JohnD
Well-Known Member
Gotcha. Thanks.
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Why Walt Disney World Needs a 5th Theme Park By 2025
- Thread starter ParentsOf4
- Start date
Gotcha. Thanks.
Your capex figures seem a bit off. Do you trust your source?
The annual shareholders reports.
Not sure what's in their summary P&R figures. Could cruise line numbers be throwing it off? Or the inclusion and then exclusion of international parks?
But the "growth capex" seems to comport with @ParentsOf4 's numbers, at least for the past 6 or 7 years.
Quite possibly. Good call.
bjlc57
Well-Known Member
well I for one.. believe that we are at least one park behind.. and almost 10 years late. probably closer to 5.. but could be 10 years late.. and even if they broke ground TOMORROW.. the opening of any new park would be 3-5 years out because of the bean counting instead of the dreaming at Disney headquarters.. meaning I could be 67 before the new park would open.. and I was 15 when Magic kingdom opened.. that's too big of a gap..
Gringrinngghost
Well-Known Member
Despicable Me is a converted ride — and honestly, I would like to see one with all the parks (In terms of the spreadsheets).
Over by the Orange County Convention Center.
Thanks, and updated.
Not sure why you think the bean counters would cause the park construction time to be as long as it would need to be. Reality is any bean counter would understand the time value of money and the one thing that hurts a return on investment more than anything else is lengthy construction time. Any bean counter that had completed their first finance class would be able to tell you that maximizing your return on investment requires you to complete the project as soon as possible so you can start generating revenue sooner rather than later. Frankly I doubt they could complete a new park in 3 years and would expect the time to be more like 5 to 7 years, and that would be because of the federal and state regulation and the time it can take to get permits for the type of construction they would be doing in what would be considered wetlands.
bean counters
Gringrinngghost
Well-Known Member
If you think about it, I think the takeaway from this chart is simple. The majority of people doing Disney don't do it for the other parks, they do it for MK. Unless Disney were to create another MK, you are probably going to just keep seeing MK numbers go up and the other parks or any new parks are likely to hover around the same 10 million a year number. If anything this simple shows that Disney doesn't need any new park they simply need to expand the MK to allow for continued visitor growth in the future... Or at the very least banning strollers so the park can hold more people.
Damon7777
Well-Known Member
No way!
That is way off. I can think of two very quick scenarios/ potentialities that can hurt far worse than that
randomsoulshine
Member
That's what we do. We don't park hop. We do one park a day and usually a night at MK. My dream would be to stay long enough to do AK one morning then go back another evening. Same with MK. In the future same with HS. Heck even a morning and an evening in Epcot. Man I would love to have 8 days and an additional park would make my dream Disney vacation 9 days. My husband will never agree to this. Haha
1990sWDW
Active Member
We usually do a full day MK and MK area food, a full day at AK and AK resort area food, then with the current state of Epcot and HS, we do half days where we usually eat in other areas for dinner, or for lunch before we even go to the parks. Extra days end up being a combination of half days hopping around.
Hollywood Studios additions could not come quicker. Really HS has 3 of our favorite attractions (ToT, RnR, TSMM), so once it's a complete day experience again I think it will be a nice complementary park to MK as far as a flagship Disney experience.
This reasoning sure leads credence to a dark kingdom being a nice 5th gate option. It's not like villains in Disney are that evil or scary, so I'm not sure that would be a problem with kids. But if they could create an "upside down" MK to have a 2nd castle park, I think it would have tons of potential.
*don't kill me if this is a controversial/stupid opinion, I'm new
*
Hollywood Studios additions could not come quicker. Really HS has 3 of our favorite attractions (ToT, RnR, TSMM), so once it's a complete day experience again I think it will be a nice complementary park to MK as far as a flagship Disney experience.
This reasoning sure leads credence to a dark kingdom being a nice 5th gate option. It's not like villains in Disney are that evil or scary, so I'm not sure that would be a problem with kids. But if they could create an "upside down" MK to have a 2nd castle park, I think it would have tons of potential.
*don't kill me if this is a controversial/stupid opinion, I'm new
*
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That everyone going to WDW did a MK day or two at the expense of going to the other parks is well known. And WDW built for that. And when overall numbers were lower, it worked for them. No problem at all... until attendance hit a tipping point where MK is saturated year-round.
Note how much the DAK attendance spiked with the addition of their nighttime hours and Pandora. If they could do more of that at DAK and Epcot and DHS and make them each repeatable two-day parks (and more family friendly), then that should drive the week-long vacationers to stop repeating MK throughout the week and do more of the other parks.
But, with regard to a 5th Gate, unless it's MK 2.0, it won't do what it needs to do. What's needed is for the other three to be must-see two-day parks.
I'm no rocket scientist, but, like others have said, maybe the other parks just need to increase the # of attractions.
