Is Universal Orlando Leaving Disney in the Dust?

On January 13, 2025 By Brent AbellIn Brent's Crossroads, Dark Universe, disney, Disney Adult, Disney's Hollywood Studios, Epic Universe, Haunted Mansion, Jim Henson, Magic Kingdom, Muppet*Vision 3D, Muppets, Rocking Roller Coaster, Travel, Traveling Writer, Universal Studios Orlando, Walt Disney, Walt Disney WorldLeave a comment

Hey gang, and welcome back to the Crossroads! The snow, ice, and prolonged power outages have created a world of havoc on my end, and I have found most of my work behind schedule. So, I’m back and ready to get the conversation going with you about the impending opening of Universal Studios Orlando’s Epic Universe park. The new park appears impressive, and I’m not sure Disney has been up to the task of combating the threat to their Orlando theme park dominance. What this means for the summer season at the parks is anyone’s guess, but I’ll give you my thoughts and have you weigh in.

First off, I want to start with Universal. They are opening a new theme park gate on May 22, 2025. Epic Universe looks like it will live up to its epic name. The park has three new hotels and is divided into five worlds. You can enter the Worlds of Harry Potter, Nintendo, How to Train Your Dragon, Celestial Park, and my most anticipated area, Dark Universe. I am a huge Universal Monsters fan, so a theme park world dedicated to them excites me. Universal decided to build a new park from scratch, allowing them to create something truly special. They also took some Disney Imagineers, which could be part of the Disney park problem.

Multiple YouTube channels have covered the construction, and there is some fantastic drone footage of the lands taking shape. I suggest checking out Theme Park Stop and Bioreconstruct for the best footage and updates. I feel Disney has been lacking the level of detail given to the Epic Universe lands lately. Look at Communicore Hall in Epcot or the DVC building at the Polynesian Resort for some examples of uninspired work.

I must admit, the theming around Epic Universe is something I always expected from Disney, but don’t feel like we’re getting any longer. Watching the footage of the illuminated Stardust Racer roller coaster cars streaking around the track at night is a testament to the care Universal put into making this park incredible. The immersive feel for Dark Universe is capped off with The Burning Blades Cafe, which features windmill blades that catch fire and burn at various times. I can’t wait to walk the streets of Darkmoor to explore the monster legends.

Now to Disney World…

The response to Universal and Epic Universe has appeared to be tepid. It feels like Disney was caught on their heels and can’t react fast enough to compete with the new park opening down the road. So far, all the announcements Disney has made about new attractions to the parks have been met with reservations, disappointment, and anger in some cases. Disney has announced some nice rides, but instead of building new ones and expanding the park’s capacities and footprints, Disney is destroying attractions instead.

A new Monster’s Inc. coaster and themed area in Hollywood Studios? Sounds good, but instead of tearing down the underused Animation Courtyard, they are destroying Jim Henson’s final Muppet project before he died in Muppet*Vision 3D. The kicker is that the ride isn’t taking over the building or being torn down; it’s just ceasing to exist. The same can be said about the new Cars area in the Magic Kingdom. Instead of building it behind Big Thunder Mountain as the Blue Sky Beyond Big Thunder project plans hinted at, Disney is tearing down Tom Sawyer’s Tree House and filling in the Rivers of America. This dramatically changes the landscape and ruins the peaceful and serene queue for the Haunted Mansion. Replacing water with concrete in the Florida summer doesn’t seem like a sound idea, and losing the River Belle will be ripping a wound in the heart of the Magic Kingdom that will never heal.

Imagine being in the extended queue for the Haunted Mansion. The once quiet and still waters of the Rivers of America, where you could peacefully contemplate the impending tour of a haunted estate, will be replaced by the noise of cars racing by. You lose the anticipation of the Haunted Mansion to loud motors and screaming riders. Next thing you know, they’ll tell us that Aerosmith’s Rocking Roller Coaster is being replaced by the Muppets.

Oh wait…

I won’t even mention what’s happening at Animal Kingdom in Dinoland today; I’ll save that for later this week. I will also talk a bit more about the Rocking Roller Coaster situation and how it doesn’t make a lot of sense to be made into a Muppet attraction. Be sure to stop back by and we can continue this conversation a little more about how Disney is being left behind.

I gotta go and catch up on stuff, so I’ll catch you all later at the Crossroads!

