bkroz

Will they be a more enjoyable stay for people who like those sorts of things? Sure. But it all seems a little weird to me. Four flatscreen TVs seems a little superfluous for a cabin next to Cedar Point... How many nights are people actually spending in these things, and how many hours of TV watching are really happening on those nights? "Dorm sized fridge." A little silly to market it that way! Maybe not, but wouldn't "compact fridge" or "personal fridge" sound better? And don't get me started on how I can now poop back-to-back with my best friends with only a cardboard-laminate wall between us. What?! Everyone does it! I especially like how they went to the lengths of CGI-creating terrible 1990s Holiday Inn bedspreads. Nice and fresh! Haha! The real kicker is that my first search for the last weekend of May brings these puppies up for $310 plus tax off season. That same price will get you a room at Disneyland's ultra-deluxe Grand Californian Hotel... I guess location is everything, huh?

I think we'd be lucky for a 10 foot diameter planter with some trees that aren't dogwoods. Give that area a chance to be shaded a decade from now.

I... kind of like their Astro Orbitor... and the crater rocks... and the color scheme of TL98... I'm so sorry.(Fun fact: It's Astro Orbiter in Florida and Astro Orbitor in California!) That makes two of us, CP. In theory, it was a really great aesthetic and a perfect complimentary opposite to Florida's silver spacesport - what an incredible dichotomy of the future, and Florida's fits perfectly in Florida, whereas California's European style was somehow perfect for California. But then, in real life, it didn't translate so nicely... And Da Vincian, Jules Verne retro-future colors placed over Buzz Lightyear and Star Tours and Finding Nemo don't seem very authentic... EDIT: The big problem most people have with Disneyland's Astro Orbitor isn't its color scheme or style, but its location in that plaza. Disneyland's paths are infamously congested anyway. Tomorrowland is bogged down by the old Peoplemover track. So to have that ride right there, and all of its included rockwork (which I also love) creates a really awful bottleneck and clogs the whole land's entry and exit. Still, their Astro Orbitor ( ) remains one of the more beautiful theme park installations I've seen. The planets themselves haven't actually revolved since the 1990s, but when they do, it's darn near hypnotic! But I digress. I can't imagine the conrete target area would be used for lockers. What an odd place to put them, right in this grand central entry plaza.

Is the area too small for a flat ride? Probably not. But should one go there? Ask Disneyland fans.

Do we know what it's replacing? Very exciting! It does more or less wound the rumors here of the land's identity switching. "Chicken Shack" isn't exactly the kind of thing you'd see in a spine-tingling haunted forest area at a park.

