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A Spirited Dirty Dozen ...
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
Mike S
Well-Known Member
And would probably be the same difference between the original plan for a Mermaid ride and what we ended up getting instead.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Today's Micage update mentions an October opening for Rivers of Light, no Paint the Night for WDW and "soft attendance and flat customer spending at the WDW property".
On Shanghai Disneyland:
"opened with a bang this summer and has had high attendance and strong visitor spending, lessening the possibility that the American parks will need to cut corners to make the Shanghai investment look good to Wall Street."
On Shanghai Disneyland:
"opened with a bang this summer and has had high attendance and strong visitor spending, lessening the possibility that the American parks will need to cut corners to make the Shanghai investment look good to Wall Street."
mimitchi33
Well-Known Member
That looks great!
That's great news! Asia sure does love Disney, after all...
Mike S
Well-Known Member
Sounds good. Especially the bit about WDW being flat. People are wising up.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
Too late, cuts have already happened...
brb1006
Well-Known Member
Especially Japan
doctornick
Well-Known Member
It's Micechat. Of course they will try to paint anything about WDW as negative. e.g. saying WDW has "profitability problems" when it's making plenty of profit.
I'm not saying that WDW doesn't have issues but Micechat will always accentuate the negatives there while overselling at DL. It's what they do.
BrianLo
Well-Known Member
Which is exactly why when they have something nice to say about a resort like Shanghai, you can take it to the bank that things are going well.
GiveMeTheMusic
Well-Known Member
If WDW wasn't on a visible attendance decline and they didn't run their theme parks into the ground, I'm sure they'd have nicer things to say.
asianway
Well-Known Member
Plenty of profit is not the same thing as enough profit.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
"Attendance at our domestic theme parks was relatively flat, as an increase at Disneyland Resort was offset by a modest decrease at Walt Disney World Resort."
That quote didn't come from the guys at Micechat, it came from the official quarterly report released by the Walt Disney Company on May 10th, 2016. https://ditm-twdc-us.storage.googleapis.com/q2_fy16_earnings.pdf
The conventional wisdom and rumors from places like Micechat that Disneyland is pulling more than its share of the weight this year seems to be backed up by the legally binding statements Disney makes in its quarterly reports.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
Micechat isn't wrong, the issue is that they're regurgitating ancient news poached from both Disney itself and (per usual) this site. Disney's earnings report back in May already confirmed that WDW was experiencing a decline in guest spending. And well before that, posters on wdwmagic (including 74, myself and many others) have taken notice of the unusually low crowd levels. This was also before the nightclub shooting or the alligator attack.
It's hardly surprising. WDW has been trying guest patience for a VERY long time now. The last couple of years have seen an even greater acceleration of price increases, and this year even basic upkeep like trash collection and general cleanliness has taken an even sharper dive than before (which has already been in a severe if gradual decline since the 90's). People seem to be getting weary of WDW's treatment by leadership. And Disney seems at least slightly aware of this. It was recently stated that several Orlando leaders were actually brought out to California and reprimanded by Bob Chapek for how poorly WDW was being run in comparison to DL (some see this as a good sign, I look at it as more of a slap on the wrist and can't imagine it accomplishing much). There have also been a surprising level of project rumors lately on top of the already announced Star Wars and Toy Story stuff, the EPCOT 3.0 project and Great Mickey Ride.
WDW is making plenty of money, obscene quantities. Even with all the troubles WDW has faced this year. The issue is that greed in the corporate world is NEVER sated even by what we would consider "plenty" or even "obscene quantities", they want more than that.
Don't know what drivel you've been reading, but Disney has not stated anything about guest spending declining. Here are the May numbers:
As you can plainly see - Parks & Resorts reported a 4% increase in revenue.
Here is the 3rd quarter results:
And here they report a 6% increase in revenue. A little research, besides listening to certain people here, goes a long way towards reality.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
@LuvtheGoof
Check the post above mine. Disney themselves confirmed that attendance at WDW was down...
Check the post above mine. Disney themselves confirmed that attendance at WDW was down...
doctornick
Well-Known Member
Before anyone else responds to me: I didn't say that attendance was not down at WDW, we know that is true. I'm saying that Micechat always frames their comments in a way to be overly negative regarding WDW. Why say "With attendance and profitability problems now hampering the Walt Disney World property out in Florida"? "problems"? "hampering"? You can comment on WDW's attendance decline without making it sound like they are struggling to pay the bills.
It's not what Micechat is reporting, but how they say it.
It's not what Micechat is reporting, but how they say it.
You didn't state attendance - you stated a decline in guest spending. I agree that the number of guests is down, but the ones that are going are spending more. Directly from their SEC filing for 2nd quarter:
Higher operating income at our domestic operations was due to guest spending growth, partially offset by higher costs. The increase in guest spending was due to higher average ticket prices at our theme parks and cruise line, increased food, beverage and merchandise spending and higher average hotel room rates.
MerlinTheGoat
Well-Known Member
My bad, I meant attendance (and could have sworn I wrote it as that, oops). Yes if you raise prices, it will make your numbers look good even with fewer people in attendance. Though it has limited sustainability in the long run (and they've been pushing the limits for a long time now).
Incidentally, is that quote about the guest spending increase about WDW alone, or is it combining DL and WDW spending together?
PiratesoftheHM
Well-Known Member
The comments on Disneyland's Facebook post about the "celebration" of the Tower of Terror has overwhelmingly bad comments. I'm just seriously shocked (I guess, not really given who we're dealing with) that they have such total disregard for the fans. I've never seen such a negative reaction from such a wide audience about Disney Parks decision.
