Is Tomorowland Speedway going to the chopping block?

[AuburnJen 777]

Rumors are flying about the Tomorrowland Speedway is going to go away for something new.  Here are the details from Chipandco.com

http://www.chipandco.com/disney-closing-tomorrowland-speedway-257596/

 

Hey there guys and gals it is I Anonymouse back with some Disney World Gossip!

It seems there is talk that Disney might be closing down Tomorrowland Speedway at Walt Disney World… The ride is being demolished at Disneyland Hong Kong and Tokyo with possibly closings in Disneyland Paris as well. So does that mean Disney World in Florida and Disneyland California are next?

I for one would love to see an update to the rides. You have 2 or 3 Disney brands you could bring in for an update. Cars, Wreck it Ralph and even Tron.

Last time I was at Disney World there was atleast a 30-45 minute wait for Tomorrowland Speedway so it is still pretty popular, but that is prime real estate for a new attraction or a futuristic ride that falls more in line with the Tomorrowland theme.

What you think? Does Disney need to just close it down? Or should they update the ride?

 

As always nothing is official till Disney says it is.

article credit: chipandco.com

[Beckers 1,136]

An update would be nice. I don't want them to get rid of it (my kids love it) but a non stinky update would be great.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

I don't understand why they close any ride down.  They have 100s in not 1000s of acres to build on.   

Like at HS. Why didn't they leave the streets of America and the backlot area alone and put carsland on unused land?  This would have served two purposes. 

1.  Created more attractions for guest therefore decreasing wait times. 

2.  Add to the square footage of the park. Allowing more guests into the park. (This would however increase wait times.). 

[Cortezcapt (Derek) 156]

1 hour ago, AuburnJen said:

Rumors are flying about the Tomorrowland Speedway is going to go away for something new.  Here are the details from Chipandco.com

http://www.chipandco.com/disney-closing-tomorrowland-speedway-257596/

 

Hey there guys and gals it is I Anonymouse back with some Disney World Gossip!

It seems there is talk that Disney might be closing down Tomorrowland Speedway at Walt Disney World… The ride is being demolished at Disneyland Hong Kong and Tokyo with possibly closings in Disneyland Paris as well. So does that mean Disney World in Florida and Disneyland California are next?

I for one would love to see an update to the rides. You have 2 or 3 Disney brands you could bring in for an update. Cars, Wreck it Ralph and even Tron.

Last time I was at Disney World there was atleast a 30-45 minute wait for Tomorrowland Speedway so it is still pretty popular, but that is prime real estate for a new attraction or a futuristic ride that falls more in line with the Tomorrowland theme.

What you think? Does Disney need to just close it down? Or should they update the ride?

 

As always nothing is official till Disney says it is.

article credit: chipandco.com

I wouldn't hate to see it go. Rode it once when I was very young didn't like it then and haven't been back on it since. A re theming or a new ride would be nice. 

13 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

I don't understand why they close any ride down.  They have 100s in not 1000s of acres to build on.   

Like at HS. Why didn't they leave the streets of America and the backlot area alone and put carsland on unused land?  This would have served two purposes. 

1.  Created more attractions for guest therefore decreasing wait times. 

2.  Add to the square footage of the park. Allowing more guests into the park. (This would however increase wait times.). 

They are Disney so they could probably do anything but from aerial views there doesn't seem like much room around the MK for expansion without a lot of reworking. HS they could have expanded out into one of the parking lots and added more parking further out.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Walt's frozen head already shed an icy tear when they bastardized the original Speedway building the birthday land, so I no longer care what they do with it.  

[twiceblessed....nacole 433]

We would be sad...many memories ?

[shoreline99 137]

They need more room to build the new tent city.

In all seriousness, I'd like to see them do a cars overlay, or perhaps make them electric cars instead of the crappy 2 stroke motors that don't work that they have now. 

[LONE-STAR 370]

The ride needs some help. I have thought a Cars overlay on electric cars would be great, every since the first movie came out.

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

4 hours ago, Cortezcapt (Derek) said:

I wouldn't hate to see it go. Rode it once

They are Disney so they could probably do anything but from aerial views there doesn't seem like much room around the MK for expansion without a lot of reworking. HS they could have expanded out into one of the parking lots and added more parking further out.

