Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)

[WDW1974]

The maintenance is a huge problem in Paris. The sad thing is that ED SCA launched a big refurb program last year to bring the park back to its old glory for the 20th Anniversary. It seems it was only a cosmetic refurb and not a proper one of the whole attractions and buildings. Hopefully Mr. Baxter got to see the bad spots as well, because that may help to improve the parks again. The parks have never looked nicer than during the 15th birthday and so that makes me wonder why they didn't try the same for the 20th as well. I guess the most money was used for Dreams than for maintenance.

I was thinking that myself. ... There's just no excuse for the way attractions like IASW and SM look. Ghetto would be an apt description. And while the castle looks great and many MSUSA facades, many others don't. It looks very much like they did the bare minimum for the 20th.

This resort needs about a billion infusion just to fix everything that has decayed or been broken for years (those nonfunctional geysers in Frontierland for instance) ... bring the hotels up to proper 21st century standards (no flat screen TVs?!?!?) and add some entertainment back. It has gotten way too bad where a few million here and there will work.

As far as my understanding goes, DLP would make profit if they wouldn't have to repay these high debts.

That's what they say ...

 

[Eddie Sotto]

It's funny, Eddie was actually a topic of discussion during the meal due to his design work! ... Should have gotten him to pick up the check!:animwink:

Fat Chance!

One thing that does not help is that the weather is extreme so rehabs don't last long. That area is really moist. Paint has a hard time over there and so does wood unless it's top quality. No wonder the Paris that we love is mostly Limestone.

 

[ScoutN]

Outside of your review, my friend's parents live in Paris and invited me out there to visit and head to DLP.... well that was offered a couple months ago. They visited a few weeks ago and have stated pretty much exactly what you have. They, for the record, are not avid theme park goers nor overly picky. They said it was flat out sad. Something about the Space Mountain tunnel jumped out at them (I guess you could elaborate on that?) On that note, I don't think I will make a point to head there for a bit. Keep hopes high, wait until you see the impeccable scenes of BGW.

 

[dagobert]

I was still shocked by the level of decay at the resort. The resorts are just in terrible shape (Sequoia aside as it received a refurb recently and DLH to some extent, although it hasn't).

Put that in relation to the price you have to pay. I have only been once in 2008 to WDW and several times to DLP. While I have to say the MK was a huge disappointment for me, the Pop Century was wonderful. It was at the end of my foreign semester in the US and so we didn't want to pay for a better hotel, because we wanted to see more of the US. I was surprised how good that budget hotel was. It put the Sequoia Lodge, a moderate hotel, into a bad light, gladly it is currently under refurb.

I also wonder just how their accounting works. How are you the most visited destination in Europe for two decades and still bleeding money? How can you charge absurd prices (I did a hotels.com check for fun after doing a hotel tour and Santa Fe was coming up for over $500 a night) for your hotels and have an over 90% occupancy rate and be bleeding money? How can you raise prices for food and admission and ... you get the point. I don't know if it's creative accounting or poor management or both, but this can't all be early 90s debt. Not in 2012.

The debt interests are very high. If I'm not mistaken ED SCA plans to repay 100 million Euros only this year. The company faces a debt of over 2 billion Euros. If they wouldn't have opened WDSP so early, the resort could have started to earn money.

Anyway, still loved the resort, but was surprised because much of it looked much worse than on my last visit in fall '09.

I've been the last time in February 2010 and the parks looked fine.

MSUSA even had issues with facades peeling/rotting ... and some of the gas lamps in the arcades weren't working. I would have thought with the media in for the 20th kickoff that DLP would have made that area shine.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have been turned off by purpose to save money.

The Pirate Ship looks great, though. Of course, it is BRAND new since the original rotted away.

I still can't believe they neglected the ship so long. Now they had to pay the bill.

Was strange because some areas are getting love while others aren't ... and the refurbing that is happening is just not being done with any sort of care/attention to detail. Paint on a pig would be better way of describing things.

I guess the money was so tight that they could only do the most important things. You should have seen the castle before the refurb. It was embarassing.

