The Spirited 11th Hour ...

[GiveMeTheMusic]

Also, I have no doubt the Shanghai government wants SDL priced high enough to keep out the poor and lower middle class. All of mainland China is famous for its lack of western manners and the government likely sees higher earners as a more fitting clientele for their $5.5 billion theme park and resort.

Also, the guest rooms at SDL Hotel are kind of ugly. They look like the Ambassador Hotel at TDR instead of flagship rooms one might expect.

Also eager to see if Tiana will be making regular appearances at SDL. She's never been seen for meets at TDR or HKDL, with her first appearance at either one being the new Mickey and the Wondrous Book show at HKDL. I'll leave it up to your imagination as to why that is.

 

[truecoat]

Is the Shanghai Disneyland the only Disney park without a parking lot? I don't see one on google maps, just bus parking.

 

[hpyhnt 1000]

Is the Shanghai Disneyland the only Disney park without a parking lot? I don't see one on google maps, just bus parking.

There's an extensive car park.


It's just shown as a staging area on Google Earth at the time the image was captured. But you can make out the initial paved area and the walkway over the roadway to the park.

 

[WildcatDen]

Nah, just soak em in vinegar overnight.

What is the topic again?

 

[Nubs70]

What is the topic again?

Height based admission rates for children.

 

[WildcatDen]

Oh I would not bet on that, Bob Weis got his job because he knew where the bodies were buried so to speak, When asked to make deep cuts in upcoming projects to 'Make the Quarterly Numbers' his answer will be 'Yes Bob, I'll handle it how much do we need to cut this quarter?'

Spoken like a true insider, who is, most likely, talking so he can hear his own voice. . .

 

[AEfx]

I am just following along like most here. What strikes me is that we have heard from @WDW1974 as well as others that SDL was being built for the Chinese people.....not tourist. What gives? Most Chinese can not afford it, is there enough wealthy Chinese to sustain the park? And if built for the Chinese people will SDL be attractive enough to the average tourist? Sure the Disney fanatic and lifestylers will visit but will there be reason enough for other upwardly mobile tourist to want to visit?....and we think we are being priced out.....sheeeeesh!

It has to depend on the visitors from the country of origin and it's immediate surroundings.

While at a place like this you find a few dedicated folks all yippy skippy excited to take a trip to China to see a new Disney Park, most Americans and Europeans who venture to China are not going to be going to a Disney Park. Much like DLP - you ask most people that are going to France if they are going to DLP, they look at you like you are mad - or are offended, like you just suggested they go to Paris and seek out as many McDonalds as possible.

Outside of the Disney bubble, people that have the money to travel to international destinations like that are simply not generally interested in going to a Disney theme park, they aren't going there to experience "low" American culture which many feel is an invasion not a charming variation.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

This was and continues to be a terrible idea.

https://www.mouseplanet.com/11305/The_Indians_Lose_Their_Land
The Indians Lose Their Land
Although Disneyland's Rivers of America has been down for nearly four weeks now and some tarps have been installed on the periphery, the only big sign of the major construction-to-come is the abundance of closed attractions. Otherwise, the river seems eerily tranquil.

Yet backstage and on the back side of the river, the demolition has begun. They've started to pull up train tracks. The Friendly Indian Village is now gone, and its former inhabitants packed away presumably to be relocated to the smaller back shore after the river is shortened. By the end of this week, all other show pieces that are out of guests' line of sight should also be gone.


Concept art for the reconstructed Rivers of America shows a new train trestle along with a Native American village. Photo ©Disney.

On Tom Sawyer Island, Tom & Huck's Treehouse—closed for years due to American with Disabilities Act (ADA) and lawsuit concerns—will be demolished. As one glimmer of hope, tentative plans are also to eventually tear down Fort Wilderness 2.0 and rebuild it the way it was; guests can once again enter and it will feature a canteen where visitors can buy snacks. Big Thunder Ranch will be leveled, although Imagineering has tagged the cabin (formerly known as Esmeralda's Cottage) to be dismantled and saved so it can be "retasked."

Last week, the stables at the Circle D Corral were torn down and the "Pope House" was on its way to its new home in the Team Disneyland Anaheim visitors' parking lot. In fact, an entire block of backstage support facilities—Enviromental Affairs, the Security Kennels, the Service Garage, Fantasmic float staging and maintenance, and several maintenance shops—is also being removed and relocated.

Cast members I talk to continue to have misgivings about all the disruption the addition of Star Wars Land is causing. "Is it worth it?" they ask. In the Roundhouse, those familiar with the locomotives have expressed concern about the Railroad's new route, which includes a 3-percent grade increase as the trains make their way along a trestle over the back of the River. Will the trains be able to take the climb with a full load?

