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Unpopular Opinions: Theme Park Edition

Matt N said:
I have another unpopular opinion… I apologise in advance, as I’m preparing to get criticised for this, but I actually quite like (or at very least don’t hate) Thorpe Park’s new logo…

Particularly with this new circle/spiral pattern they’re trying to put behind it in much of their signage, I actually don’t dislike it at all!
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I do too Matt. It was quite shock to begin with but I think it looks good with the various patterned backgrounds & on signage throughout the park. It doesn't seem as strong in some promo material but, I'm not mad about it at all!
 
My apologies for bumping the thread, but relatives of mine having recently returned from their first ever trip to Florida and having absolutely loved Disney got me thinking about an unpopular take of mine; I’m somewhat apathetic towards Disney parks.

OK, maybe apathetic is a slightly strong word, but I’d say they are low down in my interest compared to other major theme parks, particularly given the company’s raw stature. It probably sounds like a completely mad opinion for me to hold given that Disney are the world’s most major theme park operator, and I apologise if it does, but hear me out for a second.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed Disney parks when I’ve visited them. Having been to the 4 parks in Florida, they are good, enjoyable parks, with Animal Kingdom and Epcot being my two favourites in the Florida resort. (I also went to the two parks at DLP, but I think it would be unfair of me to pass much comment on those given that I was only 8 at the time…)

But for me, I’d say that Disney parks lack a certain something to make me really love them and rank them among my very favourite parks. It could be the fact that the parks often don’t have many rides in them, and I am quite a big rides person in parks. It could be the fact that I’m generally not that huge on shows in parks, and Disney focus quite heavily on this. It could be the fact that I’m not a die hard Disney fan in general, and Disney is obviously going to appeal to you more if you are. I don’t really know exactly why. But for whatever reason, I’m surprisingly somewhat apathetic towards Disney given their stature.

On my last trip to Florida in 2023, I didn’t go to any Disney parks at all, only visiting Universal, SeaWorld and Busch Gardens. I was fine with that. Whereas in 2019, we only did Disney parks, and I did find myself missing that Universal fix and some of the other parks. I would like to go back to Florida at some point in the future, and when I do go, Universal will be at the very top of my revisit list, and SeaWorld and Busch would almost definitely be on the list as well. But despite me having been to Disney World 4 years less recently than those other parks and some pretty big stuff having been built there since my last visit, I’m honestly slightly indifferent, for lack of a better word, about the idea of revisiting the Disney parks. Whereas with Universal Orlando, I’d be absolutely buzzing about the idea of going back despite having only been last year.

And on a worldwide scale, I’ll admit that Disney doesn’t come too highly on my bucket list of worldwide parks. I digress that some of their non-castle parks, particularly Tokyo DisneySea, look really interesting, but with the traditional castle parks in particular, I wouldn’t say they feature highly on my worldwide to-do list. In terms of worldwide theme park developments, I’m also slightly ashamed to admit that I zone out of Disney parks and their developments a tad, particularly the ones I haven’t been to.

As I’ve said, don’t take that to mean that I don’t like or enjoy Disney parks, because I do enjoy Disney parks when I visit. But I wouldn’t say that they rank among my very favourites and I wouldn’t say that the traditional castle parks in particular feature that highly on my worldwide bucket list. There are other worldwide parks that I’m more interested in visiting.
 
Quite honestly, especially with how WDW has basically become a "plan everything 6 months before you arrive", I'm fairly concerned about any future trip over that way.

What doesn't really help with Disney developments is that they are either clones, take about a decade to build or aren't particularly interesting overall. Whilst Epic Universe has Nintendo Land, there's a lot of unique additions to it, similarly with Universal Beijing where whilst there are similar themes/IPs the rides are very different.
 
Disney excels at atmosphere, theming, and dark rides, as well as being the only parks on the planet that are legally allowed to play the song "When You Wish Upon A Star". If you're more interested in coasters and Disney movies weren't a big part of your childhood then it makes sense that Disney parks would not generally be on your radar. No shame in that, and certainly your wallet will thank you.
 
Benzin said:
Quite honestly, especially with how WDW has basically become a "plan everything 6 months before you arrive", I'm fairly concerned about any future trip over that way.
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The six month planning largely thing went away during the pandemic, now its 60 days for dining (was 180) and 7 or 3 days for Lightning Lane (was 60 or 30 when it was Fastpass+). Although I agree in general that if using the dining plan and wanting to have restaurants booked it did then take away the spontaneity of picking what park to visit each day and FP+ further made that worse.
My biggest issue this year is that you can't purchase Lightning Lane from the UK so the advantage of paying thousands to stay on site is lost.
 
DLP is perhaps one of the best examples of building a park from the ground up, having lots of space and avenues that Disney learnt from the mistakes of their other parks.

The resort side though was a disaster and an example of how not to build a resort.

It's a shame the park is missing a number of attractions it should've received but didn't down to the poor performance. The main park is still beautiful and impressively designed.
 
