A Spirited Perfect Ten

[WDW1974]

I have a hope that we'll see some DCA level changes across the property for the 50th anniversary in 2021.

I don't like hearing/reading this because that is six long years from now (of course, I've been reading comments like that here for 2-3 years already).

I am not giving them decades to do things when UNI does things in months/years. That's just not rational as a fan to say ''we KNOW you can't ignore the 50th, so you'll have to bring the parks up to real Disney standards for at least the 18-24 month media blitz you'll have.''

Do you know that you'll be alive in 2021? That I will? That anyone on this forum will be? How about all life on the planet?

The idea of just allowing years and years to pass while the product is stale and, largely, stagnant is crazy and anathema to the whole ethos (c-rap, I'm now sounding like a blogger and I'm hyphenating a word that has apparently been added to our naughty word filter!) behind the creation of WDW.

Was it Walt that said ''EPCOT will always be in a state of becoming?'' ... at some point, you have to spend on real reasons for Guests to visit.

 

[choco choco]

Spirited Request For a Little Project:

If you were going to ask Bob Iger (along with Tom Staggs and Jay Rasulo) ONE question during the upcoming WDC shareholders meeting in San Francisco, what would it be? Simply place it in a post here or at the bottom of another post.

Who knows? That question might just be asked at said meeting.

Considering Disney's biggest in-house created franchise this millenium (Pirates of the Caribbean) was based off of an original theme park ride, why hasn't Imagineering been encouraged to create more original theme park attractions that can then be spun into other franchises? Why aren't rides considered viable franchise starters, when the greatest success has been a franchise started by a ride?

 

[WDW1974]

And I know as the head of the company, it's pretty easy to lay all the blame on Iger, but, and this is an honest question, just how much input and knowledge does he really have about the parks? I'd venture a guess not a whole lot. Others need to share in that blame. Of course I'm sure he has "final say" but I'm just curious about his true involvement and knowledge of everything that goes on. He seems to avoid WDW like the plague, to be honest.

Bob has the ultimate say on every major expenditure related to the WDW resort. As to knowledge, well, that's another subject as he certainly isn't nearly as into the parks as his predecessor.

As to avoiding WDW, Bob is here every now and then ... and Tom Staggs more often. And they both are very aware of what has -- and hasn't -- happened in the swamps.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I don't like hearing/reading this because that is six long years from now (of course, I've been reading comments like that here for 2-3 years already).

I am not giving them decades to do things when UNI does things in months/years. That's just not rational as a fan to say ''we KNOW you can't ignore the 50th, so you'll have to bring the parks up to real Disney standards for at least the 18-24 month media blitz you'll have.''

Do you know that you'll be alive in 2021? That I will? That anyone on this forum will be? How about all life on the planet?

The idea of just allowing years and years to pass while the product is stale and, largely, stagnant is crazy and anathema to the whole ethos (c-rap, I'm now sounding like a blogger and I'm hyphenating a word that has apparently been added to our naughty word filter!) behind the creation of WDW.

Was it Walt that said ''EPCOT will always be in a state of becoming?'' ... at some point, you have to spend on real reasons for Guests to visit.

As long as they continue to attract primarily first-time guests and market "isn't this great," They will maintain their profit margins. They wont need to build new attractions if the people riding them are here for the first time.

It will be a shell game to returning guests.... but returning guests and fans of the theme-parks have become "outlying data." People will love MK & Epcot because they simply don't know what it was or what it could have been.

Of course, this is rather short-sighted.... but such is the way of quarter-to-quarter, small minded bantha fodder fools.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Bob has the ultimate say on every major expenditure related to the WDW resort. As to knowledge, well, that's another subject as he certainly isn't nearly as into the parks as his predecessor.

As to avoiding WDW, Bob is here every now and then ... and Tom Staggs more often. And they both are very aware of what has -- and hasn't -- happened in the swamps.

Well as long as they hit the margins and the numbers, I honestly don't think he sees it as a place that needs renovation/redevelopment.

I don't think he "gets" the parks.

 

[WDW1974]

Ah, but you can't use both 'built' and subtract 'approved'. You need to judge by one or the other (and approved is really the more appropriate benchmark).

Iger has approved 4-5 major projects at WDW in his 10 year tenure.
1. NFL
2. My Magic+
3. Avatar
4. Disney Springs
*5. DHS redo (or at least the first portion of it).

