Disneyland Paris declaring bankruptcy?

[AndyS2992]

Maybe I just need to look a little more closely, but where is this graffiti you speak of? I didn't notice any...



50% of DLP's visitors are from France. And APs are ridiculously cheap (like €209 at their most expensive when a one-day park-hopper is €70). On top of that, they are discounted if you're buying for your family. Plus, there are a lot of "partner hotels" in the area that are less expensive than the on-property ones.

I feel like a lot of French people will buy the annual passes for their family and stay off-property, because DLP has made it a lot cheaper to do that. Plus, Parisians can easily take the train - no need to stay in a hotel at all.

They are trying to appeal to more than just children, I think, with their student annual pass, but I don't know how well that's working...

You didn't see any? Go in to the queue for Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear, Tower of Terror, Flying Carpets, Crush's coaster. You can not miss it unless you walk through them with your eyes closed. It's a huge problem since it is a cultural thing, Paris city is also covered in it.

And you have just made another great reason why Disneyland Paris is failing which I forgot. French people are buying cheap as hell Annual Passes which costs the same amount as a three day pass which means after AP holders have visited three times, Disneyland is not making any money from them from subsequent visits and are essentially letting all those people in for free. To make money the annual pass needs to go or have a substantial price increase to make money however this will have a knock on effect which means lower annual attendance as it will cost more to visit. They can't win really.

People who live close are also not staying in the hotels or buying merchandise so Disney is also losing money. People may also choose to stay in the offsite in the surrounding hotels which also means Disney is not making any money. So obviously Disney will need to lower the prices of their hotels which will bring in more people but will not necessarily mean more money coming in. Or keep prices the same but offer something big and unique to draw people in and make them feel the extra expense is worth it.

 

[chipndalefan]

There is no more of a crisis at Disneyland Paris than there has ever been. All the financial issues relate to the huge debt from construction of the resort and surrounding hotels. Given it was around 7bn they were never going to pay this off in 20 years.

To me it seems the share scheme is just a round about way for the Disney company to take over the majority of DLP shares.

Comments around it being cheaper to go to WDW confuse me - My 5 night trip onsite at DLP is around £560 for 2 adults (Hotel and tickets)14 nights at WDW would have cost me around £1500 with tickets in a value hotel.

Service wise I have never had a bad experience in DLP. You do not get American style customer service, but you are not in America so shouldn't expect this. Are cast members in the UK Disney store on par with WDW Cast members?

Spain would have been a better choice weather wise, but the transport info-structure is no where near as connected as France.

 

[HolleBolleGijs]

You didn't see any? Go in to the queue for Big Thunder Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Peter Pan's Flight, Buzz Lightyear, Tower of Terror, Flying Carpets, Crush's coaster. You can not miss it unless you walk through them with your eyes closed. It's a huge problem since it is a cultural thing, Paris city is also covered in it.

And you have just made another great reason why Disneyland Paris is failing which I forgot. French people are buying cheap as hell Annual Passes which costs the same amount as a three day pass which means after AP holders have visited three times, Disneyland is not making any money from them from subsequent visits and are essentially letting all those people in for free. To make money the annual pass needs to go or have a substantial price increase to make money however this will have a knock on effect which means lower annual attendance as it will cost more to visit. They can't win really.

People who live close are also not staying in the hotels or buying merchandise so Disney is also losing money. People may also choose to stay in the offsite in the surrounding hotels which also means Disney is not making any money. So obviously Disney will need to lower the prices of their hotels which will bring in more people but will not necessarily mean more money coming in. Or keep prices the same but offer something big and unique to draw people in and make them feel the extra expense is worth it.

I'll keep an eye out next time, I've only been twice ever (both in the past month), so maybe it's just something I missed the first time 'round.

Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say. For me, without the annual pass, I would have gone three or four times this semester. Dapper Day, Halloween season, Christmas season, and maybe another for my birthday. A one day pass is about 70 euros, so that's a total of 280. I paid about 150 for my pass. It's not much that they're losing on one person, but imagine how many people are in the same situation.

 

[HolleBolleGijs]

Service wise I have never had a bad experience in DLP. You do not get American style customer service, but you are not in America so shouldn't expect this. Are cast members in the UK Disney store on par with WDW Cast members?

Completely agree about the service. Granted I've only been there twice, but I've only witnessed one negative experience in the queue for Crush's Coaster, when a CM (who may have been a supervisor) started arguing with a guest. I couldn't follow because they were speaking really quickly in french, but it seemed to me that the guest started it.

