Cuts coming to every area of parks and resorts - thanks to Shanghai and Paris

[Cesar R M]

There is a simple answer if you are interested. The stores almost always stay or stayed open after the advertised closing time because there were people in the shops allegedly buying things. They cannot close the doors until everyone is out. It to me is the epitome of Guest entitlement to hang around for no real reason because the CM's have families too and their just standing around past closing, because they can, just to me means thoughtless people, but, that's another post for another time.

The point is that as far as when the close up... nothing has changed. When they open has!

Hu, Dont technically CLOSE doors to prevent more people from COMING IN.. and a Guest will only open the doors to let the guest out after they finish buying?

 

[HauntedMansionFLA]

Can you imagine if Oriental company had bought it?
or some Arabian Prince with huge ego/love for disney and giant wallet?

Comcast tried the hostile takeover a few years back too........It would be iñteresting to see what WDW would look like if that had happened.

 

[John]

A huge waste of money for the stupid things they claimed to do (aka raise guest spending).
Yet, it was an still necessary expending to upgrade the backbone and network/communications infrastructure.
Iger just tried to sell it as the best thing since sliced bread.. far beyond what it really was.

No doubt the back end needed and the things you mentioned need work. Doubt anyone would have had a problem with it. What we dont know is how much of the budget would have been needed for those upgrades vs what was used for MM+.Was Iger selling it to guest or Wall street? To what extent did that expenditure get us to the point we are today with the cuts that are being introduced? Also, we heard from someone on the inside and was told what a failure the bata testing was on MM+. But what we never heard was from someone on the inside that actually said that the back end needed updating. Did it need updating to accommodate MM+? Which may have not been necessary. None of us actually know what the budget was....do we? Which leads to another question, as a stockholder wouldnt the company have to divulge the budget? Has anyone asked Iger what the budget was? Seems like a legitimate question. All we have heard was rumors. Really the more I think about it the more questions I have. So many questions yet so few answers.

 

[tirian]

Animaniac and MansionButler answered the question well.

Not that I don't believe you, but I don't understand this logic. How does FP+ avoid the need to build new attractions (at least, in theory)?

If I understand this at all, it's deeply discouraging, because it means that instead of the ten years of staleness being the result of unintentional neglect or financial difficulties, it was a deliberate (and evidently cynical) policy. So I'd like to understand how on earth FP+ was supposed to obviate fresh attractions.

Better crowd distribution. By optimizing existing capacity, there would be less of a need to add any more (ie new attractions). It's why so many more attractions were added to the current FP lineup.

Well, the idea was to ensure that guests actually visit the walk-on rides which are now seldom walk-on. You might not go on JII if you didn't have the FP that the tiered system at Epcot forced you to take. They've artificially increased capacity by forcing guests to go on stale rides they'd otherwise skip. However, turns out we still actually like new attractions and many are disenfranchised by FP+ (see the appalling roll-out for APs). But we now get the pleasure of seeing rides like JII, LwtL, and GMR with actual wait times and rides like Pirates and Mansion with significantly increased waits. I never used to see 50-minute waits for Mansion. Now it peaks at 45-minutes on even the quietest days. I miss being able to get on HM four or five times in an hour. Now we have to preschedule our rides and only get on HM a few times in a vacation (it is my favorite. We used to go on it probably 10x in a week...grrr).

 

[tirian]

All back end computing and networking across WDW needed to be updated, but it wasn't done until the execs thought Magic Bands would sell more plush.

No doubt the back end needed and the things you mentioned need work. Doubt anyone would have had a problem with it. What we dont know is how much of the budget would have been needed for those upgrades vs what was used for MM+.Was Iger selling it to guest or Wall street? To what extent did that expenditure get us to the point we are today with the cuts that are being introduced? Also, we heard from someone on the inside and was told what a failure the bata testing was on MM+. But what we never heard was from someone on the inside that actually said that the back end needed updating. Did it need updating to accommodate MM+? Which may have not been necessary. None of us actually know what the budget was....do we? Which leads to another question, as a stockholder wouldnt the company have to divulge the budget? Has anyone asked Iger what the budget was? Seems like a legitimate question. All we have heard was rumors. Really the more I think about it the more questions I have. So many questions yet so few answers.

