Walt Disney World and Disneyland(s) Discussion

[Coheteboy]

fantastic pics - disneyland seems to be holding up the quality torch of yore afa WDW is concerned.

eh, it's just an attendance density issue. the park would look ransacked if it did WDW's numbers even in scale i think.

i want to go to disneyland

Yah WDW does have four parks and waaaay more resorts (Disneyland only has three hotels on its property) but if you look at the overall attendance numbers between Magic Kingdom and Disneyland, it's pretty close for those two parks.

As far as attractions (shows and rides and walkthroughs), Walt Disney World only beats out Disneyland by a slim margin, most of which are high capacity shows and fewer rides. Disneyland is more the opposite of that having more rides and way fewer shows.


According to Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) here are the numbers for 2012.

1. Magic Kingdom: 17,536,000 (+2.3% change)
2. Disneyland Park: 15,963,000 (-1.1% )
3. Tokyo Disneyland: 14,847,000 (+8.5%)
4. Tokyo Disney Sea: 12,656,000 (+8.5%)
5. Disneyland Park, Disneyland Paris: 11,200,000 (+1.9%)
6. Epcot: 11,063,000 (+2.2%)
7. Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 9,998,000 (+2.2%)
8. Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9,912,000 (+2.2%)
9. Universal Studios Japan: 9,700,000 (+14.1%)
10. Islands of Adventure: 7,981,000 (+4%)


11. Disney California Adventure: 7,775,000 (+22.6%)




Where this chart is skewed or hard to pinpoint is that this only tracks the first entry of a guest to a single park. So for example, if I go to Animal Kingdom but spend most of my day at Magic Kingdom, the point goes towards Animal Kingdom.

With Disneyland directly across the way from Disney California Adventure and Cars Land and Buena Vista Street opening in 2012, that gave them the 22.6% increase in first-entry guests. Having Disneyland only go down 1.1% through all that is pretty astonishing.


I look forward to seeing the 2013 numbers but we won't see that until June of next year.

 

[Coheteboy]

More pics!

So at night, it's a small world puts on a nifty projection show paired with music from The Nutcracker..

It's a really cool added thing for everyone's enjoyment. It's not even listed on the schedule. It just happens! First time I dragged a friend and nothing happened. The 2nd time though... I showed her! I SHOWED HER!

 

[cokebabies]

Re-watching Escape From Tomorrow while drinking worked out well.

 

[jra81984]

I was there a couple of years ago.... The one thing i wonder is.... Why is there no Wall-E anywhere? Especially not in tomorrow land?? Thats craziness to me.

 

[cokebabies]

I was there a couple of years ago.... The one thing i wonder is.... Why is there no Wall-E anywhere? Especially not in tomorrow land?? Thats craziness to me.

As in, merch or usage in an attraction?

Merch-wise, the easy answer is - if Wall-E made Disney money, he'd be in every gift shop. I'm not saying he isn't a profitable character, I actually have no idea, I just know that if Disney could make more money off him, they would.

As for attractions, they tie into merch. Disney isn't going to base anything off a Pixar license that won't make them maximum profit. Which is why we haven't seen a Ratatouille restaurant (Remy in Les Chefs De France notwithstanding).

Or maybe Disney is giving their guests too much credit, and realize that they might catch onto the fact that the humans in Wall-E basically represent half the people that walk through their turnstiles.

 

[Coheteboy]

I was there a couple of years ago.... The one thing i wonder is.... Why is there no Wall-E anywhere? Especially not in tomorrow land?? Thats craziness to me.

They DID make a WALL-E animatronic that was supposed to interact with guests but I don't quite know why he never showed up in the parks. It's possible he went to Hong Kong but I don't have any evidence on that.

The Muppet Mobile Labs that used to be around went to Hong Kong.



I'm sure that imagineers have toyed with a wall-e concept, especially if they went so far to make an animatronic but they probably couldn't find a way to make it fit into the parks since, like cokebabies said, it has obese people and a world of trash.

I think it would probably work best in EPCOT as a lesson in waste or something like that. Even a dark ride about the character would be AMAZING. Can you imagine going from a world of trash, up to the Axiom, and then finish with a lush planet after they fixed everything... it would be nice.

