Disney Signs of the Times (and frikken' huge spider!)

[furtech]

A good friend invited me to do the "Free Disneyland Admission On Your Birthday" last Saturday. Pretty cool idea-- hope the guy who came up with it got a raise: he probably saved Disney's hindside this quarter.

Unfortunately, E's birthday fell on a Saturday this year. A *beautiful* Saturday, actually: clear skies, temps in the mid-60's. I expected a packed-park with long lines-- but both of us are perfectly happy to meander and she'd made reservations at the Blue Bayou ahead of time. I'm all over that!

Imagine my surprise to find...no crowds! I haven't seen the park this empty in -years- (a rainy weekday). We got there around noon and the wait for the Haunted Mansion was 5-minutes...15 minutes for Pirates! The longest line we found was for the Nemo-Submarines (45min). The park was pleasantly empty! We had a great time! Only negative was we're between parades. Still, it made for a fantastic day at The Park!

I have to think the economy has a lot to do with this, unfortunately. I was surprised at just how many people were wearing the "Birthday" buttons. The genius is that no one comes to D'land alone and even the birthday boy/girl will buy stuff!

On a wholly different tack, I came across a link about newly discovered critters in Tibet. The two most amazing were a neon pink millipede (below) and the world's largest spider .

Comments

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

wowwwwwwww... and to think last year they were still having peak crowds :|

Well, last I heard it was near $70 for ONE person to go in there, and $94 for a two-park pass (just saw that tonight on a pass in the checkout aisle at the supermarket). That really is NUTS when ya consider it was still $7.50 before Eisner took over.

The real death-knell began (in some cast-members humble opinion) was when they bought the money-sucking ABC Network. Not only has it been a drain, that's the time they told us that with ALL those new employees coming in, they would be cutting our park-access days in HALF.

Time to cut that tv tumor loose. :/

It's long been contended that employee comps are a money-maker for the company, bringing guests in that would otherwise not attend. I know when I go in there I often spend scores of bux on mickey-knick-knacks and food.

But there still are a few 'super geeeeeenius' v.p. types who have backasswards reasoning, and still want to clench the darth-vader-neck-grasp even tighter, further lightening attendance even more (which is what's happening now). Even one of the managers I know (not just rank and file) got a nudge-warning recently in the form of a letter, to curtail her sign-ins.
If every one of her sign-ins last year had not existed, Disney would be out between $7,000 and $28,000 (based on conservative estimates of their spending).

Unfortunately, corporations historically aren't all that smart when it comes to deflecting stupid little groupthink ideas that arise to cloud the clarity in their ego-filled bureaucratic corners. :/

(oh, and I don't mean to discount the free-birthday idea promotion.. that's pretty good actually.. a long time coming I'd say...) :>

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you! Disney (and many other companies) went downhill when the bean-counters took control. I'm sort of amazed that the "Free-on-Birthday" thing actually got off the ground. Your manager-friend is a perfect example of how much a body (even a free one) spends at the park. I know we more than made up for E's free membership in spending at the park.

[pikacello.livejournal.com]

Oh. MY. GODDDDDDD

[furtech.livejournal.com]

Wow-- you're a toughie! It takes a neon-pink millipede to get you to post! Do you know how hard it is to find things as amazing as that? Of course, four-week-old puppies also worked, but those are pretty rare, too!