Originally Posted By leemac So a colleague of mine had a cold call from the group chief executive and MD from Accenture who are the IT developers for the NGE program (they have basically done everything from the consulting piece when the program was being scoped out to the technology development). They wanted to pitch a specific tech piece to him. Long story short - the Accenture reps told them that the NGE budget has now passed $1bn and is heading towards $1.5bn or higher. My colleagues' jaws were on the floor by that time. That is more money than WDP&R has spent on any single theme park on opening. More than the DCA makeover (just) and more than either the Dream or Fantasy. I'd love to get a hold of the business plan that underpins this spend. WDW Co. have put a lot of their eggs in that NGE basket.
Originally Posted By Witches of Morva ORDDU: And to think no one even knows if this will be a success or a failure, yet. Thank you for your update, leemac, duckling.
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA Success or failure? I can't even explain what NGE is in 25 words or less!
Originally Posted By leemac <<Success or failure? I can't even explain what NGE is in 25 words or less!>> I can: Prioritizing resort guests to detriment of off-site and local guests by upselling to a "premium" experience that was previously free That was 21.
Originally Posted By hopemax > Prioritizing resort guests to detriment of off-site and local guests by upselling to a "premium" experience that was previously free < This is what I was afraid of. Since I have a parent that is a CM, we no longer stay on site. The "family" company wouldn't want to break up the family, right? That was rhetorical, I know they would for a buck. But with this X-Pass nonsense, and people already admitting that they don't know how to handle CMs, APs, DVC, which means they just won't. I have been starting to prepare for "life after Disney." Where visiting my parents means, maybe we suck it up for a day or two, while we do other things in Central FL. Versus going for 2 weeks, and spending the majority of time on property. Do you know if the registration for the New Fantasyland previews was an attempt at using some of the NGE stuff or not. Because that failed miserably. CM's couldn't register for almost a week after they got slammed the first day. The AP registrations went so bad they switched everything to a lottery. My Dad and I were like, "And they want to do this for rides and experiences?"
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>"And they want to do this for rides and experiences?"<< There are hyper-planners out there that absolutely love to schedule every moment of their vacation. They're deciding what side dishes they want with lunch 6 months in advance. I think it sucks, but I'm clearly not the target market for this stuff.
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper All of this NextGen stuff is my worst nightmare, and the money their spending on it basically guarantees it'll go to Disneyland, which I was hoping wouldn't happen. It;s the kind of thing that has me wondering whether there are any stateside Disney vacations in my future.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Maybe I'm missing something, but why would you not visit a Disney resort because of NextGen?
Originally Posted By leemac <<All of this NextGen stuff is my worst nightmare, and the money their spending on it basically guarantees it'll go to Disneyland, which I was hoping wouldn't happen.>> The plan has always been to roll this out to DLR and DLP. DLR has always been a tough sell as it has fewer resort rooms but TDA seems to have come around to the idea....unsurprising considering the incredibly rosy profit outlook that Nick Franklin has presented to ExCom.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Do you know if the registration for the New Fantasyland previews was an attempt at using some of the NGE stuff or not.>> I don't know for sure (and I'm not an IT specialist) but I've been told that the booking engine was part of Accenture's infrastructure for NGE.
Originally Posted By leemac <<There are hyper-planners out there that absolutely love to schedule every moment of their vacation.>> It is about more than just planning - it is ultimately about control. NGE wants to know exactly what you are doing and when in order to "personalise" the experience.
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper <<The plan has always been to roll this out to DLR and DLP. DLR has always been a tough sell as it has fewer resort rooms but TDA seems to have come around to the idea....unsurprising considering the incredibly rosy profit outlook that Nick Franklin has presented to ExCom.>> Do you think the profit outlook is in anyway realistic? I have a hard time believing people are going to be excited to have to pay for Fastpass, especially if the lower level resorts have to do so as I've heard rumored. <<Maybe I'm missing something, but why would you not visit a Disney resort because of NextGen?>> Well, I'm not planning on going to WDW any time soon after my marathon trip. And if this is rolled out in DL where I'm more than likely to stay off site, it cuts me off from things like Fastpass. Not really the vacation I have in mind.
