Beginning Of MK/Epcot/DHS Decline?

[KaliSplash]

I think the easy answer IS the answer. 9/11 and the Great Recession. To me, it's about more than just upkeep. Disney has removed so many little things that made this the most wonderful place on earth. Essentially, they are cutting out everything that doesn't contribute revenue. That was not the approach for the first 25-30 years of park operations. Why are monorail hours reduced? To Save Money. Why has live entertainment been sharply curtailed? To Save Money. Why are effects on attractions not fixed overnight, or at least at the next refurb? To Save Money.

I recognize that Walt needed his brother to keep him from blowing the budget.
But the bean-counters, in response to the modern-day Commandment that we MUST EXCEED earnings expectations each quarter or we are dying, are driving all this. Why is it Disney Parks where ever they can justify it? To Save Money. Why is all the merchandise the same in so many shops? To Save Money. I could go on a very long time. But the bottom line is, we MUST EXCEED earnings expectations or we are failing. Only way to do that is increase prices (pricing out families, either completely or in number and length of trips, or CUTTING Expenses. Here we are.

 

[kad1121]

Avatar Land and Star Wars Land will improve WDW A LOT. Until then, I will continue going to the Disneyland Resort (and I'd love to make it out to Tokyo some day!).

 

[epeterson]

I think the easy answer IS the answer. 9/11 and the Great Recession. To me, it's about more than just upkeep. Disney has removed so many little things that made this the most wonderful place on earth. Essentially, they are cutting out everything that doesn't contribute revenue. That was not the approach for the first 25-30 years of park operations. Why are monorail hours reduced? To Save Money. Why has live entertainment been sharply curtailed? To Save Money. Why are effects on attractions not fixed overnight, or at least at the next refurb? To Save Money.

I recognize that Walt needed his brother to keep him from blowing the budget.
But the bean-counters, in response to the modern-day Commandment that we MUST EXCEED earnings expectations each quarter or we are dying, are driving all this. Why is it Disney Parks where ever they can justify it? To Save Money. Why is all the merchandise the same in so many shops? To Save Money. I could go on a very long time. But the bottom line is, we MUST EXCEED earnings expectations or we are failing. Only way to do that is increase prices (pricing out families, either completely or in number and length of trips, or CUTTING Expenses. Here we are.

I know that 9/11 put Disney in a couple year period of almost losing money... but even with the 2008/2009 recession Disneys profits have remained high, even with the dips. Right now their profits are at record level. It can't justify its actions by saying the economy is stymiing its profits/park attendance. Disney has tons of money to spend on its parks, its just that they spent decades convincing the American public that a Disney World vacation is a family necessity and are now reaping the profits of off that by not having to actually improve their parks.

 

[epeterson]

Avatar Land and Star Wars Land will improve WDW A LOT. Until then, I will continue going to the Disneyland Resort (and I'd love to make it out to Tokyo some day!).

I've heard Disney Land is alot better than Disney World. And if all four of the Disney World parks were made into just 2 parks they would actually be worth it, so I might consider going there. Also Tokyo DisneySea is maybe the best Disney park in the world (although I haven't been to Shanghai/Paris/Disney Land). Its so beautiful it's amazing. And its only $60 for a day ticket, because its run by a Japanese company, not Disney, so they don't only care about getting as much money from you as possible (ala Disney World).

When Avatar Land and Star Wars land are completed I will re-consider a trip to Disney World... although I really want to see what they will do for the 50th anniversary. They need to do something big to justify the decades of inaction.

 

[Miss Heinous]

Epcot basically just changed most of the attractions in Futureworld, some for the better, some not so good, but, the area that they completely ignored since 1982 was World Showcase. The problem is that so many of the former Epcot lovers have never really been able to grasp the idea that things change. Everything that shows up is automatically considered a decline because it doesn't conform to the way they think it should be. However, that is mostly the sentiment of the people that tend to be attracted to this type of media that focuses on "all Disney, all the time".

You are just trying to start a fight. Put the cane away old man.

 

[Goofyernmost]

You are just trying to start a fight. Put the cane away old man.

No, I'm expressing my opinion. If that starts a fight then that is not my fault. You, however, are probably in a lot of them making insulting comments like that. Sorry, if my comments are not acceptable to you, but, they are what they are and I have no intention of not expressing them. Have a nice day!

 

[WondersOfLife]

I believe Magic Kingdom is NOT declining.. New Fantasyland is beautiful, and while the two main attractions did not come up to par with their concept art.. If we didn't receive all of that extra information in the first place, we would have viewed 7 dwarves and little mermaid as great additions! Instead, we became underwhelmed with what we got because of what was held back, when in reality, they're still two very good attractions. Plus Be Our Guest.

Everything in Magic Kingdom is basically in great shape, all the way down to even its WORST attraction even looking like its in great shape (Stitch's Great Escape).