1.) A project that had been on the table dating to the late 90s that was greenlit ONLY because guests were falling below that MAGICal nine attractions a day threshold and the park was bursting at the seams (again, due to removing attractions, shops and dining locales, adding ODV, haviing FP dump people out of queues and renting double-wide strollers and ECVs to ever-larger guests);

2.) Again, we go back to a project that was largely BOH tech upgrades as well as apps, door locks and MAGICal tracking bands. Not an attraction. Not anything that made people take WDW trips that they wouldn't have anyway. Just a $2 billion plus expenditure ... you know the cost of an EPCOT Center;

3.) The only real addition in your list. A project that has only started vertical construction in last few months. A project announced in 2011 that will open in 2017-18. Largely, also, a vanity project for Iger to take the sting out of JK Rowling going to UNI and doing right by her creations;

4.) Seriously?! Of course. He should get full credit for the latest redo of Disney's mall/lifestyle center and infrastructure.

5.) We are now in 2015 and all he has done is save huge labor costs by closing vast swaths of that park and removing an eyesore. Sure, stuff is coming (good stuff, some possibly great) MANY YEARS from now when he will absolutely be gone from the company.

I wouldn't say that's disgusting, it's not fantastic either, but it's most definitely not how the theme park community wishes the money had/is being spent.

I won't for a second argue with @ParentsOf4 great analysis though, we all know the company's attention has been about everywhere but WDW the past ten years. At least attention is finally starting to shift back towards the swamps.

My opinion is it's disgusting.

 

[WDW1974]

Repentant Orc appears to have created a good composite for the kind of person who drops $2000+/night for the Poly bungalows.

I gave you a 'like' for his Tweets, but he seems like typical disgruntled former WDI-FL guy that was shown the door in the latter days of the Eisner administration. (which I've been told is true, but I dunno!) He makes good points a lot of the time, but there's a holier than thou 'tude ... come to think of it, I like him a lot!

 

[burgess]

I've never chimed in on this before, but the discussion on whether to rent a car caught my eye. As someone who plans most vacations around not having to rent a car, Disney World is the one place I visit where I think it's pretty much mandatory to drive. That said, I never stay on property, but even if I did, I'd get pretty tired of being in Disney World for an entire vacation, eating Disney World food. At some point you have to go to Gatorland, or check out some of what's left of nature in Florida, or go to the beach, or check out a roadside attraction or downtown Kissimmee or Orlando.

I might make an exception if I was just in the area for a weekend, and if I got a deal, somehow, on a hotel on Disney property that was anywhere near a park. But really, I'm never there for a weekend, and you can rent an entire condo in Kissimmee for a week AND a rental car for less than the cost of some Disney rooms.

And this is all coming from a city dwelling, car hating tree hugger.

 

[TP2000]

Why aren't rides considered viable franchise starters, when the greatest success has been a franchise started by a ride?

While I love your thought, and agree it could be a great excuse to create new ride concepts, a valid argument against creating new rides in order to create movie franchises could be made by mentioning the following movies:

The Country Bears, June 2002, Budget $35 Million, Box Office $18 Million

Seeing how that movie did, it's rather a minor miracle that the Pirates film franchise was already in advanced development and en route to be released in July, 2003 after that turkey soured the punch. Then there was the next Attraction-Turned-Movie...

The Haunted Mansion, November 2003, Budget $90 Million, Box Office $75 Million

But the reviews were so awful, with the movie finally sinking Eddie Murphy's flailing career, that much of that box office was simply residual from the Summer '03 goodwill built by the other New Orleans Square E Ticket turned movie Pirates of the Caribbean.

Pirates went on to create multiple sequels and become the 2000's pop cultural equivalent of Star Wars. But the two giant stink bombs that surrounded it, Country Bears and Haunted Mansion, still haunt the concept development meetings for any Disney Studios exec who dares to suggest an old Disneyland ride might be good fodder for a movie plot.

 

[kpilcher]

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I think Bob Iger has done an a phenominal job as CEO, probably one of the best CEO's of the era. When he came in the company was at a crossroads - the animation studio hadn't made a good movie in a long time, the Pixar relationship had fizzled and it looked like was coming to an end, they were building stupid nonsense like DCA/Chester & Hester (and even HK Disneyland). Not much good going for the company.

Then all of a sudden Disney and Steve Jobs get along great and Disney buys Pixar, the stuff they start building in the parks is much higher quality, he made two more home-run acquisitions with Marvel and Lucasfilm (it seems like every year two of the top movies are Marvel and you know Star Wars is going to be huge), and the company's earnings and stock have reflected it. Not only that but ESPN now is broadcasting a lot more major events and promoting them well so they have breaking ratings records several times a year. The company has had a huge turnaround and is more relevant now than ever in so many ways.

And to think when he took over there was high drama in the company, animation sucked (and as we know much of the earnings in many of Disney's businesses revolve around animation), the new parks that were being built were really lackluster. Now none of those issues exist anymore and Disney is setting record revenues every year. You have to give credit where it's due the man has just done an excellent job.