Originally Posted By hopemax > There are hyper-planners out there that absolutely love to schedule every moment of their vacation. They're deciding what side dishes they want with lunch 6 months in advance. < I get that, and am actually one of those people in a lot of ways. But what happened with New Fantasyland preview registration was Disney COULD NOT keep the site operational because of demand hitting the site. And that was when the system was only open to a small fraction of the "interested parties" at one time. That's what I'm referring to. Planning is great, if you can log on and make an attempt to register for what you want. But if people only get website errors, or 1 min after things being available it shows as "sold out" for everything what do you think all those planners are going to do? Scream bloody murder.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>Planning is great<< Within reason. Pretty much I am lazy. I want to go on vacation and relax and enjoy myself with a minimum of scheduled activities. All this "personalization" is not something I personally find appealing at all, but again, I'm not the target market for this. When I'm paying $100 for a day at a theme park, call me crazy, but I really think that should be all inclusive for the most part. Maybe I'm just at the age where I need to go fishing or something instead.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Do you think the profit outlook is in anyway realistic?>> It isn't - unfortunately this is the lunatics running the asylum. You have the entire project being run by a EVP who has never successfully executed a single project - not even the opening of an envelope. The guy got the gig solely because he was Jay's room mate at college (you couldn't make this stuff up). So instead of pulling the best and brightest from inside the company he decides to effectively hand over the entire reins of NGE to the consultants. I didn't particularly like Franklin when he butchered NBD (after all this is the exec that failed to notice that a hotel in Sydney he was bullish about had to no access points!) and I had hoped the NGE would just be a pipe dream - particularly once his sole champion (Jay) got shoved out of WDP&R because TOS needed operational experience. Now WDW Co. has effectively bet the house on NGE. I'm worried that guests will balk at the notion of having to pay to premiumize (the new favorite term) their vacation experience.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I'm worried that guests will balk at the notion of having to pay to premiumize (the new favorite term) their vacation experience.<< I don't know, seems people are willing to pay whatever the going rate is at Disney parks. Lee, on a semi-related note, any word on if the price increase of APs at DLR have resulted in fewer of them being sold this year? Or have people just sucked it up and bought their annual pass anyway?
Originally Posted By HokieSkipper Leemac, that's my EXACT fear about the entire project. So much money is being pumped into a concept that I find to be misguided and just totally lacking a view in reality. And with all the infrastructure problems WDW has...I just worry the parks could never recover from this.
Originally Posted By leemac <<I don't know, seems people are willing to pay whatever the going rate is at Disney parks.>> And there is the rub IMHO. Guests - even those that have never visited the parks - know that there is a one price for entry plus their nightly room rate. I think a lot of guests will get very frustrated at the notion of additional fees left, right and center that will bulk up the price. I pity Ops CMs that will have to explain to guests why some guests get preferential treatment - and this isn't just a handful like those with plaid encourages - this will be a lot of folks. Once the parks got rid of the ticket books the parks were a level playing field. That will evaporate IF NGE gets to the point that Franklin has promised. I'm convinced this will be a nightmare at DLR - the AP revolt will be gigantic on unprecedented levels.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Lee, on a semi-related note, any word on if the price increase of APs at DLR have resulted in fewer of them being sold this year? Or have people just sucked it up and bought their annual pass anyway?>> AP sales are down in all categories - especially premium and deluxe. That is precisely what DLR wanted. It looks like the current forecast for 2012 will see fewer AP admissions as a percentage of total admits since before DCA opened.
Originally Posted By leemac <<Leemac, that's my EXACT fear about the entire project. So much money is being pumped into a concept that I find to be misguided and just totally lacking a view in reality. And with all the infrastructure problems WDW has...I just worry the parks could never recover from this.>> I don't know exactly what that $1.5bn number includes - I'm guessing all of the GUI too. I can't believe it would just be the back office solution with all of the data mining capabilities that WDW Co. craves. There is little doubt that WDW Co. has been way behind the curve in terms of leveraging its guest data but this is a lot of investment to get to that point. IMHO the only positive is that if this doesn't work it just gets shut down and ripped out (or left to rot in plain view which is WDW Co.'s usual MO). I'm not sure there is anything to recover from except the wasted cost. I'm not against the notion of NGE - but I'm against it being entirely a profit center. It can't be just about trying to find new ways to squeeze money out of guests. The Disney theme park resort model has been pretty successful ever since the retirement of the ticket books and there is no point in changing the business model.
