Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

[BlakeW39]

Look no further than the blue sky stuff and how much are eating that up.

Which was an obvious hoax from the minute they put it on the screen above the stage

Slaphead and tightpants were in deep trouble…they had NOTHING because they misread the market…and they Hail Mary some non-committal nonsense…

Like selling magic beans.

Ironically…Iger doing 66 on chapek actually spared him from the full heat. It’s now on ego Bob.

the blue skies were always all talk. It's baffling they'd even talk about such stupid concepts, but no doubt, they were tantamount to very little more than nothing.

Saw both pop in and out on Memorial Day weekend…bunch of times.

The only place I don’t recall seeing was yak and yeti?

Literally all else. I’ve eaten a meal or two on property in my day

I got a reservation for 7 the day of at Yak & Yeti 1 hour in advance. This April. Just sayin'

 

[Jrb1979]

the blue skies were always all talk. It's baffling they'd even talk about such stupid concepts, but no doubt, they were tantamount to very little more than nothing.

I agree but at the same time look at how many ate it up. Just look at the threads for them. So many believing they were coming.

 

[BlakeW39]

I agree but at the same time look at how many ate it up. Just look at the threads for them. So many believing they were coming.

I think that's mostly the novices

anyone who's been on this board a few times knows Disney's a major flake. 'Blue skies' mean less than nothing

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

None of this will draw in new guests and is not very marketable.

While I hope that one day entertainment will return, Batuu or any new land have a far better ROI for Disney

Lol…Batuu…

I still laugh at that…the most mismanaged film studio/IP in maybe all of Hollywood…

Ok…DC might be worse…but that’s a race to the bottom

 

[erasure fan1]

Ok…DC might be worse…but that’s a race to the bottom

Congratulations! You're the fastest sloth!

 

[BlakeW39]

Lol…Batuu…

I still laugh at that…the most mismanaged film studio/IP in maybe all of Hollywood…

Ok…DC might be worse…but that’s a race to the bottom

Lol. yeah both those properties were terribly mismanaged in the mid 2010s.

Then WDC took an IP they drove into the ground.. with their stupid decisions.. and based a theme park land on it... which they ALSO subsequently drove into the ground. with their stupid decisions. not to even mention that silly Galactic Starcruiser

thanks bob!

 

[Tha Realest]

Even the Six Flags parks know to stay away from the divisive iterations of the DC characters

 

[BrianLo]

What happens if parks can no longer provide the cash to cover theatrical and D+ losses?

There's a large gap between there and where we are.

Some of it also comes down to there only seems to be a WDW problem, if that. They are also lucky Shanghai Disneyland will be a strong cover for year over year.

Oh and domestically the cruises. Which flies a bit counter to the revenge travel wave being over when all the cruise line majors are reporting the highest ever booking volumes for this upcoming summer quarter. Though one could make an argument maybe that part of the market was a bit more delayed to get back from pandemic sentiment.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

There's a large gap between there and where we are.

Different markets…for sure. But particularly in the Orlando markets, wdw has produced less solid new stuff for the price than its competitors for a long time. ROI and longterm appeal has to be considered.

Some of it also comes down to there only seems to be a WDW problem, if that. They are also lucky Shanghai Disneyland will be a strong cover for year over year.

What’s Shanghai really “covering”? None of the western world cares anymore. It’s it’s own thing.

Oh and domestically the cruises. Which flies a bit counter to the revenge travel wave being over when all the cruise line majors are reporting the highest ever booking volumes for this upcoming summer quarter. Though one could make an argument maybe that part of the market was a bit more delayed to get back from pandemic sentiment.

Cruiseline has a huge advantage: they have a tiny fleet and enough Disney diehards to fill it at a hyper rate.

One case where there is really no downside to limited investment. They only dipped their toe in that game.

 

[BrianLo]

Different markets…for sure. But particularly in the Orlando markets, wdw has produced less solid new stuff for the price than its competitors for a long time. ROI and longterm appeal has to be considered.

There seems to be some major short term memory loss on this board. I am VERY excited for Epic Universe and we've had a few stellar IOA projects. However there is still a 10 year window that WDW new-product was overall superior to Universal (2015-2024). It seems the next 10 year window is currently Univeral's in a big way, but people are still putting Potter on a pedestal like it wasn't 10-15 years ago at this point. By all means Universal is playing catch up here... we just know their next move and it's a big one.

What’s Shanghai really “covering”? None of the western world cares anymore. It’s it’s own thing.

