WSJ: Disney Downtime increases as cost of visiting goes up

[monothingie]

But two rides (or the 6 needed) on expansion pads in built and paid for parks?
With some added costs?

Because as TSL showed and SWGE showed, no one is going to be happy with a cheap spinner ride and simulator which under delivers.

They set the bar with ROTR, Guardians, and Tron. Anything that isn't of that caliber (and expense) won't work.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

Extra gates add far too much development costs and overhead…and park cannibalization.

Those are done. Enjoy animal kingdom…it ends there.

But two rides (or the 6 needed) on expansion pads in built and paid for parks?
With some added costs?
That would only bring more, happier people and they would spend more. Buzz price here…not hard.

Agree but such a hard sell to the people making the money. “ Wait.. you want to dump billions into new attractions when we are making it hand over fist right now? Sure sounds like a dumb idea when the parks are full daily. No thanks”.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Agree but such a hard sell to the people making the money. “ Wait.. you want to dump billions into new attractions when we are making it hand over foot right now? Sure sounds like a dumb idea when the parks are full daily. No thanks”.

Who said those fools were “experts”?

At the end of the day…more money is more money.

But the mistakes were 10-15 years…when they squandered the “lead”…

Right @Rteetz , @kong1802 ?

 

[marni1971]

Playing devils advocate, and you know I’m in no way defending current management, but we need to remember the differences of downtime between something actually broke / failed / contributed to a ride stop and a ride intrusion / guest causing a cascade / sensor trip / e stop.

 

[MinnieWaffles]

Yeah, like the writers of these articles ever do research other than finding a few pages of whining by the terminally online.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Because as TSL showed and SWGE showed, no one is going to be happy with a cheap spinner ride and simulator which under delivers.

They set the bar with ROTR, Guardians, and Tron. Anything that isn't of that caliber (and expense) won't work.

ROTR is a joke. It’s time to just accept and move on:
2 types of people:
1. Those that agree
2. Those that need to see 5 years of decay/rot of the IP AND the ride to believe it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Playing devils advocate, and you know I’m in no way defending current management, but we need to remember the differences of downtime between something actually broke / failed / contributed to a ride stop and a ride intrusion / guest causing a cascade / sensor trip / e stop.

Yeah…but you know from your years of experience/contacts that mechanical stuff that has the kinda stress they have are prone to failure/decay…

So if you cut preventative Maintenance - not minimal safety maintenance - then you set yourself up

 

[marni1971]

Yeah…but you know from your years of experience/contacts that mechanical stuff that has the kinda stress they have are prone to failure/decay…

So if you cut preventative Maintenance - not minimal safety maintenance - then you set yourself up

That’s why I’m not denying it. Just reminding some it’s not all because ”it broke down”.

I’ll be the first to call out the neglected SSE ride system. Or why the steam doesn’t work anymore. Etc. etc. etc.

 

[Jrb1979]

It's so mindblowing how little Chapek and friends care about the parks.

 

[lentesta]

But Disney denies this is true in the article and WSJ is mistaken .

Read Disney's statement carefully:

A spokeswoman said the data used in the Journal’s analysis is incomplete and don’t match Disney’s internal metrics.

They don't explicitly say they think there's less downtime.

For example, suppose Disney's internal data counted downtime if it happened in the "let's get the park running for the day", 60-minute period before it opened to guests, which we did not.

Then Disney's statement about the data being "incomplete" and not matching Disney's internal metrics would be absolutely true.

I'm just saying, you know, hypothetically.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

They set the bar with ROTR, Guardians, and Tron. Anything that isn't of that caliber (and expense) won't work.

Runaway RR wasn’t that caliber / expense and if works.

I’ll be the first to call out the neglected SSE ride system. Or why the steam doesn’t work anymore. Etc. etc. etc.

While the steam wasn’t working, I was very impressed with SSE... Several fog effects and more motion in AA’s than I've seen in years.

 

[marni1971]

While the steam wasn’t working, I was very impressed with SSE... Several fog effects and more motion in AA’s than I've seen in years

The smoke from the Roman torches caught my eye. But it’s an example of great SQ next to awful SQ. The parks are currently shockingly hit and miss show quality wise.

 

[Goofyernmost]

I may be old fashioned, but I feel that if an attraction breaks down every day, several times a day, then you Fix It. Afterall, guests (oops customers) paid a lot of money to ride these attractions.
I've been going to WDW since l977 and it was never like it is now with frequent breakdowns. I hope someone in management has the b###s to fix attractions the right way and to do routine general maintenace, like they used to. But I'm not holding my breath with this farce of "leaders" we have now

Remember in 1977 those things were only 6 years old. Now they have been running for 50 years all day long, 365 days a year. Many parts break that aren't forecastable and cannot be prevented short of throwing everything with any age out and starting over. I don't really know but I do know that I breakdown a lot more than I did 50 years ago and most of it is not avoidable plus I don't work 12 hours a day, 365 days a year.

