Walt Disney Co, the world's largest theme park operator, opens the "Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage" attraction today to help sustain attendance gains after a 50th anniversary promotion at its parks last year.
The ride is the first at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, based on Pixar's Finding Nemo animated movie. It replaces "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," shuttered nine years ago.
Nemo is the top-grossing Pixar movie with US$864.6 million in worldwide box-office sales.
In the ride, a submarine navigates ruins and a coral reef before entering the Nemo portion, where animated characters swim by the portholes. The attraction, which took three years to build, uses much of the infrastructure of "20,000 Leagues."
"The biggest challenge was the submarine itself," said Kathy Mangum, the ride's executive producer and vice president at Walt Disney Imagineering. "The audience is moving through scenes at different rates from each other."
The company didn't disclose how much the ride would cost.
Disney, based in Burbank, California, is also opening a "Pirate's Lair" on Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island. Last July, the company retooled Disneyland's "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction to include animatronic characters from the films starring Johnny Depp.
Last year's campaign helped boost attendance by 6 percent to 112.5 million visitors worldwide, data from the Themed Entertainment Association showed.
The increase was driven by an 8.6 percent rise at Animal Kingdom near Orlando, Florida, which added a roller coaster, and 5.2 million visitors at Hong Kong Disneyland in its first year.
Disneyland had a 1.2 percent rise, smaller than at Animal Kingdom or another newer park, Disney's California Adventure in Anaehim, the trade group said. Disney used the anniversary of Disneyland to promote all of its parks worldwide.
The theme-park division is Disney's second-largest by revenue after its media networks, which include cable networks, ABC and broadcast radio. The unit has the highest average two-year growth among any division.
Theme-park profits increased 19 percent to US$254 million in the second quarter ended March 31 on an 8.7 percent gain in sales to US$2.45 billion, fueled by higher guest spending, ticket prices and attendance.
Disney has six of the 10 biggest US parks. The largest US resort, Disney's Magic Kingdom near Orlando, Florida, had a 3 percent increase in attendance. Universal Studios in Florida showed growth of 1.2 percent.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
RSS