Universal’s all-at-once ascendence from a single theme park to what we’d now easily identify as a multi-park “Resort” was impressive. Today, you could easily argue that Universal’s model of a walkable, pedestrian-friendly, automobile-free, interconnected destination is far closer to the 21st century ideal that Disney World’s sprawling resort with its blacktop parking lots, highways, and piecemeal transportation systems. Seemingly overnight, the single Studios park and its blacktop parking lot became a new transportation hub and 10,000 space parking deck that fed visitors into a retail and dining district with mirrored portals to the two parks around the resort’s perimeter, the first hotels arrived with parcels set aside for future hotel capacity, filling or at least earmarking nearly all of Universal’s real estate between I-4, Kirkman Road, Vineland Road, and Turkey Lake Road. Even in the late ’90s – when Imagineering was plagued by cancellations, closures, and cost-cutting, several very high profile concepts were developed for Walt Disney World just in case this Islands of Adventure really did live up to the hype… Image: Universalīut just as important is what happened around Universal Studios and its walkable sister. (and, if you believe the rumors, a mass exodus from Disney Imagineering) saw “Cartoon World” reshaped by the subtraction of DC Comics and Looney Tunes and the addition of Marvel, Jurassic Park, and a land of legends, creating the second gate concept we know: Islands of Adventure.Īnd make no mistake: the threat of an all-star, from-scratch, 21st-century park packed with technology-fueled Modern Marvels: The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Jurassic Park River Adventure, Dueling Dragons, Poseidon’s Fury, The Cat in the Hat, and Dudley Do-Right’s Ripsaw Falls was enough to grab the attention of Disney. Step 1: The Second GateĪ falling out with Warner Bros. The Master Planīut that didn’t stop Universal from trying… From the moment Universal Studios Florida opened in 1990, executives behind the scenes were already planning out not just their next move in the Central Florida, but the next several moves. An A-List one, to be sure, but a sideshow to Disney’s main attraction nonetheless. It opened as – and largely remained – an Orlando aside. Even if its ingredients were astounding, Universal Studios Florida never stood any chance of toppling the Disney World behemoth alone. That’s an impressive number, until you learn that Magic Kingdom welcomed 28 million the same year. 5.9 million visitors passed through Universal’s gates in 1991 (its first full year of operation). Still, it turned out that Eisner’s race to beat out Universal wasn’t all that necessary. There’s no doubt at all that Universal’s attempt was ambitious, and its cast of “creature feature” disaster rides touched a niche that even Disney’s “studio” didn’t. Instead, Universal merely revisited its own plans, downplaying the “real, working studio” and tram tour and instead splitting the components of its Hollywood tram ride into standalone E-Tickets – the Lost Legends: Jaws, Kongfrontation, Earthquake, and the from-scratch anchor, Back to the Future: The Ride.
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