Supposedly Paramount Park in Spain is officially green-lit [again...] and will begin construction immediately following a press shindig this week. This article walks through each of the park's themed lands with official renderings of what to expect. Basically... it's odd. The park will have five themed lands, each very clearly based on Disney's precedent. But the properties the park has chosen to use from Paramount's catalogue are... dizzyingly odd. "Adventure City," despite its name similarity to Disney's Adventureland, will contain a Spider-Man style dark ride based on Mission: Impossible, bumper cars based on Grease, and a restaurant based on the Godfather. Like... what? A "Titanic" walkthrough originally planned for the area has been cut. Based on a film franchise with about as much pop culture credibility as Avatar (but lacking Avatar's in-production sequels), Rango's Wild West will feature what is presumed to be a Vekoma mine train, a small town, and Rango's Ragin' Rapids, all with "bugs land" style perspective and buildings made of oversized boxes, jugs, and hats. In all of Paramount's library, is Rango really the best "Frontierland" copycat IP they could come up with? Enchanted Forest, the park's take on Fantasyland, will be divided into three really weird areas. The first (left-most in the above picture) is based on Tim Burton's 1999 film Sleepy Hollow and features a 3-D show. The middle area in the rendering is based on 2008's fantasy adventure film The Spiderwick Chronicles and appears to have a trackless LPS-based shooting dark ride. And the rear area is very confusingly themed to the not-quite-well-known fantasy film Stardust and will feature a kid's coaster, a hedge maze, a carousel, and a boat ride through a world of fairies. About the only "relevant" land in the park appears to be Plaza Futura, mostly themed to Star Trek. It will feature a motion simulator ride (think Disney's very similar Star Tours) and a 100 foot tall outdoor launched coaster. Another odd scramble to use Paramount's catalogue appears to be the War of the Worlds restaurant that will be located here. To me, this plan seems crazy. They're building this park for about $500,000,000, which is nothing, and of course adding an expansive CityWalk style shopping, clubbing, dining area; seven enormous resort hotels (two of which are "in" the park like the Disneyland Hotel in Paris or DisneySea's MiraCosta); a casino; a mall; a "Lifestyle" center; condos... Fans of Disneyland Paris would likely recall how they attempted a similar feat, only crumble under financial strain when their single park and shopping area couldn't fill a half-dozen elegant resort hotels... Disneyland Paris by the way, is still under massive debt and paying back tremendous loans even twenty years later. Just based on this, would you plan a trip to Paramount Park Spain if you were in the area? What about if you were in the UK or France? That's what they're banking on, and I'm just not seeing much worth flying for... Especially since, even if our rides weren't perfect, Tomb Raider, Italian Job, MTV, Nickelodeon, even the Outer Limits, could actually each support their own full, complete lands, each with a major ride, a family ride, a restaurant, and themed shopping. So all the decisions made here are.... odd. Have I said "odd" enough?

Not coincidentally, Disney's been pouring money into most of its divisions and acquisitions. It's paying off in spades.

The reddish interlocking bricks that have been installed in Rivertown, Planet Snoopy, and Coney Mall during each of their land-wide renovations in the past years. https://www.google.com/search?q=paver+bricks&espv=210&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=4B3pUrqMDu_jsASQx4KACw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1054&bih=679

The staying at the more expensive resort thing is all just fan speculation. You can see why Disney would consider it, but of course there's no word that they're even looking at that as an option. At this point, I think people would literally storm the castle. Literally.

There's no explaining this, and I'll make only one more attempt to. I think you have an incorrect view of what Fastpass does. "One more person for the queue to handle?" What? I'm going to get one Fastpass for Splash Mountain, period. What the hell difference does it make if I get it on the way to Space Mountain (return time 10:00 - 11:00) or trek all the way back after Space Mountain (return time 10:30 - 11:30). That's why the hour long window slides through the day. Let's say for every 100 Fastpass tickets it gives out, it slides the window forward by ten minutes. So, I'm going to be 1 of those 100 whether I pick one up on the way or if I wait until after. To put it another way, what if my return time for Space Mountain was 9:00 - 10:00. In situation A, I start walking toward Space Mountain at 9:30, and on the way I pick up a Peter Pan's Flight fastpass at 9:35. In situation B, I ride Space Mountain right when my window starts at 9:00, then afterwards walk to Peter Pans' Flight and pick up a Fastpass for it at... 9:35... What in the world difference in there, according to the computer, in those two situations? Explain again how I've added "one more person for the queue to handle?" I have used one at a time. I got a Fastpass for Peter Pan's Flight at 9:35. What in the world difference does it make if I chose to use my Space Mountain Fastpass before or after I get my Peter Pan's Flight Fastpass so long as it falls within my 9:00 - 10:00 window? My goodness... I understand and have always understood the Fast Pass systems, new and old. What upsets me is that I'm paying big bucks to try and have a good time at a given park, and someone with even more bucks gets to cut in front of me. If those people and myself were having a shrimp dinner at Red Lobster, and they had a Red Lobster Fast Pass, would they be seated before me? (I don't believe Red Lobster takes reservations). Having a reservation at a restaurant is fine - but I didn't have to pay to get into the establishment, nor did I pay for parking. But it really seems like you don't, because no one with more bucks is cutting in front of you... You can get exactly as many Fastpass reservations as anyone else, period. I mean, you said not to argue with you and I guess I won't waste my time if you've taken strongly to the idea that Fastpass is inherently unfair and that the middle class is getting trampled on... But this is the only equitable theme park virtual queueing system I know of, and the only one that's included with park admission for every single visitor. I don't know what else to say. Sounds like you've spent a lot of time mulling over how terribly you're treated and how unfair everything is, so there's not much convincing I can do.

