And this is why Disney is kicking Universal in the ass right now - passholders at Disney still feel they get a bigger value, even for a SoCal select pass, which has extremely limited days of use. Even when they're crowded, there are still passholder benefits. Universal has less attractions, and less benefits, and now less incentive for anyone to purchase whatever pass they offer in the future. I'm very disappointed, to say the least. My refusal to repurchase a pass won't impact them, but if lots of other people start to do the same, maybe they'll think about it. I doubt it will happen, but I hope it does, for their sake.
The problem is, with Harry Potter, they won't care! When Disneyland started getting more tourists, they started thinning out their Annual Passholder herds also. The simple fact is, tourists bring in way more money than Annual Passholders do. If they had the ability to fill the park every day with tourists, they wouldn't even offer Annual Passes. Disneyland wouldn't either. Complaining or boycotting won't do anything because they WANT to lose a bunch of you. It's one of the few options they have to alleviate Potter crowds. When crowds become more tolerable, then we'll see decent Annual Passholder deals reappear. But they have no clue what's going to happen next summer, so better safe than sorry!
As for a big 2017 attraction... I wouldn't get my hopes up. Think about it, there are just NO rumors out there. We heard rumors of Springfield in Spring 2013 and Fast and Furious in Summer 2013. That was two years prior to them opening. Here we are at the year-and-a-half mark and we've had NOTHING. In fact, the only indication something MIGHT be coming is the leveling of Soundstage 28 and the threatened closing of the four neighboring soundstages. And we all assume it'll be the new Nintendo Land, but where is the movement?
There isn't any movement in Florida either. 2017 is getting Fast and Furious, the Fear Factor theater will have to be rethemed to the Beetlejuice show, they're expanding a hotel and building a massive water park. Plus, Kong will have opened in 2016, so 2017 is most likely full. So we can't look to Orlando for anything. There is a chance that USH could get a Nintendo Land first, especially since they will certainly get a lesser version than whatever goes into Orlando, but once again, no movement.
One possibility I just thought of: They could be waiting to see if Kong explodes in Florida. If so - and early buzz is already insane - they could expand the West Coast version, adding the rumored animatronics to a post-show area. This is highly feasible, extremely cheap, and pathetically easy. It took them just over a year to build F&F so they could certainly build half a ride in less than a year. They could then advertise a new SUPERSIZED King Kong and possibly other Tour additions (plussing the Tour is obviously a direction they are going). But, best of all, it keeps people heading to the Studio Tour, which has the highest throughput in the park and it is the most time-consuming attraction.
That said, Nintendo MUST arrive in 2018! This park needs new rideS - not just a single IP-based ride - and right now only Nintendo can offer that. Either that or rip out the Jardin de Paris building and expand Super Silly Fun Land, retheming the rest of the Paris facades to a boardwalk theme.
