WSJ: Even Disney Is Worried About The High Cost Of A Disney Vacation (gift link)

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Let people have perceived value again. Bundle the sunshine flyer or whatever the new Magical express bus is into the price of admission. Give all resort staying guests complimentary lightning lane tickets (or at least a few). Increase dining discounts for on-site guests. I think most people will continue to pay the high prices if they at least feel that their money is worth it.

Not to mention bring back the street performers, bring back the characters in the streets, use the showrooms and stages again, bring back the night parade, bring back the fireworks at HS, etc, etc, etc.

The amount of entertainment in the parks is a tiny fraction of what it was pre-Covid, not only does that mean there’s less to do in the parks but that also means all those people that used to be enjoying the entertainment are now standing in lines, it just makes everything worse.

 

[MrPromey]

Again, you're going on and on about something that is beside the point. I do indeed understand that there is more audience overlap with DCL and WDW than there presumably would be with Universal Orlando and Universal Kids. What I am saying is that they are invoking the Universal name and brand equity in such a way that could be detrimental. Even if the audiences are mostly separate (at least by age segregation), using the name still signals something to visitors. If Universal Kids is first contact, won't that color perceptions of Universal in general and possibly impact willingness to engage with the brand in the future upon aging out? And if, assuming the reverse, Universal Orlando is instead first contact, don't you suppose visitors will enter Universal Kids with certain expectations and assumptions? Additionally, I can't imagine there's no desire whatsoever to "graduate" visitors with means to more expensive Universal experiences as they get older.

It's not besides MY point - that IS my point you've been arguing against.

And you're right, it could be detrimental if they do absolutely everything wrong with the rollout of this.

For that, you have to assume they don't know what they're doing and this will fail in which case you'd be absolutely right.

The same could be said about cheap Disney junk being sold in Dollar Tree, vs. similar better quality stuff sold at Target.

It's called market segmentation.

They could put a "welcome center" the size of a DVC kiosk in the park to showcase all the wondrous things that await guest in Orlando and turn your perceived problem into an up-sell opportunity.

Maybe if they're stupid, they won't do that. Maybe they'll market it like a full world-class theme park located in land-locked non-tourst destination Frisco. But maybe they put the welcome center there and their guests end up being too stupid to understand the distinction, despite any effort they make.

That would likely happen if they did everything wrong.

It could still happen if they did everything right with what they build for what they're trying to achieve and they market it clearly but it seems like they must being going by some data point to suggest they don't believe that to be the case.

One things for certain though, they were never going to put a world class theme park in this location. They were never going to jeopardize potential guests from their multi-billion, multi-decade investment to the middle of Texas for a one-day experience rather than encourage them to go to Orlando so for people who think they are going cheap in Orlando and Vegas, what do you think their alternative move would have been?

My guess is it would have been to do nothing at all in Texas or Vegas.

Maybe that'll prove to be the case. If so, I'd expect to see these open and closed within a decade and maybe the Texas one opened re-themed and with a different company operating it.

But I highly doubt they had any major big plans that somehow got scaled down to this or that they one day threw a dart that landed where it did and they said "lets slap something there".

 

[MrPromey]

Generally speaking, I do think it would be foolish to discount the demographic alignment.

Both Horror Unleashed and Universal Kids are about doing things that are smaller and cheaper. There is a difference between the direction of how the content is being handled. Part of the problem with controlling and reducing costs is that they often arise for legitimate reasons and they’re directed towards a certain scale of output. Feature Animation doesn’t really do television because that’s not how they’re budgeted and organized. Even in a golden age of television where the stigma of working in it is gone, it’s still generally smaller, faster productions. There were attempts to make streaming more prestige by having the movie studios do television production and it really hasn’t penciled out.

Universal Kids is the blockbuster movie team trying to do a modest television series. Its direction is more value engineered from the destination parks. Horror Unleashed though is more the television team getting to a big budget special. It’s taking the cheap and disposable thing and pleasing it up. Horror Nights is handled by the local Entertainment teams not Creative and they’ve retained control of the houses in Horror Unleashed.

The pitfall that Horror Unleashed really faces is the ongoing operating costs. It does risk becoming like the permanent house that was at Universal Studios Hollywood, often devoid of the scare actors. The Halloween season has been extended but it’s definitely a question as to whether there will be enough interest in doing a haunt at Christmas to maintain Universal’s established level of house operation.

