A Spirited Perfect Ten

Mike S

Mike S

Well-Known Member
BrerJon said:
Ah, I remember the excitement of waiting for all the announcements at D23 2011 - new Epcot countries? DHS redo? New E-tickets?

And what did we actually get? Hula dancers announcing Aulani. Wow Tom, that was epic.
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The only reason I'm looking forward to it is because it had been said we'll be getting Star Wars info in 2015 and D23 makes the most sense. If they're already announcing Star Wars for DHS might as well spill the beans on the whole park, right? A little too much positive thinking about WDW I know ;)
 
Kman101

Kman101

Well-Known Member
I have no info but I feel like we'll hear nothing about SW for DHS, instead it will be about DL getting it. We'll probably be tossed a bone with Toy Story Play Land if we're lucky. I'm sort of used to them disappointing me with announcements. Anything more would be a pleasant surprise in my book.
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
Good post as usual. I'm not really looking to defend Iger since I while heartedly agree that the amount of spending (especially at WDW) under his leadership is embarrassingly low. However, I think you have to consider what Eisner had to work with and what he accomplished. Particularly these 2 factors:
  1. Eisner may have inherited the #1 theme park in the world, but it wasn't the vacation destination it is today. Adding the resort hotels is a big driver of that revenue growth. WDW went from a theme park driven business to a hotel driven business. I don't have the breakdown, but I would assume that the hotels make more money than the parks. Eisner transformed WDW from a 1 or 2 day diversion to a week long vacation destination by adding the hotels, extra parks and side diversions like water parks and PI. It was a brilliant strategy and his execution was nearly perfect.
  2. Eisner also inherited a theme park business that was grossly underpriced. He oversaw huge price increases in the beginning years to get the parks up to "market" level. That also adds to the large revenue growth.
I'm not knocking anything that Eisner did. I'm just saying that what Iger inherited was a much more mature business than what Eisner inherited. Realistically speaking could Iger have added 2 more parks, 2 water parks and 20,000 hotel rooms to WDW? No way. So he had less of an opportunity to "grow" the business. His P&R focus has been more international and DCL driven. I don't agree with a lot of the neglect that has taken place under Iger's leadership, but even if we unfroze Walt's head and revived him he couldn't have competed with the growth under Eisner. He probably would have done a better job than Iger, even without a body;)
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Thanks for the well thought out response. You probably are right. Iger almost certainly doesn't have the same growth opportunities as Eisner.

Conversely, most questioned the wisdom of the original Disneyland. Many questioned the wisdom of building a theme park on central Florida swampland. I vividly recall Wall Street criticizing Epcot, having close ties there. Disney-MGM Studios was questioned as being one theme park too many in central Florida, especially with Universal Studios being built concurrently. Yet there was considerably less pushback from Wall Street on DAK and DCA, Disney's biggest domestic disappointments. (The current Disney management team deserves credit for the DCA redo, their biggest success to date.)

The thing is, conventional wisdom often is wrong. Wall Street is dominated by number crunchers, and most number crunchers don't have a clear understanding of how to run a business. As a result, they tend to follow conventional wisdom. They are needed as voices of reason, but the person running the show needs more imagination and better instinct.

Right now, those calling the shots at Disney are a group of "sharp-pencil guys" that Walt Disney complained about. Their jobs are made more difficult by a concentration on data of questionable value, such as the Guest surveys being discussed on this thread. There are all sorts of ways to manipulate Per Room Guest Spending, one of their favorite metrics, without actually improving the business.

Let's not forget that Disney's current executive management team passed on Harry Potter, handing their competition the single biggest theme park success of the 21st Century. Yet they approved MyMagic+, which has yet to realize any appreciable gains.

When it comes to Parks & Resorts, Iger and his team are out of their comfort zones, so they stick with conventional wisdom. Fortunately for the company, their instincts beyond Parks & Resorts are much better.

My opinion is that long-term domestic Parks & Resorts growth capex should be at about 4-to-5%, less than half of what it was under Eisner but roughly double where it is today.

Disney's leadership has recognized this. This is why there will be more big projects at WDW in the coming years.

But did it really need to take Iger's team 9 years to figure this out?
 
