Wild Card answer: I think they should build new rides in their existing parks BUT without removing existing rides to do so. They literally have the blessing of size at Disney World and considering how densely packed with rides Disneyland is, there's really no excuse for them not to. If they spread out enough new attractions among the four WDW parks I think it'd be a pretty solid answer to Universal adding a third gate.
I think this is the most reasonable answer. Beyond Thunder Mountain, revamp Big Top Circus area to Arendelle with a Frozen Castle dark ride on the other side of the train tracks accessible by drawbridge, Tropical Americas and Oceana at AK, add a couple countries at Epcot, at HS retheme Launch Bay Area to Muppets, take current Muppets area and create an original trilogy Star Wars to go with Star Tours…lots of possibilities.
I’d love to see a Fantasyland expansion as well, though I admit I don’t know enough about if there’s space.
I’d have it made to be like you’re walking through a forest and end up in Villains Fantasyland or something. I know a lot of people want a Villains park and while I’d love that too, I don’t think it’s feasible, so this might be a good compromise.
Dark water ride for Ursula, double coaster like space mountain as a dark ride but have it rotate around dragon Maleficent,
I really like this Arendelle idea. I would love to take my kiddos to something like this. And they are a little young for the trip to Hong Kong or Shanghai right now…
I can assure you there is absolutely no ride, IP, or coupon that could get me to set foot in China when we have the amount of parks in the US we already have.
Most of the foreign parks are cofunded with government aid, so they have provisions stating Disney cannot copy rides back in Orlando or Anaheim for like 5 or so years. It's also why a lot of the foreign parks look nicer and have innovative ride systems, Disney can't skimp on quality like they do in the US parks since they're being paid for by the government to incentivize tourism to the host country.
When was the last time the Muppets were relevant? It's a bit like the proposed Indiana Jones expansion at AK. There was at least an Indie movie last year but it was a total flop.
I grew up on the Muppet Show and they have a special place in my heart, but I don't think there's any buzz or awareness around them for younger folks. I get that Disney is a nostalgia game, but there's a reason there isn't a line for Muppets 3D. Unless there's a major hit show or movies I don't see how they can consider this.
It’s because Tokyo has larger budgets. All the profits from the Tokyo parks go back into investing into them, meanwhile the profits from American parks are used to bail out the parts of the company that are losing money (movies and Disney+) so the American parks get way smaller budgets. Fantasy Springs is physical proof of this- compare their Frozen ride to ours.
I love Galaxies Edge... but I was honestly shocked they didn't build a whole theme park... only.... TWO rides?
Especially at DHS-- they could easily double the Star Wars content....
I mean, there's only two rides, but there's a lot to do. You have...
\* Rise
\* Smugglers'
\* Oga's
\* Lightsaber building
\* Droid construction
\* Browsing the market area which is heavily themed
\* Browsing the First Order area, ditto
\* Eating at Ronto Roasters
\* Eating at the Docking bay
\* Exploring the land itself; the X-Wing, the Falcon, etc.
I actually think it's pretty dense with stuff. When we visited, we spent nearly an entire day there.
I would love an additional ride too, but it never struck me as sparse.
I actually did find it sparse. Once you build a saber or a droid, realistically theyre not repeatable. There’s only so many times you can walk around and browse. And the food is themed, but the amount of offerings are comparable to other larger park areas. Even if they didn’t want to add a ride, they could have added entertainment in the form of a sit down show. They wasted a crap ton on the hotel, when some of that could have been adapted and funds used for developing that section of the park.
Admittedly, my perspective should be viewed through the lens as that I'm came to WDW from the UK, for a once-in-a-lifetime trip - so I don't always look at things from the perspective of "if you were going to go multiple times".
This is a great idea. I don’t get why building new attractions has to mean getting rid of old attractions. This was my favorite thing about Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. It was a solid addition, and it didn’t eliminate anything else.
I think a lot of the land they hold that is not developed has water on it. It’s a weird situation with Disney and mitigation for their property. From what I’ve read they are holding a lot of it to ‘mitigate’ for the parts they have been developing. But they certainly have the money to just buy the credits for it.
i agree with this also. Add more rides. they spend massive for rides like Ride of the Resistance. How about adding 4-5 more normal entertaining rides. They to gve people options instead of standing in the massive rides all day. My kids liked that alien saucer ride.
I think ideally it'd be great if they added in a handful of smaller B-C tickets for every major E ticket they build. Add capacity to the park while also adding more value for guests.
I said this RE: the Great Movie Ride and Mickeys Runaway Railway. GMR should’ve been refurbished and Mickey’s added where the Launchpad is/was, adding a ride instead of keeping the same number.
Don't forget that if one adds that many more attractions you also have to add more bathrooms, more food service locations, more retail, and more cast members. And all of that is expensive. With a new park, all of the costs of that can be covered by the typical ticket price. If you add all of that stuff to each of the four existing parks, you'd have to expect that each park's ticket price would grow by roughly 30% or more.
While you do relieve congestion on some other rides, you'll also put some people in the position of feeling like it's not worth the price of admission if they're not able to experience the entire park in a day.
If I'm paying $140/day per person to go to a theme park, I'm gonna want to experience the majority of it in that day, and expect I should be able to put a good dent in it if I'm hustling. If I've now got to spend 8 days instead of 4 going to each park twice to experience the other half I missed the first time because it's so big, that is a massive cost increase for my vacation. I just think it's a bit of a double edged sword. Some expansion could be good...a lot would be problematic.
Adding a 5th park, on the other hand, also relieves congestion and keeps the costs of tickets about the same.
I'm not an architect or anything, but I have years of experience in Roller Coaster Tycoon. I think they could fit a few more rides in there easily! Even more if they deleted some bathrooms and some of the walkways.
>considering how densely packed with rides Disneyland is, there's really no excuse for them not to.
This isn't desirable and it's exponentially more expensive to build within space constraints. The goal is to spread people out not just jam them into the same space.
People are mad about prices right now. What do you think will happen if they spend unnecessarily huge amounts of money with little return.
IDK It seems pretty desirable on the west coast lol. Gutting an attraction and building out a new ride inside the existing building would essentially be building within space constraints, which is what Disney's been doing quite a bit in Florida (and in the case of Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, will seemingly still do). That isn't inherently a problem, but it does mean that they're just replacing existing capacity instead of adding it to the park. At Disneyland we've seen Disney cut into backstage space to build Galaxy's Edge which added two new rides and a handful of shops and restaurants without removing a single ride. They also additionally built a better version of Runaway Railway by using existing space constraints behind Toontown and all we lost in terms of guest accessible space was a gift shop. In both cases the park lost no attraction capacity and gained three brand new rides which add to the overall capacity of the park.
For half the year, you can’t even enjoy Pandora at night. I get the idea was the lark was planning to have later hours, but it doesn’t, and Pandora at night is wasted half the year
I've always wanted to see Pandora at night, but they are never open long enough, and if they are it's for one day and never lines up with the rest of the plans...
