Florida's new coaster openings?

It's time for vacation selections in work. I'm thinking of doing a FL trip in 2020. I know there are several being worked on now. Any ideas on about when they'll be opening. There's now way I'm going in summer. I can't go in the fall -- other guys take then for hunting -- and since I'm a postal employee, I'm not allowed to go in Dec., so most likely late Mar/early April. (I know enough to avoid Spring Break and Easter recess.) Will those coaster be open by then?

I’ve read that SeaWorld and BG-T are saying April, but no exact date. Florida seems to be of the mindset that “it’s done when it’s done”...

It would be awesome if Gwazi gets ironed out by the Show of Shows weekend.

ShaneDenmark said:

I’ve read that SeaWorld and BG-T are saying April, but no exact date. Florida seems to be of the mindset that “it’s done when it’s done”...

Yeah, I think that Disney likes to stick to their promised opening dates because... well Disney. The park and its customers loves to plan every detail out months before they happen. So they don't deal with change very well.

Otherwise, when a park has 365 day operations, opening dates don't matter as much. When a park operates from April-November, there's a clear cycle. The park's empty from December - March, and they use that time to build the new rides, make the changes to the park, and its ready to go in April. They also want to drew people in at a time that the park won't be as crowded. But when they don't close the park down, there's no real urgency, and it just opens what it opens.

Trackmaster said:
The park and its customers loves to plan every detail out months before they happen.

It's not that the guests love to plan months before - you have to. I remember my wife refreshing the website around midnight so she could grab the rides we wanted for the days we were there. If she hadn't, we'd have spent half the day in lines.

This^.

For better or worse, Disney really wants to control/anticipate guest behavior to the minute. For folks like me that want to plan and know a lot of exploitable loopholes, that's fantastic (we went the week before Xmas in 2018 for 7 days and never waited more than 30 minutes and that was only once). For others who don't want to or can't, it's oppressive.

I don't know that they want to control it (though I suspect they do) so much as this is the continuation of a nearly decades-long strategy to get guests to plan in advance because it means more money for the Mouse. There's a fascinating article from an investor presentation in 2003 that talks about this:

https://www.laughingplace.com/w/leg/?legacyasppage=News-ID507040.asp

The money quote:

Research shows that guests drop things from their itinerary once they arrive instead of adding experiences to their vacation. Because of this, it is important to Disney that guests purchase their experiences from home. Guests that purchase from home average around 4 [visits per guest], guest that don’t average 2

Should I link to all the threads over the past 20 years where I tried to say Disney was working towards preplanning/prebooking your entire vacation and I'm repeatedly told it will never work?And even if you want to argue the details of whether that's what's happening our how far along the timeline to totally prebooked trips we are, the spirit of my idea is more than there already in booking a trip to Disney World.With that said, it's funny how attitudes towards this stuff change. I'll see if I can work some Google-Fu and get a good Gonchaback or two, but I distinctly remember a time when the consensus was that prebooking a theme park vacation/visit was nearly impossible or would ruin a good time with lack of spontanaeity, or was just something people wouldn't do.Disney took us there. They always do. Now you have a whole culture of visitors like Andy that lean into it and it becomes almost a part of the overall experience...and even those like yawetag who do so reluctantly, but still do because that's how you have to plan a Disney vacation now.

ApolloAndy said:

For better or worse, Disney really wants to control/anticipate guest behavior to the minute.

Yep. And until very recently, you'd have been challenged that the very idea of what you're saying was even possible. But they're doing it.Barely related - after 20 years and countless discussions, all I've learned is that enthusiasts aren't forward thinking when it comes to the business of parks. Which might make sense given the nostalgia and pasttime and traditions of what visiting parks means to so much of the community. I don't know how many changesI've seen come, be declared dead (or the devil) and become staples of the current park-going experience over time.The pre-booking at Disney is only going to get more possible, more necessary and more precise and they continue to perfect it.Just like you're ol' buddy Gonch prophesied many moons ago.

Disney does want that, I just don't understand why everyone thinks that you have to plan everything or else. I get it if you go once in a lifetime, or even once in a decade, but I still think there's some weird cultural or psychological pressure that isn't real. Had dinner tonight with a friend who went the first time in 40 years last year, and his son planned out everything. He didn't enjoy it.

There's more to do than you can do. You don't go to New York expecting to hit every Broadway show, WTC, 9/11 Museum, the Guggenheim, Natural History Museum, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, The Met, Empire State Building, 30 Rock, Battery Park, Trinity Church, B&H Photo (seriously), The Vessel, Brooklyn Bridge, Lincoln Center... OK, poor comparison, but still. You pick some things that you'll enjoy and chill the **** out. You're on vacation, don't make it a job.

I can’t believe you left out Coney Island. How COULD you?

Only a nerd would pick a photo store over getting several new credits.

(I don’t think I need a winky face, but..)

For me, it just rubs me the wrong way that you have to pre-plan your entire day/week or whatever at Disney months in advance if you really want to take advantage of everything. What park you will visit on what day, where you will eat at what time and every other decision. An amusement/theme park should be about going and enjoying the place spontaneously. But you simply can’t do that at Disney or you may not be able to eat at any of the decent places, ride more than a few things in a day, etc… Again, this is for someone who visits on vacation and not so much for those who live next to the place and go frequently where it doesn’t really matter. I've hit up the properties in Orlando a handful of times, but always leave those parks feeling a bit meh.