Brent

Disney Rides We’ve Loved and Lost

On December 16, 2024 By Brent AbellIn 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Brent's Crossroads, disney, Disney Adult, Fantasyland, Magic Kingdom, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Snow White's Scary Adventures, Travel, Traveling Writer, Uncategorized, Walt Disney, Walt Disney WorldLeave a comment

Welcome back to the crossroads! I’m happy we can meet up here again. Today, I want to shed some tears for the attractions we’ve lost in the Disney Parks over the years. Many beloved rides have fallen victim to the WDI expansion drive. I don’t fault Walt Disney Imagineering; I blame a company that would rather destroy than build. The parks in Florida have plenty of room to expand their footprint and thus their park capacity, but they refuse to expand the park sizes for some odd reason.

I visited Walt Disney World for the first time when I was twelve years old. Being from southern Indiana, this was a big deal, and it was an experience that would shape my love of Disney parks and the movies into adulthood. I watched Disney animated movies before, but visiting the park cemented my fandom. There were rides I loved and rides I didn’t love. I didn’t think about it at the time, but at any moment, Disney could take them away. This article will focus on the rides I loved on my first visit that have been replaced, but l will return to the topic later to discuss other attractions lost to the march of Disney expansion. The funny thing is that three of the ones I miss the most were removed and replaced in Fantasyland.

The first Disney World ride I want to discuss is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The good thing about this attraction is you can still experience it at Disneyland in Anaheim. The picture in the article is from Disneyland. The ride left an impression on young me. Before going to Disney World, I’d never watched the entire movie The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The only part I’d watched of the movie was a clip from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow that aired on television around Halloween in a Disney Halloween special we had taped for our VCR. I had no expectations of the ride, so I was surprised when it ended with the car you ride in being hit by a train and you go to Hell. The ending scenes even featured demons and the Devil. Let’s just say it shaped my horror love at an early age.

When the announcement came that Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was being replaced, I didn’t hear about the sad report. I didn’t follow Disney on the internet in those days, and a story like this wouldn’t be in the local newspaper. I was shocked when I returned to Disney World as an adult in 1998 to find a Winnie the Pooh ride where Mr. Toad once stood.

That wasn’t the only change coming to the rides I loved in Fantasyland; Snow White’s Scary Adventure would be next.

Snow White was Walt Disney Animation’s first full-length animated feature film, and it remains one of my top three favorite Disney films. The ride was a scary dark ride that followed Snow White and the evil queen through the spooky forest, the queen’s creepy castle, the queen’s transformation to the hag, and finally, the dwarves chasing the queen to her death. The mood was dark, and the scenes were scary for the target audience, but it remained a fan favorite until its demise. It was on my list to ride before Peter Pan or anything else in Fantasyland.

Snow White’s Scary Adventures remained in operation until 2012. Once the plans were in place for the Seven Dwarves Mine Train roller coaster and the upcoming Fantasyland 2.0 upgrades coming, Snow White’s Scary Adventures became expendable. I could ride it on a few visits before it closed, so I didn’t feel blindsided like I did with Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The internet news for Disney was also a bigger thing, and I followed it at this point, so I knew the ride was closing soon.

Still, it was a sad loss.

Lastly, for Fantasyland, I mourn the loss of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Submarine Voyage attraction.

I was only able to ride this scary ride once before it closed. It wasn’t scary because of the images in the attraction, but instead because of how bad the submarine ride cars leaked when underwater. This made the ride expensive to maintain and led to its demise. There is still a version of it at Disneyland Anaheim, but it has been re-themed to Finding Nemo. Honestly, I think I like the Nemo version better.

The Submarine Voyage closed in 1994, and the area around it has witnessed many changes since then. Once the water was drained from the ride, it became Ariel’s Grotto, with a statue of King Triton and a meet-and-greet area for Ariel. Winnie the Pooh also shared the space with a play area until the plans for the Fantasyland expansion and the Seven Dwarves Mine Trains were announced.

I will close by saying I planned on this being a single article, but I think it is now a multi-part series covering the other Magic Kingdom lands and the other Walt Disney World property parks. We will also discuss the numerous upcoming closures and changes. If I started on the Muppet*Vision 3D closure now, I’d have a stroke.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see you at the crossroads again.

