Originally Posted By cape cod joe That is my big problem here i.e. that my thing is the spoken word and body language. This medium is difficult at best.
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "I will say that communicating via written words alone is sometimes hard. People on the other end cannot see your body language, the arch of your eyebrow, or hear your voice inflection. They take your words in context of their own lives as they read it, instead of the context of the life that delivered it." Boy, my friend, are you right about that one. Sometimes I'll look at something I wrote a few days/weeks later and cringe when I realize how it could be interpreted vs. what I actually meant. But, hey, I guess that's one of the -- many -- bad things about the Internet. On the other hand, it allows folks like us with similar luvs to get together and talk about it. Couldn't do that a dozen years ago.
Originally Posted By cape cod joe LDD--touche as the positives outweigh the negatives unless a person really writes something that could be misinterpreted and then you take the heat here
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom The only problem with the money arguement is that 40 cents of every dollar of revenue for the Disney Company is generated at WDW. Meanwhile otheer Disney Company corporate possessions such as ABC and ABC radio have lost money for the company. Our arguement has allways been that although WDW has always made a profit, the Disney Company is not reinvesting those earnings at WDW. Those profits are being used to keep lost leaders such as ABC and ABC radio a float. The Disney Company can do this as Americans ( and other's visiting WDW ) will accept less clean parks, gravel under the monorail tracks at the MK instead of flowers, fountains in the MK permantely being used as flower pots, closed or "seasonal" venues in the MK, grossly outdated pavallions in EPCOT, a usesless "park" that apparently is housing nothing more than a car race track, and "fluffers" for the Braves practicing baseball until the real team shows up in Atlanta in April.
Originally Posted By Labuda "On the other hand, it allows folks like us with similar luvs to get together and talk about it. Couldn't do that a dozen years ago." Actually, some of us have been online and communicating with folks online for over 20 years now. hehe (MAN, do I feel old when I say that! LOL)
Originally Posted By vbdad55 Working for tech companies --- has had us on line much longer -- and also aged us, as we knew the pain of always being 'available' all the time at work earlier
Originally Posted By Labuda <-- has only been working in the tech industry since 1999. But, it was said about my Daddy after he passed away that he could "think in binary". hehe I'm a 2nd-generation tech geek. I was breaking into his co-worker's computers at the bank by figuring out their passwords at a VERY young age - as in 4 or 5. LOL Just did it to access the simple ACSII games they had, though - nothing sinister in ANY way, of course.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom I was once driving and had the hubby and the in-laws in the car. They were all talking at the same time. So I told them we were going to pass around a "token". Only the person with the token could talk. I thought it was funny. The hubby got it but the in-laws had no idea what I was talking about.
Originally Posted By Labuda Gee, thanks, Tom - you just made me spit a tiny bit of a turkey sandwich onto my monitor! heheheheheheh
Originally Posted By Labuda Yeah, but it makes me a networking nerd who shouldn't lean forward while reading LP on lunch. LOL
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "The only problem with the money arguement is that 40 cents of every dollar of revenue for the Disney Company is generated at WDW. Meanwhile otheer Disney Company corporate possessions such as ABC and ABC radio have lost money for the company. Our arguement has allways been that although WDW has always made a profit, the Disney Company is not reinvesting those earnings at WDW. Those profits are being used to keep lost leaders such as ABC and ABC radio a float." Is it really 40 cents? I knew it was high, but I didn't think it was nearly that. And ABC has been profittable for quite a while. It's the No. 2 network overall and, more importantly, No. 1 in the demos that advertisers crave -- young people with money! So while, ABC may have been a heroin monkey on the back of the Disney parks between the Millionaire salad days of the late 90s and the resurgence of the past 2-3 years, it surely isn't anymore. And Disney is spinning off ABC Radio with Citadel Communications, so it isn't really a factor either. "The Disney Company can do this as Americans ( and other's visiting WDW ) will accept less clean parks, gravel under the monorail tracks at the MK instead of flowers, fountains in the MK permantely being used as flower pots, closed or "seasonal" venues in the MK, grossly outdated pavallions in EPCOT, a usesless "park" that apparently is housing nothing more than a car race track, and "fluffers" for the Braves practicing baseball until the real team shows up in Atlanta in April." Can't disagree with that. Boy, do those rocks and wood chips disguised as landscaping go against everything that Disney guru Bill Evans taught and designed about horticulture in the parks. And that sports complex likley loses money, although I could be wrong. There are way too many small, amateur events that are held that don't bring in the bucks. And way too few Braves spring training kind of deals. The place is virtually a ghost town much of the time. But hey, Eisner and his brats loved sports so ...they became a core business for Disney. And I very much agree that Americans have been conditioned to accept crap and think it's perfectly OK. When I see the vehemence of some of the Disney apologists on this site, I just have to laugh. Fans are supposed to want the best, yet come to a Disney site to justify short-term business gains at long-term cost to the "brand?" Maybe it's part and parcel of the culture we're in that so many people feel the need to defend a mult-billion dollar media conglomerate, but it just amazes me. FWIW, I posted a repost on the 35th Anniversary thread last night of something I wrote on the DCA Board to all the apologists who were defending Disney's desire to build parks on the cheap. I don't feel like reposting it another time here. But I think it tells where I am coming from perfectly on the subject of investment in parks, making money and bad business.
