Night Kingdom

Despite the similar titles, this park has no similarities to Dark Kingdom. The hook of the park is right there in the wording. It’s a nighttime facility. According to Jim Hill, who once again had a great rumor that proved incorrect, it would allow only 2,000 guests daily (well, nightly) similar to SeaWorld’s Discovery Cove.

Hill had this to say about the park in 2008: “And - yes - the Mouse is actually going to build this $520 million project. Current plans call for this niche park to officially throw open its doors in October of 2011, just in time for the start of Walt Disney World's 40th anniversary celebration.”

I’m not looking to call Hill out for his prediction. I’m simply pointing out how likely this premise seemed several years ago prior to falling apart completely. You can already tell one negative about it. Magic Kingdom enjoyed 19,332,000 visits in 2014, an average of approximately 53,000 guests each day. A park allowing admittance to only 2,000 would mean that over 96 percent of all visiting guests at Walt Disney World would leave disappointed.

There’s also a financial issue. Hill reported that Night Kingdom would cost $520 million to build. That’s roughly $260,000 per daily guest. Even over the course of a decade, Disney would need a profit margin of $72 per guest simply to break even, and that’s before we include daily operating expenses. The numbers on this one never made any sense, which is why it was all the more surprising that Hill seemed so confident that the plan was moving forward.

In 2008, SeaWorld was garnering a lot of attention for Discovery Cove – this was several years before the release of Blackfish – but they have wholly different site traffic considerations than Disney does at Walt Disney World, far and away the most popular theme park in the world. It was obvious to anyone considering the project that the 2,000 daily limit would never work for several reasons. Why, then, was it even considered?

Velvet ropes at the fifth gate

Image: Disney

Night Kingdom would operate from 4 p.m. to midnight, and this “boutique park” rather than full theme park would provide guests with an unprecedented park experience. Disney intended to hire 4,000 cast members – yes, two for every one site visitor – to create a velvet rope type of atmosphere for their most exclusive park. Unprecedented features such as zip lines over crocodile dens, hand feeding of live animals, and even a penguin playdate were in play for this park.

Of course, all of these amazing features, ones Walt Disney couldn’t have imagined when he was building Disneyland, came with a hefty price tag that would give ordinary people extreme sticker shock. In a way, it was the forerunner to Disney’s current operating practices at parks. By catering to guests with expensive options, they could entice the One Percent to spend boatloads of money at a place where they wouldn’t have to interact with the standard Disney rabble. They would even enjoy a special Broadway type of show that would be the finest of any Disney theme park, rewarding the higher paying clientele.

Image: Disney

Night Kingdom was also a forerunner for an idea that WILL become real in coming years. One of the strongest selling points for the swanky park would be a nighttime safari similar to the Animal Kingdom Kilimanjaro Safaris experience. The difference is that all the nocturnal animals that sleep during the day would be on display after dark, something a regular Animal Kingdom guest could never experience at the time.

Of course, you probably know that Disney later added a nighttime safari for guests staying at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Entitled Sunset Kilimanjaro Safaris, it’ll eventually become available to everyone as the park moves away from a half-day experience. They’re also almost ready to add Rivers of Light, a nightly show with fitting nature themes.

In other words, the original concepts for Night Kingdom were largely grafted into Animal Kingdom improvements instead. Once again, Disney chose to improve the quality of their fourth gate rather than expand to a fifth one. Given what we’ve lost in the process in terms of opportunity cost, Avatarland and the nightly additions to Animal Kingdom had better be spectacular.