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Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
I'm an EE be glad you did not have to do 'Fields and Waves' and memorize Maxwell's equations,

Back when I went to school when you got an engineering degree in any discipline they made you do an intro to ALL of them Chemical, Mechanical and Civil so you could discuss problems across disciplines in an intelligent manner not that you would be an expert but you would have a grounding in the fundamentals.
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Do you see this interdisciplinary approach in todays engineers?

From my experience, in crossing out of one career path to another, current HR philosophy often discounts multidisciplinary experience in favor of years of single dicipine experience.

I have asked HR professionals the following question, "If you were seeking to staff the first electric light bulb factory and required 5 years of light bulb manufacturing experience, how long would it take to the expected headcount?"

You can hear their eyes glaze over.
 
Clamman73

Clamman73

Well-Known Member
Mike S said:
The only reason I'm looking forward to it is because it had been said we'll be getting Star Wars info in 2015 and D23 makes the most sense. If they're already announcing Star Wars for DHS might as well spill the beans on the whole park, right? A little too much positive thinking about WDW I know ;)
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What is the latest scoop though??? Will we see some Star Wars construction in Studios before an official announcement or will it be an announcement and then ground breaking?
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Thanks for the well thought out response. You probably are right. Iger almost certainly doesn't have the same growth opportunities as Eisner.

Conversely, most questioned the wisdom of the original Disneyland. Many questioned the wisdom of building a theme park on central Florida swampland. I vividly recall Wall Street criticizing Epcot, having close ties there. Disney-MGM Studios was questioned as being one theme park too many in central Florida, especially with Universal Studios being built concurrently. Yet there was considerably less pushback from Wall Street on DAK and DCA, Disney's biggest domestic disappointments. (The current Disney management team deserves credit for the DCA redo, their biggest success to date.)

The thing is, conventional wisdom often is wrong. Wall Street is dominated by number crunchers, and most number crunchers don't have a clear understanding of how to run a business. As a result, they tend to follow conventional wisdom. They are needed as voices of reason, but the person running the show needs more imagination and better instinct.

Right now, those calling the shots at Disney are a group of "sharp-pencil guys" that Walt Disney complained about. Their jobs are made more difficult by a concentration on data of questionable value, such as the Guest surveys being discussed on this thread. There are all sorts of ways to manipulate Per Room Guest Spending, one of their favorite metrics, without actually improving the business.

Let's not forget that Disney's current executive management team passed on Harry Potter, handing their competition the single biggest theme park success of the 21st Century. Yet they approved MyMagic+, which has yet to realize any appreciable gains.

When it comes to Parks & Resorts, Iger and his team are out of their comfort zones, so they stick with conventional wisdom. Fortunately for the company, their instincts beyond Parks & Resorts are much better.

My opinion is that long-term domestic Parks & Resorts growth capex should be at about 4-to-5%, less than half of what it was under Eisner but roughly double where it is today.

Disney's leadership has recognized this. This is why there will be more big projects at WDW in the coming years.

But did it really need to take Iger's team 9 years to figure this out?
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Agreed. They need to ramp up capex and I hope that the rumored projects get their full budget. Even though nothing they do can or will ever be the mythical Potter Swatter fanboys love to talk about Iger has to realize the mistake made and not repeat it.

I think maybe MM+ was almost in a way Iger trying too hard. Instead of recognizing the proven path to success they bought into this idea of using "technology" to somehow grow profits. Eisner made WDW a true multi-day or week long destination and drove tremendous growth. These guys are trying to add to that growth by milking every dollar out of every guest. They already have you here for a week thanks to Eisner now they are working on keeping people on property and spending. What they failed to realize is that if they continued the growth and innovation with attractions I would have been more than happy to empty my wallet at the parks.
 
71jason

71jason

Well-Known Member
ford91exploder said:
In my case it went down 100% - WDW's mini golf was expensive even at the 50% discount level, At the 15% percent level - well there are mini golf courses where I live which easily equal Disney's for far less money.
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I think Winter Summerland is the same as Hollywood Drive-In--right around $14 (before AP discount, which is now roughly comparable). I remember COngo River being about the same. Pirates Cove lists at $12.50. Jungle Rumble or the decrepit mine one are probably cheaper but ... they're not on the same level. WDW is right in line with the market on this one, at least when the courses are maintained enough that you don't have to walk past holes that are closed for safety reasons.