This is something Disney has been very (necessarily) transparent about because you can't TRACK TRACK TRACK someone under 18 without explicitly explaining your procedure and getting an okay from parents or guardians. MagicBands contain a technology called RFID - radio frequency identification. Each band contains a tiny chip about the size of a grain of rice. It has no power source or battery. It can't be turned "on" or "off." It operates off of very short distance radio waves. Its only ability is to transmit a series of digits that are specifically assigned to each guest (affiliated, then, with a park ticket barcode, a debit account, a room key barcode, etc all consolidated into one digit code). The RFID chip operates off of radio frequency, so it automatically transmits the numbers when it comes within short (centimeters) distance of an RFID receptor that can receive such radio signals and unscramble them. It would be impractical for Disney to build large radio receivers that could collect huge amounts of data and customers simply walk along pathways. What's more, that's not built into the agreement guests participate in through their use of the Band. Can they assemble information about which Fastpass+ rides guests entered, what time they entered the parks, which restaurants they ate at, etc? Sure. The same way they could with meals being charged to room keys and room keys doubling as park tickets. But there is no giant GPS map of Magic Kingdom tracking a person's move like a blipping dot on a radar.

It's absolutely not an abuse of the system. If my Fastpass return window is 9:10 - 10:10, my responsibility is to return to the attraction between 9:10 and 10:10. What in the world difference does it make if, on the way to my Fastpass ride at 9:20, I pass Splash Mountain and decide to pick up a Fastpass for that en route? What in the world is the difference between picking it up then, on the way to the ride, versus riding my Fastpass ride, then walking all the way back at 9:50? Fastpass operates by a computer calculating a ride's hourly throughput, then sectioning off a percentage of that hour's capacity to Fastpass users. It then distributes exactly as many Fastpass tickets for each hour long window as it takes to fulfill that percentage of a ride's capacity, automatically adjusting the "stand-by" wait display to account for the amount of people it assumes, mathematically, will return based on the current time and the number of Fastpasses distributed for that time. In other words, the system relies on me returning during my window to that particular attraction. Each ride is separate. Me getting a fastpass for Splash Mountain once my Space Mountain window has arrived has zero impact whatsoever on either attraction's measurements as long as I ride Space Mountain within my window. Period. The computers that run Fastpass couldn't give a rat's behind how many Fastpasses are in my pocket or how many I'm juggling at the same time. They rely only on my returning to an attraction during the window I'm assigned. There's no morality to be seen in that.

