Why has Disney waited so long to refurb the rides and hotels?

[sunshine1]

At Hotel Cheyenne. Got a very cheap last minute deal. Wish that I had paid £100 more to stay at Newport Bay.

This place is so run down. Has it not been refurbed since it opened back in 1992? I know it due to be refurbed later on this year and not a moment too soon.

The room i am in is very dirty. The furniture is old. I know it is only a 2 star but is this a Disney Standard what we are used to?
The street where the rooms are depressed the hell out of me: never see a soul about in the daytime and it looks barren.

Maybe as I stayed in Newport Bay last month in a refurbed room that has ruined me!

Anyway back to my question why has Disney waited so long for these refurbs?

Is it, as i have been told on here, that they have only ever made profit twice since opening so they could never afford to refurb? But now it only a year away from 25th anniversary they have to?

 

[tennisfan]

Money has always been an issue, plus its difficult to refurb and keep the hotels open. For example the plan is to have the Hotel New York shut when they have there refurb which will take at least a year which is a lot of lost income. Many hotels in the UK wait a long time before having a refurb.

Newport Bay took about 2 if not a bit more years to refurb, many people were put off staying in a hotel having renovations and the scaffolding outside, again lost income.

I do also think that people who stay in the hotels should respect them more but they don't. My dad does maintenance on Travelodges in the UK and from some of the rooms he is having to sort the past week due to people trashing them and I just don't mean a simple accident, like being so drunk you have left the bath filling before passing out on the bed and now the room and room underneath is ruined due to it flooding, its easy to see why hotels are reluctant to do full refurbs.

If your room is dirty ask for another or for them to clean it, I wouldn't stay in a dirty room.

I also think that out of season is always a quieter time, go during the summer and its busier but most people tend to stay in the parks, especially with shorter park hours and the fact the Cheyenne doesn't have a swimming pool so need to really come back unless you have small children who need a nap

25th Anniversary has nothing to do with the refurbs, they have been planned for a while It was meant to be the HNY next but has switched to the Cheyenne and after the HNY is complete they will more on to DLH at some stage.

 

[dogdangling]

Money is the biggest issue, also Disney have only just upped their stake in Paris so i would imagine they will hopefully start investing some more money in the resort and some new rides

 

[BadPinkTink]

as PP have said, money has been an issue right from the very start. Disneyland Paris, unlike California and Florida is not wholly owned by the Disney company. That is why the hotels and the general park maintenance is no where near the standard of American parks.

 

[Jonjo]

The resort has been on the verge of bankruptcy many times since it opened in 1992. For many years the parks and hotels were managed by the banks who lent DLP the money to stay open and it was not in their financial interest to invest in a resort that was financially failing year after year. Hence while the banks controlled the purse strings there was no money available to invest in the refurbishments of rides and the hotels. The interest rates Euro Disney was paying to the banks was crippling and all it was doing was increasing it's debt mountain.

Since the recent recapitalisation and The Walt Disney Company rescue plan which has seen it's debts taken over by TWDC and a cash injection the resort can finally spend some money on the much needed refurbishments that the resort desperately needs.

The refurbishment at the Newport Bay Club over ran by around by around 18 months due to technical and supply problems. The main contractors going bankrupt and going out of business and the same for the company supplying the weather boards really did not help matters.

For those thinking that now that TWDC now owns 80% of Euro Disney that the resort is saved and all of a sudden new rides will appear are going to be sorely disappointed. Rides are just going to be refurbished and updated, don't expect anything new until 2025. TWDC is just propping up it's investment in 2024 DLP needs to repay it's debt mountain to TWDC and if it does not have the financial reserves to do this, it will have to go cap in hand to the banks again to beg for loans to repay the debt it has with TWDC and the whole process will have to start again. But I expect TWDC will demand for a debt for equity swap in 2025 to further increasing it's share holding and ownership of DLP. A loss making part of a company with high debts always looks good on an international corporations balance sheet as so much extra can be hidden within the figures like inflated management and consultancy fees to keep the money moving around the globe via tax free tax havens.

DLP is slowly getting more expensive year after year with lots of extra hidden costs being added to peoples holidays. Guest revenue needs to be increased as the number of people going through the turnstiles is dropping. Even more so since the recent tragic events in Paris which has severely effected the French tourism market.

