It's counter-intuitive, but too much Disney might be killing Disney

August 2, 2023 2:17 PM

YouTuber Poseidon Entertainment, who spends a lot of time examining dead amusement park rides and has been more increasingly critiquing amusement parks, has a thesis: Disney Brand Fatigue Is Damaging Its Parks [35m]. His experience looking back at things that have ceased to be gives him some insight into how modern attraction development might be creating a future trap for Disney. It's an interesting perspective that maybe Iger needs to listen to.
posted by hippybear (55 comments total)

Aren't high prices, lingering after effects of a major healthcare crisis, and half of the US being dickheads bigger threats?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:29 PM on August 2, 2023 [25 favorites]

I'm a late 30s adult with a kindergarten kid. I am prime Disney target here, making a middle class income but not doing really well. But well enough that I have a mortgage and am not under crippling student loan debt.

A quick Google puts an estimated cost for a week trip at 6,000. I don't have that money. Simple as that. Before it even gets to that I have living family that needs taking care of so all my vacation time is going to visiting them, and the fact that I can't visit Florida for lgbtq reasons. A Disney trip is just not financially possible even if I really tried to save up and do it . It would be at the expense of needed house repairs or car repairs or medication or school supplies. Not a we will be fine if we don't drink coffee and save up for a couple years money.
posted by AlexiaSky at 2:44 PM on August 2, 2023 [36 favorites]

I can't visit Florida for lgbtq reasons

This is me, too, I'm visibly trans and my spouse and I have thought about taking our daughter to Disney World but it's clearer and clearer that I will not be visiting Florida (people suggest going to Disneyland instead but I'm not flying from DC to LA just to go to Disney). Money is a factor too but for my family the biggest issue is going to Florida.
posted by an octopus IRL at 3:03 PM on August 2, 2023 [15 favorites]

Every memorable experience I’ve had lifetime to date at a Disney park had nothing to do with a movie I’d seen, and none of the movies they’ve made Disney content out of have any appeal to me after the endless sequels and remakes and virtual rides. So this video resonates quite strongly, in addition to the existing factors of covid and trans hate that I already knew to be impacting them.
posted by Callisto Prime at 3:09 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Disney management being shit is also killing Disney. I don't give them any money because I don't like the way they do business. I know I am not alone in this kind of silent boycott.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:14 PM on August 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

I was disappointed in the video. The topic is interesting to me, but it felt the video was all this person turning his personal guesswork into theory ("This has not aged as well as I think the original attraction would have.") and making up stuff about what people in general think and feel. He could have done some research and backed up his claims with, for instance, specific details about box office returns, visitors to the park, ridership of specific rides. He tells us why he thinks people are engaging in behaviors but we only have his best guesses about whether they're really engaging in those behaviors, but surely there are people tracking this stuff and doing surveys.

I thought the video that was running was also kind of random in places, not directly tied to the narration. Just a bunch of random clips running in the background while he talked.

Could have been much better, and that would have been much more interesting.
posted by Well I never at 3:20 PM on August 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

I think the 'branded rides' will actually be pretty easy to repurpose as popular media changes, so I think they will stay pretty fresh. In other words, exactly the same as his Epcott Center example, started with no longer relevant IP and yet still popular. IMO, the true innovation will happen when they can switch IP basically 'on the fly' where riding a coaster in the morning is different than riding it in the evening. That's what will drive park attendance.


A Disney trip is just not financially possible even if I really tried to save up and do it .

My kids just went to Disney Land and went on a random Tuesday with a relative that had a Club 33 membership, and still didn't get to ride all the best rides. It's still insanely crowded, so the odds they are concerned about high price points is pretty low.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:29 PM on August 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

The topic is interesting to me, but it felt the video was all this person turning his personal guesswork into theory ("This has not aged as well as I think the original attraction would have.") and making up stuff about what people in general think and feel.

It also doesn't help that he's been banging on this drum for some time now, varying his position as his arguments don't pan out.
posted by NoxAeternum at 3:29 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Wanna hear from Defunctland on this one.
posted by Artw at 3:33 PM on August 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

There's kind of a "truth-y" element to the idea because I know I'm bothered by them sneaking Jack Sparrow into the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and making the submarine ride all about Nemo, but if I think about it that's also because I have a memory of what those rides were like before and I'm just nostalgic. Meanwhile, there's all kinds of rides around Disneyland (never been to Florida) that have only existed as movie tie-ins and I'm perfectly fine with those and always have been. Fantasyland is nothing but that kind of thing and the Indiana Jones ride has always been fun as long as it's working. I'm a little annoyed at them mining their own standalone rides for IP purposes, but I think that's just a cranky old man thing on my part.
posted by LionIndex at 4:04 PM on August 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Aren't high prices, lingering after effects of a major healthcare crisis, and half of the US being dickheads bigger threats?