^^^ and ^ You get the idea, yep. The old paper Fastpass system had the limits you discussed. You could hold only one at a time, getting second one either A] after the "start" time of your first came around OR B] two hours after you got the first, whichever was earlier. The result was that for folks like me who knew the system, I could arrive first in the morning, get a Fastpass for Space Mountain with a return time of say, 9:00 AM, then ride Space Mountain with little wait. Then, I could eat breakfast. By that time it would be 9:00, so I could get a Fastpass for Splash Mountain, then return and ride Space Mountain again during my window etc etc through the day. You could, in effect, get as many Fastpass tickets as you felt like walking for as long as you obeyed the time cut-offs and one-at-a-time rule. You could abuse the system like shark said above by hoarding your Fastpasses and using them far after the window closed for each, but I didn't. Now, you can have a maximum of three per day, and only one can be a "tier 1" attraction. Of course, the tier 1 attractions are the rides that are in high demand. Your Fastpasses will be set up ahead of time (either way ahead of time if you're in a hotel, or first thing in the morning if you're not). The way it works functionally is that you're presented with a screen with a list of attractions and told CHOOSE ONE (these are your major tier 1 attractions), then a second screen where you CHOOSE TWO (these are the low-demand tier 2 attractions). Then a third screen gives you three or four options that mix and match those three rides into schedules complete with a one-hour window for each (see the very small picture): This example shows three tier 1 attractions (a clever deception... not actually possible) but as you can see it gives four options of touring plans with return times to select from. You simply choose the arrangement that works for you and it's loaded onto your MagicBand, no paper tickets needed. Disney's hope is that you'll also have synced your park ticket and MagicBand with their "My Disney Experience" mobile app, which is how you'd check your return times in case you forget. (That over-reliance on technology is turning out to be half the problem as Disney's largely international visitors don't have smart phones with them, and us plain ole Midwesterners aren't always too great at learnin' new-fangled devices. What if your family vacation relied on your mom planning... via smartphone?) Through that app, you can adjust your reservations (if there are any open slots left by time you do... the ride may have sold out). You'll have an hour-long window just like original Fastpass had. Even Disney fans agree that the window needed closed, forcing guests to return when the Fastpass ticket told them too. And that's the first thing Walt Disney World did (step 1 in the article I linked to in the first post). That happened well over a year ago, and it worked. My argument and the argument of a lot of Disney Parks fans is, it could've stopped there. At that point, Fastpass was "fixed." When I followed the rules and still obtained 4, 5, 6, 7 Fastpasses a day by holding one at a time and always returning during my window, I was not an "abuser." The point of the system was to use it. I did so. I didn't take away from anyone else's experience by knowing how Fastpass worked and following the rules to use it. Limiting the number of attractions with Fastpass+ is a necessary evil since now nearly 100% of guests should be using it... But then the question is, "Was Fastpass really broken enough that it needed replaced with this, which limits my experience and doesn't overly benefit others?"Because now, I don't get my 5 or 6 Fastpass rides, and now EVERYONE only gets one major attraction Fastpass.

That's precisely it and a simple way to explain it to Hank. Fastpass+ is still just as free and just as equally accessible to everyone as it used to be (besides hotel folks getting to book in advance). The real issue people have is that it's not flexible and it's not as beneficial because you can really only select one major ride (but again, even folks at Disney's most expensive hotel still only get one tier 1 choice).

Nope, paper Fastpass is gone for good. The machines are being removed. Fastpass+ is all that's left, so you get three Fastpass rides per day, according to the tiers. That's half the problem. If legacy Fastpass stuck around, too, I certainly wouldn't be complaining. Let the hotel folks pre-book and the rest of us continue on with our old, trusty Fastpass. But nope.

I'm not sure if you understand the original Fastpass. It was (and continues to be now as Fastpass+) included with park admission for everyone. Anyone could use the old Fastpass tickets, and everyone can use Fastpass+. The only perk now is that hotel guests at Walt Disney World can pre-book their Fastpass+ selections while regular guests make their reservations day-of (the way they always did with old Fastpass anyway, now it's just in one kiosk instead of different distribution machines all around the park). As of now, the tiers and daily limits imposed on guests with Fastpass+ are imposed on EVERYONE, from guests staying at deluxe $500+ a night Disney hotels to those walking in from Kissimmee. The idea that that might shift in the future to incentivize staying in Disney's more expensive hotels is purely fan speculation. Disney's Fastpass and Fastpass+ are included in park admission, and every guest can use them equally, with the same daily limits and tiers. That's precisely what they did, and that's why Fastpass+ is included with your park admission, just as legacy paper Fastpass has been since 1999. The frustration fans are having about Fastpass+ is that it's complex with so many tiers and daily limits and odd attraction selections, but there is not now nor are there any plans to lift or change those restrictions for people who pay more (be it through a hotel, extra ticket option, etc).