 

[Jrb1979]

Remember in 1977 those things were only 8 years old. Now they have been running for 50 years all day long, 365 days a year. Many parts break that aren't forecastable and cannot be prevented short of throwing everything with any age out and starting over. I don't really know but I do know that I breakdown a lot more than I did 50 years ago and most of it is not avoidable plus I don't work 12 hours a day, 365 days a year.

IMO some of it can be if they did like most other parks and close some rides every few years for refurbishment.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Yeah…but you know from your years of experience/contacts that mechanical stuff that has the kinda stress they have are prone to failure/decay…

So if you cut preventative Maintenance - not minimal safety maintenance - then you set yourself up

I have made it well known that I am not a current fan of much of anything that Disney does at the moment, but I do know mechanical things. Because of that I feel safe in saying that they fact that these things, in four different parks are still operating after up to 50+ years of operation tells me the whatever is possible to be a candidate for preventative maintenance is being done and being done very well. Old parts, be they metal or human cells, eventually wear out and it is not sound thinking to attempt to fix things that aren't broken. It's like getting a heart transplant when it the original is still working well, just in case it decides to give out. It just isn't done that way.

The thing the jumps to mind most often along those lines is the monorail trains. The current trains have been operating there all day, everyday for some 30 years. Does anyone honestly believe that those trains that have to have millions of miles on them would still be as dependable as they are if preventative maintenance had not been done regularly? Whether or not, they should have replaced the fleet by now, is a completely different question, but to think that they aren't being taken care of is without any sensible reasoning. And the same goes for many of the attractions especially the newer ones that are highly technical and we all know how many times we have had a computer crash at home and we don't put anywhere near the pressure on those items (computers, tablets, or phones) then any attraction at WDW dependably deals with day after day. Age wears out all of us and there are some things, including machines, that we as humans cannot forecast or prevent, it is just part of aging and life itself.

 

[Jrb1979]

I have made it well known that I am not a current fan of much of anything that Disney does at the moment, but I do know mechanical things. Because of that I feel safe in saying that they fact that these things, in four different parks are still operating after up to 50+ years of operation tells me the whatever is possible to be a candidate for preventative maintenance is being done and being done very well. Old parts, be they metal or human cells, eventually wear out and it is not sound thinking to attempt to fix things that aren't broken. It's like getting a heart transplant when it the original is still working well, just in case it decides to give out. It just isn't done that way.

The thing the jumps to mind most often along those lines is the monorail trains. The current trains have been operating there all day, everyday for some 30 years. Does anyone honestly believe that those trains that have to have millions of miles on them would still be as dependable as they are if preventative maintenance had not been done regularly? Whether or not, they should have replaced the fleet by now, is a completely different question, but to think that they aren't being taken care of is without any sensible reasoning. And the same goes for many of the attractions especially the newer ones that are highly technical and we all know how many times we have had a computer crash at home and we don't put anywhere near the pressure on those items (computers, tablets, or phones) then any attraction at WDW dependably deals with day after day. Age wears out all of us and there are some things, including machines, that we as humans cannot forecast or prevent, it is just part of aging and life itself.

All parks deal with that same thing. The difference is most other parks do close rides for extended time to refurbish them. Parks like SeaWorld and Busch Gardens post on their site rides that will closed for refurbishment. Universal just did it with the Mummy.

 

[Goofyernmost]

IMO some of it can be if they did like most other parks and close some rides every few years for refurbishment.

Well, a lot of those "down" attractions that people complain about are the ones that are closed down for refurbishment. A lot of them yearly. That just puts more pressure on the remaining ones thus perhaps leading to their breakdown as well. That, however, cannot be completely solved. I'll wager that not a single attraction broke down during the Pandemic closure.

 

[Goofyernmost]

All parks deal with that same thing. The difference is most other parks do close rides for extended time to refurbish them. Parks like SeaWorld and Busch Gardens post on their site rides that will closed for refurbishment. Universal just did it with the Mummy.

I know, and again don't we hear complaints constantly about how so many attractions are closed down just on the week that they were planning on being there. Honestly there is no way to make humanity happy about anything. I found the way to avoid any of that frustration. I no longer go there. Problem solved for me.

 

[Mr Mindcrime]

Bob Iger and now Bob Chapek regularly earned/earn over $30M in annual compensation and routinely had/have their contracts extended time and again.

The parks are packed and nothing, not price increases, not attraction downtime, not anything seems to be affecting attendance. For every "me" that stops going, two other new customers show up to take my place.

So the question is, did Bob Iger and does Bob Chapek have any reason to do anything any differently? New (expensive) attractions? Better (costly) maintenance? More family-friendly (less profitable) pricing? Of course not. They have one primary concern.....their compensation. And since that is pretty good and shows no signs of stopping.....they'll continue the course.

It's really easy.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You'd think The Wall Street Journal would know that you can't criticize a publicly traded company because they have the best information and always do what is best for the shareholders.

Downtime, both planned and unplanned, is part of the standard design day capacity model. You need capacity to be available to provide slack in the system. Straining capacity has the sort of domino effect we see where things just really start to grind and cascade.