There’s No Room For Clone Rides And Attractions At Walt Disney World Or Disneyland
Why must Disney continue to use the cloned ride approach? We heard that Disneyland will be getting Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway. This will be an exact clone of the Hollywood Studios version on the opposite coast. Can’t Walt Disney World and Disneyland get some new attractions that aren’t the same versions of one another?
While the majority of rides at Disneyland and Walt Disney World are different, a lot of Disney’s newest creations are repeated rides on both coasts. Runaway Railway is just one example. However, Galaxy’s Edge is a real issue. Why have two of the most talked about theme park lands be clones of each other?
Galaxy’s Edge is going to bring a crowd for both Disneyland and Walt Disney World. It makes little sense to make them exactly alike. All Disney is doing is giving Star Wars fans and theme park enthusiasts little reason to visit both coasts. You’d expect they’d want to vary it up a bit, especially given the appeal of Star Wars across the globe.
It’s not just a Disney problem. Universal Orlando and Hollywood do have some cloned rides. In fact, more than half of the rides at those parks are featured on both coasts. How does it make sense to put the same ride at two different parks? This is some Six Flags shit. It doesn’t fit these multi-billion dollar parks like Universal and Disney.
In some ways, you can see what Disney is going for. They want to give guests on both coasts the same attractions so they can give all of their passholder’s and dedicated fans of each coast the opportunity to ride each new attraction. It does make sense in some way. There’s just little incentive for any Disney fan to travel to the opposite coast. Which in the end, doesn’t help Disney’s bottom line.
While Disney has been using the cloned ride approach for years, there are still rides that have yet to be cloned. California Adventure has Guardians of the Galaxy Mission Breakout, while Hollywood Studios has Tower of Terror. Epcot is getting the Guardians of the Galaxy coaster. However, California Adventure is getting an entire Marvel-themed land.
The Marvel area is more to do with the licensing agreement with Universal Orlando, but still different attractions. This will still bring in crowds to California, especially Marvel fans. It’s puzzling why Disney couldn’t do the same for Galaxy’s Edge. Two different experiences would greatly increase the guest numbers on both coasts. Why this isn’t explored more often at Disney, who knows?
One example of how Disney has been able to vary itself is Toy Story Land. Of the themed Toy Story Lands at the numerous Disney Parks across the globe, there are no repeated rides. Each land is themed similarly, but with little tweaks to each. This gives more of an incentive to check out parks outside of Orlando.
California Adventure did one better by creating an entire Pixar themed land. The entire section of what used to be Paradise Pier turned into Pixar Pier. A lot of different Pixar films are featured, not just Toy Story. Again, for fans of certain properties and films, there’s an incentive to go to different coasts.
It’s not hard to see why Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway is getting cloned. It’s going to be a groundbreaking ride. Guests don’t want to travel a far distance to get new and innovative attractions. So instead of cloning Runway Railway, maybe do something innovative but a completely a different theme and characters.
That’s bad decision making by Disney not feature different attractions on other coasts.
They need to do what they can to get more people to visit their parks on both coasts and across the globe. Cloning rides isn’t the way to go about that. While there are some attractions that are unique, Disney can’t afford to start a pattern of clones. It’s bad for business.
Image Source: The Hollywood Reporter
Daniel is a guru of baseball and basketball prospects. He’s a very experienced Amusement Park traveler as well. Follow him and his hot takes on Insta @dgentleman9288
