I should also add that Disney does not think Universal’s ‘Harry Potter’ area will have any impact on the Magic Kingdom. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on the Internets about Disney’s “big response” and these Fantasyland plans. Yes, that was an internal selling point for the designers who want to do something…but none of the suits believe the logic. Disney has never acknowledged that anything Universal has ever done has impacted WDW – anyone looking at the attendance trends when Island of Adventure opened can pretty much see that.

The area where Disney is vulnerable to Universal is teenagers and young adults. Disney has no interest in go after the mega Halloween event (and they have successfully counter-programmed Universal by going for the whole family), and now, with the closing of Pleasure Island, nighttime entertainment. When WDW lost its honeymoon market, the audience for P.I. became essentially cast members and locals…groups that don’t have large enough wallets for Disney to care about.

Rather than building attractions to get visitors to WDW, Disney will continue with their tactics to “lock up” people on property. The pricing of multi-day tickets, free dining and Magic Express have worked very, very well. Additional tactics like FastPasses for resort guests and the elimination of single day tickets would counteract any draw the boy wizard would have on guests. Sure, there will be some people that leave for the day, but Disney thinks the costs of keeping those guests (like building new, good attractions) outweighs the revenue lost.

And the future of the “Fairy” franchise is pretty much in the air. It’s been a colossal failure from Disney’s point of view, both in terms of overall sales and in building a chain of franchises that “grow” with girls (Princess for the little ones, graduating to fairies in elementary school into the Disney Channel starlets during junior high school). Unless there a major success with a ‘Fairies’ DVD release (if they make another), it would be hard to see WDW dumping capital into a failed franchise (when there’s so much ‘Nemo’ left to exploit!).

Anyway, we do need to learn showmanship and take a lesson from Tokyo Disneyland. sure, they have funding from the oriental land company. Walt didn’t have funding from them, but he still made the original showman’s Disneyland, and he made it amazingly work. We can still do that today. My hope (which has been let down too many times) is the same for every project. It might be a step in the OLD and better Direction for disney parks… so far, it hasn’t been, but hopefully one of these times they’ll get it right (ahem here…) and it will be a great success so that they can realize their mistakes and move back into the old disney parks. (I mean, come on! compare Horizons to Mission Space? haha! No comparison. Horizons wins out every time.)

good luck disney, I know you can do it!

Today, the parks are managed by people with travel business, cruise ship business and retail backgrounds. They aren’t showman (or showpeople); they don’t understand the basic draws of the parks. They only understand it in terms of other businesses and don’t see “Disney Parks” as a unique industry all on its own.

WED Enterprises was originally created to be the great “show producers”, to sit around and dream up brilliant and amazing shows for the parks to present. The parks themselves were the theater managers making sure that the proper stage was set and the productions ran smoothly.

That’s reversed today. The parks are operated like a mall; WDI is nothing but a contract management organization to deliver whatever “product mix” the parks and Corporate Management thinks will sell.

Parks see the world in occupancy rates, sales per square foot, and intervals between visits. They manage the parks like a cruise ship: trying to squeeze additional margins out of the same stores, trying to get the guests to buy the extra drink. The “show business “ idea of attraction more people with an amazing show simply never occurs the Rasullo or his orcs. As for Corporate – the parks are just another sales channel to hock existing franchises – you sell ‘Pirates’ DVDs at WalMart, you hock a ‘Jack Sparrow’ dress-up saloon at WDW…it’s all ancillary revenue to go that PowerPoint slide at the quarterly Aspen “strategy session”.

Frankly, the only place that still understands the simple fact that “People Go To Disneyland to See Disneyland” is in Tokyo. They still have an emphasis on attracting guests through what the guests can do, rather throwing out discounts and other business gimmicks trying to make it seem like a cheaper entertainment than the alternatives.

Until the U.S. parks understand showmanship again, I doubt things will change.

I’m of two minds about all this. While obviously WDW management has been very, very reticent to spend at all, and profits are more and more dependent on cutbacks rather than revenue, I always consider the option that someone, somewhere has learned their lesson – or maybe one of their godforsaken marketing focus groups has indicated that WDW has gone stale. Even a corrupt, poorly-conceived system will sometimes provide a positive outcome thanks to dumb luck.

Maybe we’ll just get lucky for once, although I’d much rather have a change in management all the way up the ladder, a complete shift in corporate attitude, for WDI to move away from the short-sighted “contractor” business model, and a general return to fundamentals. But I don’t think I’m *that* lucky.

We’re in the middle of Disney’s budget season. Their fiscal year begins October 1st, so the entire summer is spent by every department in the company trying to justify its own existence – and to stave off any attempts to cut funding for next year.

This is doubly true of WDI these days. Most “designers” are now contract employees. Unless they are assigned to a project, they’re dumped back on the street and end up doing layouts for Taco Bell. So out comes all these bright and shiny wonderful “new” ideas to be dangled in front of Attractions’ management in hopes that a job or two can be saved. A leak here and there to drive public interest (nothing happens at Disney these days unless someone can claim it’s come up during a marketing survey) is seen as part of the process.

It’s all up to what WDW’s management is willing to pay for. And after seeing the now cancelled ‘Stitch’ show, they don’t seem to willing to pay for much. Worse, as the Disney Studio (the real one) continues in a complete free fall, you know that Iger is going to be running to his Orlando ATM for withdrawals on an unprecedented scale. That additional money is going to come from cuts, not higher revenue. No one from Rasullo on down has shown the slightest hint they truly understand the theme park business – witness the reliance on short term fixes / long term damaging travel business gimmicks like free food and birthday giveaways.

At best this seems like a little bit of corporate whining: “Mommy gives DCA all the good toys and we don’t get anything”. Perhaps WDW might just be in line for a dip into the corporate capital pool, but I’d really, really wait and see on that. Disney dislikes the theme park business. After investments in California Adventure and now Hong Kong, it’s hard to see where the return Disney could see from ‘Princess Alley’ at the Magic Kingdom stacks up to those projects.

Rumors, rumors everywhere.

Anyway, I still wish there was one more quality dark ride in this plan, but it’s still a big improvement. It also looks like all the princess “attractions” are meet-n-greets, with the Belle attraction possibly being a moved version of her storytelling area.

I agree with everyone that likes the incorporation of more water in the area. It’s seemed really parched since they buried 20K.

I’m also kinda please to see the near-universal glee across the internets about the carpet removal. Hope they follow through!

I always thought that there should be a little Cotswold-themed area that could combine Pooh, Alice, and a new Toad. Wee Britain.

Tim – I am kind of surprised that there’s not some Rapunzel consideration at least. After all, it’ll be out by the time this gets built (if it does!).