DCA, Future Expansion
Topic: Ratatouille Coaster

#	Author	Message
71	Spirit of 74 Mon 10/15/2007 4:30p	Disneyland Paris is a wonderful resort with amazing detail, great attractions and dining and a place any Disney fan should see. (Having Paris only 35 minutes away ain't bad either!) I went and liked it so much I bought an AP and went back three times in the last 18 months. As to its financial undoing, there were many, many factors that have already been listed here. But overbuilding of hotel rooms was a huge one ... the first few winter seasons, they shuttered the Newport Bay Club (the largest of their resorts and I believe still the largest hotel in Europe). If they had only 1,000 rooms to fill at the start instead of 6,000, the bottom line would have been much better. Now, they regularly have occupancies well above 80%. If they sold wine in the park to begin with instead of going with what had been a Disney custom, the bottom line would have been better. If they hadn't assumed that the French would buy as much Disney crap as their American and Japanese counterparts, the bottom line would have been better. And, yeah, if they built a cheaper, crappier park, the bottom line would have been better. What many people forget is that Euro Disney immediately became the No. 1 tourist destination in Europe after it opened. The audience was there from the start. The understanding of what that audience wanted/expected and didn't want wasn't. They still have difficulties. Of course building a park that makes DCA look like the greatest place on earth as a second gate didn't help either.
72	mstaft Mon 10/15/2007 6:00p	My wife and I found the French wonderful, both inside and outside of DLP. Unless you've been there, you have little idea of how the French act. Stereotypes work both ways for harm.
73	TDR_Fan Mon 10/15/2007 7:52p	I think they definitely should have held back on building a second gate, though I hear land ownership laws required them to. Disneyland Paris was actually making a profit befor Walt Disney Studios dragged the resort back in the red again. Considering that it's only getting about 2 million guests a year (pathetic for any Disney park), it would've been better to add more E-tickets to the original Disneyland Park. Look at what Space Mountain did in 1995.
74	Skellington88 Mon 10/15/2007 10:17p	even with lavish e-tickets and a better second park I just don't think the french would visit the resort more. I wish they would just shut down the whole paris resort and ship whatever they can to the parks in California, Florida, and Japan.
75	Hans Reinhardt Mon 10/15/2007 10:18p	I think that they were obligated to build a second gate under contract with the French government.
76	Hans Reinhardt Mon 10/15/2007 10:19p	"I wish they would just shut down the whole paris resort and ship whatever they can to the parks in California, Florida, and Japan." Why on Earth would you wish that?
77	jonvn Mon 10/15/2007 10:21p	"even with lavish e-tickets and a better second park I just don't think the french would visit the resort more. " It really is the single most visited tourist attraction in all Europe. It still gets fewer visitors than Fisherman's Wharf in SF. But it is very popular. They just made a lot of mistakes in building and financing it. As far as the French go, my wife has been a couple times to france, and outside of Paris, the French people are very nice, in Paris, the people are snobs even to each other. But it's not as bad as most people say. I think people just like to hate the French because they are so very French.
78	TDR_Fan Mon 10/15/2007 10:23p	Disneyland Paris is such a beautiful park. Easily the most well-designed and elaborate of the Magic Kingdoms. It really is a shame that the French didn't immediately take a liking to it. After all, many changes were implemented in the design of the park to better suit their taste and culture.
79	2001DLFan Mon 10/15/2007 11:20p	<<jonvn: The thing is with the hotels that is hard for me to believe is that they were in so very much debt that it is more than just the hotels. People didn't like the souvenirs, they didn't like the food options, the employees didn't like what they were paid, people were not staying at all. And, not the least of which was the collapse of the real estate market after the park opened. They had planned on recouping a lot of the costs through building offices and other buildings that could be leased. That was not able to be done. A huge revenue stream that was counted on just evaporated. All sorts of things, not just the simple too many hotels idea.>> OK. Well the EDL issue is fairly extensive, but I'll try and give it a try. EuroDisneyland was an extremely detailed and well thought out park. The attention to detail was outstanding and the quality of the craftsmanship was top notch. Unfortunately, there were a few misses that they realized once the park opened. First, their assumption that Europeans didn't want fast food and preferred leisurely sit down meals was wrong. Also, Disney's alcohol policy was an issue. Then, there was the marketing. Disney decided to forgo anything about the quality and environment of the park and focus on characters. Unfortunately, in another total miss, they didn't take into account that Europeans considered characters as kiddy fare. And they weren't willing to spend the full park price that Disney set (the first time that any Disney park had opened without a general admission ticket available). So, with those two issues, and the negative French press, there was a lot stacked against the park. HOWEVER, great word of mouth was able to push the park's attendance to within 1 million of it's projection (12 million as I recall) the first year. In fact, the park was so successful that people complained that there weren't enough attractions and Disney had to rush another ten attractions in the following year. BUT THEN THERE WERE THE HOTELS. Eisner demanded that they open five hotels around the park for opening. The big problems with that was: 1. for much of the year, the park closed at 6:30 2. The RER that they the French build to their front door had it's final run soon after closing. 3. Paris was only 20 miles away. It's nightlife started after the park's closing. 4. Only those with cars were able to get to Paris after the RER's last run 5. There was nothing (activities, restaurants outside of hotels, etc.) available for anyone staying on those hotels to occupy the guests. So, soon after opening, they had to shut down several of the hotels (three I think). It took a couple of years for them to build some infrastructure to provide guests with a reason to stay there. The only successful hotel was the Disneyland Hotel that was located at the entrance of the park. That hotel was constantly at capacity. Even a year after the park's opening, Eisner was using the park as a scapegoat in order to secure refinancing, covering the hotel's shortcomings for the overall financial problems they were faced with. OK, I hope that helps clear up the issues with Disneyland Paris' financial issues.
80	davewasbaloo Tue 10/16/2007 12:04a	>>>Oh boy, if they had put this in spain, it would have been fabulous. Spain would have really been grateful and the Spanish people would have not have behaved like the French at all.<<< No, the behaviour would have been worse. Although Port Adventura (built by Busch, owned by Universal for a time - on the med coast between Barcelona and Valencia) is a fun park, my 2nd fav resort in Europe, the behaviour of the Spanish makes the visitors to DLP seem polite. Also, Paris is much easier to hop to for a weekend from across Europe, Spain is not. For those of you who live outside Europe, you really are clueless. Paris is gunning for the long weekend regular visits market (ala DL) with the most popular city in Europe less than an hour away. Spain would have been a destination resort ala WDW, but much more expensive. There were a lot of mistakes for EDL, but the Paris site made much more sense all around. (even though the selfish part of me was gunning for the UK site, it didn't make good business sense).

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