Originally Posted By Darkbeer The New York Times has changed its policy, and now allows free access to much of their archives online (1923 thru 1980 is still a fee-based archive). So let's go back and check out some of the comments made. First, from February 11, 2001... <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9802E5DA113EF932A25751C0A9679C8B63" target="_blank">http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f ullpage.html?res=9802E5DA113EF932A25751C0A9679C8B63</a> >>The great variable in this more modestly scaled Disney production will be the crowds, which already promise to be suffocatingly large. (The company projects seven million visitors in the first year.) A two-hour wait in 90-degree heat to get on Soarin' Over California could well dampen some of the attraction's excitement. But if the throngs can be managed, visitors will be treated to a slightly different experience. Instead of being part of a stampede from one attraction to another, like the old Disneyland (at least for those who go with children), they will be given the opportunity to have some slower-paced fun amid far more handsome surroundings -- all on the assumption that they are willing to shell out what could be hundreds of dollars a day. << And here are some comments from Disney folks from the same article. >>At Paradise Pier, Disney officials acknowledge that the rides lack the imaginative spin on which the company prides itself -- California Screamin' is, plain and simple, a high-speed roller coaster with a superfast start (0 to 55 m.p.h. in four seconds), and the Maliboomer shoots riders 180 feet in the air and then gives them, and the agitated contents of their stomachs, a momentary sense of weightlessness as the carriages plummet. But officials said they felt the attractions fit into the park because they add some spice to a place that risks, if anything, being too laid back. (You can literally watch bread bake at the Boudin Bakery.) ''We always said we would never do rides sans some imaginative twist,'' said Barry Braverman, the senior vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering and the park's design overseer. ''We would say, 'That's our competitors' business.' But when you consider the whole design here, it works.'' << Well, Barry, guess it didn't work.....
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> "We would say, 'That's our competitors' business.' But when you consider the whole design here, it works." << And if he meant that honestly and sincerely, then that's just one more example of DCA's flaws being traceable to utter incompetence and stunted creativity, and not to squeezed budgets and impatient stockholders.
Originally Posted By jonvn In 25 years, we'll be hearing these same quotes from these same people. Maybe they'll get them carved on their tombstones.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher ^ And you'll likely still be complaining about the webmaster of miceage.com.
Originally Posted By jonvn If so it will at least be about something that would be happening then, not 25 years in the past. Time for you to get a new script.
Originally Posted By Nemo88 These people remind me of the uncle in Napoleon Dynamite who constantly brings up his high school football 'career' back in the 80s.These DCA critics will be similar to that guy but just replace football with DCA...it will be 2035 and these people will be talking about DCA circa 2001 still.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "So let's go back and check out some of the comments made." I stopped reading right there.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer DCA should have been built to Disney standards, heck the "D" stands for Disney And there is the problem, Barry Braverman states in this article that it is OK to not do it, and he was the person in charge from WDI to build DCA!!!.
Originally Posted By berol "And there is the problem, Barry Braverman states in this article that it is OK to not do it" It's his job to publicize it as a positive. Find a quote that gives his real opinion and we'll have something to talk about.
Originally Posted By berol That didn't quite come off right. "Find a quote that we can see is his genuine opinion..."
Originally Posted By bean Might God how many of these same posts that rehash comments from seven years ago do we need from you darkbeer. Stop living in the past look forward towards the future. You have actually made this more important than real life issues
Originally Posted By dennis-in-ct >>Stop living in the past look forward towards the future.>> lol ... Amen to *that* ... all the stuff I hear about is very exciting. Someone made a comment about Disney;s CARTOON adventure and I don't get it. I mean.. they are putting in an effort - spending the money - letting the artists and talent drive the changes ... can't we just be HAPPY ?!?? I am ... and will pay a visit in a few years to see it all. And I am very happy to watch it all unfold on LP - just like the good 'ole days when we watched DCA being built. PSYCHED!!!!!!!
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "DCA should have been built to Disney standards, heck the "D" stands for Disney" Darkbeer, you know exactly why the park was built the way that is was, and what the objectives were when it was concieved. This stuff has been explained to you over and over again, and yet here you are posting the same old junk as if it were still 2001. The park has clearly missed some marks, but it has done well enough to justify further investment. What are you trying prove? Let it go and move on.
Originally Posted By jonvn "These people remind me of the uncle in Napoleon Dynamite who constantly brings up his high school football 'career' back in the 80s" Wasn't that Al Bundy in Married With Children? And really, wasn't he considered like a major league loser for doing that all the time?
Originally Posted By Socrates I still like the suggestion I made a couple of years ago: To save time, we could just agree to a numbering system for comments. Negative comments could be odd, and positive comments could be even (that way we would never run out of numbers). For example, 1 -- DCA was not built to Disney standards. 3 -- DCA is such a disappointment it should be considered a failure. On the other hand, 2 -- DCA is a second gate, that was the idea in the first place. 4 -- DCA is a disappointment, but not a failure. Then when these old debates resurface, the first poster could just type "1". And anyone who wants to respond could just type "2". See how much typing that would save? Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living."
Originally Posted By Darkbeer 1 and 3 are true. 2 is false, based on the original pricing structure Disney came up with for the park. Some folks agree with 4.
Originally Posted By 9oldmen >>The park has clearly missed some marks, but it has done well enough to justify further investment. << More like "the park has missed so many marks, by such a wide margin, that the new people in charge have finally decided to fix it, allocating a budget that's bigger than the parks original investment." I don't agree with dredging up articles from a different era, but using a billion plus dollar investment as proof that the park is doing well? I don't agree. I have a feeling that once this upgrade is done, THEN the park will start performing as intended, but it will be because it will practically be a different park. Up until now, it's almost been the theme park equivalent of "The Watcher In The Woods".
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Let's do some math... First we need to come up with a starting number, I have seen, $1.1 Billion, $1.2 Billion and even $1.3 Billion over 10 years (above and beyond the costs of Toy Story Mania! and The Wonderful World of Color Lagoon Show, which is at least $120 million more, maybe more). But lets use the $1.2 Billion number, which is the most common number. That is $120 Million a year. Or over $325,000 a day! And lets say that 6 million guests visit DCA a year. That is basically $20 per person, per visit. And while there are a few full priced tickets sold, most folks get in on discounted tickets, starting with the free ones, comps, CM and their sign-ins. Then you have the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" SoCal offer, the 2008 offer of geting "2 days free" with a purchase of a 3 day ParkHopper or longer (can be less than $28 per day), and then the AP's, which for a low example of 10 days a year for a SoCal, and 20 days for a Deluxe/Premium AP holder, that is around $20 a day on average. And yes, some profit is made on the food and merchandise sold in the park. But at the current pricing schedule, the investment will not return a profit for the first few years... And don't forget you still have to pay for the original cost of DCA, the upgrades since 2001, and all the daily costs including repairs, labor and electricity, plus many other expenses.