Overall Parks and Resorts Earnings. The international segment has recently turned positive with success out of DLP. SDL was previously the only resort (Tokyo excluded) that was covering DLP/HKDL losses. Now SDL will have very favourable year over year performance AND DLP is humming. Even so far as Q1 2024 when the park was still closed.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

There seems to be some major short term memory loss on this board. I am VERY excited for Epic Universe and we've had a few stellar IOA projects. However there is still a 10 year window that WDW new-product was overall superior to Universal (2015-2024). It seems the next 10 year window is currently Univeral's in a big way, but people are still putting Potter on a pedestal like it wasn't 10-15 years ago at this point. By all means Universal is playing catch up here... we just know their next move and it's a big one.

There’s midterm memory loss - for sure - cause wdw did NOTHING for the previous 10 years when universal revamped their parks and expanded it into a multi day resort prior to 2015. Now if you want to say it cancels out a little? Yeah…I’ll hear that.

But tell me “far superior”….we’ll agree on Pandora…then be VERY careful with the list after that. Be careful to not laud mine train and slinky if you want to be taken seriously.

Overall Parks and Resorts Earnings. The international segment has recently turned positive with success out of DLP. SDL was previously the only resort (Tokyo excluded) that was covering DLP/HKDL losses. Now SDL will have very favourable year over year performance AND DLP is humming. Even so far as Q1 2024 when the park was still closed.

Only paris is in the Disney financial basket…the Japanese parks are licensing fees and the Chinese parks are an amazingly complex cluster deal of smoke.

You know they’re authoritarian and unilateral in their deals, right? And you know Disney doesn’t control them to any level and were really there for the sweatshop deals, right? And the population doesn’t like Disney IP?

 

[Comped]

Entertainment is the only viable solution to draw people in for the next several years.

Sadly, it takes months, if not years, to come up with good entertainment. Disney does have many shows from other parks they could easily port, but we'd still be talking 4-6 months of casting, rehearsals, and planning, at the very least, before new entertainment could come in. Large scale shows take years. And that's assuming the parks/WDI/DLE wants it to happen. Odds are high that, particularly for park ops, entertainment is not a desired spending category compared to large scale rides which pack in the fans. Even if Disney cheapens out and doesn't build them in less than 5 years...

 

[Chomama]

Back to update on my “here now” experience. Today was our first full park day. A Saturday at magic kingdom. It was NOT crowded. I know people will say that’s just a feeling but we come a lot. We haven’t had a day this light in years and our entire group was commenting on it all day and discussing why that may be the case. The longest line we waited in was sadly the Tomorrowland bathroom. Nothing was over 30 mins and most rides were 10-20. We walked in to fireworks fifteen mins before and had a wide open Main Street. I personally love it when the parks are like this but I am sure the mouse doesn’t. Also anecdotal- it was hot and people were still friendly and smiling. Because the weren’t pushing and shoving and waiting in long lines. Weird what not being packed like sardines in the 90 florida heat can do for one’s attitude!!

 

[BrianLo]

the Chinese parks are an amazingly complex cluster deal of smoke.

You know they’re authoritarian and unilateral in their deals, right? And you know Disney doesn’t control them to any level and were really there for the sweatshop deals, right? And the population doesn’t like Disney IP?

I can't really argue against your financial conspiracy theories. Though yes in their financial reports they have and will continue to report a healthy profit margin against Shanghai. Whatever math behind the hood it's the only thing that was keeping the International segment net positive pre-pandemic.

China likes Disney IP. They just don't like all of it and really lack nostalgia in lock step with domestic markets. Which impacts some of the Disney tentpoles like Star Wars or Renaissance films. But things like Marvel, Toy Story, Zootopia, Coco, Avatar do break through. Disney just needs to pick and choose for that market, unlike Japan and usually South Korea.

 

[BlakeW39]

There seems to be some major short term memory loss on this board. I am VERY excited for Epic Universe and we've had a few stellar IOA projects. However there is still a 10 year window that WDW new-product was overall superior to Universal (2015-2024). It seems the next 10 year window is currently Univeral's in a big way, but people are still putting Potter on a pedestal like it wasn't 10-15 years ago at this point. By all means Universal is playing catch up here... we just know their next move and it's a big one.

There is no short term memory loss going on here. We all know Uni has had some serious duds. Fallon, Minions, F&F come to mind. We all recall the "Screens!!!" complaints that were recycled ad nauseum for years, right?