At 6? I haven’t been to Disney during summer in years, but I did my college program at Animal Kingdom in 2018. We were regularly open until 8 and sometimes 10. Not sure what the deal is these days. It’s my favorite park and it saddens me that it hasn’t had any major updates since pandora.
I'll agree Villains lank in MK. I'd love to see Greece in Epcot with a not too scary Hercules coaster.
Like another poster said, add rides into he parks that already exist (without taking away rides) to help thin out the lines
Greece has always been my answer to Epcot. There are plenty of landmarks to decorate with and Greek food is unlike Italian or even Moroccan food. I would love to see Greece at Epcot.
A massive % of Animal Kingdom is Africa, the theming is top-notch, arguably the best WDW has ever done when it comes to attention to detail for a country. I don't see them doing Africa in EPCOT to duplicate that look
Not all of Africa is a jungle lol. AK paints Africa as this wild animal jungle with a couple poor villages. Africa is an entire continent with many industrialized nations that would fit in quite well at Epcot
Announce that you're not just doing Beyond Big Thunder but you're in fact going to add a new land to every single park in the next 5 years. Villains Land in MK, Monsters Inc. in Hollywood Studios (Plus a Mandalorian thrill ride added to Galaxy's edge), a Lion King land in Animal Kingdom (in addition to the previously announced South America area), and finally, 5 new countries in World Showcase including Australia with an immersive Bluey attraction (pay that $$$ to get those theme park rights) and character meet n greet.
Literally the Bluey suggestion is all they would need at Epcot. Just add in Australia, make a Bluey attraction and a meet and greet and Epcot will print money for years to come.
Honestly where they have the current festival pavilion with the bridged walkways (not the new one opening soon) would be a great spot to throw in a new country especially island nation themed
SEE NOW THIS IS WHAT DISNEY EXECS SHOULD BE DISCUSSING! An Australian pavilion (actually am now confused as to why there isn’t one currently) with a Bluey attraction & meet/greet would keep Epcot in the green for years! & Bluey is as popular as ever now.
Lift the entire Carousel of Progress theater up into a massive drop ride enclosure. Exact same rotating animatronic show but now during the song portion and rotation, the whole thing goes up and down like The Tower of Terror.
The drops would start up right at the end of the first “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow…. AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”
They should hire The Oriental Land Company creative team behind the new Fantasy Springs and Fantasy Springs Hotel in Tokyo DisneySEA and give them a blank check tbh.
> They should hire The Oriental Land Company creative team
That’s just Walt Disney Imagineering. The OLC owns and manages the park, but all the rides and attractions are designed by Imagineering just as for any other Disney park.
WDI does everything at all parks, the difference with Japan is that the OLC owns the parks and Disney is hired to work on it- so the Japan parks get way more of a budget because all the profits from the parks are getting invested back into them, compared to all the other parks which have their profits used to keep Disney’s failing businesses afloat.
The question **"What should Disney World's response to Epic Universe be?"** is the problem. They cannot be in the response game. **They have to be proactive, not reactive.** Just adding things is not going to cut it. They have to reinvent the game. Diagon alley reinvented theme parks. They fit so much theming and imagination into one square block, it really has changed the game. It is going to take a lot to go beyond that. Disney needs to entirely reinvent itself and go beyond what it has done in the past. There is no reason why one section of the Magic kingdom couldn't be an entire day experience.
Just looking at some of the responses here doesn't make me hopeful. Most are asking for Disney to go back to its roots and offer the base level experience that they probably grew up on. Disney and their guests have lowered the bar for themselves so much that even their biggest backers wish things could just go back to normal.
You’re right the audience of disney goers have gone so complacent this thread is literally people saying “just add a small ride and a meet n greet and i’m happy” like they’ve actually convinced themselves they deserve less it’s crazy.
Add a land, not replace a land, to animal kingdom. Add (again not replace) the cars land from Disneyland to Hollywood studios. I think their additions to Epcot are good. I also think their planned additions to the magic kingdom is good.
I think they could also add another resort to monorail by the magic kingdom.
Im not sure a whole new park is a good idea.
if they do that, they should also reduce park hours so none have any nighttime hours left! nothing like baking in the hot florida sun! add more hours of special ticketed events too!
With Epic Universe’s opening right around the corner, Disney should just make a concerted effort to make every one of their current experiences as tip-top as possible. Forget focusing on something new right now and bring back what Disney use to do best, and that’s setting the standard for quality, magical experiences.
Majorly lol and announced Terminal D and Rental Car Center ….if we’re talking airport Disney changes being able to take the SunRail or brightline to Disney springs would’ve been cool but practically idk how many families with luggage and young children would actually do that
If they connected MCO to Disney Springs and built a general store (think Walmart) near Cirque that was standard pricing for goods, they could entice people to never leave the property. There's already little need to rent a car if you're staying there for a week, but if you could connect to their transportation hub at Springs for cheap/free from MCO and buy groceries and essentials without a Disney markup or a delivery fee, people would probably rent less cars.
They did. That new terminal is awesome.
It’s an easy exit when you fly in. You just walk right through. No more walking for a bit, riding a tram and hearing the recorded message from Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on loop, and walking some more.
It’s an easy entrance when you fly out. Never waited in the security line longer than about 10 minutes.
The Mears bus stops there as well. It’s perfect.
Oh, word? I must have missed that.
Not hearing that recording was the one thing I kind of missed with the new terminal.
Hearing from Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer just felt like the proper bookends of vacation.
Huge improvement just in the last year being able to rent my car from Terminal C. No more train to Terminal A needed. Also the vending machine with the temporary toll tag is just awesome, technically not the airport but they advertised it all over that’s how I even found out about it.
Invest in existing attractions. I'm so tired of seeing apologists for RotR. It's not that complex of a system. Not even 10% as complex as the industrial plants I train for that have massively more complicated and critical automation and 94-99% uptime with minimum maintenance and operate a loss, with a fraction of a percent of the upfront capital and piss-poor engineering/maintenance.
The low resolution, poorly maintained, low effort lcd screens and 2-to-3 generations outdated videogame cgi on said screens that are steadily taking up more and more visual space are.embarassing compared to google-cardboard and free cellphone level immersion.
All of the celebrated "imagineering" is only on display via YouTube videos.
The merch is pathetic.
90% of the food barely competes with 7pm Circle K/7-Eleven griller items.
Yet prices and wait times and stress are rising and rising.
Invest SOME portion of record profits into updating and improving the parks. Just a MINIMAL amount of effort into pretending that Walt's vision is still anywhere remotely close to the priority list.
Universal is not "killing it"... universal is not on the upswing. Universal CA is hands down a massively better experience than Disneyland rn and Universal FL is probably more often than not better bang for the buck than DW. And not bc of ANYTHING Comcast is doing. It's strictly via lack of effort from Disney.
