The Miscellaneous Thought Thread

[Disney Irish]

Predictable. You’re always scared to put your own neck on the line but jump at any chance to tell someone else why they’re wrong. Scared to share your own opinion or thoughts but stay ready to tell someone why their opinion is wrong. Typical narcissistic behavior.

Maybe they don't have an opinion currently on who should take over for Iger. But I do know they have for a fact gone on record for many years in many posts to state their opinion on Staggs and why they don't want him to be CEO. I happen to disagree, but its no surprise they feel that way about Staggs.

 

[mickEblu]

Maybe they don't have an opinion currently on who should take over for Iger. But I do know they have for a fact gone on record for many years in many posts to state their opinion on Staggs and why they don't want him to be CEO. I happen to disagree, but its no surprise they feel that way about Staggs.

He could have just said that then. Besides, my opinion has not been formulated on this exchange alone.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Some are talking as if it's a given that anyone other than Iger would be demonstrably better for the parks when there's no real evidence that this guy would be that savior beyond individual projection. Remember not that long ago when Iger came back and some people were immediately expecting things to improve at the park level? It didn't happen then, and it's unlikely to happen if someone else suddenly takes Iger's spot.

Realistically, it is highly unlikely for ANY new person who assumes Iger's current role to come in and immediately state, as their first priority, that the parks revert to exactly how they operated in (insert personal best park era here) and fix the issues that all of the parks have. Not when the mantra for all US companies has been for decades, and remains, growth at all costs. Some new guy is not going to come in and put money towards upping the maintenance budget or fixing areas of the parks we deem problematic for one reason or another-what they will likely perceive as a wasted expense. What incentive do they have, on paper, to do anything other than what Iger's Disney has been doing to the parks the last few decades?

Disney is a media company. Any interested person who wants to run it is likely looking more at pretty much anything other than the theme parks, because media companies historically haven't really known what to do with theme parks! There's a reason that basically all the big players owned theme parks at some point, and now it's just Disney and Universal left in that arena. No matter what a person interested in running Disney says, it's highly unlikely that they will see the parks much different from how Iger views them now-as a place to goose up as much money as possible and promote synergy.

Disney parks would likely come near the bottom of the list in terms of things they would realistically focused on. So many people here largely only follow Disneyland, and as a result have an inflated view of the park's importance in the grand scheme of things for whoever would come onboard. They take for granted that anyone new would *obviously* value Disneyland more than Iger does and fix its problems because that's what they themselves want. I get wanting Disney to be Disney again and selling off things that distract from that (i.e. Marvel and Star Wars), but there's no guarantee that such a change would result in what those people are asking for, and seem to take for granted that they will receive. Disneyland-and the parks taken as a whole-is just one small cog in the giant machine that is the modern WDC. There are no guarantees of anything with a leadership change at the top.

RE: OLC running the parks-OLC does a lot right with TDR, but they're not perfect, and their parks are hardly operating the way they were two decades ago. I would encourage anyone who thinks OLC right now is flawless to go on Twitter and read the opinions of some of the English-speaking DisNerds who live in Japan and frequent TDR (or even our own Basil here); there's quite a lot of negative feedback on how the parks are being run recently, especially TDS. That may well change when Fantasy Springs finally opens, but there are several prominent English speaking theme park accounts who have been nonstop complaining about the parks there for some time, including at least a few that honestly would prefer to have Disneyland, as it exists *right now*, over the Tokyo parks. Now, Twitter probably isn't the end all be all of sourcing on this issue, and this is likely, to at least some degree, a grass-is-always-greener situation. But it's worth noting that there's been quite a lot of complaining about OLC and their parks as of late, and let's be honest: few here really follow OLC or TDR enough to know, to any real extent, what OLC coming in and running the parks would actually be like.

The state of the parks, film studios, etc. are hardly perfect right now, and I will grant that freely. But it seems to me that some have become so lost within their own individual grievances, even if those grievances are valid-or their own sense of what is and is not important to the company (or those interested in it)-that they have lost sight of the bigger picture here. The fact that all of us agree that leadership change is necessary does not mean that we should junk out the current leaders immediately, hope everything works out, and trust that these people will actually follow through in a way we want them to, especially if there's reason to believe, based on past precedent, that those things *will not* happen with these folks.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Predictable. You’re always scared to put your own neck on the line but jump at any chance to tell someone else why they’re wrong. Scared to share your own opinion or thoughts but stay ready to tell someone why their opinion is wrong. Typical narcissistic behavior.

Saying I don’t know something is narcissistic? Do you live in opposite land? I’m not going to state an opinion on something when I haven’t done enough study to understand. The candidates are potentially endless and a variety of different qualities could be beneficial. I lean towards someone who would be more of a boring business administrator who would properly delegate to the various business units versus someone who wants to be a master creative and getting involved in too many things to be good at any of them. What I do know, that you have not actually addressed, is that it shouldn’t be the people who actively shaped the organization as it exists now.

