A Spirited Perfect Ten

[ChrisFL]

I think AAs and real sets do a much better job of truly transporting you into an environment than screens do.

I think Gringotts is a great ride. I don't think it works nearly as well as PotC or HM, attractions that were created in Walt's day.

At the end of the day, you are watching a movie with characters yelling at you while wearing 3D glasses. It just isn't the same.

I long to experience MM ... but when everyone who I know and respect, INCLUDING people who worked on Gringotts, tell me it is better than DA's headline attraction, I believe it.

I've been on Gringotts twice and the pacing is just so odd, and the storyline is...well, its better than Revenge of the Mummy at least? I give Gringotts high marks due to the overall experience from outside the bank to the elevator down 9 miles (yet that doesn't explain how you arrive at the exit having not gone UP 9 miles) and the screens are glorious....still, they're screens, the best part of the ride happens in the very beginning and the rest is just odd

 

[Disneyhead'71]

The crux of my post is that the argument is being made that fructose is somehow artificial or "fake", when it's not. I'm not disputing that it has been a substitute for sucrose.

Fructose exists in nature HFCS does not.

 

[George]

Fructose exists in nature HFCS does not.

HFCS is very similar to honey and glucose, fructose, and water do exist in nature. I would be willing to bet that the "honey sauce" used by KFC is HFCS. You could argue quite convincingly that it is over used in the food industry, but if you're arguing that it is inherently bad because the precise mixture of these molecules doesn't exit in nature then I could postulate that the pizza I just ate will certainly kill me.

 

[Mike S]

I've been on Gringotts twice and the pacing is just so odd, and the storyline is...well, its better than Revenge of the Mummy at least? I give Gringotts high marks due to the overall experience from outside the bank to the elevator down 9 miles (yet that doesn't explain how you arrive at the exit having not gone UP 9 miles) and the screens are glorious....still, they're screens, the best part of the ride happens in the very beginning and the rest is just odd

Yeah, that is pretty weird when you think about it. I don't have a problem with the pacing of the ride though. To me the reason the big drop is in the beginning and not the end is because that's what sends you deeper into the vaults of Gringotts where you weren't supposed to go. I suspect you were supposed to follow Bill and the Goblin straight ahead to get to your vault.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Disney's theme parks have not been "more successful now than they have ever been".

During the WDW era prior to Michael Eisner, Disney's Parks & Resorts business averaged a gross margin of 18.8%.

During Michael Eisner's 21 years as CEO, Disney's Parks & Resorts business averaged a gross margin of 22.2%.

Under current CEO Bob Iger, Disney's Parks & Resorts business has averaged a gross margin of 15.0%.

The domestic parks continue to age while investment levels at WDW have averaged less than 2% of domestic Parks & Resorts revenue, less than one-fifth of what they averaged under Eisner. Quality cut after quality cut is made at WDW while ride elements are allowed to remain broken for years. Disney no longer can fill its hotels and has stooped to filling them using shady timeshare practices. WDW's ticket prices are up a whopping 63% since Iger took charge. Meanwhile, domestic Parks & Resorts revenue is up by 62%, meaning Iger's "success" is driven by higher prices.

Under Bob Iger's leadership, Disney has forgotten how to run its theme parks.

Disney's Parks & Resorts has never been less successful.

I'm sorry, I read the very opposite of unsuccessful in your numbers. I too detest the conversion of WDW - America's greatest urban and leisure experiment - into kiddieland dumbo toontown, but financially unsuccesful it is not.

A revenue increase of 62% without any meaningful capital investment (that 2%) by common standards is considered a sign of theme parks being excessively well ran. And why would one invest when prices can be raised 63% and still record crowds are drawn?

Also, converting hotel rooms to time-shares means that WDW is apparently so successful Disney can sell its hotel rooms forty years in advance.

I would love to see a deeper exploration of P&R gross margin over the years. And numbers broken down further. Pre-Eisner Disney had two smallish resorts. Iger era P&R is building up an empire in Asia, has a cruise division, a financially complicated European resort. So they may be difficult to compare.
I'm willing to bet good money that Iger has a higher margin on P&R assets already existing under Eisner than Eisner's Disney did, but with total margin lowered by the law of diminishing returns for extra revenue generated, and offset by expenditure elsewhere. For example, A sells a park ticket for $100, generating a margin of 22.2%. B sells same ticket for 100 with same 22.2% margin, but manages to add tour, pin and extra f&b for another 100, but this later 100 has a margin of 7.8%. This lowers total margin to 15%. Still, B is the better exploiter of the asset, despite the lower total margin.