And I'd bet lots of money that Peter Pan's Flight is tier 1, so if you select it as your one tier 1 Fastpass+ selection, the rest of your choices will be high-capacity meet-and-greets and rides that never used to have Fastpass... and never needed it. EDIT: In other words, if you select Peter Pan's Flight, you will no doubt have no choice but to ride "stand-by" for Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, etc. You get one big ride per day. Just imagine your day at a Disney park (and these are the real tiers at Epcot) CHOOSE ONE: Test Track presented by Chevrolet Soarin' Maelstrom Illuminations prime viewing Meet Mickey CHOOSE TWO: Captain EO (never a wait, ever) Journey into Imagination (never a wait, ever) Living with the Land (maybe up to 15 minute wait some days) Mission Space (sometimes 15 - 30 minute wait) The Seas with Nemo and Friends (an exhibit... so no wait, ever) Turtle Talk with Crush (no wait of more than one show-cycle) So Disney has ingeniously forced folks to choose between attractions that never had a wait, never used (or needed) Fastpass, and therefore spread out the reservations. Meanwhile, you may choose ONE of the park's major rides. So if you select Test Track, then if you want to ride Soarin', you MUST wait in the full queue. If you choose Meet Mickey as your tier 1 choice, you won't see Test Track or Soarin' or Maelstrom without the hour-long queues associated with each on even the slowest days. And don't forget that unless you're staying in a Walt Disney World resort hotel, you will be making your Fastpass+ selections by waiting in line at kiosks first thing in the morning where some options may "sell out."

Woof. I feel bad for the people working with guests at Walt Disney World. You've probably heard about the coolly received MyMagic+, a massive $1.5 billion (the cost of Disney California Adventure's 7-year redo and then some) technological upgrade to Walt Disney World in Florida. It's all about the MagicBand, a plastic wristband that functions as room key, park ticket, debit card, and Fastpass with no barcodes required. The big push was Fastpass+, the element of the much larger program that allows Walt Disney World visitors to pre-book their Fastpass selections days, weeks, even months in advance with no paper tickets. Disney fans immediately poo-pooed Fastpass+ as a way to suck spontaneity out of trips, forcing visitors to choose the days they'd visit each park and the rides they'd visit each day far in advance or else see the big rides get booked up completely. The project is apparently over budget and admittedly far over-schedule, but just last week, Fastpass+ ended its first limited test runs and became available to everyone at Walt Disney World. As a result, legacy Fastpass is gone. There are no more paper tickets with hour long return windows at Walt Disney World, period. Along the way, a number of limits and measures have been added to Fastpass+, limiting who's allowed to pre-book and who must wait in lines at electronic kiosks the day of (guess who gets the perks?), limited the number of Fastpasses you're allowed to have every day (currently, 3), and basically restricting the system big time for people who visit the most often: annual passholders, locals, and folks who choose not to stay at Walt Disney World resort hotels. The biggest step (and perhaps blunder) came yesterday when word got out that Walt Disney World annual passholders are severely, severely limited in their use of Fastpass+. They may use it any 7 days per 60 day period. So those locals who paid between $600 and $950 for the tiered annual passes no longer have the open access to Fastpass that they had. And indeed, those are the people who had mastered the system and used it with skill and precision, now limited to one week of use per two months. Every step Disney takes to make Fastpass+ "happen," guests cringe and revolt. Basically the question that was asked as each of these restrictions was added was, "Okay, maybe that rule is a necessary evil... But then, was the old Fastpass system really broken enough that we had to replace it with this?" It should come as no surprise that the new system benefits and incentivizes staying in Walt Disney World hotels. Terrifying rumors also hint that we may soon see a tweak where guests at Disney's Deluxe hotels get 5 picks a day... Value hotels get 2 or 3. What was it we were all saying about how great Disney's Fastpass was and how we wanted it at Kings Island? I wrote up a guide to the 7 Fastpass+ restrictions here if you have an upcoming Walt Disney World vacation or want to know more about this system that has replaced Fastpass. By the way, the chances of this system coming to Disneyland Resort and incredibly slim at this point. The massively local population would revolt after seeing what the implementation of this system has been like at Walt Disney World. What's more, Disneyland hotels are already at capacity, so there's little need to incentivize them with a billion dollar investment to the resort. Even then, a massive, massive chunk of Disneyland visitors are annual passholders, and a very, very small chunk of visitors stay at Disneyland hotels, so the system would be very lopsided in its benefits and 90% of visitors would have to line up every morning to get to a kiosk while only 10% from the hotels would have the benefit of pre-booking. To also put it into a very sad perspective, the $1.5 billion (or more) Walt Disney World has used on MyMagic+ is the same amount spent on Disney California Adventure, adding all of Buena Vista Street, all of Cars Land (Radiator Springs Racers, Luigi's Flying Tires, Mater's Junkyard Jamboree), The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Undersea Adventure, Toy Story Midway Mania, World of Color, rebuilding all of Paradise Pier's flat rides, Paradise Garden, Mickey's Fun Wheel renovation, and the place-making of all eight of the park's lands.

