One Beeeeelion Dollars!

Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt

I've gotten to the point where I either skim over over skip posts not directed towards me that are really wordy and long.

 

Originally Posted By bean

Origially the ticket was suppose to be used for both parks, there was ways of overiding the system to allow people to enter only one park or to use it only one day as a parkhopper.

The news that the ticket could be used that way spread like a virus on the internet. That was never the intention of the promotion.

Due to crowd control the prmotion was better thought out the year after.

At first the promotion also ended at a certain day. This created a ightmare with people showing up right before the pass expired.

The ticket was then changed so that it exired a certain day after first used. This helped control the crowd problems.


Note: in non o fmy post am i trying to defend the park or TDA. There was problems but they are not as intense or serious as some people make it out to be.

The park is not failing financially. The parks daily attedance does not have to be too high for it it to turn a profit.

There are other issues but the main issue is Image. The other problem is that the park could be doing much much better and Burbank knows very well.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

I love Darkbeer because he ALWAYS brings up this pompous, absurd post that shows the sheer arrogance of the folks in the TDA building back in the 1999-2001 period.

<<George Kalogridis, then senior vice president of Disney operations in Anaheim is quoted in the article as saying ""Come early in the day or come later, after the park clears out again, hopefully, with Disneyland right across the esplanade and Downtown Disney right there, we won't have to turn people away from the resort.">>

As an aside, George K is now, after TWO demotions, doing his best to ruin DLP by running it in a WDW fashion as the VP of Ops in Paris. Disney recycles bad execs like baseball recycles bad managers.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<I wonder if the planners forecast the precipitous drop-off in international tourists to the U.S. after 9/11?>>

And I wonder if someone who never posted on this site prior to 7/17 when the news was leaked in Al's column is doing spin for people still in the company who are hanging on by their fingernails and would even stoop to using 9/11 as an excuse for why a half-baked, half-developed park flopped.

Funny how people still flocked to DL after 9/11. I guess they just thought the evildoers would go after the park Disney was marketing to death.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<So why did DL attendance drop 11% in 2001?>>

Are you Barry Braverman? Or just part of his team?

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<Post 131 is probably right.>>

Agreed. And post 132 is pretty accurate too! ;-)

<<Extreme claims about failure this or that are really pointless, and people making claims like that look like they are uninformed with an axe to grind.

It's really just dumb talk and it is quite tiresome.>>

Absolutely. Yet it seems to go on forever.

And, as we've agreed, we both enjoyed the original DCA a whole lot more than the watered down, cartooned, mismash that exists now.

It all comes down to a few basic points:

DCA was built with a faulty model but with one large expectation -- to increase guests vists and spending ... it was a huge success in that, although DD clearly deserves some credit.

DCA was built for a relatively tiny sum of money (about $600-650 million) as Disney theme parks go.

DCA wasn't marketed correctly to begin with and locals/APers were alienated from the start by some very weak execs out in back.

DCA was expected BY DISNEY to open hugely and have legs. It opened to a collective yawn except by the Internet fanboy crowd.

DCA was affected by the recession and terrorism and travel slowdown, but being a new park with poor word of mouth, suffered a whole lot more than its sibling across the way or WDW.

DCA didn't open with enough atractions to keep people in the park and didn't offer any of the signature, long, immersive Disney attractions that people expected.

DCA's execs immediately made kneejerk reactions instead of staying the course and often appeared clueless as to what the park was or should be.

DCA was not meeting whatever financial targets Burbank wanted. Bob Iger and John Lasseter and crew saw a diamond in the rough ... and now they're ponying up a bit over $1.3 billion (that figure also includes MIdway Mania, World of Color and new Pixar Parade too) to make it a true world-class Disney second gate.

No matter what happens, though, some people simply will never be happy with it because they wanted Westcot or Port Disney and got DCA. And some folks will keep spinning that DCA really has been a success all this time and people who label it a failure (and as much as I still like the park) I'd put it in that category because it so missed its mark have no clue what they're talking about and it will continue on and on and on ... until that third gate gets built.

And all I know about it is this: it is the only full-scale Disney park likely to be built in the next 10-15 years. Anywhere. (not including those regional centers that JR wants and will likely be outside the USA anyway)

That says a lot about how Disney now views their little slice of OC heaven.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

>The truth is that DCA is not a failure but it also is not a success in the level they expected.<

<<Simple, elegant, and most likely accurate. And no amount of negative Darkbeer posts will make it otherwise.>>

Agreed, old man.

But I wonder if DCA isn't a success, and it hasn't been by Disney's own metrics, isn't it fair to say it's a failure?

I guess it's all semantics because I view DCA as a park with so much untapped potential. But I also view it as a failure based upon what TDA expected it to be.

Are both points mutually exclusive? Am I contradicting myself? I don't think so ... but I'm open to other POV.

<<Seriously, db dude, I've never seen anyone spend so much time trying to convince the world that DCA was failure. You've been doing it ever since it opened. Give it a rest, huh?>>

Yeah. Methinks Darkbeer is a bit ... well, more than a bit, how about Darkberr very much has OCD when the subject of DCA is on the table.

 

Originally Posted By Spirit of 74

<<Ok -- new rule. All posts must be under 7000 words. >>

Is this the Darkbeer/WorldDisney rule?
;-)

Seriously, my eyes are getting tired trying to digest this whole thread in one sitting after just returning from WDW.

 

Originally Posted By danyoung

>But I wonder if DCA isn't a success, and it hasn't been by Disney's own metrics, isn't it fair to say it's a failure?<

I think it's entirely possible to say that a venture wasn't a complete success, but not necessarily a failure at the same time. DCA has limped along, keeping people in the complex a day or 2 longer. Now it's time for it to fly, and hopefully a billion and some creative input will allow it to do that.

