I've been thinking about the following, and decided this is the best thread for it (since Tropical Americas is the soonest-to-open of the truly major upcoming projects).
The likely budgets of all the announced projects combined would be only a small fraction of the supposed $17 billion in capital expenditures for a 10-year period.
If erring towards the high end, I might imagine something like:
- Tropical Americas: $600 million
- Monstropolis: $500 million
- Muppets RnRC: $100 million
- Cars: $500 million
- Villains: $1.5 billion
That totals just over $3 billion. Maybe I'm still underestimating - maybe the Villains land is an unprecedented $2 billion (is that possible?), maybe Cars is a whopping $1 billion due to infrastructure complexities, maybe Tropical Americas and Monstropolis are several hundred million dollars more, plus we should count hotel expansions, etc. - so let's round it up and say $5 billion.
If they're really budgeting $17 billion for the 10-year period with the supposed aim of leapfrogging over the competition via extraordinary scale/ambition, why do they appear so budget-constrained right now... especially considering what we know about these additions: the Encanto attraction only being a D-ticket (if still true?), the Indiana Jones Adventure plans being downsized so it's no longer anticipated to be the superior version (if still true?), and not even to be going all-out with the door coaster (according to insiders in that thread)? Is this only because the anticipated cash won't be available until the second half of the decade? (I know they said the capex would be rear-loaded, but this seems
really rear-loaded... like, $10-15 billion in capex over the remaining five years is nearly inconceivable to me...)
