News Disney to heavily reduce Capital Expenditures in the parks throughout 2020 during COVID-19 crisis

[Prince-1]

No so sure you have the right title here...

Howabout King-1?!?

 

[DVCakaCarlF]

Me reacting to the evolutionary decline of this thread...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Howabout King-1?!?

I meant “adult”

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Nah I'm good. Nice try though

Most evidence to the contrary....

 

[Prince-1]

I meant “adult”

That makes sense too. But I do like the promotion I gave myself from Prince to King!!

 

[DVCakaCarlF]

That makes sense too. But I do like the promotion I gave myself from Prince to King!!

That’s like me telling my wife “I’m in charge.”

 

[Imagineer45]

Martin knows this, but just to clarify for those of you looking into the matter... one of the issues is that whenever you raise capacity or crowds at Disney World, your capacity/crowds almost must increase for Magic Kingdom. This because while many people will visit Disney World to go to Magic Kingdom, almost nobody goes just for any of the other parks. They're all secondary or tertiary experiences. So no matter what you do to lift the burden on Magic Kingdom, you simply can't because it is seen as the quintessential experience. And frankly, after the hub expansion, it's getting harder to find ways to expand Magic Kingdom. If the economy restores to working order in a year, then sure, you could presumably put in the theater behind Mainstreet and create a permanent, second pathway... and yes, there's the expansion pad in Adventureland that gives you more capacity... but many of the other expansion areas require significant work to prepare.

So why do you want Animal Kingdom to hold crowds into the night? It isn't necessarily for revenue purposes (although that's a small bonus). The real reason is to try to limit people leaving your other parks to cram into Magic Kingdom in the evening. The monorails, the ferries, the path widths... none of it was every meant to handle the amount of demand MK creates. That's why the past several years have been about bolstering the other parks; it's to get MK some relief hopefully. But I'm not sure that has been successful.

If the idea is to really draw people away, a fifth gate would probably be the best answer, right? The novelty of an entirely new park would take a ton of people away from MK (along with Epcot, DHS, and DAK).

I feel like the fundamental problem with the other parks is that they only add a small number of super popular E-tickets costing hundreds of millions of dollars without a sufficient number of secondary rides. MK's pathways are the most crowded, but I can always ride the most attractions per hour at MK. The park's attraction capacity to attendance ratio is just much better than the other parks, leading to the absurdly high wait times at the other three parks. There is a reason the most popular MK attraction, SDMT, hits 200+ minutes only on the busiest days of the year whereas FoP, the most popular DAK attraction, will hit it on a slightly above average day. even with the extreme differences in daily attendance between the two parks. DAK, DHS, and Epcot just need more attractions to give people something to fill their day with, as they do not want to walk around aimlessly forever.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

On a good night it was very good. I’ll give it that.

But it always was and will be a tough sell. They’d have to overbuild the hell out of the thing to get people to choose that at night.

this was money cutting before corona. As we know speed of disney any thing planned for the 50th would have been planned at least 3-5 years ago

People have been so obtuse to this for years now. Nothing was being built/announced “for the 50th” in 2018. The only things in the ballpark that can be labeled as such were tron and perhaps the cancelled Mickey theater...everything else was to deal with the 3 horribly stagnated parks. And what took too long.

Martin knows this, but just to clarify for those of you looking into the matter... one of the issues is that whenever you raise capacity or crowds at Disney World, your capacity/crowds almost must increase for Magic Kingdom. This because while many people will visit Disney World to go to Magic Kingdom, almost nobody goes just for any of the other parks. They're all secondary or tertiary experiences. So no matter what you do to lift the burden on Magic Kingdom, you simply can't because it is seen as the quintessential experience. And frankly, after the hub expansion, it's getting harder to find ways to expand Magic Kingdom. If the economy restores to working order in a year, then sure, you could presumably put in the theater behind Mainstreet and create a permanent, second pathway... and yes, there's the expansion pad in Adventureland that gives you more capacity... but many of the other expansion areas require significant work to prepare.

So why do you want Animal Kingdom to hold crowds into the night? It isn't necessarily for revenue purposes (although that's a small bonus). The real reason is to try to limit people leaving your other parks to cram into Magic Kingdom in the evening. The monorails, the ferries, the path widths... none of it was every meant to handle the amount of demand MK creates. That's why the past several years have been about bolstering the other parks; it's to get MK some relief hopefully. But I'm not sure that has been successful.

I’ll say this: wherever you are getting your clues or opinions from...they are very well formed (you are met with a lot of skepticism and rightly so)...but for me, logic is the foundation of trust. If it makes sense...it’s on the path to being truth in reality. Disney is never knee jerk or prone to chaos theory.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If the idea is to really draw people away, a fifth gate would probably be the best answer, right? The novelty of an entirely new park would take a ton of people away from MK (along with Epcot, DHS, and DAK).