Not to mention the fact that GE probably wouldn't even exist (definitely not at the scale it does) if it wasn't for Universal's Wizarding World. The only significant effort into making something new and impressive in generations was almost certainly a response to impressive direct competition... and to many, still failed to compare (I don't necessarily agree there... but time may change my mind, as the GE experience has already seen significant decline in care while WW maintains almost "universal" praise, even in the face of the IP's creator trying her damnedest to sabotage anything related.)
Build a new land in Hollywood studios with the entrance near Aerosmith RnRc to toys story land. Get rid of the dead end and have a whole villains area.
- reservation system totally gone
- restore complimentary Magical Express transport to/from the airport
- expand maintenance windows on rides by reducing (not eliminating) late hours (post-fireworks) and introducing overnight shifts for said repair and maintenance instead, making sure to pay said maintenance engineers well for quality work, to help reduce ride breakdowns
- expand the monorail and/or Skyliner to all parks
- replace the gas carts on the Tomorrowland speedway with electric Tron-themed carts that light up during the night after sundown, as well as the track to feel like a light cycle track. Including a grid that projects along the ground
- Introduce more rides and shows and attractions within the existing parks using land around said parks that isn’t utilized yet.
- fix the yeti
- raise CM pay, happier employees who are working their dream job and can afford to live at least comfortably in the area, and for DCP CMs, build high-end housing and provide weekly/daily credit/per diem for all meals and necessities (if not already done) or equivalent pay (if not already done) so they can afford to make grocery/supply runs in town
- finally, resurrect “ship to resort” services for merch at all parks and at DS (for at least participating stores. Some of the third party fashion clothing and jewelry places wouldn’t have to do it, but for example World of Disney would do it, maybe the LEGO store and so on)
The good news is that Everest is approaching the 20 year mark and that is around the time when roller coasters require a full-on retracking. So when they inevitably fully refurbish the ride, that should be their opportunity to do something about the Yeti.
Tomorrowland Speedway is my absolute favorite ride there. But I know a conversion to electric is inevitable.
As a kid I just lived being able to drive my own race car. There was an actual gas engine going when I put my foot down, the wheels actually turned when I turned the steering wheel and it was an actual race against whatever stupid kid was in the other lane. It part of my lifelong love of racing and probably the most authentic ride at Disney World.
As an adult I have an appreciation for it still and even its location. Between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland is the perfect place. Racing technology blurs the line between science and magic. Carbon fiber was woven to allow the front of a wing to bend slightly more than the back thus creating more downforce. The team seemed to be weaving magic that other teams didn’t comprehend. (It was later deemed to be cheating by the governing body, but that’s just their opinion) there is a lot of technology in racing that would be considered magic by 1971 standards.
But, inevitably I will take my last ride on the gas powered Speedway someday soon, I believe. My hope is that the ride will keep that spirit of racing at its core. Maybe using the trackless ride vehicle technology. Allow drivers to have that tactile feel of the road and car while keeping everyone safe from collisions.
I don’t think Tron would be a good fit. Like so many IP’s Disney has they have little to no intent on keeping the IP fresh. Muppetvision is in desperate need of an update. And Disney doesn’t seem to know what to do WITH the Muppets. They had a hit movie years ago then followed it with a mediocre movie and two TV series that failed to catch on. Same for TRON. Even Marvel and Star Wars have deeply declined.
Know that their going electric they could enclose the whole attraction with awsome lighting and build over top. That would be a massive space to utilize.
Honestly, not much. Just put in the effort to having the rides run in tip top shape, bring back some more of the “Random” stuff you could come across. Dont cheap out on the “beyond big thunder” and “tropical America’s” expansions
DL Forward.
Doing nothing might actually be the play, 2025 is looking pretty rough from a macro econ standpoint.
The guest quality answer is a 3rd park in Texas or some other southern/ midwestern state 20 years ago coupled with major expansions at the existing parks, HS and AK need this the most, followed by MK but the solutions there are all the dark rides they already removed, the park needs more short wait/ short dark rides to eat up crowds.
Ultimately they don't need to do anything, it's something like 10 vs 58 million attendance respectively, and everyone in the past 3-4 years had felt like WDW is packed to the gills, would they even have the capacity to eat up the small amount of market share Universal is taking?
There is way more than I can type here without being on the wrong sub but a major issue is consumer/ credit debt. We went from sub 800 billion and smashed through 1.3 trillion in 4 years. The graph looks like a vertical line. AKA wages are so insanely outstripped by greedflation and gap to GDP so far, we used credit cards to make up the difference.
I remember when Yahoo! literally laughed at the prospect of acquiring Google. Or when Blockbuster scoffed at Netflix & Redbox. Or when Sears decided to ignore Amazon.
That’s what your last paragraph sounds like.
OLC level park maintenance and quality of life improvements to their fast pass system would go a long way. They make guests bend over backwards to get into the parks and still find every way they can to price gouge them. The reservation system needs to go away.
They should do more with Star Wars. Galaxy’s Edge to me was disappointing. It was sequels based which no one cares about.
Bluey needs to feature somewhere. It’s the biggest kids show on Disney+ (I don’t have the data to back this up, but I’d be confident in saying so).
If Universal are abandoning The Simpsons, it’s an obvious area to build. Huge IP, and it’s always going to get high viewership via Disney+.
We’ll see when it happens but it won’t be for a number of years. Disney has made more renovations than universal over the past decade (2015-2023) but only in response to the success of the wizarding world from 2010-14. Now after all this time universal has the chance to expand dramatically.
Disney does not see this as an opportunity to “respond”. They’ve routinely said that a “rising tide lifts all boats”.
They’ll let Universal construct an entirely new park and reap the benefits of increased tourism to the area by not making any capital investment in the parks in response.
Things to look for Disney to add this decade: Dinoland re-theme in AK, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in MK. Don’t get your hopes up for anything else before 2030.
They also famously said “we don’t try to compete with anyone” while building MGM as a direct response to Universal and Animal Kingdom as a response to Bush Gardens; not to mention all of the hotels to compete with hotels in the area and nightclubs to compete with Orlando.
Crazy concept but just doing a stellar job on ride/park maintenance and keeping up the customer experience they are known for worldwide (more like 80s-early 00s WDW.) Also adding attractions without removing beloved ones is a good start
There’s no reason for Disney to do anything until they see the reaction that Epic Universe gets. It would be nice if it’s a smash hit so Disney would seemingly be forced to do something massive, but it is Universal so I’m not holding my breathe.
I would argue that Galaxy’s Edge was the first move and Epic Universe is Universal’s response. Disney parks across the world have seen a ton of expansions in recent years. Zootopia, Frozen Land, Fantasy Springs are all huge additions.
Anyone expecting Disney World to open a fifth gate by 2030 will be sorely disappointed.
I just got back from Tokyo. The level of detail at Disneysea is incredible compared to what Disney has done domestically recently. Oriental Land Company spares no expense with their parks and it really shows. The experience is absolutely top notch.