This year DLP is investing in two new shows to entertain the crowds while most of the parks major attractions are closed, but if your family had saved up for several years to afford a Disney holiday only to find upon arrival that half the park is closed - there is going to be huge disappointed and Guest satisfaction results will drop through the floor with families never considering a DLP holiday ever again - which means a drop in repeat visitors and loss of income.

Hopefully DLP can pull something truly magical out of the hat in 2017 for it's 25th Anniversary to make the crowds come flooding back to spend their Euros in the resort otherwise things do not look promising for the future.

This year will also see Euro Disney and The Walt Disney Company being taken court over criminal proceedings launched by French hedge fund CIMA (Charity & Merger Arbitrage Fund) for misuse of corporate assets, presentation of false accounts and the dissemination of false information. CIMA and other shareholders also plan on launching a civil complaint against TWDC for the damage the company has done to Euro Disney over the last 25 years.

2016 is going to be an interesting year for Disneyland Paris.

 

[wilkeliza]

One big reason why Disney hasn't done anything is because they didn't own enough of it to do anything. For a very long time it was not turning a profit and the park was toeing bankruptcy. Now Disney owns more shares and I believe is now the majority holder so they can once again bring it back up to the Disney standard and hopefully turn it around.

 

[Jonjo]

One big reason why Disney hasn't done anything is because they didn't own enough of it to do anything. For a very long time it was not turning a profit and the park was toeing bankruptcy. Now Disney owns more shares and I believe is now the majority holder so they can once again bring it back up to the Disney standard and hopefully turn it around.

TWDC has more important things to worry about at the moment in it's Parks and Resorts Division than DLP and that is Shanghai. Disney is about to open a resort in a county that is about to have it's economy collapse. Shanghai Disneyland's construction costs are spiralling out of control and the Chinese economy is slowing down rapidly. The Chinese authorities have been trying for months to restore confidence in the country's stock markets and are failing. They have also been putting more and more pressure on TWDC to invest more and more money in Shanghai but China and keeps moving the goal posts. - There is a clear and present danger that Shanghai Disneyland could become the next Disneyland Paris.

So don't expect TWDC to invest any further in DLP.

 

[wilkeliza]

TWDC has more important things to worry about at the moment in it's Parks and Resorts Division than DLP and that is Shanghai. Disney is about to open a resort in a county that is about to have it's economy collapse. Shanghai Disneyland's construction costs are spiralling out of control and the Chinese economy is slowing down rapidly. The Chinese authorities have been trying for months to restore confidence in the country's stock markets and are failing. They have also been putting more and more pressure on TWDC to invest more and more money in Shanghai but China and keeps moving the goal posts. - There is a clear and present danger that Shanghai Disneyland could become the next Disneyland Paris.

So don't expect TWDC to invest any further in DLP.

Is TWDC a majority holder in Shanghai? I thought TWDC owned very little of that park so doesn't actually have a ton of money on the line if it does end up like DLP. I'll admit as excited as I was for Shanghai I kind of stopped paying attention once I found out how hard it is going to be to get there for a visit.

 

[Jonjo]

Shanghai Disney Resort is a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the Shanghai Shendi Group. 43% of the resort will be owned by The Walt Disney Company and the remaining 57% will be owned by the Shanghai Shendi Group, itself a joint venture of three companies owned by the Shanghai government. So far it has been reported at TWDC has spent US$3.7 billion on the new theme park and an additional US$0.7 billion to build other aspects of the resort.

So you can see TWDC has a very large stake in the Shanghai Disney Resort

 

[sunshine1]

Thank you for all your replies.

Learnt alot. Didnt realise that Newport Bay took 18 months to refurb. Wow!

One more question.
Why has DLP rarely made a profit and been in trouble financally?
Do alot less people visit DLP than what Disney forecast?

 

[dogdangling]

I think a main issue certainly for folks from the UK is getting there for a reasonable price. The ferry companies really do jack up the prices and the Eurostar is not cheap by any means, people say there are cheap flights to CDG but I never see them and can't justify taking the kids out to get that Wednesday flight.

Id like to see Disney do another promotion with the sun newspaper again, a couple of years ago we went for 9.50 which included a one day park ticket, and the ferry. We did upgrade and stayed onsite and purchased another days park ticket, so in reality we got a cheap break which I think cost us about £150 for three of us and disney got more from us in Merchandise and food.

 

[Jonjo]

Thank you for all your replies.

Learnt alot. Didnt realise that Newport Bay took 18 months to refurb. Wow!

