Colonel Critchlow Sunchbench

No say it isn't so

what will the TMIPers do after the parks close if this change comes to pass.... I sure can't afford $200+ per night to enjoy the Hoopla (HOOPLA).

 

I've been wrong before, and I'm sure I'll be wrong again, but.. I don't buy this for one second. The Disney experience is built around cramming as many people as possible into a space tended by (lately, anyway) increasingly fewer people. I've read about how they've cut back on the staff to run the remote control trash can from two to one person. They closed down Wonders of Life originally (or so I had heard) because it cost too much to staff it with a handful of people who were probably paid minimum wage.
They (along with every other cruise ship operator on the planet, from what I know) have their cruise ships registered in the Bahamas so they can take advantage of the lower minimum wage in those countries.

So when I'm told that they're going run an entire new park by staffing it with twice as many employees as they have customers.. My response is to break out laughing in incredulity. What next, they'll start serving food at no profit, just to be nice? Clearing away the gift shops to streamline the experience?

In a way I like the idea. I'm a night time person, so "night kingdom" appeals to me from the outset. But the whole thing sounds like a surrealist dream version of reality. Taking the Adventurer's Club, which is well loved exactly where (and as what) it is and moving it to be a LOADING ZONE for a new park sounds like a monumentally bad idea, enough that if the DNK thing comes to fruition I don't for a second believe that AC will be moved there.

I might very well be a customer if this idea is actually translated to reality without being a train wreck. Understand, Extra Magic Hours are MY time. I love Disney when it's dark. A park made to cater to just that mood is like a dream come true to me.

And, as the story goes, everyone told Walt that Disneyland would be a failure, so clearly others have felt similarly about projects in the past that succeeded wildly.

But as someone who's witnessed the years of cost cutting and money grubbing that have come to characterize the Disney experience, I just don't see a park designed to only hold a relative handful of people and a comparative surplus of staff being something they'd do.


After my first visit to the Adventurers club, my first thought was that I wanted more of it. After going again a few days later I was sort of let down, the jokes were largely the same and it started to get old, and I decided that maybe it was a once a trip sort of thing. But I was in love with the idea that they could do more with that concept. I was trying to imagine how it would work, jokes, fun, and nonstop entertainment on a theme park scale, most likely enhanced with freely (er, expensively) flowing alcoholic beverages. It sounded like a brilliant idea. I still think the possibility COULD work.

If they gave a darn what I had to say I'd advise caution on setting out on such a radical change, but if they're set on doing it I wish them well and hope that I can be a happy customer in the future.