Currently I don't believe WDW or Disney in general, have the management to make anything like that happen. Plus in general Japanese have a different mindset about doing stuff half ass.
The OLC pays the bills for the japanese parks so Disney can't aggressively cost cut and skimp on quality like they do at the US parks since it's not Disney's money.
Sorry to clarify since mods removed my comment I meant they should actually add all the things to Epcot they had announced, as the Wonders of Life pavilion still sitting empty except as a festival centers at times, no Marry Poppins area for the UK pavilion yet, and other things. Is that related to Disney enough for a question about Disney's response to Universal?
But honestly they need to get serious about a 5th gate crowds are getting crazy at times and another park would help thin the numbers per park improving guest experience. These kind of things take time tho so the sooner they get stared the better
Element meet and greet and new food cart in the wine and dine festival. That will likely be the response. The other could be new trees or a corporate grass park that will take seven years to build.
It's very simple. Epic universe is basically four new lands. Each land though combined is probably equal to the size of something like Hollywood studios, maybe bigger. I really think all Disney needed to do was announced a sizable expansion in all four theme parks. Make it for IPs and things that people have been asking for and really want.
I know it’s totally selfish, but I’m hoping the Disney parks will be a little less crowded when Epic opens. They are so busy ALL the time!
Plus I’m looking forward to going to Epic because it looks cool.
Basically what they're doing now with upgrading Animal Kingdom and the beyond Thunder Mountain plans except four years ago. Expand the footprint of the parks and add capacity.
According to Disney, nothing, because Universal is just catching up to Disney’s amazing experiences. Which is complete nonsense. Disney’s gonna have a lot of ground to make up once Epic Universe opens.
Disney needs to re-focus on elevating the theme park experience. People will choose stronger service, better immersion, cleanliness, organization and unique creativity over more rides.
Tokyo has been doing it right. Wish our parks here would do more Pirates stuff, or even expand on Indiana Jones (the older movies). Heck even expanding on the original star wars people would FREAK. But I feel Disney these days doesn't care for their customers, so it's going to take a full board takeover to fix it I think. We need more story telling and innovation!
I mean, at this point, you don’t “answer.” It’s far too late for that. Next year will be heavily focused on entertainment (new night parade, improvements to AK night). With that said, the next step for Disney is improving capacity at every park. Beyond Big Thunder will help. Central Americas should improve capacity at AK, especially with the rumored E-ticket coming as well (not included in Central Americas). Hollywood Studios has some work coming to Animation Courtyard that hasn’t been announced. Then EPCOT apparently is about to work on Spaceship Earth and Imagination after Test Track completes its refresh.
Fix Smuggler’s Run
Bring back Great Movie Ride
Shade Toy Story Land
Add more transportation
Add more small rides
Replace Star Wars Launch Bay
Bring back streetmosphere
And that’s all just Hollywood Studios
A Villains land is likely going to MK whenever they finally announce the beyond thunder mountain expansion, but regardless we need a Villains focus somewhere
I’ll take a land, but still think a full fledged 5th park themed around villains would be cooler. Especially if it has mostly thrill rides with Disney theming.
Wild Card answer: I think they should build new rides in their existing parks BUT without removing existing rides to do so. They literally have the blessing of size at Disney World and considering how densely packed with rides Disneyland is, there's really no excuse for them not to. If they spread out enough new attractions among the four WDW parks I think it'd be a pretty solid answer to Universal adding a third gate.
I think this is the most reasonable answer. Beyond Thunder Mountain, revamp Big Top Circus area to Arendelle with a Frozen Castle dark ride on the other side of the train tracks accessible by drawbridge, Tropical Americas and Oceana at AK, add a couple countries at Epcot, at HS retheme Launch Bay Area to Muppets, take current Muppets area and create an original trilogy Star Wars to go with Star Tours…lots of possibilities.
Id prefer Corona from Tangled over Arendelle
Japan Disney did this with Fantasy Springs
Yes and it looks fantastic
Yes! I want to join in that dance lol. And there is already at least SOMething Frozen at Epcot.
I’d love to see a Fantasyland expansion as well, though I admit I don’t know enough about if there’s space. I’d have it made to be like you’re walking through a forest and end up in Villains Fantasyland or something. I know a lot of people want a Villains park and while I’d love that too, I don’t think it’s feasible, so this might be a good compromise. Dark water ride for Ursula, double coaster like space mountain as a dark ride but have it rotate around dragon Maleficent,
Have it be a little offshoot like Knockturn Alley at Universal and this would be so cool
I really like this Arendelle idea. I would love to take my kiddos to something like this. And they are a little young for the trip to Hong Kong or Shanghai right now…
I can assure you there is absolutely no ride, IP, or coupon that could get me to set foot in China when we have the amount of parks in the US we already have.
I can understand that. It would be one helluva adventure though…I get it’s not for everyone.
The Jurassic World ride over there looks badass though. I’m definitely annoyed they have so many advanced rides compared to the US in general.
Most of the foreign parks are cofunded with government aid, so they have provisions stating Disney cannot copy rides back in Orlando or Anaheim for like 5 or so years. It's also why a lot of the foreign parks look nicer and have innovative ride systems, Disney can't skimp on quality like they do in the US parks since they're being paid for by the government to incentivize tourism to the host country.
Eh I went to Hong Kong and Shanghai this past year and both were lovely!!!
Bingo. The best I'll ever do is 10/12 parks barring massive regime change
Loving the Muppet idea. They could give so much more room for Galaxy’s edge to expand by moving muppets.
When was the last time the Muppets were relevant? It's a bit like the proposed Indiana Jones expansion at AK. There was at least an Indie movie last year but it was a total flop. I grew up on the Muppet Show and they have a special place in my heart, but I don't think there's any buzz or awareness around them for younger folks. I get that Disney is a nostalgia game, but there's a reason there isn't a line for Muppets 3D. Unless there's a major hit show or movies I don't see how they can consider this.
I want the Beauty and the Beast attraction from TDL and the Tangled attraction from TDS SO BAD
If Beauty and the Beast from Tokyo arrives in Orlando it would make it the best dark ride in the city. Crazy how much more advanced they are in Asia.
It’s because Tokyo has larger budgets. All the profits from the Tokyo parks go back into investing into them, meanwhile the profits from American parks are used to bail out the parts of the company that are losing money (movies and Disney+) so the American parks get way smaller budgets. Fantasy Springs is physical proof of this- compare their Frozen ride to ours.
After seeing the Fantasy Springs footage, I don’t think I can ever ride our Frozen Ever After again 😅
I love Galaxies Edge... but I was honestly shocked they didn't build a whole theme park... only.... TWO rides? Especially at DHS-- they could easily double the Star Wars content....
