A rumor appeared on the internet yesterday that the
popularity of the revamped Disney’s California Adventure (particularly the new
Cars Land) has led Disney Imagineering to submit a proposal for a similar
makeover for Disney’s Hollywood Studios (DHS) in Orlando, involving at least
one headliner attraction with several other smaller attractions. The proposal is initially set for a three
year period, but that ambitious timeline will probably be extended.
Purely speculating, I could see Disney implementing an
expansion of Pixar Place (which now consists almost entirely of the wildly
popular Toy Story Midway Mania and a character photo building). DHS has teased us for years with the
possibility of a Monster’s Inc. dark ride or coaster next to Toy Story Midway
Mania. I have also read that a
Nemo-themed coaster similar to Disneyland Paris’s Crush’s Coaster could be
brought to DHS.
Additionally, WDW could recreate Cars Land in DHS. Such a project would require more real estate
than a Pixar Place expansion, but given the financial success of Cars Land in
California, DHS has to be considering bringing it to Florida. A Florida Carsland would pull in droves of
new guests, ease crowd strains on other parks, and increase merchandise
sales. Creating such an expansion would,
however, disincentivize frequent guests to the Florida parks from taking
separate trips to the California parks.
Looking at an aerial view of DHS
here,
you’ll see that the park perimeter is bound on three sides by roads and by a
very large parking lot on the fourth.
This makes perimeter expansion very costly as a new road would need to
be created and traffic would be diverted.
This would require large amounts of time and money to do. Expansion would come more easily within the
current park perimeter.
The largest areas of underutilized real estate are located
in the southwest corner of the park which currently consists of the Backlot
Tour/ tram ride and the Lights! Motors! Action! Extreme Stunt Show. The Backlot Tour is woefully outdated and an
afterthought for many guests. The stunt
show has pretty much been the same since its 2005 inception and has little
repeat value for returning guests. As
such, both areas should be on the chopping block.
Pixar Place could easily be expanded into the empty building
south of Toy Story and further south and west if the area annexed portions of
the Backlot Tour. A Cars Land area could
fit if the Backlot Tour and stunt show were both scrapped (map of Disney’s
California Adventure for comparison
here ).
Disney has filed permits to update the Backlot tour. The permits indicate that work on the queue
and loading areas will be complete by 2013.
The permits also show a reconfiguration of the park security offices to
allow future expansion opportunities.
This indicates that DHS has some interest in keeping the attraction, at
least in the short term. The possibility
of relocating the security buildings for expansion, however, could represent
plans for something more.
Hopefully we will see an expansion breathe new life into DHS. With DHS already being the best of the four Florida parks, this would only be a case the rich getting richer (a.k.a. T.R.G.R.)!
Sources
