News Round Up 2020

[rteetz]

News

Jim Cummings, Roger Allers to Participate in Upcoming Happily Ever After Hours Events for WDFM

 

[rteetz]

News

http://www.teaconnect.org/Blog/TEA-Blog/index.cfm?ID=8520&redirect=y

 

[tlmadden73]

News

https://blogmickey.com/2020/07/spac...poppins-attraction-cut-from-epcot-experience/

I really like how Disney keeps up with .. and updates their previews. You'd think with all they had going on someone would have forgotten about the Epcot Preview center and removing cut attractions from it! Just emphasizes how the company has that attention to detail .. even when things are going sideways.

Again .. we all figured that many of the "not started yet" attractions and refurbs wouldn't happen. (That's why it was kind of surprising (and probably just more for PR) the whole Splash Mountain thing. I really have my doubts they are going to dive head first into changing that attraction for a LONG LONG time .. especially if the rest of this year is going to be low attendance.

 

[OSUZorba]

News

http://www.teaconnect.org/Blog/TEA-Blog/index.cfm?ID=8520&redirect=y

Doesn't seem great for Disney based on how much they spent on SWGE and other additions. Shocked AK and EP still beat DHS. Of course, the per caps went way up last year.

 

[rteetz]

Doesn't seem great for Disney based on how much they spent on SWGE and other additions. Shocked AK and EP still beat DHS. Of course, the per caps went way up last year.

Only had roughly 15 days worth of Rise. I think that would’ve boosted DHS a decent amount.

 

[OSUZorba]

Only had roughly 15 days worth of Rise. I think that would’ve boosted DHS a decent amount.

Yeah, I agree, Rise was the real game changer. But that means the rest of SW:GE did nothing for DHS or DLP. Although, it looks like it may have helped Knott's that saw a 4% increase.

 

[dlavender]

Yeah, I agree, Rise was the real game changer. But that means the rest of SW:GE did nothing for DHS or DLP. Although, it looks like it may have helped Knott's that saw a 4% increase.

We won't ever know for sure, as this year obviously we have a pandemic.......

But this goes to my personal opinion that they failed to really capitalize on building a SW land. The route they went just didn't move the needle. It's a nice addition, but it could have been a real game changer. Not to take us down that path again, lol.

 

[rteetz]

We won't ever know for sure, as this year obviously we have a pandemic.......

But this goes to my personal opinion that they failed to really capitalize on building a SW land. The route they went just didn't move the needle. It's a nice addition, but it could have been a real game changer. Not to take us down that path again, lol.

I think Rise is that game changer but that’s just me. I personally don’t think they create a new type of attraction like that if they were to base the land on say the original trilogy.

 

[ShadeDK]

The popularity of RotR provides some hope since a good ride can significantly boost attendance - demonstrated by the 6% increase in attendance last year at IoA (best among the Orlando parks and where the only significant addition was Hagrid’s).

Still amazed, however, that Galaxy’s Edge as a whole didn’t seem to do much for the numbers at DHS (2% increase) or Disneyland (0%). By way of comparison, AK saw a 15.6% increase in 2017 when it opened Pandora in May of that year, and DHS saw a 5% increase in 2018 after opening Toy Story Land on June 30 of that year.

 

[dlavender]

I think Rise is that game changer but that’s just me. I personally don’t think they create a new type of attraction like that if they were to base the land on say the original trilogy.

Maybe, maybe not.

I think the land itself that was supposed to be the "third attraction" just couldn't deliver in the state that they built it.

But we've all been down this road, lol

 

[Anthony Vito]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1283462658604306433

I may be in the minority, but I actually prefer the small ones. I have no interest in getting drunk, but want to be able to have a cold beer with my food. It allows me to get something with each snack without overdoing it. Plus, it allows me to have a colder beer, in that heat, unless you’re trying to drink it quickly enough, those last few ounces are just warm swill at that point. For 50 cents more, I’ll take 2 successive 6 oz. beers that are colder over a 12 oz. that 3 oz. of it just ends up being gross. Now, too, with questions about walking around drinking, 6 oz. are easier to deal with than 12 oz.

 

[dina444444]

News

https://twitter.com/x/status/1283793521091252224

 

[rteetz]

News

https://twitter.com/x/status/1283793521091252224

Excited for this one.

 

[rteetz]

I may be in the minority, but I actually prefer the small ones. I have no interest in getting drunk, but want to be able to have a cold beer with my food. It allows me to get something with each snack without overdoing it. Plus, it allows me to have a colder beer, in that heat, unless you’re trying to drink it quickly enough, those last few ounces are just warm swill at that point. For 50 cents more, I’ll take 2 successive 6 oz. beers that are colder over a 12 oz. that 3 oz. of it just ends up being gross. Now, too, with questions about walking around drinking, 6 oz. are easier to deal with than 12 oz.

