Bob Iger at WDW now ... BoD to Follow?

[SYRIK2000]

Why the need to get recently refurbed club level rooms plussed even further at a room where the deluxe holiday rate is over 1K a night? At that pricepoint the rooms by default would far exceed the luxury/amenity demands of a Board Director of a Dow 30 company, right?....

ROFLMAO

 

[Monorail_Red_77]

Eisner had a penchant for showing up incognito to random Disney Stores all over the place if he had an opportunity to. He wrote about it himself in his book. He spoke about liking to see how things really were and whether or not things could be improved. He also apparently liked to see if any employees were high performers who could exemplify what he wanted to their peers.

For all of the negatives people speak of Eisner. I think that he did some really great things as well with the parks and how he ran things. I'm just hopeful Disney can get someone in that position again before ol' Bob does too much more damage.

 

[jrhwdw]

First… I really want to make a horrible joke out of that but I'm trying to be good these days…

While Studios is above average of late if you take out Star Wars, it still does not make up for the dumpster fire of attendance they had from January through March.

Give me a week for the quarter to finish out and then we will look at some numbers property wide of attendance distribution…

Did taking down the hat scare off a lot of people? I know the insiders from just about every WDW fan site was there taking photos almost daliy. Did the deconstruction of the hat look bad to the average guest?

As for Frozen Fireworks, I don't understand why we(I am)are not all praising DHS for having nightly Fireworks again?! The last nightly show was Sorcery In The Sky, before F! even came to MGM! Before SWW started Pyro and Frozen came, it was just Rock and Roll pyro on July 4th and New Years!

 

[Monorail_Red_77]

Someone on this forum suggested moving One Man's Dream to Innoventions West which I think was a great suggestion.

I was one of those people. I'm sure I'm not the only one that mentioned it though...
Mine had to do with a historical ride or walk through that incorporate one mans dream with epcot history, etc, etc.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Did taking down the hat scare off a lot of people? I know the insiders from just about every WDW fan site was there taking photos almost daliy. Did the deconstruction of the hat look bad to the average guest?

As for Frozen Fireworks, I don't understand why we(I am)are not all praising DHS for having nightly Fireworks again?! The last nightly show was Sorcery In The Sky, before F! even came to MGM! Before SWW started Pyro and Frozen came, it was just Rock and Roll pyro on July 4th and New Years!

No… It's definitely not related to the hat.

 

[ford91exploder]

I can't jump on that optimistic viewpoint. While I HATE to say this, Star Wars is a property that attracts people regardless of the effort involved. And unless they are extremely out of touch with reality, pretty much everyone in the Disney company, including the board, should realize how popular the IP is and how rabid the fanbase is for anything thrown at them. They've got themselves a cash cow to milk dry here...

Going big with Star Wars will obviously attract far MORE people (people who aren't even big fans of the franchise will appreciate a well-made theme park experience), but the board has shown itself to be reluctant to make initial heavy investments in improving the guest experience. And given the fact that Iger is the one pitching the ideas and budget to them, i'm somewhat more worried given that he's not interested in the creative or guest experience side of things, he's into Wall Street and the bottom line. He and the board may be satisfied with attracting simply "enough" people by doing things on the cheap, rather than giving it their all to gain the maximum amount of people. We'll see, but they've definitely created a track record of severe disappointment for quite some time regarding WDW.

Cars Land had a creative (Lasseter) with a lot of political power to threaten executives into doing it properly (he likely had a lot of dirt to use against higher ups). James Cameron is working with Avatar Land, he's infamously picky and a pain to work with when things don't meet his expectations (he could probably cause at least some PR trouble if he doesn't like what he sees). Though there have even been cuts with Avatar, notable the original third ride initially reported (some sort of coaster apparently) and later cut from the original budget. But I haven't seen anything to indicate powerful creative people are in charge of Star Wars to ensure it's done properly without value engineering. That's a problem if left to the bean counters to slash and cut to pieces.

Exactly, I cannot imagine the current TWDC management spending big on attractions, New IP yes, Attractions no.

 

[xdan0920]

Simple, the same way previous darkrides have doubled capacity. By changing the single row ride vehicles to two or three row vehicles.

Pan in DLP holds six persons per boat. Although that converts to two modern Americans, so not much to be gained there maybe.

Whoa!!! Listen up you freedom hating foreigner. Two modern Americans equal 4 Europeans, at most.

