Smiddimizer
Well-Known Member
Still don't understand the technology for more complicated drinks. I want my sugar cubes mashed, damn it!
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A Spirited Perfect Ten
- Thread starter WDW1974
- Start date
Still don't understand the technology for more complicated drinks. I want my sugar cubes mashed, damn it!
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
Disney sees three days a year where attendance exceeds 75K at the Magic Kingdom and 4 additional days where attendance is in the 70-75K range.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
I live in Orlando and work outside everyday. I am also required to wear long pants and a polo everyday. I also wear 10" combat boots with my slacks (my FU Fire Ant Boots). The tourists make an overly big deal out of the heat. Yeah, it's hot. Impressively hot at times. Still not a big deal. Moving on.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
What personal jabs?
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
Yeah I worked in the heat for 15 years, It is hot and I much prefer sitting in front of a computer. More power to you but it is tough to do day after day.
asianway
Well-Known Member
If anyone has an issue with or takes offense to the article, they're part of the problem
jakeman
Well-Known Member
Nothing direct (other than maybe the height comment). I just thought it was heavy handed. I'm not offended. I just think it could have been funnier if it was more subtle.
NearTheEars
Well-Known Member
Mr Lou deserves some of it, but the whole thing is mocking his career. That's pretty personal.
ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
An insight into the process because he ran the article by me (and others) first. We concluded that height was fair game because Lou is the first one to make self deprecating height jokes. Everything else is about the public persona he has put out there. That makes all of the content/jabs in the article fair game.
RSoxNo1
Well-Known Member
The article was using an existing initiative inside Disney to mock how much of an apologist Lou is for the company. The joke is that he defends the company in a robotic way. I challenge anyone on here to show me how Lou doesn't act as a shill for the company. It's been a running dialog on this and other forums for years. The approach in the article (an April Fools one nonetheless) wasn't over the top because it didn't have to be. The reason why you and others are taking potential offense to it is because it hit so close to home, it was spot on and you all know it.
Lou sells himself and his opinions, but they're filtered. He knows that if he doesn't play nice, he doesn't get access. A significant portion of this thread has been about that very topic as it pertains to the Huffington Post.
jakeman
Well-Known Member
Yeah, just want to reiterate that I'm in no way offended. I found it mildly humorous, but it was a little eyerolling. I thought it had potential.
No worries. People found it funny, so it got the reaction desired.
ParentsOf4
Well-Known Member
Until Disney opens its books, all we can do is speculate using numbers that Disney publishes. So ...
Let's speculate.
Disneyland Paris (DLP) started hitting Disney's books in the second half of FY2004. It might surprise many but, 2014's abysmal performance aside, DLP has positively contributed to operating income most years since 2004. However, as you suggest, margins have not been good.
The thing to recall is that the DLP numbers proportioned to Disney's Parks & Resorts (P&R) are just a fraction of the segment's overall numbers. It's somewhat akin to hotel occupancy; DLR could have a horrible occupancy but since WDW makes up about 89% of all domestic hotel capacity, domestic hotel occupancy overwhelmingly is about what's happening at WDW.
The overall theme park operating margin is similar. Last year, Disney's domestic operations accounted for 82% of P&R revenue, and let's not forget that the remaining 18% included DLP, HKDL, and royalties from TDL. Effectively, DLP is a fraction of a fraction.
There is no question that DLP pulls the overall number down but the impact on margin is perhaps 2%, especially since Disney collects management fees from DLP and HKDL. In recent years, Disney's P&R margin is significantly worse than 2% when compared to WDW's Golden Age.
Don't get me wrong. Disney's international operations are pulling P&R's numbers down but it would be incomplete to heap P&R's lackluster operating margin solely on DLP.
That's a reason to question how P&R is being run. Why is Disney sinking billions into Shanghai if it's unhappy with overseas results? Perhaps Shanghai is about Iger's ego more than anything else? Perhaps the "Disney CEO Fumbles Entry to China" article had to be deleted exactly because it raised valid concerns?
Other factors should more than offset the negative impact of international operations:
- In recent years, Disney has increased prices faster than costs. This has improved margins but P&R is still well below its historical average.
- Domestic operations are experiencing record crowds. The incremental costs of handling an extra 10,000 Guests per day are much less than the costs of handling the first 10,000 Guests.
- Disney added 2 large cruise ships that are running at near-100% capacity and produce strong margins. DCL is perhaps the most expensive major cruise line in the world.
Regarding hotels, please recall that comparatively few hotels have been constructed this century. Therefore, it would be misleading to suggest that today's P&R margins are lower than they once were because of hotels. After all, Disney has increased rack rates considerably. Like theme park prices, hotel margins should be up as a result of these higher prices. If they are not, then something has changed to drive hotel margins down. What might it be?
One possibility is that Disney has a heck of a lot more DVC rooms.
Since the start of the century (and the start of the decline of Disney's margins), Disney has more than tripled the number of timeshare rooms. Guests who used to pay higher hotel rates are now paying a premium one year and paying greatly reduced rates for the next 49 years. It's even affecting occupancy (and margins) at the Moderate Resorts.
I'm a DVC member but I've railed against the financial evils of DVC for some time. They are hurting margins since they steal from future profits; great for a CEO who wants a big, fat bonus this year but bad for the next CEO. This is not an attack on DVC members. However, this is an indictment of Disney's current management, who are more concerned with this year's stock options than with the long-term profitability of the business they are supposed to steward.
That's the point. By constantly focusing on squeezing out a few more pennies this year, Disney's management creates new problems that affect profitability later.
To be clear, DVC is not the only reason for lower margins. However, it is representative of a corporate culture that's more concerned about immediate returns over long-term growth. As I've previously written, if Disney's current management was running the company in the 1980s, today's WDW would consist of the Magic Kingdom, Downtown Disney, and a bunch of timeshares.
But they'd sure as heck have bought back a lot of company stock.
Universal, which has had similar price increases as Disney in recent years, has seen its operating margin soar to over 30%. The difference is that Universal invested intelligently in its domestic parks and is reaping the rewards. And they are not building timeshares.
Instead of investing in Disney's single biggest money-making machine, Disney has looked for ways to squeeze pennies out of WDW. It's got a small army of intelligent and well-compensated professionals trying to figure out how to improve margins on napkins by 0.0000005 cents per unit but is unwilling to figure out how to grow P&R revenue by more than the unremarkable 5.9% it's averaged under Iger.
Failure to properly capitalize on the awesome earning power of WDW, along with other questionable decisions this century such as letting J.K. Rowling walk, have hurt P&R profitability.
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ford91exploder
Resident Curmudgeon
That is incredibly sad as the DL band has been part of the fabric of DL since the beginning, Looks like Mikey C's malign influence is now beginning to damage DL as well.
Travel Junkie
Well-Known Member
That is not what Disney is saying. What appears to be happening is that several members if not all of them are being reassigned or replaced. A revamped Disneyland Band is set to begin in July. It could possibly be a cost cutting measure to get younger cheaper and/or phase out aging members who have lost a step. The current band does skew older. It’s not hard to find talented musicians in Southern California so it may not be noticeable or it could be a huge loss. It’s too early to tell.
Smiddimizer
Well-Known Member
He'd be losing more than touch at 113 years.
DisneyOutsider
Well-Known Member
And as someone who pretty much has no feeling in my toes for close to half of the year, no way I'm wearing pants in the "impressively hot" climate. People who don't see that kind of heat are likely to have dramatically different reactions I'd guess.
I'm not complaining about the heat, I actually rather enjoy it, just saying I'd consider it a form of torture if anyone made me wear pants outside all day on a Florida Summers day.