Re:Disney Tests Pricing Power at Theme Parks
by cptskippy on Friday June 22, 2018 @11:42AM
(#17374842)
The Disney parks and to some extent the Universal Studios parks are idealized experiences. They're carefully crafted to hide anything that is unpleasant (e.g. dirt, grime, trash, foul odors, pests). The attractions are also carefully designed illusions that mask reality.
For example when you go to the Forbidden Journey attraction in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, there's a long line to wait in like you would expect of any attraction. However it isn't a roped queue that you stand in, it's a walk through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You stroll through the greenhouse filled with mandrake root and other plants that are alive before moving into a great hall where Dumbledore walks out onto a balcony and greets you then you pass into narrow hallways where the paintings on the wall are having a conversation but will stop to acknowledge your presence and sometimes insult you. You are actually so distracted with the environment that you forget you just waited an hour in a line, if felt like you were just on a casual stroll.
Contrast this with visiting the Colosseum in Rome where you show up and half the structure is covered in girders and tarps because they're performing some restoration. You get in a line that's not much more than a cattle corral packed in with hundreds of other people waiting to buy your tickets. You wait an hour nudging forward a couple steps every few minutes. The place is covered in grime and dirt. When you get inside you have to move around the thousands of of there people crammed in trying to take selfies or filming everything. Everything is behind chicken wire or metal barriers.
For example when you go to the Forbidden Journey attraction in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios, there's a long line to wait in like you would expect of any attraction. However it isn't a roped queue that you stand in, it's a walk through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You stroll through the greenhouse filled with mandrake root and other plants that are alive before moving into a great hall where Dumbledore walks out onto a balcony and greets you then you pass into narrow hallways where the paintings on the wall are having a conversation but will stop to acknowledge your presence and sometimes insult you. You are actually so distracted with the environment that you forget you just waited an hour in a line, if felt like you were just on a casual stroll.
Contrast this with visiting the Colosseum in Rome where you show up and half the structure is covered in girders and tarps because they're performing some restoration. You get in a line that's not much more than a cattle corral packed in with hundreds of other people waiting to buy your tickets. You wait an hour nudging forward a couple steps every few minutes. The place is covered in grime and dirt. When you get inside you have to move around the thousands of of there people crammed in trying to take selfies or filming everything. Everything is behind chicken wire or metal barriers.