This feels like a good time to clarify:
While I'm not what you'd call a pixieduster, I'm 100% *not* a doom-and-gloomer. I've been to the resort probably 60+ times in my 38 years on earth. I have a tattoo of the original Horizons pavilion logo. I love classic EPCOT, and I love a lot of the recent additions across the resort.
I started selling as a Disney travel agent more than a decade ago, and was selling $125,000+ annually on my own by year 3. In the early days of the pandemic, I bought out the agency I was selling under and now oversee 15 agents selling as a part of my organization: From New Jersey, to Ohio, to Florida, to Nebraska.
From a business perspective - as someone who has plenty of my own value tied up in the mouse - things are not well specifically at WDW. Hotel occupancy at historic lows delivers a huge blow to per-guest spending, even if they're able to compensate with gate clicks from offsite guests at the parks. Iger's entire strategy for the resort delivered some short-term gains at the expense of long-term stability. Couple that with the creative bankruptcy at WDI and we're left with a perfect storm: Empty hotel rooms, underdeveloped parks, transparent nickel-and-diming everywhere the guest turns, and Wall Street soon to come calling.
And, FWIW, I'll be at Yacht Club on Veterans Day weekend to celebrate my birthday at Food & Wine. Happy to grab a drink and talk shop... glares from my wife tossed in at no extra charge!