Spirited News, Observations & Thoughts Tres

[tracyandalex]

As a person who saw that "thing" during one of my cruises... I couldn't find ANYTHING good about it. Every other musical and production DCL has done... brilliant, then there's this evil stepchild... All I will say on this forum about it.

Perhaps we can get that show reimagined on the reimagined Magic. DD liked it a lot, but for us grown folk it was painful.

 

[WDW1974]

Thoughts on a few subjects of note today:

Attendance figures were interesting or amusing. O-Town visitors were up by 2.2% and what do you know, so are three of Disney's parks.

DCA went up by 22.6% again based on the Disney Co. Model of the first click being the one that matters.

TDR and UNI-Osaka bounced back strongly from the great quake of March 2011.

Pretty much everyone was up, but nothing dramatic.

On another subject, UNI still hasn't decided a ticketing structure for when Potter 2.0 opens. But it remains likely that one day, one park tickets that do NOT include the train will be available, but not promoted.

Georgie K dropped out of hiding to stop into the D23 event at HoB. A very safe environment for him where no one questioned him about the price increase, Avatar, Disco Yeti, park stagnation or anything of substance. Shame as he isn't a scary man at all. But he knew his audience.

The folks at Miceage reported what I -- and others -- have told you about the Studios makeover. I m starting to wonder if the three versions are a smokescreen and they have decided already on one. ... Soarin news is likely legit, although I haven't confirmed it.

Oh, and to my sweetpea, I have no idea why DCL is moving ships around in fall 2014. Without seeing just what they are doing, my guess is the Wonder redo factors into it somehow.

Hope to be able to post more later ....

 

[asianway]

I agree with much of your post, however, the total number of DVC is only a fraction of the available hotel rooms. I am surprised that DVC would consider building Poly DVC before they touch Anaheim, Paris or Asia.

Paris is already overbuilt, highly doubt that. DVC would not likely enter the Tokyo market given the licensing agreement.

Tomorrow Tower will be built at some point. But they need to keep sales steady at this point, as they are running out of water in the well.

 

[Rodan75]

See: http://touringplans.com/walt-disney-world/hotels/number-rooms

As I indicated in a previous post, there now is the equivalent of over 4000 DVC rooms. Per the above link, WDW has about 23,700 non-DVC rooms (excluding Shades of Green, Dolphin, and Swan which are not run by Disney). Considering that DVCs run at about 98% occupancy while Disney's other resorts run at about 80%, DVC members now represent as many as 20% of WDW onsite guests. That's potentially 20% of rooms being paid for at cost. Some DVC rooms can be combined so the actual number of DVC guests per day is almost certainly lower but, hopefully, this makes it clearer that DVCs now are becoming an important factor impacting margins.

Guessing why the Poly's next, perhaps there's not enough room to add at DLR, DLP is not considered a good location to add DVCs, while a TDL DVC could hurt Aulani sales. What's clear, at least to me, is that VGF and Poly should sell very quickly. They seem like low-risk/high-return choices.

Good Point, I would love to see the DVC strategy presentations, I'm sure at least some of the concerns you raise are probably addressed and I would like to know what their 'pros' are to those 'cons'.

 

[PhilharMagician]

Attendance figures were interesting or amusing. O-Town visitors were up by 2.2% and what do you know, so are three of Disney's parks.

2.3 & respectively 2.2 for the others? Interesting huh. Someone's getting better at throwing darts.

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

The folks at Miceage reported what I -- and others -- have told you about the Studios makeover. I m starting to wonder if the three versions are a smokescreen and they have decided already on one. ... Soarin news is likely legit, although I haven't confirmed it.

Hope to be able to post more later ....

Mooore. MOOOOOOOOORE.



I'm wondering what versions are in the talks and what the time frame is. Also if its a park wide renovation or just one or two areas?

Interesting, this tidbit of news. Think we'll hear the big announcement at d23? Err, if there is one...

 

[71jason]

Georgie K dropped out of hiding to stop into the D23 event at HoB. A very safe environment for him where no one questioned him about the price increase, Avatar, Disco Yeti, park stagnation or anything of substance. Shame as he isn't a scary man at all. But he knew his audience.

Heard about this. Lot of people running up to ask for autographs (see what the meet-&-greet culture has wrought). Walked up to a table of people who barely reacted to him, and correctly sumised, "Oh, you must be Cast Members."

 

[Clever Name]

Yes, it was one of the biggest money producers in movie history, but how many people can actually name two characters from it?

The Blues Brothers and Blue Man Group. Not to mention the Smurfs, Cookie Monster, Sulley and Marge Simpson. I'll admit that you had to look closely to find these people but they were there. It's kind of like 'Where's Waldo?"

 

[Computer Magic]

Way too many operational concerns with that, but yes, I am familiar with the concept.

They did best, starting with the Big Red Boat, and then branching off and allowing the brand to build organically. I suspect in the future we'll see more boats (largely others have confirmed this sooner rather than later), more what I term "surf and turf"...though they call "land and sea" adventures tying in their various global Disney properties, and tie in's in their Disney Adventures concepts.

The cruise line is the glue that binds all these various things together, at least that's how I suspect Disney is going to develop it.

What's next? A universal partnership with Virgin for the "big red plane"?

