Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> decades of research showed that it would be a money pit that never returned on it's investment. << And if anyone wonders why I point out -- yes, over and over again -- why lousy taste and lame creativity are crucial factors behind DCA's mediocrity, it's because too many people continue to gravitate towards the excuse of economics and budget to explain why Anaheim's second Disney park couldn't be better or had to be such a dud.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan <a href="http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/phd/PHD302/OS40024.JPG" target="_blank">http://www.fotosearch.com/comp /phd/PHD302/OS40024.JPG</a>
Originally Posted By planodisney Fine disneywatcher, but that doesnt counter what mrichmondj posted, and I believe he is exactly right. However, the fact that disney os willing to address things like the entry plazy and placemaking in certain area of the park like PP, as well as 2 rides that appear to be in the near future, hints, to me, that they think they can make a difference in attendance. Maybee the 50th did it. But, Anaheim just cant pull in the kind of tourists that WDW can, and never will be able to. There are many reasons, but the number one rason is population. The east coast has such a HUGE population advantage when it comes to tourist attractions. Also, believe it or not, I think some people around the country are intimidated by L.A. in a way that Orlando never would. I think that disney would be in real trouble right now if they would have built a 1.5 billion dollar them park across the esplenade. That said, the park was too low on attractions upon opening, and certain areas of the park should have just plain been done better. It looks like things are on the way up for DCA, as even Iger was quoted saying changes are coming, yet certain people are still far more interested in what happened at opening than what looks like will be happening in the next few years. That is just realy WIERD to me!!
Originally Posted By woody >>The problem is those numbers are over 5 years old. Obviously Disney is not working from those figures today. This has been explained at least a million times here already. Welcome to 2006, Woody.<< Obviously, those 2001 numbers were bogus and five years later, they are still bogus. 2006 indeed!!! You don't need to tell me Disney missed its target and has recalculated its expectations. However, it is fun to point it out and rehash it repeatedly. I am certain DCA will one day achieve expectations and they are whatever Disney boasts. Based on what happened in 2001, don't believe it!!!
Originally Posted By WorldEpcot <However, it is fun to point it out and rehash it repeatedly.> Fun for you, annoying to everyone else.
Originally Posted By disneywatcher >> I think that disney would be in real trouble right now if they would have built a 1.5 billion dollar them park across the esplenade. << Are you implying, therefore, that a dud like DCA was unavoidable because Anaheim isn't Orlando? If not, and you're merely claiming that a more modestly-budgeted but nonetheless highly inspired and skillfully designed park would have been safer in terms of the bottom line, I wouldn't bet against such an assumption. However, if you actually believe DCA couldn't have been better, regardless of who was in charge, because Anaheim isn't as lucrative as Orlando, then -- bzzzzttt -- you're assuming the top people responsible for the park, if they were being honest and candid, would say, "this park is second-rate and so is our work on it!"
Originally Posted By Park Hopper Apparently, the success of the 50th anniversary promotion has proven, to some in Burbank, that California can support a multi-park resort. Both parks have been pulling in some healthy numbers. And it looks like they are finally going to be making some serious capitol investments in DCA. If they can continue to promote the resort as well as they have been and if DCA continues to improve, I’d say the future for the Disneyland Resort couldn’t be brighter. For those who think Southern California cannot support a multi-park resort, let me remind you of the scores of experts who told Walt that Disneyland would be a spectacular failure.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer I think Mr. Iger had some very candid comments today.. From a Marketwatch.com article.... <a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=" target="_blank">http://www.marketwatch.com/New s/Story/Story.aspx?guid=</a>%7B549461DC%2DC5C2%2D4700%2D885B%2D0C954E4AC657%7D&siteid=google >>In past years under former Chief Executive Michael Eisner the company was more guarded in its comments. On Friday, Iger seemed willing to mix candor with charm as he addressed the crowd. One shareholder asked Iger whether he would consider adding a third "gate", or theme park, next to Disneyland and the troubled California Adventure, which opened in 2001. "We're still working to assure the second gate is successful", Iger said, referring to California Adventure. "In the spirit of candor, we have been challenged." Disney often has been criticized for shortchanged the facility when it was built, leaving park goers unenthusiastic. It and the company's European park are considered the least successful in the company's chain.<<
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "For those who think Southern California cannot support a multi-park resort, let me remind you of the scores of experts who told Walt that Disneyland would be a spectacular failure." I think that we've seen solid proof over the past 5 years that DLR can support a tourist based multi-day theme park experience. This has become more obvious with the economic upswing in recent years. However, I don't think that Disney, even in their wildest dreams, expect DLR to become WDW. Let's face it, the multi-day multi-park model is the only way that DL could ever expect to see long term financial growth.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj "For those who think Southern California cannot support a multi-park resort, let me remind you of the scores of experts who told Walt that Disneyland would be a spectacular failure." Walt Disney didn't build a mult-park resort in 1955. Also in 1955, there was no market for theme parks, because Walt Disney hadn't invented it yet. You can be sure, though, that Walt Disney was a lot more business oriented than most people give him credit for. He picked a site south of L.A. where land was relatively inexpensive, within a day trip for the dense Southern California population, and tapping into the exploding Baby Boom. Disneyland wasn't just a whim, it was a business decision made on calculate research of a new a burgeoning market of families with young children. Don't kid yourself to think that "Walt's Folly" was ever just a shot in the dark. By 1995, the idea of a theme park was pretty familiar to California, and it's not that hard to figure out what the market will look like for a new venue in the Disneyland parking lot.
