While the truly massive reorganization and
executives layoffs last month sink in at Team Disney Anaheim (TDA),
there's still the day to day business of operating theme parks and
hotels, as well as planning for their future.
In this update we'll dig in to what some of the most recent plans
currently look like for both parks, why the current round of DCA
cancellation rumors are bogus, plus fill you in on some of the
backstage buzz being generated by more TDA layoffs to come in March
and April.
Got that croissant slathered in preserves yet? Have that latte
un-lidded now? Well then let's get going shall we? - Al
Hello, I love you; Won't you
tell me your name?
Now that it's been two weeks since a few dozen Anaheim executives
quietly disappeared, leaving some plum picture window offices
currently vacant, the mood in TDA is growing more frantic by the
day. Rumors of layoffs to come are sweeping through the offices all
over Anaheim, and some managers are rolling out rather desperate PR
campaigns to try and prove their department deserves to stick
around. What has the managers and hourly Cast Members out in the
parks and at the hotels laughing hysterically is the sudden need for
many TDA types to be seen walking the property with their nametag
on.
Since the late 1990's it was increasingly cool in TDA to not
claim any previous Disneyland operational experience, and whenever
the average TDA office drone went out into the park they purposely
took their nametag off and tucked their ID card into a pocket, lest
they be considered someone who works there and be pestered by lowly
park visitors with questions about parade times, the closest
bathroom, or directions to Space Mountain. Heaven forbid they might
actually be bothered to help someone who had paid to get into the
place!
But now that the new buzzwords being used by Ed Grier are simple
things like "the Guest experience" and "operational needs," these
are things too many in TDA know nothing about. Suddenly, the rank
and file in TDA are boasting about the walk through the park they
just took, and are hoping to be seen by a big boss out and about
with their nametags proudly displayed. But it's a case of too
little, too late, as the layoffs are coming in big numbers within
weeks and the few remaining Vice Presidents who will help determine
salaried staffing numbers already have a good idea of what
departments need to be trimmed the most.
Everything new is old again...
Over in DCA, those nervous TDA folks could be put to use helping
direct park visitors around the maze of construction walls that grow
by the week and are taking over the Paradise Pier area.
When the economy took a sudden turn for the worse in '08, it did
put a hold on some future plans for California and Florida that
hadn't yet been formally budgeted. But DCA's 1.2 Billion dollar
expansion is not one of them. Much like the two huge new Disney
Cruise Line ships that were budgeted for and announced back in '07,
and are about to get under construction this spring in Germany for
delivery in 2011 and 2012, the huge DCA makeover that was budgeted
for and announced in '07 will be underway all over the park this
spring for completion in 2011 and 2012.
We'd laid out a basic timeline for you on all of the major pieces
of the DCA makeover last year, but over the past six months there
have been a few tweaks to the timeline and some additional details
fleshed out, so it might help put some of the bad rumors to rest if
we ran through the schedule again for you, including some of the new
dates and latest information.
Paradise Pier and World of Color: Work continues on re-themeing
and re-energizing the existing attractions and facilities all around
this large area of the park, turning the 2001 cheap stucco version
of this land into the lushly themed Victorian version of 2010. The
Sun Wheel's transformation into Mickey's Fun Wheel has only been
slightly delayed by the winter rains, and it should be ready to open
in late April. The Games of the Boardwalk aren't far behind, and
should be fully opened by May. While the lagoon will remain drained
through the summer, and major construction continues behind the
walls to build the new World of Color amphitheater designed for
9,000 spectators, the next big phase for Paradise Pier construction
will wait to begin until the end of summer. In late August, the
Orange Stinger will close to become Silly Symphony Swings by early
2010. Later in the fall is when the makeover for Mulholland Madness
and the new beer garden work also gets underway.
The goal is to have most of the Paradise Pier makeover complete
by the time World of Color debuts for the summer of 2010. And what a
show that promises to be! Steve Davison and his talented team have
been reveling in the tens of millions of dollars he was given for
this show, a budget that dwarfs the paltry sum given to him by
Cynthia Harriss to create the ill-fated Luminaria that was shoved
into the lagoon in a frenzied panic back in '01 to try and create
some positive buzz for the failing park. Where Luminaria's lasting
impression for DCA visitors was simply to take a shower to get rid
of the smoke smell, World of Color is shaping up to leave audiences
in shock and awe. Thankfully, World of Color won't be using
traditional pyrotechnics, although there is a number of stunning,
and relatively smokeless, fire effects planned.
