I'm back from Disney World

[Legend]

Really fun vacation, but wow were the parks empty. I road Star Wars: Rise of the resistance 4 times throughout the day and never had to wait in line. This ride normally has a 2 hour wait. Also walked directly onto Star Wars smuggler's run twice which also normally has really long lines.

Most rides were under 5 minutes. I'd just walk up and wait for the next vehicle which was crazy. Almost everything was under 30 minutes. Only exceptions were Seven Dwarves and Slinky Dog Coaster which approached an hour each. So many employees were talking about how they had never seen it this empty. By my last day in the park, it was finally starting to feel like a normal Disney day with long lines but I had already road all the popular rides.

RIDE IMPRESSIONS

The new guardians of the galaxy ride is really really cool. Maybe my favorite ride overall. Just has a lot to love and nails the execution.

Tron is pretty cool too but the bikes are pointless. I road it twice and I enjoyed it a lot more the second time because I didn't lean forward.

Rise of the resistance attempts something crazy but doesn't nail it. Super glad though that Disney is now making multistage rides like this with preshows that are more than powerpoints.

Smuggler's run kinda sucks.

Mickey and Minnie's train was pretty fun.

Rata2E sucked. Fun concept but the 3D was so bad. In general the 3D sucked, even on Avatar the first time I road it. Disney is using expensive glasses so I have no idea what the problem is.

FOOD IMPRESSIONS

Got to eat at a lot of great places. Yack and Yeti was perfect in Animal Kingdom and the star wars bar was super cool. Rest of the star wars food was poor except the rata wrap which was ok. Got hibachi in Epcot's Japan pavilion and also ate at Space 220. It was kinda cool eating in a space station but I would have been super bummed if I paid a lot of money to eat their. It's pretty exclusive and everyone raves but the "windows" just look like tv screens. My group just walked up and were able to get the last seats at the bar. The Jungle Cruise restaurant was great. Good food and good atmosphere. I got the chicken, I hope. The secretly muppet themed smokehouse was also charming.

Liberty Tree Inn sucked. Horrible table surrounded by two employee walkways and the bathroom walkway. Food was ok, only go if the only thing that matters is quantity.

PEOPLE IMPRESSIONS

So many influencers. It felt like 1 person out of every 20 was on their phone livestreaming.

HEAT

It was very hot. Ate at a lot of restaurants in order to get AC and ice water.



9+1/10 for the trip overall. The heat was too much and I'd never want do a Florida trip again in July. Lack of lines made up for it.

[Dr. Pezus]

Why do you think it wasn't very busy?

[SWORDF1SH]

I'd probably stay at the bar all day because of the heat.

[kitler53]

I just got back too.   well not "just" but I was there early June. 

busy but not overcrowded for me.  cheap fast pass though which we got.

lots of new (big) rides since my last visit.  

tron was probably my favorite.  tbh I liked that it was a bit of just a normal roller coaster b

guardians was fine.  It took that idea of a moving show to its natural end.  way better than the rockin roller coaster but tbh the movies kind of made me motion sick.  I'm getting old though so that's kind of a thing now. 

I really, really liked star wars rise of resistance and I'm not even a star wars fan. 
1. multi stage rides are awesome
2. I really appreciate practical effects instead of screens and 3D glasses.  the room with the walker was fantastic.  I will agree it didn't quite "nail it" but it was overall great. 

Mickey's car ride thing was great.  again,. no glasses ftw. daisy's dance sequence was really fun. 

I did not care for ratatouille or avatar much.  agreed,.. the 3D was off pretty much everywhere it was used. 

[kitler53]

...we also did universal.  

I won't say too much here other than hagrids ride was probably the best ride at any park we did.  Soo cool. 

[BananaKing]

Did anything beat the avatar ride?

[Legend]

Why do you think it wasn't very busy?

Both Universal and Disney are down in general but this week was something else. I think a large amount of people wanted to avoid fourth of July crowds and/or were less interested in celebrating the fourth of July at Disney this year. The heat also might have made people spend less time in the parks which would have thinned out crowds even if total attendance stayed the same.

Did anything beat the avatar ride?

Yes. On my last trip to Disney the Avatar ride was perfect with the clearest 3D you've ever seen. This time however the 3D hardly worked on my first ridethrough and only worked in the center of my glasses for the second. Was still pretty fun the second time, but wasn't groundbreaking like it was at launch. Maybe they're struggling to clean glasses or maybe I've become too much of a snob because I didn't like any 3D rides this trip.

I liked the guardians of the galaxy ride more. It's less immersive but it's just a lot of fun.


Animatronic wise, the Na'vi animatronic from the other Avatar ride is still the best.