I'm not sure if this micro-site appeared today, very recently, or a while ago, but SeaWorld has launched a campaign against Blackfish, just in time for the myriad of trainers who are coming out of the woodwork saying they were misquoted and their interviews edited. www.seaworld.com/truth/ It should be a surprise to no one that Blackfish is propaganda, created by folks with a very particular bias and goal. They use (and misuse) audio and video to tell stories that, SeaWorld argues, they knew through investigative documents were not true but would inject an emotional angle to the film. A page on the new website chronicles each incident in the film that's raised red flags and counters it with SeaWorld's version and simple, factual clarifications through third party sites and documents. At this point, this is what SeaWorld needed to do - they need to launch an equally-sized campaign to at least call Blackfish's motives into question so that people will begin to hear a dialogue. The slew of trainers who are reporting that they were misquoted or misled in the film's purpose combined with the filmmakers asking those trainers to hold their comments until after award season is building an incriminating aura around the film, and SeaWorld is right to take those opportunities to make their case. Of course, SeaWorld is also biased and has reason to tip things in a particular direction just as Blackfish did. But their argument links to specialists, interviewed trainers, employment history, and OSHA representatives who are much more grounded in fact than Blackfish.

In recent years we've seen Kings Island recognize that it can use film score to really create lasting impressions and set moods and tones for its more atmospheric attractions, so I'd expect top 2012's 40 to be the foundation of the queue playlist.

If you read through my series and enjoy it and want to learn more about Universal's rise and Disney's rebuttal, I'd also like to plug a book written by a close friend, Nick Sim's Universal Orlando: The Unofficial Story available on e-reader and paperback formats through Amazon. I happen to be named in the acknowledgements, so I'm biased, but check it out.

Just the contrary, I don't think Disney is too worried about this. They've rarely shown any real attempt to combat Universal's growth, and why should they? Disney World is engrained in pop culture in a way Universal Orlando never ever will be. Walt Disney World will always be number one in Orlando and probably the world, period. What bar has been raised at Disney? Sure, they've invested a hefty $1 billion+ (the price of California Adventure's six year floor-to-ceiling renovation, for comparison) on the technological MyMagic+, and New Fantasyland has been a fine little renovation resulting in two new attractions. But what's next? Avatar Land, announced in 2011, is due to open in 2017, assuming all goes as planned. Anything major announced in 2014 would likely not see the light of day until the end of the decade or beyond. Disney has said before that they applaud Universal's work, and that people aren't spending less time at Walt Disney World, just adding a few extra days after Disney World to visit Universal. Whether they truly think that, I don't know. But their parks remain in the top ten and could "coast" in their current states and stay in the top ten for decades more. They don't need massive expenditure to pull in guests in Florida, and sadly, they know it. Is Disney investing? You bet. It may look different from Universal's E-ticket opening every 6-months, but it's happening. The question is, is it in a way that guests can see, feel, and appreciate? Doesn't seem like it to me. Agreed that Pandora would actually be a celebrated addition if it weren't Avatar themed. Yet here we are! If the co-evolution of Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World are of interest to you, I have to do my plug and invite you to read an in-depth, three-park series I wrote on their growth here. If you're into that sort of thing, it's a great read for a frosty Ohio night. It traces the introduction of Universal in the 1980s through today's competition and the Avatar / New Fantasyland / Diagon Alley playing field.