There's tons of room at the MK.   Maybe not in the existing footprint of MK.  But look at the area north of Space mountain.  They can build another attraction or two in that area. Also to the west of MK they can put another two or theee MKs in that area alone  

Look at an aerial map of AK. Particularly rafikis planet watch.   They put you on a train and drive you to there.   If they utilizes a train they can pretty add an attraction or land anywhere they want. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

10 hours ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

There's tons of room at the MK.   Maybe not in the existing footprint of MK.  But look at the area north of Space mountain.  They can build another attraction or two in that area. Also to the west of MK they can put another two or theee MKs in that area alone  

Look at an aerial map of AK. Particularly rafikis planet watch.   They put you on a train and drive you to there.   If they utilizes a train they can pretty add an attraction or land anywhere they want. 

Good post.

You are right- they have room in all of the parks to add attractions without tearing down old ones.

They also could surely build the replacement attractions a lot faster than they do.

So why do they do what they do?

I figure that they make these decisions very carefully after a lot of study.  There must be a "sweet spot" that they are looking for- to have just the right number of attractions at each park.  Big rides cost a lot of money to build, and a lot of money to maintain, and a lot of money to staff.  Plus, these big rides don't bring in any direct revenue.  They don't want guests on rides all day. They want them in the shops, restaurants and bars.  To a certain extent, they want the limited number of attractions to be busy all day, so they can sell more hard ticket after hours events where one of the big draws is shorter waits for the attractions.  And now, there's going to be an intentional effort to get guests to head to Disney Springs.

They are a money making machine, and I think they will go with their current approach for as long as they can get away with it.  There may come a time where their failure to actually add attractions will bite them in the butt.  When that happens, they can dig into their massive reserves and throw up some blockbuster rides in record time.  For now, though, they have no incentive to do that.

TCD

[PghBob 31]

From what I can see, the speedway is very man-hour intensive.  Lots of CMs keeping things running, looking for trouble on the track, and managing the lines.  Every business generally tries to minimize man-hours as labor is usually the most expensive cost to operating.

I think WDW is overdue for a Cars Land like or better than Disneyland. 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

2 minutes ago, PghBob said:

From what I can see, the speedway is very man-hour intensive.  Lots of CMs keeping things running, looking for trouble on the track, and managing the lines.  Every business generally tries to minimize man-hours as labor is usually the most expensive cost to operating.

I think WDW is overdue for a Cars Land like or better than Disneyland. 

I think they building a cars land at HS?

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Not only is the Speedway land quite large on its own....it is large enough to accommodate an attraction the size of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!  I've circled the current Speedway area in RED on the map below.  Plus, when combined with the open space east of the train tracks and north of Space Mountain, circled in YELLOW, there is enough room to build a "land" the same size or even larger than New Fantasyland (perhaps New Tomorrowland?).  Plus, this land includes a small lake that could be a nice feature of the area.  

The point is, if they wanted to build more attractions at the MK, or even an entire new "land", they could easily do so.  But why would they?

 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

56 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

I think they building a cars land at HS?

No.

They are building Toy Story Land, which will consist of a Slinky Dog Roller Coaster, which might be on the level of the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, and one other spinner type ride.  That's it.  Sadly, not even close to Cars Land.

TCD

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

44 minutes ago, DaveInTN said:

Not only is the Speedway land quite large on its own....it is large enough to accommodate an attraction the size of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train!  I've circled the current Speedway area in RED on the map below.  Plus, when combined with the open space east of the train tracks and north of Space Mountain, circled in YELLOW, there is enough room to build a "land" the same size or even larger than New Fantasyland (perhaps New Tomorrowland?).  Plus, this land includes a small lake that could be a nice feature of the area.  

The point is, if they wanted to build more attractions at the MK, or even an entire new "land", they could easily do so.  But why would they?

 

Great post.

But, you're absolutely right- there is no reason currently to add a new land or even a new major attraction to the MK.  The MK has no attendance problem.

And, even if they did decide to do that- the way things have gone lately, it would take them 5+ years to do it.

So, this rumor is nothing to get excited about.

TCD

[Avatab.... Steve 124]

I'd like to see them use that space for something truly unique.

Something like an underwater adventure where you board a submarine and look out of portholes into a fantastic world under the sea.

Hopefully Disney will read this and realize what a hit such a ride would be....   

 

[h2odivers...Ray 952]

1 hour ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

No.

They are building Toy Story Land, which will consist of a Slinky Dog Roller Coaster, which might be on the level of the 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, and one other spinner type ride.  That's it.  Sadly, not even close to Cars Land.

TCD

Ok. I thought it was going to be a "Pixar land" and incorporate some of the rides and attractions from Cars Land in California. That's kind of disappointing that it's only going to be Toy Story. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

39 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

Ok. I thought it was going to be a "Pixar land" and incorporate some of the rides and attractions from Cars Land in California. That's kind of disappointing that it's only going to be Toy Story. 

