A Spirited Dirty Dozen ...

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Disney doesn't have a great track record of projecting attendance for new properties... so I'm curious to see how it plays out after the first 6mon and hopefully the full park is open.

Yup. Of course Disney isn't going to be the one with the attendance figure, the CCP will make it up. And it likely will be resort visitors as well as theme park admissions. All those freeloaders at Wishing Star Lake and shoppers at DisneyTown.
 

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Egad....

I find this photo to be extremely depressing.
Looks like a full quarter of the Park being converted over.

Photos really cannot accurately capture the full scope and scale of this project.
Seeing the decimation in person two weeks ago was a experience that made quite a emotional impact on me.
Seeing the scale of it all, and so easily from within Guest areas had a real shock factor.

:(


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I am going to be at DLR later this summer and I am ... so fearful that I will want to write the place off after seeing all of the destruction (and that is what it is, damn the SW at all costs lovers).

It may well be a beautiful themed area in three years ... but it won't make it belong any more.
 

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
@WDW1974 Months back you reported that there might be a "third attraction" over at DAK with the Avatar project. Any updates on Avatar? You are spot on with your reports and wanted to hear it here first before it comes out anywhere else. They have been pretty quiet with this project.

Only that they have been behind and overbudget. Not sure whether the third attraction was/is a real possibility or just something floated to get people more behind the project. I don't believe there will be four sequels either. Avatar was a gamechanger in 2009, but is old hat now and there are so many more franchises out there that people actually feel ... well ... passionate about.

I'm with @TP2000 still looking for a kid (or adult) dressed for Halloween ... or seeing a kid (or adult) buying an Avatar-themed toy. It does mean something. It actually means everything.

That said, the land is going to be very kewl.
 

FigmentJedi

Well-Known Member
I'm with @TP2000 still looking for a kid (or adult) dressed for Halloween ... or seeing a kid (or adult) buying an Avatar-themed toy. It does mean something. It actually means everything.
Well I know I didn't see the Na'vi Halloween masks that were at my local Menards several years straight last October, so at least those got clearance'd out or something.
 

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
I am going to be at DLR later this summer and I am ... so fearful that I will want to write the place off after seeing all of the destruction (and that is what it is, damn the SW at all costs lovers).

It may well be a beautiful themed area in three years ... but it won't make it belong any more.

There is definitely a jarring visual 'shock factor' involved.
I was surprised to see so much 'exposed' openly in Guest sight lines when I visited two weeks ago.
I had seen the photos before arriving, but those pictures cannot capture the true scale of it all.

I realize a huge undertaking such as the land clearing going on there makes it difficult to just toss a tarp up to cover the view, but dang, bring some tissues with you when you ride 'Tony's Mountain' ( aka 'BTMR' ) as the view from the top of the second lift hill is just depressing currently.

Perhaps by the Summer some trees will be replanted in that area to soften the blow.
Here's hoping...

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Mike S

Well-Known Member
Only that they have been behind and overbudget. Not sure whether the third attraction was/is a real possibility or just something floated to get people more behind the project. I don't believe there will be four sequels either. Avatar was a gamechanger in 2009, but is old hat now and there are so many more franchises out there that people actually feel ... well ... passionate about.

I'm with @TP2000 still looking for a kid (or adult) dressed for Halloween ... or seeing a kid (or adult) buying an Avatar-themed toy. It does mean something. It actually means everything.

That said, the land is going to be very kewl.
Good enough for me. Disney can worry about the rest, unless the lack of explosive merchandise sales on Avatar makes them even more hesitant on future projects that aren't a sure thing like Star Wars o_O
 

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Well bringing it back to Disney.... Disney used to be a place for good food - Long before the dining plan, menu consolidation, and management's desire to make it another profit center.

Anyone remember the Concourse Steakhouse? Anyone remember when you could get a NY Strip at 50's Prime Time? Anyone remember when lunch at Le Cellier wasn't signature dining and the same menu all day?

Disney used to be known for its food, hense some of the classic 20+ year old cookbooks from WDW & DL. Its just not that way anymore.
(I do enjoy making the Chicken Picatta and several of the other Club 33 recipes)

I remember when you could go to the Concourse Steakhouse without a ressie, order a 10 oz sirloin of very high quality with a side and SOUP OR SALAD for under $15 before a 20% DDE (TiW now) discount ... oh, and a great hot loaf of sourdough bread too.

