Disney Prices go Up? Even after revenues down?

[mitros]

Since the dollar is so weak, I'd assume that people from outside of the US are coming to Disney than ever before, is that correct?

I really haven't noticed that much of an increase in anything at Disney in the past few years. I was looking through our family's old receipts... 10 years ago we bought ponchos for $5! They are still only $5.

Try the price of parking 10 years ago!

 

[MountNittany]

Try the price of parking 10 years ago!

I never park at WDW, nor look at the signs. I always use Disney Transportation, because we don't have a car down there.

 

[mitros]

I never park at WDW, nor look at the signs. I always use Disney Transportation, because we don't have a car down there.

Yea, since becoming DVC members, we don't pay for parking anymore, even though we always have our car when we go. I just remember seeing the prices on the booths going into each park. What did parking start out as anyway? three bucks?

 

[Dznefreek]

$2.00 in 1982 is the cheapest I remember . . . . .

 

[skier_pete]

It was $5 to park in 1997 and I believe $7 in 2000.

It went from $10 to the current $12 back in 2007.

SkierPete

 

[Brer Chump]

CM's also finally got a raise when the Federal Minimum Wage was just hiked last week. For the 6,000 housekeepers they employ it was about $0.75 cents an hour - so someone has to pay for that as well.

Housekeeping is a union position, subject to collective bargaining. The minimum pay rate in 2009 is above minimum wage. Housekeeping employees received a 4.5% pay raise in 2009.

Most employees in WDW are union and the contract was negaotiated in 2007 before the economy nosedived. All non-tipped union employees received a minimum 4.0% raise.

 

[ssawka]

Disney parks, restaurants, and rides/shows are constantly filled to capacity, People flock to WDW in droves. It has always been, and always will be. AND people WILL continue to pay the ever-increasing costs of a WDW vacation. Even though they have to stand on long lines, belly-to-back in the parks, have a horrible time trying to get dining reservations, and find it extremely difficult to get a resort reservation, they will come, and it will NEVER change until people finally wise-up to Disney's bull_ _ _ _! and simply stop going.

Do you still go? I'm assuming you do since you are on these boards, so should you really be advocating people to "simply stop going". And if you do still go, aren't you being a bit hypocritical?

 

[ssawka]

Try the price of parking 10 years ago!

My understaning is that parking is free if you are staying onsite. If that is true, why shouldn't Disney ask for more $ from offsite visitors? They are already making more from onsite visitors.

 

[disneynutz]

I think it's time for a management change at Disney. Prices keep going up and service and re-investment keeps going down.

Their business model of Guest quantity, not quality makes them more like Six Flags, not the Disney that I grew up with.

Cutting park hours, restaurant quality and menu choices, generic everything, (Disney Parks is the label on everything), reducing shows and fireworks and increasing the number of hard ticket events is not the way to increase Guest loyalty.

On second thought, maybe they no longer care about Guest loyalty. There are enough newbies wanting "free" dining so they don't really care if the Guests with mouse shaped heads come back.

 

[ssawka]

I think it's time for a management change at Disney. Prices keep going up and service and re-investment keeps going down.

Their business model of Guest quantity, not quality makes them more like Six Flags, not the Disney that I grew up with.

Cutting park hours, restaurant quality and menu choices, generic everything, (Disney Parks is the label on everything), reducing shows and fireworks and increasing the number of hard ticket events is not the way to increase Guest loyalty.

On second thought, maybe they no longer care about Guest loyalty. There are enough newbies wanting "free" dining so they don't really care if the Guests with mouse shaped heads come back.

I agree, and everyone thought Eisner was greedy!

 

[lugnut33]

I was told that Disney is held legally responsible for making every penny they can irregardless of customer satisfaction. It's all part of being a public company.

 

[mitros]

I was told that Disney is held legally responsible for making every penny they can irregardless of customer satisfaction. It's all part of being a public company.

