A good look at the budget cuts of Disneyland

[rteetz]

shanghai continues its reign.

http://micechat.com/122782-disneyland-cutbacks/

 

[Indiana Scott]

MC? No thank you.

 

[gottalovepluto]

Most interesting. Thanks for posting. I hold out hope it's only for a quarter but if I were a gambling person I'd put my money on 2 quarters, assuring that they finish out the fiscal year on a high note. Seeing opening day sold out so fast & the Disney hotels booked for the first couple weeks already is at least generating good press for the new park.

Oddly enough I was most disappointed in the food quality & portion cutbacks the article says are coming. We love dining at DLR. It was obviously coming with everything else getting slashed but I hope it doesn't become permanent! And #ThanksShanghai? Lol. No secrets in the age of Twitter.

 

[MommaoffherRocker]

Thanks for posting, I have a trip planned to DL in May. I see so much about the cut backs at WDW and was wondering if the same things were going on in Anaheim too. It is such a shame the U.S. parks have to pay for Shanghai.

 

[OneThree]

Interesting read. What do they even need Shanghai anyway? Is Hong Kong not big enough to meet demand?

 

[Hannahinwonderland]

Interesting read. What do they even need Shanghai anyway? Is Hong Kong not big enough to meet demand?

I have always wondered that. Is there really that big of a market for Shanghai?

 

[T0rrent]

I have always wondered that. Is there really that big of a market for Shanghai?

Well Shanghai is located in the NE portion of China which is much more densely populated. Hong Kong is on the southern border, and is more of a port town and not nearly as densely populated, so along with the near 800 miles separating the two, it makes sense to Disney to catch that extra population.

 

[ADLFAN]

That article was... odd. Like something on a conspiracy website with a very negative and accusatory tone meant to rile people up, with no need to discuss sources or specifics.

I don't know that all of the changes can be definitively linked to 'cutbacks', especially the Pixar parade and Mad Tea Party being ousted for the duration of the DCA Food and Wine Festival event. It seems like F&W will be drawing a lot of guests into the park, and then to try to keep operating a daily parade and nightly event all around the festival locations could be a confusing crowd control issue.

We always experience super short hours of operation in May, and while the weekends may have extended hours (til midnight in DL), we've dealt with the standard 'off season' closing time of 8:00 long before anyone was scheming to downsize in CA in order to fund Shanghai.

And the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail?? I don't think you can blame the earlier closure on any grand scheme, it seems like it always closes before the rest of the park.

I'd be better prepared to believe in this conspiracy if I'd been given a few actual facts confirmed by a reliable source instead of just fear mongering.

Who else thinks that castle looks insane!?

 

[Nonsuch]

shanghai continues its reign.
http://micechat.com/122782-disneyland-cutbacks/

MC? No thank you.

MC occasionally has some usefull information, but this editorial is one of their worst.
(maybe one of their best, I could not stop laughing)

 

[mich311e]

Wow, interesting about the hours. We are planning on being at the parks on Friday 4/22 and I swear I previously read the park was open until midnight that night. It's actually 11. Bummer!

 

[courtneybeth]

Reads more like paranoia and trying to justify costs/closures. Argument is very confusing.

 

[rteetz]

MC occasionally has some usefull information, but this editorial is one of their worst.
(maybe one of their best, I could not stop laughing)

Unfortunately though a lot of this is likely true. Shanghai is causing a ton of problems.

 

[rteetz]

Reads more like paranoia and trying to justify costs/closures. Argument is very confusing.

Shanghai is the reason for a good amount of them.

 

[GatorChris]

A park is over budget....other parks make cuts. This is standard corporate procedure. My last job did the same thing. It made us all mad that we had to cut employee hours and work harder for less, but that's the corporate way. I guess the only way for me to not be in that situation is to become the CEO. But then I'd have all sorts of people wanting me fired if their stocks go down. So either make employees and park goers mad, or make people who have a say in my job mad.... It's a shame but it's reality.

 

[sherilaine]

I honestly think articles like this need to be taken with about a pound of salt. I have said this before, Disney is a business, one that has to answer to their investors - it's not a magic, pixie dust generator that operates in some fantasyland!

This kind of stuff just makes my eyes roll - sorry folks!

 

[sheetz]

Interesting read. What do they even need Shanghai anyway? Is Hong Kong not big enough to meet demand?

Hong Kong is culturally VERY different from mainland China. For instance, from what I can tell none of the songs in the HKDL parades are even sung in Mandarin, only Cantonese and English. The leaders of the CCP just don't see HKDL as being 100% Chinese like one in Shanghai would be.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I have always wondered that. Is there really that big of a market for Shanghai?

Oh yes. Potentially SO BIG. Mind boggling so. Chinese people cannot travel to Hong Kong without special visas, but they can travel to Shanghai. Disney just became accessible to a whole new group of people. Just local population wise google's estimated population of Hong Kong is 7 million- Shanghai is 24 million. And that's not accounting for all those national tourists who will now have easier access to Disney nor is it accounting for international tourists. I'm quite intrigued to see what proportion of Shanghai visitors will be international once the parks are fully operational. Heck, I'd love to see it! It's seems pretty different from we have at DL and WDW.

 

[Lucius Best]

I also take everything I read on the internet with a grain of salt. However, I have a Disneyland trip planned in April, and when I checked the hours today, I was far from thrilled to find the parks opening an hour later and closing an hour earlier than I had planned. I'm a WDW veteran, I know that hours change and rides close for refurbishment. But I've never experienced park hours being shortened to such a degree. Chop an hour off the morning and evening, that's 15+% reduction in hours the park is open. Also harder to stomach when it's due to a messed up project halfway around the globe.

I also purchased park hoppers specifically for one day, where we could get into DL an hour early with the Magic Morning entry and get 2 hours of rides in before hopping over to DCA for rope drop. If DL is only opening one hour earlier than DCA, it might not be worth it, and I might not have purchased park hoppers if I knew these would be the park hours. Also not thrilled about my ADRs if restaurants are cheaping out on ingredients with smaller portions.

 

[agamble]

I also take everything I read on the internet with a grain of salt. However, I have a Disneyland trip planned in April, and when I checked the hours today, I was far from thrilled to find the parks opening an hour later and closing an hour earlier than I had planned.

Historically the hours are longer this year than in 2013. I picked that year because that is the last time Easter was in March, not April, like this year. Look at the week of April 15. Disneyland opened at 10AM and closed at 8PM. That is pretty typical for less busy times of the year. This year Disneyland is open 9 to 9. That is two more hours not two less hours.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneyland/park-hours.cfm?month=4&year=2013

 

[Nonsuch]

Historically the hours are longer this year than in 2013. I picked that year because that is the last time Easter was in March, not April, like this year. Look at the week of April 15. Disneyland opened at 10AM and closed at 8PM. That is pretty typical for less busy times of the year. This year Disneyland is open 9 to 9. That is two more hours not two less hours.

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneyland/park-hours.cfm?month=4&year=2013

In prior years: the "nighttime spectaculars" were quite limited on weeknights (monday - thursday), generally WOC was the only show.
This year: WOC and PTN and Fireworks are every night.