Cincinnati, OH
Quoted from mrclean:I just miss the Disney Dining Plan. Perhaps one day soon we will hear “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls…”
Can no longer say that !
(Topic ID: 261280)
This topic is closed.
Quoted from lancestorm:Can no longer say that !
I guess I miss the (in the Lumiere voice)
“ It’s with deepest pride…
And greatest pleasure…We present your DDP Dinner….which includes Appetizer, Entree, Dessert….”
Saint John, NB
Quoted from yaksplat:It's proof of what a bad CEO can do to a company.
Seen the market lately?
Quoted from yaksplat:I thought the same thing, construction wise. I was thinking that they'd be able to get so far ahead on the maintenance schedules with no one in the parks. They had the absolute perfect opportunity to polish everything up and they blew it. They could have even maintained all of the social distancing rules and still completed a ton of work.
Yet again, piss poor management.
Problem is... they were already hemorrhaging money. They had to show the least amount of loss to the outside world as possible. You can't do that while trying to be 'super invest' mode burning OpEx to polish everything. They took billions in lines of credit just to make sure they didn't look like they were eating themselves while facing the complete shutdown of a majority of their revenue streams.
They were literally holding their breath... waiting for a chance to start generating revenue again.
Telling the world they are losing billions... and spending billions on top of it... when no one knew where the end of the tunnel was.. would not have been smart.
This wasn't 'buying in a dip' - this was 'we have no idea when we will collect a dollar again'
Quoted from seenev:Did they have that much money? I thought I had heard they had a lot of debt at the time.
No, they secured lines of credit to ensure people didn't panic and so they could keep the numbers semi-acceptable.
Remember at the start they were paying their staff to sit at home... that's just burning OpEx with nothing to show for it.
Quoted from radium:I don't think you can be a company that generates content/experiences/products for families and also have a polarizing activist social agenda.
hate to tell you... back in the day while Walt was creating all that family-centric content, he was also doing polarizing things like
- hiring women
- hiring colored people
- and fighting unionization
Plenty of companies are highly political - people just don't always cross their path.
Quoted from mrclean:I just miss the Disney Dining Plan. Perhaps one day soon we will hear “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls… it is with great pleasure that the Disney Dining Plan is BACK”
sorry - they don't say 'ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls...' anymore either 
Disney Dining Plan was a giant scam. Inflate prices to create artificial value.
It drove so much homogenization and cost cutting at restaurants. It ruined disney dining.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:And you know this how?
That’s right….you don’t.
Uhh.. it's been a common theme for Disney for ages. Disney is cheap, expects worlds more from their employees, and constrains them in ways many people didn't like. Staffing problems in the front lines are a decades old problem at Disney.. especially at Disneyland.
The problem is they are so big, they are cheap, and they can't get enough people. Add in all the entitlement and more going on now, even harder.
WDW relied heavily on retirees and College Kids. Both are labor pools crushed by the pandemic. Plus, when Disney laid everyone off, all the 'faithful' got exposed to life outside of Disney, and a lot had their magic bubble popped.
Disney is still fighting labor shortages.
Quoted from mrclean:I just miss the Disney Dining Plan.
Quoted from flynnibus:Disney Dining Plan was a giant scam. Inflate prices to create artificial value. It drove so much homogenization and cost cutting at restaurants. It ruined disney dining.
Food Fight!
AnimalHouse-FoodFight-Belushi (resized).jpegQuoted from flynnibus:Plenty of companies are highly political - people just don't always cross their path.
They’re not political, they are ideologues actively pushing an agenda. Like I said, people don’t want ideologies pushed on their children by a company making cartoons. Hire whoever you want, but once you start shoveling propaganda at my kids in my house that’s not gonna fly.
Quoted from flynnibus:It drove so much homogenization and cost cutting at restaurants. It ruined disney dining.
Calling bullshit on this too, dining was horrible pre-DDP. If you don’t like it just don’t buy it.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:Why Chapek allowed the company to get political just boggles the mind
They only get accused of being 'Political' when they stopped campaign contributions
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/11/disney-donation-florida-republicans-00024417
Weeks before The Walt Disney Co. took a stand against Florida’s contentious “Parental Rights in Education” law — which has been called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics — the theme park operator and entertainment conglomerate donated $190,000 to support Florida Republicans.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:If you ask me, they should get back to doing things the Disney way.