Originally Posted By vbdad55 <Does that make me a networking nerd? LOL< with a capital N welcome to the club
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<The only problem with the money arguement is that 40 cents of every dollar of revenue for the Disney Company is generated at WDW. >> Revenue on its own means nothing... you need to also look at profit. It amazes me how folks can spew this stuff while knowing absolutely nothing about it. The parks don't come close to carrying their own weight when it come profit (they also don't get close to 40% of the revenue, but that's another story). The following data is from 2nd Quarter 2005 -- the most recent I could find. Parks Revenue 2.1 Billion Profit 193 Million Profit Margin 9.19% Percent of Total Disney Revenue 28.38% Percent of Total Disney Profit 16.48% Television Revenue 3 Billion Profit 725 Million Profit Margin 24.17% Percent of Total Disney Revenue 40.54% Percent of Total Disney Profit 61.91% Studio Entertainment Revenue 2.3 Billion Profit 253 Million Profit Margin 11.0% Percent of Total Disney Revenue 31.08% Percent of Total Disney Profit 21.61% Source: <a href="http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0512/disney.html" target="_blank">http://www.rte.ie/business/200 5/0512/disney.html</a> So don't tell me how the Disney Theme Parks are subsidizing the rest of the Disney Empire, because they clearly aren't. I realize profit can vary from year to year because of Disney (ABC) Television and Movies doing well or poorly. But if you look over the long term I think you would find that the parks do well to hold their own.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj >>> The only problem with the money arguement is that 40 cents of every dollar of revenue for the Disney Company is generated at WDW. Meanwhile otheer Disney Company corporate possessions such as ABC and ABC radio have lost money for the company. Our arguement has allways been that although WDW has always made a profit, the Disney Company is not reinvesting those earnings at WDW. Those profits are being used to keep lost leaders such as ABC and ABC radio a float. <<< This statement is partially true. WDW does generate profit -- however, it the bulk of the profit making in the past decade has come from selling real estate (Celebration) and time shares. The massive overhead from operating four theme parks has pretty much destroyed the profit margins that Disney once had from running parks in Florida. In general, the theme park business is not a very good one. Just look at all the companies that are currently looking to unload their park assets (Universal), or have already unloaded (Time Warner, Paramount). Even if you have decent profits, which Disney does thanks to real estate, you still have to re-invest 100% or more back into new attractions and infrastructure just to keep guests coming back. Disney has been cash flow negative for many years in theme parks.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj I'm also curious to know how many people here actually have experience managing maintenance systems and personnel? I've done my fair share. Running a maintenance organization like WDW would be quite a challenge. I think I would really enjoy that job for a while, but I have no preconceived notion that simply throwing money at the problem through more employees will provide any substantive improvements. It's a personnel management issue more than anything -- budget concerns would probably be the bottom of my initial priorities if I got to take a shot at this one. Just my 2 cents based on having to maintain and fix an industrial facility on a shoestring budget before.
Originally Posted By TDLFAN >>I don’t care what Walt did in 1955. It isn’t going to happen in 2006.<< ..And you call yourself a Disney Fanatic?!?!? Besides... Walt DID NOT clean his DL in the 50s or 60s... but he *demanded* then to be clean. Even told his wife his DL park would not be dirty like the carnivals around town...which was a concern of hers when he came up with the crazy idea for DL. I would respect management more if they upheld that very basic of principles inn regards to Walt's wishes for DL and applied it to the rest of the resorts around the World. Of course... OLC still does Walt's legacy proud.
