'If Disney World's Star Wars Land Is a Flop, Why Is It So Crowded?' (fool.com) 94
An anonymous reader quotes an analyst for the Motley Fool:
With so many industry worrywarts and Star Wars purists taking a dim view of Disney's bicoastal Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge expansion, I figured I'd check out Florida's version on Saturday afternoon. Would I get pelted by drifting tumbleweed while slurping down some blue milk? Would my voice echo in a barren Droid Depot? Would I leave accepting that the first phase of what initially seemed like a slam-dunk expansion has turned into a colossal flop for ages?
If you read the headline you know my answer. In my sixth visit to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge -- four to the original Disneyland version this summer and now my second visit at Disney World, but the first since it officially opened -- I have never seen the 14-acre addition as busy as it was this weekend. The wait for the high-capacity Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run was 85 minutes. A mobile order at the Docking Bay 7 eatery was filled quickly just past the lunch rush block, but finding an empty table proved challenging. The stores -- and more importantly, the registers -- were thick with tourists. It's early October, which is historically when the theme park industry hits a lull. However, it seems the one-two punch of the recent media blitz across most of Disney's media networks and last week's opening of the Skyliner gondola system that connects two of Disney World's parks with several of its hotels is doing the trick.
Hours later, Disney announced they were closing the Skyline gondola system, after it stalled Saturday night, stranding passengers in the air "for about three hours," according to passengers interviewed by CNN.
"Passengers who were stranded were compensated with free park tickets and gift cards."
If you read the headline you know my answer. In my sixth visit to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge -- four to the original Disneyland version this summer and now my second visit at Disney World, but the first since it officially opened -- I have never seen the 14-acre addition as busy as it was this weekend. The wait for the high-capacity Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run was 85 minutes. A mobile order at the Docking Bay 7 eatery was filled quickly just past the lunch rush block, but finding an empty table proved challenging. The stores -- and more importantly, the registers -- were thick with tourists. It's early October, which is historically when the theme park industry hits a lull. However, it seems the one-two punch of the recent media blitz across most of Disney's media networks and last week's opening of the Skyliner gondola system that connects two of Disney World's parks with several of its hotels is doing the trick.
Hours later, Disney announced they were closing the Skyline gondola system, after it stalled Saturday night, stranding passengers in the air "for about three hours," according to passengers interviewed by CNN.
"Passengers who were stranded were compensated with free park tickets and gift cards."
Shill much (Score:1, Troll)
No one says they went six times and isn’t a shill. Either that or you are a crazy.
Re:Shill much (Score:5, Interesting)
You underestimate both frothing Disney fanbois and frothing Star Wars fanbois. I knew people in high school who went to Disneyland about seven times a year.
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> I knew people in high school who went to Disneyland about seven times a year.
That isn't economic any more. Ticket prices are through the roof (and passes are sorely restricted) and wait times are so long, you wouldn't bother with Galaxy's Edge more than once or twice. GE is terrible, because it's a GINORMOUS themed open market for obscenely overpriced trash-quality toys, with an IP that is heavily damaged (cluttered with a decade of worthless or devalued iconography). We can leave it at that for now.
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Yes, either his high school was super-rich, or his school was a neighbor to Disneyland and thus he and his friends could benefit from the neighbors' discounted season pass.
As to Galaxy's Edge, I know the fast pass won't work for it, but if the person doesn't mind not being seated next to his friends for the ride, he can go through the solo line, and skip a big chunk of the line that way.
Re:Shill much (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, either his high school was super-rich, or his school was a neighbor to Disneyland and thus he and his friends could benefit from the neighbors' discounted season pass.
We lived in Northern California, so it was about a 6-7 hour drive away (which is nothing for kids with nothing much to do). I think they did have a hookup for season passes, and presumably someplace to stay while they were there, too.
As an aside, one person I remember in particular was so fanatic that when he started a band, he called it "Fantasia." That guy was named Jonas Rivera, and he went on to be the producer of the Pixar movies "Toy Story 4," "Up," and "Inside Out," the latter of which saw him take home an Academy Award (and he was onstage for "Up.") So I guess his fandom worked out for him.