 

[NowInc]

For all of the negatives people speak of Eisner. I think that he did some really great things as well with the parks and how he ran things. I'm just hopeful Disney can get someone in that position again before ol' Bob does too much more damage.

They need someone with Eisners ego and competitive nature...as that is what drove a LOT of what that man did for the company. He didn't like losing.

 

[ford91exploder]

I find it hard to believe that we ll see 2 billion spent on this park...im guessing around 1 billion with half for SW and half for the other side of the park be it Pixar etc...

I can't see them spending a nickel, Closing a underperforming park (DHS?) and selling the real estate I can see

 

[ford91exploder]

Why the need to get recently refurbed club level rooms plussed even further at a room where the deluxe holiday rate is over 1K a night? At that pricepoint the rooms by default would far exceed the luxury/amenity demands of a Board Director of a Dow 30 company, right?....

Not at the swamp kingdom...

 

[ford91exploder]

I've never been to DCA.

The attendance pattern so far this year shows that if it weren't for Star Wars weekends, studios would be having a really abysmal year. Instead, it's having a bad year.... First quarter of the calendar year was just horrid.

Spring break and Star Wars weekends have accounted for most of the big crowds that Hollywood studios have seen so far.

Perhaps the BoD will vote instead to put DHS out of it's misery entirely, The Guests will come no matter what WDW does right???. Discovery Island 2.0 as it were. Sorry I can't muster any enthusiasm until things start going vertical.

 

[jrhwdw]

No… It's definitely not related to the hat.

There was a rumor late 2014 or 2015 about more regular Fireworks Shows at DHS. Did taking down the Hat kill that rumor? Frozen Fun might have helped winter 2015 at DHS if they didn't take down the hat. Maybe DHS will return to Frozen winter 2016? Did MK have low Day Numbers between CADCT and FOF? My guess is just low numbers on MS until evening when MK still had MSEP along with CTM/Wishes.

 

[Electricsoup]

I can't see them spending a nickel, Closing a underperforming park (DHS?) and selling the real estate I can see

Underperforming doesn't equal a loss. It's still the 5th most visited park in the US (2014 numbers). That's sort of like tossing out the baby with the bath water.

There's a lot to be done there. It needs the most work. But that also means it has the most potential. Personally I'd love to see a few things (which I realize aren't all realistic based on the $$ involved):

-Move the parking lots across the highway, build a bridge and tram people over
-Use the parking lot space/space behind Star Tours to significantly improve the Lucasfilm IP in the park (Indy, Star Wars, etc) and give them room to grow into with their 5, 10, 20 year plans (they have those right? RIGHT?). Considering the amount of future they're giving this franchise (3 new core movies in addition to countless spin offs, Star Wars Rebels, etc) - they could almost double the size of the park with SW and I don't know that it would be enough for that fan base.
-Put Pixar land with Toy Story, using the space where the backlot tour was as well
-Return the Animation Studio to its former glory, and add a tour of the costuming area (I could stay there all day)
-Keep the nightly fireworks and Phantasmic, but maaaaybe update the later just a little bit.
-Moving of One Man's dream to Epcot. It'll get more love there.
-Some sort of regular movie experience like they're doing with Frozen fever. What a brilliant idea to get their captive audience hooked on yet another thing that they'll love.
-More gameplay testing with new items - they did this with Disney Infinity over SWW - why wouldn't they do this for all their games?

If they're really going to add the amount of stuff to the park that we're hoping (wishing? Praying?!?) they do, they're going to have to soak up the crowds yes - but also create more open space for them to roam. That park is cramped on a small crowd day. It needs a footprint enhancement in addition to all of the stuff it needs to add.

I realize this isn't rumor or even realistic, but a girl can dream.

 

[mahnamahna101]

You realize its going to cost probably 250M+ to move one attraction to another venue, right?

$250 million+ for Philharmagic moving to Main Street?

If that's true, TDO is ridiculous. It's building a movie theater on Main Street and putting something else in the current theater.

Shouldn't be more than $100 million. At least with Universal's kind of budgets

I don't know about tripling it (they could probably only expand it if Philharmagic wasn't there), but they could at least substantially up the capacity of the existing ride by altering the vehicles. Disneyland Paris' version of the ride has two rows of seats for the ship vehicles in comparison to WDW's single row. I'm not sure the full extent of HOW much that would increase capacity, but i'm sure it would definitely be a substantial amount.