 

[Protozaius]

I think it would probably work best in EPCOT as a lesson in waste or something like that. Even a dark ride about the character would be AMAZING. Can you imagine going from a world of trash, up to the Axiom, and then finish with a lush planet after they fixed everything... it would be nice.

That is an GREAT idea... I think a WALL-E themed attraction would be AMAZING at Epcot!

 

[Grenouille]

I'd welcome it. They certainly have the empty buildings already there ready to be filled.

 

[Coheteboy]

I haven't covered what's new in the Haunted Mansion Holiday yet, but in the extending portrait scene, they updated the last part of it with a CG projection of the glass ceiling shattering with Jack and Zero saying Happy Holidays.

Before it shatters

Cars Land is all decked out. I have often asked why, if the world of CARS doesn't include humans, why they would make a snowcar with a cone for a nose. Cars don't have noses!

 

[Coheteboy]

DCA has a new Christmas party throughout the day in Paradise Pier called Viva Navidad!

It's a street parade/party featuring California's strong latino population with an hourly party featuring Mickey, Minnie, and the Three Caballeros.

In between parties, you can meet the characters in festive garb:

In the nearby Paradise Grill, the entire menu has swapped out into a Mexican cuisine menu with tortas, tacos, tamales, chicken mole, etc.

The area is actually a lot of fun and should be a popular annual tradition.

 

[Coheteboy]

Oh dear.... some bad news right now for Disneyland's future. Apparently the Submarines are closing permanently after the holidays. The reason for this was because they were going to break ground on Star Wars expansions almost immediately.

But thanks to WDW's my magic+ bands that are doing terribly and probably NOT going to be implemented at Disneyland anymore, it's considered a HUUUGE loss for the company. Everything at Disneyland is now on hold.

Read t his for more:

https://micechat.com/49401-my-magic-plus-failure/


So basically the subs are closing but without anything to replace it.

 

[Grenouille]

I'm going down to WDW at the end of January. I'm a bit leery of this whole system. Only 3 FPs and tiers? Pretty ridiculous. The fact that it's drained the company so that they're going to hold off on any expansion is even worse.

 

[budafett]

Interesting. I've used the Magic Bands now for two trips, next week will be my third time. I've enjoyed them and the ability to schedule 3 FPs per park per day. It's allowed me to schedule each of the big rides per park and to enjoy the other rides and shows I haven't done before. Plus having the ticket, CC info, etc on one card/band is very helpful!

 

[cokebabies]

I hope the magic+ system crashes and burns in a giant ball of fire.

 

[Tbolt]

I hate the marketing band errrr magic band system, hope it's a colossal failure!

A WDW trip is already so expensive, just what were these guys smoking thinking they could soak the guests for even more $$$? Plus it's blatantly intrusive and requires too much advance planning, even worse for those who have never been.

 

[budafett]

As I write this post from my room at the board walk, they're finally getting fast pass + kiosks at a few rides. They work like normal fast passes just with the band. I'm still a supportor.

 

[Darth Waller]

Oh dear.... some bad news right now for Disneyland's future. Apparently the Submarines are closing permanently after the holidays. The reason for this was because they were going to break ground on Star Wars expansions almost immediately.

But thanks to WDW's my magic+ bands that are doing terribly and probably NOT going to be implemented at Disneyland anymore, it's considered a HUUUGE loss for the company. Everything at Disneyland is now on hold.

Read t his for more:

https://micechat.com/49401-my-magic-plus-failure/

So basically the subs are closing but without anything to replace it.

That just sucks, plain and simple.

 

[Coheteboy]

Okay so that micechat link might not be 100% accurate! Now I'm hearing that the Star Wars stuff on hold is because they want to wait for more news about Episode VII so that they can incorporate it into the additions.

That makes sense.


As far as closing of the Submarines? Well... that's huge and they would have announced it on the blog already. So maybe there's nothing to worry about after all?

 

[Darth Waller]

Keep it OT, Disney!

 

[budafett]

Keep it OT, Disney!

Not going to happen. They didn't buy Star Wars to attract OT purists. They want the young boy target market. Their princess lines are making huge $$ for the young girl market and they're hoping Star Wars and Marvel will do the same thing for them in and out of theme parks.