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WDW Magic Kingdom: General Discussion

It makes sense from a strictly business point of view, it was a lot of space used by what was probably the least popular ride in the park, but the calm paddlewheel trip around the river and the off-ride views and ambiance it offers has been a classic part of Disney parks since the beginning and it's sad to see it go, especially in Florida where they seemingly have plenty of room to build things.

All of the D23 announcements are exciting but it does seem like the time of Disney parks having specific themed lands that are somewhat cohesive are gone forever in favour of simply putting rides based on already-popular movies wherever they will physically fit
 
Draining that lake seems like a no brainer to me. As explained in that video it's a massively underutilized area of the park and there will be little to no construction issues building on there. Building on the space behind it would make the project far more expensive too not to mention mean the railroad would be shut for years so it's a real no brainer.

The reaction online has been what you'd expect though. Total meltdown. Disney nerds really do my head in at times. Forever complaining that they want new stuff and rides to experience but never happy when some of the older attractions make way for them. They are impossible to please.
 
I’m very much on the fence with this. The rivers of America lake is under-utilised now but at the same time having water and picturesque views is calming in a busy theme park. Over in Paris they are currently adding a lake to the studios park to stop it feeling like the whole place is just concrete!
 
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Completely agree with that, I'm not entirely sure how I feel. Radiator Springs Racers is one of my favourite rides of all-time and I'm thrilled that they're making a completely new version of it rather than the exact clone I assumed they would come up with, but to lose one of the more iconic views in the park in exchange is difficult. I suppose WDW is not really short on bodies of water or boats you can ride on.

However... if they tried this same thing in Anaheim I would chain myself to the Mark Twain's paddlewheel
 
I wonder if the boat system is in anyway compatible with the version at DLP.

Their Mark Twain has been slowly rotting away behind the scenes for years with promised refurbishments never coming to anything. Would be interesting if they could ship over the MK boat once it has been retired.
 
So it isn’t really a beyond big thunder mountain project anymore? If they fill in the lake, it would fix the problem of making a loop around the lake by… flattening the lake. So could we call it beyond big thunder anymore really?

I don’t really care too much about Tom Sawyer island, but it would’ve been nice to keep the lake. Maybe flatten the island and put a new ride there? I worry it’ll feel very cramped…
 
The_bup said:
So it isn’t really a beyond big thunder mountain project anymore?
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As far as I can tell it’s the Villains Land that’s the “Beyond Big Thunder” area, not Cars? Whenever they’ve referred to Beyond Big Thunder in the past they’ve always called it an expansion of the park, which infilling the rivers is not.
 
Ian said:
As far as I can tell it’s the Villains Land that’s the “Beyond Big Thunder” area, not Cars? Whenever they’ve referred to Beyond Big Thunder in the past they’ve always called it an expansion of the park, which infilling the rivers is not.
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That’s what I’m saying. If the original idea was to complete the loop around the lake with the villans land, does the cars area kind of… nullify the problem?
 
I think it is a very stupid idea, it is not like they lack the space to expand arround the lake, potentially re route the paddle boat to a smaller area but it just adds so much to the park it would be like towers without the gardens or lawn. I feel it would just turn the park into a six flags.

although some of the recent rides are starting to feel realy cheap, like the mickies runaway railway or spiderman Web slingers is literally a ride from legoland (it isn't bad, and is apparently good in lego land, but this is disney suposidly the best of the best)

My feeling is this is just cost cutting, rather than build a new land with new rides that have to be maintained and ran, just rip out the rides that cost quite a bit to run and build a new land
 
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jibbsie said:
My feeling is this is just cost cutting, rather than build a new land with new rides that have to be maintained and ran, just rip out the rides that cost quite a bit to run and build a new land
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Cost avoidance is certainly the main narrative I've been seeing. The land around Disney World is costly to prepare for construction, due to it being swamp land.

Building on land already in use is therefore a lot cheaper than upgrading virgin land.

It does seem somewhat short sighted for them to remove a lake and mature tree coverage in an area already known for the stifling heat. And also blocking several of their most photographed vistas.

You'd have thought they'd have been better off being slightly more creative and building the new attraction on Tom Sawyer island and retaining the river in some form.
 
I've thought about this for the last few days... I don't particularly care about what happens at the Magic Kingdom, it's not "original" and generally lacks a lot of the charm of the original Disneyland to me, but this news does make the unofficial List Of Untouchable Attractions seem a lot smaller than it might have a couple of weeks ago. It's also a very obvious picture of the future: anything low-capacity that doesn't move Lightning Lanes or sell merchandise is probably not safe, regardless of how iconic it might be.
 
