The company has hired a record number of Imagineers, at no small cost, to expand the parks around the world, but especially Disneyland and Walt Disney World. None of these new attractions are duplicates. I wouldn’t call that “cheap” or “unimaginative.” One certainly couldn’t say the same for most of the opening day attractions at Magic Kingdom, most of which were basically duplicates of Walt’s prior creations at Disneyland. And in the case of the Rivers of America, a poor imitation of Disneyland’s, in my opinion.
The Walt Disney Company is a publicly traded company with a fiduciary duty to shareholders. Think of the cost of refurbishing the river, refurbishing the Liberty Belle, reshaping the river and all of the engineering and construction costs involved, as well as turning marginally unsuitable land into suitable land for building a new theme park expansion that reportedly has significant changes in elevation. All of this would take a significant amount of time, delaying the addition of any capacity expansions. All of this cost in order to preserve and maintain attractions that attract hardly any guests and bring in virtually zero revenue.
It’s not about being cheap. It’s about being responsible with the shareholders’ money.