There's zero reason to worry that the Harry Potter franchise will become obsolete or lose its place in pop culture. Think Star Wars, which is nearing its 40th anniversary and is just now inspiring new films, theme park attractions, entire themed lands, and selling massive merchandise to consecutive new generations. Like Star Wars, Harry Potter will be passed between generations and recognized as timeless writing and imagery. Just when you don't hear about it for a while, it'll rocket back into pop culture and prominence. As for James Cameron's Avatar...

That's crap. So do Pirates of the Caribbean and It's A Small World. When Walt Disney World doesn't build Radiator Springs Racers, there will be many reasons for it. The fact that its hardware internally resembles Test Track's won't be in the top 10. Absolutely everything is speculation at this point, especially as Walt Disney World wades through this undeniably tricky time of being behind on many projects and trying to nurse MyMagic+ to health. The choir of voices representing industry insiders, though, say that Star Wars presence in Hollywood Studios is probably cancelled outright, but on the back back back burner at best (and think about it - Avatar was announced in 2011, opening in 2017. Any major project announced today wouldn't open until the end of the decade or later). Unanimous among those insiders: a Floridian Cars Land is absolutely dead. Walt Disney World's infamously budget-conscious executives parried it down by removing Radiator Springs Racers and the impressive Cadillac Range, and the fumbled Luigi's Flying Tires would not be transported to Florida. So a "Cars Land" at Hollywood Studios would amount to themed shops and restaurants and one flat ride. Hardly impressive. It would be the blatantly cheap version of California's, and it would quickly be called out as such by fans. After being supposedly cancelled in Florida, plans for a Star Wars land were green-lit for Disneyland in California where money flows much more freely and where maintenance and quality of show follow only behind safety in priorities. Funny enough, the other big Disneyland addition rumored to have the green light is a Monstropolis land that was originally planned for Hollywood Studios, but quickly axed for being too expensive. It's hard for Walt Disney World officials to justify huge expenses because - frankly - people will come no matter what. Epcot could use a $1 billion renovation like California Adventure had; Hollywood Studios could probably use $2 billion. But why bother? People will come anyway, and from all corners of the globe. Disneyland's clientele is MUCH more locally based. Many visitors are the second or third generation to grow up within hours of the park. A very large percentage of daily visitors have annual passes. That's why Disneyland's standards are simply higher. Their attendance and revenue depends on people deciding to keep their family traditions and annual passes. Disney World doesn't have to worry about that nearly as much.

Ground broken, yep... Estimated to debut in 2017. Just in time for the next movie in the series. Perhaps by then the fans will be going wild. For what it's worth, the concept art did quell a lot of hatred for the project. Many of us quickly forgot that when Cars Land was first announced, fans DESPISED the idea, saying Cars was about the worst source material for a park land anyone could think of. Now, Cars Land is - to say the least - beloved and adored. I truly can't seen Avatar getting the same euphoric reception, but at least it will be a beautiful, detailed, and expensive land at the resort. Still doesn't deserve a full land, but if it has to have one, at least it looks well done so far. Avatar Concept Art & Ride Details Beastly Kingdom Details