You and I both know they can't stray much farther from what made WDW special, yet they continue to pack the hotels full whilst offering less. I have dreams of people wising up and staying elsewhere or just staying away for a while, but I just don't see it happening.
I like seeing the stock price increase, but they can do that while making wise investment. Destroying Epcot and ruining all sightlines while overspending to do it, isn't what I call wise investment in the future. Eventually I think this will come back to bite them, but it might be too late to recover properly at that point.
In the 70's the only 'perks' available were, well none. You could get the monorail from your hotel but that was it. The reality is that there'll always be those who find joy in staying in Disney, just because they're in Disney. Some hotels give you park views, some don't but you're already in Disney and that's enough for some.
Don't get me wrong, there's definitely less 'perks' than there was just over a year ago. I fully get that some have that perspective and understand why. At times though I read on here about how great Disney was in the 70's whereas now it's rubbish, yet that's not entirely true if at all. Back then the CM's were probably more engaging, well more of them were than they are now. But back then it was harder to get the job as a CM as they employed far, far, far less. This meant the ones you got were usually the best of the best, the ones with no personality or enthusiasm rarely got the job. I remember my first Visit to the MK and Space Mountain was the only 'mountain' in Disney World and MK was the only park. When the MK opened, there were no 'mountains' at all.
Granted back then, Disney had less money. But the idea that they'd just throw it around on everything for the guests was wrong. They did more for the guests but it was still a business. MK opened with less attractions than it has now, no coasters at all. No perks for hotel guests as such, just the perk of staying in Disney. If an attraction is built now if it's not cutting edge technology and bigger, better, longer or faster then anything else we're led to believe that Disney only ever built these type of attractions in the past with no 'filler', also not strictly true.
I also think the older we get and the more times we've been to Disney, the more we notice. For instance as a teen in the mid 80's I started to notice all the things you could see from the monorail that I'd not noticed before. The dirty bin areas around the Contemporary, out of control shrubbery near the monorail station, the bins and junk behind Space Mountain as you neared the MK, the show buildings and backstage areas from the MK skyway and the not so well hidden backstage area from the railroad. Now these things had probably always been there, but hadn't been noticed because there was so much nice stuff to see that your eyes weren't attracted to it. With familiarity after many visits though, you start looking around and noticing these things more because you're not as distracted by the good stuff and realise that everything isn't as perfect as you once thought.
On here we're a bit fanatical beyond 'normal folks' about Disney World, well I am at least. This means we want what's best for us and sometimes miss the bigger picture. Some on here almost have this idea that if a new attraction is built that doesn't appeal to their age group, that it means Disney doesn't care about what they want. Some think "I've done that attraction for 10 years and I'm bored with it now, it needs replacing" without realising the joy it still gives millions of people who aren't bored with it. Disney are certainly financially greedier than they were, some CM's don't seem as engaging and at times the budget cuts are frustrating especially if the ride length of a new attraction suffers. But they still do build new attractions, many very good. Most slated the idea of Pandora on here, "Who's interested in that, it'll be rubbish" etc. Yet one of it's attractions is one of the highest rated rides anywhere by many people. When Galaxy's Edge opened people were falling over each other to call it terrible and yet when ROTR opened many people were blown away by it. If Guardians follows suit in Epcot it will again be hugely popular as will Tron and Rat.
Disney can and should do better at times, yet to me anyway it seems a bit lazy to just rubbish everything Disney does and say everything was better 'back in the day'. I'm not saying nothing wasn't, but a bit of perspective is needed I feel rather than the minority who just hate everything. Constructive criticism is fine, as is hating everything if that's your bag. But again the idea that everything was perfect and now isn't, just doesn't seem as cut and dry to me as it does to some others.
By the way to the OP, I'm not saying you are all negative or falling out with you. Just quoted you for one thing and then kind of got carried away so don't think I'm calling you out on my reply