And hourlies aren't alone. As one shared, "I overheard two Imagineers talking backstage about the project. They didn't sound too confident, and I got the impression that Walt Disney Imagineering bit off more than they can chew. Think about it: Cars Land was built on pretty much an empty parking lot backstage. Not much [was required] as far as prepping for building a new land." As the back quarter of island and the river get sized up for elimination, the same cannot be said for Disneyland's coming resettling of the West.

 

[BrianLo]

Besides, you're the one who earlier wrote ''I'm going to go out on a controversial limb and say the SDL prices strike me as quite fair", which is what my post was in response to. I doubt a lot of people would consider a $488 or $658 one-day Magic Kingdom ticket to be "quite fair". Based on what you wrote in your most recent post, neither would you. After all, "quite fair" isn't fair if it's only fair for the wealthy.

Ack, I knew you'd entangle me! Alright, quite fair in terms of my own CDN - RMB conversion only! Was being purely selfish.

Although I was honestly expecting SDL to cost way more than Tokyo/HKDL in a hard dollar figure, there was no consideration of relative conversion to local cost of living on my behalf!

 

[Cesar R M]

This needs reiterating. These are NOT budget cuts. This is a demand to deliver something for the nearly 2 billion dollars they are spending between both coasts. The SWL budget (and DHS redo budget) is already obscene and will stay obscene.

WDI needs to sort its house, hopefully Weis can pull that off. The days of asking for more and more money, like MM+, needs to stop. If WDI can't deliver something awesome with the money they received, Chapek has every right to put his foot down in my opinion.

Although perhaps with a slightly different tactic as @GiveMeTheMusic suggests.

So, the call was more to prevent the budgets to go BEYOND what is assigned (which as you mention.. is obscene already).
Aka to stop WDI from wasting resources, time and money like Disney was diarrehaing money.

 

[Cesar R M]

Yes but you also have to recall what CEO Bob Iger has said to Wall Street regarding the future success of SDL. For example, during his December 2015 interview on Bloomberg TV:

And so when you look at Shanghai as a for instance and put a Disneyland there in Pudong, you have access to a huge, huge population base. Hundreds of millions of people. Over 300 million people will be able to travel to Shanghai Disneyland within a 3-1/2 hour trip interestingly enough. You know that's really quite a large consumer base. So we're bullish.​

Iger has repeatedly boasted about the "300 million people" who live "within a 3-1/2 hour trip", using this to assure Wall Street that SDL will be a rousing financial windfall for the company, all the time knowing that prices were going to make SDL beyond the reach of most of those 300 million consumers.

That 300 million number is irrelevant if most can't afford it.

Besides, you're the one who earlier wrote ''I'm going to go out on a controversial limb and say the SDL prices strike me as quite fair", which is what my post was in response to. I doubt a lot of people would consider a $488 or $658 one-day Magic Kingdom ticket to be "quite fair". Based on what you wrote in your most recent post, neither would you. After all, "quite fair" isn't fair if it's only fair for the wealthy.

I suppose Iger believes the average citizen will sell their home, a kidney or their land lots just to get to Disney.
But I suppose they will have to save for years to do a "one and done" trip to SDL.

 

[Cesar R M]

Well if one were to piece together bits of information it becomes quite evident:

China removes restrictions on number of kids that can be born into a family

+

SDL will be too expensive for the vast majority of citizens

=

Disney will accept kids as payment for park entry.

suddenly reminds me of the whole usage of kids in the movie "Snowpiercer". Yikes!

 

[Cesar R M]

This was and continues to be a terrible idea.

Even in imaginary lands.. the natives lose their lands to white people (and in this case.. aliens too).
Will there be also revolutions and then the natives will regain casinos next to the alien towers?

 

[BernardandBianca]

This needs reiterating. These are NOT budget cuts. This is a demand to deliver something for the nearly 2 billion dollars they are spending between both coasts. The SWL budget (and DHS redo budget) is already obscene and will stay obscene.

WDI needs to sort its house, hopefully Weis can pull that off. The days of asking for more and more money, like MM+, needs to stop. If WDI can't deliver something awesome with the money they received, Chapek has every right to put his foot down in my opinion.

Although perhaps with a slightly different tactic as @GiveMeTheMusic suggests.

Well, WDC could forgo doing stock buybacks for just one year - that would take care of all of these problems.

 

[BernardandBianca]

Yes it is, But in it's standard metro area it does not have enough potential visitors with sufficient disposable income to get 20 million guests/year

The Shanghai median income is heavily skewed by a few very wealthy individuals.

