Disney and Universal: Two very different paths

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fosse76

Well-Known Member
Jimmy Thick said:
Universal will never be able compete with Disney in Florida just based on the available land they can build upon. Also consider the long term assets of both companies beyond theme parks and Comcast seriously falls short in that department compared to what Disney has.

While the uninformed want to pat Comcast on the back for building a nice themed Potter area, reality suggests there is a huge possibility Comcast is on barrowed time.
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Comcast is no. 46 on the Fortune 500. Disney is 66. I think Comcast is going to be around awhile.
 
F

fosse76

Well-Known Member
Figment2005 said:
When it comes to theme I feel Universal does have some catching up to do. IoA is light years ahead of UO, but is still lacking in certain areas where Disney excels. Port of Entry and Hogsmeade are top notch, but they both still fall short in one primary area. Failure to cover all visible angles. When riding Hulk, one can easily see the supports for the facades of PoE. I'm not talking ground level, I am talking about upper levels that could easily have been finished to make the transition seamless.
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Yeah, I always hear people commenting how they are never coming back because they can see the back of Port of Entry. :rolleyes:
No one cares.

Figment2005 said:
With Hogsmeade, my only issue is with the FJ show building. The forced perspective of Hogwarts is immaculate, but beyond that, all that Uni did was tile brick that matched along a flat wall. I would like to believe, with proof being what they are currently doing, that Disney would have encased the entire visible part of that building in rock work as to hide any deviation from the theme. Disney has mastered the art of hiding show buildings.
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You can see Soarin', in all its un-themed glory, quite clearly from World Showcase. The Enchanted Tiki Room's show building is visible from Splash Mountain. You can see The Haunted Mansion's from the queue just before you enter. You can see POC's from the train.

Figment2005 said:
Universal is, at the moment, leading the way with leading edge E ticket thrill ride attractions, but Disney still ties the whole package together much better.
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Just barely. Disney has a few visible backstage areas too...[/quote]
 
Figment2005

Figment2005

Well-Known Member
fosse76 said:
Yeah, I always hear people commenting how they are never coming back because they can see the back of Port of Entry. :rolleyes:
No one cares.


You can see Soarin', in all its un-themed glory, quite clearly from World Showcase. The Enchanted Tiki Room's show building is visible from Splash Mountain. You can see The Haunted Mansion's from the queue just before you enter. You can see POC's from the train.


Just barely. Disney has a few visible backstage areas too...
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[/quote]
If you feel like you must nit pick Disney into the ground then I have a right to make observations against Universal.
 
Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
fosse76 said:
You can see Soarin', in all its un-themed glory, quite clearly from World Showcase. The Enchanted Tiki Room's show building is visible from Splash Mountain. You can see The Haunted Mansion's from the queue just before you enter. You can see POC's from the train.
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You would not believe what could be seen from the old Skyway. No one cared then and even fewer care now. It is amazing how short some memories are when they say stuff like...Disney never used to do that, the quality has declined. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun, however, what they really amount to, are things that we failed to notice before.
 
Bairstow

Bairstow

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
You would not believe what could be seen from the old Skyway. No one cared then and even fewer care now. It is amazing how short some memories are when they say stuff like...Disney never used to do that, the quality has declined. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun, however, what they really amount to, are things that we failed to notice before.
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Not to mention that you've always been able to see all kinds of backstage (or at least unthemed) stuff from the train ride.
 
Jimmy Thick

Jimmy Thick

Well-Known Member
TP2000 said:
In 2002, Enron was ranked #5 on the Fortune 500.
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Sorry, but people always brining up Enron to compare them to Disney or even Comcast is rather laughable, and chances are, people don't even know the whole Enron story.

Lets give a cliffnote version and see how it compares?

First, Enron had extremely confusing financial statements, Disney and Comcast for that matter, are extremely transparent. Enron never let the public now just how they were making money, and like 100 times more than they possibly could. Someone did research and found out, something was not right and Enron continued not to tell people how they were making billions. Billions that did not exist.

The stock started sinking, and Enron CEO's told investors to stay the course, all the while they were dumping massive amounts of their own personal stock, as much as they could on every given day.

All and all, I just don't see, or think its possible in this day and age that we will ever see another Enron, too many people have too much money wrapped up in stock for it to happen again. That's why companies like Disney and Comcast to an extent have just about complete transparency with how they make money, and what they do with their money. There is just no way after the aftermath of Enron and how it effected the lives of so many it could happen again without someone sounding the Bat signal before hand.

Which leads to the great NextGen and how Disney is apparently losing billions on something worthless.

If NextGen was a failure and a loss, it would have affected the stock dramatically, it hasn't. Remember that when you read all those negative Nancy Micechat reports.

* Jimmy roll's his eyes *

Jimmy Thick- The Enron analogy, dead and buried.
 
raymusiccity

raymusiccity

Well-Known Member
Goofyernmost said:
You would not believe what could be seen from the old Skyway. No one cared then and even fewer care now. It is amazing how short some memories are when they say stuff like...Disney never used to do that, the quality has declined. Unfortunately, there is nothing new under the sun, however, what they really amount to, are things that we failed to notice before.
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I was never bothered by being able to see the show buildings from the Skyway, but, seeing the rail that guided the subs through the lagoon really burst my bubble :-(
 
GoofGoof

GoofGoof

Premium Member
Jimmy Thick said:
Sorry, but people always brining up Enron to compare them to Disney or even Comcast is rather laughable, and chances are, people don't even know the whole Enron story.