Originally Posted By mickey42397 Let's face it, there are a whole bunch of reasons why a multi-park resort in So. California might not be as successful as Orlando. The resort experience in Orlando is so popular and successful because everything, and I do mean everything worth seeing in central Florida is connected by an interstate which twists and turns to go out of it's way to ensure that one only needs to stay on I4 to see WDW, SeaWorld, Universal Studios, and a multitude of other attractions. You don't need a map, you don't really even need a brain, and you will almost never encounter traffic. Can we say that about SoCal ? NO. I have lived and worked in both places (DL and WDW) and I can tell you that they are like night and day, and I'm not talking about the parks themselves. Orlando exists for tourism, SoCal is a major metropolitan area with or without Disney (the horror of that thought !) Plus, European tourists don't really want another 5 hours on an airplane. Don't get me wrong, DL is my first and favorite love, but Orlando this will never be.
Originally Posted By speedygenie a multipark resort WOULD work if they built something worth seeing. I like DCA, but it's not pulling in the people. If we had TDS, then we might actually be able to compete with wdw.
Originally Posted By ArchtMig ^^^ I don't need it or even want it to be Orlando. I just want DCA to be a great Disney theme park that I am eager to visit multiple times each year, as I am with Disneyland. Right now, DCA is not that. Not nearly. And even if they cram the place with great new attractions... if they do nothing to fix the ambience of the overall environment, such as the failings of the main entrance, the sun court uselessness and uglyness, the overly wide concrete wasteland walkways, the terrible semi circular performance wasted space between san francisco and the lagoon, the ugly views of external structures... ...well, the list goes on and on. Do nothing to fix these aspects, and only plunk down new attractions here and there, and I will still feel extremely dismayed and depressed as I walk through the joint. A Disney theme park is not just the individual attractions. It's the entire presentation. The whole is definately more than the sum of the parts, and right now, DCA is just parts.
Originally Posted By ArchtMig My post 172 pertains to the last line of post 171, which was: "Don't get me wrong, DL is my first and favorite love, but Orlando this will never be."
Originally Posted By trekkeruss <<If we had TDS, then we might actually be able to compete with wdw.>> It's not a competition.
Originally Posted By speedygenie I agree we are not competing with WDW, but since the majority of the country choses to vacation at WDW over DL, the company choses to spend more money out there. If we pulled more numbers, they might blow more money over here in DL. That's the only way i see us in a compitition.
Originally Posted By Park Hopper First of all, no one is suggesting that Walt didn’t have a strong business sense. Of course he did. Disneyland was very carefully planned out from a business standpoint. I am well aware of how the site was chosen. But the way Walt did things is almost the opposite of the way the Company does things today. Walt would say, “I want to build a theme park. Find me a business model that will allow me to do it.†Today its almost as if the Company develops a business goal first, (i.e. increasing the tourist business at the Disneyland Resort) and they decide they need to build a theme park to achieve it. Using Walt’s method, marketing professionals who told him Disneyland wouldn’t work, were ignored. The park was built anyway and was a tremendous success. With DCA the marketing professionals were god. They promised success with Disneyland’s 2nd gate and once again they were wrong. I don’t understand why so many people still cling to what these guys say. Their record, as far as Disney Parks in So Cal) is pretty bad.
Originally Posted By mickey42397 Don't get me wrong, I don't want or need this to be Orlando either. I moved over there and then after a couple of years had to move back here because I don't like Orlando. I agree about DCA needing much more than a few new attractions. I was just having this discussion with my daughter while we were walking through there a few days ago, before I ever read this thread. We go to DCA because we want to ride TOT and ride screamin'. The amount of walking that entails is ridiculous. We usually decide to do this when we are in ,say, New Orleans square, so imagine the walk to ride those two rides. I told my daughter that the amount of walking we have to do in DCA makes me feel like we just spent a day walking around a park in WDW, but without the magical feeling. I don't think some more convenient walkways and a few more attractions thrown up will bring any magic to the place. I guess that about sums up the way I feel about it. One thing I didn't say before about DL resort never being like WDW is that tourists have to look at Anaheim. All the negative aspects of it, DL is just in the middle of a not-so-nice area. In Florida, even if they venture off property to the "other" parks, they see nothing like it, everything is clean and beautifully landscaped, in comparison. Disney makes sure of it. During my 3 years in Orlando I never once saw a homeless person. That could never happen in Anaheim, but yet I still moved back here because I love DL so.