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> I knew people in high school who went to Disneyland about seven times a year.
That isn't economic any more. Ticket prices are through the roof (and passes are sorely restricted) and wait times are so long, you wouldn't bother with Galaxy's Edge more than once or twice. GE is terrible, because it's a GINORMOUS themed open market for obscenely overpriced trash-quality toys, with an IP that is heavily damaged (cluttered with a decade of worthless or devalued iconography). We can leave it at that for now.
... not to mention that Disney is a corrupt and evil organization that has corrupted the public's domain ... my advice, don't support these abusive corporations, giving them your business is just wrong, they don't deserve it
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> I knew people in high school who went to Disneyland about seven times a year.
That isn't economic any more. Ticket prices are through the roof (and passes are sorely restricted) and wait times are so long, you wouldn't bother with Galaxy's Edge more than once or twice. GE is terrible, because it's a GINORMOUS themed open market for obscenely overpriced trash-quality toys, with an IP that is heavily damaged (cluttered with a decade of worthless or devalued iconography). We can leave it at that for now.
That is nothing. Half of my circle of acquaintances after high school visited Disneyland every or every other week. If you were part of that crowd, then you had an annual pass and Disneyland had become just another social and dating environment. Having distant memories of the ticket days and the time before it was not crowded all to hell, I was not part of that inner circle. I cannot stand the place now.
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I think people overestimate frothing Star Wars fanbois. They made a lot of noise about how terrible Force Awakens and Last Jedi were, but they both did very well at the box office and the third instalment is looking like it will too.
News of Star War's demise has been greatly exaggerated.
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I think people overestimate frothing Star Wars fanbois. They made a lot of noise about how terrible Force Awakens and Last Jedi were, but they both did very well at the box office and the third instalment is looking like it will too.
Hence, frothing Star Wars fanbois. There are millions who will see anything Star Wars, no matter what. Watch video of people who cheer Star Wars trailers ... trailers that they stood for hours in line to see at San Diego Comic-Con or Star Wars conventions.
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Let's see how RotS does in December, shall we?
It's hard to determine a pattern considering that Rogue One was a spin-off and Solo was just bad.
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No, the pattern is pretty easy to see.
How have the toys done? How have the bluray sales done? How have the licensed video games done? What about all the other ST merch? With TFA a bunch of kids got BB8 toys, but that's about it. How's the theme park doing? Utter failure with only 2 "rides" (1 ride and 1 attraction), and an overpriced bar? What's that? Disney is being investigated for their entire theme parks division lying about financials on a massive scale?
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You underestimate both frothing Disney fanbois and frothing Star Wars fanbois. I knew people in high school who went to Disneyland about seven times a year.
A guy at my college had been to Disney World something like 24 times by the time he was 18. His family went at least once a year every year. They also go on Disney Cruises every 4 years or so?
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There are no frothing Star Wars fanbois anymore. Disney killed all interest they had in the ST and the toys. They flip flopped on the EU being canon or not. (The entirety of the EU is trash anyway.) And they put out a bunch of crappy cartoons and sidequels nobody wanted. Star Wars is dead.
Re:Shill much (Score:5, Funny)
With waits of almost 2 hours, it takes 6 trips to see everything...
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plenty of people have gone there and seen it all in a day.
come on with wait of 2 hours you can see the falcon thing 3-4 times in a day. did they add any other rides to it?
but really you would qualify as a fan of the place if you went there SIX FRIGGIN TIMES. then again plenty of the day 0 reviews were just from people flown in there and given a bunch of disney bucks so they wouldn't call bs on the merchandise pricing and such.
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They have these things called season passes, Cylix.
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It's quite possible that there's still enough fans to keep those theme park attractions busy most of the time, despite that you and I may not like the new Star Wars.
To me the new Star Wars is pretty much dead, I do not partake in it. But that doesn't mean that I don't like or don't want others partaking and enjoying it. I can do what I want with my time and money and so can they.
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Even when you do see pics of people at Galaxy's Edge, it's typically because people are walking from one area to another, and have to go through GE to do so.