It's generally a nice mix of the French politesse, which is generally expected, and actual willingness to do their job, which is never expected.

 

[AndyS2992]

Comments around it being cheaper to go to WDW confuse me - My 5 night trip onsite at DLP is around £560 for 2 adults (Hotel and tickets)14 nights at WDW would have cost me around £1500 with tickets in a value hotel.

-2 Adults
-7 Nights in October
-7 Day tickets (2 Park standard DLP tickets and 7 day ultimate 6 Park WDW hopper with DisneyQuest)
-Return Flights and airport transfers (Gatwick to Charles de Gaulle and Gatwick to Orlando International)
-Disney Santa Fe (DLP Value) & Disney's Coronado Springs (WDW Moderate) [Values unavailable to compare]

Disneyland Paris: £1724 (Through Disneylandparis.com)
Walt Disney World: £2289 (Through DisneyWorld.com)

In all honesty which would you prefer? WDW is blatantly better value for money.

How did you get £560? For a couple to go for five days at a value resort at DLP in October costs £1280 and that is lowest I could get. I'm interested to know your secrets.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Service wise I have never had a bad experience in DLP. You do not get American style customer service, but you are not in America so shouldn't expect this. Are cast members in the UK Disney store on par with WDW Cast members?

To me good service is a balance of friendliness and competence. I find many WDW CMs to be friendly, but a number of them don't really know much about the resort (the college kids are the worst for this since they never work long enough to gain much experience) and easily make mistakes.

DLP CMs come from all over Europe. They are never as overly friendly as their American counterparts (you won't hear anyone say "have a magical day!"), but they are more often than not nice, and more importantly, do their jobs correctly. This includes trying more to enforce rules like no flash pictures on rides.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I'm interested to know your secrets.

It's probably the 2-night free deal during the winter (Nov-Feb). Prices drop after Nov 13.

 

[imagineer boy]

I'm truly blown away about how stupid of a decision it was to build so many hotels on opening day. Even the most optomistic attendance projections can't really compare to real hard core data that's collected when the park opens in it's first few years. Heck, even WDW didn't open with that many hotels!

 

[Animaniac93-98]

I'm truly blown away about how stupid of a decision it was to build so many hotels on opening day. Even the most optomistic attendance projections can't really compare to real hard core data that's collected when the park opens in it's first few years. Heck, even WDW didn't open with that many hotels!

It appears the lesson has been learned as both HKDL and Shanghai have (or will have) only two hotels at opening.

 

[imagineer boy]

It appears the lesson has been learned as both HKDL and Shanghai have (or will have) only two hotels at opening.

Sadly in the case of HKDL in came at the sacrifice of the quality of the park too. Honestly, when it comes to making a new resort complex, all the efforts should be focused on the park and on making a good lasting first impression for future interest in visiting it. In DLP's case, they put a lot of effort into the park and the addition of Disney Village and the resorts added to the financial burden which was risky because of the untested market and ended up leading to disaster. If they had simply built the park as it is and only built the Disneyland Hotel and maybe one more (Sequoia Lodge?) then DLP probably would have lost a lot less money.

Ultimately what Disney should've learned here is TEST THE WATERS before jumping in. But at the same time, don't test the waters with a swimsuit made of paper like they did with HKDL.

 

[AndyS2992]

I'm truly blown away about how stupid of a decision it was to build so many hotels on opening day. Even the most optomistic attendance projections can't really compare to real hard core data that's collected when the park opens in it's first few years. Heck, even WDW didn't open with that many hotels!

I believe the hotels were the fault of the French government who made Disney build them as part of the deal.

'In order to control a maximum of the hotel business, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. In March 1988, Disney and a council of architects decided on an exclusively American theme in which each hotel would depict a region of the United States. At the time of the opening in April 1992, seven hotels collectively housing 5,800 rooms had been built. By the year 2017, Euro Disney, under the terms specified in its contract with the French Government, will be required to finish constructing a total of 18,200 hotel rooms at varying distances from the resort.'

So yeah, Disney needs to build more hotels to meet the agreement

 

[lazyboy97o]

I believe the hotels were the fault of the French government who made Disney build them as part of the deal.

'In order to control a maximum of the hotel business, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. In March 1988, Disney and a council of architects decided on an exclusively American theme in which each hotel would depict a region of the United States. At the time of the opening in April 1992, seven hotels collectively housing 5,800 rooms had been built. By the year 2017, Euro Disney, under the terms specified in its contract with the French Government, will be required to finish constructing a total of 18,200 hotel rooms at varying distances from the resort.'