Honestly, the only things Magic Kingdom needs to work on is Carousel of Progress, technical issues on pirates, and a massive refurb for Space Mountain. Everything else is still much better than 95% of other theme parks across the world. Especially given the amount of attractions it hosts in one park.

As for EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.. Well.. HS will eventually be great again, maybe in 2018. When everything is finished. EPCOT is definitely declining. It is really the only theme park I have no hope for.

 

[Chef Mickey]

It starts when Iger was sworn in as CEO...He's made some great acquisitions that ultimately could prove enormous positives for the parks, but until I see it, I blame Iger for the decline in major park offerings and general decline in maintenance.

MK Expansion was disappointing and jury is out for Avatar at AK and Star Wars at HS.

EPCOT needs about $2b in updates and at least 2-3 E-tickets. I'm already skeptical about Toy Story....just doesn't seem ambitious enough by Disney standards.

That all said, they still do an incredible job with what's there and I love it as much as ever. They do need to create new greatness because they are still standing on the shoulders of geniuses before the new regime.

 

[Chef Mickey]

I believe Magic Kingdom is NOT declining.. New Fantasyland is beautiful, and while the two main attractions did not come up to par with their concept art.. If we didn't receive all of that extra information in the first place, we would have viewed 7 dwarves and little mermaid as great additions! Instead, we became underwhelmed with what we got because of what was held back, when in reality, they're still two very good attractions. Plus Be Our Guest.

Everything in Magic Kingdom is basically in great shape, all the way down to even its WORST attraction even looking like its in great shape (Stitch's Great Escape).

Honestly, the only things Magic Kingdom needs to work on is Carousel of Progress, technical issues on pirates, and a massive refurb for Space Mountain. Everything else is still much better than 95% of other theme parks across the world. Especially given the amount of attractions it hosts in one park.

As for EPCOT and Hollywood Studios.. Well.. HS will eventually be great again, maybe in 2018. When everything is finished. EPCOT is definitely declining. It is really the only theme park I have no hope for.

MK is the best of the 4 parks, but the expansion needed to be more meaningful by including a better centerpiece (7DMT) and even more space.

MK is still simply too crowded most of the time and feel so malls everywhere. It still feels so Iike a park designed in the 70s.

Closing Snow White was a clear mistake, lazy, and cheap. The replacement is fine, but fell short of expectations and little reason to completely close Snow White in a park dying for People eaters.

 

[Miss Heinous]

No, I'm expressing my opinion. If that starts a fight then that is not my fault. You, however, are probably in a lot of them making insulting comments like that. Sorry, if my comments are not acceptable to you, but, they are what they are and I have no intention of not expressing them. Have a nice day!

There's a difference between expressing an opinion and being passive aggressive. I know because I do it all the time.

 

[DisneyChik17]

Wow! The vibe has been so icky today on here! Someone start burning some sage and cleanse this joint!

I know there is a lot of things that need work/attention/TLC in all 4 parks, but that's not what I choose to focus on during my visits (which are weekly). I like to focus on the fact that we are getting SO MUCH new stuff. I love the new additions, and I cannot wait to see what is coming down the pipe for all 4 parks.

With that being said, if you think it all stinks and sucks and is so horrible, terrible, no good, very bad... don't go. It's fine. WDW and all the other ticket buyers (of various levels) will continue to visit and enjoy. And then, think of all the free time you can have back from spending time bashing parks that millions enjoy on a yearly basis.

 

[WondersOfLife]

MK is the best of the 4 parks, but the expansion needed to be more meaningful by including a better centerpiece (7DMT) and even more space.

MK is still simply too crowded most of the time and feel so malls everywhere. It still feels so Iike a park designed in the 70s.

Closing Snow White was a clear mistake, lazy, and cheap. The replacement is fine, but fell short of expectations and little reason to completely close Snow White in a park dying for People eaters.

I think if a more "meaningful" expansion happened, a park capacity issue would have been a lot worse. They at least finally did a very good replacement for Toontown.. Doubling the capacity for Dumbo.. Plus a huge capacity on Little Mermaid makes the lines much shorter. If Snow White was done a lot better, then I don't want to know on gods name how long that line would be compared to right now.

So honestly, I think they hit it just right.

 

[Figments Friend]

1998 is when it began in my mind....
Two major, and expensive-to-operate Attractions were closed simply to save a few bucks - The Original 'JII' and the 20K Subs.
It was a bad time period for the Parks...even at Disneyland.
The Company seemed insanely focused on budget cutting and downsizing everything that could be trimmed.
They went overboard a bit, in my opinion.

There seemed to be a little rebound in the early 2000s, but things seemed to drop off again shortly afterwards.
At WDW, the 'Millennium Celebration' in particular was memorable and great, while a few years later things seemed to revert to a bland state.

