Originally Posted By bhbob >>As for 30 rides in one day... I guess I need to take lessons from you!! I've never managed more than 13.<< My 9 year old son and I just went to Disneyland on Wednesday and managed to go on 29 rides between 10am and 8pm, (counting Thunder Mountain 4 times, etc.) That included a nice lunch and a complete ride around the park on the train. I didn't feel like this was commando style this time at all.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I think my problem is we will go to Disneyland park in the morning, go back to the DL hotel for the afternoon, and then head back to the parks for the evening. While this works pretty well at WDW's Magic Kingdom it seems to be a very poor strategy at DL. With major portions of the park brought to a standstill during fireworks and Fantasmic, evening hours at DL don't add much to your attraction total.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Hmmm, there is another factor we have not discussed. How much money is syphoned off into other business units now? As far as I am aware, the park was treated as an entirely different business unit and it's profits were pumped back into the park. Now, some of the profits are used to bolster share value and other poor performing business units I suspect?!
Originally Posted By mrichmondj ^^ I've never seen evidence of that practice in any annual report going back a couple of decades. Disney does publish figures that bring you to the opposite conclusion, though -- a lot of money from the studio pumped into parks & resorts. For many years during the 1990s, the parks & resorts were cash flow negative -- they spent more money building new things than operating profits. On the contrary, the studio and broadcasting buinesses are usually very cash flow positive and don't require hardly any new capital investments with their profits. Disney has always been more than willing to spend studio money to build park attractions and new park facilities. I've never seen evidence of the money flow in the reverse direction.
Originally Posted By PirateJohn >>No?? Where's the money going then? Certainly not to the cast members...
Originally Posted By Socrates Anybody think of comparing a day at Disneyland to, say, the cost of a movie or a Dodgers game? Socrates "The unexamined life is not worth living."
Originally Posted By Mr Snappy No business or economics majors here, eh? You are all REALLY missing the big picture. It has nothing to do with inflation or added attractions. Disney will charge WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR. End of story. That is why a soft drink cost $6.00 and a T-shirt is $34.95......Because people will pay it ! You think this is too simplistic? It is. But it is also how business works, especially when you have what is considered a "Scarce" commodity (Which Disneyland is) The more scarce a commodity combined with it's demand will dictate the price. Business will simply keep raising the prices until people stop paying it. And even that won't happen all at one time. Business teaches you that you should price your goods or services so that you are cheap enough to sell the good but expensive enough to leave the last one on the shelf. Do you see alot of days when the park is empty? Watch for Disney to KEEP raising the prices in the wake of its recent successes. They simply would not be good business people if they didn't.
Originally Posted By Liberty Belle From an international perspective, the price of admission to Disneyland isn't really a relevant factor for me. Obviously if it went up to a ridiculous amount (eg a few hundred for one day) it would become more of an issue, but by the time each person in my party has paid $2000 for return airfares, roughly $700 for accomodation plus food money for a week or more of eating out (either at the park or nearby cafes), whether the price of admission has gone up by $40 or so doesn't make a huge impact in the cost of a holiday. Of course, I usually get the multi-day hopper (I've only bought a one-day ticket once, in 2000) which is better value anyway ... but even if the admission prices dropped to $20 a day or something, I still wouldn't be able to go over much more regularly than I do now.
Originally Posted By GMLSKIS 30 attractions is very dueable !!! Last year out of my 15 days in the 2 parks I had a 35 - 37 - 39 and my personal best 40 attraction day. Each of those days I parkhopped and sat for the parade or fireworks or Fantasia show or long Aladdin show. I count those as attractions seen. For the most part it takes long hours (8 - midnight)and utalizing fast pass to its optimum. Be there before they open and stay after they close getting on a last ride as the closing time comes. I'm also by myself which allows for fast walking and single rider lines to mesh with fast pass. I take my own food in my backpack for the whole day and eat and drink on the fly. Fantasyland rides and Buzz Lightyear with fast pass help up the count too.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>You are all REALLY missing the big picture. It has nothing to do with inflation or added attractions. Disney will charge WHAT THE MARKET WILL BEAR. End of story.<< While this is definitely true, that wasn't the question. The original question implied that since DL's fees had far out paced inflation it should be therefore expected that operating margins should be sky high (which they are not), so where is the money going? As some pointed out, costs may have risen faster than inflation. As I pointed out, not everyone pays $63 a day (in fact, I suspect only a minority of guests do pay that much).
Originally Posted By Mr Snappy Where is the money going? You are joking right? It goes in to the Disney Corporations bank account. It is used for everything from funding movies to paying out bonuses. You are not saying that you think that all the money made at DisneyLand should be somehow only spend on Disney improvements are you? If DisneyLand was a stand-alone company, that would make sense, but not as part of a huge operation as Disney Corp. Disney has plenty of places to spend the money, don't worry.
Originally Posted By fkurucz As mrichondj already pointed out, each business unit in the Walt Disney Co generates a positive cash flow, which basically means that each business unit is paying its own way. And again, I think you missed the point. The point was not where is the final resting place for profits (that would be dividends paid and retained earnings). The point is why isn't the Disneyland insanely profitable when the prices it charges are outpace inflation?
Originally Posted By SuperDry I think a lot of it has gone into and continues to go into the money pit on the other side of the esplanade.