And I do think this is relevant to Disney. Universal has been speed running a lot of the issues that plague Disney. They’re not the same company that could deliver Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey for less than The Little Mermaid. They couldn’t do Transformers in 13 months. Bob Gurr left Disney decades ago because he thought there was too much bureaucracy and too many meetings. There are larger market and organizational forces at play within Disney, the fixed amusement business and even the tourism business in general.

All great points.

But smaller and cheaper as opposed to what?

I can't see them picking the middle of Texas or Las Vegas to do something bigger and higher priced. Can you?

Seems like the only alternative would have been to either sink that investment into Orlando and/or Hollywood or to simply do nothing at all.

I think in the case of Las Vegas, they're in a safe place to fail so that seems like a much smaller risk. Shows, attractions and whole resorts regularly erased out there. I remember Old Town had a haunted house and I remember Terror on Church Street, neither of which ultimately worked as year-round attractions in Central Florida but Las Vegas is different crowd and there are plenty of niche attractions aimed at adults which manage to work.

If they fail, there probably won't be much more than a Wikipedia page to commemorate the existence and since, like you said, their "TV" team are working on it, it's not a serious investment.

If it's just the business model and not the quality of the experience that is bad, I don't think they stand to do any reputational harm with this one, at least and they do know how to make a haunted house. Heck, even their temporary pop-up stores are pretty detailed so they certainly know how to stretch a dime in that area.

The kids park is obviously the bigger gamble since they don't exactly have an amazing track record of impressive longstanding attractions geared to that demographic but like I said before, I'd feel a lot different about Toy Story Land if it were part of a small regional experience with a lower ticket price than I do today with it as a part of Hollywood Studios.

I think they could still go cheap by their standards and produce something better than most of what they're competing with.

We'll see what happens, though.

 

[MrPromey]

17 and 1/2 and what does my age have to do with anything?

Depends.

How many vacations have you personally planned and paid for, yourself?

How many people were you planning for and paying for?

 

[MrPromey]

You are misrepresenting what I’m saying in case you didn’t see it here’s my point

Again I’m not saying the park will be bad I won’t judge that until I actually go many years from now merely that the “it’s for kids” argument is weak and offensive to actual kids

I’m actually excited to see what the camp Cretaceous and SpongeBob rides end up being (I am not a SpongeBob fan)

It can be both not bad and also something a 25 year old without kids who ignored all the marketing thinks they wasted their time and money traveling to when they get there and fully realize it was designed for someone 17 years younger than them.

Sorry, I meant 17 and 1/2 years younger.

As a parent, I can appreciate what Legoland is while acknowledging it's not meant for me, despite my eternal love for those little plastic landmines.

 

[Jrb1979]

It can be both not bad and also something a 25 year old without kids who ignored all the marketing thinks they wasted their time and money traveling to when they get there and fully realize it was designed for someone 17 years younger than them.

Sorry, I meant 17 and 1/2 years younger.

IMO that's what many don't get. It's not meant to be what DCL is to WDW. It's not even a park that supposed to be a destination park. It's a park built for Frisco and it's growing population.

 

[lazyboy97o]

But smaller and cheaper as opposed to what?

I can't see them picking the middle of Texas or Las Vegas to do something bigger and higher priced. Can you?

Again, cheaper isn’t just the strategy for certain ventures. It’s the current plan for the whole division.

 

[Jrb1979]

Again, cheaper isn’t just the strategy for certain ventures. It’s the current plan for the whole division.

For both companies for that matter. It's so odd how things have changed. Disney and Universal are heading to the cheap route, while parks like Dollywood are all about guest satisfaction and world class experiences

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Eliminate the reservation system for AP holders.

Meh, Im’ an AP holder and I don’t care about this at all. I’d rather they keep it for Christmas-NY than eliminate it entirely.

 

[flynnibus]

Disney killed the golden goose and it was just a matter of time till the tipping point arrived.

The first two generations after wdw open were converted into fierce brand loyalists. Wowed ans swooned, they regenerated with the next generation through the kids growing up and repeating the cycle.

Disney created ‘fans’ who would actually shape their lifestyle around wdw vacations. Borderline cult-like… and the reputation earned ensured a new feeder line of new recruits.

But in the 2000s they started taking this for granted. New waves of leadership focused on cashing in verse ensuring the cycled continued.

Then Disney started directly chipping away at the things that nurtured the loyalists. They started treating guests like “your dollars are replacable”. Disney basically stopped building brand loyalty and instead focused on capitalizing on the guest… even blatantly in front of them.