Interesting. This is true, being a stock company, Disney's whole job is to make money for it's stockholders. It's a damn shame the way they have been going about it though.
Which leads me to another question, does the average citizen that owns Disney stock actually enjoy what the company is doing, or do they not even care to visit WDW, they just want to make a barrel of money.
Which then leads me to yet another question: Do the big stockholders actually steer the company in a direction that THEY want, and being billionaires, do they care at ALL what goes on, as long as they are making $$$ hand-over-fist? Food for thought, perhaps?

 

[TDSAXX]

I was told that Disney is held legally responsible for making every penny they can irregardless of customer satisfaction. It's all part of being a public company.

As a public company WDW has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. However sometimes things that make the company the most profit in the short-term (ie. this quarter or this fiscal year) may not be in the company or the shareholders best long-term interest. (Enron is a perfect example).

While I don't think Disney is doing anything as drastic as Enron did; their decision to sacrifice customer service and refusal to upgrade parks could eventually turn off enough people to hurt them down the line.

Hopefully this real estate meltdown will help them remember theme parks are their core business not buiding glorified time shares.

 

[MountNittany]

Well, they are upgrading parks. Like HDKL, which they are adding 4 parks, I believe? And it seems like they always are adding more attractions.

And everyone I met on my last vacation was happy with Disney, and the customer service was still remarkable.

 

[crazy4wdw]

As a public company WDW has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. However sometimes things that make the company the most profit in the short-term (ie. this quarter or this fiscal year) may not be in the company or the shareholders best long-term interest. (Enron is a perfect example).

While I don't think Disney is doing anything as drastic as Enron did; their decision to sacrifice customer service and refusal to upgrade parks could eventually turn off enough people to hurt them down the line.

Hopefully this real estate meltdown will help them remember theme parks are their core business not buiding glorified time shares.

Take a look at this article, Disney is having to assume responsibility for some of the Vacation Club mortgages -

Disney takes more of the burden of troubled time-share mortgages from Citigroup: With a growing number of time-share buyers defaulting on their loans, the Walt Disney Co. recently assumed more than $200 million in additional liability to preserve a credit agreement between its time-share subsidiary and banking giant Citigroup.

Link for remainder of article: http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2250339

 

[MouseKTeer]

So many good points being raised in this discussion. What I do come back to is what you get for the money at WDW compared to what you get in other parks. The others don't have the customer service or the variety+quality of events, rides, exhibits, etc. IMHO, a real value (and no, I have no connections whatsoever to Disney).

 

[tjkraz]

Interesting. This is true, being a stock company, Disney's whole job is to make money for it's stockholders. It's a damn shame the way they have been going about it though.
Which leads me to another question, does the average citizen that owns Disney stock actually enjoy what the company is doing, or do they not even care to visit WDW, they just want to make a barrel of money.
Which then leads me to yet another question: Do the big stockholders actually steer the company in a direction that THEY want, and being billionaires, do they care at ALL what goes on, as long as they are making $$$ hand-over-fist? Food for thought, perhaps?

Steve Jobs aside, most of the major shareholders in TWDC are large investment groups like pension plans and 401K administrators. Individual investors are just a drop in the bucket.

And those pension plan administrators and 401Ks really don't care about the long term. Many are simply focused on the survival of their plan and will move the funds around in whatever manner is necessary to maximize returns.

In this day, companies like Disney face a stiff challenge in trying to remain true to a vision or long-term plan while not sacrificing present-day returns. In a non-recession economy, investors expect growth and dividends. And if they don't see that growth, they will move funds elsewhere which causes a dip in the stock price.

As for actual decision-making, for the most part that isn't the board's job. They employ the high-level executives like Bob Iger and Tom Staggs, who then hire countless lower-level executives to oversee small portions of the empire.

In terms of the parks, Jay Rasulo is the chairman of parks and resorts. AFAIK, all others ultimately report to him. But John Lassiter has quite a bit of clout...particularly when it comes to the west coast parks.