It's not like Universal hasn't been criticized over the past decade. They have. But the difference is, overall Universal has increased the value & quality of their resort significantly over the past 15 years or so. WDW has done the opposite. So when we compare them, we understand Comcast has had some missteps. But overrall they seem to have learned from their mistakes and to be going in the right direction. WDW seems to make the same mistakes repeatedly and shows no sign of slowing down, at all. Quite the opposite really. Not only has the resort gotten worse over the past 15 years, but the rate of its decline has gotten even worse in the past couple years. So the positive bias for Comcast and negative bias for TWDC is well founded.

I'll add to this. I have no clue how you can say Comcast are the ones playing catch up, respectfully. I mean other than the fact that they're literally trying to catch up to WDW's immense infrastructure. But Disney's projects have largely been responses to Comcasts large scale investment. not the other way around. And yes that very much started with Potter so you can't count that out. WDC's response has often been very meh and mediocre as well, for every Pandora we have a Rat, a Tron, an MMRR, and I could go on. Universal had their screens phase but seemed to have learned from that mistake. WDC just continues to make mistake after mistake and produce increasingly mediocre products.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Back to update on my “here now” experience. Today was our first full park day. A Saturday at magic kingdom. It was NOT crowded. I know people will say that’s just a feeling but we come a lot. We haven’t had a day this light in years and our entire group was commenting on it all day and discussing why that may be the case. The longest line we waited in was sadly the Tomorrowland bathroom. Nothing was over 30 mins and most rides were 10-20. We walked in to fireworks fifteen mins before and had a wide open Main Street. I personally love it when the parks are like this but I am sure the mouse doesn’t. Also anecdotal- it was hot and people were still friendly and smiling. Because the weren’t pushing and shoving and waiting in long lines. Weird what not being packed like sardines in the 90 florida heat can do for one’s attitude!!

I’m not shocked at all. I saw it and it’s continuing a downward trend.

I told a TA friend that it’s the slowest Since at least 2010…but I couldn’t shake a 2001/2002 vibe:
Overall travel is up in Florida…which is the same as the trajectory since AC was invented…but it is not in the Disney gates.

They already have admitted it with the resort discounts, annual passes and the 4 day ticket hooks.

It’s not working…and they didn’t even want to show their cards this much.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I can't really argue against your financial conspiracy theories. Though yes in their financial reports they have and will continue to report a healthy profit margin against Shanghai. Whatever math behind the hood it's the only thing that was keeping the International segment net positive pre-pandemic.

China likes Disney IP. They just don't like all of it and really lack nostalgia in lock step with domestic markets. Which impacts some of the Disney tentpoles like Star Wars or Renaissance films. But things like Marvel, Toy Story, Zootopia, Coco, Avatar do break through. Disney just needs to pick and choose for that market, unlike Japan and usually South Korea.

They have shown good response to Marvel and Pixar…
But even that is trending down.

And look…they’re in that market and we can grumble…but that isn’t what to look at:

they haven’t…nor ever will…support Disney strength the way the nato counties have.

It’s like them trying to redefine lucasfilm franchises: it’s ok to go with what works than die fighting to change it for the sake of being different.

This management is awful. It’s gotta go. All of it. Senior ranks and board seats

 

[orion54]

I’m not shocked at all. I saw it and it’s continuing a downward trend.

I told a TA friend that it’s the slowest Since at least 2010…but I couldn’t shake a 2001/2002 vibe:
Overall travel is up in Florida…which is the same as the trajectory since AC was invented…but it is not in the Disney gates.

They already have admitted it with the resort discounts, annual passes and the 4 day ticket hooks.

It’s not working…and they didn’t even want to show their cards this much.

Disney is cheapening out on this part too. Every ride building has little to no air flow and the temps in every building are lukewarm at best. They used to blast AC in each location and was a good respite from the heat. No longer.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Disney is cheapening out on this part too. Every ride building has little to no air flow and the temps in every building are lukewarm at best. They used to blast AC in each location and was a good respite from the heat. No longer.

They actually started that a long time ago…been cutting back for years.

Im actually ok with that because of energy efficiency and comfort parameters. But I’m sure it’s about bucks.

It’s still not good to go from 95 to 65 back and forth all day. Not good for any machine…mechanical or biological

 

[orion54]

They actually started that a long time ago…been cutting back for years.

Im actually ok with that because of energy efficiency and comfort parameters. But I’m sure it’s about bucks.

It’s still not good to go from 95 to 65 back and forth all day. Not good for any machine…mechanical or biological

Yes, I know they've been doing it a while but it's gotten worse. I'm ok with raising the temps a bit but zero air flow is a no go. It's always about the bucks. WDW seems to be run by former Six Flags wannabes.