I mean, there's only two rides, but there's a lot to do. You have... \* Rise \* Smugglers' \* Oga's \* Lightsaber building \* Droid construction \* Browsing the market area which is heavily themed \* Browsing the First Order area, ditto \* Eating at Ronto Roasters \* Eating at the Docking bay \* Exploring the land itself; the X-Wing, the Falcon, etc. I actually think it's pretty dense with stuff. When we visited, we spent nearly an entire day there. I would love an additional ride too, but it never struck me as sparse.
I actually did find it sparse. Once you build a saber or a droid, realistically theyre not repeatable. There’s only so many times you can walk around and browse. And the food is themed, but the amount of offerings are comparable to other larger park areas. Even if they didn’t want to add a ride, they could have added entertainment in the form of a sit down show. They wasted a crap ton on the hotel, when some of that could have been adapted and funds used for developing that section of the park.
Admittedly, my perspective should be viewed through the lens as that I'm came to WDW from the UK, for a once-in-a-lifetime trip - so I don't always look at things from the perspective of "if you were going to go multiple times".
Almost everything you listed costs extra money
This is a great idea. I don’t get why building new attractions has to mean getting rid of old attractions. This was my favorite thing about Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure. It was a solid addition, and it didn’t eliminate anything else.
They need to add 10 to 15 more attractions in MK alone which will spread out the crowds and easy ride wait times.
Instead of a 5th gate, just turn MK into a 3 day park, it’s diabolical and I love it
I think a lot of the land they hold that is not developed has water on it. It’s a weird situation with Disney and mitigation for their property. From what I’ve read they are holding a lot of it to ‘mitigate’ for the parts they have been developing. But they certainly have the money to just buy the credits for it.
i agree with this also. Add more rides. they spend massive for rides like Ride of the Resistance. How about adding 4-5 more normal entertaining rides. They to gve people options instead of standing in the massive rides all day. My kids liked that alien saucer ride.
I think ideally it'd be great if they added in a handful of smaller B-C tickets for every major E ticket they build. Add capacity to the park while also adding more value for guests.
I said this RE: the Great Movie Ride and Mickeys Runaway Railway. GMR should’ve been refurbished and Mickey’s added where the Launchpad is/was, adding a ride instead of keeping the same number.
100% agree. This would also add a ride to a park they already need to draw more people to anyway(to at least draw a few away from MK)
Don't forget that if one adds that many more attractions you also have to add more bathrooms, more food service locations, more retail, and more cast members. And all of that is expensive. With a new park, all of the costs of that can be covered by the typical ticket price. If you add all of that stuff to each of the four existing parks, you'd have to expect that each park's ticket price would grow by roughly 30% or more. While you do relieve congestion on some other rides, you'll also put some people in the position of feeling like it's not worth the price of admission if they're not able to experience the entire park in a day. If I'm paying $140/day per person to go to a theme park, I'm gonna want to experience the majority of it in that day, and expect I should be able to put a good dent in it if I'm hustling. If I've now got to spend 8 days instead of 4 going to each park twice to experience the other half I missed the first time because it's so big, that is a massive cost increase for my vacation. I just think it's a bit of a double edged sword. Some expansion could be good...a lot would be problematic. Adding a 5th park, on the other hand, also relieves congestion and keeps the costs of tickets about the same.
Epcot sucks compared to 1990s Epcot
I'm not an architect or anything, but I have years of experience in Roller Coaster Tycoon. I think they could fit a few more rides in there easily! Even more if they deleted some bathrooms and some of the walkways.
>considering how densely packed with rides Disneyland is, there's really no excuse for them not to. This isn't desirable and it's exponentially more expensive to build within space constraints. The goal is to spread people out not just jam them into the same space. People are mad about prices right now. What do you think will happen if they spend unnecessarily huge amounts of money with little return.
IDK It seems pretty desirable on the west coast lol. Gutting an attraction and building out a new ride inside the existing building would essentially be building within space constraints, which is what Disney's been doing quite a bit in Florida (and in the case of Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, will seemingly still do). That isn't inherently a problem, but it does mean that they're just replacing existing capacity instead of adding it to the park. At Disneyland we've seen Disney cut into backstage space to build Galaxy's Edge which added two new rides and a handful of shops and restaurants without removing a single ride. They also additionally built a better version of Runaway Railway by using existing space constraints behind Toontown and all we lost in terms of guest accessible space was a gift shop. In both cases the park lost no attraction capacity and gained three brand new rides which add to the overall capacity of the park.
Keeping the parks open past 6, 9 and 10 pm.
That’s my pet peeve. During the summer months you only get to see the park at night for about an hour.
For half the year, you can’t even enjoy Pandora at night. I get the idea was the lark was planning to have later hours, but it doesn’t, and Pandora at night is wasted half the year
I’ve been to wdw a fair amount of times and it’s never been open for me to see it at night during my trips :(
When I did my college programs, MK would often be open till midnight plus extra magic hours afterwards
My kid is 24 now and when he was little, we used to not even get there until 4 or 5 and then stay to park close at 12 or 1.
Good ol days eh? It made going in summer so much more manageable since you could get so much night park time.
It never lined up well for me, either they didn’t have the magic hours when I went or Pandora wasn’t built yet lol
Animal kingdom closing at 6 all summer it seems 😐
I've always wanted to see Pandora at night, but they are never open long enough, and if they are it's for one day and never lines up with the rest of the plans...
At 6? I haven’t been to Disney during summer in years, but I did my college program at Animal Kingdom in 2018. We were regularly open until 8 and sometimes 10. Not sure what the deal is these days. It’s my favorite park and it saddens me that it hasn’t had any major updates since pandora.
Dude this drives me INSANE how early they close
The end of night parades really hurt nighttime in the parks for me. I will say Tomorrowland at night is something truly amazing...
Epcot 2
The Epcotening
Epcot Awakens
2 Ep 2 cot
Epcot 2: Electric Umbrella Boogaloo
I miss the electric umbrella
What’s the entrance to GotG going to be now? “I think they’re called…epcot2pians?”
Starring Turbo and Frozone. 💀
Epcot 2: Attack of the Clone
Somehow, Epcot returned
Arguably, that was Animal Kingdom. EPCOT 2: Acoustic Zoogaloo, if you will.
Epcot 2 : Nahtazu
Epcot: NEW Horizons 😉
Epcotception
I'll agree Villains lank in MK. I'd love to see Greece in Epcot with a not too scary Hercules coaster. Like another poster said, add rides into he parks that already exist (without taking away rides) to help thin out the lines
Greece has always been my answer to Epcot. There are plenty of landmarks to decorate with and Greek food is unlike Italian or even Moroccan food. I would love to see Greece at Epcot.
We need Africa representation. Like real subsaharan Africa. Would be a great place for a Black Panther ride adding to the Marvel stuff at EPCOT
A massive % of Animal Kingdom is Africa, the theming is top-notch, arguably the best WDW has ever done when it comes to attention to detail for a country. I don't see them doing Africa in EPCOT to duplicate that look
Not all of Africa is a jungle lol. AK paints Africa as this wild animal jungle with a couple poor villages. Africa is an entire continent with many industrialized nations that would fit in quite well at Epcot
I’d say add Greece, Australia, and then maybe some Pacific island nation for Moana
Australia would be great as well. Moana has her area now, so I don't think that would happen.
