Prince-1
Well-Known Member
Hate to spoil your party but McDonald's is still number one...if we are talking revenue. They've made some mistakes recently but number one is still number one. Thanks for playing.
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Is Disney complacent , and back on its heels
- Thread starter POLY LOVER
- Start date
Hate to spoil your party but McDonald's is still number one...if we are talking revenue. They've made some mistakes recently but number one is still number one. Thanks for playing.
DABIGCHEEZ
Well-Known Member
I agree with the OP that for the past many years, Disney has not been leading edge on much. The problem is that Disney has much more name recognition than the others and because of that in most peoples eye Disney means "the best" to the average guest. And obviously by the attendance #s , people are still going in droves because of this.
Many of us that have experienced WDW for a long period of time, know better. We know that Disney was at one time the true leader in innovating, cutting edge attractions. Hopefully, those times will return at some point... but if the turnstiles are still spinning(or should I say Magicbands being waved), I doubt it.
Many of us that have experienced WDW for a long period of time, know better. We know that Disney was at one time the true leader in innovating, cutting edge attractions. Hopefully, those times will return at some point... but if the turnstiles are still spinning(or should I say Magicbands being waved), I doubt it.
DManRightHere
Well-Known Member
Ask this again in 5-8 years.
My opinion is Disney is still leaps ahead, but Universal is definitely working on making it a game.
Mouse_Trap
Well-Known Member
For a beast the size of WDW I think even that is insufficient. Between the four parks there should be a minimum of one new E-ticket each year to 18 months.
Under your suggestion, that each park getting a new major attraction every 8 years. I don't think that's enough, though admittedly it would be a massive improvement on the current regime (1 e-ticket over 9 years ago, and none on the horizon).
I though California Screamin' was a pretty good coaster, admittedly non at all well themed. Anything in that category would be nice, but I still think a flying coaster would have suited Avatarland perfectly. Heck, it could have been a tame one without inversion even. Much better then the simulator that they are building.
How many overseas people would come to Orlando full stop without Disney. Not many I wouldn't think.
I think Universal is indeed taking. They are taking former WDW visitors up the I-4....however, they are being replaced more that 1:1 with new visitors.
Also more admissions isn't necessarily more dollars, the price difference between a 5 day and 10 day WDW ticket is minimal (heck in the UK the 7 and 14 days tickets are identically priced right now and the 21 day pass is only about $30 more.
Stateside, Universal only sells up to 4 day tickets before an AP. There is also a question about how guest expenditure increases with length of stay; food and drink may be close to linear, but on merchandise and gifts, almost certainly not.
In my experience, that's quite true, though historically I would say many only went to Disney.
This is of course anecdotal, but I have definately witnessed a surge in the number of people I know who are now splitting their trips to visit both, and for the first time many are doing Universal only trips, staying on-site skipping Disney completely. The Orlando Flex-ticket offers fantastic value once people have realised it exists and that there is an alternative to Disney.
For many i know, Florida or Orlando only meant Disney....I don't think some even knew anything existed outside of the WDW bubble. That has certainly changed in the last couple of years.
There is no question that many people that only did Disney finally ventured outside of the bubble and went elsewhere thanks to the pull of the boy wizard. What I found interesting was quite a few see it as a one and done thing. I have heard quite a few "Yeah, Potter was cool, but I just don't feel a real pull to go back to US."
I don't know what it is about the mouse, but he has the hooks in deep.
My theory is that Disney now is so much more than theme parks with their venture into TV show, cable channels, print and so much more they are split between to many focuses. They can,t be as focused on just the parks as they used to be. Their attention has to be evenly spread among their interests. It's causing them to fight the war on to many fronts. In the old days Walt had one thing on his mind. The parks and his movies
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
It'll never happen. WDW will never build more than an average family can do in a week because they'll never be able to get the average family to visit for more than a week. Folks have limited funds and limited vacation time. Best case "new stuff" scenario would be upgrades and replacement of existing attractions. I doubt we ever see any substantial true park expansion after DAK and DHS are finished.
WondersOfLife
Blink, blink. Breathe, breathe. Day in, day out.
Chef Mickey
Well-Known Member
This is a little unrealistic, although I'd have no problem seeing it happen. One of Iger's biggest failures is essentially 0 E-Ticket attractions on his watch. The last true E-Ticket was EE, started prior to his arrival. E-Ticket attractions cost around $80-$100M and have 20-25 year lives. I'm not even sure they have the space for that many true E-tickets.
If you're talking a new E-Ticket every month, you build the first one in year 1 and have 12 more the next 20 years. You'll have 16-17 E-Tickets in 25 years. Think about that. That's more E-Tickets than exist today. Even between 4 parks, that's over 4 per park, in addition to the A, B, C, and D ticket rides you'd have to add unless you're strategy is adding E-Tickets? The construction itself usually takes 3+ years.