World of Color is clocking in at just under 25 minutes in length,
and promises to tug at every emotion Disney has ever written in to
an animated film. This will be the first Disney water show where the
water and fire effects not only play out on the lagoon up to 100
feet high, but also rush toward you and then sweep through the
audience using hidden fountains and infrastructure built into the
new amphitheater itself. Disney suits that have seen Steve Davison's
hyper presentations on this new show in Glendale and Anaheim have
left the conference room with their mouths dropped open, and it
promises to do the same for theme park visitors next summer as well.
The Little Mermaid; Ariel's Adventure: Anyone who has seen
the latest mockups and plans for this big budget E Ticket family
attraction would understandably question whether or not it was going
forward in this tough economic climate. But the truth is that it is
all still right on track and on schedule for 2011.
The version of this new E-Ticket proposed for Walt Disney World's
tired Fantasyland was originally postponed back in the fall, and
then put further into the deep freeze just after Christmas by
Orlando executives. The Orlando team's aversion to adding the
expensive Little Mermaid any time soon might be where some of the
rumors of its delay in Anaheim have been coming from. But the DCA
version of Little Mermaid, which might end up being the only version
available anywhere for the next decade, will begin its construction
in April. (Yes, more walls!)
The budget on this one was allowed to swell to over 100 Million,
and it's held there, as John Lasseter and everyone involved in the
DCA makeover is adamant that the park needs a big, musical,
animatronic family attraction of the type that Disneyland made
famous back in the 1960's. While the creation of the set pieces and
animatronics will be underway up in Imagineering's facilities in
Tujunga and Glendale, the construction of the facility itself will
be going full steam at DCA this summer. The current timeline has
this mega-attraction with its attached water playground and lavishly
themed building opening in June, 2011. This will be the same time
that the current Ariel's Grotto restaurant across the boardwalk
reopens as a Victorian themed "Princess Palace" character dining
restaurant.
Buena Vista Street, Red Car Trolley: If you think the current
rat's maze of construction walls is a pain, it's going to be nothing
compared to this piece of the DCA makeover that has caused the most
headaches for TDA planners. We've been telling you for over a year
about the changing plans to try and work around the complete
rebuilding of DCA's main entrance, the first time this has ever been
attempted or needed at a Disney theme park, and a perfect example of
just how much of an artistic failure the original DCA was when it
opened in '01.
The original plan TDA's industrial engineers had worked up in '07
was to create a temporary park entrance on the eastern flanks of the
main entrance, bringing in visitors to a turnstile facility in the
Hollywood Pictures Backlot area. Then, later in '08 the plan changed
and the concept was shifted to the west, to a temporary turnstile
complex to be built adjacent to the Soarin' Over California hangar.
But since then TDA planners have become increasingly nervous that
moving the main entrance to the park will only disorient visitors
and destroy the small gains in yearly attendance that DCA has been
eeking out in recent years.
So now, the plan is to rebuild the DCA main entrance and turn it
into the 1920's hyper-themed Buena Vista Street one side at a time,
while keeping the main entrance and exit gates for the park in the
same place during the construction. To do that, TDA and WDI needs to
shift the timeline for the construction back from an 8 month period
that originally wrapped up in the fall of 2011 to a nearly 11 month
period that now stretches from September of 2011 to May of 2012.
The thought of not having the DCA main entrance open and ready
for the debut summer of The Little Mermaid was already giving TDA
nightmares, in addition to the headaches behind the temporary park
entrance concept itself, and so the entire Buena Vista Street
project was moved back and lengthened. Work on the Red Car Trolley
at the back of the park will begin before then, but that new
attraction won't open until the entire entrance area is ready in May
of 2012.
Cars Land: Here's the granddaddy of them all, and the biggest
part of DCA's 1.2 Billion makeover budget. Currently slated for over
400 Million dollars, this sprawling new section of the park is
purposely being saved for last. While grading and foundation work
will be getting underway later this year once the World of Color
construction prep-site is no longer needed, the heavy construction
won't begin until late '09. We'd previously told you that some
original elements won't make the cut for 2012, like the proposed
Dine-In Theater restaurant that was cut in early '08.
