Stitch's Great Escape! moves to seasonal operation

Sep 21, 2016 in "Stitch's Great Escape!"

Posted: Wednesday September 21, 2016 10:50am EDT by WDWMAGIC Staff

Stitch's Great Escape! at the Magic Kingdom is moving to seasonal operation next month.

The attraction will have its final day of daily operations on October 1 2016, with its next scheduled opening on November 19 for the busy holiday week.

It will then close on November 27, reopening again on December 17 for the Christmas and New Year week. Even during those seasonal openings, the operating hours will be restricted to 10am to 8pm.

Stitch's Great Escape has been an unpopular attraction since its opening in 2004, where it replaced the highly rated Alien Encounter attraction.

The move to seasonal operation suggests that work may well begin on its replacement in the new year, with a Wreck It Ralph attraction rumored to move in. Read more about that on the WDWMAGIC Forums.

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    HauntedPirate32 minutes ago

    Bob and Josh know what guests want. They want E-tickets and only E-tickets. And only one E-ticket per mini-land that they green light. And nothing original, guests only want what they know.

    aladdin200734 minutes ago

    Post of the day! They want those big LL $$ I think that's all it is now ufortunately. I doubt we will ever see one of those again.

    Moth36 minutes ago

    Yeah but it feels like, at least in regards to WDW, they're avoiding adding any dark ride that isn't an E-Ticket for some weird reason.

    SpectroBro1 hour ago

    Honestly, they could just take over the ice cream shop space next door and do a killer fantasyland bus/bar style stitch dark ride. We don’t need an e-ticket fix here.

    Nevermore5251 hour ago

    The counterpoint from TWDC is Inside Out 2. $1.7B from a known Pixar IP Sequel vs $500M for an original. You can argue marketing, but general audiences for the most part are turning out for the more familiar or IP. I’d like originals to perform better, but audiences just aren’t turning out for them. Bob C for sure did Pixar dirty by pushing everything immediately to D+

    Bocabear1 hour ago

    Thing is, if it is a well designed attraction experience, IP doesn't really matter....like at all. There is no risk to putting in a really great ELio themed ride no matter how the box office does... I think a great attraction can also help bolster interest in the movie.... There are 4 parks in need of more attractions...the bigger risk is actually allowing anything in these parks to remain shuttered.....

    DisneyHead1231 hour ago

    Out of curiosity I Googled "Disney Pixar sci-fi movies" to see what is considered part of that category. On the Disney website they list The Incredibles... wouldn't have come to mind as "sci-fi", but since they redid the Contemporary with them, they could be another contender if Tomorrowland gets an IP based update. This is all wild speculation to fill a grey rainy day of course, lol.

    HauntedPirate1 hour ago

    'Elemental' enters the conversation... I'm fairly convinced Bob (both of them) has been hell-bent on ruining anything original out of Pixar for years. 'Elio' could be a hit, but I don't think Bob gives a **** about it, because it isn't Marvel, Star Wars, or a Toy Story sequel. The most risk-averse CEO in the history of TWDC and it shows.

    Bocabear1 hour ago

    If they Tron-ify the speedway with electric cars and fantastic sets, they could also tron-ify the Tomorrowland Concourse and turn Cosmic Ray's into the "End Of The Line Club" themed restaurant....which all together would help make the placement of the Tron coaster make some sense.....

    ᗩLᘿᑕ ֊ᗩζᗩᗰ1 hour ago

    Shame they ran that IP into the ground.

    Nevermore5251 hour ago

    Based on general audience trends over nearly the last decade, TWDC would probably ask why heavily market Elio? An original animated film hasn’t earned $200M at the domestic box office since Coco in 2017. That and Elio is coming out a week after the live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon. Even if they ramped up marketing to a high level it won’t make anything unless it blows critics and audiences out of the water. That and Disney Sci-Fi animated films have been notorious for tanking anyway. A shot for shot live action remake with nostalgia >>>> original even without reviews as far as general audiences are concerned. Disney is just going to let the movie make whatever it does and get it off their books with minimal fare. If it surprises, they’ll talk about it. Disney only cares about Stitch and the Fantastic 4 so far this summer.

    Bocabear1 hour ago

    Sugar Rush with electric cars and tons of set pieces really really should have happened...since they clearly are not going to tie Tron into anything....

    DisneyHead1231 hour ago

    I didn’t word that well, I didn’t mean to imply Elio will be a flop… meant to say that it’s the latest in a series of Disney / Pixar sci-fi themed movies (that said, Elio does have a suspicious lack of marketing thus far, I wouldn’t know about it if I wasn’t on these boards.) I don’t know if there’s any merch-driving franchise that would make an overhaul of Tomorrowland worth it to corporate Disney right now. Wall-E and Big Hero 6 are great but I don’t get the idea they drive sales. Stitch looks to make a bundle this summer and is a very merchandise friendly character so I have little doubt he’ll make some sort of appearance in Tomorrowland, but my guess is a theater type show. Maaaaybe the Wreck It Ralph overlay of the racetrack that’s been discussed forever or an Inside Out ride (that has nothing to do with the future but at least it looks futuristic. I guess they could frame it as about neuroscience or something.)

    aladdin20074 hours ago

    while we have gotten way off thread topic here...and I know I'm going to be alone in this but have to say I actually preferred that to what we got.