I see all of this talk about AK "becoming a full-day park" within this thread, but does anyone beating that drum really, truly buy into that concept? The opening of Pandora's Box is going to net us a whopping two new attractions - of which, one being an E-ticket and the other being a boat ride that "may include small drops". I truly want to get excited about the glowing trees and flying banshees, but when you break this down into its most basic form, I can't help but do anything but yawn.
Look - I love AK as it currently stands today, and truly hope that Pandora is going to become a great addition with incredible theming. But to think that it's going to turn AK into a "full-day park" defies logic. At most, it's going to add another hour to the existing ~3 hours that I normally put into the park as of the present.
Sure, Pandora will definitely create a "buzz" and will have positive sort-term impact on the park's performance for the first few years. But in order for that trend to continue and for AK to become a true "full-day park", the development team would need to have another 2-3 projects of similar size/scope in the pipeline NOW in order for that to even be a possibility by 2025, and they don't. It doesn't take a VP of operations to see through that smoke screen.
IMHO, Pandora is just a "blip" designed to bring a short-term (2-5 year) bump to AK. And this is the crux of my problem with the existing management philosophy. The only thing that the suits care about is the short-term, and for that reason, the only thing we're ever going to see are more short-term "blips" from here on out. These people don't care the Disney history, culture or have the desire to leave a legacy when they're gone. They simply care about the short-term, because NONE of them will be around in a decade when these "blips" begin to fade.
