat ya by two minutes. Nah nah

 

[DannyDisneyFreak]

Beat ya by two minutes. Nah nah

oh yeah...