The 20th merchandise is sorta blah ... liked a baseball cap, but not for $30 ... did buy the new 20th coffee table book for 49 euros. Haven't done much but skim through it, but it did make me wonder why DL didn't have a book like that for its 50th or WDW for its 40th.

The merchandise is a big disappointment since 2008. After the 15th birthday, they didn't offer anything nice. Just cheap merchandise. I had high hopes for the 20th Anniversary, but I guess I will only buy a few things in September. Maybe I get the new book about DLP, some things of the retro collection and that's it. In July DLP is going to open the new World of Disney Store, which looks really nice, but I'm sure the merchandise selection will be as bad as in the parks.

 

[dagobert]

I was thinking that myself. ... There's just no excuse for the way attractions like IASW and SM look. Ghetto would be an apt description. And while the castle looks great and many MSUSA facades, many others don't. It looks very much like they did the bare minimum for the 20th.

This resort needs about a billion infusion just to fix everything that has decayed or been broken for years (those nonfunctional geysers in Frontierland for instance) ... bring the hotels up to proper 21st century standards (no flat screen TVs?!?!?) and add some entertainment back. It has gotten way too bad where a few million here and there will work.

The only positive thing is that ED SCA started to refurb the hotels. The first ones are the Santa Fe and the Sequoia Lodge. The new rooms include flat screen TVs. However they also started to add charcters to the hotels. Cars was used for Santa Fe and Bambi for SL. Luckily it's done in a subtle way, but I would have prefered to stick with the US themes. I hate these character tie ins. Despite the refurb, I still think the US hotels are nicer.

Yes the whole resort could need a DCA makeover, but from where should they take the money, when stealing is not an option. TWDC is currently building a new park in Shanghai and so I think there is no money for DLP. I'm also not sure if TWDC could invest that easily into DLP. It's a publicly traded company and Disney only owns about 40%. Maybe they chose the wrong business model, they should have tried a joint venture like in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

 

[dagobert]

One thing that does not help is that the weather is extreme so rehabs don't last long. That area is really moist. Paint has a hard time over there and so does wood unless it's top quality. No wonder the Paris that we love is mostly Limestone.

I know the weather can be really tough in Paris, but wouldn't that have been the perfect reason not to use real wood. Real wood and stone do look better than the material used at WDW, however, I'm not sure if the guests would notice that. I'm glad that MS USA turned out the way it is. I love the area despite some peeling paint.
I guess TWDC expected the resort to be a money maker and not a coma patient, so that there would have been money around to refurb the place. The hopes were just a bit too high considering the plans Disney had with Paris. I've seen a plan which showed the Disney-MGM-Studios Europe for an opening in 1995 or so.

Mr. Sotto, do you know if it is true, that Space Mountain is still owned by TWDC and ED SCA leases it. I've read that somewhere on the internet.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Mr. Sotto, do you know if it is true, that Space Mountain is still owned by TWDC and ED SCA leases it. I've read that somewhere on the internet.

I have never heard that story. I did hear that a new "Mission" may be in the works.

Here's another story. When Main Street was being built, to save money, the project manager and the architect allowed the exterior facades to be built of MDF. This product is a fiberboard made from ground wood particles and combined with resin and formaldehyde. The thing they did not realize is that it can absorb moisture outdoors and then expand and dissolve. I imagine this happened when it is not sealed properly. So shortly after construction, they had all kinds of facade issues where they were busting at the seams. The change in temperature combined with the moisture and poorly applied primer and paint was a nightmare. The MDF had to be replaced. Each facade was a steel frame that had the millwork facade hang on it with a small gap for air to separate it from the frame. I've never heard of this and it had to be the most complicated way to stitch the buildings together. I could never understand why they did not build them the way they did other parks, except that they wanted to build the facades offsite in panels and bring them in. As a matter of fact, the architectural drawings were so poorly detailed that no one had bothered to check the final section drawings of the upstairs windows. I did and highlighted the fact that none of the double hung windows even were operable. They had to redraw them all. Lots can get lost in translation. They let our architect move on to other projects.