Disney steaks are a joke. Le Cellier is $51 for an a la carte lunch steak ... this isn't Ruth's Chris or Morton's or Shula's ... for cripes sakes it is a theme park.
 

Figments Friend

Well-Known Member
They could put Star Wars Land on the Freeway for all I care.

My point is that Disney already has 4 huge lots of available land, including one that is already approved for a full theme park. They didn't need to put anything (SWL or parking) inside Disneyland.

I also highlighted in red the Garden Walk area that Disney recently passed on purchasing.

View attachment 142370

Yes to all of this.
Looking at this image, it is clear there were many other options to consider.
Why are those involved / responsible for insisting the 'Star Wars Experience' be squished into Disneyland Park?
What is the reasoning here?

You would assume 'money' but if that is the case it would make more business sense to create a separately gated area so that you could charge another admission fee.
Or build it in a Park that needs more to do and could help balance the crowds.

Perhaps it's just quicker to clear land in a existing property then invest in designing a entirely new area elsewhere and all the additional facilities needed.

I just look a all of this with a severely scratched head.
What the fluff are they thinking with this.....it just does not make sense to me from any perspective.

I'm all for 'change' and exciting new themed areas and experiences......and I LIKE 'Star Wars' quite a bit, but this just does not fit in within Disneyland in my opinion.

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WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We still disagree a bit on the quality of SDL, but nothing much more. At first, I couldn't connect the dots as to why SDL turned out better than your horror stories made us expect, and why the blame for the cuts was shifting, and it caused me to say "wait a minute." But you have explained and cleared it all up, and so any remaining doubts are not your fault.

I am sorry if you were confused, but I am quite sure during the last few years I NEVER suggested that SDL wouldn't be quality. I've said the opposite countless times as I have great respect for Bob Weis and many of the people working on the project. The horror stories, as you termed it, are also true because they are about what went on behind the scenes.

I have no idea why people expected more... hmmmm. Maybe because you expected it to be one of the top attractions in the park. :D

From The Spirit Takes the Fifth. Post #484. Here's a link: http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/the-spirit-takes-the-fifth.876705/page-25#post-5806652

LOL, I just think it's funny how much you contradicted yourself between those two posts. To be fair, it was a while ago, you were the one who revealed the list in the first place, and you made clear that you didn't know many details yet. But I just had to point that out...

I could say that my point was simply based on what expectations likely would be mixed with popularity. That Disney fans love boat rides. That this one was very hush-hush to start with. But then some of my 'premium' friends would likely come in here and be on my behind faster than an Imagineer on a fanboi.

So, I'll simply say that info that I gave what was available back then to me. I was even under the mistaken impression that the load for the attraction would be under the castle. ... That said, I've had the exact plans of the entire attraction for a few years now (@Lee can attest to this) and since then I have told everyone here exactly what to expect. No changes.

One final thing, any word on how Aulani is doing now? I know they had math issues at first, but since then, I haven't heard and can't find much on that place.

Relatively well AFAIK. Management was shifted out there a while back (from WDW-based to DLR-based). There have been some changes in the product. But most reviews are very high and I am planning on checking it out in the next few years. Generally, like DCL, the stand alone resorts (Vero and Hilton Head) are legit 4-star resorts not like what you get at WDW.
 
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WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
I actually wonder if @WDW1974 has an RCI number or other big travel agent code number.
Those codes can give you base layer price (aka the lowest rate any hotel can give) in big chains of hotels.

Where I work, one of my bosses has a few travel agent vendor/reseller and We easily see discounts up to 80% in hotels.

No, I do not.

I simply have great friends who take care of me. Best way of visiting theme park resorts ... because you have to be out of your mind to pay anything close to the asking price of most things at BOTH WDW and UNI.
 
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WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
If you get the chance to reply to this, I'd love to hear this expanded upon. I found WDW's "busy-ness" situation really odd when I visited (early May) - certain attractions had medium-to-high posted wait times and yet there weren't any queues for the buses even at what should have been peak closing times. Animal Kingdom was even more strange in that it was posting 60 minute waits for attractions which were more like 20 minutes, which I've never seen before anywhere else - and made me question the other lines I didn't join based on posted wait times. FastPass+ was entirely unneeded at Epcot in the absence of Froarin'.

