News Disney names D’Amaro as Chairman Disney Parks Experiences and Products

[Tjaden]

We've had a new boss for over an hour and Horizons, TGMR, and UoE haven't been reopened yet! NEXT!

 

[Imagineer45]

So again I ask, why would the President and COO, the number two person at the company, be free of any blame for a whiff?

Also, you don't spend an extra 50% trying to fix something that has been "relatively well-received."

I never said Iger has 0% blame for HKDL and other late Eisner projects. But the responsibility absolutely lies primarily with Eisner. To be fair, I also give Eisner credit for Expedition Everest even though it was opened after Eisner left.

If you have ever been a part of a management team, openly contradicting and fighting your boss on his decisions is not a good strategy. Just look at Staggs, who was similarly COO. Iger was not a huge fan of his and he is gone. Iger's job was to serve Eisner, not overrule him, even as a second in command. This is all elevated considering that Iger was coming from a media background having been at ABC, which was not even a part of Disney until 1996. It was never his place as someone with no theme park experience to challenge Eisner, a man who had opened three parks and countless attractions during his 16 years as CEO at the time Iger became COO in 2000.

If you are telling me that the two Little Mermaid refurbishments in 2012 and 2014 that closed the ride for a combined couple of months cost $50 million, half of what was spent during the years constructing it, then that is news to me.

 

[No Name]

I'm not going to argue against that. I was only arguing against the point that (real) money hasn't ever been spent by Iger on parks.

There are areas that Disney has spent money I would take exception to. I have never defended Pixar Pier or the Riviera, for example.

The Riviera is one of the few things that I’ve liked and you haven’t.

 

[The Grand Inquisitor]

Congratulations @RealJoshDAmaro, don't let me down!

Another great decision Bob!

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I’m a fan of Eisner to an extent but if you guys want a detailed opinion of how he ruled Disney and treated those loyal to him read Michael Ovitz autobiography, self titled book Who is Michael Ovitz? Eisner and Ovitz where good friends since his teenage years and once they both settled into their careers Eisner hired Ovitz into a horrendous job in Disney where he explains how he was stripped away from his job title Powers and had zero control, this kind of leads into how he ruled the company via fear and probably why Iger had no say so whatsoever and how Roy stripped it all away from him, once Eisner hired Ovitz, he was supposed to answer to him directly but he made it so ovitz Answers to some other lower employee at which point a lawyer told him not to contact Eisner, etc.

All because Eisner hated Hollywood Agents, so he hired the guy who was running the Hollywood Agents to get them to lower their prices, that’s how Disney was back in those Days. He goes into detail on how Robin Williams also got screwed out of any royalties from Aladdin and the only way Robin Williams agreed to do the Genie was by tricking Eisner into buying him an expensive painting. This just paved the way into the way Disney is right now, carrots and sticks, From what they say if Eisner didn’t get it, he didn’t make it, Iger just delegates it and this is why galaxy’s edge backfired on him...

Another part of the second half of the Eisner story is his incredible ability to alienate people. Disney seemed to build a lot of great relationships during the first half of tenure. By the second half, it seemed less and less people wanted to work with Disney largely because they'd clashed with Eisner.

It was all very strange by the end.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I never said Iger has 0% blame for HKDL and other late Eisner projects. But the responsibility absolutely lies primarily with Eisner. To be fair, I also give Eisner credit for Expedition Everest even though it was opened after Eisner left.

If you have ever been a part of a management team, openly contradicting and fighting your boss on his decisions is not a good strategy. Just look at Staggs, who was similarly COO. Iger was not a huge fan of his and he is gone. Iger's job was to serve Eisner, not overrule him, even as a second in command. This is all elevated considering that Iger was coming from a media background having been at ABC, which was not even a part of Disney until 1996. It was never his place as someone with no theme park experience to challenge Eisner, a man who had opened three parks and countless attractions during his 16 years as CEO at the time Iger became COO in 2000.

If you are telling me that the two Little Mermaid refurbishments in 2012 and 2014 that closed the ride for a combined couple of months cost $50 million, half of what was spent during the years constructing it, then that is news to me.

Everest was all eisner

It also is to this day an engineering failure.

People that laud it REALLY need to go on some rollercoasters...it’s nothing earth shattering without the yeti

 

[EricsBiscuit]

For what it's worth, Pixar Pier didn't just cost $100 million, it cost more than double that. The makeover was done in an attempt to show that WDI could do things quickly, efficiently, and at a low cost, yet failed at all of these.

Like so many recent WDI projects, it focused on the details without stepping back to look at the bigger picture and ask whether the individual elements added up to a greater sum. For the most part, the execution of each piece was okay, but the fundamental concept was so flawed that it was never going to amount to much. The people approving the project had so little concept of what's reasonable for a construction project that they never thought to question the budget, nor why so many elements weren't completed in time for the grand opening. And all of this for a project that literally added nothing to the park's capacity, just redecorating existing facilities.