It's nice that they're doing something, but it I agree that limiting it to Toy Story is disappointing.  It's just two attractions, neither of which sounds all that exciting- even when described by Disney:

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2016/04/first-look-toy-story-land-attractions-at-disneys-hollywood-studios/

There's no reason they couldn't have given WDW Cars Land.  Or at least something as grand in scope. 

But, it's clear that WDW doesn't get as nice of things as DL does.

TCD

[Cortezcapt (Derek) 156]

16 hours ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

There's tons of room at the MK.   Maybe not in the existing footprint of MK.  But look at the area north of Space mountain.  They can build another attraction or two in that area. Also to the west of MK they can put another two or theee MKs in that area alone  

Look at an aerial map of AK. Particularly rafikis planet watch.   They put you on a train and drive you to there.   If they utilizes a train they can pretty add an attraction or land anywhere they want. 

 

5 hours ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Good post.

You are right- they have room in all of the parks to add attractions without tearing down old ones.

They also could surely build the replacement attractions a lot faster than they do.

So why do they do what they do?

I figure that they make these decisions very carefully after a lot of study.  There must be a "sweet spot" that they are looking for- to have just the right number of attractions at each park.  Big rides cost a lot of money to build, and a lot of money to maintain, and a lot of money to staff.  Plus, these big rides don't bring in any direct revenue.  They don't want guests on rides all day. They want them in the shops, restaurants and bars.  To a certain extent, they want the limited number of attractions to be busy all day, so they can sell more hard ticket after hours events where one of the big draws is shorter waits for the attractions.  And now, there's going to be an intentional effort to get guests to head to Disney Springs.

They are a money making machine, and I think they will go with their current approach for as long as they can get away with it.  There may come a time where their failure to actually add attractions will bite them in the butt.  When that happens, they can dig into their massive reserves and throw up some blockbuster rides in record time.  For now, though, they have no incentive to do that.

TCD

You're both right, I was looking more at inside the boundaries of water or roads but they always could change or add ways to get to new lands or attractions. 

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

6 minutes ago, Cortezcapt (Derek) said:

You're both right, I was looking more at inside the boundaries of water or roads but they always could change or add ways to get to new lands or attractions. 

Don't forget that they built the entire California Adventure park and the Grand Californian Hotel on Disneyland's original parking lot.  All they had to do was build one of the world's biggest parking garages (I believe it was the world's biggest at the time).  At WDW, they have space to do anything.  All it takes is money.

But new attractions aren't immediately profitable.  Lately, the focus has been solely on profit.

TCD

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

http://movieweb.com/tron-roller-coaster-disneyland-disney-world/

 

Tron rollercoaster to replace the speedway?

[shoreline99 137]

That's the rumour I've heard. Makes sense, and fits with the tomorrowland theme, but I'm not sure how you shield that from the other areas (say Fantasyland or the Big Top area). One one hand that speedway is a people eater, it fits a lot of people on the track and in the queue that would be somewhere else in the park, otherwise, and accommodates all ages. A new TRON coaster would presumably be for older kids and adults, and certainly would be a big draw. They could certainly use the land on the other side of the tracks by having the proposed coaster dip under the railway in a tunnel or the like, so logistically it makes sense in that location.

[ftwildernessguy 778]

Bobby stopped by the house for happy hour.  He said you clowns have to find a hobby and stop listening to rumors.  He did, however, say that the out of date cars will be replaced with hybrids, the attraction will be sponsored by Toyota and each car will be complete with Takata air bags for safety since the non compliant kids keep bumping the cars.  It seems Toyota has a bunch of these airbags as surplus for some reason.

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Bobby stopped by the house for happy hour.  He said you clowns have to find a hobby and stop listening to rumors.  He did, however, say that the out of date cars will be replaced with hybrids, the attraction will be sponsored by Toyota and each car will be complete with Takata air bags for safety since the non compliant kids keep bumping the cars.  It seems Toyota has a bunch of these airbags as surplus for some reason.

At least the attraction will be silent now.

Sent from my handheld doohickie

[Helmsey......Todd 134]

On 4/7/2017 at 5:06 PM, ftwildernessguy said:

Bobby stopped by the house for happy hour.  He said you clowns have to find a hobby and stop listening to rumors.  He did, however, say that the out of date cars will be replaced with hybrids, the attraction will be sponsored by Toyota and each car will be complete with Takata air bags for safety since the non compliant kids keep bumping the cars.  It seems Toyota has a bunch of these airbags as surplus for some reason.

But what will they use to reproduce the smell?