I think this is certainly more appealing to the locals or if you really like one beer. The sample sizes are great for trying different beers. Though it’s also nice to have the option for the larger one if you like a certain one.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I think this is certainly more appealing to the locals or if you really like one beer. The sample sizes are great for trying different beers. Though it’s also nice to have the option for the larger one if you like a certain one.

I like that they have both options - it was annoying to only be able to get the small ones when you just wanted one larger beer

 

[mollmoll4]

The popularity of RotR provides some hope since a good ride can significantly boost attendance - demonstrated by the 6% increase in attendance last year at IoA (best among the Orlando parks and where the only significant addition was Hagrid’s).

Still amazed, however, that Galaxy’s Edge as a whole didn’t seem to do much for the numbers at DHS (2% increase) or Disneyland (0%). By way of comparison, AK saw a 15.6% increase in 2017 when it opened Pandora in May of that year, and DHS saw a 5% increase in 2018 after opening Toy Story Land on June 30 of that year.

I think this is kind of comparing apples to oranges. ONLY because the roll-out was vastly different for Pandora and SWGE. First of all, Pandora opened all at the same time. That right there is going to impact attendance, because we know that people were waiting for ROTR before going to SWGE. Secondly, they had a reservation system in place for SWGE that actively deterred people from entering the park unless they had access to the land already. Pandora had people waiting in line for hours just to enter the land. I think it's going to be really hard to make direct comparisons for these reasons alone, and that's leaving the whole "global pandemic" issue out of it

 

[OSUZorba]

The popularity of RotR provides some hope since a good ride can significantly boost attendance - demonstrated by the 6% increase in attendance last year at IoA (best among the Orlando parks and where the only significant addition was Hagrid’s).

Still amazed, however, that Galaxy’s Edge as a whole didn’t seem to do much for the numbers at DHS (2% increase) or Disneyland (0%). By way of comparison, AK saw a 15.6% increase in 2017 when it opened Pandora in May of that year, and DHS saw a 5% increase in 2018 after opening Toy Story Land on June 30 of that year.

Just for context, AK also went from a 5pm close to a 8:30+ pm close. I'm sure that accounted for some amount of the increase. But Pandora was the real game changer.

 

[OSUZorba]

I think this is kind of comparing apples to oranges. ONLY because the roll-out was vastly different for Pandora and SWGE. First of all, Pandora opened all at the same time. That right there is going to impact attendance, because we know that people were waiting for ROTR before going to SWGE. Secondly, they had a reservation system in place for SWGE that actively deterred people from entering the park unless they had access to the land already. Pandora had people waiting in line for hours just to enter the land. I think it's going to be really hard to make direct comparisons for these reasons alone, and that's leaving the whole "global pandemic" issue out of it

The reservation system was only at DLP at the beginning. The biggest difference there was that they were hyping crowd sizes and a lot of people stayed away.

For Rise to give DHS a major boost, I think boarding groups will have to end, and have high enough capacity people think they'll actually get a chance to ride it. (Of course at this point it'll likely be 2022 before we get good full year numbers again).

 

[TheMaxRebo]

The reservation system was only at DLP at the beginning. The biggest difference there was that they were hyping crowd sizes and a lot of people stayed away.

For Rise to give DHS a major boost, I think boarding groups will have to end, and have high enough capacity people think they'll actually get a chance to ride it. (Of course at this point it'll likely be 2022 before we get good full year numbers again).

There definitely was a sense that people were fearing the crowds that GE would bring so unless you were going for that, you stayed away (or at least has hesitations to go - so some people pushed off their vacations) - then when people saw the craziness for boarding groups that again scared people away unless you were going for that.

I do think DHS would have seen a big increase for 2020 if it wasn't for Covid. You really only had a handful of days in 2019 with Rise there and then they also added MMRR which is a ride with more broad appeal and now there were multiple draws to the park

But I guess we shall never know

 

[mollmoll4]

The reservation system was only at DLP at the beginning. The biggest difference there was that they were hyping crowd sizes and a lot of people stayed away.

For Rise to give DHS a major boost, I think boarding groups will have to end, and have high enough capacity people think they'll actually get a chance to ride it. (Of course at this point it'll likely be 2022 before we get good full year numbers again).

Right! But if DLP is showing a 0% increase since SWGE opened, that reservation system is undoubtedly part of the reason why. Also not accounted for are the AP blackouts that were in place in a major-AP visitor park.

I don't want to take the thread off topic with more back and forth - I just was trying to say that there are too many differences between Pandora (and even Toy Story Land) opening and SWGE opening for comparison purposes. I think they tried to learn from Pandora and overshot in some ways... then as park operations were returning to "normal" the word went the opposite way. As OSUZorba said, it's going to be a long time until we know the impact of SWGE on DHS.