I just got back too.   well not "just" but I was there early June.

busy but not overcrowded for me.  cheap fast pass though which we got.

lots of new (big) rides since my last visit.  

tron was probably my favorite.  tbh I liked that it was a bit of just a normal roller coaster b

guardians was fine.  It took that idea of a moving show to its natural end.  way better than the rockin roller coaster but tbh the movies kind of made me motion sick.  I'm getting old though so that's kind of a thing now.

I really, really liked star wars rise of resistance and I'm not even a star wars fan.
1. multi stage rides are awesome
2. I really appreciate practical effects instead of screens and 3D glasses.  the room with the walker was fantastic.  I will agree it didn't quite "nail it" but it was overall great.

Mickey's car ride thing was great.  again,. no glasses ftw. daisy's dance sequence was really fun.

I did not care for ratatouille or avatar much.  agreed,.. the 3D was off pretty much everywhere it was used.

The rise of the resistance and guardians preshows are something I hope become standard for new rides. Combining a walkthrough attraction with the que is so great.

My first three times on rise of the resistance were all in the exact same room and standing on orange. Finally on the fourth ride I was sent to a different room but it was still the second vehicle. Everything pre-boarding is so perfect. On the ride itself it was great but it felt more like a traditional ride.

On rata2E at one point the left eye projector had a smudge on it. Everyone got off the ride talking about how they got water on their glasses over the left eye and had to wipe it off. Pretty funny how most people's brains will automatically rationalize instead of realizing the 3D is just borked.

I'd probably stay at the bar all day because of the heat.

The space bar.

[kitler53]

it's not just you legend.   i found the 3D to be blurry most of the time too.  

[Legend]

Wonder why theme parks haven't pushed for better 3D tech. It's crazy that we now have full HoloLens style augmented reality rides yet good 3D is still so rare.


Off topic but I always wanted a wheelbarrow type ride vehicle. Have people think it's a traditional ground vehicle like a jeep but only the front wheels are real. The back would actually be connected to a track hidden in the ceiling. Unlike every other ride, you could actually have a dynamic and interesting floor. A night time jungle could look like this:



Instead of this:


Unlike the ET ride, the front wheels would provide real bumps and a very physical experience. Could even do a real jump over a canyon or something. The vehicle would have a limited "bounce" range so any ride breakdown wouldn't put guests in danger.



Bit more on topic, but did anyone else design theme parks as a kid?

[the-pi-guy]

Nope.

Didn't have that much interest in theme parks.

I'm a homebody...  

Imagined and designed a bunch of games and game systems though.

Kind of had a dream of making a table that projected hologram games above it. And the table would convert 3D games into holograms.

It's not relevant, but it's the best I have.  

[Legend]

I designed those too. In 5th grade my brilliant idea was to have a hologram cube that would render the game inside it as a 3D hologram. The cube was opaque, you couldn't see anything. Instead a physical camera would record the hologram and stream it to the tv. This method was just to increase graphics quality lol.

Fun fact, that was actually the origins of "VizionEck." I called that system "Game Vision" and through the years I used different variations of vision for whatever I was day dreaming about. Thought it was a fun homage to my childhood to register my company with that name (and then I couldn't think of a name for the game so I just called it that too lol).

[Legend]

Disney World Hasn’t Felt This Empty in Years https://t.co/dFGWm5pa5y pic.twitter.com/8CKTIWnfhU

— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) July 10, 2023

Wow I would have thought last year would have been at least somewhat similar. I guess Disney is having a horrible year both at the box office and at the parks. August earnings call sure will be fun. Might be a really good stock to buy since they're sure to rebound eventually.


Also it's pretty funny that Avatar is their strongest asset at both the box office and parks. They announced plans to do something with Avatar at Disneyland and I bet/hope Avatar at Disney World gets an expansion (or even just some maintenance )

[SWORDF1SH]

Are there any other factors at play here like more rides or newer rides have a bigger capacity?

[Legend]

Are there any other factors at play here like more rides or newer rides have a bigger capacity?

Good question but all of the big changes were in place for 2022. Tron is their only new ride compared to last year and it uses a virtual que system so at worst it'd only have a small affect on other ride wait times at Magic Kingdom.

The high last year was also the exact same at 95 so it shouldn't be weather related.

[kitler53]

firstly,.. not sure I get what you mean by "wheel barrow".  but I'd say it probably just doesn't give them the control they what to dictate every bump and make changes after the built to tweak things to their satisfaction. 

...do agree that cosmetically it would look a lot more convincing.


not theme parks.  as a kid I thought I was a good artist and planned to work in Disney animation.  I made comic books.  ...then figure out I'm a terrible artist.