Snow White's Scary Adventure Closure

[IslandAdventure4]

It is so hard to deal with change. The World is changing around us "and not for the better" I understand that most of these rides are becoming out dated. but it takes me back to when I was a kid and how exciting it was to ride those rides. Now with having children of my own its a different exciting to share those rides with them, and see there faces light up when we get to those rides. I kinda understand it but still we need to keep some simplicity in our lives. Just my two cents.

 

[sandym718]

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride-gone. Many miss it. But let’s face it. There isn’t a 5 year old alive who knows who the heck Mr. Toad is/was nor can they name the story from whence he came. And they all prefer Pooh.

Miss this, but I also never saw the movie and I'm 33. I visited Disneyland when I was 16 and we were in line for Mr. Toad. Just ahead of us in line was Neil Patrick Harris, this was back in the Doogie Howser years! He had a few people with him and they were all asking everyone in line "Does anyone know what movie this ride is based on?" No one knew - including them!!

 

[HARVEYSGIRL]

I used to love this ride as a kid. It scared me to death! Then they made it more "kid friendly". It lost alot with me then. Don't get me wrong I still ride it but I have to tell everyone with me, how scary it use to be when I was a kid. Lol. My kids were not impressed with it. I have gone to Disney my whole life (since 1975) so I hate when they close attractions. It is like losing a childhood memory. Snow White will be missed....

 

[JimmyV]

Miss this, but I also never saw the movie and I'm 33. I visited Disneyland when I was 16 and we were in line for Mr. Toad. Just ahead of us in line was Neil Patrick Harris, this was back in the Doogie Howser years! He had a few people with him and they were all asking everyone in line "Does anyone know what movie this ride is based on?" No one knew - including them!!

Thanks for sharing this story. I think it brings up a very important point that hasn't really been addressed in this thread. The Disney parks are largely loss leaders. I don't know the true economics, but I have been told by people who work for Disney, (not Disney World, but other arms of the company) that Disney really doesn't expect to make much money off of people from park visits. As they pointed out, ski resorts charge as much if not more than Disney for a one day ticket, and when you factor in that most people drive their admission costs down to around $40-$50 per day by buying multi-day passes, ski resorts are charging twice as much as Disney. And they are barely getting by with far less overhead. (Less electricity, far fewer employees, etc.)

So if Disney barely breaks even from your day in the park, how does it succeed. MARKETING!! They want you to go home and buy DVDs. They want your kids to watch the Disney Channel to drive up ratings which in turn drives up advertising dollars. They want their summer movie releases to make $400 million. What does any of this have to do with Mr. Toad? Easy. He simply wasn't marketable. Certainly not as marketable as Pooh. Sure, lots of people here miss ol' man Toad. But how many people here have spent ANY money whatsoever on Toad paraphenalia, movies, videos, clothing, etc.? And even if you have, compare that to the amount of money you have spent on Pooh and friends paraphenalia. The change over from Toad to Pooh was all about marketing. Or so I have been told.

So the story quoted above really puts this into focus. No one in that line was going to be paying Disney a single dollar in the future based on their love of Mr. Toad. But people pay Disney millions of dollars based on their love of Pooh and friends. Where this leaves us with a Mine Coaster vs. SWSA, I'm not sure. But I am sure that the marketing geniuses at Disney have a good idea.

 

[Sassagoula Billy]

Joni Mitchell was way before my time, I googled her.

And I think some people just like to have something to complain about to hear themselves talk.

Oh she's before my time too, but what a poet. What a musician. Worth listening to.

As to your second point, let me know when you have one.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Thanks for sharing this story. I think it brings up a very important point that hasn't really been addressed in this thread. The Disney parks are largely loss leaders. I don't know the true economics, but I have been told by people who work for Disney, (not Disney World, but other arms of the company) that Disney really doesn't expect to make much money off of people from park visits. As they pointed out, ski resorts charge as much if not more than Disney for a one day ticket, and when you factor in that most people drive their admission costs down to around $40-$50 per day by buying multi-day passes, ski resorts are charging twice as much as Disney. And they are barely getting by with far less overhead. (Less electricity, far fewer employees, etc.)