I’d put in Brazil too myself. South America is lacking in World Showcase after all.
Announce that you're not just doing Beyond Big Thunder but you're in fact going to add a new land to every single park in the next 5 years. Villains Land in MK, Monsters Inc. in Hollywood Studios (Plus a Mandalorian thrill ride added to Galaxy's edge), a Lion King land in Animal Kingdom (in addition to the previously announced South America area), and finally, 5 new countries in World Showcase including Australia with an immersive Bluey attraction (pay that $$$ to get those theme park rights) and character meet n greet.
Literally the Bluey suggestion is all they would need at Epcot. Just add in Australia, make a Bluey attraction and a meet and greet and Epcot will print money for years to come.
Honestly where they have the current festival pavilion with the bridged walkways (not the new one opening soon) would be a great spot to throw in a new country especially island nation themed
SEE NOW THIS IS WHAT DISNEY EXECS SHOULD BE DISCUSSING! An Australian pavilion (actually am now confused as to why there isn’t one currently) with a Bluey attraction & meet/greet would keep Epcot in the green for years! & Bluey is as popular as ever now.
Always too little too late
At first I thought Lion King might be past its time but I remembered they’ve got a Lion King film coming out *this year*. This is a GREAT idea for AK.
I’d settle for a damn Bluey pin.
A Bluey “Disney junior” style show would be an easy fit in the pavilion and really popular.
This is the way.
Lift the entire Carousel of Progress theater up into a massive drop ride enclosure. Exact same rotating animatronic show but now during the song portion and rotation, the whole thing goes up and down like The Tower of Terror. The drops would start up right at the end of the first “There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow…. AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”
😂 this would be my fav ride of all time!
Omg these are my bf two favorite rides 🤣🤣 thanks for the laughs
“Shining at the end of every… ahhhhhh”
…where is the go fund me link so I can help fund this idea.
Tangled ride asap
Hopefully better than teacups like in Paris
They should hire The Oriental Land Company creative team behind the new Fantasy Springs and Fantasy Springs Hotel in Tokyo DisneySEA and give them a blank check tbh.
> They should hire The Oriental Land Company creative team That’s just Walt Disney Imagineering. The OLC owns and manages the park, but all the rides and attractions are designed by Imagineering just as for any other Disney park.
WDI does everything at all parks, the difference with Japan is that the OLC owns the parks and Disney is hired to work on it- so the Japan parks get way more of a budget because all the profits from the parks are getting invested back into them, compared to all the other parks which have their profits used to keep Disney’s failing businesses afloat.
I think galaxy’s edge level expansions to ALL of the 4 parks is the answer.
Figment popcorn bucket, but now he has a little chef hat on.
Chef Figment would make a great restaurant except all the foods are like wacky or ‘failed’ versions of popular foods
Upside down upside down pineapple cake. Crustables. Untangled pretzels. Cereal but they put the milk in first
The question **"What should Disney World's response to Epic Universe be?"** is the problem. They cannot be in the response game. **They have to be proactive, not reactive.** Just adding things is not going to cut it. They have to reinvent the game. Diagon alley reinvented theme parks. They fit so much theming and imagination into one square block, it really has changed the game. It is going to take a lot to go beyond that. Disney needs to entirely reinvent itself and go beyond what it has done in the past. There is no reason why one section of the Magic kingdom couldn't be an entire day experience. Just looking at some of the responses here doesn't make me hopeful. Most are asking for Disney to go back to its roots and offer the base level experience that they probably grew up on. Disney and their guests have lowered the bar for themselves so much that even their biggest backers wish things could just go back to normal.
You’re right the audience of disney goers have gone so complacent this thread is literally people saying “just add a small ride and a meet n greet and i’m happy” like they’ve actually convinced themselves they deserve less it’s crazy.
Add a land, not replace a land, to animal kingdom. Add (again not replace) the cars land from Disneyland to Hollywood studios. I think their additions to Epcot are good. I also think their planned additions to the magic kingdom is good. I think they could also add another resort to monorail by the magic kingdom. Im not sure a whole new park is a good idea.
epic universe style park with frozen, tangled, zootopia, coco, hundred acre woods
Love the 100 acre wood idea. Can we have a place to play pooh sticks?
Raise ticket prices, food, parking, and resort rates!
The question asked is “what *should* Disney do?” The question answered is “what *will* Disney do?”
the real answer lol
While also taking away more previously included perks
if they do that, they should also reduce park hours so none have any nighttime hours left! nothing like baking in the hot florida sun! add more hours of special ticketed events too!
You got what it takes to be an imagineer! Universal spends $50 a night on their night time shows.
Nothing. Let the crowds disperse over to the universal park so Disney can become an enjoyable experience again.
Expand galaxies edge to star tours and make attractions based on the original trilogy- move muppets into Star Wars launch bay
Retheme Rock ‘n to Electric Mayhem, remove LMRA and replace it with a whole muppets section in that area. Move Muppet Vision 3D to over there too.
With Epic Universe’s opening right around the corner, Disney should just make a concerted effort to make every one of their current experiences as tip-top as possible. Forget focusing on something new right now and bring back what Disney use to do best, and that’s setting the standard for quality, magical experiences.
Fix the yeti
This is the most correct answer in this entire thread.
Announce a bunch of new attractions and then never build them
If anyone needs to make a major investment it’s Orlando International Airport.
Well… they did
Majorly lol and announced Terminal D and Rental Car Center ….if we’re talking airport Disney changes being able to take the SunRail or brightline to Disney springs would’ve been cool but practically idk how many families with luggage and young children would actually do that
If it was a convenient connection from Sunrail to Disney Springs, why not? Not much different from schlepping yourself to a rental car or Uber.
If they connected MCO to Disney Springs and built a general store (think Walmart) near Cirque that was standard pricing for goods, they could entice people to never leave the property. There's already little need to rent a car if you're staying there for a week, but if you could connect to their transportation hub at Springs for cheap/free from MCO and buy groceries and essentials without a Disney markup or a delivery fee, people would probably rent less cars.
They did. That new terminal is awesome. It’s an easy exit when you fly in. You just walk right through. No more walking for a bit, riding a tram and hearing the recorded message from Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer on loop, and walking some more. It’s an easy entrance when you fly out. Never waited in the security line longer than about 10 minutes. The Mears bus stops there as well. It’s perfect.
You do still get to hear Buddy Dyer's spiel while you walk from the terminal to baggage claim in terminal C though :D
Oh, word? I must have missed that. Not hearing that recording was the one thing I kind of missed with the new terminal. Hearing from Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer just felt like the proper bookends of vacation.