Another question: why does Disney station CMs at the FP+ entry scans for attractions that (at that time) really don't require FastPass? At Epcot, that's [at least] 7 CMs who could have been doing more useful things, rather than standing around doing nothing - almost double that if you include additional CMs at the merge points.

All I can tell you is that my experiences mirrored yours. Space Mountain being listed at 30 minutes when it was a walk on. SDMT listed at 30 minutes when it was 15. Peter Pan, Mansion etc all had grossly exaggerated wait times listed. To what end? I have no idea. I'd guess to encourage use of FP+. And you are quite right ... I have no clue why EPCOT has the service at all. It just isn't needed there at all right now.

As to your second point, I'd surmise it is to again make MM+ seem like more of a necessity and/or a successful program than it is. There is no good reason for those CMs to be there when they are understaffed so many other places.
 

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Walt Disney once said, "When I started on Disneyland, my wife used to say, 'But why do you want to build an amusement park? They're so dirty.' I told her that was just the point — mine wouldn't be."

Walt Disney took out a mortgage on his house and reportedly went $100K into personal debt to help pay for Disneyland, at a time when median household income was under $5K.

You know what?

Disney was a business in 1955 when Disneyland opened to rave reviews and financial glory.

Wanting to honor his brother's vision, the 73 year-old Roy O. Disney postponed his retirement for 5 years in order to oversee the construction of Walt Disney World, which opened in October 1971. Roy died 2 months later.

Disney was a business in 1971 when operating margin was actually higher than what it's averaged under Bob Iger.

Struggling to find a direction for the company, Card Walker reportedly invested $1.5 billion in Epcot at a time when the entire company's annual revenue was $1.0 billion.

Disney was a business in 1982 when this bold investment grew company revenue by 60% in 2 years.

With Disney's film industry in tatters, Roy E. Disney fronted the effort to bring in Michael Eisner, who not only managed to turn Disney into a film juggernaut but also built Disney-MGM Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, Blizzard Beach, Disney's Animal Kingdom, more than a dozen hotels, shopping districts, and a sports complex.

Disney was a business in the 1980s and 1990s when Eisner created The Walt Disney Company megacorporation and built the modern Walt Disney World.

In recent years, the Disney "business" under Bob Iger has made quality cut after quality cut, price hike on top of price hike, and project delay after project delay, turning Walt Disney World into a shell of its former glory. This in a decade that has seen company revenue grow by a paltry 5.1% annually under Iger.

No one had to explain away bad corporate behavior for Disney's first 50 years in the theme park industry, yet for some reason the "Disney is a business" crowd thinks it's OK to trot out this tired cliché every time the Disney "business" does something to bring Walt Disney World down.

Just gave you an 84th like (am starting to think you are a likes- like ... like ... a certain hillbilly in these parts) and that is one of the highest numbers I have seen. I may have a handful of posts above that, not even sure (ask my PR man, Jake).

But I wish you could pin this as the definitive answer to ignorant twits using the 'Disney is Business' line everytime it is brought up.

It absolutely destroys 99% of arguments about the terrible way the company and Robert A. Iger are running Parks and Resorts.
Sincere thanks!
 
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Mike S

Well-Known Member
All I can tell you is that my experiences mirrored yours. Space Mountain being listed at 30 minutes when it was a walk on. SDMT listed at 30 minutes when it was 15. Peter Pan, Mansion etc all had grossly exaggerated wait times listed. To what end? I have no idea. I'd guess to encourage use of FP+. And you are quite right ... I have no clue why EPCOT has the service at all. It just isn't needed there at all right now.

As to your second point, I'd surmise it is to again make MM+ seem like more of a necessity and/or a successful program than it is. There is no good reason for those CMs to be there when they are understaffed so many other places.
Speaking of this I forget which ride it was but it had the usual long wait time listed but when I got to the front I looked over at the little computer screen the CMs use and saw, clear as day, "actual wait time: 20 minutes." Maybe I was seeing things, maybe not.
 


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