Comparing Ferrariland’s original opening times to these is pretty demonstrative of how much of a flop this half-baked idea has been. I remember when its hours were longer than the main park, in more recent times it’s been 12-5 and now 4-10. I’d like to think people do recognise just how poor the park is when it’s stood right next to one of the best original theme park designs going.
It just baffles me how they thought cramming the “best bits” of Italy into one disjointed environment was going to be a success. Why not focus on creating authentic spaces that people can understand,, like the main park? There’s just so much wrong with FL, I think it is now a considerable task to fix it.
In contrast to the hotch-potch of FL, the bones of the main park are excellent. The original design and infrastructure continue to allow for significant expansion possibilities that flow much more naturally. The biggest issue (other than ops) is that some of the later additions not done by Universal have been poorly integrated - Rec where Sea Odyssey is ridiculous, Sesamo Aventura whilst reasonable ruins the flow of Polynesia and China and I won’t start on what an abomination Baco is dumped in the Mediterranea lagoon. It’s exciting to think that a Universal buy-out is probably the best chance we have of some of these issues being fixed.
As I say, the park also lends itself to expansion given how and where it was built. There is plenty of space that they own in the area to allow for the addition of more hotels, CityWalk and even a third gate.
I wouldn’t be too concerned at shows disappearing - they have always been an integral part of the park, both with and without Universal involvement, so I don’t see too much risk in that changing. Indeed it might offer some more integration into the areas’ themes than some of the shows which now feel to have lost their way. I’m thinking Bang Bang West, the Saloon Show and the production show in the Mexico/China theatre, which are all often disconnected to their themes and seem to be a product of years of ideas accumulating to create a bit of a mess of a production. Taking these back to basics would be a fantastic strategy to reinvigorate the show offering.
I think they do need to start by fixing the current problems, rather than major expansion immediately. There’s no reason why they couldn’t badge those changes as new attractions either.