"Why we're glad we're not Orlando"
Heh, I bet.
I love how Fat Al regularly criticizes Florida's guests and CMs as huge, sloppy, and fashion-challenged.
Tom Staggs sounds like the right guy. I just wish he'd make some frequent visits to WDW, because all the head guys are STILL just mainly concerned with DL. I hope that does change if DCA and DL's attendance and profits keep rising.
What blows is DL's TL is pretty much locked for a big refurb and a new E attraction, possibly a new People Mover. But now they're planning a big Frontier Land refurb on top of it. Good lord.
YES, the execs do need to spend more time in Florida. The DL/WDW dynamic was one thing Michael Eisner understood before he foolishly put Paul Pressler in charge of DL. Eisner dumped money into DL and WDW for over a decade, adding attractions and approving massive anniversary campaigns (DL's 35th and WDW's 25th). The company also featured several annual television specials with
real A-list talent. Maintenance was superb, parades were regularly updated, and the general attitude was "build it and they will come." And people did. Eisner is the reason WDW became a destination vacation instead of just part of a trip to Florida.
I can't prove this, but I suspect Eisner's arrogance—he imagined himself a modern entertainment genius—also contributed to the high quality investment into WDW. He wanted the Florida Project to constantly outrank every other vacation destination because it deserved the praise, not because guests flocked there on pixie-driven nostalgia. Eisner assigned the best Imagineers and architects to WDW, eager to maintain the Disney tradition of "nothing but the best."
Of course, we all know what happened. Eisner wasn't a genius; he just hired the right people. Blinded with delusions of grandeur, he killed his accomplishments by stupidly micromanaging as many departments as possible, and overspending on "his" Magic Kingdom, DLP. Then he panicked and starting cutting costs in exactly the places he needed to keep spending money (films, American parks). He stopped taking risks, made every animated feature the same, and churned out DCA and HKDL. And now we're still dealing with those repercussions.
But I digress. Some of the execs need to take off their rose-colored, this-is-my-childhood-at-Disneyland glasses and invest in the Cash Cow that makes the American parks profitable—WDW. Walt knew the Florida Project would be bigger than DL could ever hope to be, and he was willing to move his company's operations to Florida. If Walt wasn't tethered by nostalgic feelings toward DL, Lasseter and Co. shouldn't be, either.
Come on, WDC. WDW is littered with closed restaurants, shows, and shops; barely-maintained rides; and execs whose business strategy is to ride somebody else's oiled machine into retirement. Give customers a new TDO leadership team that isn't afraid to commit to quality.
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To Staggs' credit, he isn't pulling the plug on FLE. He reportedly wants to spread the money to multiple attractions in the MK instead of investing it all into Princesses for Potty Trainers. It actually looks like several good things are on their way to Florida right now.
But TDO's decisions continue to undermine anyone else's good intentions: Lights of Winter, fewer Christmas offerings, less entertainment, Space Mountain's half-hearted refurb, overpriced table service restaurants, overpriced hard-ticket events, fewer perks at the hard-ticket events, no plan for PI, no upgrades to dark rides in the MK, the same day parade since 2000, etc.