 

Originally Posted By jmuboy

I'm willing to give DCA a second try once I see what these plans are for DCA 2.0....if it ends up 1/2 as well done as WDW's DAK park then I'll be very happy. I'm also looking forward to expanded activities outside the park (ie - more DTD and more hotels)

Actually, closing the gallery in NOS is the only thing going on at DL right now that really annoys me.

 

Originally Posted By gadzuux

>> And all I know about it is this: it is the only full-scale Disney park likely to be built in the next 10-15 years. Anywhere. <<

Maybe not a full-blown "theme park", but it wouldn't surprise me if they knocked up a quickie go-kart track or water slide park in anaheim as an annoying "placeholder" to make the adjacent land less desireable for condo developments.

 

Originally Posted By Dabob2

<But I wonder if DCA isn't a success, and it hasn't been by Disney's own metrics, isn't it fair to say it's a failure?>

Not in my opinion. Only rarely are things so black/white, yes/no. Especially things as multi-faceted as this.

DCA didn't meet company expectations, but it has been successful on some levels, both artistic and financial. So "mixed bag" is the term I think is more accurate. I don't understand the NEED some people have to label it "failure" period or "success" period.

 

Originally Posted By gadzuux

I don't see "artistic success" in DCA. Their best attraction - soarin' - is good not great, and certainly could have been plussed more, especially considering that it's the "headline attraction" of the entire park.

TOT is a clone of sorts. It's an ambitious attraction, but whatever 'artistic success' it deserves goes to the original attraction at WDW.

With the exception of TOT, the rest of HPB is ho-hum theme and architecture, and the infamous beige stucco. It's more like an artificial canyon than a themed "land".

Sunshine Plaza seems to be one of imagineering's first priorities in the makeovers, and pretty much no one is stepping forward to clamour for it's preservation.

The performance corridor is lined with dull surroundings - the "farm area", the ITTAB building, and even the wine area with it's tasteful yet aloof design.

Condor Flats is saddled with corrugated metal, steel I-beams and 'tool shed' theming.

Paradise Pier has been the most controversial part of the park since before it opened, and is also high on the priority list for visual improvements and overall theme change.

And for my tastes, the worst of the worst is the Route 66 area, which goes all the way to being an actual insult and affront to the concept of a "disney park".

The biggest 'artistic success' would be grizzly peak and the surrounding area, which looks great. This was obviously important because they were preparing for premium priced hotel rooms with a park view.

In terms of attractions themselves, the few "winners" are copies of attractions previously done at other parks - TOT, animation exhibit, GRR, screamin'. Soarin' - the park's lone "unique" attraction - is a fine concept, but the execution of it is only a moderate 'success'.

The rest of it - carny rides, spinners, muppets and bugs and a few other films - have already lost most of whatever wearability they might have had at park opening.

For me, this was and is the biggest "failure" of DCA - a near-complete lack of original and ambitous attractions with a true disney touch, and the preponderance of crap like route 66, golden dreams, bread and bakery tours - even bringing back the ELP for what - five years now? - has more than a whiff of desparation and creative emptiness.

In the end, it's for the best that DCA stumbled as spectacularly as it did. It came with an important lesson for disney parks manaagement, and caused an exodus of creative hacks from the company. Just imagine if they had been right in their early predictions, and the public accepted DCA's level of park wholeheartedly. That would have definitely been worse than what actually happened.

And the price for their hubris? $1 billion dollars - give or take.

 

Originally Posted By Sport Goofy

<< And the price for their hubris? $1 billion dollars - give or take. >>

That's actually a fairly cheap price at this point considering that Disney has a lot of cash flow right now. That wouldn't necessarily be the case if they had overspent on DCA in the first place.

 

Originally Posted By patrickegan


Gad, hit the nail on the head. The lack of success is symptomatic of trying to do magic on the cheap! The parks for a long time were riding on laurels (tired) ala Toon Town. If we’re to dissect the part (gads model) they tried to anchor the park areas and then add filler to round it out.


If the billion dollar question is, how will we get people to spend a full day or two (and all of their money), in DCA? IMHO you must do the following


1. Change the status quo, no more of the same thinking/business model.
2. Get rid of any trace of the Woopster!
3.Stop trying to enhance the sub-par (lipstick on the pig)
4.When in doubt blow it out. (Dozer)

 

Originally Posted By Dabob2

<I don't see "artistic success" in DCA. >

Many people do. Not everywhere, but certainly intermittently. Soarin' IS a great attraction to a lot of people including me (currently ranked the favorite attraction in ALL of WDW, I believe, so that tells you something). Techologically it's simpler than many, but the overall experience is just great.

The GRR area, RCCC, animation building (an improvement on MGM's), TOT, even the Wharf (needs an attraction, but certainly a pleasant area that evokes Monterrey)...

And then there are areas that just don't work, or worse, like Route 66. As I said, a mixed bag.

 

Originally Posted By bean

I am just glad that the new route 66 will be much much better than the aweful thing that is there now.

 

Originally Posted By ChurroMonster

So, um, what will it be Bean?

 

Originally Posted By davewasbaloo

Man alive I'm exhausted after reading this, but sadly there is very little that is new here.

BTW - we liked DCA before, know it needs work, looking forward to the future.

Ooop, now I'm reporting myself - but at least it's a short post!

 

Originally Posted By jonvn

It's going to be route 67 now. They are making it 1 higher.