Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks

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EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT Explorer

New Member
This pool thing must be from people who are out of state.:confused::lookaroun

When I was little, I never had any urge to go...All I wanted were the parks.:lol:
 
marsrunner

marsrunner

New Member
When I was little and lived in FL/GA I never wanted to go to the pools or even River Country. We had a pool so I had no desire to go swimming when I did not have Space Mountain in my back yard!
Now that I have my own little ones they had no desire either when we go to DL or WDW. We have a pool, so they never wanted to. They never asked and when my wife and I asked them several times if they wanted to go swimming or what they wanted to do today the answer was always to go to the parks.
Just personal observations and I know not reflective of the general consensus.
 
SirGoofy

SirGoofy

Member
Count me in as another person who was never into the whole pool thing. I loved Typhoon and Blizzard, but the pools were always a bore to me.

I've always said that once I make some money, I'll have a small lazy river in my back yard rather than a pool. :lol:
 
EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT Explorer

New Member
CBOMB said:
They can't even get that right anymore. Remember The Year of a Million dreams, that folks thought was going to become The Decade of a Million Dreams. :D
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Oy. :lol: that's right.
SirGoofy said:
Count me in as another person who was never into the whole pool thing. I loved Typhoon and Blizzard, but the pools were always a bore to me.

I've always said that once I make some money, I'll have a small lazy river in my back yard rather than a pool. :lol:
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I was OK with TL for a little bit...Then I wanted back to go back to MK.:lookaroun:lol: 3PM Parade was gonna start...:lookaroun
 
jt04

jt04

Well-Known Member
lazyboy97o said:
Even closing down a wing costs money. A small degree of maintenance is still going to be required.
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Yes but not nearly as costly as loosing potential DVC sales. If the economy recovers and they keep adding fun stuff to the parks (small and large) then they won't have to worry about closing wings. The other thing they won't have to worry about is telling people they don't have accomadations available on property. I think this idea that they have overbuilt is not accurate even in the near future. Like for the 40th anniversary in 2011.
 
Animaniac93-98

Animaniac93-98

Well-Known Member
I'm not surprised people who had pools didn't like the hotel ones.

I never had a pool so the ones at Coronado Springs, Stormalong Bay, Boardwalk, and others were quite fun for me.
 
SirGoofy

SirGoofy

Member
Animaniac93-98 said:
I'm not surprised people who had pools didn't like the hotel ones.

I never had a pool so the ones at Coronado Springs, Stormalong Bay, Boardwalk, and others were quite fun for me.
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I never had a pool! :lol:


But! Stormalong is in a league of its own. A masterpiece of Imagineering, IMO.
 
kashmir

kashmir

Active Member
We have semi-private pools at home, but my kids would rather be in the parks! (could be that incident with the "floating mass" when they were little...):hurl:
 
SirGoofy

SirGoofy

Member
EPCOT Explorer said:
A pool? Do tell how...:lookaroun
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Have you ever been in the thing?

From the overall theming with the pirate ship slide, to the connected mini-lazy river, to the attached beach/sand play area, to having sand in the bottom of the pool, everything about it is amazing.
 
EPCOT Explorer

EPCOT Explorer

New Member
SirGoofy said:
Have you ever been in the thing?

From the overall theming with the pirate ship slide, to the connected mini-lazy river, to the attached beach/sand play area, to having sand in the bottom of the pool, everything about it is amazing.
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Nope...Hoping to rectify that next trip. (z0mgp00lhopping!?-No...Exploring.:D)


Sounds interesting, I give it that.:lol: Mini water park?:lol:
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
mcjaco said:
I'm not sure I need to see a "constant" refresh of offerings, but as I've been going annually for the past four years (like when I was younger), I do find myself a little bored when nothing has been plussed.

Back in the day......it seemed like every year we went there was something new. Not so much now.
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Yeah ... what was their campaign in the late 1980s ? ... 'So Much More Than Ever Before' ... now it's the same stale stuff over and over again.

Plussing stopped for the longest time ... now you're getting some at MK, but new experiences aren't flowing.

I am never bored at EPCOT or DAK because by their nature they are such dynamic places ... but MK ... and TPFKaTD-MGMS?

Bored quite frequently!
 