Lastly, related to the bit above, if revenue is up, that drastically (62%), owing to price increases (63%), but gross margin is still down, then somewhere there must be massive expediture increase. The money must be somewhere. Where? Not a rhetorical question, but something I actually wonder about.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

No, it doesn't.

But I always wondered. And one of her top pals in the Twitverse swore to me years ago that he knew she was really a he.

I only care about her words/actions. And I absolutely think she nailed it with that blog post. She's obviously younger than I am, but she experienced and fell in love with a Disney that no longer exists (except perhaps on cruise ships or in Tokyo) and that is me.

I have pondered what if I was like my favorite gal 'Angie' ... what if my first visit to WDW was only in 2004 instead of 1974? Would I even like the place? How would it touch me? Would it affect me on the same level walking into Epcot that walking into EPCOT Center in 1982 did? Would my age matter ... meaning if I were a child in 2004 would I have been as wowed as I was back in '74? All interesting questions to think about.

I always thought her name was Chri....

And that there was perhaps a whiff of jealous sexism in the smartest Disney blogger being a girl, and even more so a hint of surprise in that a woman would be this nerdily obsessive about theme parks.


Also, if dein Liebling visited for the first time in 2004, wasn't this the WDW of Eisner that you so idealise? To me, the main destruction had been accomplished before 2005, so anybody visiting in 2004 saw but a faint remnant of the WDW that once was. If one however blames Iger for WDW's demise, then the 2004 first time visitor must be said to have still seen WDW in its heyday.

 

[GoofGoof]

Lastly, related to the bit above, if revenue is up, that drastically (62%), owing to price increases (63%), but gross margin is still down, then somewhere there must be massive expediture increase. The money must be somewhere. Where? Not a rhetorical question, but something I actually wonder about.

You made some interesting points. I'll wait for PO4's response on most of it. On the expense increase I think it's a two fold answer. First, the costs of things like employee benefits has increased dramatically (even more than Disney park tickets). So even if CMs base pay isn't increasing as dramatically as park tickets the total labor costs are. Second, the cost of raw materials is also significantly up. It still takes a lot of "stuff" to maintain the parks and as they get older they need more work. Think of it like buying a car. When it's brand new you change the oil and rotate the tires a couple of times a year. As the car gets older it needs more major repairs. WDW is getting old and deferring large capital refurb projects in the recent past has resulted in increased maintenance costs down the road. A third category could be executive compensation and bonuses. I don't have any hard numbers on this, but from reading here long enough I get the impression that the P&R management team is bloated both at the corporate level and at the local level. If that's the case then it is probably another driver of increased costs.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I hope she raises her goal of hitting at least 75% of her notes. I wonder why Disney hasn't favored the Demi version of the long..

Disney did push the Demi Lovato version and it just kept getting ignored.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Ponder this: like it or loathe it, but DCA 1.0 was a more cohesive thematic product at opening than three out of four WDW gates are today.

We shall simply ignore execution for the sake of argument.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

I think AAs and real sets do a much better job of truly transporting you into an environment than screens do.

I think Gringotts is a great ride. I don't think it works nearly as well as PotC or HM, attractions that were created in Walt's day.

At the end of the day, you are watching a movie with characters yelling at you while wearing 3D glasses. It just isn't the same.

I long to experience MM ... but when everyone who I know and respect, INCLUDING people who worked on Gringotts, tell me it is better than DA's headline attraction, I believe it.

Clearly, the UNI's overseers in China see it the same way. The resort being planned there now stands to have a park that will likely compare favorably to TDS. A park that will not have the screen dependency that we have in FL ... Diagon Alley, as nice as it is, doesn't put UNI on that level.

Both require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. Disney fans see screens everywhere. Universal fans see either small scale vignettes with moving mannequins or low lit warehouses with cheesy effects.

Gringott's has it's problems. It is NOT Universal's best attraction ever. That would be The Amazing Adventures of Spider-man. But Gringott's problems are not that is uses screens. Clunky storytelling and horrible pacing first and for most. The cutting of the rock work tunnel after the first drop makes it feel out of context. But all in all, it is still a solid E Ticket attraction. Parts quite spectacular. That is more than can be said for the NEW AA Extravaganza known as UtS:JotLM.

 

[culturenthrills]

Just for clarity- are you saying you would have been okay with a new state of the art Frozen ride - in EPCOT?

