Was Disney planning to someday build a theme park in Hawaii?

[DodgerGirl]

Before the Aulani resort was opened in Hawaii I often wondered if Disney considered building a theme park in Hawaii? Because with Hawaii known for being a great vacation destination I think a Disney theme park would've been nice in Hawaii. But since Disney never thought about building a theme park in Hawaii they ended up building the Aulani resort instead

 

[Cfabar1]

Could be it was thought about. I am unaware of any serious discussions about an Hawaiian theme park.

 

[OKW Lover]

I've never heard about any serious intent by Disney to build a theme park in Hawaii. I have no doubt that somewhere, somebody, sometime at Disney had that idea but it would only have been a flight of fantasy.

Disney's decision to build the Aulani resort is a curious one. I suspect they got a great offer for the land Aulani sits on by the developer of the whole Ko Olina area. The developer no doubt was hoping to attract more people to vacation in the area and having the Disney name attached to it was a big plus.

 

[Narcoossee11]

Land in Hawaii would make this impossible.
The cost would be crazy, the amount and quality of land that you would need is limited.
Biggest reason, is the Polynesian culture would NEVER let this happen.

 

[OKW Lover]

Biggest reason, is the Polynesian culture would NEVER let this happen.

Is this the same Polynesian culture that let Waikiki get built?

 

[BrianL]

I don't think Hawaii is a good location for a full-scale theme park. People don't go there for that. Thye'd rather take the original Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride - surfing! Something like Aulani was a perfect choice for Disney to serve the market, but with a different kind of offering. It seems popular enough too. They had played with things like that before - like a lodge in the midwest where the Country Bears were originally going to go. I think what they are doing works.

 

[LAS2AMS]

Hawaii has long been an expensive place to visit - airfare, hotel, meals, etc. There’s no way Disney would’ve considered building a theme park there, as it would be of little interest to all but a faction of diehard Disney fans. It would’ve been too charging to acquire enough land, build the infrastructure, etc.

Aulani was built because DVC is a very profitable thing for Disney. Before its construction, the lack of a Hawaii property was a key reason many affluent travelers weren’t buying into the program.

 

[tjkraz]

Aulani was built because DVC is a very profitable thing for Disney. Before its construction, the lack of a Hawaii property was a key reason many affluent travelers weren’t buying into the program.

I'm not sure that Aulani moved the needle much for DVC. Yes, it's a beautiful property which many owners enjoy visiting. But it's also been selling for 16 years with no immediate end in sight.

Some insiders I've spoken with suggest that the decision to build Aulani had too much emotion attached to it and not enough sound business analysis. There was an issue with early dues calculation, which suggests greater budgeting / operating costs estimates were flawed. When you factor in the land acquisition costs and more than a decade of sales and marketing, it has to be the least profitable DVC resort ever. Over the same timeframe, they've sold about 3x as many points in WDW-based resorts, many at a higher price.

In more recent years, DVC has used trading companies like RCI to promote non-Disney options. If a prospect has concerns about only using points at the theme park resorts, they can flash a list of literally hundreds of destinations available for trade. (Without having to go into specifics about ease of trading or quality of location.) I don't think there are many people who could accurately claim "I wouldn't buy DVC if Aulani didn't exist, but I will buy because it does exist."

 

[LAS2AMS]

I'm not sure that Aulani moved the needle much for DVC. Yes, it's a beautiful property which many owners enjoy visiting. But it's also been selling for 16 years with no immediate end in sight.

Some insiders I've spoken with suggest that the decision to build Aulani had too much emotion attached to it and not enough sound business analysis. There was an issue with early dues calculation, which suggests greater budgeting / operating costs estimates were flawed. When you factor in the land acquisition costs and more than a decade of sales and marketing, it has to be the least profitable DVC resort ever. Over the same timeframe, they've sold about 3x as many points in WDW-based resorts, many at a higher price.

In more recent years, DVC has used trading companies like RCI to promote non-Disney options. If a prospect has concerns about only using points at the theme park resorts, they can flash a list of literally hundreds of destinations available for trade. (Without having to go into specifics about ease of trading or quality of location.) I don't think there are many people who could accurately claim "I wouldn't buy DVC if Aulani didn't exist, but I will buy because it does exist."

Disney has long been a very calculated company who takes a very conservative approach in development. When Aulani began development 20 years ago, Hawaii was seen as critical to building DVC and attracting affluent travelers.

In the years since, Disney’s popularity has exploded and most of it comes from Disney fanatics who aren’t interested in vacationing anywhere but WDW. Even the Disneyland Hotel draws little interest from people in the East / historical WDW trackers. Meanwhile, much of the affluent travel base who regularly goes to Hawaii isn’t interested in a Disney experience.

But ultimate as the DVC base grows, filling Aulani shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[LAS2AMS]

To add context… in 2024, more than 75 million people visited Orlando whereas less than 6 million went to Oahu. Hotel occupancy in Oahu is near 100% most of the year and it’s challenging/ cost prohibitive to increase the hotel room supply. The lack of available rooms throughout Hawaii has been a major challenge to tourist growth in recent years.

It’s almost certain that Disney never considered building a theme park on the island.