Disney still operates its parks to a much higher standard than others in the industry. There is absolutely no question about that. Disney could have reverted to Six Flags or King's Island-quality attractions and service years ago, but they have not done so. If Disney were only concerned about the bottom line, they could have easily started building bare-bones steel coasters for a fraction of the cost of Expedition Everest.

Clearly there is still a dedication to the high level of standards that Walt set, and an understanding that it's to their long-term benefit to maintain those standards. But that doesn't mean there won't be changes.

It's easy for we armchair theme park operators to say "well, Disney will do better long term if they don't raise ticket prices." Fortunately we don't have anything to lose (except our retirement plans) if that prognostication doesn't come to pass.

The Walt Disney Company and its theme parks exist to make money. Period. Always have...always will. Don't ever kid yourself into thinking otherwise.

Most changes that they make will be in the interest of adding to--or at least maintaining--the bottom line. Those changes include replacing once-beloved attractions (World of Motion) with something that has greater mass-appeal (Test Track.) They include offering extra discounts to get people to pack the parks when times are tough. They include adding extra after-hours events (MVMCP, MNSSHP, etc.) when demand exists.

Some things Disney clearly does not do as well as they used to. Other things they do much better than they did 5, 10, 20 or 30 years ago. But the main thing that keeps us coming back to the Disney parks is the fact that they are still head-and-shoulders above the competition. If I could get a better experience--or more bang for my buck--at Cedar Point, Six Flags or Universal, they would be getting my money. But I can't so they don't.

Even in a recession wages go up, healthcare expenses go up, insurance premiums go up. So I would expect ticket prices to increase, too. But sales will still be around to absorb much of the increase.

 

[TDSAXX]

As a public company WDW has a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. However sometimes things that make the company the most profit in the short-term (ie. this quarter or this fiscal year) may not be in the company or the shareholders best long-term interest. (Enron is a perfect example).

While I don't think Disney is doing anything as drastic as Enron did; their decision to sacrifice customer service and refusal to upgrade parks could eventually turn off enough people to hurt them down the line.

Hopefully this real estate meltdown will help them remember theme parks are their core business not buiding glorified time shares.

I am replying to my own post. When I refer to a sacrificing customer service; I am talking about the cutbacks in CMs, not the CMs themselves. The CMs do a great job.

However, because attendance is still strong despite the recession, I don't see Disney re-hiring CMs even when the economy starts to pick-up. They'll just continue to overwork the ones they have now.

 

[Mouseaholic!!!]

I am replying to my own post. When I refer to a sacrificing customer service; I am talking about the cutbacks in CMs, not the CMs themselves. The CMs do a great job.

However, because attendance is still strong despite the recession, I don't see Disney re-hiring CMs even when the economy starts to pick-up. They'll just continue to overwork the ones they have now.

You are right.

Two years ago Disney began downsizing in the company my DH works for (31 years now). We were in Alaska for our wedding and honeymoon. They had 3 rounds of layoffs before the two biggies in 2009.

I forwarned my DH that Disney would lay off BEYOND what castmembers could possibly handle. This would continue until someone really screwed up (example - I told the story of eliminating the graphics department and they going NUTS when a reporter on air had no choice but to use a pad of paper and magic marker to illustrate and event).

They will continue to lay off beyond what the castmembers can support. When big mistakes begin to happen, they will re-hire....but only enough to avoid the mistakes.

It's the corporate way now. It's sad, however. We all have a higher opinion of Disney....but it IS all about $$$.

My DH was THRILLED when Disney purchased his company years ago.....it would be family friendly and a happy place to work. Now that he realizes how Disney valules it's employees, he has been forced to face corporate reality.



Remember this every time you meet a castmember. Many are working beyond what you would expece of a hard-working employee. Give them a break, tell them they are wonderful, make them smile - we try to. These are not THEIR decisions.



....and I agree, this thread has had many interesting opinions. Thanks everyone for a great thread.