Disney opening temporary Star Wars attractions this fall

Jeff said:

Is it anything like the Florida version? I ask because I think it's a big pile of suck.

It's similar, but I find DL's to be much better than the version here in Florida (just got back from my 2nd trip on Tuesday). Now, their viewing situation made it a one time thing, but if they had a dedicated theater for it like here I would have watched it all 3 nights it played during my trip. The Peter Pan section is far superior to our Pocahontas segment, their full body AA dragon vs. our ridiculous head on a stick is no competition, and I much prefer the look of the Mark Twain in the finale to our very minimal "steam boat." The rest of the show has smaller differences, like the Heffalumps and Woozles projection segment that we don't have here (the music for that segment is awesome, by the way). They also have fewer princess floats (3 total, we have one for nearly all the major princesses).

In other words, this is a BIG blow to their entertainment lineup, but may actually make traffic flow so much more tolerable on weekends.

Well, THAT was spoken like a Disney enthusiast...
:-)

CreditWh0re said:

For it to be down for almost a year (one rumour I heard, which sounds VERY plausible) is going to be tough for the DLR to suck up.

I suspect TDA is playing the long game. A bunch of very popular attractions being temporarily or permanently closed will be long forgotten by the time Star Wars Land opens.

RCMAC said:

Well, THAT was spoken like a Disney enthusiast...
:-)

Nah, just someone who's spent most of my days in the parks the past 5 years. Believe me, if there were a good regional amusement park like CP or KI within an hour of Orlando, I'd rather be there in my spare time. I miss a simple midway where the focus is on the shapes of the coasters, which I find just as compelling as the fancy facades at Disney and Universal.

CP Maverick said:

Slither, you only mentioned "Star Wars" 7 times. Psychology says you need 8 to make a significant impact in someone's memory.

I supplied the eighth one via Vulcan mind meld. Wait, wrong universe...

slithernoggin said:
[I suspect TDA is playing the long game. A bunch of very popular attractions being temporarily or permanently closed will be long forgotten by the time Star Wars Land opens.

well, obviously, and you have to do these kinds of things when you're shoehorning SW land into corners of the park which have had 60 years of development around them. So yeah these things need to happen, but for a full time year round park where Fantasmic is a huge part of the Friday-Sunday AP crowd's routine, it's going to be missed.

As for DLR vs Florida, I've never bothered with the Florida show. All I can say is that the use of the two boats, especially towards the end, are show stopping moments that just can't be replicated anywhere else. It's a huge draw, even after 20 years. It's still so heavily attended that they had to implement FastPass ticketing scheme like they do for World Of Color, to keep people from camping out (and clogging the area) for 3-4 hours ahead of time.

It will absolutely be missed, as will be Big Thunder Ranch, the boats and the railroad stations. But five years or ten years down the line, the closures will have long since been forgotten.

I thought Fantasmic DL was quite good when we saw it this spring. We had to Fastpass for good seats and still had to camp out an hour before show time, but the show itself was well above expectations (having seen the WDW version about 10 years ago).

I've heard rumors on another site that the Rivers of America would be truncated and that the train would cut East just after Splash Mountain. Kind of a bummer if that turns out to be true. If they do, they'll be "stacking" boats in no time. Then again, the train route might be more interesting that way.

With a rumoured 25% reduction in the course of the boat track they will undoubtedly be stacking boats. Hell, they stack boats now. Cat is out of the bag quasi-officially and it's looking like more than 18 months of closure.

Can't realistically run the parade three times a night and you can't do two fireworks shows so it will be interesting to see the evening entertainment line-up. Maybe three shows of World of Color to siphon off the AP's.

Long term necessary, short term a world of headaches.

Almost independent, critical reporting from Brady McDonald.

http://www.latimes.com/travel/themeparks/la-trb-star-wars-land-disn...story.html