Disney Hates Thrill Enthusiasts?

Not much depth to the article at all, but I think it does pose an interesting question. Although it does not seem that Disney is suffering without the hard core thrill rides.

Disney thrill rides are on a different slider of "thrill" than a Universal, Cedar Flags, Busch Gardens or Dollywood style ride.

A ride with the intensity of Velocicoaster or Iron Gwazi has no business being in a WDW park but absolutely has a place in the Central Florida market.

I think Guardians and Tron have shown that people will always want coasters and "big rides" at WDW. But when I think of everyone I know that enjoys a WDW vacation, they aren't a lot of the same folks that will want to spend a weekend at Cedar Point or even Dollywood.

I'm not sure Disney needs the roller coaster thoosie crowd as much as other parks do.

Disney and Universal have their own thoosies.

Disney has different goals. They aim to keep their height limits as low as possible. 48 inches is usually the gateway to any “big” coaster, flat ride or water ride, and some are even taller. At 48 in you can do pretty much everything at a Disney park, heck 40 inches unlocks most coasters.

That said, Disney rides can be quite thrilling. DHS Tower of Terror continues to be my absolute favorite drop ride anywhere. Other ones might be taller, and others have multiple drops, but no other ride has multiple faster then gravity drops (along with fast upward launches) with me just secured with a seat belt.

Shades:

Not much depth to the article at all

That's pretty much standard practice with the Disney clickbait sites.

For people who understand theme parks, thrill rides, or Disney parks, this is a pretty boring article that offers nothing new than the same old argument that has already been answered time and time again.

From what I understand, Walt didn't want thrill rides. That's what makes Disney parks so unique.

Now that I'm older, I appreciate the rides that don't try to rip your face off a little more than those that do. I kind of get it. A coaster doesn't have to have extreme forces to be really fun. One of my favorite newish coasters is Big Bear Mountain. It's pretty much perfect. A coaster like that would be a good fit for a Disney park, but probably not something any more forceful that that.

I haven't rode Tron or Everest yet. Are they as wild as Dollywood's BBM?

I always look at Mission: Space as the one time Disney took ride intensity a bit too far for the audience. Pretty much every Disney-going family has someone that got off the ride and "couldn't believe how intense it was." Yeah, they have all the preshow warnings, but I think everyone sees those and thinks "it's Disney. How bad could it actually be?"

It's essentially an ultra-fancy sit-down Rotor with VR. But your average family doesn't realize that when Gary Sinise* is telling them how cool it will be when they go to space, because no other ride in any of the WDW parks has ever been too much for them.

*yes, I realize the Gary Sinise version of the preshow and narration hasn't been around for years. That doesn't mean I don't miss it.

Meh, there's at least one "thrill" ride in each park, which seems adequate to me. Besides, even Rise of The Resistance is thrilling to me, but the thrill is different. It's a "holy crap I'm in a Star Wars movie" kind of thrill.

As other have stated, I think the desired outcomes of vacation goers are just different at Disney. They're absolutely different for a local. We're going Saturday to visit Geo-82 (bougie bar at Epcot) and then see a couple of Broadway stars that we've seen before perform at America Gardens.

I took my wife, not a big coaster enthusiast, on Rock n Rollercoaster some 30 years ago on the premise of, "it's a Disney ride...how intense can it be"...and to this day she does not let me forget it. My bad.

I think Brett is right. Disney in in the difficult position of trying to design for an audience that has much different expectations then most, if not all, of its competitors. "Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween" event is named that for a reason.

It will be interesting to see how they approach the "Villains' Land" because I'm guessing they will need to balance the "bad/evil" there as well for the family that is leaving the peaceful confines of Fantasy Land and It's a Small World.

wahoo skipper:

I took my wife, not a big coaster enthusiast, on Rock n Rollercoaster some 30 years ago on the premise of, "it's a Disney ride...how intense can it be"...and to this day she does not let me forget it. My bad.

Same thing for me, but with Everest. I might have neglected to tell her ahead of time that it goes backwards. Oops.

I expected RnRC to be fast...Space Mountain fast. I don't recall seeing a lot of details about the ride before we got on it. I didn't learn my lesson. I got on Mission Space ("mild") because a cast member told me that "if Soarin' didn't bother me, Mission Space would be fine".

When I got off that ride, I was looking for the cast member so I could smack her upside the head.

When I worked at Epcot I remember we would go out of our way to make sure guests knew Mission: Space was not just like Soarin' and let them know in no uncertain terms how much spinning took place.

I was under the impression that the mild version didn't spin at all...but that the cabin just rocked back and forth. Did the cast member lie about that too? If it was just rocking back and forth it was too much for me.

Seems like every Disney park has some sort of big thrill ride?

IncrediCoaster might be the closet to a traditional theme park thrill ride coaster.

Not having hypers and Gigas are not hurting Disney.

Big Thunder Mountain seems like pretty standard mine train fare. RnR is a standard spaghetti bowl.