Every visitor does visit the Magic Kingdom because its so iconic but they spend a disproportionate amount of time there because it has such a large percentage of the resorts attractions. My informal review has MK at over 30 attractions (not including shows or movies) at over 30 while all the other parks combined are under 30.
If Disney made a commitment to get 20-25 attractions (ie, rides) in each of the three non-MK parks, the resort would total close to 100 total attractions with about 1/3 in MK. That would reduce the time spent by a typical 5 day visitor in MK from 2 1/2 to 1 ½ days.
If Disney made that type of investment in ride capacity all 40 rides would not need to be headliners but actually have a balance of b-e tickets to keep the crowds happy.
They could increase ride capacity by 40% w/o a new gate.
I know this runs counter to the current trend of IP lands w/ a couple of actual rides and some would argue that not all the parks could handle 20-25 attractions, but it would be a path to manage growth and lessen the strain on MK.
Every visitor does visit the Magic Kingdom because its so iconic but they spend a disproportionate amount of time there because it has such a large percentage of the resorts attractions. My informal review has MK at over 30 attractions (not including shows or movies) at over 30 while all the other parks combined are under 30.
If Disney made a commitment to get 20-25 attractions (ie, rides) in each of the three non-MK parks, the resort would total close to 100 total attractions with about 1/3 in MK. That would reduce the time spent by a typical 5 day visitor in MK from 2 1/2 to 1 ½ days.
If Disney made that type of investment in ride capacity all 40 rides would not need to be headliners but actually have a balance of b-e tickets to keep the crowds happy.
They could increase ride capacity by 40% w/o a new gate.
I know this runs counter to the current trend of IP lands w/ a couple of actual rides and some would argue that not all the parks could handle 20-25 attractions, but it would be a path to manage growth and lessen the strain on MK.
mm121
Well-Known Member
MK will always be the most visited. it needs more attractions to absorb the crowds, the problemwith that though is that it then increases the crowds even more since people want to see the "new stuff"
Pandora a SINGLE LAND, with 2 RIDES, took 5 years!! in an existing park in a pre planned expansion area.
a new from the dirt park would probably take 10 years, otherwise it will end up rushed like hollywood studios was which is why they are having to spend so much money on it now to bring it up to par
helps the stock price to not have have cash outlays in a single quarter or a single year but spaced over time
the biggest issue with expanding MK is then it will draw even bigger crowds of people trying to see the new stuff.
but it does need more ways to eat people
Damon7777
Well-Known Member
People want quality, not garbage or low tier experiences.
winstongator
Well-Known Member
Personally I'd divide by 5 today, or give the MK 2 slots. It's attendance is roughly 2x all the other parks, so every time you add a smaller park, your per-park attendance would go down.
Rinx
Well-Known Member
Despite the numbers stating that MK is the park most visited by nearly 2-fold over the others, I'm still a firm believer a 5th gate is necessary. Well...maybe it's more of an opinion but the reason I believe so is simple:
DAK opened in 1998. So for the last 20 years we've had the four parks. Despite some new lands like Fantasyland, TSL, SWGE, and Pandora, the parks haven't/will not have expanded THAT much capacity. However, resorts have expanded tremendously. Since the opening of DAK these resorts have also opened:
All-Star Movies
Villas at Wilderness Lodge
Animal Kingdom Lodge
Beach Club Villas
Pop Century
Saratoga Springs
Kidani Village
Bay Lake Tower
Re-Vamped Treehouse Villas
Art of Animation
Villas at Grand Floridian
Villas at Polynesian
And on top of all those additions, current construction and planned projects include:
Riviera Resort
Coronado Springs Tower
Star Wars Hotel
Epcot Hotel
So many more people on property in all those resorts all going to and crowding the same four parks. I'm absolutely not thinking from a business perspective, just the perspective of a tourist who wants to see the crowds more dispersed
DAK opened in 1998. So for the last 20 years we've had the four parks. Despite some new lands like Fantasyland, TSL, SWGE, and Pandora, the parks haven't/will not have expanded THAT much capacity. However, resorts have expanded tremendously. Since the opening of DAK these resorts have also opened:
All-Star Movies
Villas at Wilderness Lodge
Animal Kingdom Lodge
Beach Club Villas
Pop Century
Saratoga Springs
Kidani Village
Bay Lake Tower
Re-Vamped Treehouse Villas
Art of Animation
Villas at Grand Floridian
Villas at Polynesian
And on top of all those additions, current construction and planned projects include:
Riviera Resort
Coronado Springs Tower
Star Wars Hotel
Epcot Hotel
So many more people on property in all those resorts all going to and crowding the same four parks. I'm absolutely not thinking from a business perspective, just the perspective of a tourist who wants to see the crowds more dispersed