No but if they were gonna put a Frozen ride in Norway it would have been waaaaay better if it was a brand new state of the art ride(like Tokyo will probably get) instead of shoehorning it into a low capacity flume ride

 

[GymLeaderPhil]

Anyone report on Iger compensation up ~35% for 2014???

Well we know where the 35% went from the original 50% mini-golf discount for Passholders.

Case closed. ParentsOf4 didn't even have to open up Excel.

 

[NearTheEars]

Sadly, they're coming.

Almost every event (a few Food and Wine events were largely busts, but more than made up for by the dozens of others that were not) they add winds up being very, very $uce$$ful and that only leads to more. A few I expected haven't happened yet, but I'm confident they will.

The only one that sounded remotely worth while to me was Harambe Nights. I assume they will just keep tossing them out there and see what sticks.

I've said it before, as long as these events are add ons, and aren't taking anything away from a regular day at the parks, I'm all for it.

 

[StageFrenzy]

For those of you who are interested, Disney released its 2015 proxy statement today.

Total Compensation:

• CEO Bob Iger: $46.5M, up 35%
• CFO Jay Rasulo: $16.2M, up 51%

Anyone care to calculate the CEO-to-CM pay ratio on that one?

If I gave Rasulo a ten percent raise and fired Iger would I notice the difference?

 

[Mike C]

Changes they just keep a come'n. Now the petty. AP discount of 50% for mini golf to 15%. So instead of AP holders putting 50% into the pockets of Disney likely most will not part with anything now. Silly perk to take away. The rehab of Winter mini must be cost'n. Sign of the times.

Boat rentals went from a 30% discount to a 15% discount this month also. There's probably other "stealth cuts" as well. And a rumored increase in price for Tables in Wonderland coming sometime this year.

 

[StageFrenzy]

Both require a fair amount of suspension of disbelief. Disney fans see screens everywhere. Universal fans see either small scale vignettes with moving mannequins or low lit warehouses with cheesy effects.

Gringott's has it's problems. It is NOT Universal's best attraction ever. That would be The Amazing Adventures of Spider-man. But Gringott's problems are not that is uses screens. Clunky storytelling and horrible pacing first and for most. The cutting of the rock work tunnel after the first drop makes it feel out of context. But all in all, it is still a solid E Ticket attraction. Parts quite spectacular. That is more than can be said for the NEW AA Extravaganza known as UtS:JotLM.

There is too much telling in modern attractions, give me sights, sounds and SHOW ME. I want depth in my show scenes. Details that are easy to miss on one ride through. That is the charm of the classic attractions. Flow seems to be important as well, Gringotts, 7DMT and Mermaid all have horrible flow.
.

 

[Kman101]

So I read on Orlando Theme Park news that they're moving the entrance to Kali River Rapids where the former legacy FastPass ticket kiosks were.

 

[Nemo14]

For those of you who are interested, Disney released its 2015 proxy statement today.

Total Compensation:

• CEO Bob Iger: $46.5M, up 35%
• CFO Jay Rasulo: $16.2M, up 51%

Anyone care to calculate the CEO-to-CM pay ratio on that one?

For the record, I got an $11 per month raise this year - that's $132 per year!!

 

[Absimilliard]

I've seen Allain Litaye is ending his blog, which is sad as it was one of the better ones out there.

I read his column on DLP's future and he has heard many of the same things I've been told regarding upgrades to existing attractions and plans for new ones down the road as we move toward the 25th anniversary, which will kick off in HUGE fashion in just 27 months.

You do know the resort is closing down to be replaced by condos and Walmart, right?

I was just at Disneyland Paris last sunday and it is remarkable the work being done in the parks right now. Long gone smoke effects have reappeared, the Hitchhiking Ghost at Phantom Manor has reappeared after over a year and a half of hiatus and more audio-animatronics are being refurbed.

I was on the last public train for Space Mountain: Mission 2 and it was surreal: nearly all the effects inside were working! The ride was smoother than usual as well. It is sad that over at DLP, a "resort with bad upkeep", Space Mountain there is going into refurb in better of a shape than the mess I rode after a rehab at WDW!

The future is looking very bright indeed at Disneyland Paris.

 

[TalkingHead]

One thing I will give to UNI's BRAND advocates online is that Antojitos has amazing food and drink at reasonable prices. I'll go even further. They have the best Mexican food I've had in FL in the 21st century and it compares favorably with some great Mexican restaurants I've dined at in California and Arizona.

Since Antojitos got the Spirited seal of approval, I'm curious what people would recommend on the menu. I know a lot of people mention the tableside guacamole. Anything else come highly recommended?