My thoroughly unscientific observation is that US leisure travel has in general shifted a bit since covid, from visiting destinations to visiting family and friends, from long distance travel to regional travel, and from visiting built environments like Disney, NYC, New Orleans, and Vegas to visiting natural environments like national parks.
posted by smelendez at 4:05 PM on August 2, 2023 [8 favorites]

An unpleasant summer of everything being insanely hot and the prospect of every one after being worse probably changes a thing or too as well.
posted by Artw at 4:12 PM on August 2, 2023 [7 favorites]

That’s it. Disney World needs an airport. Why go to Florida at all?
posted by m@f at 4:20 PM on August 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

Disney World needs an airport. Why go to Florida at all?

If DeSantis has his way, Disneyworld will become an airport. Fucker isn’t going to stop until WDW is shuttered. To be honest, this video strikes me as having a lot of overtones of the current slagging of Disney by the right.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:19 PM on August 2, 2023 [4 favorites]

I'm a late 30s adult with a kindergarten kid. I am prime Disney target here, making a middle class income but not doing really well. But well enough that I have a mortgage and am not under crippling student loan debt.

A quick Google puts an estimated cost for a week trip at 6,000. I don't have that money.

I did the same math about 6 or 7 years back, when I thought that the kids were getting to the age where if we didn't do it, they wouldn't want to anymore because teenagers. Between the financial cost (which was barely in reach at that moment) and the sheer amount of homework that appeared necessary to do in order to figure out how to best schedule your time in the park (I had coworkers offering to put me in touch with their family members who figured out the master schedules for their trip), I gave up. Would rather take the family somewhere where we can have fun on our own schedule and not break the bank doing it.

Disney may be getting slagged by the right, but I'm of the opinion that they might well be making some mistakes with their parks and IP all on their own.
posted by nubs at 7:27 PM on August 2, 2023 [11 favorites]

That video could have been an email.
posted by schoolgirl report at 7:55 PM on August 2, 2023 [6 favorites]

Florida person here. To me the biggest turnoff about Disney World is how incredibly expensive it's gotten. That and the crowds, but i feel like the cost of going to Disney has gone up faster than inflation over the last 20 or so years. It's gotten so expensive that it doesn't really seem like a middle-class thing to me anymore
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:50 PM on August 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

While we were in Japan, we spent a day at DisneySea and it was amazing.

DisneySea, if you're not familiar with it, is a second park next to Disneyland Tokyo co-operated with outside partners. The way it was explained to me, the people owning the adjacent land asked to partner with Disney and Disney said... Ehhhh, okay, but you can't use any of our top shelf IP. They said fine, if we can use your designers. They asked said designers, "What are the cool things you'd like to do that Disney hasn't let you do?" They got a $1bn park built around themed ports, like Venice, 1920's NYC, Retro-Future World, Mysterious Island (which is Jules Verne themed), and others. The entire place is themed. Every little corner and nook. Over time, it's been a huge hit, such that Disney now let's them use their better IP, but it's still built more around big ideas and dense theming than branding.

I'm not a Disney person, but I guess I am a Theme Park Designers Gone Wild person, because that place was fantastic. Mysterious Island, you guys. It has a volcano.

Also: our three day passes cost less than a single day pass would have at Disney World on the same day.

And finally, we also went to to Universal Japan and it was a generic theme park with two cool themed areas. Otherwise, meh.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:01 PM on August 2, 2023 [24 favorites]

"middle-class thing" → crowds

or Disney can reserve 1 out of 6 tickets for 'below market rate' visits like we allocate housing in many areas I suppose
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:08 PM on August 2, 2023

A friend of mine went to Disneyland Paris and said the queues were regularly 90 minutes. No shame on you for wanting to do Disneyland, but the concept of queuing that long multiple times a day is just… exhausting?
posted by The River Ivel at 12:15 AM on August 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

IMO, the true innovation will happen when they can switch IP basically 'on the fly' where riding a coaster in the morning is different than riding it in the evening.

I got on Buzz and got off Woody.
posted by fairmettle at 1:16 AM on August 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

I watched this whole video. I’m not usually a video essay person but I am a long-time Disney fan — of the parks and the movies.

Maybe the format is new to me but I had a hard time following his argument — am I right in understanding that his major point is— Disney is trying to pass off less well conceived rides by slapping film titles/characters on them?