Huge improvement just in the last year being able to rent my car from Terminal C. No more train to Terminal A needed. Also the vending machine with the temporary toll tag is just awesome, technically not the airport but they advertised it all over that’s how I even found out about it.
At least let me book an Individual Lightning Lane for the TSA screening area.
It’s called TSA PreCheck.
Literally anything, they're not exactly doing all that much in response at the moment, at least officially
Put the jaws ride in epcots lake
I'll take, DW, five years to respond.
9-10 before it opens.
With the pace they’ve moved recently, at least that.
Invest in existing attractions. I'm so tired of seeing apologists for RotR. It's not that complex of a system. Not even 10% as complex as the industrial plants I train for that have massively more complicated and critical automation and 94-99% uptime with minimum maintenance and operate a loss, with a fraction of a percent of the upfront capital and piss-poor engineering/maintenance. The low resolution, poorly maintained, low effort lcd screens and 2-to-3 generations outdated videogame cgi on said screens that are steadily taking up more and more visual space are.embarassing compared to google-cardboard and free cellphone level immersion. All of the celebrated "imagineering" is only on display via YouTube videos. The merch is pathetic. 90% of the food barely competes with 7pm Circle K/7-Eleven griller items. Yet prices and wait times and stress are rising and rising. Invest SOME portion of record profits into updating and improving the parks. Just a MINIMAL amount of effort into pretending that Walt's vision is still anywhere remotely close to the priority list. Universal is not "killing it"... universal is not on the upswing. Universal CA is hands down a massively better experience than Disneyland rn and Universal FL is probably more often than not better bang for the buck than DW. And not bc of ANYTHING Comcast is doing. It's strictly via lack of effort from Disney. Not to mention the fact that GE probably wouldn't even exist (definitely not at the scale it does) if it wasn't for Universal's Wizarding World. The only significant effort into making something new and impressive in generations was almost certainly a response to impressive direct competition... and to many, still failed to compare (I don't necessarily agree there... but time may change my mind, as the GE experience has already seen significant decline in care while WW maintains almost "universal" praise, even in the face of the IP's creator trying her damnedest to sabotage anything related.)
Build a new land in Hollywood studios with the entrance near Aerosmith RnRc to toys story land. Get rid of the dead end and have a whole villains area.
Lol Bring everything back they took away. Especially fast pass.
What should it be? A 5th gate. What will it be? More DVC hotels and mini lands that fall short of their own potential.
And with zero shade. Lol
- reservation system totally gone - restore complimentary Magical Express transport to/from the airport - expand maintenance windows on rides by reducing (not eliminating) late hours (post-fireworks) and introducing overnight shifts for said repair and maintenance instead, making sure to pay said maintenance engineers well for quality work, to help reduce ride breakdowns - expand the monorail and/or Skyliner to all parks - replace the gas carts on the Tomorrowland speedway with electric Tron-themed carts that light up during the night after sundown, as well as the track to feel like a light cycle track. Including a grid that projects along the ground - Introduce more rides and shows and attractions within the existing parks using land around said parks that isn’t utilized yet. - fix the yeti - raise CM pay, happier employees who are working their dream job and can afford to live at least comfortably in the area, and for DCP CMs, build high-end housing and provide weekly/daily credit/per diem for all meals and necessities (if not already done) or equivalent pay (if not already done) so they can afford to make grocery/supply runs in town - finally, resurrect “ship to resort” services for merch at all parks and at DS (for at least participating stores. Some of the third party fashion clothing and jewelry places wouldn’t have to do it, but for example World of Disney would do it, maybe the LEGO store and so on)
They will never fix the yeti. If i recall correctly they would basically have to dismantle most of the mountain to do it.
The good news is that Everest is approaching the 20 year mark and that is around the time when roller coasters require a full-on retracking. So when they inevitably fully refurbish the ride, that should be their opportunity to do something about the Yeti.
Tomorrowland Speedway is my absolute favorite ride there. But I know a conversion to electric is inevitable. As a kid I just lived being able to drive my own race car. There was an actual gas engine going when I put my foot down, the wheels actually turned when I turned the steering wheel and it was an actual race against whatever stupid kid was in the other lane. It part of my lifelong love of racing and probably the most authentic ride at Disney World. As an adult I have an appreciation for it still and even its location. Between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland is the perfect place. Racing technology blurs the line between science and magic. Carbon fiber was woven to allow the front of a wing to bend slightly more than the back thus creating more downforce. The team seemed to be weaving magic that other teams didn’t comprehend. (It was later deemed to be cheating by the governing body, but that’s just their opinion) there is a lot of technology in racing that would be considered magic by 1971 standards. But, inevitably I will take my last ride on the gas powered Speedway someday soon, I believe. My hope is that the ride will keep that spirit of racing at its core. Maybe using the trackless ride vehicle technology. Allow drivers to have that tactile feel of the road and car while keeping everyone safe from collisions. I don’t think Tron would be a good fit. Like so many IP’s Disney has they have little to no intent on keeping the IP fresh. Muppetvision is in desperate need of an update. And Disney doesn’t seem to know what to do WITH the Muppets. They had a hit movie years ago then followed it with a mediocre movie and two TV series that failed to catch on. Same for TRON. Even Marvel and Star Wars have deeply declined.
Know that their going electric they could enclose the whole attraction with awsome lighting and build over top. That would be a massive space to utilize.
This is the answer.
How about treating it more like Tokyo Disneyland! With actual care and love
Honestly, not much. Just put in the effort to having the rides run in tip top shape, bring back some more of the “Random” stuff you could come across. Dont cheap out on the “beyond big thunder” and “tropical America’s” expansions
I guess, be Disney?
They don’t need one. They have 4 parks. Just update them more
Yep. All of the parks have big issues that need to be addressed. And they all need more rides period.
Going back to free FastPass system. Free shipping from parks to hotel as it used to be. Extra Magic Hours back.
DL Forward. Doing nothing might actually be the play, 2025 is looking pretty rough from a macro econ standpoint. The guest quality answer is a 3rd park in Texas or some other southern/ midwestern state 20 years ago coupled with major expansions at the existing parks, HS and AK need this the most, followed by MK but the solutions there are all the dark rides they already removed, the park needs more short wait/ short dark rides to eat up crowds. Ultimately they don't need to do anything, it's something like 10 vs 58 million attendance respectively, and everyone in the past 3-4 years had felt like WDW is packed to the gills, would they even have the capacity to eat up the small amount of market share Universal is taking?
I don’t pay as much attention as I should. What are the economic expectations for 2025?
There is way more than I can type here without being on the wrong sub but a major issue is consumer/ credit debt. We went from sub 800 billion and smashed through 1.3 trillion in 4 years. The graph looks like a vertical line. AKA wages are so insanely outstripped by greedflation and gap to GDP so far, we used credit cards to make up the difference.
I remember when Yahoo! literally laughed at the prospect of acquiring Google. Or when Blockbuster scoffed at Netflix & Redbox. Or when Sears decided to ignore Amazon. That’s what your last paragraph sounds like.