 

[Model3 McQueen]

You know at the end of the day Disney is in this position because of years of bad ownership, period. They’ve devalued the stock it made it possible for peltz and his team to set their sights on this company.

Billions spent on steaming. Movies are losing 100s of millions and we have more flops incoming. Beloved IPs are constantly in controversy due to bad decision making. The company culture has turned to “The Message” over traditional, good story telling & escapism. They butted their nose into politics and are paying the price.

They’ve lost the consumers love. They’ve lost vision. They’ve priced out middle america.

Fact of the matter, they’re in a bad place. You can thank Iger, the board, Kennedy, Buckley, feige, etc etc.

 

[John park hopper]

But ----Disney has won an award 15 years straight (pun intended)

 

[PiratesMansion]

You know at the end of the day Disney is in this position because of years of bad ownership, period. They’ve devalued the stock it made it possible for peltz and his team to set their sights on this company.

Billions spent on steaming. Movies are losing 100s of millions and we have more flops incoming. Beloved IPs are constantly in controversy due to bad decision making. The company culture has turned to “The Message” over traditional, good story telling & escapism. They butted their nose into politics and are paying the price.

They’ve lost the consumers love. They’ve lost vision. They’ve priced out middle america.

Fact of the matter, they’re in a bad place. You can thank Iger, the board, Kennedy, Buckley, feige, etc etc.

It's worth noting that basically all of these things were fine until a year or two (or three) ago.

EVERYONE was spending billions on streaming, because it was the way of the future. Until it wasn't, and now everyone, Disney included, is scrambling to figure out what comes next.

Disney's movie strategy worked like gangbusters until 2020. They were outperforming other studios by a fairly significant margin.

I really think the degree to which the company "pivoted to politics" has been vastly overstated, but again, it wasn't just Disney championing a lot of these same ideas a few years ago. People may not have noticed because people tend to be more emotionally attached to Disney than other corporations, but nothing Disney has said or done or tried to do was new, or even particularly unique. Those sorts of sentiments were the rule and not the exception for many, many corporations not that long ago.

Disney's not the only company that's not having the same luck or success that they had pre-pandemic. What company has been completely unscathed by the pandemic and is, right now, basically operating flawlessly on all metrics? Maybe Amazon, but who else, really?

I can't argue with the lack of vision and the pricing problem, but I think there's still a lot of love for Disney out there, and you still see it in force in the parks and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, there'd be a lot *more* of it with a few key changes on their part, but still: I think the number of people whose feelings about Disney have changed dramatically over the last few years, in general, has been overstated. That may not be the same for people on this board, but people here have a tendency look at the company primarily through one hyper-focused and specific lens (i.e. focusing on the minutiae of a single theme park complex that makes up a relatively small part of the enormous corporation that it is a part of) mixed with their own personal feelings to reach their conclusions.

Is Disney as a company in the best place in the world right now? No. But this is not rock bottom. Nowhere near it.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Not trying to oggle… but…

 

[Phroobar]

Not trying to oggle… but…

Looks like my twin.

 

[mickEblu]

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. There’s more charm in this picture than all of Avengers Campus.

 

[PiratesMansion]

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone. There’s more charm in this picture than all of Avengers Campus. View attachment 757841

Is there any sort of ABL tribute in AC?

 

[mickEblu]

Is there any sort of ABL tribute in AC?

Not that I know of. But at one point they did have one of the Antman characters walking around with a cool little mode of Bugs Land.

 

[Disgruntled Walt]

Is there any sort of ABL tribute in AC?

Not that I know of. But at one point they did have one of the Antman characters walking around with a cool little mode of Bugs Land.

From Inside the Magic: https:///2021/06/bugs-land-easter-eggs-mr1/

Lots of info in there.

EDIT: WHOOPS I guess we can't link to them... here's an Instagram post about it.

 

[Rich T]

…I can't argue with the lack of vision and the pricing problem, but I think there's still a lot of love for Disney out there, and you still see it in force in the parks and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, there'd be a lot *more* of it with a few key changes on their part, but still: I think the number of people whose feelings about Disney have changed dramatically over the last few years, in general, has been overstated. That may not be the same for people on this board, but people here have a tendency look at the company primarily through one hyper-focused and specific lens (i.e. focusing on the minutiae of a single theme park complex that makes up a relatively small part of the enormous corporation that it is a part of) mixed with their own personal feelings to reach their conclusions.

Is Disney as a company in the best place in the world right now? No. But this is not rock bottom. Nowhere near it.

That lack of vision and the pricing issue, combined with poor storytelling, the growing dilution of what “Disney” is, and many other factors… are taking their toll.