 

[dagobert]

I have never heard that story. I did hear that a new "Mission" may be in the works.

That's an interesting rumour. I don't like Mission 2 and I would love to see the return of "De La Terre a la Lune - From the Earth to the Moon". The soundtrack was fantastic. In Autumn the SM trains are getting new restraints. That should help to make the ride more comfortable. I think it needs more than just new harnesses, because the ride is very bumpy.

Here's another story. When Main Street was being built, to save money, the project manager and the architect allowed the exterior facades to be built of MDF. This product is a fiberboard made from ground wood particles and combined with resin and formaldehyde. The thing they did not realize is that it can absorb moisture outdoors and then expand and dissolve. I imagine this happened when it is not sealed properly. So shortly after construction, they had all kinds of facade issues where they were busting at the seams. The change in temperature combined with the moisture and poorly applied primer and paint was a nightmare. The MDF had to be replaced. Each facade was a steel frame that had the millwork facade hang on it with a small gap for air to separate it from the frame. I've never heard of this and it had to be the most complicated way to stitch the buildings together. I could never understand why they did not build them the way they did other parks, except that they wanted to build the facades offsite in panels and bring them in. As a matter of fact, the architectural drawings were so poorly detailed that no one had bothered to check the final section drawings of the upstairs windows. I did and highlighted the fact that none of the double hung windows even were operable. They had to redraw them all. Lots can get lost in translation. They let our architect move on to other projects.

What an interesting story. Did you encounter problems with the French contractors? I can imagine that European construction companies are doing construction in different ways than US companies. There are also different laws for construction in France than in the US. For example TOT at WDSP had to be built with concrete while at DCA the same version was built with steel.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Parking Issues

Very interesting update on MiceAge today.

http://miceage.micechat.com/

The discussion pertains to what happens when you sell a million annual passes during a period of relaunching a park. Lots to come and see. On some days you predict that you will run out of parking to the point of taking the employee lot. I guess that's a great problem to have.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

What an interesting story. Did you encounter problems with the French contractors? I can imagine that European construction companies are doing construction in different ways than US companies. There are also different laws for construction in France than in the US. For example TOT at WDSP had to be built with concrete while at DCA the same version was built with steel.

Concrete is the first choice in France. Even a kiosk seems to get a crane. The quality of the concrete I experienced on the streets was not very good and crumbled easily.

We had French architectural firms "translating" the design done in the US into metric and re engineered, but most of the French contractors in my area did not get the contracts for construction. I heard there were some who all fixed their pricing and inflated them together, but we found out by the project management and they were all disqualified. So we had a Swiss firm and an Irish Company doing finish work. Most the facades and interior woodwork was done in the UK. We had French painting contractors as I recall. Some of the best faux wood and marble I had ever seen. We may have had a Swiss Flag flying for a while over our job! Everyone got along fine as Euro Disney was truly a European project. So many trades and lost arts of Europe were combined to build the park. Then you had imported American antiques. Quite a unique coordination job.

European contractors, like many, bid insanely low to get you to sign with them and hope for you to make changes that cost extra and they soak you. We knew this and let them finish their work per the contract price, even if it was wrong (unless a major issue), then had our own outside crew make the changes for less cost. The other thing is that architects are more conceptual and design oriented in Europe, leaving the details to the contractor, who figures out how to build it, which can lead to a conflict of interest when it comes to quality.

 

[dagobert]

Thank you for this detailed answer!

We had French architectural firms "translating" the design done in the US into metric and re engineered

So WDI isn't using the metric system. I thought using metric would be more convenient, since Disney operates three international resorts and so it would be easier to replicate the attractions in Paris, Tokyo or Hong Kong. So I guess a local architectual company in one of the countries is always translating into metric. That must be very interesting when working with a rollercoaster facturer like Vekoma or Intamin, both are European. I think all recent Disney coaster are from these companies.

 

[HumblePirate]

Thank you for this detailed answer!