SirGoofy

SirGoofy

Member
WDW1974 said:
Yeah ... what was their campaign in the late 1980s ? ... 'So Much More Than Ever Before' ... now it's the same stale stuff over and over again.

Plussing stopped for the longest time ... now you're getting some at MK, but new experiences aren't flowing.

I am never bored at EPCOT or DAK because by their nature they are such dynamic places ... but MK ... and TPFKaTD-MGMS?

Bored quite frequently!
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Have you checked out the videos of Luxo over at DHS? Not anything big, but definitely one of those little Disney touches that makes the parks special.

I was impressed, and me being your lacky, you would have to be impressed.:lol:
 
WDW1974

WDW1974

Well-Known Member
WDWFigment said:
I know the generally offered reasoning as to why DL gets seasonal makeovers is because annual passholders make up so much greater of the guest population, and DL needs this type of thing to continue attracting guests, or, alternatively, from the other crowd, because WDW's management is too cheap (...this thread is not meant to be an argument over which is the case).
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Well, to be fair it is both.

WDWFigment said:
That said, at what point in time do you anticipate this changing? WDW continues to build DVC resorts, and I think it's a safe presumption that these individuals are thus not once in a lifetime guests. Rather, many of them visit several times per year and even have annual passes. I think it would be a fair assertion that the AP percentage differential between DL and WDW has gradually began closing since 1992. At some point, it seems The Walt Disney Company would need to acknowledge this, and begin creating more seasonal offerings and plussing attractions (among other things) to keep these guests coming back to WDW.
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I often wonder if WDW doesn't have more APers than DL now. What people don't get is that most APers aren't from Florida ... they are from the UK or NY or Boston or Atlanta or Houston or Sweden or Germany or Brazil etc ... and many absolutely are DVCers.

The issue is whether the magic has begun to wear thin with many of the APers and DVCers ... you can't have the same old, same old for year upon year.

And plussing existing attractions is great, but it doesn't count on the scale some would have you believe.


WDWFigment said:
I think the time to start that is now. Right now, Disney has the most DVC properties available (at WDW alone) that it has ever had. Saratoga Springs, Bay Lake Tower at the Contemporary, and the Animal Kingdom Villas all have large unsold inventories. Additionally, the resale market has the largest inventory that it has ever had, and prices both direct from Disney and via the resale market continue to drop to their lowest amounts in several years. It's quite easy to blame these numbers on the economy (and there is no denying that the economy is causing some of the decline), but why not take a different approach?

Rather than shrugging off the poor numbers as a result of the economy, why not adopt the DL tactic of creating seasonal offerings and plussing attractions? Market these changes as something WDW does to specifically appeal to those DVC members who want to visit yearly or even several times per year. (For those unfamiliar with DVC's current marketing strategy, it is solely aimed at looking at all of the places besides WDW that you can stay. However, these "outside offerings" (besides Vero Beach & Hilton Head Island) offer terrible value for your money, and most DVC members join to stay at WDW). I think at some point, WDW will have to adopt similar practices out of necessity, or they will begin to face an outflux of members (those who bought-in in the early 1990s) who have grown tired of WDW's offerings. However, when will that point occur? I don't think we've seen such an outflux yet, nor have WDW's AP numbers reached a high enough percentage of total guests that management believes they must adopt such a strategy out of necessity, but surely it isn't far away.

Whether you love or hate all of the DVC properties being built, I think we should all appreciate DVC for what it offers to WDW that would never otherwise exist: demand for those "little things" that DL does to attract repeat visitors. Hopefully WDW adopts similar strategies soon!
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The funny ... or most absurd thing is the fact that back in what I term 'the good old days' (for me it's 1974-1994, but others will vary a bit) when DVC didn't exist or was barely a blip on the radar ... when APs weren't nearly as common (especially for none-Floridians) ... when people visited less regularly ... when all of the above ... Disney was much more into both rehabbing attractions regularly, changing entertainment and offering seasonal entertainment.

of course hard ticket events, which include a lot of that now, didn't exist in the 70s and 80s (except for a few exceptions).

But the argument for letting WDW grow stale and neglected, which doesn't make any sense at all to me, certainly had a stronger basis back then ...
 
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