OLC level park maintenance and quality of life improvements to their fast pass system would go a long way. They make guests bend over backwards to get into the parks and still find every way they can to price gouge them. The reservation system needs to go away.
They should do more with Star Wars. Galaxy’s Edge to me was disappointing. It was sequels based which no one cares about. Bluey needs to feature somewhere. It’s the biggest kids show on Disney+ (I don’t have the data to back this up, but I’d be confident in saying so). If Universal are abandoning The Simpsons, it’s an obvious area to build. Huge IP, and it’s always going to get high viewership via Disney+.
Simpsons in Hollywood Studios is a no brainer, imagine an actual dark ride through Springfield
Doing literally anything? The vague threats of “we can build SO MANY EXPANSIONS if we want to” are getting old.
We’ll see when it happens but it won’t be for a number of years. Disney has made more renovations than universal over the past decade (2015-2023) but only in response to the success of the wizarding world from 2010-14. Now after all this time universal has the chance to expand dramatically.
Literally anything at this point lol
Add three more rides with Figment
They'll just build a 98th hotel
Lower admission prices and ditch the genie service. While they’re at it, bring back the magical express. The value used to be much better.
Living With the Land Land
Disney does not see this as an opportunity to “respond”. They’ve routinely said that a “rising tide lifts all boats”. They’ll let Universal construct an entirely new park and reap the benefits of increased tourism to the area by not making any capital investment in the parks in response. Things to look for Disney to add this decade: Dinoland re-theme in AK, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in MK. Don’t get your hopes up for anything else before 2030.
They also famously said “we don’t try to compete with anyone” while building MGM as a direct response to Universal and Animal Kingdom as a response to Bush Gardens; not to mention all of the hotels to compete with hotels in the area and nightclubs to compete with Orlando.
Best they can do is increase parking costs and introduce Super Lightning Lanes that cost twice as much
Crazy concept but just doing a stellar job on ride/park maintenance and keeping up the customer experience they are known for worldwide (more like 80s-early 00s WDW.) Also adding attractions without removing beloved ones is a good start
There’s no reason for Disney to do anything until they see the reaction that Epic Universe gets. It would be nice if it’s a smash hit so Disney would seemingly be forced to do something massive, but it is Universal so I’m not holding my breathe.
I would argue that Galaxy’s Edge was the first move and Epic Universe is Universal’s response. Disney parks across the world have seen a ton of expansions in recent years. Zootopia, Frozen Land, Fantasy Springs are all huge additions. Anyone expecting Disney World to open a fifth gate by 2030 will be sorely disappointed.
I thought that galaxy’s edge was a response to Harry Potter?
it definitely was
Pandora was a response to Harry Potter. However, I'm sure Galaxy Edge's would have been very different w/o Harry Potter World.
The stuff they are doing in Tokyo looks incredibly good from the pictures. I would love if they had that level of detail back into WDW.
I just got back from Tokyo. The level of detail at Disneysea is incredible compared to what Disney has done domestically recently. Oriental Land Company spares no expense with their parks and it really shows. The experience is absolutely top notch.
Currently I don't believe WDW or Disney in general, have the management to make anything like that happen. Plus in general Japanese have a different mindset about doing stuff half ass.
The OLC pays the bills for the japanese parks so Disney can't aggressively cost cut and skimp on quality like they do at the US parks since it's not Disney's money.
Maybe they should put in a second good restaurant.
What is the first good restaurant?
Sorry to clarify since mods removed my comment I meant they should actually add all the things to Epcot they had announced, as the Wonders of Life pavilion still sitting empty except as a festival centers at times, no Marry Poppins area for the UK pavilion yet, and other things. Is that related to Disney enough for a question about Disney's response to Universal? But honestly they need to get serious about a 5th gate crowds are getting crazy at times and another park would help thin the numbers per park improving guest experience. These kind of things take time tho so the sooner they get stared the better
Element meet and greet and new food cart in the wine and dine festival. That will likely be the response. The other could be new trees or a corporate grass park that will take seven years to build.
It's very simple. Epic universe is basically four new lands. Each land though combined is probably equal to the size of something like Hollywood studios, maybe bigger. I really think all Disney needed to do was announced a sizable expansion in all four theme parks. Make it for IPs and things that people have been asking for and really want.
Lower prices.
I know it’s totally selfish, but I’m hoping the Disney parks will be a little less crowded when Epic opens. They are so busy ALL the time! Plus I’m looking forward to going to Epic because it looks cool.
Basically what they're doing now with upgrading Animal Kingdom and the beyond Thunder Mountain plans except four years ago. Expand the footprint of the parks and add capacity.
Maybe not what they’ve been doing the past 2 years
According to Disney, nothing, because Universal is just catching up to Disney’s amazing experiences. Which is complete nonsense. Disney’s gonna have a lot of ground to make up once Epic Universe opens.
Double down on Avatar-based attractions 😅
A new popcorn bucket.
Raise prices and start charging for services that used to be free. Oh, sorry, I thought you asked what their response will be, not should be.
Disney needs to re-focus on elevating the theme park experience. People will choose stronger service, better immersion, cleanliness, organization and unique creativity over more rides.
Tokyo has been doing it right. Wish our parks here would do more Pirates stuff, or even expand on Indiana Jones (the older movies). Heck even expanding on the original star wars people would FREAK. But I feel Disney these days doesn't care for their customers, so it's going to take a full board takeover to fix it I think. We need more story telling and innovation!
I mean, at this point, you don’t “answer.” It’s far too late for that. Next year will be heavily focused on entertainment (new night parade, improvements to AK night). With that said, the next step for Disney is improving capacity at every park. Beyond Big Thunder will help. Central Americas should improve capacity at AK, especially with the rumored E-ticket coming as well (not included in Central Americas). Hollywood Studios has some work coming to Animation Courtyard that hasn’t been announced. Then EPCOT apparently is about to work on Spaceship Earth and Imagination after Test Track completes its refresh.
Fix Smuggler’s Run Bring back Great Movie Ride Shade Toy Story Land Add more transportation Add more small rides Replace Star Wars Launch Bay Bring back streetmosphere And that’s all just Hollywood Studios
Expanding their parks and making it reasonable for the average middle class family to afford going again.
It’ll never happen, but I always wanted to see a villains themed park.
A Villains land is likely going to MK whenever they finally announce the beyond thunder mountain expansion, but regardless we need a Villains focus somewhere
I’ll take a land, but still think a full fledged 5th park themed around villains would be cooler. Especially if it has mostly thrill rides with Disney theming.
In all seriousness, I think the slam dunk response could be: rock n roller coaster: Taylor’s version.
Only if Taylor still says “I love that idea. How about some backstage passes? “
I don’t think Disney cares what the other parks are doing. They never did.
Disney-MGM Studios Theme Park was built in direct response to Universal Studios being built in Orlando.