That isn’t the sound of roller coasters on the Orlando theme park landscape: It’s the rumble of advancing cannon fire. The first shots of war that will last at least until 2014 are now being lobbed between Disney and Universal in Central Florida.
The battle began two years ago with the blockbuster opening of Universal’s Harry Potter extension. Toppled from its unchallenged throne, Disney scrambled to come up with weapons to re-establish dominance on the family vacation scene.
Its first volley came in March, when Disney’s Magic Kingdom made an early pitch to very young children by opening the first phase of its estimated $425 million Fantasyland makeover. There’s a bright new Dumbo ride, now outfitted with the moat that Disney’s other worldwide elephant carousels have. It will be joined in July by a twin that rotates in the opposite direction, plus an interactive Storybook Circus queue area that takes the misery out of waiting in the sun for the classic toddler photo op.
Besides Double Dumbo, as fans are calling it, other newly opened additions are also fixes of existing stuff: a re-themed Barnstormer kiddie coaster and the re-dressing of an existing Walt Disney World Railroad station.
None of that would necessarily coax a family to buy plane tickets to Florida. But just wait. As with its nightly fireworks show, Disney is working up to a grand finale, stretching its Fantasyland additions over two years. By December, Fantasyland gets an elaborate new indoor ride, Under The Sea — Journey of the Little Mermaid.
True, a duplicate has been up and running at California’s Disneyland Resort for nearly a year, but it’s not the only major new Fantasyland ride under construction. The other is the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train roller coaster, which will have carriages that rock like miners’ carts as they travel. That arrives in early 2014.
To prepare for that, a tragedy for Disney history: On May 31, Disney will close and demolish Snow White’s Scary Adventures, an indoor ride that has been terrifying toddlers since Day One of the Magic Kingdom in 1971.
But also on May 31, Disney finally responds to recession demand with it’s summer-long expansion of its least expensive “Value” hotel offerings.
Construction on the 87-acre Art of Animation Resort started more than a decade ago as the second phase of the existing Pop Century, but the tourism climate put completion in limbo until now. Now it’s finished. Outside, the recipe is all Disney Value: Sprawling three-story, motel-style buildings gussied up with eye-popping decorations themed to Disney movies. It’s huge, adding nearly 2,000 rooms and a 310,000-gallon pool to the Disney lodging portfolio.
Inside, there are 1,120 “family suites” for six people (plus a baby) of the style already popular at the All-Star resorts, filling a need for groups that are too big for Disney’s usual four-person per-room limit. Rates start at $94 for regular rooms and $258 for suites in low season. Multi-bedroom vacation homes off Disney property often cost less, but here, you pay more to get closer to the action.
Disney is doing another favor for budget travelers. All of its resorts now offer free wireless Internet, saving visitors $10 per day.
While Disney applies new coats of paint on old stuff, Universal wheels more big guns into place for the next salvo. The demolition of Universal Studios’ beloved Jaws boat ride in January spawned rumors, with some government filings to back them up, that a massive second phase of its Wizarding World of Harry Potter is underway.
ThemeParkInsider.com recently published plans it claimed were leaked, and they portend a Diagon Alley expansion to be anchored by a lavish ride-through of Gringotts Wizarding Bank. That would put one Harry Potter land in both of Universal Orlando’s theme parks, probably with a Hogwarts Express train to link them.
So far, Universal is mum, perhaps preferring to confirm the bombshell at a moment when it will most devastate its competition, which has no such earthshaking developments in the rumor mill. In the meantime, Universal is doing the theme park equivalent of housekeeping.
The sometimes-blurry 3-D animation on its Spider-Man ride was recently replaced with a crisp digital update. On May 8, the Universal Studios park gets Cinematic Spectacular, a nighttime show featuring fireworks and movie clips projected on water screens that’s a scaled-down imitator of Disney’s superlative World of Color at California Adventure. And this summer, it refits its old Jimmy Neutron simulated motion theater as Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.
Nearby, SeaWorld Orlando keeps up with its dueling neighbors with the April 27 debut of TurtleTrek, which is 300,000 gallons of habitats for turtles and manatees paired with a 360-degree, 3-D domed movie, requiring 34 projectors, that animates the life of a sea turtle. Across the street, SeaWorld’s luxury-priced Discovery Cove adds Freshwater Oasis, in which guests wade near otters and marmosets.
Not to be left out, newcomer Legoland Florida, which opened in October, adds a new water park on May 26. Like everything Legoland does, it’s specifically scaled to kids under 10.
All in all, it’s a busy summer in Orlando, but these developments are only potshots. The artillery is on its way, and by the end of next year, hopefully as recession-torn families are ready to travel more, it’ll be guns blazing in Florida again.