News Disney plans to accelerate Parks investment to $60 billion over 10 years

[MisterPenguin]

That person you quoted is referring to lands, not parks.

The person I quoted, quoted this:

"...across its existing sites - the equivalent of about 7 new Disneyland Parks."​

My post was a bit of a wake up that there were no such things as 7 *lands.* The idea of 7 lands came from Iger misquoting Disney's PR that they have enough land for 7 *parks* (the size of Disneyland).

And so, it was doubly unuseful to start counting lands, let alone parks.

The seven *things* were just an handy way to paint the picture that no park was land-locked and there was plenty of space for new capacity at all the parks.

There is no list of 7 lands or 7 parks that TWDC is holding onto right now. Seven is just a 'round number.'

Eventually, as lands are added over the decades, we may get to 7, but then there will an 8th, and a 9th, etc....

 

[JoeCamel]

The person I quoted, quoted this:

"...across its existing sites - the equivalent of about 7 new Disneyland Parks."​

My post was a bit of a wake up that there were no such things as 7 *lands.* The idea of 7 lands came from Iger misquoting Disney's PR that they have enough land for 7 *parks* (the size of Disneyland).

And so, it was doubly unuseful to start counting lands, let alone parks.

The seven *things* were just an handy way to paint the picture that no park was land-locked and there was plenty of space for new capacity at all the parks.

There is no list of 7 lands or 7 parks that TWDC is holding onto right now. Seven is just a 'round number.'

Eventually, as lands are added over the decades, we may get to 7, but then there will an 8th, and a 9th, etc....

7 is a "magic" number to many

 

[MisterPenguin]

7 is a "magic" number to many

Let's count:

few; handful; seven; 10; 12; a few dozen; a lot; a hundred; scads; thousands; six figures; billions

 

[JoeCamel]

Let's count:

few; handful; seven; 10; 12; a few dozen; a lot; a hundred; scads; thousands; six figures; billions

Fibonacci

Maybe Yahtzee

 

[HauntedPirate]

I
If Bob has a plan, why do we only know of that now? He should have been excexuting that plan long ago. This "plan" has only come to fruition because of pressure and presence of Peltz.

One could argue that Bob’s “plan” was to milk Disney’s assets, particularly the theme parks that he knows nothing about, as well as building more and more DVC cash cows to provide a continually larger shareholder dividends, implement stock buybacks to boost share price, and pad his nest egg. But Bob’s such a nice guy, he’d never do that.

 

[DisneyDodo]

7 is a "magic" number to many

I don’t think there’s any magic to the number 7 here. I think they literally just divided the cumulative area of the land they have available for development by the area of Disneyland Park and rounded to the nearest whole number.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that they’re building 7 new Disneylands, or that the land is even distributed in Disneyland-sized chunks. It’s just a way to illustrate just how much room they have to grow.

 

[BrianLo]

2027 is years too late. The parks needed new capacity yesterday.

As they should in my opinion. I know I won't pat them on the back until we see an actual capacity increase in the form of additional rides. If they announced tomorrow that they are going to redo 5 rides, I would still complain because it does very little to solve any of the major issues the parks have. And if they put shovels to the ground tomorrow on a major ride for each of the parks, the best I could say is better late than never I guess. Because it was needed 10yrs ago but they just don't care.

Oh I agree with you both, answering another posters question of whether shovels will assuage the pessimism and I don’t think it will remotely.

Now 2027 on the ‘cusp’ of Beyond Big Thunder, another major expansion undergoing construction and a third on the docket… only in a situation like that would people be more optimistic with nothing actually opened yet.

Which is ironically in line with 2017-ish when I think there was actually our last period WDW optimism.

But we’re in for years of negative sentiment, unless a massive flurry of stop gaps occurs in between (like many parades and night shows, a couple long requested overlays and a lot of stuff actually announced / under construction).

 

[BrianLo]

The problem was zero in the way of any capacity additions at all from 2002-2013…
In fact…it went down as they closed things

So you never catch up. All that construction - still kinda laughable - during bobs 2011-2020 legacy program was not addition…it was catch up…and it neither addressed the growing crowds or made any catchup - arguably

This I also agree with. Though I don’t think Disney lost further ground last decade, which is often being implied.

They didn’t ‘catch up’, but they made up some small ground. Even just structurally from rotting infrastructure. They don’t own the worst park in Orlando these days.

Animal Kingdom also currently has quite a bit of capacity slack. MK can actually close an E ticket without falling off the rails. DHS is actually quite (too) popular and Epcot is not really Epcot, but it’s also not the worst park in Orlando.

With a few obvious exceptions, the list of horribly broken aspects of WDW is a bit shorter than it was in 2013, so another burst of investment could lead more towards a baseline expectation for the resort. If it happens of course.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I’m firmly in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” camp also. Disney has teased so much over the last several years, and then not built most of it, that they are the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.

 

[marni1971]

 

[erasure fan1]

MK can actually close an E ticket without falling off the rails.

