Originally Posted By MPierce >> No-one attempted my google search! I came up with the name of Peter Rummell.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> Seriously if I see a fifth theme park in WDW in my lifetime I'll be amazed (which I hope is 50 years plus!) - I just don't see any way that the market can support five fully-developed theme parks (ie. 80k per day-ers) - I expect WDP&R will "continue" to develop the existing ones (or at least start to!). << But what about the very expensive experience that was going to be offered close to DAK? Many were calling this project a fifth gate. I'm brain locked or possibly brain dead right now. I can't think of what it was suppose to be called. It was just some really dumb sounding name. I think it was Mr Rasulo really pushing for it. When the World Economy took a nose dive into the toilet, I guess the idea was scrapped completely.
Originally Posted By leemac <<But what about the very expensive experience that was going to be offered close to DAK? Many were calling this project a fifth gate. I'm brain locked or possibly brain dead right now. I can't think of what it was suppose to be called.>> It has a host of names - most outsiders referred to it as "Night Kingdom". Internally it went by a very different name. It was scrapped as there was discomfort about offering a premium product that could only be accessed by a limited number of guests - the economics just didn't work (the park needed 2 CMs for every guest). I suspect we will see this type of Discovery Cove experience in the future.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> We're seeing a softening in real estate again that is likely to lead to another precipitous decline in home prices over the next couple of years. I wouldn't want to be involved in any real estate ventures for at least another 5-10 years. << It's definetly going to tip over again in 2 years. The only real estate deals I would care to invest in is coming along in the aftermath picking up properties with 1crown on the £.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> If marketted in the Middle East, Russia and China, I am sure they will sell. They are the ones buying up mansions in London, Paris and the sort right now. << Brazillans are buying in North America heavily right now. The Chineese already own about 30% of the States, the Japanese about 35% the Brits about 20% and Americans own about 2.5 %.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> Now, that is not as expensive as this WDW development, but I bet there is a market for these kind of buyers. << The wealthy have been effected as well with this World wide recession. After all Dave, a million dollars or a million UKP's, just doesn't go as far as they use to.
Originally Posted By MPierce >> It has a host of names - most outsiders referred to it as "Night Kingdom". Internally it went by a very different name. << Thanks Lee Mac. That was the name I was trying to come up with. Internally wasn't it being called Shangri-La or some exotic name similar to that.
Originally Posted By magnet My god, Pierce, you wasted a dalmations post on Pete Rummell. You've got to get on the stick.
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer >>>I suspect we will see this type of Discovery Cove experience in the future.<<< Really? As a separate park, or part of DAK? Certainly hope that the price comes down on it...
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<The question is what could the company do with it? I think there is a dawning realization within Parks & Resorts that the likelihood of additional Disney theme parks in Orlando is remote unless there is a significant change in tourist traffic. Personally I don't see how WDW could justify another park - I just don't see the economics adding up.>> I agree. I think it would utter stupidity, if not suicide to attempt another park in FLA. They saw diminishing returns with Disney-MGM to some degree and by DAK it hit them square in the jaw. The one thing they don't need (well, more hotels and timeshares would be the first) is more parks to attempt to staff with 98% $8 an hr parttimers, while the other parks continue to fall apart. But the whole basis for your question is the notion that business guys always have about land: namely it's worth nothing unless you build something on it. Not that it's a tremendously valuable resource even if it sits in a natural state for decades. Disney is committed to building or selling every square inch of land they possibly can in FLA. And I think it is stupid and shortsighted. <<I honestly feel TDO and Burbank think the parks are ancillary businesses to timeshares/real estate/food/retail.>> <<No - there are integral to each other. However the fact is that the ROIC for theme parks is poor - they are massively capital-intensive and generate returns that wouldn't justify their construction for many companies. The real money is in the outside-the-berm activities. Plus you need the infrastructure to get people on property - so developing the rest of the resort except for theme parks makes good business sense. WDW Co. will mine more money from on-property guests at their hotels than inside one of the parks. >> When times were booming (the 90s) I certainly would agree. But now? They have been in non-stop discount mode since the Milennium Celebration ended. All those resorts become albatrosses when times are tough. And overbuilding has conditioned guests to expect discounts. They are constant. And when times get really bad (as they did early in the 00s) you wind up shuttering entire resorts for months or years. I could argue that the more parks, more resorts, more everything Disney builds in FLA, they don't become more immune to risk, they become more exposed to it. <<Is the central Florida market saturated? It is now a mature market and I wonder whether it can continue to grow meaningfully once the US recession recedes.