I can see that — in general it seems like those in charge have lost sight of what makes a theme park interesting / engaging. This is compounded by the strange situation where strong storytelling in the films isn’t a priority anymore (the Star Wars movies — I grew up loving the originals, saw these new ones and honestly cannot remember the stories…)

But most of all, it’s the cost and the general complications of trying to go to the parks. I visited Disneyland Paris in 2019 — admittedly have not been to the US parks in about 10 years. But my other Disney fan friends talk about how you have to compete for slots in restaurants and rides months in advance— a friend just went with her nephew who is a big Star Wars fan and they weren’t able to get on the big ride in Galaxy’s Edge (Rise of the Resistance I’m guessing?) because they didn’t win the lottery …

Like everything that is being “enshittified” it seems like it is due to a lot of factors colliding— it has always been a challenge to get the most out of any visit to the parks (I was a fan and user of what used to be called “The Commando Guide to Disneyland/WDW”) but now — it seems like a slowly deflating balloon…

Thanks for posting this, very interesting.
posted by profreader at 1:25 AM on August 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

The takeaway I got from the Defunctland Fastpass documentary was that Disney created a death spiral while trying to extract money from one-in-a-lifetime guests (families that save for several years in order to afford going). It wasn't enough to have already-high ticket prices, they had to prey on these guests' insecurity by stressing how important it was to have the "perfect" visit while upselling them on various programs and perks that could guarantee it. So now there are a ton of guests competing with each other trying to maximize their park time because this is the only chance they'll ever have to be there, and there simply isn't enough park to go around.

My parents went for a bunch of short weekend trips to Disneyworld in the 1970s and they often talked about how much more fun and relaxed things were. In the 70s, they could "afford" to spend an entire day in the Magic Kingdom just walking around enjoying things without even going on any of the rides because they knew they could do them on the next weekend trip.

Contrast this to when we went as a family in the early 1990s. We knew it would be years before we'd return, if we ever returned at all (we did not). Even though we stayed for an entire week, every day was a miserable slog of trying to do as much as we could to justify the expense of being there.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 5:35 AM on August 3, 2023 [16 favorites]

Former Florida resident, used to go on daytrips to WDW 2-3 times a year with the resident discount and/or special events (public school employees and their families, etc.)

I do miss the way it used to be, with rides not necessarily tied to movie IP (Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Carribean, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, the vaguely educational Mission to Mars) and some weird obscure stuff (Mr. Toad's Wild Ride). And before the fun "If You Had Wings" succumbed to the much lesser "Delta Dreamflight" and whatever else it's been since then. And when EPCOT was this cool/dorky early 80s futurist vision. To me personally, those ride changes are disappointing... though the nerd in me does kinda like the idea of a whole Star Wars themed area. But I don't think any of that has anything to do with how well the parks may be doing today.

But I'm not a kid anymore, prices definitely took an enormous upward leap, that Fastpass mess sounds like the exact opposite of fun, and Florida is the absolute last place in the US that I want to go to anymore.
posted by Foosnark at 6:48 AM on August 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

i feel like the cost of going to Disney has gone up faster than inflation over the last 20 or so years.

To quote Boston, it's more than a feeling - the math absolutely bears that out.

The one day tickets that my father was so angry about paying for on our first trip that he was going to make us turn around at the gates and go home, until Mom talked him down? Less than $50 in today's money. That's less than half of the absolute cheapest discounted ticket you can get now. Same number of attractions, and no upcharges for a shorter line. All the standby lines moved faster because they weren't being held back to let the spendier guests in ahead. Food and lodging have outpaced inflation ever faster.

The stress of making every trip perfect because it might be the last, combined with an expansion of lucrative alcohol sales and chronic understaffing, have led to more frequent altercations and rulebreaking among guests.

I think that lackluster creative decisions that make guests feel like management doesn't care about their enjoyment are one factor, but there are plenty of others to go around.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:10 AM on August 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Part of the arguments sound like a Groucho Marx joke -- Disneyland is so expensive that nobody can go...and even if you did it's too crowded.

Disney is unpleasant in many ways, but they seem to be doing Disneylandworld the way they want and it makes too much money to change it to do what we want.
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:25 AM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

AlexiaSky: “A quick Google puts an estimated cost for a week trip at 6,000. I don't have that money.”

I saw a screenshot go by earlier this week.

actually, the class system in america is:

• never been to disney
• went to disney once or twice
• goes to disney annually

posted by ob1quixote at 8:09 AM on August 3, 2023 [10 favorites]

I concur with your astute observation, smelendez. Since Covid, my leisure travel will never involve air travel, nor anything outside my region. I prefer more affordable, regional amusement parks where one can hit all the main attractions in one weekend day.
posted by edithkeeler at 8:18 AM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

How Much Did a Disneyland Ticket Cost in 1955?