So WDI isn't using the metric system. I thought using metric would be more convenient, since Disney operates three international resorts and so it would be easier to replicate the attractions in Paris, Tokyo or Hong Kong. So I guess a local architectual company in one of the countries is always translating into metric. That must be very interesting when working with a rollercoaster facturer like Vekoma or Intamin, both are European. I think all recent Disney coaster are from these companies.

Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me (as a structural engineer). It seems like anytime we're working with an "international" company the designs are always in metric. You would think, since most of their resorts are outside of the US, that everything would be in metric and would need to be converted to english for the resorts over here. Nothing like making everyone's jobs more difficult and time consuming. I'm sure if everything's in cad they can revise the dimensioning pretty easily nowdays, but still....

 

[HumblePirate]

European contractors, like many, bid insanely low to get you to sign with them and hope for you to make changes that cost extra and they soak you. We knew this and let them finish their work per the contract price, even if it was wrong (unless a major issue), then had our own outside crew make the changes for less cost. The other thing is that architects are more conceptual and design oriented in Europe, leaving the details to the contractor, who figures out how to build it, which can lead to a conflict of interest when it comes to quality.

That doesn't sound too different than around here now. Contractors bidding jobs cheaper than they can get the material in hopes that change orders will come around where they can make a profit.

 

[lazyboy97o]

I think Euro Disney SCA is also stuck with debt from the development of Val d'Europe. The whole project was also almost entirely financed, the cash being paid by The Walt Disney Company even being a loan to the complicated mess that is the corporate structure running Disneyland Paris. Then a second gate had to be built, which required even more loans, particularly from The Walt Disney Company. And as little as that park may actually have, Disney is not exactly known for being the most cost-effective in the theme park industry, plus who knows if they were also charged at all for the work that had been done on the Disney-MGM Studios Europe.

Here's another story. When Main Street was being built, to save money, the project manager and the architect allowed the exterior facades to be built of MDF.

I guess they never shopped at IKEA.

 

[HMF]

Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me (as a structural engineer). It seems like anytime we're working with an "international" company the designs are always in metric. You would think, since most of their resorts are outside of the US, that everything would be in metric and would need to be converted to english for the resorts over here. Nothing like making everyone's jobs more difficult and time consuming. I'm sure if everything's in cad they can revise the dimensioning pretty easily nowdays, but still....

This is going to be a bit ranty but this is one of the things that I hate about American Culture.We are so afraid of changing the status quo which is why we are not using things like the metric system and there is a cultural trend here where people think that sophistication and intelligence are things to be discouraged or "cured" and people with intelligence and have new ideas to improve the way we live are labelled as "Eliteist Progressives". We watch brainless entertainment like American Idol, Reality TV, Family Guy etc. We like to have things dumbed down to the lowest common denominator, for example The current Narration of Spaceship Earth at Epcot or the changing of the name of the first Harry Potter book from Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerer's Stone because book publishers think American Children do not know what a philosopher is, God forbid kids learn a new word.
Ignorance sure is bliss.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me (as a structural engineer). It seems like anytime we're working with an "international" company the designs are always in metric. You would think, since most of their resorts are outside of the US, that everything would be in metric and would need to be converted to english for the resorts over here. Nothing like making everyone's jobs more difficult and time consuming. I'm sure if everything's in cad they can revise the dimensioning pretty easily nowdays, but still....

Let's go back to 1988. Nothing was in CAD yet, it was a relatively new medium. The Main Street Facades were based on WDW which was drawn in feet and inches in 1969 and 1970. Disneyland Paris was drawn and built in metric and in CAD, but based on hand drawn work from the USA and for the most part we were translating from older drawings. Town Square was all new and dimensioned in metric.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

i guess they never shopped at ikea.

:roflol:

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Ignorance sure is bliss.

Best quote from "The Matrix".

 

[HMF]

Best quote from "The Matrix".

Funnily enough, I had no idea that I was quoting from a movie.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Funnily enough, I had no idea that I was quoting from a movie.

I didn't think so. That's what made me laugh!