Category — w. Most Recent Stuff

NEW DISNEY WORLD DEALS ANNOUNCED

Disney World has posted a new set of room discounts that cover most dates from April 13 through June 14, 2012 (book by March 31 February 28).

Per-night savings range from 15% to 30%, depending on travel dates, resort, and resort type.

At first glance, this is a complex offer. [Read more →]

This is the third page of this entry. For the first page, click here.

WON’T CANNIBALIZATION KILL THE ECONOMICS OF THE FIFTH GATE?

The most common argument presented against a fifth park at Walt Disney World is that cannibalization means its economics can’t work.

“Cannibalization” is the issue that comes up when a business releases a product related to its current product line. 

Some of the revenue of the new product comes from people who would have bought the old product had the new product not come out.  So the new product’s revenue isn’t all “new” revenue.  Meanwhile the new product has all of its associated new costs, and the old product’s fixed costs still have to be paid for.

You can infer this from the Animal Kingdom’s first year.  The park is estimated to have drawn six million people that year, but attendance at the other three parks dropped an estimated 3.3 million people–suggesting that only 2.7 million people represented new revenue.

See the chart, where the red line represents total attendance and the blue line the attendance at Epcot, the Magic Kingdom, and the Studios, added together. (All numbers are based on industry estimates.)

The chart starts the year before AK opened, and goes through 2010.

There’s a lot behind this chart–two recessions, the dot-com bust, Harry Potter, and especially 9/11. 

But regardless of these external factors, you can see that attendance at the three older parks dropped immediately and didn’t catch up to pre-Animal Kingdom opening levels until the last few years.

But you can take another point from the chart–attendance at all four parks is up by 20% since the year before Disney’s Animal Kingdom opened, and that’s not just 20% more park days, but also more room nights, more meals, more ponchos…

Moreover, that’s money that people were willing to spend on vacation in Orlando that Disney did not let slip through its hands and into someone else’s pockets.

And this brings up the key point–cannibalization is a fact to be analyzed, not an argument.  A decision always needs to be compared to the next best alternative.  And not investing in the Animal Kingdom could have led to a decline in attendance. 

A new park gives a new reason for people to come who might have deferred, and a reason for people to stay longer when they do come.  And if they are staying longer within a fixed pool of total spending, then they are spending less money at non-Disney options.

Especially Harry Potter.

The investment decision is not just about the direct returns to Disney.  It’s also about starving the funds flows of its competitors. 

A family that spends $32 on tickets, plus more on souvenirs, food, Disney hotels, etc., for an extra day to see a fifth park is a bonus to Disney. A family that just spends a day at a fifth park that they would have spent at one of the other four anyway is not.  But a family who spends an extra day at Disney instead of at Universal takes a lot out of Universal, given first day vs. last day ticket price structures.

So cannibalization means that return on invested capital takes longer than it would have otherwise.   The numbers have to work…but it’s not as simple as “cannibalization means no fifth park.”  A new park enables long term growth, and has the potential to reduce funds available to competitors. These to me are the best arguments for a fifth gate…one that could include the Beastly Kingdom after all…

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THE LITTLE MERMAID: ARIEL’S UNDERSEA ADVENTURE

Business took me to Southern California in earlier November, so I had the chance to ride Ariel’s Undersea Adventure at the Disneyland Resort.

This ride is basically identical to what will be opening in late 2012 as Under the Sea: Journey of the Little Mermaid, part of the Magic Kingdom’s Fantasyland expansion.

I was curious if the ride was enough of a powerhouse to be a good reason for people to frame their trips around its opening, or for me to have to change my itineraries.

The short answer: nope.

ARIEL’S UNDERSEA ADVENTURE: COLORFUL, CHARMING, NOT A BIG DEAL

Without giving away the details, Ariel’s Undersea Adventure is a short re-showing of key scenes from The Little Mermaid.

Younger fans of the movie will love it. 

Everyone else will likely find it colorful and fun, but not particularly special. This is definitely not an “E” Ticket ride–it’s more like a “C” or a “D.”

It’s charming and loaded with Ariel, including some nice allusions to the effects of traditional Disney “dark rides” like Snow White’s Scary Adventures.

But in all honesty there’s not a lot to it, and it’s not worth framing your travel dates around its opening.

OVERVIEW: JUNE 2012 AT DISNEY WORLD

This page reviews June 2012 Walt Disney World crowds, prices, deals and discounts, weather, operating hours, adds a few other notes, and ends with week by week summaries.

[Read more →]

PET PEEVES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

Welcome to those of you joining from The World of Deej as Magical Blogorail Teal focuses on Disney World pet peeves this month, perhaps in honor of Andy Rooney.

Well, as much as I love Walt Disney World, I’ve got a million pet peeves.

In this post, though, I’m gonna focus on two with the biggest impact on first time family visitors to Walt Disney World, and a third that’s for returning visitors:

• FASTPASS issues
• Dining issues, and
• Pet issues…hey, it is “pet” peeves, after all!

PET PEEVE: FASTPASSES [Read more →]

This is the third page of this review. For the first page, click here.

THE THEMING OF DISNEY’S GRAND FLORIDIAN RESORT

Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa opened in July 1988, and recently completed a major renovation.

When it opened, it replaced the Contemporary Resort as Disney’s flagship resort, and remains Walt Disney World’s most expensive and loveliest resort.

(Some cast members at the Contemporary call the Grand Floridian the “red roof inn”; in turn, some Grand Floridian staff refer to the Contemporary as “the toaster.”)

It is also the Disney World resort hotel with the most remarkable on-site dining.

Any one of Victoria and Albert’s, Citricos, or Narcoossees would mark it with distinctive dining; to have all three is astonishing.

According to Disney World’s website, the Grand Floridian is

“a Victorian-style Disney Deluxe Resort distinguished as the flagship hotel of Walt Disney World Resort and offering world-class dining, entertainment and luxurious accommodations in its 6 striking red-gabled buildings. This magnificent hotel sits along the white-sand shores of Seven Seas Lagoon …With its gleaming white exterior, intricate gingerbread trim and gorgeous stained-glass domes, the Resort is an architectural marvel.”

The theming is sometimes claimed to reflect the design and grandeur of Flagler’s Florida hotels, which were meant to attract well-off Ohioans and northeasterners to his Florida East Coast railroad.

Anyone who has seen, for example, the remaining Flagler hotel buildings in St Augustine, will understand that this is nonsense.  [Read more →]