I thought the purpose of using "median" was to minimize the effect of the "few" outliers, as contrasted to "average"?

 

[lazyboy97o]

Also, I have no doubt the Shanghai government wants SDL priced high enough to keep out the poor and lower middle class. All of mainland China is famous for its lack of western manners and the government likely sees higher earners as a more fitting clientele for their $5.5 billion theme park and resort.

Not really surprising. The opening of Hong Kong Disneyland resulted in a lot of complaints in the local media about the behavior of the Mainlanders. It really highlighted the cultural tension between the SAR and the Mainland.

 

[John]

It has to depend on the visitors from the country of origin and it's immediate surroundings.

While at a place like this you find a few dedicated folks all yippy skippy excited to take a trip to China to see a new Disney Park, most Americans and Europeans who venture to China are not going to be going to a Disney Park. Much like DLP - you ask most people that are going to France if they are going to DLP, they look at you like you are mad - or are offended, like you just suggested they go to Paris and seek out as many McDonalds as possible.

Outside of the Disney bubble, people that have the money to travel to international destinations like that are simply not generally interested in going to a Disney theme park, they aren't going there to experience "low" American culture which many feel is an invasion not a charming variation.

That was exactly my point.....hence the question will there be enough mainlanders to support the park. But of course @hakunamatata has shed some light on the subject

 

[BrianLo]

Well, WDC could forgo doing stock buybacks for just one year - that would take care of all of these problems.

No, the problem (Finally!) is not the companies unwillingness to spend on the parks. The real problem is the way we are heading 2.8 billion dollars can barely purchase much more than two parking garages, Star Wars and a Toy Story Land.

Pandora is breaking the billion dollar barrier! It is still going to be awesome, but how have we spun so wildly out of control that one billion dollars is barely enough to build a land with two attractions, no matter how amazing they are, is just crazy.

2.8 billion dollars should unquestionably be enough to turn DHS into a Tokyo Disney Sea equivalent, but under Bruce Vaughn it was somehow not.

WDI spending is/was out of control. That was also severely hurting some of Disney's international parks where the option to dump endless amounts of cash does not exist.

As to your earlier point, throwing more money at things is not the ultimate solution to a broken model. Again, look to MM+.


I'm not particularly worried though, someone needs to have a pair and deal with WDI (Chapek). We're just hearing the temper-tamptrum blow-back of a bunch of toddlers complaining an adult is finally holding them to a reasonable standard. The only thing Chapek seems to have truly had a hand in so far is ousting Vaughn - that's a good thing. The rest is noise.

If things truly get out of control and it's not possible for them to figure themselves out in time Iger will throw more money at it. He's generally miserly but has demonstrated that he will be non-discretionary when it comes to his legacy defining projects: MM+, SDL and now Star Wars.

 

[Next Big Thing]

Well, he did look into selling all or part of them. That pesky fact that any entertainment analyst on Wall Street will tell you.

More money? Really? In MDE's last ten years, Disney opened five theme parks across the globe, including a new resort in Hong Kong, a new water park at WDW, a new Cruise Line, countless attractions, parades and entertainment at existing parks. You want me to bring in @ParentsOf4 with pie charts and numbers? And that's nice that you are including a $3 billion tech boondoggle in NGE as part of Iger's accomplishments. You may not have liked what was opened from 1995-2005, but a whole lot more was than what was opened from 2005-2015. How many years do you give someone to show results? A decade isn't enough for you? Because I would have tossed Iger out by 2010-11 based on what was happening at P&R.

And you really think that DIS isn't going to hugely play up an expanded Soarin with new film (borrowed from Shanghai, except for the ending) and an attraction based on Frozen?!?!? Seriously. You wanna go with that?

And most all of the parks Eisner opened were half day parks and have needed significant expansion/re-do's under Iger or are still sitting as some of the worst Disney parks.

TDS is the only quality think Eisner put forth from 1995-2005.

 

[the.dreamfinder]

Pandora is breaking the billion dollar barrier! It is still going to be awesome, but how have we spun so wildly out of control that one billion dollars is barely enough to build a land with two attractions, no matter how amazing they are, is just crazy.

The total for the current Animal Kingdom expansion is $1 Billion which includes Pandora, Rivers of Light, New Harambe Theater, new dining (Tiffins and Harambe Market), and minor refurbishments and refinements (Tree of Life rehab).

However, $500-600 million for Soarin' 2.0, a C-Ticket boat ride, and food/merch stands is ridiculous. That's as bad as the substance less, but pretty New Fantasyland.