One more question.
Why has DLP rarely made a profit and been in trouble financally?
Do alot less people visit DLP than what Disney forecast?

NPBC has taken nearly 3 years to refurbish it's over ran by around 6 months!

The park took a lot of money to build, The Disney Company issued US$2.25 billion in convertible bonds through Merrill Lynch to fund the building Euro Disney, an additional US$770 million in bonds offered by Euro Disney them selves later on. All of which were then passed on by TWDC to Euro Disney as debt.

The numbers of Guests expected to visit the park were highly over estimated and staffing and operational costs were tragically under estimated by around 40%.

Then just as the park opened Europe then suffered a very severe recession. During this period DLP even had to closed some of the hotels during the winter periods.

TWDC based all it's forecasts for Euro Disney on the very successful Tokyo Disneyland which as you may know reaches full capacity by 12 noon on most days and has been a huge success story for The Oriental Land Company and TWDC. TDL is the most profitable Disney Resort in the world, but Europeans are not like the Japaneses and that is where TWDC made it's mistakes with Euro Disney.

TWDC made many mistakes with Euro Disney adding far too many hotel room to the resort when it was constructed for example, which just sat empty. Employment problems that still exist today due to the strong French Unions in the parks. Don't get me wrong they made a beautiful theme park, the best Magical Kingdom in the world but it was all designed for higher number of Guests and so costs a lot to operate.

Then WDS was constructed and opened which put the resort into even more debt, the hope was that by building a second park more visitors would follow - unfortunately Europe hit another economic recession
and so they did not.

For some years Val d'Europe has made more income for Euro Disney than the parks and hotels have.

Even after the recent recapitalization and bail out by TWDC DLP still has a debt of around 1 billion euros.

 

[sunshine1]

Wow. 3 years?!

I wonder if Disney knowing what they know now would turn back the clock and not have built DLP.

Alot of people moaned in the past that the CM's were not friendly and that is what also put them off from visiting.

Maybe Disney underestimated the cultural differences between America and France.

On the contrary i found the cast members to be very friendly and helpful when i visited.

I do remember the negative press when it opened. France has beautiful chateaus and Disney comes along and builds Cinderellas castle! Haha.

Other people said that it should have been built in Spain as Paris has similar weather to the UK which isnt always great.

Learning alot on this thread. Thanks!

 

[Jonjo]

I think a main issue certainly for folks from the UK is getting there for a reasonable price. The ferry companies really do jack up the prices and the Eurostar is not cheap by any means, people say there are cheap flights to CDG but I never see them and can't justify taking the kids out to get that Wednesday flight.
.

I've always found Eurostar the cheapest way to travel to DLP with their £69 return fares.

 

[Jonjo]

IMO Euro Disney should have been built in the south of Spain which has the same weather as Florida. The transport links would have been built - the Spanish government would have made sure of that.
With a warmer climate all year round more Europeans would have visited the resort and operating costs would have been lower, especially the employment costs.

But Euro Disney is in Paris and that is that.

 

[sunshine1]

I've always found Eurostar the cheapest way to travel to DLP with their £69 return fares.

Wow that is cheap. I paid £170 for my train ticket. But to be fair i only booked it 3 days before travel.

It is lovely only having a 3 hour train ride from london as opposed to the 8.5 hour flight to Florida!

I think the Eurostar is magic.

 

[tzeitel]

I was a CM at WDW and did 6 months at DLP. This was a few years ago but what I learned was - Disney was looking to build a new park. The finalists were Spain and France. The French government gave them big tax breaks and incentives that Spain could not match. So even though Spain would have been preferable (with the weather alone) France won. This I learned on our 2 days of (what passes for) Traditions at DLP.

Worked merchandise at DtD, was the only American there. I had countless guests (mostly British) comment on how I was the first nice CM they had encountered in their whole trip. My fellow CMs were nice so I am not sure if it was a cultural/language issue. Training (Traditions, at the location etc) was pitiful compared to WDW training. Management was so excited to have a new group of WDW CMs coming, they said we showed up on time and did not take extra long lunch breaks.

Great experience but was happy to go back "home" to WDW.

 

[dogdangling]

I've always found Eurostar the cheapest way to travel to DLP with their £69 return fares.

Ok, I never seem to be able to find those prices. Years ok we had some bad experiences with what appeared to be moody cast members, this year they were fantastic.