Benzin said:
The resort side though was a disaster and an example of how not to build a resort.
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I can vaguely remember the hotel complexes of DLP being OK (but it was still almost brand new in '96), but what happened with the Disney "resort" section through the 1990s and 2000s that did not make the place pan out quite as they originally intended?

Was it the Parisian metropolitan region not quite having the climate of California and Florida, etc?
 
I've only been to DLP once and that would have been around the turn of the millenium, way before I was an enthusiast, and I think the only parks that I had visited at that stage were Thorpe and CWOA. I remember it as being really nicely themed and with some great shows (I recall watching a Mulan acrobatic one). But I can barely remember the rides that I did, besides the main attractions of Big Thunder Mountain, Hyperspace Mountain: De La Terre A La Lune, Pirates Of The Carribean, Phanton Manor, Star Tours, and It's A Small World. But what I found quite shocking was when I looked in to going to the park again a few years back was just how few new attractions had been added to the park since then. Yes, they added the Studios Park, but even having kids I found that I had no real desire to visit there again and that's a pity.
 
TedShatner10 said:
I can vaguely remember the hotel complexes of DLP being OK (but it was still almost brand new in '96), but what happened with the Disney "resort" section through the 1990s and 2000s that did not make the place pan out quite as they originally intended?

Was it the Parisian metropolitan region not quite having the climate of California and Florida, etc?
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Disney massively over-estimated the hotel capacity needed. Instead of building hotels in phases they built all of them for the park opening back in 1992 and then had to close some for a while because they weren't needed. As DLP is easily accessible on the train from Paris it just didn't need that much hotel capacity initially. Therefore due to spending too much and not recouping those costs they didn't have the cash to spend enhancing the park instead.
 
jon81uk said:
Disney massively over-estimated the hotel capacity needed. Instead of building hotels in phases they built all of them for the park opening back in 1992 and then had to close some for a while because they weren't needed. As DLP is easily accessible on the train from Paris it just didn't need that much hotel capacity initially. Therefore due to spending too much and not recouping those costs they didn't have the cash to spend enhancing the park instead.
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That's what put the Disney Co. (and their partners) into the hole really, their hugely oversized hotel complexes, not necessarily their otherwise excellent for the 90s Western Europe themepark.

And I've been gathering that by the 2010s their US based themeparks developed similar issues to Merlin's UK based parks, with stagnation/laziness in places and price gouging (though Disney's Japanese & Chinese parks are generally better, while their Comcast rivals are planning to dethrone Disney World at Orlando with Universal Epic Universe).
 
A rather unpopular opinion I’m not sure if I’ve ever posted in this thread before is that Euro Mir is Europa Park’s weakest coaster (Ba-a-a Express aside, as I didn’t ride it).

It often seems to get quite a bit of love around these parts, but I did not care for it at all. It was horribly violent and rough, and I didn’t even think the layout was anything overly special. I’m sorry if this ruffles any feathers, but I wasn’t personally a fan, and I am always surprised at the amount of love it gets.

In terms of some other random ones that I don’t think I’ve ever expressed before:
  • I prefer both Thirteen at Alton Towers and Gold Rush at Drayton Manor to Expedition Everest at Disney’s Animal Kingdom (in terms of the track and train coaster hardware).
  • Slinky Dog Dash is a fab family coaster, and one of my favourite coasters at Walt Disney World, with it being my 2nd favourite WDW coaster behind only Rock’n’Rollercoaster.
  • I prefer Gold Rush at Drayton Manor to any roller coaster at Paultons Park, and would call it my favourite UK coaster with a height restriction of less than 1.2m (Wicker Man, Megafobia and Thirteen beat it out if you include 1.2m coasters).
  • I didn’t rate Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom, and am not particularly sad to see it go in favour of Indiana Jones.
  • I prefer Nemesis Reborn to the original Nemesis.
  • I don’t get the hype around Schwarzkopf coasters, and honestly prefer most of the Arrow Dynamics coasters I’ve ridden to any of the Schwarzkopfs I’ve ridden.
I don’t know why, but I just felt like expressing some unpopular opinions this evening…
 
Matt N said:
  • I prefer Nemesis Reborn to the original Nemesis.
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This is supposed to be unpopular opinions. Almost everyone on here would agree with this other than me. My unpopular opinion is that, other than the station, it's not a patch on what it was in the first 10 years of it's life. Even though it was in a pretty terrible state in its last 10 years, I thought it rode better in its last few seasons than it ever had, if I ignored to poor asthethics of course.
 
Matt.GC said:
This is supposed to be unpopular opinions. Almost everyone on here would agree with this other than me. My unpopular opinion is that, other than the station, it's not a patch on what it was in the first 10 years of it's life. Even though it was in a pretty terrible state in its last 10 years, I thought it rode better in its last few seasons than it ever had, if I ignored to poor asthethics of course.
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I should add that I’m talking about the ride as well as the theming, which with this rattle saga, most people seem to find Reborn inferior as a ride.

I, on the other hand, find the rattle completely inoffensive and much prefer the new ride because the occasional headbanging of the original is gone and I honestly think Reborn seems to run faster…
 
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