Well, in 1955, park admission cost $1, and attractions then cost $0.10 – $0.35. There were 35 attractions open at Disneyland in 1955, which brought the average price-per-attraction to ~$0.23. Guests could buy attraction ticket booklets for $2.50, but they only covered eight attractions each and, like the FastPass+, they only offered one or two tickets per area.

Remember: Inflation is very much a thing! And according to the US Inflation Calculator, Disneyland basic park admission would cost us ~$10 in 2020. That average price-per-attraction(PPA)? ~$2.19 per ride. And that booklet for eight attractions would cost ~$24.

Nowadays, we just have one ticket that gets us into the park and gives us access to all the attractions, right? Well, to get that same value in 1955 on Disneyland’s original procedures and pricing, it would cost you ~$76 to have access to every single ride at Disneyland. ~$86 if you add the park admission.
posted by fairmettle at 8:24 AM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Disney is where I learned about socio-economic classes.

We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort which at the time was the cheapest Disney hotel. Part of our package included a complimentary character breakfast--at the Grand Floridian.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:29 AM on August 3, 2023 [8 favorites]

Part of the arguments sound like a Groucho Marx joke -- Disneyland is so expensive that nobody can go...and even if you did it's too crowded.

A variation on "Nobody drives in the city because there's too much traffic."

That's an interesting article, fairmettle, but my calculations above are based on the same kind of all-inclusive "passport" tickets available today.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:31 AM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

There was a time I would have attributed this to increased sophistication and regulations; after all, one of Disney's original attractions was a literal donkey ride. But here in late capitalism, we're beginning to see that businesses like this pocket whatever the hell they want and blame increases on everything else.

The one thing that I do know in Disney's favor is that they are well set up to entertain and serve children with special needs of all kinds, from the food service to the character actors. I can see where a family might feel that their kid would not really get a fair chance to enjoy themselves in many other places. But that shouldn't be the way it is.

Although my heart hurts that I can't go to Florida for the foreseeable,* it's not for Disney -- it's for the beaches of the Redneck Riviera, the sweetness of Key West, and the Everglades that I don't know that I'll ever see.

---
* I mean, I'm a basic-looking cis woman, but it would revolt me; plus, what if I did something too queer --
posted by Countess Elena at 8:39 AM on August 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

saw a screenshot go by earlier this week.

actually, the class system in america is:

never been to disney
went to disney once or twice
goes to disney annually

Anaheim, CA, where Disneyland in CA is located, has a median home price of about $800k (which is actually moderate for the area), so you could add a 4th class: those who can afford to live close enough where an annual pass makes sense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:26 AM on August 3, 2023 [5 favorites]

Yeah, the amount of two-people-at-midnight-each-with-a-phone-and-a-laptop required to book your rides -- much less the weeks of research and table-topping required to plan it all -- was exhausting when it was still FastPasses. Now it's a deal-breaker, especially when the new fees and raised fees and scarcities and crowds and heat make it all suck so much more.

And THEN there's Florida's political culture? Hells no.

We took the kids twice, and I don't ever again expect to see the inside of any Disney property.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:49 AM on August 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

Having now made it to the end of the video, I think I understand the thesis: Rides that rely on people's — children's — attachment to movies and characters, like many of the recent Disney rides and unlike older Disney rides and rides at Universal, are bad investments because they won't build an inherent fanbase. People will ride a good ride over and over, and will go back to park to ride a ride they like. If the ride itself is lackluster and the only thrill is, "I remember that from the movie!" the ride will be dated before it's even finished and people won't care about it they way they do the Disney rides you can name off the top of your head.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:16 AM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

Rides that rely on people's — children's — attachment to movies and characters, like many of the recent Disney rides and unlike older Disney rides

Right, but the counterpoint is every OG ride in Fantasy Land that's basically a sequence of dioramas recreating whatever movie the ride is based on, and those have been there since the park opened so it's not just newer rides that do that. And Jungle Cruise was never an exciting ride - movie tie-ins aren't going to hurt it.
posted by LionIndex at 11:29 AM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

And Jungle Cruise was never an exciting ride - movie tie-ins aren't going to hurt it.