I lost interest in visiting the property in 2013, after 30+ years of visiting.
Too many cutbacks in quality, too many un-nessesary hurdles to jump through for what is supposed to be a 'vacation', and far too expensive for me to visit now.
Each their own, but WDW lost my business.
I was a avid supporter and fan, and still am in some respects, but now watch from a distance instead of in person on a yearly basis.

It's all about Disneyland for me now, but i still care a lot about what happens to WDW, particularly Epcot.
I do honestly hope the future will be brighter for that Park in particular.

-

 

[jakeman]

Sorry to post again, but I have to say the restaurant thing annoyed the hell out of me last time I was at Disney World. I went in the off season, and the parks were busy but not super busy, and I couldn't get a single reservation at any restaurant. Even trying to make reservations 1-2 days beforehand everything would be booked. I ate at just quick serve meal places while I was in the parks and would leave Disney to go get dinner almost every night.

Oh I find this hard to believe. Tomorrow there are 69 restaurants available. Saturday night, President's Day weekend, 61 restaurants have availability. Off season now and a holiday day weekend coming up.

 

[Miss Heinous]

1998 is when it began in my mind....
Two major, and expensive-to-operate Attractions were closed simply to save a few bucks - The Original 'JII' and the 20K Subs.
It was a bad time period for the Parks...even at Disneyland.
The Company seemed insanely focused on budget cutting and downsizing everything that could be trimmed.
They went overboard a bit, in my opinion.

There seemed to be a little rebound in the early 2000s, but things seemed to drop off again shortly afterwards.
At WDW, the 'Millennium Celebration' in particular was memorable and great, while a few years later things seemed to revert to a bland state.

I lost interest in visiting the property in 2013, after 30+ years of visiting.
Too many cutbacks in quality, too many un-nessesary hurdles to jump through for what is supposed to be a 'vacation', and far too expensive for me to visit now.
Each their own, but WDW lost my business.
I was a avid supporter and fan, and still am in some respects, but now watch from a distance instead of in person on a yearly basis.

It's all about Disneyland for me now, but i still care a lot about what happens to WDW, particularly Epcot.
I do honestly hope the future will be brighter for that Park in particular.

-

20K closed in 94 hunny.

 

[MississippiBelle]

I will agree that growing up has effected the "magic" for us. The nostalgia can only last so many trips. But we've adapted and found magical moments in other areas. That being said, I do agree that the development in the parks has been pretty slow. We took about a four year break in between our last trip and the one previous to that, yet we still found that New Fantasyland was the only big change. We found new experiences to try, but we were still getting bored at the end of each day. Our solution was to plan a trip for a different time of year than usual and adding still more new experiences to do. Maybe our upcoming trip will be the last one until the majority of the new construction has been completed.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

A recession is the best time for capital expenses (e.g. improvements). Especially for a company with deep pockets like Disney. Now that they've reported $1B in profit just in the last quarter... It's obvious that money shouldn't be such a concern. The real problem is the mentality of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Of course, this mainly applies to Epcot, as pretty much every other property is currently seeing at least some, if not major projects.

 

[blueboxdoctor]

Magic Kingdom, at least to me, hasn't had any notable declines. I mean, the noodle station thing between Mainstreet and Tomorrowland that is closed most of the time is kind of depressing, but other than that, I'm happy with the state of MK.

EPCOT I won't get into again (I've let my opinions on it be known on many other threads on this site) but suffice to say, I have many things in mind that need to be saved in Future World (Innoventions is a leader, it's about as far from innovative as possible). It's all savable, they just need to get to work, or call me for consulting.

Hollywood Studios is at least getting two big lands so I'm looking forward to that. However, I 100% despise that stage they setup where the hat used to be. I don't want to hear bad club music all day there. And the strip where the American Idol thing was needs some major attention, it looks abandoned and is right in your face when you walk down the main area there.

So in order of best to worst:

MK
DHS
EPCOT

 

[danyoung56]

Disney has tons of money to spend on its parks, its just that they spent decades convincing the American public that a Disney World vacation is a family necessity and are now reaping the profits of off that by not having to actually improve their parks.

And their strategy is very successful, as there are record crowds in the parks. Now, of course I'd like to see a new E ticket attraction in every park every year. But from a business perspective, if Disney can keep the crowds coming without spending buckets of money, then they're doing their job. It's a delicate balance between pleasing the stockholders and pleasing the superfans. And I think for the most part they do a pretty good job, keeping enough new things coming to maintain my interest.

 

[Raineman]

I guess I should have prefaced my original post by saying that I personally have not enjoyed WDW any less, or have not noticed first hand alot of the issues regulars talk about. As I stated before, the biggest issue for me would be the numerous empty/unused space at Epcot & DHS to a lesser degree, which makes the park feel somewhat incomplete, IMO. Maybe Disney should follow the model of Las Vegas with their old casinos-don't let it sit and rot, bulldoze it and build something new. BTW, on a side note, it would take alot to get a complaint from me during a trip to WDW-trust me .