>> Of course it is. Look at all the parks Disney has. Look at Universal. Look at SW. This just isn't a growth market. The growth is going to have to come from the existing parks attracting more people annually and spending more. Nothing else is going to work. Unfortunately, you need to spend vast quantities of capital to get folks excited about something ... the public can't be won over my marketing and pixie dust anymore. If so, the discounts (just got another email deal for 8/15-10/2) wouldn't keep coming. <<So you need to tap into new markets to get folks there. Maybe that involves building suites hotels or maybe that is trying to bring high net worth individuals to property.>> I disagree. Suite hotels aren't needed. Take a few hundred rooms at ASMovies or PoP and do what they did at Music. Maybe do so at CBR and PO too. REDUCE inventory, while adding an option for larger families that don;t give two $hits about Disney's Best-Kept Secret. And selling multi-million homes to the ultra-wealthy to use four months a year? When O-Town has 30% of its homes empty now (even in nicer areas)? It's just dumb. This is the type of business plan I'd expect from people with no vision who simply are pulling at straws instead of continuing to do what Disney has been successful at for decades: create the best in themed family entertainment. Golden Oak (which sounds like a retirement village, no matter the history of the name) ain't it. No more so than Go.com or the Anaheim Angels or DisneyQuest or FOX Family etc ... it just follows in the steps of 'doing something for the sake of it'. <<And why someone would pay the prices Disney wants when they live in places like Windermere is crazy to me. If I had that kind of money, I wouldn't want to live trapped between theme parks and resort hotels with smog-belching busses clogging my roads etc.>> <<I think you misunderstand the market that Golden Oak is targeting - it isn't the 365-day residents - there are very few upscale communities in central Florida where permanent residents are in the majority - it is the super-wealthy that can afford to spend months at a time in central Florida (usually from the North-East). There just aren't the jobs in that market that can support a purchase of a house like those at Golden Oak (and I should add that only a handful are up in the $8m range).>> Nope. I am quite familiar with Central FLA real estate and the folks you are speaking of. I just believe the amount of people wanting to 'invest' in an estate home next to FW and near the WDW warehouses and close to DD is a whole lot less than the geniuses who dreamed this one up believe it is. <<Early indications are that the project will be a success - there are a lot of leads on potential sales but that is nothing without the deposit.>> Yep. And the exclusive gated subdivisions -- many incomplete and looking like creepy half-built ghost towns -- tell me that nothing is close to a sure thing with real estate and that many folks who put down a deposit may have 2nd, 3rd and 18th thoughts well before it comes time to pay up fully and will walk away ...
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<No-one attempted my google search! Check out who the past CEO was and that will answer your question. The individual was integral to the direction of the real estate development of WDW.>> Don't need Google ... it was whathisname ... Rummel ... Peter Rummel, right? Former DDC head honcho.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Oh, and I was stuck at Port Orleans during the storm.>> <<I just missed Andrew at WDW - we were on the gulf coast at Treasure Island when it come on-shore - a truly frightening experience for me. One I hope I don't have to experience again.>> I was here for Andrew too, but it didn't hit my area that badly ... we just got Category 1 effects ... never even lost power. But it was scary because no one knew exactly where it was going and it was so destructive. Wilma wasn't as bad, but didn't weaken as it came across the state. It was a 3 when it made land on the west coast and was still a 3 when it was east of the 'Glades.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<Interesting sales pitch for the "super-wealthy" market that would buy these things. The truth is that a number of these sorts of communities were built in tourist destinations across the country during the housing bubble. Quite a few of them are on the ropes financially right now. We're seeing a softening in real estate again that is likely to lead to another precipitous decline in home prices over the next couple of years. I wouldn't want to be involved in any real estate ventures for at least another 5-10 years.>> I don't agree with Goof frequently. Argue? yes. Agree? Nope. But I totally agree with the above. Real estate is a mess, has been for a good three years now and will likely be for MANY years to come. Some might call this a bold move by Disney, I call it foolhardy even if they only build 20 homes ...just dumb!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 >>I never got why Americans always equate a British accent with intelligence ... or the Queen.<< <<It depends on which type of English accent you're talking about. You do know that there is more than one, right?>> Dave taught me that lesson! They still all sound British to me. Kinda like a NYC accent and a Philly one and a Seattle one (do they have one?) likely all sound American to a Brit!