And frankly, the debate over the reworks of Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain among others is less "eww tie-ins" and more "how dare you take the bigotry out!"
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:02 PM on August 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

So Splash Mountain is an interesting thing, RIP, because it is a ride that was entirely built on IP, but it's an IP that nearly zero people who are under 40 had seen when it debuted. And it was a REALLY GOOD ride! And honestly, it's not the fault of Everybody's Got A Laughing Place that it was attached to such a weirdly racist movie. Ditto every song in that movie, but that's the one at the center of this ride, so that's why I bring it up.

Anyway, Splash Mountain was an excellent ride. And I hope they engineer the reskin, which will once again be about an IP that basically nobody knows, to be as excellent as the original ride design. Goodness knows, Splash Mountain was basically an evergreen ride because for all intents and purposes, none of its characters existed outside of that specific context.
posted by hippybear at 12:32 PM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

And I think that's maybe the point of this video? That the really evergreen rides at Disney are the ones that don't have an attached IP to go with it. The ones that do, the aforementioned dark rides in DL Fantasyland, they're actually something special if you've been on any of them. The boats flying up over London in the Peter Pan ride are etched into my memory and not just from childhood. But It's A Small World, Haunted Mansion [no matter how many movies they try to make], Space Mountain... These were rides built upon concepts, not an IP they have to feature.

I'm wondering if this is why ToonTown sort of fell over and died. It was completely amazing the first year it was open but in later years when I encountered it, it felt run down and crappy. Did it feel that way the first year too and I didn't notice? I have no way to really check that theory.
posted by hippybear at 1:44 PM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think you're getting into the "truthiness" that I was talking about - how is your statement any different from "good rides are good regardless of whether they have IP content associated with them or not"?

You have Fantasy Land, where almost every ride is IP-based, whether it's a dark ride or not. The one major exception is Small World, which I'd actually argue is a trash ride - the animatronics are drugstore Christmas window-level and if you look at anything other than the animatronics in the building it's hilariously ratchet, like you could seriously install it in an abandoned department store in 3 days.

Elsewhere the evergreen rides are mostly the ones that used to be D/E tickets and are "thrill" rides - any of the mountain range, plus Pirates and Haunted House, maybe a few others. Those rides are going to good whether there's IP involved or not. They typically have a whole backstory associated with them that isn't always apparent to the person on the ride anyway, so what's really the problem with changing the backstory to something a little different or making a movie of the backstory that's already associated with the ride? Did you know that Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is a bunch of possessed trains going through mines that were built on sacred Native American land? I can't wait for that movie! How could they ruin the Matterhorn or Space Mountain?

Then you have newer rides that are based on IP and are great - Indiana Jones, Star Tours, even the Buzz Lightyear shooting gallery ride is pretty fun. I just don't believe there's an IP-based rule about the rides that I can apply to anything - I have favorites that are and aren't based on movies, and rides I hate that are or aren't based on movies. It's just not really a thing.
posted by LionIndex at 2:34 PM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

The one thing that I do know in Disney's favor is that they are well set up to entertain and serve children with special needs of all kinds, from the food service to the character actors. I can see where a family might feel that their kid would not really get a fair chance to enjoy themselves in many other places. But that shouldn't be the way it is.

Adults, too. Although I can't afford to go anymore, and probably never will again, it was always nice to know that they would do their best to make sure I had the same chance at having a good time as everybody else. They're not perfect in that respect, and there's still room for improvement, but they've really been leaders in accessibility.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:42 PM on August 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

Oh, and then there's leprosy and malaria.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:44 PM on August 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I finally had the chance to watch it through, and his argument honestly seems to be that sucky rides based off of IP won’t last if people don’t like the IP anymore, while good rides and experiences succeed despite their IP if they tell a good story / create a cool world. Which on the one hand seems obvious (Toy Story Land was 100% phoned in with some IP slapped on top, but I think you could argue that has nothing to do with the IP and everything to do with needing more rides for little kids and no time to make them). But on the other hand, it may not even be true in the case of some Disney IP. He cites the Elsa and Anna ride as a particular example - would people still want to go on the ride if the movie wasn’t so popular? And we literally know the answer to that because the ride used to be the Norway ride. It was one of my favorite rides at Epcot because it was fun, low key, and you could always get right on it with pretty much no line because most people didn’t even know it was there. Then they added some Frozen elements, and now it’s a huge wait. The IP is what made it a hot ride.