Lets give a cliffnote version and see how it compares?

First, Enron had extremely confusing financial statements, Disney and Comcast for that matter, are extremely transparent. Enron never let the public now just how they were making money, and like 100 times more than they possibly could. Someone did research and found out, something was not right and Enron continued not to tell people how they were making billions. Billions that did not exist.

The stock started sinking, and Enron CEO's told investors to stay the course, all the while they were dumping massive amounts of their own personal stock, as much as they could on every given day.

All and all, I just don't see, or think its possible in this day and age that we will ever see another Enron, too many people have too much money wrapped up in stock for it to happen again. That's why companies like Disney and Comcast to an extent have just about complete transparency with how they make money, and what they do with their money. There is just no way after the aftermath of Enron and how it effected the lives of so many it could happen again without someone sounding the Bat signal before hand.

Which leads to the great NextGen and how Disney is apparently losing billions on something worthless.

If NextGen was a failure and a loss, it would have affected the stock dramatically, it hasn't. Remember that when you read all those negative Nancy Micechat reports.

* Jimmy roll's his eyes *

Jimmy Thick- The Enron analogy, dead and buried.
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Don't kid yourself. We most likely will see another Enron like collapse in our lifetimes. The facts and circumstances won't be the same, but accounting fraud is and will always be a risk for investors. Worldcom happened right around the same time as Enron and was more of a "traditional accounting fraud" case. The company faced a fundamental cHange in the market they were in and cooked the books to try to cover up mounting losses. The rules around accounting for derivatives have been tightened up significantly after Enron, but in 2008 we saw major issues with credit default swaps at some prominent companies so the problem wasn't completely solved forever. There are tighter rules now around disclosing off balance sheet financing and special purpose entities, but those things still exist and can be quite complex so it's easy to see how a company could get into trouble without anyone realizing what was going on. Tighter regulations don't always lead to a fraud free environment. MF Global operated in a highly regulated industry with a lot of oversight and still managed to fraudulently swindle customers out of billions. This was well after Enron and after Sarbanes Oxley was passed.

Unfortunately, the way the world works is there are really smart people who will find ways to push the envelope and eventually someone crosses the line from doing a great job creating value for the company (and stuffing their own pockets) and committing fraud. Sometimes the people are just plain unethical and sometimes the line gets blurred, but either way it can bring down a huge, "too large to fail" company (anyone heard of a company called Lehman Brothers?)

All that being said there is no smoking gun pointing towards Disney or Comcast being caught up in any of this. Comcast is probably more at risk of some sort of decline in value of its traditional cable assets (similar to Worldcom) but they are much more diversified and have a more forward thinking management team.
 
Tony Perkis

Tony Perkis

Well-Known Member
GoofGoof said:
I think his point is that in 2002, prior to its collapse, nobody would have thought the 5th largest company in the country would fail. It was in direct response to a post stating that Disney and Comcast weren't going anywhere because they were ranked in the top 100.
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Fair enough, but Comcast is 50 years old this year. I think an Enron like collapse is incredibly unlikely.
 
A

AgeEight-E

Active Member
My experience this fall was that, as impressive as IoA is -- and my girlfriend and I enjoyed it very much -- Disney is indeed better at hiding unthemed bits overall.

That said, I will say I was shocked at how much of the show building for BOG was visible from the train at the MK. Through the trees in the vicinity of Tom Sawyer you get a full view of the flat warehouse-like back of the building, complete with the castle miniature visible on top, leaving no doubt as to what you're seeing and shattering whatever forced perspective illusion they had pulled off. I gave it a pass because I figure the area's still not finished and they're likely to add more landscaping to hide it later on, but still, it was jarring.
 
ABQ

ABQ

Well-Known Member
AgeEight-E said:
My experience this fall was that, as impressive as IoA is -- and my girlfriend and I enjoyed it very much -- Disney is indeed better at hiding unthemed bits overall.

That said, I will say I was shocked at how much of the show building for BOG was visible from the train at the MK. Through the trees in the vicinity of Tom Sawyer you get a full view of the flat warehouse-like back of the building, complete with the castle miniature visible on top, leaving no doubt as to what you're seeing and shattering whatever forced perspective illusion they had pulled off. I gave it a pass because I figure the area's still not finished and they're likely to add more landscaping to hide it later on, but still, it was jarring.
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Welcome to the forum!
And yes, some of those views are odd, but like BOG, IASW, Pirates, all have been visible for decades. None are as bad as this one though.
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Goofyernmost

Goofyernmost

Well-Known Member
AgeEight-E said:
My experience this fall was that, as impressive as IoA is -- and my girlfriend and I enjoyed it very much -- Disney is indeed better at hiding unthemed bits overall.

That said, I will say I was shocked at how much of the show building for BOG was visible from the train at the MK. Through the trees in the vicinity of Tom Sawyer you get a full view of the flat warehouse-like back of the building, complete with the castle miniature visible on top, leaving no doubt as to what you're seeing and shattering whatever forced perspective illusion they had pulled off. I gave it a pass because I figure the area's still not finished and they're likely to add more landscaping to hide it later on, but still, it was jarring.
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Well, you can't really grow trees overnight. I'm sure it will fill in. I think Walt, talking about DL said, the park is wonderfully landscaped and it will get better looking as the time goes by and the trees mature.
 

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