Disney Genie service deeply unpopular among fans before it has launched

Why build a second MK to redistribute the one crowd when you could double the crowd?

I'm not sure that the mirror park next door is completely far fetched. When I was working at WDW in the early 90s I recall someone of some authority telling me that ideas of a second theme park next door to Tokyo Disneyland included a second Magic Kingdom because the crowds were so strong at the first. I know they legitimately considered a version of Hollywood Studios there as well. I've been in town where there was a Starbucks within crawling distance of another one so maybe the idea isn't completely off the wall.

I mean, people have to get their terrible coffee somewhere, I guess.

"Meet me in front of the Dumbo ride."

"I AM in front of the Dumbo ride."

"Well, I don't see you."

"Maybe YOU'RE the Dumbo."

You don't need duplicate parks, just more parks. Now that #3 and #4 have more to do, I think that has certainly helped, but if you have little ones, you're still castle minded. MK still does 40 to 90% more people. That's why we still mostly avoid it. I'm slightly encouraged by our visit last week though, as it wasn't terrible. We even braved the mosh pit for Enchantment. We weren't parked that far away, arriving around 5. I don't know how the other parks were.

This is getting into the weeds a bit...but the midways at MK are simply not adequate for the volume of people in the park. No matter how many "people eater" attractions they have...the widths of the midways are jarringly narrow. The Adventureland/Frontierland side of the park is the worst and it hasn't improved over time like the Tomorrowland/Fantasyland side has.

They addressed this some on the east side of the park with the Fantasyland expansion, and they've added what I guess is now the permanent overflow exit behind the east side of Main Street. I believe many years ago, possibly on a New Years Eve night, I was actually routed out of the park behind the west side of Main Street so maybe there is an opportunity there as well. Heck, they even added the "bridge" along the Rivers of American which certainly helps during the parades.

But back to Adventureland, it is really crazy when you get back between Jungle and Pirates, particularly when so much midway space is dedicated to stroller parking. I don't typically battle claustrophobia, but this is one of my least favorite places in any theme park...and considering Jungle was my home for half a year that is saying something. (Of course, I could just pop "downstairs" to move about freely).

Have you been to Disneyland? Now, that’s a tiny place.
I think one of the worst stretches at MK is between small world and Peter Pan’s Flight. Even on a mild day that walk can be claustrophobic.

This is by far the worst stretch, especially the corner by Sunshine Tree Terrace. I imagine it won't be much longer before you see those planters removed and the curve straightened out a bit. It's not much wider than a pickup truck right at that corner.

I have definitely been near a panic attack at both Disneyland and Magic Kingdom more than once.

Saying the same thing as Jeff, but in a different way:
Why would you build a copy of an existing park for a substantial fraction of the cost, staffing, and maintenance of building an entirely new park?

Just as an extreme counter-example, if you were going to copy the Magic Kingdom, you could put different names and colors on everything and drive significantly more traffic.

Or to put it yet another way...

A 5th gate increases product interest, drives attendance increases and disperses crowds.

A copy of an existing gate disperses crowds.

And a copy of an existing gate starts a whole new debate on how many credits Space Mountain is.

At that point you would have 4 different tracks.

Adding more parks is like adding lanes to highways. All it does it bring more traffic.

I never quite understood that line of thinking. If expanding the highway means 20% more people are using it, even if traffic is the same, isn’t that a net win? I mean, obviously you’d want traffic to go down, but someone is obviously happier when the highway gets wider.

Not if it's LA. I've never been to a place with so many freeways where it's impossible to get anywhere.

LA, DC Metro, Atlanta, Houston, Orlando, Pittsburgh, etc. When you build bigger roads that give better access to places further away, new housing plans and shopping centers are developed and people start to spread out. Pretty soon there are more cars than than the road was designed to handle and the process is repeated.

Orlando is a piece of cake to get around compared to Cleveland and Seattle, the other two metros I've lived in.

I-4 enters the chat

Locals rarely get on I-4 as there are many options for avoiding it.

Exactly. The 408, 429, 417, 414 easily get you along the perimeter or right through the middle (I commuted on the 408 for years), and there are no shortage of ways to avoid I-4.