Aside from the aforementioned Pixar Pier, the additions to the park under Iger's lead have been rather checkered. Without getting into the failures of the MyMagic+ system, here are a couple of the most obvious missteps from physical park projects off the top of my head:

• The Little Mermaid dark ride cost $100M (the same amount as Everest 5 years prior) for a modest D-ticket attraction, only to require several costly overhauls within the first few years of operation to attempt to fix mistakes that should have been caught early in the design process, especially considering it was built twice
• Luigi's Flying Tires cost around $250M in an attempt to replicate the simple charm of DL's original Flying Saucers attraction from the 1960's, but failed to catch on with guests due to oversized vehicles, inefficient boarding procedures, awkward maneuvering and just a general lack of fun. Its replacement does much better with guest satisfaction, but cost another $75M, making the total cost for that site unfathomable for what it is
• Despite the generally-positive reception of WDW's Toy Story Land, it has a huge cost, not only in terms of money (I believe it was over $200M) but also opportunity cost in WDW's most landlocked park. Instead of maximizing limited space, which has often led to WDI's most memorable work in the past, they used 11 acres to add an exposed coaster, simple flat ride, restrooms, and a snack bar. This was their chance to make the most of an expansion of the park's footprint, and it was squandered
• But perhaps the biggest misstep of all was DL's Galaxy's Edge, which cost over $1B for the land itself, plus hundreds of millions spent throughout the resort for rerouting Rivers of America, park-wide path widening, a massive parking structure, and other general capacity improvements, only to have a summer DL's lightest attendance in years. The ensuing panic caused cuts throughout the resort because they were operating at a capacity that never materialized, and forced them to trot out MSEP yet again in a desperate pleat to draw people in. Summer 2019 at DLR was an unmitigated disaster, which the current pandemic is helping to erase from public memory. The WDW version opened to better reception, due partly to the pathetic state of the Studios park after so many years of reductions with no replacements

Not to mention all the smaller missteps in determining what's possible, feasible, viable and worthwhile in a real operating theme park that aren't as visible to the average park-goer. Sure Flight of Passage is a fun experience, but how many CMs does it take to operate the behemoth building for an embarrassingly low hourly throughput? Why was Be Our Guest originally designed to only have certain dining rooms available during certain meals, when they always knew demand would outstrip supply? Was anybody really expecting that the majority of park guests were going to LARP along with the CMs in SWL? And while we've gotten additions here and there, why have the majority of park areas remained untouched for decades?

Until the creatives, operators, designers and decision-makers can get out of their individual silos and start talking to one another, all these problems are going to persist. Sure, Iger has spent a lot of money on very few meaningful additions to the park, but under better leadership that same amount of money could have been spent much more effectively, both with regard to individual attractions and overall park experience.

I agree with a lot of this but I think it is easier said than done. Since WWOHP the expectations of guests have surged. They can’t build lands like old Fantasyland or Frontierland anymore. I’m not saying there isn’t waste, there is a ton of it. But the cost of building quality attractions for the parks (Pandora, SWGE) has increased with guest expectations. EE was $100 million but that attraction is the exception for Disney, not the rule. Disney has always gone over budget. Look at DL’s construction back in 1955. The final cost was astronomical compared to the initial budget. Look at EPCOT Center. I wish they could crank out EE caliber attractions at that price but it is not easy. Disney has put in a ton of effort into the parks since 2010, and they should be commended for that. They haven’t been perfect. As such, I hope that this change in leadership leads to better things for the parks, guest, cast and company.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I agree with a lot of this but I think it is easier said than done. Since WWOHP the expectations of guests have surged. They can’t build lands like old Fantasyland or Frontierland anymore. I’m not saying there isn’t waste, there is a ton of it. But the cost of building quality attractions for the parks (Pandora, SWGE) has increased with guest expectations. EE was $100 million but that attraction is the exception for Disney, not the rule. Disney has always gone over budget. Look at DL’s construction back in 1955. The final cost was astronomical compared to the initial budget. Look at EPCOT Center. I wish they could crank out EE caliber attractions at that price but it is not easy. Disney has put in a ton of effort into the parks since 2010, and they should be commended for that. They haven’t been perfect. As such, I hope that this change in leadership leads to better things for the parks, guest, cast and company.

I think the bill on Everest is a “tad” higher...

As far as the quality designs go...I agree.

But what both universal and Disney fails at is balancing quality with capacity.

Yeah...you spent a billion on the kylo ren ride...but you shut down have the space in your park to build and you needed a lot more before that.

It’s this “experience” nonsense. It never works. Fundamentally a park is more attractive longterm is there’s a variety of things to do. Save the upsells.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I agree with a lot of this but I think it is easier said than done. Since WWOHP the expectations of guests have surged. They can’t build lands like old Fantasyland or Frontierland anymore. I’m not saying there isn’t waste, there is a ton of it. But the cost of building quality attractions for the parks (Pandora, SWGE) has increased with guest expectations. EE was $100 million but that attraction is the exception for Disney, not the rule. Disney has always gone over budget. Look at DL’s construction back in 1955. The final cost was astronomical compared to the initial budget. Look at EPCOT Center. I wish they could crank out EE caliber attractions at that price but it is not easy. Disney has put in a ton of effort into the parks since 2010, and they should be commended for that. They haven’t been perfect. As such, I hope that this change in leadership leads to better things for the parks, guest, cast and company.

