A Surprise in Hong Kong and more… (UPDATED)
Hong Kong Disneyland is doing bad - there isn’t enough to do. Hong Kong Disneyland is selling out too fast at special occassions like Chinese New Year’s - it needs more to do. Whatever the reasoning (and in the end it should be a combination of the two popular reasonings mentioned) - Hong Kong Disneyland is working on it.
Even before Hong Kong Disneyland opened “Autopia” was under construction as first expansion. Then photo reports by several fans from the exhibition in the Opera House on Hong Kong Disneyland’s Town Square showed artwork for a water playground to be added to Tomorrowland as well. Featuring water squirting UFOs and robots (the latter at least in drawings similar to some decorative elements from early Toon Studio sketches for the Walt Disney Studios Paris) and named appropriate “UFO Zone”. But now the resort has announced a real surprise…
According to the BussinessWeek Online the resort will open a third attraction in time for this summer - The Stitch Encounter! This comes as a real surprise - for several reasons. There had been no indications so far that the attraction was under construction and then the choice of attraction is also rather unusual. At least that was what I thought when I first heared the news. After all the attraction sounded as if it was a clone or a new version of the attraction in WDW’s Magic Kingdom which had received at best received mixed reviews and had to be tinkered with to improve guest satisfaction already but still draws no measureable lines in comparison to other attractions, even so Stitch as character is still highly popular with guests. Therefore I originally continued in my post here:
one should not forget that the “original Stitch Encounter in WDW is nothing but an extensive remodeling of the former Alien Encounter and reuses major elements of that attractions technology and infrastructure.
In other words: building “Stitch Encounter” from the scratch in HKDL must have come with a considerable price tag - which could hint that the decision might have been made prior to the Orlando version turning out anything but a real crowd-pleaser. It will be interesting to see whether WDI is able to improve the attraction further in its second coming…
But thanks to the report of Allan Litaye on MiceAge it is now known, that “Stitch Encounter” will be an all new attraction not similar to the WDW one. Instead guests will be touring the Space Traffic Control facilities with a live host who is then interrupted by Stitch in his space ship via a huge monitor. The press release continues according to Allan Litaye:
The fun begins as Stitch interacts in real time with the guests, plays games with the kids and even teaches everyone how to speak Hawaiian. Ultimately, Stitch’s old nemesis, Gantu shows up and wants his ship back. It’s up to the guests in the audience to help Stitch escape! The show is full of comedy, action and, best of all, it’s never the same show twice!
This does sound a lot like the Turtle Talk with Crush as presented in DCA and Epcot just with an additional coherent story line - and sure sounds like fun. In fact it would be a great attraction for Paris as well if there wasn’t that language problem once again…
The same press report also points out, that the land claiming measures for the future expansion of the resort, e.g. with more hotels and a second gate, should be finished by 2008 - but before a decision about the second gate in HKDL is made another decision could be announced: the third Disney resort in Asia … in Shanghai! Seems Disney fans should get used to the long haul flights to Asia.
Fan sites and news papers had already repeatedly reported about talks between the government and The Walt Disney Company, but now TWDC for the first time confirmed such talks - in a newspaper reported dated February 8 but nearly missed by many fans. Thanks to the Disney Comics Worldwide blog for pointing out this information!
March 7th, 2006 at 2:30 pm
The Stitch Encounter at Hong Kong Disneyland won’t be the same to Stitch’ Great Escape at the Magic Kingdom in any kind of way. It will be like Turtle Talk with Crush, only with a Stitch overlay. Instead of talking to Crush, kids can now talk to Stitch.