The Defunctland FastPass video RonButNotStupid referenced was excellent - I wanted to make an FPP of it when it came out but it was just too long to expect people to sit through — if you have the time, it’s really worth the watch. My parents (now my mom) live in Orlando so we would go to the parks whenever we could. For years they had friends who worked there and could get us in for free, but even when that stopped, being able to go for a day without having to pay for a hotel or more than one meal (we’d pack lunches and snacks) was expensive but doable as a once a year splurge. If you knew your way around, you could work the FastPasses so you only had to stand in one insane line and manage to ride everything you wanted at least once. Even after they “upgraded” the system with the crappy app and kiosks, you could still mostly log in in the morning, grab some early FastPasses and then show up at the gates on a nice day. Now I read about their new system and - that’s what’s broken. Sure, better rides would be better. But the idea of having to pay more money just to not stand in 90 minute lines - and to see kids whose parents just scraped together to afford this trip or weren’t able to coordinate in time having to watch other people skip past them because they have more money? - it really rubs me the wrong way.

I haven’t been back to the parks since before Covid, I still haven’t been to the Galaxy’s Edge section, which I really want to see - but each time I’ve been back visiting my mom, the idea of going out to the parks - something I loved to do - just seems like it won’t be fun anymore. Because it sounds like you just can’t do it spontaneously now - if everything is such a money grab that they make the whole experience tangibly, noticeably worse for everyone who spends less - where “less” is already astronomical - saying their problem is IP sounds pretty silly to me. The people who only go once in their lifetimes are mostly going for the IP (overall, anyhow, not necessarily for any one film or character). Alienate enough regularly-attending people into not coming back and there’s a much bigger problem.
posted by Mchelly at 4:12 PM on August 3, 2023 [10 favorites]

The Defunctland FastPass video RonButNotStupid referenced was excellent - I wanted to make an FPP of it when it came out but it was just too long to expect people to sit through

FPPed here: "How much do you know about lines?"
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:56 PM on August 3, 2023 [4 favorites]

Alienate enough regularly-attending people into not coming back and there’s a much bigger problem.

Disney has a love/hate relationship with passholders (as do all theme parks.) On one hand, they spend more in the abstract and serve as evangelists for the parks - on the other hand, they generate less revenue on a per-visit aspect and tend to be some of the more obnoxious guests (as I said in my FPP on the FastPass documentary, there's a reason Perjurer's model of Animal Kingdom modeled not only passholders, but entitled passholders as well.) In fact, passholders have sued Disney for breach of contract over being denied park admittance due to the park capacity rules they had in place.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:51 PM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

But the idea of having to pay more money just to not stand in 90 minute lines - and to see kids whose parents just scraped together to afford this trip or weren’t able to coordinate in time having to watch other people skip past them because they have more money? - it really rubs me the wrong way.

Here's the thing - this model is the one Universal has had for years, long before Disney even thought about it. Yet whenever people argue about how horrible Genie+ is (and I'd argue that FastPass+ was worse, for reasons explained in the Defunctland documentary), Universal never comes up, which I find to be an interesting omission.
posted by NoxAeternum at 10:58 PM on August 3, 2023

I guess when I think about “regularly attending” I think about people like me - I’m not a pass-holder or anything close to it, but if I had a choice of theme parks, I’d choose Disney World - even though realistically I only go once every couple of years for a day and maybe every 5 years (?) for a longer one. And now it’s gone from an automatic first choice to just another choice. It’s true that Universal has had the same system - and it’s honestly one of the biggest reasons we never went before the Harry Potter sections opened and couldn’t resist the pull (this was back before all the Rowling stuff came out). Water parks have been tier-pricing their lines for over a decade too. It really bugs me. I honestly think it hurts kids to have to stand in a super long line and actively watch capitalism hurting them. If Disney has a problem with passholders, they should raise the prices or tier the prices on passes. This seems like a problem they can solve without breaking the park.
posted by Mchelly at 4:28 AM on August 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

I guess what I’m saying is, the original FastPass system was democratizing, and took one of the worst things about going to the park (the insanely long lines) a little less bad. So if a ride wasn’t as great as its hype, you didn’t lose as much in the way of sunk costs. And I think that tempers the more IP vs less IP discussion. We went to Animal Kingdom a bunch of years ago (my first and only time going there) during the new FastPass+ and couldn’t get a FastPass to the Pandora flight ride because they were all gone at least a day (maybe longer) beforehand. But it was the main reason to go to the park, and the wait time said 120 minutes and we said screw it, sometimes those are old numbers and it’s lunchtime so maybe it will be less. And it ended up being closer to three and a half hours, and there are no bathrooms in the area, so when our then-7-year-old had to go three hours in, having to figure out how to make that happen without losing our place in line because dammit we were so close at that point (and thankfully there was a cast member near enough by who allowed it) - but I have to say, thank the cryogenically frozen Walthead that that ride was great, because as it is I NEVER want to do that again, and we definitely will never step foot in a line with a number higher than 90 (our normal upper limit).