 

[tirian]

There is a part of me that wishes he did.

Who would have bought them and operated them correctly? That's the problem.

 

[John]

All back end computing and networking across WDW needed to be updated, but it wasn't until the execs thought Magic Bands would sell more plush.

DO you know what the exact budget was? How much it went over? What was back end updating versus what was spent on MM+? Or is to intertwined to give an accounting?

 

[tirian]

DO you know what the exact budget was? How much it went over? What was back end updating versus what was spent on MM+? Or is to intertwined to give an accounting?

I wasn't in that deep. @marni1971 or @Lee might know.

 

[marni1971]

I wasn't in that deep. @marni1971 or @Lee might know.

I never did get an actual figure after it headed to a billion and a half. I stopped asking basically.

(Though I did get rough figures afterwards before someone comes and accuses me of "saying this" or "saying that")

 

[tirian]

I never did get an actual figure after it headed to a billion and a half. I stopped asking basically.

(Though I did get rough figures afterwards before someone comes and accuses me of "saying this" or "saying that")

Last I heard was it finally hit north of $2 billion, but I can't prove the figure is correct, and the costs were spread throughout multiple divisions (making the actual cost difficult for most people to know).

Can you imagine everything that could have been done with that money?

 

[marni1971]

Can you imagine everything that could have been done with that money?

It hurts.

Being Orlando - centric, and with WDI reigned under control, you'd be looking at a fixed Epcot and a fixed DHS plus things like Space Mountain being the experience they should be again.

Yep. It hurts.

 

[rct247]

Funding for MM+ hardware replacements was not budgeted. You can only imagine what shape they are in a few years after the rollout with all the use and abuse.

 

[marni1971]

Funding for MM+ hardware replacements was not budgeted. You can only imagine what shape they are in a few years after the rollout with all the use and abuse.

For the originally specced ones or for their replacements?

I'll leave that one there.

 

[Cesar R M]

No. This is not a case of the local Old Navy still being "open" with five or six customers still browsing past closing time. The 'flagship' merch stores in the parks regularly stay open after closing to catch the exodus of people exiting the park.

I see, must be different in the states.. they call close the outside doors and just open them to let the customers out on closing time in my country.

 

[Cesar R M]

Comcast tried the hostile takeover a few years back too........It would be iñteresting to see what WDW would look like if that had happened.

I suppose more screen based attractions? And then we would never get the Potter parks?

 

[hopemax]

Funding for MM+ hardware replacements was not budgeted. You can only imagine what shape they are in a few years after the rollout with all the use and abuse.

Years? Since CM tickets originally couldn't make reservations in advance, and we had to use the kiosks, I remember after only a couple months, most having chipped screens in the bottom, right corner where the "Next" button was. It didn't help that it you looked at the tiny cursor point, it would read above where you were trying to touch, so you had to put your finger on the screen multiple times to get it to advance.

 

[wogwog]

I am not reading 795 posts to see if this up. But in case it isn't.... I am a Central Florida resident with lots of WDW manager neighbors. The MK calendar of park hours and entertainment is up showing from March 1 through August 31 only one MSEP each night. I am told by a neighbor scheduling is already cutting shifts as they can do one parade with less cast.

 

[Lee]

Last I heard was it finally hit north of $2 billion, but I can't prove the figure is correct, and the costs were spread throughout multiple divisions (making the actual cost difficult for most people to know).

Exactly the answer I was about to type.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Hu, Dont technically CLOSE doors to prevent more people from COMING IN.. and a Guest will only open the doors to let the guest out after they finish buying?

That is my understanding of it, yes! So this might be different, but, that point was not made clear so I am going to assume that the person saw the lights on and people inside. Either way, it's a minor point.

 

[wogwog]

Also I should mention there will be no MSEP on March 2 at all. I also was told the usual early opening around Easter will not happen. Only one day a week at 8 for EMH.