So if Disney barely breaks even from your day in the park, how does it succeed. MARKETING!! They want you to go home and buy DVDs. They want your kids to watch the Disney Channel to drive up ratings which in turn drives up advertising dollars. They want their summer movie releases to make $400 million. What does any of this have to do with Mr. Toad? Easy. He simply wasn't marketable. Certainly not as marketable as Pooh. Sure, lots of people here miss ol' man Toad. But how many people here have spent ANY money whatsoever on Toad paraphenalia, movies, videos, clothing, etc.? And even if you have, compare that to the amount of money you have spent on Pooh and friends paraphenalia. The change over from Toad to Pooh was all about marketing. Or so I have been told.

So the story quoted above really puts this into focus. No one in that line was going to be paying Disney a single dollar in the future based on their love of Mr. Toad. But people pay Disney millions of dollars based on their love of Pooh and friends. Where this leaves us with a Mine Coaster vs. SWSA, I'm not sure. But I am sure that the marketing geniuses at Disney have a good idea.

Well, I think Disney does make a ton on hotel stays and food, etc. which people spend that money because of the parks. But I agree that they probably don't make much on just the admission prices

and that is a good point about Mr. Toad - and supposedly one of the big reasons Pixie Hollow got scraped was because DVD sales, etc. were way lower than expected for the new Fairies

 

[BuzzBiteyear]

Thanks for sharing this story. I think it brings up a very important point that hasn't really been addressed in this thread. The Disney parks are largely loss leaders. I don't know the true economics, but I have been told by people who work for Disney, (not Disney World, but other arms of the company) that Disney really doesn't expect to make much money off of people from park visits. As they pointed out, ski resorts charge as much if not more than Disney for a one day ticket, and when you factor in that most people drive their admission costs down to around $40-$50 per day by buying multi-day passes, ski resorts are charging twice as much as Disney. And they are barely getting by with far less overhead. (Less electricity, far fewer employees, etc.)

Those people may have misled you, unless they're only talking about the parks, but as a shareholder, I don't recall the park/resort segment of the company ever being broken down into just parks. For years the parks/resorts were looked at as cash cows for the Disney Company. They've been down from prior years, especially this past year, but still turning profits. I could find the following results for the '09-'10 fiscal year: $1.318 billion profit from the parks and resorts, which was down from '08-'09 fiscal year's $1.418 billion profit. Those figures were 17% and 21% of the company's total profits for those years.



EDIT: After reading that again, I do wonder if you're talking with people that perhaps do have the breakdown of just parks, but that would seem to be very hard to distinguish with packages and things like the dining plan, etc.

 

[AdamsPrincess]

My son's absolutely love Snow White, they love all the classic movies and so I don't anyone can say that the new generation likes only the computer animation.

And they like this ride too!!

 

[JimmyV]

EDIT: After reading that again, I do wonder if you're talking with people that perhaps do have the breakdown of just parks, but that would seem to be very hard to distinguish with packages and things like the dining plan, etc.

They do have that breakdown. With computers and KTTW cards, it is pretty easy to account for every penny. From a publically available source, I was able to find that the park profits in 2009 were $375 million on total company earnings of over $9 billion. The parks just don't add that much to the bottom line.

 

[Satchmo128]

I certainly will not mind if SWSA closes. I do not like that ride at ALL and I'm all about a new indoor roller coaster (even if it is a tame one).

 

[BuzzBiteyear]

They do have that breakdown. With computers and KTTW cards, it is pretty easy to account for every penny. From a publically available source, I was able to find that the park profits in 2009 were $375 million on total company earnings of over $9 billion. The parks just don't add that much to the bottom line.

I think that $375M may have been the first quarter of the '09-'10 fiscal year for the parks & resorts. I saw that figure on a Google search earlier. How do they split things like the dining plan?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/walt-disney-profit-hurt-by-parks-consumer-units-2010-02-09

 

[JimmyV]

Food and beverage is tracked (at least internally) as a separate item so that they can determine which spots are pulling their own weight. I have no idea where the numbers fall once you factor out food and beverage from overall park operating costs. If I had to guess, I would say that food, beverage and souveniers make up most if not all of the profit, and Disney actually loses money on the price of admission. In other words, a guest who buys a 6 day pass and never eats, drinks or buys anything would cost the company money. That should come as no surprise, and very few such people exist.

 

[ktlm]

They do have that breakdown. With computers and KTTW cards, it is pretty easy to account for every penny. From a publically available source, I was able to find that the park profits in 2009 were $375 million on total company earnings of over $9 billion. The parks just don't add that much to the bottom line.