Nothing more Walt Disney than driving your workers to strike...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_animators%27_strike
Testifying to the House Un-American Activities Committee, Disney alleged that communism had played a major role in the strike, and many of the participants were blacklisted
Conversation here is a bit one-sided, because apparently it’s okay to talk about Disney having an “agenda”, but nobody is talking about the Florida legislature’s agenda. And I won’t, because I don’t need another moderation notice.
Quoted from bigguybbr:They only get accused of being 'Political' when they stopped campaign contributions
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/04/11/disney-donation-florida-republicans-00024417Nothing more Walt Disney than driving your workers to strike...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_animators%27_strike
Like all big corporations, Disney donates to both sides…..
Disney has workers go on strike? The horror. You make it sound like that has never ever happened before to another big company.
People didn’t cancel Disney out of their life for donating to both sides. Disney got canceled for taking a side on a specific law in Florida.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:People didn’t cancel Disney out of their life for donating to both sides. Disney got canceled for taking a side on a specific law in Florida.
That was just the latest for us. They strayed from the formula long ago. Karey Burke has been a nightmare… everywhere. Their CFO makes fat jokes about Disney guests. Plenty of crazy quotes from Latoya Raveneau. Disney channel has become increasingly more family unfriendly, starting years ago. The feature animation films are weird now, the kids watch them once instead of over and over.
More power to them if that’s what consumers want. It just doesn’t fit my family any more and we’ve dialed back. I do miss the way it was, but things change, oh well.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:People didn’t cancel Disney out of their life for donating to both sides. Disney got canceled for taking a side on a specific law in Florida.
I’ll believe Disney got “canceled” when I see it - I think they’re about as canceled as Louis CK at this point.
Quoted from fosaisu:I’ll believe Disney got “canceled” when I see it - I think they’re about as canceled as Louis CK at this point.
There’s a reason why Disney+ subscribers are getting 25% hotel rooms…..those discounts have always been saved for AP holders.
Quoted from Trekkie1978:There’s a reason why Disney+ subscribers are getting 25% hotel rooms…..those discounts have always been saved for AP holders.
I think they're doing crazy things to get people to opt in to Disney+. They have a lot of eggs in that basket now and it hasn't been going as well as they thought it would. Now that Netflix has announced its bleeding subscribers by the millions, the markets assume that Disney+ is also struggling... And they probably are.
Quoted from seenev:I think they're doing crazy things to get people to opt in to Disney+. They have a lot of eggs in that basket now and it hasn't been going as well as they thought it would. Now that Netflix has announced its bleeding subscribers by the millions, the markets assume that Disney+ is also struggling... And they probably are.
But that announcement for the 25% discount was right after people starting to cancel Disney.
Way too coincidental for my tastes.
Speaking of parks...
I understand that it's a different culture and locale but one place that still very much has the Disney magic is Tokyo Disneyland & Disney Sea. Ironically, not owned by Disney - and maybe that's why they still have the magic. Their theming is incredible. They do a fantastic job of immersing you in their themed lands and somehow manage to jam a lot of lands into a small space yet keep them from clashing or spoiling sight lines. Would love to see what they could do with a place like WDW which has been losing its immersion lately (a la giant-box show building for Guardians at EPCOT). I think the parks/resorts could benefit from a hostile takeover if they were split off into their own entity. To me, parks & resorts is the only part of Disney that I really care about anymore and the current management hasn't been good for them.
Regarding employees, Tokyo had the most professional and sincere cast members by a mile in my opinion. Even with the language barrier you still get a sense that they really love what they're doing and genuinely care. As a for-instance I needed to hop out of the middle of a rather large snaking line at Soarin (if you want to see an example of how to theme the a show building correctly, take a look at that ride), anyway I was trying to figure out how I was going to go about it and a cast member must have noticed what I was going to attempt. He quickly worked his way through the line to me and asked what I needed. I told him I needed to get out of line so he cleared a path undoing stanchion ropes so we could have a direct path out. When we were out he asked in broken English if I would be coming back to the line later - when I said no, he groaned, dropped his head and acted so sad that I wouldn't experience his ride. It was hilarious. Even if it was just an act he put on it made me feel kinda special in that sea of people. We've had those experiences at WDW as well but they don't seem to happen as often anymore. Not a reflection on the cast members themselves - I think most of them at the parks here do a great job but they might be spread a little too thin these days to be able to have many of those interactions.