And when you see or hear about long lines for an attraction at GE, it's because there are only 2 attractions at GE. Other than that, there's a bar serving absurdly overpriced drinks. There's nothing there!
Brilliant idea (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a stock expert and you want to find out Disney's attendance history, you would research their publicly available financial reports. Or you just go with a person anecdote of one guy! That's why I listen to Motley Fool, because one's just as good as the other!
Not looking at the correct metric there bub. (Score:5, Insightful)
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GE is the reason the parks are flopping.
Disney predicted GE to to super well. So they jacked up prices repeatedly in advance of it. They launched it before it was ready (there are only 2 attractions). They added a ton of restrictions for season pass holders. They don't let the fast pass work for GE. They played games with hotel pricing in Orlando.
Basically, they pegged a lot of the parks' success on people flooding into GE at any cost, and it didn't happen. Instead, all the restrictions and barriers t
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On the park issue, like any entertainment, ticket sales and attendance are only part of the equation. If everyone is there for same ride, and they are waiting over an hour, they may not be buying concessions. They may not be back. No one goes to the park for the line ride.
My
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I find that hard to believe.
Translation (Score:3)
The suits want a perfect 45 degree growth slope forever. Slope is slightly less than 45. Doom and gloom according to the board. Bonuses will be 1% less than last year (but still several million $). That's why you have idiots going around now spouting how "Netflix is dying".
Re:Translation (Score:5, Interesting)
The suits want a perfect 45 degree growth slope forever. Slope is slightly less than 45. Doom and gloom according to the board. Bonuses will be 1% less than last year (but still several million $). That's why you have idiots going around now spouting how "Netflix is dying".
Any upward slope can be at 45 degrees if you scale your axis correctly.
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Any upward slope can be at 45 degrees if you scale your axis correctly.
What about a perfectly vertical slope?
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Correlates to the well-known sandwich-cutting angle problem.
In this example, you'd be removing one edge of the crust.
My apologies to the fine deli counter managers of bistromathics.
enjoy! (Score:3)
Passengers who were stranded were compensated with free park tickets and gift cards.
You spent "about three hours" stuck in the air. Why would you ever go back again?
Re: enjoy! (Score:2)
Re:enjoy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Because looking at the history of Disney Land the probability of getting stuck on a ride is extremely low and next time you will almost certainly have more fun... For free with the ticket they just gave you.
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instead of proper compensation, they provide you a thing that only they value... at nothing... and to which you might not value as one may have not had intention of purchasing tickets for future visits.
Now that person is saddled with a ticket that is valueless to them, non-transferable (likely, my last ticket to Disney World was non-transferable) and will incur additional travel and lodging costs in order to utilize said ticket.
Not exactly a prize worth winning for being stuck on a gondola, stranded above g
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We're heading for a recession (Score:5, Interesting)
Recession theory doesn't mesh with other indicator (Score:2)
People do slash vacation spending during a recession, but if that was the cause of Disney's under-performance, we'd be seeing other vacation metrics declining. But it's the opposite: US air traffic was at an all-time high [bts.gov] during this year's summer vacation season.
I'm not sure raw air travel stats count (Score:2)
Six times? (Score:2)
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I know adults, who have season passes, go often!
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Not a "Flop" (Score:5, Interesting)
It isn't necessarily a flop, but the Disneyland rollout was botched. They were overly cautious in worrying that crowds were going to get out of hand so they enacted draconian crowd control measures that scared people away. The head of Disneyland got fired over it. Attendance was probably up but nowhere near what they were expecting.
According to family who lives in Orlando, the WDW version is pretty busy. However, an 85 minute wait for a brand new ride is NOT a long time. Last time we went in off-peak season, wait times for the Aerosmith roller coaster in the same park were around 80 minutes.
The other thing happening is that this is the tail end of Eisner's mishandling of the parks. For a good chunk of the 90's and 2000's, he opened a single new park at WDW (Animal Kingdom) while spending almost NO money on the other parks. At the same time they built tons of new hotels and cranked up the ticket prices. The end effect is expensive, overcrowded parks with fewer and fewer things to do. Heck, when they were building Toy Story Land and Star Wars Land at Hollywood Studios, there were four functioning rides left at that park, half the park was completely closed, and you still paid full price for a ticket.
