belloq87
Platinum Member
So we all know DHS could use some major help. I was looking at the park map and thinking what I would do with Billions in mind (which it really needs AFTER SWL and TSL) for the park. By 2019 (or whenever SWL opens), the park will have 9 rides and 5-6 shows.
Here's what I would do (can you tell I can't sleep??):
1. Bulldoze the animation building and the adjacent parking garage (yes, the one they are currently hiding). Move all operations run out of the animation building and all offices to elsewhere on property.
2. As a segue from Toy Story Land, you would enter a Monstropolis themed area where you would find the Monster's Inc. Door Coaster and Monster's Inc. Laugh Floor. Both would take up a rather small amount of space. Perhaps there would be a B-ticket type ride as well. Moving Laugh Floor would free up space in Tomorrowland as well. Harryhausen's would be a table service restaurant in Monstropolis (Japanese Restaurant).
3. From Monstropolis, you would walk behind where The Little Mermaid show currently sits to give you an idea of where we are. The Little Mermaid show would be updated to the DCL version of Tangled: The Musical. Then opposite of the theater would be a Tangled boat ride, filling a park need... a ride for all ages and the lack of a boat ride in the park. The Snuggly Duckling would be the quick service in this area.
4. By this point we are starting to run out of room as you have to take backstage space into account. So last in this area would be an Up-based Paradise Falls Rafting Adventure Ride, filling another park need, as DHS doesn't have a pure water ride either. This ride would be far longer than Kali and would be extremely well themed.
Since this would be built completely on backstage land, it's a true expansion and a gain of 4 rides (all exclusive), 1 new show (replacement) and a attraction moved from another park. Also 2 new restaurants, 1 QSR and 1 TSR.
You also have to focus on the bottom half of the park however if the park is going to see it's full potential:
5. Move all essential buildings for daily operations ASAP. Once everything is moved, Demolish everything from Indiana Jones on back, Sounds Dangerous/Frozen building, Jedi Training stage and ST outdoors queue.
6. Starting at about Hollywood & Dine, the area would start to turn into more of a Caribbean/Adventure feel. Once you pass where H&D is, you would stumble upon Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for the Sunken Treasure. The show building for this would be located in the parking lot, but the entrance to the ride would be roughly where Indiana Jones is now. The queue would be similar to Space Mountain as far as the long walk to get to the ride. I think two Pirates rides can co-exist as the ride and the films are very different. This would also allow the original pirates to revert to it's original form, sans Jack Sparrow.
7. To the right of the entrance to Pirates would be an Indiana Jones mini-land. Since Pirates was put all the way back into the parking lot, there's a lot of room to play with still. There would be two main attractions: an updated version of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril and an all new, state-of-the-art Indy ride (not IJA). Backlot Express would be turned into something similar to Jock Lindsey's to complete the Indy area. To finish off this adventure area, a clone of Tokyo DisneySea's Journey to the Center of the Earth would be put in place
8. If Star Tours would escape demolition, a change of theme to The Muppets would be ideal. You don't want to put a big IP in an ancient ride system and Muppets are right next door. Muppets also have so much content to choose from that they could easily randomize sequences just like ST2.
Since this would be built on backstage land and currently used attraction space, the park lost two shows (IJ and Frozen sing-a-long), but gained 4 rides, bringing my theoretical park total up to 16 now, while the number of shows drops to 5. I can't even imagine how many Billions it would take to accomplish this knowing how Disney spends money though. And even then there's upgrades to be made. Fantasmic! and BatB for example.
Price tag: $8 billion!
But yeah... if even half of that were to come to fruition, Hollywood Studios would be in great shape. I think your proposed adventure area (with Shanghai Pirates, two Indy rides, and Journey to the Center of the Earth) would probably be the greatest land on the planet just in terms of attractions!