So yeah, Disney needs to build more hotels to meet the agreement

There have been changes to those deadlines following what happened with the required second gate, including the deadline to build the required third gate. The required rooms probably do not all have to be Disney branded or as part of the Resort. Euro Disney SCA controls far more land than just the Disney Resort.

 

[imagineer boy]

I believe the hotels were the fault of the French government who made Disney build them as part of the deal.

'In order to control a maximum of the hotel business, it was decided that 5,200 Disney-owned hotel rooms would be built within the complex. In March 1988, Disney and a council of architects decided on an exclusively American theme in which each hotel would depict a region of the United States. At the time of the opening in April 1992, seven hotels collectively housing 5,800 rooms had been built. By the year 2017, Euro Disney, under the terms specified in its contract with the French Government, will be required to finish constructing a total of 18,200 hotel rooms at varying distances from the resort.'

So yeah, Disney needs to build more hotels to meet the agreement

Ah okay. But did they have to build them all at once? Surely they could've persuaded the french government to wait a few years till they were all built. Maybe in this area Disney could have at least held off on buildnig the Disney Village. Or was that apart of the French government's deal too?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Ah okay. But did they have to build them all at once? Surely they could've persuaded the french government to wait a few years till they were all built. Maybe in this area Disney could have at least held off on buildnig the Disney Village. Or was that apart of the French government's deal too?

At the time, why should Disney have thought to wait? They were trying to fix the "problem" of being under built that had occurred at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

 

[imagineer boy]

At the time, why should Disney have thought to wait? They were trying to fix the "problem" of being under built that had occurred at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.

Was WDW really considered under built when it first opened? DL I can understand (at least in terms of the amount of land) though. Either way, DLP was definately a victim of poor market research.

 

[Bolna]

Was WDW really considered under built when it first opened? DL I can understand (at least in terms of the amount of land) though. Either way, DLP was definately a victim of poor market research.

No market research in the 80s whatsoever whould have been able to predict how the market looked like in 1992. Europe went through a never expected massive political and economic change during that time.

However, I do think that part of the problems Euro Disney had, was that they overestimated the willingness of Europeans to spend a lot of money on short trips. After all, if you have 6 weeks of vacation, you need to make your money stretch further. And while there was a trend starting to more shorter breaks in the 80s, it stopped quickly once the recession of the early 90s hit Europe.

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

We were just planning our "Late Fall/Early Winter Vacation" in the US yesterday when my GF suddenly had the idea, why not do a stop at DLP for 2 days before we take the plane to Los Angeles (we are doing California with 5 days at DL and New England this time, plans for WDW were cancelled)? We looked it up and although we both already visited DLP (seperately, years ago) we somewhat didn't find a real reason to spend a few more hundred Euros to see DLP before going to DL. They still lack a super-headliner attraction, unavailable at WDW for example, that really is a reason to visit the park. Ratatouille looks nice and is an improvement but DLP lacks something more in the range of Mt. Prometheus with JTTCOTE or the Indiana Jones Adventure or something completely new like Fire Mountain. Ratatouille is simply not enough because DLP is an expensive park and they need something much bigger to really pull crowds like Cars Land in DCA.

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

Disneyland Paris is VERY expensive and a two week holiday to WDW is about the same price as a four day stay at DLP and Europeans rather visit the 'real thing' than the cheap poorly run European version.

EXACTLY! My mother was working as a travel agent and she told me, a lot of Germans where interested to go to DLP in the 90ies and she just showed them the price tag for a short vacation at DLP and the price tag for going to WDW, to "the real thing" (and she loves WDW) and most of them decided to forget about Paris and many decided to go to WDW instead.
And many Europeans don't exactly dig into merchandise too. Another reason. Even although I consider myself a Disney buff 98% of the merchandise in the parks is uninteresting to me.

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

But yeah, the castle show- better than DL's or WDW's and even better than DL's Fantasmic or World of Colr in DCA. Best Disney show I've ever seen. It almost made up for the mess that the rest of the park is.

At the moment thats nearly the only reason for us to consider a trip to DLP, the castle show.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

And many Europeans don't exactly dig into merchandise too. Another reason. Even although I consider myself a Disney buff 98% of the merchandise in the parks is uninteresting to me.

I think Disney underestimated this aspect too. No sane European over the age of six wears an 'I Rode Rat!' t-shirt.