 

[hardcorestitch]

Before the Aulani resort was opened in Hawaii I often wondered if Disney considered building a theme park in Hawaii? Because with Hawaii known for being a great vacation destination I think a Disney theme park would've been nice in Hawaii. But since Disney never thought about building a theme park in Hawaii they ended up building the Aulani resort instead

Hawaii really isn’t a state that can handle that big of a theme park. You have to factor the stronger tsunami chances and volcanic impacts in an environment like this.

 

[irlandaise]

Hawaii really isn’t a state that can handle that big of a theme park. You have to factor the stronger tsunami chances and volcanic impacts in an environment like this.

The only active volcanoes in Hawai'i are on the Big Island. In addition, they are shield volcanoes, not stratovolcanoes, so the areas they can affect with lava flows are well known and can be planned around.

As others have said, the issues with creating a theme park in Hawai'i are economic: cost and availability of land, number of people who would come that far, high expenses for everything needed to run a park, etc.

 

[LAS2AMS]

Probably also worth mentioning that in the 1990/s into the mid-2000s, over 2/3 of visitors to Hawaii were from California and Japan - markets with easily accessibility to a Disney theme park.

Hawaii simply doesn’t receive enough visitors to support a Disney theme park - and Disney won’t stimulate that as the obstacle is the hotel supply which faces too many obstacles to grow (available land, cost, environmental concerns, locals protesting).

 

[Cfabar1]

My personal theory is DVC has dabbled in off-site properties off and on for years. There are now the Hyatt in Colorado, the Marriott in Newport that were originally slated to be Disney Vacation Club properties.

There also were renderings and plans for a Times Square Disney Vacation Club and one in Washington D.C./Maryland.

These are the plans that we publicly know about. Keep in mind DVC is the same company that said "What building over there?" when they were building Bay Lake Tower! I would not be surprised if there were many other properties that have been considered, even post-Aulani.

The allure of capturing more of your vacation dollars is tempting, and having just four or five more off-site properties could maybe move the needle meaningfully in sales.

The problem is, Disney has shown that they are not a great hotel operator financially speaking and not a great timeshare operator financially speaking when not selling property at Walt Disney World. All the other properties I imagine have underwhelmed and severely disappointed the accountants.

I suspect at some point we will see another non-park DVC property, the siren call will be too much for them to ignore at some point...

 

[tjkraz]

The problem is, Disney has shown that they are not a great hotel operator financially speaking and not a great timeshare operator financially speaking when not selling property at Walt Disney World. All the other properties I imagine have underwhelmed and severely disappointed the accountants.

I think it's more accurate to simply say that the margins are much (MUCH) better when developing at Disneyland or Walt Disney World than off-site. The land is paid for. Disney controls surrounding infrastructure. Shared facilities like laundry, maintenance, landscaping, transportation and HR already exist. Rooms command top dollar. And points sell at a brisk pace.

When you develop off-site, you're buying the land, building all the support facilities, employing additional on-site mangers dedicated to the property, probably not charging as much per-night and not selling DVC points nearly as fast due to lower demand.

It's not that Disney is a bad hotel operator or a bad timeshare sales organization (unless we're rooting for them to adopt some of the sales tactics of competitors.) It's that the margins are much, much lower compared to building the same type of accommodation 5 minutes away from a theme park on land that Disney already owns.

 

[cruisehopeful]

It's an interesting thought, but it doesn't make sense since they would have to destroy so much to build it.

I was on the train at the Dole Plantation before Aulani broke ground. I knew it was coming and that it was DVC. A lady working at the train told me Disney was building a theme park on the island. I told her it was just a big hotel. She insisted that it was a theme park, and would be as big as Disneyland. I knew she was wrong, but there was no point in getting into an argument with a local.

 

[LAS2AMS]

I think it's more accurate to simply say that the margins are much (MUCH) better when developing at Disneyland or Walt Disney World than off-site. The land is paid for. Disney controls surrounding infrastructure. Shared facilities like laundry, maintenance, landscaping, transportation and HR already exist. Rooms command top dollar. And points sell at a brisk pace.

When you develop off-site, you're buying the land, building all the support facilities, employing additional on-site mangers dedicated to the property, probably not charging as much per-night and not selling DVC points nearly as fast due to lower demand.

It's not that Disney is a bad hotel operator or a bad timeshare sales organization (unless we're rooting for them to adopt some of the sales tactics of competitors.) It's that the margins are much, much lower compared to building the same type of accommodation 5 minutes away from a theme park on land that Disney already owns.

I don’t think its margins as much as that the target program has changed. Disney has long tried to bring the Disney experience beyond Orlando and Anaheim - they were successful with retail stores, but they failed with restaurants, DisneyQueat, etc.

At one point DVC was about bringing Disney-style hospitality around the world, but it’s evolved into a program for mostly WDW. The harsh reality is that people buy into DVC because they like vacationing at WDW. Look at the oodles of people on this forum who own hundreds of points… they don’t want a Disney hotel in Times Square, they want a Disney hotel built into the Animal Kingdom.

Disney’s biggest fans want to immerse themselves in fantasy. Look how many complain Waikiki Beach and Anaheim are “scary” places because they have street entertainment (common and prevalent in most any major tourist area worldwide).

I love Disney but recognize life is short and there’s so many places I’d like to visit. Why keep doing the same things I’ve already done? Disney fantastically, OTOH, have zero desire to visit anywhere but Disney.

Hence why DVC has literally become a WDW vacation club.