But the guiding principal behind this new land that is being
personally directed by John Lasseter is also the guiding principal
behind all of DCA's makeover, and that is "Do it right the first
time, or don't do it at all." Both the E-Ticket thrill ride and the
two smaller C-Ticket rides in Cars Land, in addition to planning for
the shops and restaurants in the new land, continue to get
everything they require to put on the best show possible. We'll have
more info on Cars Land, particularly the groundbreaking new Radiator
Springs Racers E-Ticket, once our sources become a bit more
comfortable with the details. But for now, rest assured that this
one is going to raise the bar to a level previously seen only in
Tokyo.
And with those four major projects above, the 1.2 Billion budget
has now been fully accounted for through fiscal year 2012. Again the
current WDI mantra is "Do it right the first time, or don't do it at
all," and so plans to remake the MuppetVision theater, flesh out the
theme on Hollywood Blvd., and not only clad the Hyperion Theater
building in period architecture but also add a much needed lobby and
restrooms, have all been shelved for Phase Two of the DCA makeover.
Phase Two would also encompass a remake of the Condor Flats and
Grizzly Peak areas into a Teddy Roosevelt era National Park, with
the addition of several new attractions in that section. And that's
where the weak economy finally does begin to impact DCA's future. If
by early 2012 the economy hasn't turned around and people don't
start spending big in the parks like they had earlier in this
decade, then DCA's Phase Two could be put on hold. But, if the
improvements to DCA generate increasing attendance in 2010 through
2012, and the economy improves enough that people start splurging on
their vacations, then the big plans currently being dreamed up for
DCA will start seeing the light of day by 2014.
Star Detours
While DCA's immediate future and construction budget remains
intact and on track, Disneyland has seen some minor fallout from the
economic crisis and resulting downturn in visitor spending. The
Anaheim parks haven't seen the complete deep freeze mentality that
gripped the Orlando parks late last year and continues to keep any
meaningful expansion plans for the Florida parks in limbo, but some
of the existing plans for Disneyland have been scaled back or
postponed.
The first casualty that was once slated to get underway this year
for a 2010 opening, but is now pushed back at least a year, is the
remake of Star Tours. This new version of the popular E Ticket
attraction is the worst kept secret on the Internet, with many
people associated with the latest round of Star Wars films
constantly dropping hints of their involvement in the new ride. The
new version is going to take advantage of the in-cabin effects
pioneered in Tokyo DisneySea's StormRider simulator attraction and
the randomly changing plotlines that digital technology now allows.
But the new ride will also be using new facial recognition
technology that the Imagineers want to use to pick people out of the
audience and incorporate into the show using the cabin video screens
and the animatronic pilot's personalized dialogue.
The revamped Star Tours 2.0 was to debut in spring, 2010 as part
of Disneyland's 55th Anniversary celebration, with a nearly
identical version planned to open in Walt Disney World around the
same time. But when the Orlando executives, who are a notoriously
tough sell when it comes to investing in new attractions, put the
brakes on not only Star Tours 2.0 but also most other major
attraction additions in Florida, it threw the carefully crafted
budget into disarray.
The large production and facilities installation budget was
created by WDI on the ability to spread the costs between two
properties, but with Walt Disney World backing out of the plan last
year with no current interest in rejoining the project, the
Disneyland version that TDA still wants is now left up in the air.
And people wonder why I frequently have Orlando in my cross-hairs.
Luckily, the folks at WDI have been in frantic contact with the
Oriental Land Company to try and sell Tokyo Disneyland on paying for
the version once destined for Orlando. While the Oriental Land
Company has yet to sign on the dotted line, negotiations are looking
positive, and the new version of Star Tours may be able to debut
simultaneously in Anaheim and Tokyo for the 2011 summer season.
Not yet going away.
As part of the plan to debut a new Star Tours in 2010 that
included updates to the attraction façade, the entrance to
Tomorrowland was supposed to get an update as well. The AstroOrbiter
was planned to be repainted in a new silver and blue color scheme,
and the entrance to the land was going to be opened up and rethemed
a bit. The refurbishment and new paint for the AstroOrbiter is still
budgeted and planned for later in 2009, as the mechanical structure
needs maintenance and new parts to allow the revolving planets to
spin again. But that new paint job and refurbishment was really
supposed to tie in with the dramatically redone Star Tours 2.0 next
door.
Still, it's the last bit of the 1998 New Tomorrowland that has
yet to be redone, so it's needed regardless of what is to become of
Star Tours. And yes, once DCA proves itself and Tony Baxter gets the
green-light for his big budget retheme of Tomorrowland, the Astro
Orbiter will return to its rightful place atop the PeopleMover
station. But the paint job and mechanical refurbishment is still
needed in the meantime.