I still haven’t seen Avatar 2. I still think it’s weird that they put a section devoted to Avatar into a Disney park at all, and even weirder that the park they chose was Animal Kingdom. But the Avatar ride was great and it was based around IP just like everything they do. The problem there wasn’t too much emphasis on IP - it’s too few rides and things worth doing, so everyone there gets channeled to the same big triangle tree.
posted by Mchelly at 4:56 AM on August 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Since it's capitalism, the parks will extract as much rent as possible from all of its customers. The thing that is scarce in the park is rides, there are only X number of seats per day. They don't charge per ride, so the price of seat scarcity is derived into wait time, with a shorter wait representing a higher price.

If you're poor, you pay 90 minutes of your time per ride. If you're rich, you might pay five minutes. Park objective always, always, is to get everyone to pay more time per ride, so cash money per-ride revenue is as high as possible. The parks optimize wait times to the knife edge of people's willingness to tolerate them; if the lines were faster they'd be losing money as people would be willing to wait more, if the lines were slower dissatisfaction would be turning away customers.

Ultimately, the parks are calculated to suck exactly as much as they possibly can in order to extract as much cash as they can from you while giving you as little fun as possible. The parks trade on their brands in order to draw you in, then show you as shitty a time as possible while you're there.

A bonus to having long lines that poor people have to wait in is putting concessions near the long lines so that people will buy 80% profit food and 95% profit drinks to consume while waiting in line, thus extracting more money from people who didn't want to spring for the more expensive passes.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:05 AM on August 4, 2023

When we lived in Florida we'd do the parks on the regular, and we decided that Universal was the best. Not because the rides were better, but because the non-ride ambience was better. You could spend the day just fucking around in Universal Studios, watching the buskers, window shopping, hanging out in the gardens, going into the set-your-own-pace attractions, people watching. Good times, for cheap.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:05 AM on August 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

Wife and I went to Disney World (for reference, at the time it was me = 50 year old cis het man, wife = 56 year old Latina bi woman... no kids) 3 or so years back. January, so we stayed outside and masked up (pleasantly chilly in central Florida in January!). Wife had important business reason to go to Orlando, plus her sister and their family live very near Disney. So we stayed at their house for free, had fun family time. And we did one day at the Star Wars world park. This happened to be right after the grand opening of the huge, new ride/experience where you get captured and "interrogated" by the Empire, and escape through some ENORMOUS space ship. That was a blast.

Knowing it would go fast, we arrived at the park at 6:45am. Fast-walked into the giant "lobby" area just before the gate of the actual park opened at 7am. We had the Ride App ready. I signed in at he very instant I could... we got reservations together in line for the big ride at SEVEN THIRTY PM. Just to get in line.

Long story short: we were at that one park for about fifteen hours. In for a penny, in for a pound, right? The ride was new and kept malfunctioning throughout the day (the app gives you updates). We didn't even get a chance to get in line until around 9pm. Then it was an hour in line. The ride/experience was really cool, and went off without a hitch. I'll say this: it was spectacular, perfectly done and genuinely impressive even to a cynical old man such as myself. But waiting 12+ hours for it just was not worth it.

I will add that we like Star Wars in a casual way, but are not big fans of the franchise. There's plenty of SW content we haven't seen and have no interest in. The SW village (basically a futuristic town occupied by Space Nazis that goose step around and "hassle" visitors) was extremely well done and cute, full of amazing small details to look for and find, but what a weird message. We loved our time there. For about two hours. We managed to weasel our way (just two of us and some people cancelled?) into line for the Cantina (which apparently you need to make reservations for months ahead?) but that's 45 minutes maximum. But it also was perfectly done and a lot of fun.

Problem was the rest of that park (Hollywood theme) was really creaky and outdated for Disney. The Toy Story world was really great. But it's One Single Ride surrounded by awesome props. Two hours in that line for what is a very well done (but really short) kiddie-level roller coaster ride. Fun! Perfectly executed! But not worth 2 hours in line... though to their credit, they made the line very fun to walk though, full of funny/cool details to look at and admire.

There's an animatronic Muppet themed theater attraction at this park, too. This was extremely outdated. It was fun, we love the Muppets. But it's really showing its age. Even with the park packed to the brim, the theater showing we walked into (with no line) was maybe 1/3 full. I swear some of the animatronic Muppets had visible dust on them.

There's also an hilariously outdated Aerosmith-themed rollercoaster that we walked right onto. It was laughably bad and dated. Can't believe it's still operating. I am not a big fan of Aerosmith, but if the sound had been really fantastic, clear, surround, loud, thumping, exciting... It would have been a good time. But Disney has the sound turned way down for hearing safety (I guess?). The music was not even piped in well... Just sounded like cheap speakers. Fog machines, goofy lighting. Holograms of the band from 25 years ago. It was hilarious.

