Jim Hill discusses Disney's Jungle Trek

[menamechris]

Clearly, you are not familiar with any actual consumers of Discovery Cove. While I myself have not gone, I have literally never encountered a single person who didn't have RAVE reviews of their experience. I've even asked if they felt it was wort the price, and without fail, the answer is always "absolutely." Does it alienate those of us who cannot afford to drop that kind of dough on a one day experience? Yes, of course it does. That's part of why I've never gone - but there's no dening that if you *can* afford it, it's worth the money for the experience you walk away with.

And to make a statement implying they are having trouble getting people in the gate could not be farther from the truth. Promotions to suppose locals do not always equal bad business. Sometimes it's more about being a good neighbor. The truth is it's still sometimes difficult to get into Discovery Cove on some days. Could Disney do it better? Yes, I think they could. Is this something on the table that they are currently working on and/or planning to build? No, it is not.

As someone else stated - I am not arguing that Discovery Cove isn't an amazing experience or that guests are dissatisfied when they leave. My point was revolving around the difficulty of having repeat business for a park that you are charging hundreds of dollars for. It is, for the vast majority of those guests, a once in a lifetime experience. You can't expect the average tourist family to drop thousands dollars on one stand-alone experience everytime they visit Orlando. It has nothing to do with whether it was "worth it" or not, it has to do with whether there is a repeatability factor for the insanely high price point. And as I mentioned, you can't simply abandon a theme park as you can a tour-type offering. Discovery Cove will need to find out how to lure tourists in 10 and 20 years down the road. A challenge I am sure they are particularly nervous about at this point...

 

[Patricia Melton]

As someone else stated - I am not arguing that Discovery Cove isn't an amazing experience or that guests are dissatisfied when they leave. My point was revolving around the difficulty of having repeat business for a park that you are charging hundreds of dollars for. It is, for the vast majority of those guests, a once in a lifetime experience. You can't expect the average tourist family to drop thousands dollars on one stand-alone experience everytime they visit Orlando. It has nothing to do with whether it was "worth it" or not, it has to do with whether there is a repeatability factor for the insanely high price point. And as I mentioned, you can't simply abandon a theme park as you can a tour-type offering. Discovery Cove will need to find out how to lure tourists in 10 and 20 years down the road. A challenge I am sure they are particularly nervous about at this point...

I'd love to see some focus group research on this...because I can't imagine anyone I know seeing Discovery Cove as anything but "once in a lifetime".

I have to be honest in that since I started reading this thread I went on the Net and have been looking at pictures and reading reviews of Discovery Cove...and it really does look very impressive. I never checked it out until today. I thought it was just dolphin encounters, which don't appeal to me. But they have a snorkeling lagoon with saltwater fish. I would love to do that.

I also would really enjoy just hanging out on the beach and doing that tropical river they have. I love otters and see that there is a new exhibit with them as well. I think there would be a lot of unique things for me to do there even though I am not at all interested in touching dolphins.

I am now thinking about doing Discovery Cove in the future. Not this year while we're in Orlando, but maybe in 2014. I don't think I could make the money work to do this for my family this year, but I can save up for 2014.

If we did it, then it would definitely be a once in a lifetime thing for us. Or, at the very least, a once every ten years thing. This is not the kind of thing I can see anyone I personally know doing on a regular basis...but it sure looks like the kind of thing that I'd love to do and take a lot of pictures of and remember fondly for many years. I see nothing but immense praise for the experience and have not encountered a single review where anyone said the price was not worth it.

But I HAVE seen lots of people say that the cost is too much for them to do this more than the one time.

I am very interested in seeing what kind of business model Sea World is running on this where it can survive and thrive without repeat customers.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Had it already tanked in 2008?

Absolutely.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I don't think the regular parks will ever get to be more than $100/day in my lifetime. I'd be very surprised if the park tickets for MK, DAK, DHS, or EPCOT ever crossed that psychological $100/day threshold.

I do think that within 10 years they will be at $99.95/day. But I think they will hover there for a very long time.

I know if the tickets got to be over $100/day that my family would probably eliminate one of our Disney parks days during our trips to Orlando. We'd either do a pool day or we'd maybe find something else to do in town or even eliminate one of our vacation days. That would be our response to tickets over $100/day...we'd eliminate one of the days in the parks and save our family $600, as it's usually my husband and kids and my niece and nephew on a trip.

I wonder if they actually do cut ticket prices but make it over $100 a day if you want Fastpass+.

 

[Patricia Melton]

I wonder if they actually do cut ticket prices but make it over $100 a day if you want Fastpass+.

You might be prescient with this one.

Right now Fastpass is the only system like it at any park that's free from what I understand. They had a big comparison of all the Fastpass-like options out there on the Theme Park Insider's column a few weeks ago. Nobody else out there has a free Fastpass-type system.

Part of the discussion in that column was that not everyone understands or uses Fastpass and that a lot of guests are intimidated by it and will never touch it. Going to this Fastpass+ means more use of computers, and there's a big part of the population that is scared of using computerized anything...so if Fastpass goes away and Fastpass+ is the only thing to use, then I bet fewer people than ever will be using Fastpass+ (as opposed to who used Fastpass).

If only a fraction of guests are using it, then it sure paves the way to make it a paid-option that's extra (since if you aren't using it, Disney can present it as a discount).

Could be the wave of the future.

Good call pointing this out now!