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 >> They wouldn't give me one, so I stayed five hours late anyway ... no one came to the door ... maybe because no one was out in the storm, but to this day it is one of the things that makes me angriest about Disney. You hear about how they react during emergencies. Well, telling guests they need to leave a room during a major weather event is NOT magical, not guest friendly, not smart ... and, in my case at least, not followed! << <<That is absolutely unbelievable that anybody, much less Disney, is capable of doing that.>> I was shocked. It wasn't like they needed the room because people were coming in. MCO was closed at the time. Winds were gusting to hurricane strength. People weren't needing the rooms (and if they did, they could have stuck us in Bonfamille's or over at BW convention center etc). I just could not comprehend (after hearing how Disney was after 9/11 and during the 2004 canes that hit Central FLA with giving folks free rooms and food etc) that they wanted me to vacate the safety of my room (when they wouldn't even allow housekeepers to work) and drive out into the storm. I have never in my life come so close to trashing a hotel room.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 >> No-one attempted my google search! <<I came up with the name of Peter Rummell.>> You win a LE WDI 'Little Squirt' pin from WoC's premiere, courtesy of Leemac. Congrats. And thanks for playing 'Know Your Former Disney Execs!' Back to you ... Dave.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 <<It has a host of names - most outsiders referred to it as "Night Kingdom". Internally it went by a very different name.>> I've heard two 'Disney's Shangri-La and Disney's Jungle Trek' ... don't know if those were just 'leaked' to WDW Research, but I know they were used. Wonder if the domain names for those are available? <<It was scrapped as there was discomfort about offering a premium product that could only be accessed by a limited number of guests - the economics just didn't work (the park needed 2 CMs for every guest). I suspect we will see this type of Discovery Cove experience in the future.>> I so hope we don't!
Originally Posted By leemac <<But now? They have been in non-stop discount mode since the Milennium Celebration ended. All those resorts become albatrosses when times are tough. And overbuilding has conditioned guests to expect discounts. They are constant.>> I'd agree on the discounting front - I never agreed in that strategy (not that I had a voice at the table!). Consumers have long memories and simply offering transparent discounts is a huge mistake. It will take a long time (if ever) for WDW Co. to get back to where it was. I never understood why they didn't keep their premium product and dial back on the park schedules - I think guests would have understood if (e.g.) D/MGM went to 5 days a week etc. if that park had proper opening hours, entertainment and was fully staffed on those days. It annoys me immensely that we are now stuck in a cycle that could have been handled much better by Al and his cohorts. Focusing solely on revenue generation isn't smart. I do disagree on the albatross comment though - resorts can be shuttered entirely so that their running costs are virtually zero. If the business isn't there then just shut up shop and move full-timers elsewhere.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>> It will take a long time (if ever) for WDW Co. to get back to where it was. I never understood why they didn't keep their premium product and dial back on the park schedules - I think guests would have understood if (e.g.) D/MGM went to 5 days a week etc. if that park had proper opening hours, entertainment and was fully staffed on those days.<<< Amen Lee. If Disney had opted for that model, I would still be singing their praises. But to pay for an experience where there are staggering attraction times (with little warning until at the attraction), shuttered facilities, no live entertainment, and poor maintenance, well there are other vacation destinations that start to look more appealing. If Disney still offered the qualtiy product consistantly in line with what made us all fall in love with the company, but had different dark days (well advertised), then that would be great. Is it too late for that kind of model?
Originally Posted By EPCOT Explorer >>>You win a LE WDI 'Little Squirt' pin from WoC's premiere, courtesy of Leemac.<<< I have one of those... Question for you gentlemen.... If Disney is so keen on discounting...What is the deal, then, with building a new hotel? A new DVC? A new "Residential" community? And hopefully not... a Boutique park? If they are hard pressed to get people into things at full price, shouldn't they be improving the existing venues to attract guests? (Improve the PARKS!!!!!! is what I am hinting at ;-) )