Disney needs to fix this. The GP is fickle, and now has more non-Disney family entertainment options than ever before… options a heck of a lot more original and compelling than most of what Disney barfed up this year.

The following is simply an observation and my take on what I observed:

I just spent a day at MK, where I had some fun despite the ongoing feeling that the park just plain needs more attractions (and needs to give Big Thunder some TLC ASAP). But, just listening to the groups around me, I’ve never before heard so many families talking about what they *didn’t* like and what they miss and what used to be better.

I also heard, more than once, adults commenting that they enjoyed Universal more. And by more than once I mean four. But those are just the people little ol’ me heard randomly on my own without even trying.

(And hey, while getting my car fixed today, I heard a woman in a nearby cubicle coaching a family on how to “do” their first trip to UOR, which they were planning because they were “tired” of Disney. The woman’s advice on the perfect UOR trip was spot-on, I must say.) This proves nothing, of course, but combined with what I observed at MK the other day… signs! Signs are out there!

Fix this Disney! Here’s some free advice:

1) Good storytelling is important
2) Originality is important. Milking doesn’t work when the cow is nearly dead. From milking.
3) Spend money to make money
4) “Good enough” isn’t good enough.
5) Value is important and so is trust.
6) Greed stinks and people have noses.

 

[PiratesMansion]

That lack of vision and the pricing issue, combined with poor storytelling, the growing dilution of what “Disney” is, and many other factors… are taking their toll.

Disney needs to fix this. The GP is fickle, and now has more non-Disney family entertainment options than ever before… options a heck of a lot more original and compelling than most of what Disney barfed up this year.

The following is simply an observation and my take on what I observed:

I just spent a day at MK, where I had some fun despite the ongoing feeling that the park just plain needs more attractions (and needs to give Big Thunder some TLC ASAP). But, just listening to the groups around me, I’ve never before heard so many families talking about what they *didn’t* like and what they miss and what used to be better.

I also heard, more than once, adults commenting that they enjoyed Universal more. And by more than once I mean four. But those are just the people little ol’ me heard randomly on my own without even trying.

(And hey, while getting my car fixed today, I heard a woman in a nearby cubicle coaching a family on how to “do” their first trAip to UOR. which they were planning because they were “tired” of Disney. The woman’s advice on the perfect UOR trip was spot-on, I must say.) This proves nothing, of course, but combined with what I observed at MK the other day… signs! Signs are out there!

Fix this Disney! Here’s some free advice:

1) Good storytelling is important
2) Originality is important. Milking doesn’t work when the cow is nearly dead. From milking.
3) Spend money to make money
4) “Good enough” isn’t good enough.
5) Value is important and so is trust.
(Edit)
6) Greed stinks and people have noses.

And I 100% agree with everything you're saying.

That said, I do stick by what I said before that some are mistaking their personal wish lists with things a new CEO would naturally, immediately change.

RE: WDW, everything Disney does wrong with their parks nowadays feels far more pronounced in Florida, which is part of the reason why I stopped going. There's still a palpable energy and excitement at Disneyland despite everything (and I'd argue that both the guests *and* Disney themselves are responsible for that momentum, even though I'm sure every one of us has a laundry list of things at DLR that we woud do differently), but the last time I was on WDW property, the only place that had real energy was Disney Springs. So honestly, if there *is* a place a new CEO would naturally focus on that's park-related, I imagine they would zero in on WDW first and foremost. It's supposed to be their cash cow, but they've cut back so much of the guest experience-even relative to other Disney destinations-that there's no fat left, nothing that would entice people to return. The details that once defined them seem entirely gone out there, all while their biggest competitor is just down the road and has put their best foot forward. In my view, Disney's not sufficiently alarmed about the state of WDW. You're 100% right that it seems like the public, at least in Florida, is starting to catch on to it all, and I can't blame them for wanting to go elsewhere.

 

[Centauri Space Station]

And I 100% agree with everything you're saying.

That said, I do stick by what I said before that some are mistaking their personal wish lists with things a new CEO would naturally, immediately change.

RE: WDW, everything Disney does wrong with their parks nowadays feels far more pronounced in Florida, which is part of the reason why I stopped going. There's still a palpable energy and excitement at Disneyland despite everything (and I'd argue that both the guests *and* Disney themselves are responsible for that momentum, even though I'm sure every one of us has a laundry list of things at DLR that we woud do differently), but the last time I was on WDW property, the only place that had real energy was Disney Springs. So honestly, if there *is* a place a new CEO would naturally focus on that's park-related, I imagine they would zero in on WDW first and foremost. It's supposed to be their cash cow, but they've cut back so much of the guest experience-even relative to other Disney destinations-that there's no fat left, nothing that would entice people to return. The details that once defined them seem entirely gone out there, all while their biggest competitor is just down the road and has put their best foot forward. In my view, Disney's not sufficiently alarmed about the state of WDW. You're 100% right that it seems like the public, at least in Florida, is starting to catch on to it all, and I can't blame them for wanting to go elsewhere.