Nobama
The second casualty was the remake of the Great Moments with Mr.
Lincoln show that was proposed to piggyback on changes coming to
Florida's Hall of Presidents later this year. Instead of new
animatronic figures of George Washington and Barack Obama (or
whomever the current President is) joining honest Abe on stage, the
Disneyland show will now be returning to a slightly revamped version
of its 1965 original presentation. Gone will be the gimmicky
headphones introduced in 2001 to try and breathe life into the aging
show.
With his scaled down budget now green-lighted, Tony Baxter wants
to bring the focus back to the man and his speech that was so
important to Walt, rather than leave people giggling in the dark
over buzzing flies and an odd haircut gag. And, just as they are
happy to be relieved of the prospect of rebuilding an expensive
animatronic every four years with the election of each new
President, the Disneyland managers are thrilled to not have to pay
for the extra labor required to pass out, collect, and clean all of
those headsets every day.
Much of the current Disneyland history displays will remain in
the Opera House lobby, with the giant model of the park on opening
day in 1955 moved up to the display area currently dedicated to
Disneyland Cast Members. Due to contractual issues, the 50th movie
starring Steve Martin has to keep playing in the facility until the
legal department can wriggle out of the contract, and the screen at
the front of the lobby will likely be used for that 50th film. The
original model of the Capitol building will take its place in the
back of the lobby, to try and soften the lobby transition from
Disneyland history exhibit to stirring patriotic drama.
Windows Vista.
What has survived the budget cuts is the big remake of the
original Bank of Main Street into a new Disney Gallery attraction
and store, thanks largely to the huge sums of money Californians
traditionally drop on Disneyana during their pilgrimages to the
park. The bank will be transformed into an artist's gallery, with
more space for merchandise and rotating exhibits than the original
gallery had in New Orleans Square.
The glassed in area that once housed Walt's private and public
offices will be turned into glass cases that allow not only displays
of rare Disney art, but also provide a view into the gallery from
the Opera House lobby next door. New doorways will also be built in
the shared wall between the two spaces, allowing for Gallery
visitors to wander in to the Opera House lobby, and vice versa.
The hope of WDI is that Walt's offices can return to Anaheim in
an exhibit to be housed in the Carthay Circle Theater at the end of
DCA's new Buena Vista Street entrance complex. Their place in the
Disneyland Opera House will finally be relinquished after half of it
was sent to Orlando back in 2000 without a care by Cynthia Harriss,
and then the other half was sealed behind 50th Anniversary displays
five years later.
Night Moves
What is coming to Disneyland however is some big changes to the
entertainment lineup this summer. Originally we had told you that
the '09 summer lineup was going to be branded as "Tinker Bell's
Summer Nights," with a marketing campaign aimed at locals built
around the new floats in the Electrical Parade, a refreshed
Fantasmic, and the usual Disneyland date night summer offerings of
dancing and romancing under the stars. But in late '08, Michael
O'Grattan, then the Senior Vice President of Resort Operations,
began to dramatically scale back the Entertainment department's
plans for this summer. The broader Tinker Bell campaign has now been
shelved, as the free birthday admission is wildly more popular in
Anaheim than anyone imagined it would be and the Celebration
campaign will be the only marketing message for this summer.
Michael O'Grattan has now left Anaheim, one of the lucky few
senior executives who got to keep his job but was still moved out of
TDA, and he is now the Senior Vice President of Creative
Entertainment for all American parks up in Glendale. But what he
left is a dramatic rethinking of how the Entertainment department is
allowed to dictate how the Anaheim parks operate, particularly at
night. When Michael arrived in Anaheim just over a year ago he was
amazed at how disruptive the big nighttime spectaculars were to
Disneyland, particularly the Remember fireworks. Steve Davison did a
great job of creating that monumental pyro display for the 50th, but
it wreaks operational havoc all over the park, leaving in its
nightly wake a dozen closed attractions, shuttered bathrooms and
walkways, and gridlocked crowd control everywhere.
In order to put on the massive Remember display that shoots
pyrotechnics from the rooftops of Fantasyland to the top of the
Matterhorn, approximately one hour before showtime the ride
operators in Fantasyland need to shut down the following
attractions; Peter Pan's Flight, Snow White's Scary Adventures,
Pinocchio's Daring Journey, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Dumbo, King Arthur
Carousel, and Alice In Wonderland. Once those rides begin closing,
they also have to shut down all access through and around the
Castle, as well as Matterhorn Way, the major thoroughfare from the
Central Plaza up towards it's a small world. This also closes the
major Matterhorn Way bathroom facilities there for over an hour each
night.