End Result: people don't go back.
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they enacted draconian crowd control measures that scared people away.
Storm Troopers with cattle prods? It's Disney, they tend to stay on-theme...
Re:Not a "Flop" (Score:5, Interesting)
The other thing happening is that this is the tail end of Eisner's mishandling of the parks. For a good chunk of the 90's and 2000's, he opened a single new park at WDW (Animal Kingdom) while spending almost NO money on the other parks.
I'm glad someone mentioned this. I worked at WDW for six years in that time period and saw this firsthand. It still continues - back in 1999, the monorail fleet was about 10 years old with more than a million miles on each train, and they were already getting kinda rickety and having more and more maintenance issues. In 2009, a fatal accident occurred, so the company's response was to refit the fleet with automation, instead of buying new automated trains. So here we are in 2019, and the newest train is 28 years old. They're not like wine - they don't get better with age.
I had one time where I had to take one of the trains back to the shop due to a leak in the high-pressure air line, and had to wait almost 20 minutes after stopping in each station for the pressure to come back up after using the brakes. On top of that, when I got to the switchbeam to get back to the shop, they had electrical issues with the switchbeam and had to send a guy out in a pickup truck to manually crank it into position, twice. The combination of those two issues caused more than two hours of downtime on that beam, inconveniencing thousands of people. But hey, that's okay, because the company saved some money by continuing to run on decades-old hardware, right?
IMO, this all started with the death of Frank Wells back in 1994. Wells and Eisner were a phenomenal team. Eisner was good with the money side, and Wells had a good understanding of what made Disney appealing to people. When Wells died, there was no check on Eisner, and the penny-pinching was allowed to run amok.
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Not surprising - it's been about 25 years since it last had a makeover.
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At these crowd densities, it's just not worth it. I read a couple of years ago that Disneyworld now has more on-property hotel rooms than all of Orlando had when the Magic Kingdom opened.
Fastpass helped, until it became necessary to basically schedule your whole visit around a few ride times.
The whole theme park "ride" idea needs to be rebooted and turned into some kind of continuous motion virtual reality/simulation that can accommodate 10,000 people at a time.
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You pay an enormous sum of money to wait in line for an hour and a half? You couldn't pay me enough to visit a theme park.
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You pay an enormous sum of money to wait in line for an hour and a half?
Indeed, I hate theme parks for this exact reason. That said, I go to one every once in a while because "family". I compromise and go for the kids occasionally... and with that said, I was at a conference several years back in November, low crowds, free fast pass because of hotel the conference I was in, and Universal Studios was great with a fast pass; only a few minutes wait for each ride. I actually had fun.
Usually though, I agree, if you have to wait more than 10 minutes for a ride, it's really not w
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The franchise is now diluted (Score:2, Insightful)
You've lost many, not all, but many of the original die-hard fans, by releasing a substandard product.
Congratulations.
Now you have the zeitgeisty - current fad - instagram people, these people are far more wishy-washy. One week cronuts are the best thing on earth, the next week who gives a damn, I'm trying a bacon weave at $INSERTSTOREHERE. These people to and fro from company and product and they're not an ongoing sale.
I think many long term fans wrote the series off since the re-launch of it and on top
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That's not to say they could not have done a better job. Perhaps they were afraid to pander too much to the original fans and lose the new crowd, and for a fact they did succeed in turning on a whole ne
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They did not turn on a new generation to the franchise. That's the whole problem. They made a movie that appealed to them for the same reason all the other movies appealed. It was loud, had lots of cheap effects and didn't distract too much with a story.
That will sell a movie, but not a franchise. If you're ok with living from movie to movie that's fine, but you're not allowed to try to change the formula, ever, because you cannot afford to do a single movie "wrong" or these people are gone to the next fran
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burn that franchise faster than you can recover the cost you paid for it.
Didn't Disney already recoup the cost of acquiring the franchise with the first movie alone?