Anyway, with the delays, we finally got on the big, new SW ride around 9:45 (hazy on details/times) and then high tailed it back to wife's sister's home.

I vow to never return to Florida after the last few years' political bullshit. And I am done with Disney, even though parts of the day were great.

I will say I was surprised by a few things. You are allowed to bring small coolers into the park with your own food and beverages (no booze, they check everything of course) and you can go to your car to eat meals if you want. Or just eat your own food at widely available seating areas in the shade. You can bring water bottles and get refills of good tasting cold water all over the place — gratis. So they do offer that for people who don't want to pay big prices for park food. The park is immaculately clean. Kids will still love it!

One last detail: we were killing so much time that we decided to eat at "The Brown Derby" which is the fine dining option. We had the cash, and wanted to sit down for a couple hours. It was mid-low expensive, along the lines of a decent place in Chicago (where we're from) and we both thought the food was very good. Money well spent, not a rip-off. Nice atmosphere. Great for a break. We even had dessert because we wanted to kill as much time as possible, but it was a highlight of the trip just hanging out together talking and eating. Liked it a lot.

Anyway, I'm done with Disney and Florida.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:38 AM on August 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Water parks have been tier-pricing their lines for over a decade too.

Universal has a good system for this at their water park - they have a virtualized line system where you get a bracelet that allows you to virtually queue for rides by scanning it at the entrance of the attraction, and you'll either be told to enter the line or that you're queued and will be notified when you can enter. (Though there is a bit of tier-pricing here - if you rent a cabana, one thing it comes with is a terminal that allows you to scan into any line.)

I still think it’s weird that they put a section devoted to Avatar into a Disney park at all, and even weirder that the park they chose was Animal Kingdom.

It makes sense if you know the story behind Animal Kingdom's development. Short version - Animal Kingdom originally was going to have a "Beastly Kingdom" section based on mythological and fantastic creatures, but overruns on the park forced this section to be scrapped in the initial development. Then Universal poached a number of the Beastly Kingdom Imagineers for work on Islands of Adventure, which resulted in Disney more permanently putting the kibosh on those plans because they didn't want to be seen as chasing Universal. Thus when Disney got the Avatar IP, Pandora went to Animal Kingdom because that's literally where the space was to develop it.
posted by NoxAeternum at 7:41 AM on August 4, 2023 [3 favorites]

Problem was the rest of that park (Hollywood theme) was really creaky and outdated for Disney.

Hollywood Studios has an...interesting story - basically it was part of an attempt by several studios to create an "East Coast Hollywood" in a state with weaker entertainment unions. The original version of the park (Disney-MGM) was part theme park, part movie studio, and most of the newer parts of the park like the Pixar sections and Galaxy's Edge are built in the old backlot. (Universal did similar things as well - if you'd like more details, I'd recommend poparena's Nick Knacks episode on Nickelodeon Studios, as it gets into that whole era of moving productions to Florida and why it failed.)

One last detail: we were killing so much time that we decided to eat at "The Brown Derby" which is the fine dining option. We had the cash, and wanted to sit down for a couple hours. It was mid-low expensive, along the lines of a decent place in Chicago (where we're from) and we both thought the food was very good. Money well spent, not a rip-off. Nice atmosphere. Great for a break. We even had dessert because we wanted to kill as much time as possible, but it was a highlight of the trip just hanging out together talking and eating. Liked it a lot.

There are definitely tourist trap food options at WDW, but if you're careful, you will find reasonable dining options. (Not cheap, mind you - but more commensurate with the price you pay.) I will say this - since we were there for our fifth anniversary a few years back, I was tempted to see about doing the chef's table at Victoria & Albert's as a bucket list meal. Sadly, they were still closed at the time.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:00 AM on August 4, 2023

Oh, one more point:

If Disney has a problem with passholders, they should raise the prices or tier the prices on passes.

Disney literally does this. Both Orlando and Anaheim have tiered pass systems with lower tiers having more restrictions (most notably residency restrictions.) This does not alleviate the passholder issues, because they're not just about money.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:25 AM on August 4, 2023 [2 favorites]

The submarine ride

Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride circa 1982 will forever have a special place in my heart. Nthing I will never set foot (or tentacle!) in Florida again.

https://www.metafilter.com/38763/20K-Leagues-Under-the-Sea
posted by edithkeeler at 4:59 PM on August 5, 2023 [2 favorites]