ETA: yeah, I was real big into mini golf for like a year
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
ParentsOf4 said:
Why would someone want to invest intelligently?

With Eisner's higher investment levels over his 21 years, Parks & Resorts compound annual growth rate was about 11%.

Universal's Theme Parks division, with a similar investment level, has realized a compound annual growth rate of about 13% since 2006.

Interesting.

Intelligent theme park investment produces superior growth. :)
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Careful... you're blurring lines here. The Eisner period included an agressive EXPANSION period that included multiple new locations, new parks, and new businesses. Growth due to nurturing and growth due to Expansion are very different things.. and we know Expansion is not infinite, and it often has negative consequences.

Eisner came in and they recognized that the parks were highly under valued and ripe for aggressive expansion. That is a point in the business that isn't universal nor necessarily repeatable over and over. I applaud that they had the guts to go and do all that stuff (even if the Disney Decade fizzled) but that was a moment in time that isn't necessarily 1 to 1 to another period in time afterwards. This is where stats comparisons start to tell muddied stories.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
71jason said:
I think Winter Summerland is the same as Hollywood Drive-In--right around $14 (before AP discount, which is now roughly comparable). I remember COngo River being about the same. Pirates Cove lists at $12.50. Jungle Rumble or the decrepit mine one are probably cheaper but ... they're not on the same level. WDW is right in line with the market on this one, at least when the courses are maintained enough that you don't have to walk past holes that are closed for safety reasons.
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A market that has played 'follow the leader' and is overpriced to start with. Mini golf for comparison up here in a pure resort town costs $8-9 on the high end, and is generally $5-6 for early bird rates. Up until recent additions that pushed prices up... $6-8 was more common in the last 3-5 years.

http://oldprogolf.com/ocean-city-maryland-mini-golf-pricing/
http://www.embersisland.com/courseinfo.php

Note, this is a pure resort town with all the normal 'vacation markups' you commonly see... in a place where the lot the course sits on probably costs upwards of a million dollars+... unlike FL swamp.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
ChrisFL said:
As much that has been said about SDMT being disappointing or too short, the fact that they were so effectively able to give the dwarfs animated faces (Screens) while still using animatronics should be greatly commended.
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I for one welcome our evolved AAs... Give me realistic views/movement.. I like the augmentation if it makes it more credible.

I mean.. who in their right mind complains that Maddam Leota isn't a AA? :) Its all about the end result
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
Nubs70 said:
Do you see this interdisciplinary approach in todays engineers?

From my experience, in crossing out of one career path to another, current HR philosophy often discounts multidisciplinary experience in favor of years of single dicipine experience.

I have asked HR professionals the following question, "If you were seeking to staff the first electric light bulb factory and required 5 years of light bulb manufacturing experience, how long would it take to the expected headcount?"

You can hear their eyes glaze over.
Click to expand...

ABSOLUTELY NOT!, It's why some projects get totally hosed where the mechanical people decide on one design but the material does not conduct heat well and the electronics fry as a result, Or the electronics people make a design too dense without regard to thermal conductivity of materials. Generalist educated engineering managers teams dont tend to make this kind of mistake while they may not know the answers they know the kind of people to ask the PROPER questions of.

What we've done is embed the HR recruiters 'On the floor' so they actually see and work with the people they are hiring it's been fairly successful as the recruiters are faced every day with reality and they don't get into self reinforcing loops.

HR admin for benefits and such is it's own office
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
GoofGoof said:
Agreed. They need to ramp up capex and I hope that the rumored projects get their full budget. Even though nothing they do can or will ever be the mythical Potter Swatter fanboys love to talk about Iger has to realize the mistake made and not repeat it.

I think maybe MM+ was almost in a way Iger trying too hard. Instead of recognizing the proven path to success they bought into this idea of using "technology" to somehow grow profits. Eisner made WDW a true multi-day or week long destination and drove tremendous growth. These guys are trying to add to that growth by milking every dollar out of every guest. They already have you here for a week thanks to Eisner now they are working on keeping people on property and spending. What they failed to realize is that if they continued the growth and innovation with attractions I would have been more than happy to empty my wallet at the parks.
Click to expand...

Actually a WELL DONE Star Wars land could be the mythical 'Potter Swatter' But TDO is too cheap to expend the necessary resources.
 

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