Not quite sure what you mean. WDW still has lots of magic in it ams i notice people in areas like pandora, world showcase, hollywood blvd, the boardwalk, animal kingdom lodge, etc always excited. Universal is nice but when i went it didn’t have the same feeling as Disney parks and i’m not a huge thrill person so it left a lot off my list.

 

[Rich T]

Not quite sure what you mean. WDW still has lots of magic in it ams i notice people in areas like pandora, world showcase, hollywood blvd, the boardwalk, animal kingdom lodge, etc always excited. Universal is nice but when i went it didn’t have the same feeling as Disney parks and i’m not a huge thrill person so it left a lot off my list.

It’s nearly impossible to not have some fun at Disney’s best areas, but compared to what guests have gotten for their money in the past, the value and quality are dropping and people are noticing. How guests feel when they notice major effects aren’t working, they can’t get a reservation for Tron because they didn’t poke an app button fast enough at precisely 7 A.M., or myriad services and offerings that were once free are either extinct or are now an upcharge… those moments are just as important as the good ones, especially when Disney keeps charging more and more for less and less. All fixable. Will they fix it? I hope so.

Your feelings about Universal are certainly reasonable; UOR’s offerings lean heavily toward thrills (and getting wet) currently. But right now I’m having more fun at Universal because any given day there, for me, is more relaxed, spontaneous and stress-free. And the resort feels fresher and less stale than current Disney to me. The recent food offerings are great and the pairing of super-affordable beautiful hotels and quick/easy transportation is a winning combination. The overall resort needs more family rides, definitely, while not losing the thrill edge that people love about the place. I have a feeling they’re aware of that and working on it. I cannot wait for Epic Universe.

Disney’s got an amazing resort in place in Florida. My opinion is that they need to bring the value back, stop requiring guests rely so much on their phones, fix what’s broken and get a LOT nimbler and swifter at adding new attractions.

And please, Disney, clean up the look of the Monorail tracks in the TTC area. First impressions are important.

 

[PiratesMansion]

Not quite sure what you mean. WDW still has lots of magic in it ams i notice people in areas like pandora, world showcase, hollywood blvd, the boardwalk, animal kingdom lodge, etc always excited. Universal is nice but when i went it didn’t have the same feeling as Disney parks and i’m not a huge thrill person so it left a lot off my list.

There are definitely cool things at WDW that are worth doing, and can't be done anywhere else, and my post was not made with the intent to say that there aren't good things there.

But it really does feel like everything at WDW is rationed more so than at other parks (after all, FastPass+ was pretty much explicitly designed to reallocate capacity so that WDW, at least in theory, didn't need to build more attractions). There are a lot more attractions-and eateries!-that have shortened hours. More of the characters are behind literal walls and paywalls with comparatively few that are out wandering and interacting with guests when compared to the other parks. The attractions are typically in worse shape than anywhere else. There isn't enough capacity for the crowds, and it feels like too often the solution is not to add more but to find out how to monetize it instead. Why stay open til Midnight at Magic Kingdom when we can get people to pay for After Hours instead, which isn't all that different from EMH that used to be free for all resort guests? Other resorts do this too, but it seems more blatant at WDW.

Sometimes are done in such a way that seem lazy, or as if no one has put any thought into basic logistics. The placement of the Hatbox Ghost at WDW's Mansion and Jollywood Nights fit this category-take things that should have been easy wins, but both were bungled by what seems like carelessness.

Little money has been spent to improve existing infrastructure over time beyond attractions-the WDW Railroad was closed for years and they could have done something to enhance a relatively dull and uneventful route, and every other railroad has at least something (not necessarily something amazing at HKDL, but someting) that can't be seen any other way than to ride the train; yet WDW did nothing, other than to add a featureless tunnel. Peter Pan got a beautiful new queue, but why not give the ride itself some plussing? Why not do some of the beautification projects you see at other parks, like pavers? I don't see any desires to do little things in that vein that can make a big difference in appearance, impressions, or guest appreciation.

And all of this when the resort has a great deal of money flowing into it! Historically, significantly more than other properties!

So there's a lot that's worthwhile about WDW that doesn't exist elsewhere, sure. But from my experiences and what I've heard from others, there are a lot of small details that they seem to have lost sight of over time, more so than other Disney destinations around the world.

 

[Disney Analyst]

Oh my, imagine being upset about someone speaking Spanish… good luck to this person.

 

[Indy_UK]

Can I just check that Park Pass restorations are staying in Disneyland for 2024? And would it be normal that I can't book them more than 7 months out? I looked today and it only goes up to early June?