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Skip You win the internet for today. Bravo.
I sincerely appreciate it. Tired of this nonsense.
Yes, DHS has attendance and WDW has record attendance. As noted, spending in the parks on food/merchandise is up in Disney's domestic parks. I find it farfetched that DHS's spending has not ticked up a bit as the economy has improved, this is an exogenous reason for DHS's spending numbers to improve. So even though DHS doesn't have anything new, spending would be expected to go up. DHS has always had issues being a half-day park, they have added shows and attractions over the years.
Not saying that DHS shouldn't get a new attraction in five years, like in Pixar Place, but that putting in Carsland seems very unlikely, in addition to Carsland plus a StarWarsland that is even more amazing that Carsland, plus Pixar stuff. Really? Fans want Disney to "answer" Uni's upgrades and rumors are not surprisingly, things that fans have been speculating about.
There is no evidence to support the idea that spending at DHS, and length of stay, has gone down from baseline. With higher attendance numbers you have more guests, and that is more absolute spending all else remaining equal. If the economy is improving you'd naturally expect more spending . . . as Disney has reported . . .
These rumors are all bogus.
Look what one of the "insiders" said:
So, were these rumors started just to generate fan interest, to persuade Disney, or to "smoke out" the truth of rumors from months ago?
I'm going to stop acknowleding your attendance comments because it's already been well established that the attendance is NOT the problem.
Maybe DHS's spending has gone on up a tick - after all, a rising tide raises all ships. But again, even if that's the case, DHS's numbers were apparently FAR LOWER than the other parks to begin with... so even if it did rise incrementally, it's still abysmal compared to the better performing parks. That's something Disney would want to fix, no?
I don't know what you're even getting at with the half day park stuff now, you aren't making a lot of sense since the two statements you make on the matter seem to contradict each other. Yes, it has issues being a half day park. That's agreed upon. It still IS a half day park, in fact, more of a 2 to 3 hour park, even though they've added stuff over the years. (Remember, this is the park that opened with 2 attractions!) That's the whole damn issue that warrants Disney looking at these Cars/Star Wars reboot plans.
Sure fans are clamoring for a response to Uni, the "Potter Swatter" or whatever, but that ship has sailed and most of us have accepted it. You're missing the point, though - the people who revealed these plans are not the ones who naively think Disney's going to "strike back" at Universal because Potter made them look stupid. The reason for these rumored expansions isn't to respond to Potter, it's to increase spending & length of stay at DHS. Why is this so hard for you to understand? You can't take bits and pieces of other completely opposite arguments and combine them to make your case sound better.
Disney said domestic parks spending has increased. Notice
domestic parks, not WDW, specifically. If Disney had good news to report about both resorts, wouldn't they just say, spending is up at DLR by this much and spending is up at WDW by this much? Disneyland added CarsLand and the DCA 2.0 upgrades which is selling boatloads of merchandise, which of course means domestic spending is up on the West Coast. Hell, even at WDW, New Fantasyland is opening at a glacier pace, which means spending is probably up for Beauty & The Beast stuff, Be Our Guest "food," and LeFou's Brew (which I do happen to love). So Magic Kingdom spending I don't doubt is up - it should be! But why the hell would DHS go up enough to erase the existing deficit between the parks when no new significant attractions have been added? You're ignoring simple logic and assuming all 4 parks (including DHS) were on the same playing field last year. All of the evidence (INCLUDING Disney's increasing ambiguity in its released figures) points to the fact that they aren't. Trust me, if Disney had good news to share, they would share it in GREAT detail!
You keep contradicting yourself, too - first you say "DHS has always had issues being a half-day park," then you say, "There is no evidence to support the idea that spending at DHS, and length of stay, has gone down from baseline." Length of stay directly correlates with spending due to the whole "having to eat" phenomenon. If DHS is still struggling as a half day park (which simple anecdotal observation as well as deeper insider information would indicate is the case) then there are going to be spending issues.
By the way, no idea why you quoted my post, since you did not seem to actually respond to any of the logical points I made - instead, you continued to repeat the same things you've been saying like some sort of robot. We get it - you think the rumors are bogus, based on nothing but personal opinion that is backed up by - guess what - nothing. I got news for you. Lee and Spirit and a dozen others know better, and they've proven it. You're coming off as a child covering their ears and screaming "I CAN'T HEAR YOU." I get it if you don't think the expansion is a good move, or you don't like how it might proceed. But you can't deny DHS has some serious issues and these are plans Disney might be looking at.
Just so we're clear, I am not super confident that the proposed expansions will actually take place as described. But I do believe they aren't a puff of hot air. I believe they are being considered, because the people who were kind enough to share them with us have built up a degree of credibility that I respect and would not intentionally mislead us. Pixie's got nothing but his ignorance.