I feel like the fundamental problem with the other parks is that they only add a small number of super popular E-tickets costing hundreds of millions of dollars without a sufficient number of secondary rides. MK's pathways are the most crowded, but I can always ride the most attractions per hour at MK. The park's attraction capacity to attendance ratio is just much better than the other parks, leading to the absurdly high wait times at the other three parks. There is a reason the most popular MK attraction, SDMT, hits 200+ minutes only on the busiest days of the year whereas FoP, the most popular DAK attraction, will hit it on a slightly above average day. even with the extreme differences in daily attendance between the two parks. DAK, DHS, and Epcot just need more attractions to give people something to fill their day with, as they do not want to walk around aimlessly forever.

Not at all...

1. There are limits on how much time people can go on vacation. That limit was effectively hit at 4 parks. Park cannibalization would only increase.
2. Labor. Disney wants no part of more employees. You’re talking 15,000 with support servies
3. If you were to build a fifth...there would be a growing number of people who don’t go to 1 or more of the 5. Dak, Epcot and mgm would lose traffic and still cost more each year to run.

 

[MisterPenguin]

If the idea is to really draw people away, a fifth gate would probably be the best answer, right? The novelty of an entirely new park would take a ton of people away from MK (along with Epcot, DHS, and DAK).

Only if the fifth gate can be as popular as the MK itself or more popular than the other three together. Do you think a fifth gate can open with about 27 new rides?

 

[Imagineer45]

Not at all...

1. There are limits on how much time people can go on vacation. That limit was effectively hit at 4 parks. Park cannibalization would only increase.
2. Labor. Disney wants no part of more employees. You’re talking 15,000 with support servies
3. If you were to build a fifth...there would be a growing number of people who don’t go to 1 or more of the 5. Dak, Epcot and mgm would lose traffic and still cost more each year to run.

1) I know the 4 parks = 1 vacation week saying has been tossed around for years, but I do not know any non-hardcore Disney fans who spend a full week at WDW. In Orlando? Absolutely, but only because they will add 2 or 3 days at Universal. Personally, I am a huge Disney parks fan (obviously), but I am able to see everything I want to see, ride every attraction I want to ride, and view every show I want to view in five days. Also, park cannibalization is kind of the point, with MK bursting at the seams and 180-minute wait times the norm for FoP 3 years after opening...
2) I do not really see the argument of Disney will not expand because they do not want more employees. If that were the case, they would never expand at all, as projects like Galaxy's Edge required hiring a ton of new cast members. Also, CNBC reports Shanghai as having 10,000 cast members at the park. Given that some positions are likely redundant between parks, I would think a fifth gate would need fewer employees than Shanghai.
3) This would likely increase guest frequency. If a guest leaves without having experienced everything, they will likely want to come back sooner than if they had seen everything on their trip.

Only if the fifth gate can be as popular as the MK itself or more popular than the other three together. Do you think a fifth gate can open with about 27 new rides?

It likely would not open with 27 new rides, but the whole novelty of a new park would absolutely entice guests. The goal is to better spread guests out, not just push the cramming problem onto a new park.

I never said a fifth gate was the only solution. The second half of my post was about how DHS/DAK/Epcot have a severe lack of attraction capacity on a per guest basis relative to MK adjusted for attendance.

 

[marni1971]

But it always was and will be a tough sell. They’d have to overbuild the hell out of the thing to get people to choose that at night..

It wasn't really done to have people choose it in a “must do” sense. Originally it was the pressure valve for Rivers of Light. When the latter had issues and missed its first season KS became the evening headliner except not a lot of people stayed after dark anyway. Now with Pandora it’s almost a happy accident that there’s still anot her night alternative, and is still something different to the day version. More-so if you get lucky with the visuals.

 

[marni1971]

1) I know the 4 parks = 1 vacation week saying has been tossed around for years, but I do not know any non-hardcore Disney fans who spend a full week at WDW. In Orlando?

You need to look at the 7 and 14 day hoppers that are the norm for foreign tourists. Those days are fully utilised.

3 week total trips are slowly becoming as regular as the old 2 weeks were too.

 

[Giss Neric]

I think that you are vastly under valuing the Nintendo IP, which is not 1 IP like Toy Story but is a brand with multiple IPs like Marvel or even Disney itself. Of these family of IPs you have a trio of surefire groups that will almost certainly be massive hits:

Mario-the one everyone thinks about and the one poised to be the first land as he should, but he is not all that Nintendo owns

Zelda-the top selling adventure game of all time, this brand awareness is at an all time high due to the recent release of Breath of the Wild (and a sequel is on the way) as Disney well knows, high fantasy in theme parks is a major crowd pleaser. Universal will likely be looking into this franchise next after Mario gets off the ground.

