Greg Maletic: Disney's Biggest Theme Park Mistakes
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Same Pricing for All
Parks
At a given resort, Disney always charges the same admission price for each
theme park. Here's the marketing reason: all of its magical wonderlands
need to seem equally special. Here's the reality: they're not all equally
special. And nobody thinks they are. What trick does Disney think they're trying
to pull?
Who would think that California Adventure was as good as Disneyland,
even assuming they thought California Adventure was a wonderful place to begin
with? Disneyland is known world-over as the best. It has three times as many
attractions, including landmark ones that any American could name off the top of
their head. It has the Disney characters that little kids want to see. How could
anyone in their right mind think that these two parks are equivalent products?
And why would Disney want to promote them as such? It's delusional.
California Adventure unquestionably had many problems when it opened, but
pricing it identically to Disneyland was an astonishingly naive mistake that
exacerbated all of its issues. What could possibly be wrong with sending a
signal that a brand new, significantly smaller park may be--just may be--not as
good as the world's greatest?
Walt Disney World
"Urban Planning"
Walt Disney World was supposed to be Walt's dreams of urban planning made
incarnate. Yet here we are thirty-seven years later: could the place be laid out
any worse?
"EPCOT," The Name
A less appealing name would be hard to think up, but worst of all, it has
utterly nothing to do with the park that was actually built. Did they really
think that by choosing the name that Walt used (and who knows what attachment he
really had to it) that they were satisfying Walt's dream, despite the fact that
they'd--rightly or not--totally changed everything about his design?
But the problem is worse than an ugly name. What to build in this park?
What -not- to build? Disney seems confused. The fact that the name of the park
means nothing must have something to do with this confusion.
EPCOT, The Place
It isn't that Epcot doesn't have its moments. World Showcase can be
charming and features some good restaurants. (San Angel Inn...I'm looking at you
as the notable, terrible exception.) Future World, at its very best, can be
inspiring.
So when I call it one of Disney's biggest mistakes, it doesn't mean that I
hate the place. It just means that I wonder what Disney could have done with a
similar amount of money had they not felt obligated to carry through with a
watered-down version of Walt's dream. A more tightly-focused, World
Showcase-like shopping mall, not burdened with the baggage of Future
World? A Magic Kingdom "plussed" beyond all reason? An American DisneySea?
Something better than any of those?
Just mentioning the park generates a guaranteed laugh when it crops up on
"The Simpsons" or any stand-up comedy routine. Disney's other parks don't
generate the same kind of snickers: something is wrong.
Two Parks = Resort
Two of Disney's biggest messes in the past twenty years have been in Paris
and Anaheim, thanks to a devotion to the idea that adding a cheap second park to
a location turns it into a place that people will plan their vacations around.
We've seen the results, and the lesson is clear: you can't just call a
place a "resort" and expect people to automatically stay for a week. It worked
in Orlando, but people had been taking winter breaks to Florida for years;
Disney World just gave them a more exciting and convenient way to do that.
Though people love traveling to Paris, they aren't looking for a resort. Same
for Anaheim. Both of these locations seem to be turning things around, but the
concept of "two parks = resort" should be buried.
Setting a Park's Budget
Disneyland Paris was too expensive. California Adventure, Walt Disney
Studios Paris, and Hong Kong Disneyland were too cheap. A more complicated
problem in finance would be difficult to find, but clearly, the Walt Disney
Company hasn't got its formula straight.
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