Good luck with the price of Uber once every single person who previously took DME has to go looking for alternate transportation.
Don’t you know that people flying into Orlando are using Uber and taxis now ? The service is being utilized by many who fly into the airports all over. Uber and taxi drivers are making a living like everyone else and will take advantage of getting the extra work. No difference than when we used to fly in and had to take a taxi to our resort. I don’t foresee huge price increases that will destroy their chances for fares.
Sure I know some are now. But a lot aren't. And will flood the alternate means of getting to Disney once the change takes place.
Also if you have a large family with luggage getting off of a plane with 150 other WDW guests, good luck getting to WDW in a reasonable amount of time.
He wouldn't be happy and probably would say "this isn't my company...."
No.
Mears ran the shuttle service for years, they run MDE, and they’ll run the shuttle again. I’m waiting to hear what they wanted from Disney to continue the contract that made it unprofitable. There is always a percentage of people who would prefer a shuttle to an Uber, Universals shuttles are still heavily used even though it’s a round trip charge.
Walt made plenty of decisions based solely on profit when he opened Disneyland, he’d continue to do the same today. Now he often has a plan to fix those things when he had more money, so there’s a difference there, but the idea he made every decision that every fervent Disney fan would love is off base. And Walt almost ran the company into the ground on several occasions and had a waning love for the theme park business near the end. His biggest gripe with today’s company would probably be ‘Where are my ski resorts and urban development projects and why are these rides from 1950 still open?’
I think you're missing the point. Scraping every dime from customers just to increase profits can result in diminishing returns. Walt created the concept of a magical place where the outside world did not infringe on the park experience. Visitors were "guests" and employees were "cast members". This was and still is a formula for a very successful business. This is where the company has taken a bad turn. While Walt apparently had his negative side, his final years were all about the Florida parks and perfecting what he had accomplished in Anaheim. We are seeing a management team that is turning loyal followers against the brand.
And hopefully some one would have reminded him if he wanted it to be his company maybe launching an IPO is a bad idea, unfortunately profit is now the biggest concern
I agree but I’d argue he knew when to let outside companies in, when to monetize, when not to…he even charged separate admission once for an attraction he personally bankrolled past the standard price and was the king of IP being added to his parks as an extension of his studio. He was ahead of a curve and in many ways the current management fell behind the rest of the industry in the economics of profitable resort areas. For all we know Walt would look at all the crazy things WDW has done and said ‘Damn I would never have wanted to be in the hotel business at all and why in gods name are we wasting money on movies’. Again I’m not personally loving the fees but I also don’t like the argument it’s not what Walt would have done. Walt also opened parks with giant dirt mounds and whole lands unfinished and sold bras on Main Street. I’m not knocking it but I’m just pointing out times are different and I’m one to think Walt would have understood and changed with them.
This is true. Public companies exist to please stockholders period. They are the true owners of the company. But even Walt understood control and profit, even to the point that he cut Roy’s family out of WED Enterprises when he founded it and moved top talent from the studio into it. Disney had to buy the company back eventually to make it a part of the overall company again. Just interesting tidbits.
Pay more and get less is the WDW motto lately.