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I don't think so. They paid $4 billion. The Force Awakens grossed $2 billion worldwide [boxofficemojo.com]. The production budget was $245 million, so figure double that again for marketing. So I see a net of $1.5 billion on The Force Awakens, which is still a nice return on investment. I'm sure merchandise was also profitable.
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"Moichandising, moichandising, where the real money from the movie is made!"
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That doesn't seem to match up with what has actually happened.
You say they had lots of cheap effects and not much story, but the content of the story is the thing that most upset the die hard fans, particularly in Last Jedi. In fact both of the Episodes had long sections with little action and a lot of plot/character development, which was one of the things people complained about (as if the originals were non-stop action).
Solo was a flop. You claim that a single flop means the franchise is dead and people
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The problem is that the characters did not develop. At all. Where should Rey develop to? A Mary Sue by definition does not develop. What to? The only person who did actually develop was Finn, from Han-Solo-To-Be to comic side kick. Not exactly what I'd expect in a good movie.
The people did not complain about character development. Anything but. The original trilogy saw the transformation of Luke from a farm boy to the person who bested the most feared evil creature in the galaxy. And we saw that development
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For the original fans, it wasn't Disney so much as Lucas himself who did in the series.
Honestly, I think it was just "growing up" and the fact that there is so much more Sci Fi* with decent special effects than there was pre-prequels. By the time the prequels were out, I was an adult and so kiddy stuff didn't appeal as much and there is plenty of other good effects and well written sci-fi now that Star Wars just isn't as special anymore.
Original Star Wars was special because it was so ahead of it's time. The original fans have grown up, and the Sci-Fi industry has too... There wasn't reall
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Original Star Wars was special because it was so ahead of it's time.
This is something that really can't be said enough. If you look at most movies from the same timeframe as the original Star Wars (especially SciFi ones), they are so campy that it mains them painful to watch. Star Wars definitely stood out from the pack.
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Obligatory Classic Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nobody goes there anymore--it's too crowded." -- Yogi Berra.
If the country sucks for immigrants, why do they c (Score:2, Interesting)
[Please read, before trigger-modding.]
Here in Germany, we have Nigerians coming here, because they think it is the praised land. But when the are here, they find out they can't get a job, can't make ends meet, and it is really freaking hard to integrate. I've seen guys cry, and becoming as desperate, that they wanted to commit suicide or start stealing. Good guys that used to be happy and nice and made every room better they were in.
Why then, do more come? If that is the experience?
Simple: Nigerians are a p
Another media shill for Disney (Score:1)
Fake news for Disney! Read all about it! Get it while it's hot (and still steaming)!!!
Disney killed Star Wars, and yet all we read about is how great Disney Star Wares is... Goebbels would be proud.
After "The Last Jettison" movie no one cares about this crap anymore...
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Lucas killed Star Wars a long time before he sold its rotting corpse to Disney. But the people will basically eat anything if it distracts them from their unsatisfying real life. Everybody gets to be Jedis and Princesses at Disney, if they wait in line long enough.
It still blows me away how that god forsaken, completely unoriginal franchise, which basically centers around a really grim, dystopian universe where warring factions of dictatorships fight "Space Nazis" (and how people wi
Price is becoming crazy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Simple Bias (Score:2)
I'm pretty certain that I'm not going to take as "objective" the report from someone who's already been there 6 times.
Who the hell cares? (Score:2)
I'm no fan of Disney, but who cares about this? I mean, if you like Star Wars and have too much money and spare time, then by all means, go along to the park. Otherwise don't. Honestly, I think I'd rather go to a new, but failing amusement park - all the trappings of new, without the crowds of people getting in the way.
And who ever thought an 85 minute wait as a *good thing*? I'm sorry, I just can't get excited about that - I like a roller coaster or ride here and there, but after 85 minutes of waiting, I'd
Commercial (Score:2)
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So then what purpose does the commercial serve? What on-the-fence audience is it aimed at?
It makes children scream about it when they see it on TV, and it makes grandparents with money plan an expensive vacation for the grandkids.
But kids don't care about star wars. They care about Fortnite and Minecraft and Instagram. Only the "princess" crowd remains for Disney.
