Sorry -- been away from the computer for a few days. Coming back in late.
Originally posted by brunette8706
I'll explain again...
Each person that enters WDW will cost them $120 a day on average (this includes food, misc. items and a ticket) this does NOT include lodging. This is also a very conservative figure multiply that by 45,000 people (below average attendance figure) per day. That figure comes to 5,400,000.00 A DAY!!! Not including parking and again not including lodging! That total amount comes to a whopping $1,971,000,000.00, that is nearly 2 BILLION dollars a year just in PARK REVENUES, and that total amount is below average! This figure doesn't include all the other "DISNEY STORES world wide either! I'm sure they rake in billions of dollars! Along with all the multimillion dollar films and film sponsors. With that said how much would it cost to paint a few building??? $50,000.00 maybe??? How much would it cost to change the George Lucas film in Star Wars like another poster mentioned??
I do actually understand what you're saying. I think that maybe you don't understand ME. A huge revenue number means absolutely nothing unless you have an expense number to put next to it. Little kids get a $20 bill for their birthday and think that's a lot of money. They look at people who make $15,000 a year and think they're RICH! But we all know that $20 doesn't buy that much and that $15K isn't nearly enough to live on these days. It's all relative to expenses.
How much does it take to change the Star Tours film? I have no idea. I don't make movies. But I do know that changing that film isn't just about the cost. George Lucas has to OK it, and so far ... he hasn't. He's perfectly content with it staying as it is. Disney just can't go out and make another Star Tours film -- Lucas retains creative control. So part of the plea for a new film has to go to him. Would Disney pay for it if Lucas said "go?" I don't know.
How much does it cost to paint a few buildings? Probably not that much, in the big scheme of things. But you don't just paint the building once. You're painting it year after year. Which is why there is a revolving maintenance schedule. In Walt's day, people re-painted things before they needed it, which was a great thought, but unnecessarily expensive and inefficient. Leaving it until it's so bad that it's obvious is also wrong. A middle-ground needs to be reached, and that's what hasn't happened yet.
Also, some people asked me why I bought an annual pass. I bought the pass because I'm going to use it! LOL! I'm going to continue to go to Disney! I just had to give my opinion to a park which 30 years ago nothing could compare....
I'm not sure why other people asked, but the reason I asked why you bought annual passes was because of the tone of your original post. You were so completely surprised and critical about things that were closed, but some were things that have been closed for decades! So I guess I was confused as to why you wouldn't at least check the place out and see if it was still what you thought it was before you put down the money for annual passes. That was the reasoning behind the question. In your OP you didn't really seem to think you'd gotten your money's worth.
Someone made a comment that perhaps YOU were the one that wasn't what they used to be. And by that, I think they meant that you have changed a lot in the past 30 years, and so has Disney. None of us are looking at the parks through the same eyes as we did 30 years ago, and so that has to be put in the mix. I can walk through the parks and see burned-out lightbulbs, peeling paint and fewer CMs. My 7-year-old neice looks at the exact same park and just sees magic. Just depends on your perspective.
Like I said, I like WDW and I will continue to patronize them...but they need alot of work to do to keep up with there once pristine image...that's all...I made these observations along with quite amount of people here that have responded kindly. If you want to be on the top of your league then show some pride...For heavens sakes like I said earlier paint is very low cost.
OK, if we're going to get that simplistic yes ... let's say that paint costs $35 a gallon for the heavy-duty outdoor can-weather-anything paint. And lets say that a gallon of paint can cover a facade of one building on Main Street. Great. So it would cost Disney $35 to repaint that facade. Why aren't they doing it, considering they have a billion dollars sitting around? Because it's not just $35. You've got the hourly cost for the painter (at a minimum 4-hour call based on union guidelines), the salaried cost for that painter's supervisor, the costume that painter wears, and the people and equipment to purchase and maintain the costume. There are the accoutrements of painting -- brushes, buckets, dropcloths, ladders, scaffoding, extension arms, masking tape. And the people who purchase, store and inventory those items. Plus the warehouse or storage area where those items are stored. There are the cleaning supplies to clean up any mess afterwards and the environmentally-correct disposal area for the can and brushes. Plus the people who run and maintain those areas. And their managers. Then you've got the benefits for all of those people, and the staff required to administer those benefits. And the insurance that covers the company in case the painter drops the can on his foot or spills paint on a guest. And the staff required to deal with the insurance. And on and on.
Unfortunately, it's not just about a gallon of paint.
I wholeheartedly agree that there are areas of WDW that need major work. That there are rides and shows that need to be rehabbed and that there are maintenance tasks that have been overlooked for way too long. But to say, "Paint is cheap", as if that gallon of paint is all it takes, isn't seeing the full picture any more than someone who says, "I didn't notice it, so there's nothing wrong."
This was all on the carpeted queue area. A CM came and emptied the trash can but didn't pick up any trash in the area. It looked really bad.