But the problem with breaking out just the park profits, is that without the parks, they would lose the 1.3 billion profit noted above for the parks and resorts combined, which is more than 10% of the total profit according to your figures and 17% according to Buzzbiteyear's figure. The parks are what create the resort profit. Without the parks, the resorts most likely would not make much of a profit, if any. They would stand mostly empty as people primarly stay at the resorts BECAUSE of the parks. Sure, a few people might come just to experience the resorts themselves, but that certainly wouldn't keep the resorts full as they don't have that much of an independent draw, and to get that to happen they would also probably have to lower their room rates. (For example, I checked and the rack rate for 2 adults at a garden view GF room on a weekday in mid-july is $485-you can stay in an ocean view room at a luxury resort in CA for that) So the parks are the generator for the resort profit. Without them, the resort profit which makes up a decent size chunk of total company profit is gone. So I think you have to say that the parks do add to the bottom line because without them the related profits collapse.

Also, I don't know if your figure was a park admission figure or a total park figure, but I have some familiarity with another amusement park company which I will not name, but I can tell you that their profits come mostly from food, drink, and goods sales, and other incidentals, and that the park admission tickets primarily cover the operating costs. The idea is to get people there so that they will spend money on other things.

 

[KCmike]

I say lets take all of the fantasyland rides and turn them into tame rollercoasters. Heck why stop there. Let's go ahead and turn pirates into a rollercoaster. We could maybe put an inverted loop or something during the battle scene.

Save Fantasyland dark rides.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I think people are overreacting to this "roller coaster" business. Besides the ride cars being from a mine train, ther is no direct information indicating that The Seven Dwarves Mine Train will be a "roller coaster".

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. Getting upset about what you think a ride MIGHT be before the ride is open is putting the cart before the horse. I understand people being upset by Snow White's Scary Adventures closing, but to be upset about what you THINK a ride is going to be based on three sentences in a press release is jumping the gun.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

I think that $375M may have been the first quarter of the '09-'10 fiscal year for the parks & resorts. I saw that figure on a Google search earlier. How do they split things like the dining plan?

The dining plan is done by a contract with outside companies who run their restaurants on property. That's why the list for the following year changes so much until the contract is locked around the middle of December.

Some of the restaurants find it worth it to be in the contract, others think their bottom line won't allow maximum profit by participating.

I don't believe Disney gets much out of the deal in the long term.

 

[mom2rtk]

I don't believe Disney gets much out of the deal in the long term.

Well, at the very least they get their resorts packed!

 

[BuzzBiteyear]

The dining plan is done by a contract with outside companies who run their restaurants on property. That's why the list for the following year changes so much until the contract is locked around the middle of December.

Some of the restaurants find it worth it to be in the contract, others think their bottom line won't allow maximum profit by participating.

I don't believe Disney gets much out of the deal in the long term.

Ok, now I'm very confused. Are you saying that every food location is not actually owned by and going towards Disney's bottom line? I know some of the table & quick service restaurants are not Disney-owned, but I guess I've always assumed that the vast majority of restaurants, snack carts, snack stores, etc. were Disney-owned.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Ok, now I'm very confused. Are you saying that every food location is not actually owned by and going towards Disney's bottom line? I know some of the table & quick service restaurants are not Disney-owned, but I guess I've always assumed that the vast majority of restaurants, snack carts, snack stores, etc. were Disney-owned.

I can't find the exact link I'm looking for right now, but if you look at the listed assets of the company, it lists the parks and resorts, but there is no mention of restaurants.

I'll keep looking for what I'm looking for and post it when I find it.

 

[Colleen27]

Ok, now I'm very confused. Are you saying that every food location is not actually owned by and going towards Disney's bottom line? I know some of the table & quick service restaurants are not Disney-owned, but I guess I've always assumed that the vast majority of restaurants, snack carts, snack stores, etc. were Disney-owned.

They are. All of the resort restaurants are Disney owned, as are most of the park restaurants. In the World Showcase there are several notable exceptions (Japan, Mexico) and at Animal Kingdom there are two Landry's restaurants (Yak & Yeti and Rainforest), but everything in MK and DHS is Disney owned.

The place where you find the most third party dining is Downtown Disney, where Disney seems to prefer collecting rent over running shopping or dining outlets themselves.