Rumor Mill: Making way for Star Wars Land? There's plenty of room

Map courtesy Bing

With the announcement that the American Idol Experience at Disney Hollywood Studios is closing and with reports that the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular may be coming to an end soon, the oft-discussed rumor that Disney is making room for a new Star Wars Land seems to be more and more plausible.

So I thought I'd have a little fun and take a look at what real estate would be available for a new Star Wars Land if Indy did close along with Idol, Sounds Dangerous and the Backlot Express and how, when combined with the existing Star Tours area, that space might compare with the space Disney carved out to create Cars Land at Disney California Adventure.

As the map above shows, if the areas in green were to be closed and re-purposed for Star Wars Land, it would create a space that could potentially be about 75% of the space that made available for Cars Land.  I created this map by using Bing and setting the scale to 100 feet to get an aerial image for both California Adventure and Hollywood Studios.  By using the same scale, we could make a reasonable comparison of the two potential spaces as noted by the yellow line.

Based on this analysis, it appears that Disney would have a decent amount of space to put in a good E-ticket attraction while also re-imagining the Backlot Express into some sort of Star Wars themed dining experience.

But let's keep one thing in mind:  how did Disney make room for Cars Land at California Adventure?  They used space that was originally a parking lot.  Could the same be true here?  You bet!

Map courtesy Bing

Just to the East of the Indiana Jones/Backlot Express/Star Tours area are some backstage areas and then the gigantic Television parking lot.  Even if Disney uses a portion of the Television parking lot for Star Wars Land, there is an incredible amount of potential space available for some sort of expansion. 

Oh and don't worry about parking, there's still two other huge lots that are available (Film and Music), and Disney could always expand those two lots or build more to the East.

With three Star Wars movies in the works, it seems like a no-brainer that LucasFilms and Disney are (or should be) working on a Star Wars Land.  I'll even go out on a limb now and say that Disney will make some sort of Star Wars-related announcement at the 2015 D23 Expo, possibly to announce Star Wars Land.

Let's just hope that this rumor is coming true!  May the Force be with us all!

Tip Tuesday: Pull the rope, it's OK

Welcome to another Tip Tuesday!

This week, I wanted to share a quick tip about the well outside and to the left of main entrance to the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular attraction at Disney Hollywood Studios.

This is a fun bit many people pass by and never pay attention to.

So here's the scene. There's a well with a rope going down into the well. The rope goes through a pulley and is secured right at the fence guests walk by. Next to the well is a sign that reads:

WARNING: DO NOT PULL ROPE.

Notice that the "not" is crossed out and in black are the words "do pull rope." So what should you do? You guessed it! Give that rope a good yank!

You'll get to hear a series of audio bits from the explorer who's "down in the well."

This little gag is especially fun to do with kids, so be sure to give this a try!

In a future post, I'll talk about a few more Do's that may seem like Don'ts...