Happy travels,

Brent

Disney’s Haunted Mansion Love

On December 5, 2024 By Brent AbellIn Brent's Crossroads, Disney Adult, Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Haunted Mansion, Magic Kingdom, Mystic Manor, Phantom Manor, Shanghai Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, Travel, Traveling Writer, Uncategorized, Walt Disney, Walt Disney WorldLeave a comment

The Haunted Mansion in Walt Disney World

Greetings, fellow travelers and Disney Adults! Today, I want to discuss my favorite Disney attraction, The Haunted Mansion. This was one of Walt Disney’s favorite projects, but he unfortunately never got to experience any of the ride’s completed versions. The original Disneyland project underwent many changes, and after a delay in the design phase and building due to the World’s Fair, it didn’t open until 1969, three years after Walt’s death. I have ridden three versions, so let’s talk about it.

The first version I want to discuss is the original in Disneyland Anaheim. This one started it all and is considered the standard by many enthusiasts. The Haunted Mansion began as a planned walk-through attraction where a host would guide guests through a haunted manor. It later shifted to a collection of bizarre items and artifacts. The shifting of the tone and theming led to design delays while the mansion’s exterior was built. The World’s Fair happened during this time, and attention at Disney Imagineering focused on it instead. So, the mansion sat in Disneyland with a sign posted by the entrance gate proclaiming it was a retirement home for ghosts and spirits.

While the attraction sat empty, the idea of the walk-through portion fell through. The decision was made to make the ride a ‘people eater’ and the concept of the Omnimover. This would be a continuous stream of Doom Buggies taking passengers on a tour of the mansion and the graveyards beyond. Unfortunately, Walt passed in 1966 before the final plans were made and built. The main Imagineers who worked on the project were Claude Coates, Marc Davis, Rolly Crump, X Atencio, and the narration performed by Paul Freese. The Haunted Mansion opened to all guests on August 12th, 1969.

I’ve ridden the original, and it is a classic, but is it the best? Many of the scenes in it are shared with Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland. There are some slight differences, but recent updates bring it closer to the Florida version. Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland are the only two that transform into a Nightmare Before Christmas version during the holidays. The overlay was supposed to be on the Disney World one, but it ended up being what is used in Tokyo. I still need to experience the overlay because I love both the ride and the movie.

Second is Disney World’s Haunted Mansion. I have been through this mansion hundreds of times, which has left an impression on me. I love this mansion’s look, which is better than the original’s southern design. This one looks like how I would want my haunted house to look. Walt Disney wanted the original mansion to look pristine on the outside but dusty and old on the inside. The Florida house keeps up this tradition.

The stand-by line is designed and decorated better than the Disneyland mansion, but the insides are nearly identical, as stated above. The new stand-by line in Disneyland is an improvement, but Disney World’s mansion wins. This one is my favorite because it was my first and the one I experience the most often.

Lastly, let’s give some love to Disneyland Paris and Phantom Manor. This version is very close to being my favorite. I feel that not saying the original two aren’t the best is sacrilegious, but damn, this one kills it. The outside of the manor is broken down and weather. It looks abandoned and haunted. The grounds around the manor are dead and run down. The story is more defined here as well. It is a family tragedy concerning a jealous father and his daughter. All of her suitors end up dead, and Henry Ravenswood is responsible. The story also ties to the nearby Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster and the Thunder Mesa area of the theme park. Explaining it doesn’t do the weaving narrative any justice. Go there, lol!

The inside of the ride features a darker tone. There are similar scenes and themes, but most of this version is a variant parallel to the others. The ride doesn’t end in the graveyard scene but in an undead western town. The phantom spirit of Henry Ravenswood is present in various locations and is creepy, with his skeletal face laughing at your doom.

The other versions are in Tokyo, and a Haunted Mansion variant called Mystic Manor is in Shanghai Disneyland. I will be crossing Tokyo off the list next year, but it is primarily an exact copy of the Disney World attraction. Because of the cultural differences concerning ghosts and spirits, Mystic Manor is an entirely different attraction. I won’t discuss the differences here; we’ll revisit that later, fellow travelers.

I hope you enjoyed this brief look at my favorite Disney ride. If you’ve been on any of them, what are your thoughts and favorites? The YouTube channel for Brent’s Crossroads has finally posted its first video; you can check it out here. I’m working to get the links to the other associated social media sites in the sidebar. Don’t forget to enter for a chance to win a Hollywood Studios Jollywood NIghts pin by subscribing or following the other sites by December 9th. You can get one entry per follow here, on Instagram (@brenttabell), Threads (@brenttabell), or TikTok (@brent.abell).

Glad you could stop by and see me on the Crossroads, and I hope to see you out there!

Happy travels,

Brent