And grandparents don't have a ton of money, nor do they give a shit about spoiling little Billy and Sarah because they're already rotten.
The commercial is an attempt to reach a market that no longer exists. If Disney wanted money, th
Like Yogi Berra once said... (Score:1)
Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded.
Disney World is always crowded (Score:3)
A mobile order at the Docking Bay 7 eatery was filled quickly just past the lunch rush block, but finding an empty table proved challenging. The stores -- and more importantly, the registers -- were thick with tourists. It's early October, which is historically when the theme park industry hits a lull.
I haven't gone to Disney World in... probably 15 years or so, since my little sister was much younger. But I seem to recall the thing I always hated about going there was there was always a big search for seating with food, and often long waits for food/snacks/drinks or whatever you were at. "It was crowded" doesn't seem like great proof as Disney was ALWAYS crowded when I went.
Well. We went a few weeks after September 11th and it wasn't crowded then. It was almost empty in many areas. People were afraid to travel, I guess. Almost no waits for anything at all.
Disney World is too expensive and crowded to bother with. An IP being unsuccessful isn't likely to have no one going to it's rides and exhibits.
My sarcasm's got the death penalty in 12 systems! (Score:2)
Would I get pelted by drifting tumbleweed while slurping down some blue milk?
[Luke Skywalker enters the Disneyland Cantina for some refreshments. There is music playing...]
Luke Skywalker: I'd like two blue milks, please.
Han Solo: Well that's the real trick, isn't it? And it's gonna cost you extra. Ten thousand, all in advance.
Luke Skywalker: [shocked] Ten thousand!? We could almost buy our own restaurant for that!
Because everyone goes once (Score:1)
Just got back (Score:3)
I'm a disney newbie, but just got back from my first trip.
My impressions: the park that has the Star Wars bit is small. We went to each park, but that's the only one we only went to once. If I go back, I'd likely pass on $109/person to go back to that one park. If I did a park-hopper ticket, yeah, I'd probably go back to see a few things.
The actors were good. The stormtroopers harrassing people for recording with their "data pads" was great. Set quality was great. I've been to a number of theme parks, and they always seem to have stuff that should have been repaired or repainted. I didn't see much if any of that at Disney. Top quality look and feel. If you're there for the nostalgia from walking around life-size Star Wars ships, you're not going to be disappointed. The star wars themed show on stage was well done, and fun. I'd watch that again.
Smuggler's run was disappointing. Several rides to make it an interactive game, but the "game" bit is "push the button that lights up". That's not a 2010s game. That's 1970s Simon without even having to remember anything. They could do that SO much better, and give an autopilot option for people who don't really want their actions to affect the story.
Always been crowded (Score:2)
I've never seen it empty, and I've gone a number of times.
By the way, check out It's A Small World, it's fun!
But why? (Score:2)
I will never understand why places like Disney World and Universal Studios are as successful as they are. As a teen I was bitched at for not wanting to go to Universal while we were visiting Daytona. It sounded awful. Average 80 minute wait times for rides in the Florida summer while packed into the park like sardines. So of course I had to go because it was a family thing and me not wanting to go was shitting all over our family time. And of course it was terrible.
I wouldn't go there as an adult even if th
The real question is this: (Score:1)
Why do so many adults have such a "thing" for Star Wars stuff?
It's bedtime stories for little kids.
Grow up already...
I was at Disneyland a couple of weeks ago (Score:3)
I have been to Orlando (so DisneyWorld/Universal Studios) several times in the last few years. Last month I went to Disneyland for the first time and got to experience Star Wars Land.
I was not at all impressed with Star Wars Land. I turned to the friend I was with and said "Yeah, this is cool, but does not hold a candle to Harry Potter World" (in Orlando).
Harry Potter World is probably the best thing to compare it to, and HPW is completely immersive. Yes, you are in an amusement park, but it really feels like you are on set. There are several rides in HPW. The train between the two parks is amazingly well done. SWL, on the other hand, feels... artificial. It feels hastily put together, without any sense of flow or identity. You still feel like you are in an amusement park.
I am a huge Star Wars fan. That said, I would go back to HPW many times before I consider returning to SWL.