I don't know why people like you never realize that Disney is a business and a business is going to do what they have to do to make money, you guys treat it like it's some cardinal sin. If people really liked Disney's competition better than them, like you suggest they do, then why does Disney crush their competition in pretty much every category when it comes to attendance, box office sales, viewership, etc? Disney is extremely successful where it counts and opinions are just that...opinions.

Forgive me. I'm not Spirit. But trust me. NO ONE on this board needs the "Disney is a business" lecture again for the 1000th time. It's tired. And it misses the point. Disney always has been a business. I don't recall Walt & Roy opening a charitable home in 1923 for homeless animators and imagineers that stumbled into profitability. What's changed? The Disney that Spirit is reminiscing about regularly spent money on its guests in visible and subtle ways and places to make money. The intangibles he talks about that have been lost over the past 15ish years didn't (in most cases) cost a lot of money to a company the size Disney was in 1971 & 1984... much less the megacorp it is in 2015. Small touches can look good on the spreadsheet to eliminate. But Disney more than ANY other theme park company in the known universe relies on those small --often hard to overtly notice -- touches to build brand and warm feelings and loyalty. When they are cut and cut and cut, eventually it changes attitudes even if people don't know why. Yes. I agree the Pixar buy was a smart move -- in some ways the ultimate no-brainer -- both creatively and for the business-side. In hindsight, it pales to the importance on the "business" side to buying ESPN (a deliriously happy afterthought to Eisner's goal of owning ABC). Marvel also is paying off. I'm sure LucasFilm will too. Meanwhile, Magic Kingdom has enormous capacity issues that should have meant several more quality additions would already be under construction. The hands-down number one theme park in attendance worldwide has fewer attractions than its tiny Anaheim father. Iger is good at many things. Keeping up with what is required to keep WDW's four major parks fresh? Sorry. I can't give him a passing grade there.

 

[xstech25]

Like I said everyone is entitled to their opinion. The world is ran by the laws of supply & demand and clearly Disney is giving people what they want otherwise they wouldn't be more successful now than they have ever been.

 

[kpilcher]

Like I said everyone is entitled to their opinion. The world is ran by the laws of supply & demand and clearly Disney is giving people what they want otherwise they wouldn't be more successful now than they have ever been.

And supply and demand and market forces and other buzzwords aren't enough on their own. We don't live in a lab, Many other forces are at work. Best believe Walt understood all of that. Keep in mind, Kodak was giving the public exactly what it wanted. Until that changed. Disney is in a far better spot, for now, at least. As to its theme parks, even Iger talks about making "Brand deposits" as crucial to the company. Hopefully, that applies to the Florida parks sooner than later -- before coasting on a brand goes too far.

 

[ford91exploder]

And I know as the head of the company, it's pretty easy to lay all the blame on Iger, but, and this is an honest question, just how much input and knowledge does he really have about the parks? I'd venture a guess not a whole lot. Others need to share in that blame. Of course I'm sure he has "final say" but I'm just curious about his true involvement and knowledge of everything that goes on. He seems to avoid WDW like the plague, to be honest.

Of the operational details I'm sure he knows next to nothing, However from a corporate capital standpoint he approves the budget and strategic plan for the business unit and with that he seems to be happy just milking the cash cow. Recall that P&R throws off a few BILLION in cash every year, most of which goes into stock buybacks not reinvesting in the business.

Iger is leaving NOTHING in the tank for the next executive team, No cash and no products in the pipeline.

 

[tigger1968]

Like I said everyone is entitled to their opinion. The world is ran by the laws of supply & demand and clearly Disney is giving people what they want otherwise they wouldn't be more successful now than they have ever been.

No, when it comes to the parks, especially domestic parks, Disney seems to be much more focused on giving the people what Disney wants. Room prices are priced out of reach, ticket prices are high, and I don't think anyone has been clamoring for less entertainment and less availability of attractions. I don't think anyone has been demanding for a slew of hard ticket events. But as others have pointed out, it's cheaper and easier to cut costs and market to the first time visitor who doesn't know any better, than to try to put money back into the parks. And like many others on here, I grew up visiting the parks in the early years, when it was a vastly different experience. We know what it could be, or really, should be.

I get your point. However, as this site focuses on WDW in particular, I am speaking to that part of the company.

 

[ford91exploder]

And supply and demand and market forces and other buzzwords aren't enough on their own. We don't live in a lab, Many other forces are at work. Best believe Walt understood all of that. Keep in mind, Kodak was giving the public exactly what it wanted. Until that changed. Disney is in a far better spot, for now, at least. As to its theme parks, even Iger talks about making "Brand deposits" as crucial to the company. Hopefully, that applies to the Florida parks sooner than later -- before coasting on a brand goes too far.

Interesting that you bring up Kodak, As a one time professional photographer (it's how I paid for school while IN school) the 'Great Yellow Father' basically INVENTED digital photography but wanted to milk their cash cow and while milking it they cut popular products for professionals from their lines to keep the numbers looking good until the whole thing collapsed.