In the last 20 years, Disney has done ToT, Soarin, Test Track, Mission Space, EE, RnR, 7DMT (not really E-ticket), can you count Toy Story? If you call Toy Story and 7DMT D tickets, they've really only had 6 true E-Ticket rides.
It hasn't been enough, but they have so much opportunity with their existing lineup of attractions, including the A, B, C, and D rides. Also, they have to think about shows, common areas, and closures to make room. I just think having such a big project every 18 months would have too many downstream impacts to be feasible to sustain.
danlb_2000
Premium Member
You could also add international travel company to that as well thanks to Disney Adventures.Parks, movies, cruise ships, non-park resort, multiple television networks, consumer products, and video games > 2 things.
BJones82
Well-Known Member
BJones82
Well-Known Member
We don't know how US's expansions are going to hold up, though I haven't seen the Gringotts ride yet personally I have heard the line ques' goblins look incredible but the marble doesn't look real... The original Harry Potter Expansion is holding up but it took them over 3 years to build (on par with the New Fantasy Land) new areas they are building now they are spending money to build in 18 months for things almost just as expansive, this means they are either paying so much more it's not sustainable to construct in this way, or they are doing a really crappy job which will require a ton of upkeep, as others have said though, prior to 2010 when US opened the first HP area they were in a multi year slump and almost a decade sense anything great had come out (Islands of adventure opened in 2001 i wanna say or it was 1997-8) Anyway they need to spend lots and fast now, Disney as others have said doesn't...
BJones82
Well-Known Member
I was this way, we went to US a year after HP first opened and haven't gone back in 4 years sense until we go this fall to see the new area... For us it just isn't worth the cost of buying a whole ticket for the two of us to visit the one area, as they refresh the rest of the parks this might change. In that same 4 years we have visited WDW 5 times for 5-7 days each time and are going back for our honeymoon of which we are just doing 1 out of 18 days at US... This really points to them still complimenting WDW not competing with it...
Just look at attendance numbers, WDW had more visitors than Universal parks world wide this past year...
Disney started out with movies and the mouse then opened a theme park almost 20 years later... They have always been more than the parks... The parks were a way to get people into the worlds of his movies and TV shows... I'm young so forgive me (only 29) but what was the show that Walt broadcasted from DisneyLand every week?
Yea... You're right though just the parks and movies there was no TV or profiting from sales of figurines, Walt was never about that... Wait didn't he sell Mickey from his garage........ I guess you're right though just like Columbus was a great guy and we should celebrate him.... Revisionist history is always great when you win....
TXDisney
Well-Known Member
From
A person that does both Disney and Universal pretty much every trip, I don't think Dosney is in trouble at all. The one and only thing universal has better than Disney is it's thrill rides. In my opinion Disneys only thrill rides are Mt. Everest, space mountain, ToT and Aerosmith. With universal having 1/2 the parks and twice the thrill rides, it's not a competition there. But the new Disney Springs looks like it will be better than CityWalk. And Disney at every park is kid friendly, which is most guests. Universal doesn't appeal to young crowds as much. Ever all of Harry Potter is more of a teenage market. When we do 7 days 8 nights down in Orlando we do 6 Disney days and 2 universal, so Disney doesn't have to worry about my business. I think most families that do both do something similar as well.
A person that does both Disney and Universal pretty much every trip, I don't think Dosney is in trouble at all. The one and only thing universal has better than Disney is it's thrill rides. In my opinion Disneys only thrill rides are Mt. Everest, space mountain, ToT and Aerosmith. With universal having 1/2 the parks and twice the thrill rides, it's not a competition there. But the new Disney Springs looks like it will be better than CityWalk. And Disney at every park is kid friendly, which is most guests. Universal doesn't appeal to young crowds as much. Ever all of Harry Potter is more of a teenage market. When we do 7 days 8 nights down in Orlando we do 6 Disney days and 2 universal, so Disney doesn't have to worry about my business. I think most families that do both do something similar as well.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
This forum has the lowest threshold of any that I've ever visited when it comes to what people deem thread-worthy.
BJones82
Well-Known Member
This is really good point and way to put it... A lot of people are all or nothing either they love US and Hate what Disney is doing or they HATE that people say Disney is hurting... This shows that right now they really are in two different markets and they compliment each other more than anything...
As someone else said, US doesn't offer more than a 4 day pass before jumping to annual where Disney offers 10 in the US and 21 internationally, clearly they aren't expecting to duplicate what Disney does, they are trying to fill the small gap that Disney leaves with what it doesn't do...
Yes, but dozens of people comprise Walt's former job. The fact that WDW was at its prime in the nineties when they were breaking ground of all these things rather than setting them to autopilot is indicative that conglomeration shouldn't be much of a factor anyway