Regarding park pricing - a 2-day park hopper cost us about $100 each. I would say that prices over there are about even with the US, or maybe bit higher in Tokyo so its a fair comparison. Somehow they still manage to make money ...maybe they make it all up on their overpriced popcorn.
Quoted from MLmotorsport:Speaking of parks...
I understand that it's a different culture and locale but one place that still very much has the Disney magic is Tokyo Disneyland & Disney Sea. Ironically, not owned by Disney - and maybe that's why they still have the magic. Their theming is incredible. They do a fantastic job of immersing you in their themed lands and somehow manage to jam a lot of lands into a small space yet keep them from clashing or spoiling sight lines. Would love to see what they could do with a place like WDW which has been losing its immersion lately (a la giant-box show building for Guardians at EPCOT). I think the parks/resorts could benefit from a hostile takeover if they were split off into their own entity. To me, parks & resorts is the only part of Disney that I really care about anymore and the current management hasn't been good for them.
Regarding employees, Tokyo had the most professional and sincere cast members by a mile in my opinion. Even with the language barrier you still get a sense that they really love what they're doing and genuinely care. As a for-instance I needed to hop out of the middle of a rather large snaking line at Soarin (if you want to see an example of how to theme the a show building correctly, take a look at that ride), anyway I was trying to figure out how I was going to go about it and a cast member must have noticed what I was going to attempt. He quickly worked his way through the line to me and asked what I needed. I told him I needed to get out of line so he cleared a path undoing stanchion ropes so we could have a direct path out. When we were out he asked in broken English if I would be coming back to the line later - when I said no, he groaned, dropped his head and acted so sad that I wouldn't experience his ride. It was hilarious. Even if it was just an act he put on it made me feel kinda special in that sea of people. We've had those experiences at WDW as well but they don't seem to happen as often anymore. Not a reflection on the cast members themselves - I think most of them at the parks here do a great job but they might be spread a little too thin these days to be able to have many of those interactions.
Regarding park pricing - a 2-day park hopper cost us about $100 each. I would say that prices over there are about even with the US, or maybe bit higher in Tokyo so its a fair comparison. Somehow they still manage to make money ...maybe they make it all up on their overpriced popcorn.
I’ve heard that, would love to visit.
Tokyo is getting a $400M+ Tomorrowland addition with a new space mountain in 2027 too.
Quoted from radium:They’re not political, they are ideologues actively pushing an agenda. Like I said, people don’t want ideologies pushed on their children by a company making cartoons. Hire whoever you want, but once you start shoveling propaganda at my kids in my house that’s not gonna fly.
“If you don’t like it just don’t buy it.“
What do this concern of yours have to do with the current row? If you don’t like the content - keep it away. I hate country music… but that just means I don’t listen to it.
Quoted from radium:Calling bullshit on this too, dining was horrible pre-DDP. If you don’t like it just don’t buy it.
I don’t care if you don’t believe it. - its true. Disney basically invented the entire themed dining experience and had truly unique experiences and diverse menus.
Now… you don’t even get table cloths and the same menu items are used across many locations while quality and portions went to hell.
Heck the cfo even had to gaul to boast the portion shrinkage would be better for guests… to you know… help their waist line.
Table service prices pp are insane to justify the ddp price and offset the inability to recoup sufficient money per ddp diner.
Quoted from radium:I’ve heard that, would love to visit.
Tokyo is getting a $400M+ Tomorrowland addition with a new space mountain in 2027 too.
[quoted image]
We thought it would be a once in a lifetime event to go do the Tokyo and Shanghai Disneys but after doing those then coming back to WDW and what they're doing to these parks - we will be saving our pennies (by spending fewer pennies at the parks here) and taking the fam to Asia again. It will unfortunately take a lot of saving....
Quoted from Trekkie1978:Disney got canceled for taking a side on a specific law in Florida.
No - its because they had the audacity to go against desantis and his consolidated super majority state house.
They’ve even admitted as much… which is why ultimately disney will have a federal case here if they need to use it.
Quoted from flynnibus:No - its because they had the audacity to go against desantis and his consolidated super majority state house.
They’ve even admitted as much… which is why ultimately disney will have a federal case here if they need to use it.
Ohhhhh… so there was absolutely no law they were protesting????
No gaslighting please.
Added 22 months ago:Can we get this topic back open?
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