I appreciate what Disney is, the parks are beautiful and they do offer fantastic attractions and all that. I think Disneyland/DCA offers a more ‘charming’ atmosphere/vibe compared to Orlando, which makes me prefer that property quite a bit more. It felt more like a normal park, if that makes sense. Tentatively planning a trip to Japan in 2021 in which we will visit Disney / Disney Sea out that way I’m sure, but I admit those parks are probably the parks I’m least looking forward to. Probably need to book where I will eat today or I may be stuck eating wasabi popcorn for dinner.

Disney Japan is weird. The resort setup is strange. Protip: You have to pay for the monorail so buy a pass for the number of days you will be there.

Disneyland is really nice, different than The Magic Kingdom but the same. Their Fantasyland is awesome. I didn't love DisneySea as much as I expected to. My whole trip was plagued by outrageous heat and I wasn't feeling good due to an antibiotic I was on so that could have colored my experience. Old school Fastpasses though! No reservations!

I don't enjoy reserving rides so far in advance at Disneyworld. Restaurants are whatever. I feel like it's easier to plan your day around eating than needing to be at Tomorrowland at 9:45.

SteveWoA said:

Tentatively planning a trip to Japan in 2021 in which we will visit Disney / Disney Sea out that way I’m sure, but I admit those parks are probably the parks I’m least looking forward to.

What time of year? We're looking at 2021, too. Originally planned around spring break, but may not work with the kids' absentee rules at school, so we'll probably go late-May to mid-June.

If we do parks at all, it will be the non-Disney ones. I don't care to fly 16 hours to visit a Disney park.

Likely around March/April, I’m thinking. Or, in late fall so we can attend HHN at Universal just because... But most definitely avoiding the peak of summer, for sure.

I agree with you though, I can see us skipping Disney all-together when the time comes just to focus on more interesting cultural sites or other parks. If anything, perhaps just Disney Sea. We for sure want to at least go to a few parks, but not be the focus of the trip by any means.

Just like we did with our Germany this past year, we spent the first half of the trip focusing more on parks (Phantasialand, Efteling, Toverland, Europa, Holiday Park, Tripsdrill)… But the second half was drinking/exploring around Cologne, Munich and Bamberg. It made for a perfectly balanced trip, so I expect Japan to be similar planning.

SteveWoA said:

For me, it just rubs me the wrong way that you have to pre-plan your entire day/week or whatever at Disney months in advance if you really want to take advantage of everything.

You. Don't. Have. To. Do. Everything.

Jeff said:

You. Don't. Have. To. Do. Everything.

Absolutely I don’t. But families coming down on vacation, spending 5 figures to stay on site and spend a week straight at those parks might be. For me, I don’t care. Every single visit to those parks has been fragmented to just ride a few things here and there, park hop and walk around. At the end of the day, I still just feel ‘meh’ about the place. That’s me again, though. I'd rather take a day at Sea World, any day of the week!

On the other hand, three different co-workers and their families went down the past few months. Stayed on site and all that good stuff. Each and every one of them came back hating their time there. Was quite interesting/amusing hearing them vent to other people about how miserable they were standing in excessive lines, having to schedule their days and ensuring they are at places on time. It was stressful for them, not a 'vacation'.

The “Disney Experience” is just not for everyone. Obviously, you love it and that’s cool. But as a whole, wayyyyyyyyy overhyped in my eyes.

I am happy watching my investments I have with Disney continue to grow and grow though!

Jeff said:

You. Don't. Have. To. Do. Everything.

But if you want to use Fastpasses for popular rides you have to reserve them. That experience sucks.

I totally get the mentality behind someone spending a large sum of money for a once-in-a-lifetime family visit to Disney World wanting to maximize that visit. You don't have to do everything, but you do want to see as much as possible - and that doesn't automatically make it stressful or not a vacation. In fact, the way Disney encourages preplanning actually relieves a lot fo the stress once you're there, I think.

And yeah, even if you're not of that mindset, by going to Disney you're probably forced to play the game to some degree unless you're happy just wandering and seeing how the chips fall - a good strategy for a local with a pass perhaps, but a terrible one for a family spending thousands of dollars and making what will be their only visit.

I dunno. I guess I don't know when the idea of a vactation itinerary became so taboo. You visit a city, you plan activities, those activities often have times attached. It's not hard and doesn't suddenly make things stressful to say you want to reserve a building tour in the morning, lunch at noon, a museum in the afternoon, dinner and then a show in the evening, for example. Disney World is large and probably has as much people want to see as most large cities in terms of number of attractions/shows/rides - I think you'd be silly to drop that kind of cash and not have some kind of plan.

Jeff said:
You. Don't. Have. To. Do. Everything.

For us (okay, the wife did most of it), it was a few weeks of research on what to expect. Then finding out the rides everyone wanted to ride for the two parks we visited. Then, when the time came to book, she refreshed the screen until the site opened. We ended up getting almost everything we all wanted.

Once we got there, the stress was non-existent. We knew lines for non-Fast Pass rides would be longer, but we were there to have fun. We couldn't care less how many rides we made, how many characters we saw, or where we ate.

All that said, I would have hated it if we hadn't done the research to start. A few hours of reading message boards and articles by people who had done it before saved us a lot of headache for our trip.

I've never pre-planned a trip to WDW; I go, I ride what I want, if the line's too long I do something else. To be honest, I have friends and former WDW employees in Orlando and I've never paid to enter the park. So I don't have any urgency to accomplish 'everything' in a visit.