Defense like “everyone else does it…” highlighted exactly that. Disney was no longer different…. The cycle was broken and now Disney no longer had blind faith from their customers. People openly feel nickled and dimed. It’s every family for themselves….

So the armor is gone… you are exposed to just see how much you can land before customers give up on you.

Disney was coasting on it’s past reputation while not restocking the barn. Generational loyalty is gone. Wdw becomes more ‘one and done’… something people grimmice through to say they did it… but no longer join the cult.

It accelerates into a death spiral as disney monetizes more to sustain growth while doing little to indoctrinate new loyalists… and making its own barrier to conversion even taller.

Now sustaining growth is too hard… you are too big… defending your own price differentiation makes you too inflexible.. and it costs too much to keep innovating so you slumble and slow even more.


Disney’s turning their back on their brand loyalty and what created it killed the golden goose.

Disney turned everyone into park commandos… then monetized it and everything short of taking a dump… and then can’t find their way back to what actually created that kind of lifelong fan.

All empires eventually fall…

 

[MrPromey]

Again, cheaper isn’t just the strategy for certain ventures. It’s the current plan for the whole division.

What are they in the active stages of working on right now that we have real details on besides these two things?

I tried looking up the UK project and could find zero details with no start date even planned on construction or exactly what it will have - only that it's expected maybe as early as 2030?

I know RRR is scheduled for closer this year and a replacement but I have to imagine if it'll be what we are expecting it to be, it will be better than what it's replacing and what carries the same theme down the guest path a bit, today.

Beyond that, I'm not aware of anything else not still in the planning stages.

Not doubting you but if you know more, can you post a link or suggest a google search term so I can get up to speed?

 

[MrPromey]

Disney killed the golden goose and it was just a matter of time till the tipping point arrived.

The first two generations after wdw open were converted into fierce brand loyalists. Wowed ans swooned, they regenerated with the next generation through the kids growing up and repeating the cycle.

Disney created ‘fans’ who would actually shape their lifestyle around wdw vacations. Borderline cult-like… and the reputation earned ensured a new feeder line of new recruits.

But in the 2000s they started taking this for granted. New waves of leadership focused on cashing in verse ensuring the cycled continued.

Then Disney started directly chipping away at the things that nurtured the loyalists. They started treating guests like “your dollars are replacable”. Disney basically stopped building brand loyalty and instead focused on capitalizing on the guest… even blatantly in front of them.

Defense like “everyone else does it…” highlighted exactly that. Disney was no longer different…. The cycle was broken and now Disney no longer had blind faith from their customers. People openly feel nickled and dimed. It’s every family for themselves….

So the armor is gone… you are exposed to just see how much you can land before customers give up on you.

Disney was coasting on it’s past reputation while not restocking the barn. Generational loyalty is gone. Wdw becomes more ‘one and done’… something people grimmice through to say they did it… but no longer join the cult.

It accelerates into a death spiral as disney monetizes more to sustain growth while doing little to indoctrinate new loyalists… and making its own barrier to conversion even taller.

Now sustaining growth is too hard… you are too big… defending your own price differentiation makes you too inflexible.. and it costs too much to keep innovating so you slumble and slow even more.


Disney’s turning their back on their brand loyalty and what created it killed the golden goose.

Disney turned everyone into park commandos… then monetized it and everything short of taking a dump… and then can’t find their way back to what actually created that kind of lifelong fan.

All empires eventually fall…

I know this reads way melodramatically but I agree 100%.

 

[GenChi]

The price for a basic single day (OOS) ticket to one WDW park can buy you a full season pass to just about any regional theme park in the country, and often an upgraded pass with parking, one free daily lighting lane, access to other parks, additional perks, etc. Of course not including discussed upcharges or other necessary travel expenses for Disney.

It's really not surprising that WDW for most people has turned from a once every few years to an at most once in a lifetime visit just to say you brought your kids once, with interest in return visits very low. Inflated cost, feeling like they are scamming guests, and general quality decline when quality defined your parks over regional does that. Things are going to get worse the more the middle class is made non-existent. Starcruiser was your test to see if only upper class whales could sustain these resorts, we saw how that went so you can see how this is now an internal panic.

 

[lazyboy97o]

For both companies for that matter. It's so odd how things have changed. Disney and Universal are heading to the cheap route, while parks like Dollywood are all about guest satisfaction and world class experiences

The scale is nowhere near similar. A cheap Universal or Disney project is still more expensive than what Herschend would spend on an attraction. The demand is also greater than what would be necessary for Herschend.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I’ll believe Dollywood is serious about it’s parks when it figures out how to solve its hornet and wasp problem.