Expedition Everest was not an example of Disney being surprisingly lean. What guest expectations caused the easier to build Slinky Dog Dash to cost about twice as much as Time Traveler?

 

[WDWTrojan]

Everest was all eisner

It also is to this day an engineering failure.

People that laud it REALLY need to go on some rollercoasters...it’s nothing earth shattering without the yeti

People do tend to forget, though, that it was the first roller coaster to have a track switch mid ride and one to go backwards using said track switch. That alone led to things like drop tracks and some of the other more "high-tech" coaster features we see today.

 

[lazyboy97o]

People do tend to forget, though, that it was the first roller coaster to have a track switch mid ride and one to go backwards using said track switch. That alone led to things like drop tracks and some of the other more "high-tech" coaster features we see today.

It was the first announced to reverse in a circuit but Universal was able to get it into Revenge of the Mummy first. It’s much more of a gimmick on Mummy but it was first.

The technology for holding the Everest trains and aligning the track debuted in 2002 with Gravity Max, the tilt coaster.

 

[Touchdown]

Coaster nerd moment:

Track switches on roller coasters are no big thing, any coaster with a transfer track has one, and to focus on Disney, BTMRR has two track switches that are used in regular ops to switch trains between the two stations.

Neither is going backwards on a coaster a revolutionary concept by Everest. Arrow Shuttle Loops date back to the 70s and Verkoma can thank Boomerangs for keeping them in business in the 80s/90s. It was not much of a step to combine these two ideas, and doing so should not have incurred much more of a cost.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

People do tend to forget, though, that it was the first roller coaster to have a track switch mid ride and one to go backwards using said track switch. That alone led to things like drop tracks and some of the other more "high-tech" coaster features we see today.

Ok...

But the net result is medium thrill without the story element of the yeti.

I’m not advocating hurlmachines in wdw...but don’t screw up what you do do...

I’m still waiting for the Sundowner in the austrailian section of dak anyway.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Coaster nerd moment:

Track switches on roller coasters are no big thing, any coaster with a transfer track has one, and to focus on Disney, BTMRR has two transfer tracks that are used in regular ops to switch trains between the two stations.

Neither is going backwards on a coaster a revolutionary concept by Everest. Arrow Shuttle Loops date back to the 70s and Verkoma can thank Boomerangs for keeping them in business in the 80s/90s. It was not much of a step to combine these two ideas, and doing so should not have incurred much more of a cost.

Schwarzkoff too...shuttle loops

Hagrids is the best use of reversing switch tracks I’ve seen.

 

[WDWTrojan]

Coaster nerd moment:

Track switches on roller coasters are no big thing, any coaster with a transfer track has one, and to focus on Disney, BTMRR has two transfer tracks that are used in regular ops to switch trains between the two stations.

Neither is going backwards on a coaster a revolutionary concept by Everest. Arrow Shuttle Loops date back to the 70s and Verkoma can thank Boomerangs for keeping them in business in the 80s/90s. It was not much of a step to combine these two ideas, and doing so should not have incurred much more of a cost.

You're right on both accounts. What was unique about Everest was it was the first continuous circuit design with a track-switch mid ride for guests to proceed backwards down.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Coaster nerd moment:

Track switches on roller coasters are no big thing, any coaster with a transfer track has one, and to focus on Disney, BTMRR has two transfer tracks that are used in regular ops to switch trains between the two stations.

Neither is going backwards on a coaster a revolutionary concept by Everest. Arrow Shuttle Loops date back to the 70s and Verkoma can thank Boomerangs for keeping them in business in the 80s/90s. It was not much of a step to combine these two ideas, and doing so should not have incurred much more of a cost.

Those transfers are taken at a very low speed and shuttle coasters are not a circuit with multiple trains.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Those transfers are taken at a very low speed and shuttle coasters are not a circuit with multiple trains.

Ok...

But I can believe you of all people are an Everest defender??
It’s all what’s wrong with the 2000-present wdw

 

[Touchdown]

Those transfers are taken at a very low speed and shuttle coasters are not a circuit with multiple trains.

So is Everest’s you are not moving fast through any of them.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You're right on both accounts. What was unique about Everest was it was the first continuous circuit design with a track-switch mid ride for guests to proceed backwards down.

Revenge of the Mummy opened before Expedition Everest.

So is Everest’s you are not moving fast through any of them.

You drop through both. Hardly a station transfer.

 

[UNCgolf]

Everest was all eisner

It also is to this day an engineering failure.

People that laud it REALLY need to go on some rollercoasters...it’s nothing earth shattering without the yeti

Well, that depends on if you care about the roller coaster part or the theming part. Expedition Everest is probably my favorite roller coaster because the theming is all I really care about -- even with the yeti not working, it's got more theming than the vast majority of coasters. I don't even ride non-themed coasters.