Loo-land.
And if the wind is blowing from the north, it's a small world has
to begin shutting down an hour before show time as well so it can
also be cleared out, with the ride operators putting up barricade
ropes farther down the mall, which shuts down yet another major
bathroom facility at the Fantasyland Theater. The Disneyland
Railroad also has to stop running for over an hour so that it
doesn't enter the fallout zone as well. And finally, about 15
minutes before show time and regardless of wind speed, the
Disneyland Monorail stops operation to prevent trains from traveling
through the fallout zone along the beam on Matterhorn Way.
All of these closures and detours make for a maddening experience
for casual visitors who don't know the why's and the how's behind
this mess. Savvy Annual Passholders who stake out a spot in front of
the Castle an hour beforehand couldn't care less that Peter Pan or
the Monorail is closed each night, but the average tourist who
visits infrequently is left confused and frustrated to no end by the
closures. The ride operators who close all of the rides each night
take the brunt of the frustration, and are routinely yelled at for
closing a favorite ride for no apparent reason or denying an antsy
child access to the bathrooms that are clearly visible just beyond
the ropes. Some folks also end up at City Hall to complain there, or
vent their frustrations at the Disneyland Hotel desk clerks once the
packed monorail eventually starts up again and takes them back to
the rooms they paid an arm and a leg for because of the alleged
benefit of monorail access.
The operations departments that run Disneyland saw their
political clout shrink to barely anything during the Pressler and
Harriss years, and in Matt Ouimet's rush to put on a great party for
the 50th they continued to be ignored and their protests over the
Remember closures fell on deaf ears in TDA. But Michael O'Grattan
witnessed firsthand the nightly anger of the park visitors around
Fantasyland that was still happening nearly five years after the
show debuted, and he shook things up quite dramatically before he
left.
The end result is that the Disneyland Entertainment department
has been sent back to the drawing board and told to create a new
fireworks show that doesn't require a dozen closed attractions and
massive visitor frustration every night. In its place this summer
will be a simpler, shorter show that uses very limited pyrotechnics
from the Castle and abandons the rest of the launch sites located
around the park for Remember. The new show does not yet have an
official title. Peter Pan, Snow White and the Castle drawbridge will
likely still need to be closed for the limited Castle pyro to work,
but the strict edict was that no more than two attractions be closed
and Matterhorn Way is to remain open to allow north-south traffic
flow.
And so, the upcoming spring performances of the spectacular
Remember…Dreams Come True will be the last. That Michael O'Grattan
has now been sent up to Glendale to head up the creative development
of major park entertainment signals that these types of huge
logistical headaches won't be allowed in the future. The Disneyland
Entertainment department, a group that saw their clout and stature
grow by leaps and bounds over the last decade, now has a diminished
role in the new corporate structure being set up in Anaheim. We'll
continue to update you on that issue, as more change is likely on
the way.
Everything old is new again...
Beyond the parks, we'd told you last time how the economy has
thrown the property managers at Downtown Disney for a loop and put
the expansion plans on thin ice. But the ongoing saga of the
Disneyland Hotel refurbishment continues to chug along, with a plan
now being worked out that would keep the three towers pretty much
intact, but require them to be closed and gutted one at a time. WDI
has come up with a proposal to modernize every room in every tower,
while still keeping the basic steel skeleton of the structures in
place. Several model rooms have recently been mocked up in the
existing towers, with different design schemes set up inside each
one for executive viewings.
Not pink!
The new rooms are set to lose their sliding glass doors and faux
balconies, as the legal department doesn't want to see a repeat of
last year's suicide where a distraught man opened the sliding glass
doors and jumped over the railing of his 14th floor room in the
Disneyland Hotel's Wonder Tower. WDI was happy to gain the few extra
inches of floor space offered by this new safety mandate anyway, and
the overall look of the new towers and the rooms will play up their
mid century modern roots.
With the two proposed Disney operated hotels in limbo over at
GardenWalk due to the economy, it's a minor miracle that the
Disneyland Hotel plans keep getting tentative green lights. But then
the need to gut and rebuild it grows more desperate by the month it
seems. |