 

[monothingie]

Disney killed the golden goose and it was just a matter of time till the tipping point arrived.

The first two generations after wdw open were converted into fierce brand loyalists. Wowed ans swooned, they regenerated with the next generation through the kids growing up and repeating the cycle.

Disney created ‘fans’ who would actually shape their lifestyle around wdw vacations. Borderline cult-like… and the reputation earned ensured a new feeder line of new recruits.

But in the 2000s they started taking this for granted. New waves of leadership focused on cashing in verse ensuring the cycled continued.

Then Disney started directly chipping away at the things that nurtured the loyalists. They started treating guests like “your dollars are replacable”. Disney basically stopped building brand loyalty and instead focused on capitalizing on the guest… even blatantly in front of them.

Defense like “everyone else does it…” highlighted exactly that. Disney was no longer different…. The cycle was broken and now Disney no longer had blind faith from their customers. People openly feel nickled and dimed. It’s every family for themselves….

So the armor is gone… you are exposed to just see how much you can land before customers give up on you.

Disney was coasting on it’s past reputation while not restocking the barn. Generational loyalty is gone. Wdw becomes more ‘one and done’… something people grimmice through to say they did it… but no longer join the cult.

It accelerates into a death spiral as disney monetizes more to sustain growth while doing little to indoctrinate new loyalists… and making its own barrier to conversion even taller.

Now sustaining growth is too hard… you are too big… defending your own price differentiation makes you too inflexible.. and it costs too much to keep innovating so you slumble and slow even more.


Disney’s turning their back on their brand loyalty and what created it killed the golden goose.

Disney turned everyone into park commandos… then monetized it and everything short of taking a dump… and then can’t find their way back to what actually created that kind of lifelong fan.

All empires eventually fall…

 

[DisneyHead123]

It is being built to the standard of a child-focused regional park. It will by its very nature not have signature attractions to the standard of their other parks, and it will exclude entire demographic swaths of the population with the experiences offered. Again, with Disney parks versus Disney cruises, it's "same quality, same demographics, different but potentially overlapping persona"; for a Universal destination park versus the proposed Universal children's park, it's "different quality, extremely narrowed demographic, completely different persona".

You always, always mischaracterize what people say about regional parks. No one is saying that they don't have a place and are unworthy of a visit. In this case, all that is being said is that if you have made a name for yourself with premier destination amusement parks, creating lesser regional parks that don't meet the same standard for attractions, service, and entertainment may negatively impact brand perception.

I’m not up on the Universal Texas park so can’t speak to that.

I will say, however, that I’m actually a fan of Disney doing some kind of “Disney Lite” experience that is more dispersed throughout the US. I do understand that they have not had luck in this area in the past. That said, I look at the success of a place like Great Wolf Lodge and think that shows the market is there. I’d love something like an expansion of DVC into Disney centric family entertainment hotels.

 

[Agent H]

Depends.

How many vacations have you personally planned and paid for, yourself?

How many people were you planning for and paying for?

Well none but we are pass holders

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I’m trying to discuss basic economic indicators. Which I don’t believe are against WDWMagic rules. And extremely relevant to affordability. Unlike litigating the rules, which is the direction you took, and a discussion I do not wish to discuss.

Economic indicators are absolutely relevant, you just have to keep politics out of it.

Asking how a potentially decreasing federal workforce could affect WDW is perfectly fine, bringing up the politics behind those changes is a third rail though and sure to get deleted.

There’s ways to discuss how current events could impact Disney without bringing politics into it.

 

[WDWhopper]

Each year, Chevy sells millions of vehicles in the low to mid 5 figures. Ferrari sells about 8500 vehicles priced in the mid $300,000 range. Of course it’s less cumbersome for Ferrari, but they are much more susceptible to downturns in the economy, since they are a luxury brand with a limited customer base. Disney is attracting more luxury customers, but they will be more susceptible to a continuing downturn, since they have moved away from the middle class. I think the problem at Disney is that a lot of their development teams are younger college graduates without experience with downturned economies. The quick buck looks more attractive to them. Anyone who has lived through a downturn would understand that you do much better when you diversify your customer base. Catering mostly to the upper class results in more booms and busts. Keeping an even and steady business going with a mix of middle and upper class, is typically the best way to go. It’s the classic Tortoise versus the Hare.