The problem is with the other 3 parks, especially studios and animal kingdom, being so underbuilt. So while Magic kingdom won't fall off the rails, it can become extremely miserable. It was pretty miserable this last summer with splash down. Even though Tron was up, it didn't matter because it was a virtual queue so most people were still looking for things to do. And with stitch still empty, no night parade and the fact that rides being down, seem to be the norm. There's just not enough to do for the amount of people that go. When splash reopens, that should help, especially if they don't do the idiotic virtual queue.

 

[erasure fan1]

I’m firmly in the “I’ll believe it when I see it” camp also. Disney has teased so much over the last several years, and then not built most of it, that they are the equivalent of the boy who cried wolf.

I'm right there with you. It's really a very sad situation. And the worst part, even if or when construction does start, I'm still, I'll believe it when I see it. Because you know darn well we aren't going to get what was originally announced to us anyway. It will be cut and downsized and not near to the scale we were lead to believe.

 

[John park hopper]

God how wish people would stop going until Bob actually starts doing something and stop the we're gona------not do anything

 

[DisneyDodo]

I don’t know why anyone is expecting much at this year’s D23 Expo. Iger has already said most of the investment will come later in the decade. So even if you take him at his word about the $60 billion investment in parks, most of the major announcements wouldn’t come until 2026 & 2028.

I’m sure we’ll get something announced this year. But we’ve essentially already been told to keep our expectations in check so I would advise everyone do so or risk being very disappointed.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This I also agree with. Though I don’t think Disney lost further ground last decade, which is often being implied.

They didn’t ‘catch up’, but they made up some small ground. Even just structurally from rotting infrastructure. They don’t own the worst park in Orlando these days.

Animal Kingdom also currently has quite a bit of capacity slack. MK can actually close an E ticket without falling off the rails. DHS is actually quite (too) popular and Epcot is not really Epcot, but it’s also not the worst park in Orlando.

With a few obvious exceptions, the list of horribly broken aspects of WDW is a bit shorter than it was in 2013, so another burst of investment could lead more towards a baseline expectation for the resort. If it happens of course.

Oh I agree with this…there were definitely “improvements”…avatar was one for sure…springs outside the parks

But their attendance continued to grow…and instead of addressing that…they tried to monetize it with more timeshares and block pricing park ticket upsells.

And now they’re being rebuked in a money drunk economy. They ran out of runway

Instead of massive additions…just using prior space would be better

Stitch and wonders of life mothballed…primeval whirl not replaced…

That is inexcusable from an ops standpoint

 

[Disstevefan1]

I'm not defending Iger. I'm opposing misunderstandings and outright lies.

Right now, Iger is all talk about maybe adding seven new lands. Talk is cheap. He is only putting that out because of the proxy fight.

Iger does not need to talk about maybe adding seven new lands. Iger is going win the proxy fight and go back to business as usual.

And yes, its true, many folks want TWDC to operate as business as usual.

Personally, I want TWDC to add capacity to WDW parks. I know that's not going to happen for a long, long time.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I don’t know why anyone is expecting much at this year’s D23 Expo. Iger has already said most of the investment will come later in the decade. So even if you take him at his word about the $60 billion investment in parks, most of the major announcements wouldn’t come until 2026 & 2028.

I’m sure we’ll get something announced this year. But we’ve essentially already been told to keep our expectations in check so I would advise everyone do so or risk being very disappointed.

I agree. I do not think we will see blue sky announcements showing attractions that will never be built. They tried that and that does not go over well.

I think they will announce a list of "important" films they will be releasing.

 

[Tha Realest]

I do not see them adding meaningful capacity at a time of attendance and resort stay contraction.

 

[Disstevefan1]

I do not see them adding meaningful capacity at a time of attendance and resort stay contraction.

Yes, they can use the numbers as an excuse -

"We really wanted to add capacity to the parks but attendance and resort stays are down so we cant. Also, we have no choice but to raise prices for everything in parks and resorts to make up for that. We really don't want to raise prices on everything but lower parks attendance and the decline in resort stays FORCES us to raise prices on everything to make up for these things."

 

[Drdcm]

Personally, I'm suffering from Disney announcement fatigue at this point.

They announce things all the time, but their odds of being completed have not been so great.

Or if something is announced it takes forever to complete, and/or the end result is much ado about nothing.

Even small things like the Pirates Bar in Adventureland. Announced last year. What have we heard about it since?

And the blue sky filler they've done of late...

Honestly I'd be more hyped if they fixed the basic problems that make visiting the parks a hassle to begin with, or just improved show quality, entertainment and retail/dining across the board.

Bob: “you know… I was thinking to myself last night. We can do great things, we have a wonderful set of employees and Rick solid leadership. In fact our mission is to deliver the highest quality entertainment as we’ve done for decades. We have room for growth, we have room for expansion, and we’re looking to expand. Take for example, we could expand and build a few theme park resort in Tennessee. And we’re looking at that.”

Interviewer: “really, you might build a new resort in Tennessee?”

Bob: “oh god no! I said we could!”