Pokemon: This is the ace in the hole, this is the top selling brand of all time. It’s translation into theme parks is not as cut and dry as Mario and Zelda but even if it’s just meet and greets and merch it will still sell like hot cakes

Outside of those three IPs who could support lands themselves Nintendo has other IPs that are popular enough to support a ride:

-Donkey Kong
-Splatoon
-Metroid
-Kirby

Nintendo is the most beloved video game company of all time, and has the potential to be bigger then Harry Potter or Star Wars.

As someone in their 20s, Nintendo is interesting for me but not really what I grew up with. People who grew up with Gameboy, Gameboy color, DS etc. will most like be the demographic of Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch generation probably not. The only thing I could relate to Nintendo is Mario and Pokemon. The others heard of it but never played.

 

[Giss Neric]

Only if the fifth gate can be as popular as the MK itself or more popular than the other three together. Do you think a fifth gate can open with about 27 new rides?

If that fifth gate was Disney Sea level with the number of attractions as DAK, it could still work.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It wasn't really done to have people choose it in a “must do” sense. Originally it was the pressure valve for Rivers of Light. When the latter had issues and missed its first season KS became the evening headliner except not a lot of people stayed after dark anyway. Now with Pandora it’s almost a happy accident that there’s still anot her night alternative, and is still something different to the day version. More-so if you get lucky with the visuals.

I know what you’re saying...but the crunch is always magic kingdom and the bottlenecks they have let get out of control there...everything else - at least since the Let Epcot go stale - is an afterthought.

If that fifth gate was Disney Sea level with the number of attractions as DAK, it could still work.

Would not...

Again...it costs too much and people can’t afford the time and money needed to patronize the parks to make it worthwhile for Disney to build and run it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

You need to look at the 7 and 14 day hoppers that are the norm for foreign tourists. Those days are fully utilised.

3 week total trips are slowly becoming as regular as the old 2 weeks were too.

For a small percentage of the customers, Governa...

It’s a majority US clientele and due to one annoying roadblock or another - the mean trip number ends up being about 7...

The better question is this: anyone have a boss that leaves you alone for more than 7 days? Or is looking to increase paid time off? Anyone’s kids less scheduled with stuff these days? Anyone’s schools telling you to go ahead and have fun on vacations?

...not really a thing

 

[Giss Neric]

I know what you’re saying...but the crunch is always magic kingdom and the bottlenecks they have let get out of control there...everything else - at least since the Let Epcot go stale - is an afterthought.

Would not...

Again...it costs too much and people can’t afford the time and money needed to patronize the parks do make it worthwhile for Disney to build and run it.

If the product is good, people will find a way to make time and money to patronize. There are many times I should have put my money on things more important than renewing my pass but I don't regret it anyways. People have been constantly saying that Disney needs a park to distribute the crowds. It used to be Magic Kingdom is the only one crowded. Now even HS and DAK are packed. Even Disney Springs is packed whenever I go.

My suggestion before was if they make a Six Flags Magic Mountain/Cedar Point type park where it's more thrill rides like rollercoasters and flat rides. It's definitely way cheaper to build rollercoasters than dark/water rides. They could just theme the rides to their standards.

 

[marni1971]

For a small percentage of the customers, Governa...

Just letting the OP know it’s a big wide world.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

If the product is good, people will find a way to make time and money to patronize. There are many times I should have put my money on things more important than renewing my pass but I don't regret it anyways. People have been constantly saying that Disney needs a park to distribute the crowds. It used to be Magic Kingdom is the only one crowded. Now even HS and DAK are packed. Even Disney Springs is packed whenever I go.

My suggestion before was if they make a Six Flags Magic Mountain/Cedar Point type park where it's more thrill rides like rollercoasters and flat rides. It's definitely way cheaper to build rollercoasters than dark/water rides. They could just theme the rides to their standards.

That’s is inconsistent with travel and labor statistics...

It’s not up to the majority of the customers...even at an expensive spot...too “make” the time or money. Real world responsibilities dictate travel opportunity more than anything. This is not a leisure society. It’s a consumption one...but those two things are not tied together.

Here’s some good internal info (it’s 20 years old so I won’t get sued):

Prior to the opening of dak in 1998...the average onsite trip stay was at 6.0 days...after dak - a billion dollars easy as the most expensive park built for many years - that number shocked Disney by going to 6.88.

Less than a day’s return. The glass wall was hit. You could build another park and what will happen is the others will be skipped more. That makes no sense...save the money and use the overhead you already spend.

The right move is reinvestment in what they have...but they kinda are stuck there too.