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American Idle? (continued)
Universal will welcome Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit, a signature attraction
with several eye-popping attributes: a vertical lift, customized onboard
audio, a unique vertical loop, and a track that zooms outside the park into
adjacent CityWalk, injecting kinetics and excitement like no ride locally
seems to have done before.
The concrete
pylons in the bare earth behind the tarp (below) show that the
coaster track will reach almost to the iconic "universal" globe in
CityWalk...
...and the other
end of the coaster is already taking shape way down past Twister and
next to Revenge of the Mummy. This will be a BIG ride!
And Disney? Well, for 2009 Disney has the American Idol Experience. Not
exactly on par with the monster coasters of the local competitors. There is
significant chatter from fans that the American Idol juggernaut will peak
soon, if it hasn't already, so the entire concept is questionable. Will this
type of attraction even fly? Will enough tourists take such a big bite out
of their day to participate? Will people really warm up to a gigantic and
oversized karaoke experience, or could the notion of being judged perhaps
lead to almost everyone getting cold feet?
Even in the best of worlds, the American Idol Experience could not
reasonably be compared to a first-class roller coaster. Unless I miss my
guess, few will book a trip to WDW just to see the American Idol Experience,
but roller coasters really do draw folks, and some people do base their
vacations around what new thrill rides are available.
In fact, this discussion is prompting me to examine the relative costs of
a vacation to Disney versus, say, Universal Studios.
The Orlando Flex ticket costs $235 per person ($225 if you use an online
discounter) and is good for as long as your vacation lasts. This ticket,
amazingly, is good at five parks: Universal, Islands of Adventure, SeaWorld,
Aquatica, and Wet and Wild. That $235 parkhopper at Uni/SeaWorld (good for
up to 14 days) compares roughly to $262 for a three-day parkhopper at WDW. A
seven-day WDW parkhopper is $278. On balance, we could fairly say that the
Uni/SeaWorld pass is cheaper and lasts longer. If your goal is taking things
slowly and relaxing, that may be a factor.
For a few bucks more, you could
get the Flex Plus ticket, which includes Busch Gardens Tampa.
The Universal hotels are running a "5 nights for the cost of 3" special
right now, and looking at the late January prices, we see about $130/night
for the cheapest of the three Universal hotels (and keeping in mind that by
the time the new ride opens, it may be high season and cost more). The
Universal hotels let you use your room key as a permanent front of line
access to the big rides, which is a huge benefit. You could buy that kind of
ticket for $30-$50 per person per day. (It strikes me that a family of four
could essentially consider the room ‘free' if they would otherwise be paying
that much for the front of line pass.)
Over at Disney, a value resort can be as cheap as $50 or $70 in January,
but the Universal hotels are closer to the Disney Deluxe hotels. The
Boardwalk Inn in January wants $330 to $630/night. Ouch. The moderate
resorts at Disney are $94-$124, using a discount code I found online, and
perhaps that's the best comparison for price. On balance, the Universal
hotels are comparable to the Disney ones in the mixture of
cost/value/services/luxury. But they come with the free front-of-line pass
for everyone in the room.
Lastly, both Universal and SeaWorld offer dining plans at about $30/day,
with Universal's food choices and quality abysmal, while SeaWorld's are
phenomenal and far superior to Disney's. I'll call that uneven quality a
wash when stacked up against Disney: one is better than Disney, the other
worse. Disney's fast-food Dining Plan costs about $30/day per person, while
the "normal" dining plan that has some of the food you can get at SeaWorld
costs $40/day. It looks to me like on the cost/value/worth matrix, Disney
actually loses on this comparison.
SeaWorld also recently welcomed
A'Lure, a Cirque-du-Soleil type of production in an air-conditioned
theater. It's not as ambitious as Cirque, and in fact it replaces a
similar show, but at least they continue to keep things fresh.
Unless I'm forgetting something here (always a risk when I venture into
the numbers!), it looks to me like Universal/SeaWorld beats Disney on hotel
cost and amenities, they beat Disney on ticket cost, and they beat Disney on
dining plans. In one sense, there's nothing new here. That's been true for
some time. Usually, however, Disney has its mighty marketing machine working
in its favor, and by gum, the draw of the Disney characters as well as that
immersive themed environment are simply not to be underestimated. People
still go to Orlando mostly because they want to go to DISNEY.
But there have always been some folks who choose to avoid the Mouse on
their vacation. SeaWorld is a big draw (well, maybe not for some of YOU
reading this, but it's a major international destination all the same), and
there are definitely families and childless couples who prefer Universal
over Disney.
The question to my mind is, could this be a year when even more people
prefer Universal and SeaWorld to Disney? The economics stack up: Disney is
more expensive, so it may be worthwhile to explore the competition. That
goes double for a year when Disney in Orlando has very little to offer that
is new, while the competition has not one, but TWO brand new, very big
roller coasters.
It could be an idle year for Walt Disney World, indeed. |