Doubling the RV rows and keeping the same amount of RVs increases capacity by at least 65-70%. Don't know why people think I'm a loon for suggesting it.

No- it's only $50M. Didn't you see his earlier list?

It's moving Philharmagic to Main Street... not IASW to Epcot. No need to be a tool about how much better you are than everyone else.

It's reasonable to think $50 million or so to put Philharmagic on Main Street. Maybe $75-80 million? I'd argue you and PhotoDave thinking $250-300 million for a relocated movie theater is equally ridiculous.

 

[ford91exploder]

Underperforming doesn't equal a loss. It's still the 5th most visited park in the US (2014 numbers). That's sort of like tossing out the baby with the bath water.

There's a lot to be done there. It needs the most work. But that also means it has the most potential. Personally I'd love to see a few things (which I realize aren't all realistic based on the $$ involved):

-Move the parking lots across the highway, build a bridge and tram people over
-Use the parking lot space/space behind Star Tours to significantly improve the Lucasfilm IP in the park (Indy, Star Wars, etc) and give them room to grow into with their 5, 10, 20 year plans (they have those right? RIGHT?). Considering the amount of future they're giving this franchise (3 new core movies in addition to countless spin offs, Star Wars Rebels, etc) - they could almost double the size of the park with SW and I don't know that it would be enough for that fan base.
-Put Pixar land with Toy Story, using the space where the backlot tour was as well
-Return the Animation Studio to its former glory, and add a tour of the costuming area (I could stay there all day)
-Keep the nightly fireworks and Phantasmic, but maaaaybe update the later just a little bit.
-Moving of One Man's dream to Epcot. It'll get more love there.
-Some sort of regular movie experience like they're doing with Frozen fever. What a brilliant idea to get their captive audience hooked on yet another thing that they'll love.
-More gameplay testing with new items - they did this with Disney Infinity over SWW - why wouldn't they do this for all their games?

If they're really going to add the amount of stuff to the park that we're hoping (wishing? Praying?!?) they do, they're going to have to soak up the crowds yes - but also create more open space for them to roam. That park is cramped on a small crowd day. It needs a footprint enhancement in addition to all of the stuff it needs to add.

I realize this isn't rumor or even realistic, but a girl can dream.

I like your style, Unfortunately all those things are likely to remain dreams, The sad thing is I can remember a time when WDW was defined by a constant stream of fresh new things and there was always something NEW to discover.

 

[PhotoDave219]

There was a rumor late 2014 or 2015 about more regular Fireworks Shows at DHS. Did taking down the Hat kill that rumor? Frozen Fun might have helped winter 2015 at DHS if they didn't take down the hat. Maybe DHS will return to Frozen winter 2016? Did MK have low Day Numbers between CADCT and FOF? My guess is just low numbers on MS until evening when MK still had MSEP along with CTM/Wishes.

One at a time here….

There are more regular fireworks shows at Hollywood studios. You've got the frozenworks all summer and you had 15 days of Star Wars. That's a good one quarter of the entire year.

Second you're asking for a lot of interesting questions… I would need the dates that Day parade at MK was dark but my "this is my gut feeling, I'm at the store" thoughts are no. I do not have any actual data on where the crowd goes inside the park I just know whether a park is busy and how busy it is on a particular day. That's all the data set that I have can tell me.

 

[Electricsoup]

Don't tell anyone, but I like the Sing Along. The Royal Historians are hysterical.

The historians were the whole show! I mean don't get me wrong, seeing my daughter all geeked out over Frozen (she's super late to the party in her love of the movie) was amazing. But my husband and I adored the historians and I'd see it again just for them.

 

[Jahona]

Well after sleeping I've finally caught up on this post only to have more posts while I type. Man I must be slow this morning. The Pizza Hotdog combo has my attention I think I'll order it for my gaming group.

My take is that WDI has been working on a plan for HWS for some time now. That plan is now ready to go into production and with a budget set and the presentation being made we will see things moving along. We can speculate till the dogs come home what would/could change at HWS. For the most part we just know something will. At this point any addition would be an improvement to the park.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Look, I'm pretty sure @wdwmagic would prefer us to get remotely on topic....

 

[wdwmagic]

Guys, please remain on-topic.

Any bit of useful information is just getting lost with post after post of off-topic talk. If some of you can't stay on topic, you will be banned from taking part in the thread.