Llama said:
I've thought about this for the last few days... I don't particularly care about what happens at the Magic Kingdom, it's not "original" and generally lacks a lot of the charm of the original Disneyland to me, but this news does make the unofficial List Of Untouchable Attractions seem a lot smaller than it might have a couple of weeks ago. It's also a very obvious picture of the future: anything low-capacity that doesn't move Lightning Lanes or sell merchandise is probably not safe, regardless of how iconic it might be.
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I feel like disney could easily lose their market if they keep this type of expansion up, they are getting rid of all the things that made their park unique, and reducing the overall theming quality of the park and slowly it is just turning into six flags, where you have batman ride next to the flash, next to x y z caracters, as universal are currently the best IMO carefully thinking everything out (there are a few problems like dreamworks land but overall it is really posetive).

Disney has forgotten why people go to their parks, it isn't the caracters it is the theming experience and the quality of the offerings doing things because they can and are a cool concept (look at typhoon lagoon amazing water park) they are just focused on selling fast passes and merchandise, as people realise this they will stop going because why go to disney when universal offers a much better experience for less or why do that when alton, thorpe, chessington, universal uk are much closer and much ceaper to travel to and visit, they may not be as good as disney's quality but if it costs £5000 vs £200 to visit them is that £4800 worth it?
 
jibbsie said:
Disney has forgotten why people go to their parks, it isn't the caracters it is the theming experience and the quality of the offerings doing things because they can and are a cool concept (look at typhoon lagoon amazing water park) they are just focused on selling fast passes and merchandise, as people realise this they will stop going because why go to disney when universal offers a much better experience for less or why do that when alton, thorpe, chessington, universal uk are much closer and much ceaper to travel to and visit, they may not be as good as disney's quality but if it costs £5000 vs £200 to visit them is that £4800 worth it?
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Enthusiasts might bemoan Disney's move towards predominantly IP-based attractions, but I'd argue that it is what the public wants to some extent. I think we live in an era where people will be disappointed if they go to a Disney park and can't meet their favourite characters or be immersed in the film or TV-based universes they dream about. When people hear Disney these days, I think there is almost an in-built expectation that there will be Disney characters and brands.

I once heard it said that Disney parks are moving towards being designed for people who like Disney rather than people who like theme parks, and I think that's very accurate, but also reflective of the modern day demographic of the Disney parks. People who visit Disney parks like Disney, and people who like Disney want to see Disney IPs and Disney characters, not original themes.

So while you say that people "don't go to Disney parks for the characters", I feel that a lot of people are attracted by the characters and IPs to some extent and would be disappointed if the parks didn't have these.
 
Matt N said:
Enthusiasts might bemoan Disney's move towards predominantly IP-based attractions, but I'd argue that it is what the public wants to some extent. I think we live in an era where people will be disappointed if they go to a Disney park and can't meet their favourite characters or be immersed in the film or TV-based universes they dream about. When people hear Disney these days, I think there is almost an in-built expectation that there will be Disney characters and brands.
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Also to some extent in the 60s/70s things like Frontierland was a representation of Disney TV shows at the time.
 
Matt N said:
Enthusiasts might bemoan Disney's move towards predominantly IP-based attractions, but I'd argue that it is what the public wants to some extent. I think we live in an era where people will be disappointed if they go to a Disney park and can't meet their favourite characters or be immersed in the film or TV-based universes they dream about. When people hear Disney these days, I think there is almost an in-built expectation that there will be Disney characters and brands.
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Are they though, I feel people go for the experience of disney not the characters, there are people who want to see x person but I feel like they are in the minority and if disney are focusing on just them they will lose.

Why was disney popular 10 years ago before a large amount of the IP intergration? because disney was an amazing experience, with parks themed to one idea, no expense spared. Not because you can see ironman.

This is something universal has learned after their motion simulator era comming out with harry potter, which yes is IP it isn't popular directly off the base IP, it is popular because it is a very unique land something you can not see anywhere in the world, amzingly themed, large details every where you look there is a new detail yes there are photo opps there are also small details everywhere like shop figures moving. you can see this with epic universe an entire land on old movies, these are known in pop culture, but people aren't going to see frankenstein, or the land that connects all the portals people are going for the experience.

if your idea of meeting the characters is addopted, and disney just adds cheap IP then 10 years down the line when that IP is old it needs another $50 milion refresh you can see this with marvel already the IP is getting tired and is not at its peak of 2019.

also six flags has flash batman the joker and more interms of caracters, why don't people flock to them to get pictures with them? because it isn't as good of an experience like people don't pay hundreds per person per day to dee mickey mouse, they go for the atmosphere, the theming, the message etc.
 
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jon81uk said:
Also to some extent in the 60s/70s things like Frontierland was a representation of Disney TV shows at the time.
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true, I am not against IP integration, but how it is being done it used to be really smart and well done but now it is quite cheap and forced in, an IP ride can be amazing and timeless (see the great movie ride, Tower of terror, splash (and tianas as that is pretty good)) but how disney are doing it now is so forced, like we have a french character and some space in france, we should shove the character in there, who cares about it showcasing the world or showing france we need to get people looking at our IP.
 
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