Earlier this month, we looked at some of the biggest blunders ever committed by the Walt Disney Company at Walt Disney World. They were pretty silly errors, but when you think about it, a handful of big mistakes over a four-decade history is really not too bad. And so, in the interest of fairness, we decided to take a look at some of the biggest blunders ever performed by Disney’s biggest competitor in Central Florida: Universal Orlando.
Universal has, in recent years, gone after Walt Disney World aggressively, building several large new attractions, lands, and resort hotels. Almost all of these new additions have been wildly popular among guests and have shown that Universal is every bit Disney’s equal in theme park design. Unfortunately, that also means they’re the company’s equal in terms of large-scale blunders. Let’s take a look at just a few:
1. When Jaws first opened, it simply didn’t work.
Image: Universal
Before there was The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley, Universal Studios played host to an attraction based on the blockbuster film Jaws. That attraction was one of the opening day rides guests could experience when the park first opened its doors on June 7, 1990. Well, they could try to experience it – for the most part, it just didn’t work.
Most of the complex effects would stall, causing the vehicles to be evacuated on a nearly daily basis. Despite being able to mostly work the kinks out of their other opening day attractions, Jaws required a massive overhaul. After just a few months of operation, the ride closed down for a years-long refurbishment. Most of the effects were either completely rebuilt of replaced at tremendous cost to Universal – so large, in fact, that the company filed suit against the company that built the original version in an attempt to recoup its losses.
In 1993, the ride finally reopened to the public – nearly three whole years after guests first were offered a chance to experience it.
The opening and subsequent reopening of Jaws is arguably Universal’s most famous and remembered blunder, but the finished product was one of the greatest attractions ever produced. In a way, it followed in the footsteps of its namesake film, whose robotic shark was so temperamental and error-prone that it forced director Steven Spielberg to create suspense in other ways. Great art often comes about when the artist has to overcome adversity.
2. The overhaul of Universal Express
It’s hard to think about now that we’re firmly ensconced in the 21st century, but there was once a time that Disney’s FastPass was wholly and completely revolutionary. The idea that a computer could hold your spot in line was so foreign to theme park guests, Disney dedicated a ton of man-hours and even part of their special in-room TV channel to explain the system to its guests. It was, of course, a rousing success, and now even the word FastPass is part of the American lexicon.
Universal, as it was wont to do back in the day, saw Disney’s success and tried to copy it. They created a program called “Universal Express,” which was little more than a copy of FastPass. Guests would swipe their tickets through specialized kiosks and would then be given an option of when they would like to return to ride the ride – something like a proto-FastPass+.
To entice guests to stay at their new resort hotels, however, Universal offered something called Universal Express Plus, which granted front-of-the-line access at will. Over time, Universal phased out the FastPass-style reservation system and simply allowed guests to purchase the Universal Express Plus pass for a nominal fee.
So, where’s the blunder? Well, these passes do not include any of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter attractions. On its face, this makes sense as those attractions are the most popular in the parks; however, it ultimately has a stratifying effect on wait times at the two parks. A full ride-reservation system such as FastPass+ helps evenly distribute wait times across all attractions in a park. The Universal Express style of premium front-of-the-line access simply worsens the waits for the Harry Potter attractions as guests with the passes finish other attractions more quickly. This means that guests who would otherwise be queuing for other attractions are instead queuing for Harry Potter, unbalancing things and increasing wait times.
It’s not a grand blunder, and it is certainly not on the same scale as the other three, but any time you seemingly increase wait times can’t really be called a success.
3. Selling off a large amount of land
The biggest obsticle standing in the way of Universal’s master plan to beat Disney in Orlando is size. Disney has an absolutely enormous plot of land on which they could build any number of new theme parks. Universal doesn’t have that luxury.
But that wasn’t always the case.
In 1998, Universal bought 2,000 acres of land from Lockheed Martin nearby the original Universal Orlando property. The plan was to turn that land into two more theme parks and several new resort hotels – expansion that would ultimately put Universal on par with Disney in terms of its entertainment offerings. Its prime location across from the Orange County Convention Center was another selling point, presumably attracting conventioneers to check out the new resort.
However, in 2003, Universal was forced to sell off 1,800 acres of that land due to the company’s financial difficulties.
Oops.
Nowadays, Universal is one of the most exciting and profitable entities in Central Florida, and it’s now bursting at the seams with creativity. They’re currently building a new hotel, a new attraction, and possibly even a new water park – all without using that 1,800 acres they unfortunately had to sell off.
Could you imagine what the current Universal management could do with that amount of space? With the ambition they’ve shown in recent years, dumping all of that land has proven to be one of the most costly mistakes in Universal’s history.
4. The Grand Saga of Marvel Comics
The story of the theme park rights for Marvel Comics is long and complex enough to have a novel written about it. In fact, the story is so twisting and turning that we aren’t even finished writing it yet, and the ending has never been murkier to predict.
Let’s take a step back: In the planning stages for Universal’s Islands of Adventure, the company secured the theme park rights to all of Marvel’s characters. It’s because of this deal that we’ve been treated to the Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man all these years. However, in 2007, Universal opted not to renew its agreement in its entirety and forfeited the rights for the western half of the United States – continuing to hold the deed east of the Mississippi River.
But then, in 2009, Disney bought Marvel. And now things are totally insane.
Although it owns the company, Disney cannot build any attractions using any Marvel characters anywhere east of the Mississippi – including Walt Disney World. And despite having one of the most popular and successful Marvel attractions on the plane, The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man, Universal cannot build anything using those characters west of the Mississippi – meaning they could not build a version of that attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Here’s the upshot: Disney’s going to keep making movies using the Marvel characters because those movies have made the company an insane amount of money. However, if they ever want to leverage those characters with a presence in their theme parks, they have to purchase those rights back from Universal. Had Universal held onto the West Coast rights, that purchase price would be astronomically high – perhaps even high enough for Universal to buy some of that land back. And then, well, it’s off to the races for both parks.
Instead, Universal gave away those rights for nothing, and now Disney can build Marvel attractions out in California and use the uniqueness as a selling point to draw East Coast fans to the West – thereby removing the pressure on Disney to get a deal done.
Still, this particular blunder is ongoing and hasn’t yet been resolved. There’s a chance Universal uses the Marvel rights to make a big play that positions the company perfectly for the future, in which case, we’ll probably have to redo this list.