Yes in a small way Disney is already doing this with add-ons to ABD (Adventure by Disney). I see a DCL cruise to Hawaii with a stay at Aulani sometime down the road. I also see synergies with between all three (cruise on the DCL to Paris, ADB around Paris, with a stay at the resorts)

 

[the.dreamfinder]

DLR: Doing Fantasyland redos right since 1983

But it wouldn’t just be DCA getting refreshed rides for Disneyland’s birthday. The one project that has been delayed and rethought multiple times in the last three years, fixing the outdoor track at Alice In Wonderland, has spawned an even bigger idea. The replacement of the track at Alice In Wonderland is back on again, and a shorter and wider track that hugs the building more and is completely up to fall-protection standards would be installed this winter. Alice is tentatively slated to close in January, 2014 and then reopen by late May with a new track.

But the plan to fix Alice that had been debated in both TDA and at WDI for the past several years brought attention to all of Fantasyland’s five classic dark rides. While they were all rebuilt for the New Fantasyland in 1983, and have received several nice technology upgrades over the last decade, they are still showing their age. The likely proposal now has Disneyland closing each dark ride for several months throughout 2014 and early ’15, starting with Alice, while installing upgraded animatronics, lighting and audio, plus all-new digital special effects. The result would be the classic Disney dark ride reborn for the 21st century, marketed to celebrate Disneyland’s 60th.

Only Disneyland has the entire library of classic Walt-era dark rides, with eight dark rides total in both DCA and Disneyland, five of them packed in together in central Fantasyland. The rest of Disney’s magic kingdoms around the world only have one or two classic dark rides left, and the Orlando versions in particular are not in good shape cosmetically. Anaheim has taken loving care of their Fantasyland dark rides, especially with the small tech upgrades of recent years, but both WDI and TDA feel that they are looking quite dated to modern audiences and are coasting on fumes of nostalgia.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Box office numbers, I suspect.

Silly...to me. Box Office just means it was a spectacle, not that it was great or even spawned a massive long term fan base.

Car accidents are spectacles as well. People slow down just to see them. That doesn't mean you should put one into a theme park.

And to think they replaced the genius World of Motion for exactly that, for the pleasure of watching and experiencing the spectacle of car accidents.

 

[englanddg]

And to think they replaced the genius World of Motion for exactly that, for the pleasure of seeing and then feeling what it is like to sit in crashed cars.

Test track...meh.

It is amazing how an indoor queue can be so boring, uncomfortable and hot!

I hope they fixed that with the refurb...I will find out soon enough!

 

[ScoutN]

Test track...meh.

It is amazing how an indoor queue can be so boring, uncomfortable and hot!

I hope they fixed that with the refurb...I will find out soon enough!

Nope.

 

[englanddg]

Nope.

Glad to know they are always improving the Guest Experience...

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Some interesting facts and figures about Hong Kong

How do the Hong Kong numbers compare with visitation patterns at destination parks in North America?
The proportion of tourists to residents is about 70/30 at hong Kong Disney and Ocean park hong Kong. Of those tourists, about 65-80% are mainland chinese. Orlando has similar proportions, but in Southern california, more than half the visitors to Disney and universal parks come from resident markets. Another difference is that a high percentage of tourists in Asia travel in groups, sharing transportation and other costs. The groups tend to visit theme parks.

Also HKDL's main competitor, Ocean Park, is opening an indoor water park in 2017. Wonder when we'll see a log flume at HKDL.

 

[Cody5242]

@WDW1974 thought you would like to see this, knowing how you are Lou's biggest fan!



He sure knows a lot about MyMagic+ and how much good it will do for the resort

 

[Mouse Detective]

Can you possibly shed light as to why Disney Cruise Line is shifting so many itineraries for the Dream, Magic, & Wonder in late 2014? They're changing the usual Dream Sunday & Thursday departures to Monday & Friday. The Fantasy will stick with her usual Saturday rotation. They're pulling the Magic up from Miami to Port Canaveral (putting 3 ships sailing from PC again) and switching bookings for the Magic out of Miami to the Wonder out of Miami.

Disney only has 1 berth at Port Canaveral and thus can only operate one ship at a time. So the days have to be spread out one way or another keeping in mind that 7-night cruises must depart on weekend days. Ships operating on the twice per week 3 & 4 night sailings sail either Friday/Monday or Thursday/Sunday. On that short cruise circuit, Royal Caribbean operates theirs on Friday/Monday while Carnival operates theirs on Thursday/Sunday. In the family cruise market Disney competes more with RCI than with Carnival. Also, I believe Castaway Cay can only handle one ship at at time. The short cruises have little flexibility on which days they can physically be at the island and at the same time the 7-night sailings, which are going to much farther destinations, have to catch the island either on the way out or on the way back. I've not examined the ship sailing schedules but the changes are likely a result of utilization of their berths at Port Canaveral, Florida and Castaway Cay, Bahamas.

 

[Next Big Thing]

Attractions Magazine talks with Fox35 constantly as well. It's not just Lou.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I didn't want to start a new thread on this, but thought it was worth mentioning. In this Disney Parks Blog article, DHS is referred to as Disney Hollywood Studios as opposed to the possessive, Disney's Hollywood Studios. It's very likely a typo, but it had been speculated after DCA eliminated the possessive.

 

[luv]

Does anyone really feel that a stranger using their name because they saw it in a computer feels personal?

I feel that it is the opposite. Seems like a forced attempt at personalization which comes off as just forced and not very personal at all. Like you're just another name in the computer...another band of info...they get your name and use it and that's supposed to make you feel special.

Maybe other people feel differently, though.

Will you all feel special when the staff use your name because they saw it in a computer?