Interestingly enough they kept referring to 'Mature Lines of Business' yet their much smaller competitors Ilford and Fuji continued to invest in those 'Mature Lines of Business' and THEY now own the professional and technical markets.

Kodak did not need to fail, They needed management who realized they were in the IMAGING business (like Fuji and Ilford) not in the 'Optimize the numbers for Wall St Business' They were a classic example of Buffet's Dictum ie 'If you manage only for the bottom line, Soon you will not HAVE a bottom line'

One reason Disney no longer sells pictures at the park is Kodak left them high and dry, The pictures used to be printed using Kodak Dye Sublimation printers (process was also archival which means prints will last 100+ years properly stored/displayed) the process was also FAST much faster and simpler than ink jet.

Kodak DROPPED these printers and their supplies in the face of HUGE demand because it was a 'Mature' business with supposedly low growth potential - they did not even make the EFFORT to sell it to another company who might have had a different viewpoint on the viability of the business.

In short Kodak failed because they were captives of the Wall St Mentality, The same capture we see at work with TWDC.

 

[ford91exploder]

They have built the most sturdy house of cards I've ever seen. And I don't look at it to watch it fall down... because it wont, I look at it because it is psychological mind fondling in action and it's intriguing to see how far they take it.

Will it fall apart tomorrow, No but it's not invincible either Disney does not have much cash on hand to withstand shocks (FCC restructuring how cable is sold for a likely example). Comcast has 2X the cash and Apple has Disney's entire market cap in Cash on Hand. Disney only has about 3 billion in cash, Comcast has 6 and that after paying 11 billion in cash for shares of NBCU.

Disney should have been building a cash hoard to fund expansion etc, instead they have been using cash to buy back stock to pump the numbers and inflate executive compensation packages which are based on SHORT TERM stock performance.

If suddenly Cable was sold ala carte the Disney channels/ABC family would probably be dropped by most people. The expensive ESPN package (which adds about 10 bucks to your cable bill) would probably be dropped by 1/3-1/2 of households who do not really CARE about sports.

Disney owns IP they do not own distribution channels, Comcast would take a hit but since Comcast owns the distribution pipeline and internet they would be in a much better position prosper from a switch to ala carte pricing where TWDC and VIACOM would be hosed.

 

[ford91exploder]

No, when it comes to the parks, especially domestic parks, Disney seems to be much more focused on giving the people what Disney wants. Room prices are priced out of reach, ticket prices are high, and I don't think anyone has been clamoring for less entertainment and less availability of attractions. I don't think anyone has been demanding for a slew of hard ticket events. But as others have pointed out, it's cheaper and easier to cut costs and market to the first time visitor who doesn't know any better, than to try to put money back into the parks. And like many others on here, I grew up visiting the parks in the early years, when it was a vastly different experience. We know what it could be, or really, should be.

I get your point. However, as this site focuses on WDW in particular, I am speaking to that part of the company.

I also remember when the hard ticket events were modestly priced and there was FAR more entertainment and amenities during the early years when I suspect the ticket covered the costs of the event and a modest profit.

Now the hard ticket events are a blatant cash grab, The most glaring example was this summer's 'Unleash the Villians' event. We went in hopes of seeing roaming villians instead it was a chargeable meet-n-grope where lines were HOURS long.

Left feeling ripped off, No free/discounted refreshments, DW stood in line for merchandise for 2 hours only to find all the event merchandise had been sold prior to event opening at 7PM. Fireworks show was extraordinary but I don't pay 70 bucks to watch fireworks.

 

[Jon81uk]

Why was "Walt" removed from the title card on Walt Disney Pictures films?

What is Disney anymore? (a question that could be asked of Iger) ... Is it ESPN ... ABC Family ... Marvel ... Lucasfilm ... is it simply a collection of BRANDS akin to a Viacom? Disney was always different because it started with the dreams and creative vision of a pair of brothers from the Midwest. What is it now?

These two posts seem to go together slightly (I know we don't get a Disney title card before a Marvel film, but it wouldn't surprise me if you had Disney, then Marvel studios cards).
Also it is now the Walt Disney Animation Studios, seperating out the Walt Disney animation studio from the Pixar animation studio.

 

[lazyboy97o]

which is sad.

Can you imagine if someone of the calibre of John Lesetter; was growing up in the Disney company . Just to be sacked by an overzealous and incompetent middle level manager.

John was sacked by Disney. That's why they had to spend $7 billion to get him back.

 

[Longhairbear]

On one of the more "Pixie Dusted" websites, the subject of the new Poly DVC villas are being discussed by members of DVC. The comments made are more rationalizing, pro business, but falling short of saying the villas at the Poly are fabulous, and practically none have said "I can't wait to add on points there".