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Sorry, Star Wars dorks.

Deej

By Deej
in Daily Texan

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mdmost

mdmost 43059

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Posted (edited)

Supposedly Disney was going to take the whole thing down in December of this year and retool it. Instead, they just pulled the plug. The retooling could've been opening it as just a normal hotel or Disney Vacation Club hotel but it's not very big and doesn't have the typical amenities of other Disney hotels like a pool and food court. The rooms are not designed for you to hang out in as they're super small. I'd imagine they looked at the cost of retooling and just figured it was time to take the loss now with all the others for this fiscal year. Chapek really was a shitty CEO.

Edited by mdmost
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Homercles

Homercles 10206

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For kicks I looked up Chapek’s 2022 compensation on his way out…~$20M total including $6.75M bonus.  Nothing’s going to stop this out of control CEO compensation arms race but it still blows my mind how you can ‘fail’ with a bonus 4x your salary yet shutdown a themed hotel for losing money. 
 

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/disney-ceo-bob-chapek-fired-severance-2022-compensation-1235491926/

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mdmost

mdmost 43059

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2 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

So what happens to the building?

Unclear. I doubt they bulldoze it. It will probably sit there until they can figure out what to do with it. It's situated in a good space with lots of land around it. Maybe it could be a Star Wars Land expansion site since it sits right outside the existing land. Disney isn't in a rush to spend money right now. 

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Rimbo

Rimbo 26158

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11 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Yes, thank you, I know what sunk costs are. Furthermore. See below. 

I get that, but this is also the first we’ve heard of any changes…and it’s closing. They didn’t even try to tweak it to make it viable. Not enough customers? Tweak pricing. Remove the 2 day only limit per stay. Open it more days a week. Create new packages. Less employees in character. Etc. They didnt try to change or alter anything. They just ran it one way and then announced its closing. that’s what’s weird. Also, at a place like Disney, it can’t be utility cost. Even if it’s just sucking electricity, which I doubt as screens don’t eat that much power, it can’t be making Disney flinch. It’s not the cost of operating a data center. I hope they release more details as to why, because it really seems weird to me. 

 

9 hours ago, mdmost said:

Supposedly Disney was going to take the whole thing down in December of this year and retool it. Instead, they just pulled the plug. The retooling could've been opening it as just a normal hotel or Disney Vacation Club hotel but it's not very big and doesn't have the typical amenities of other Disney hotels like a pool and food court. The rooms are not designed for you to hang out in as they're super small. I'd imagine they looked at the cost of retooling and just figured it was time to take the loss now with all the others for this fiscal year. Chapek really was a shitty CEO.

Yep. I imagine they looked at the alternatives and none made fiscal sense.

It's also possible that it was a hate-closure of the previous guy's shit, or a reaction to DeSatanist, but I think mdmost has the right of it. It's the simplest explanation.

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YGIFS

YGIFS 19452

Posted
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1 hour ago, Deej said:

Austin city council is looking into purchasing it for the homeless. 

 But hey, we're not gonna pay anything over a 7x cap rate.  

 

And yes, we'd prefer it if we could pay for the monorail be extended from the hotel to Austin as per our specs.  Thank you and good night.

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Schulz2.0

Schulz2.0 29019

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23 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

We estimate extending the monorail from Disney World to Austin will cost $50,000 and take approximately 2 weeks.  Just vote yes on authorizing it, and we promise there won't be any delays or cost overruns.

Needs a catchy song.

giphy.gif?cid=6c09b9525ef8a84a1da1f7a748

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52-80

52-80 19271

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On 5/20/2023 at 3:30 PM, SydneyCarton said:

I get that, but this is also the first we’ve heard of any changes…and it’s closing. They didn’t even try to tweak it to make it viable. Not enough customers? Tweak pricing. Remove the 2 day only limit per stay. Open it more days a week. Create new packages. Less employees in character. Etc. They didnt try to change or alter anything. They just ran it one way and then announced its closing. that’s what’s weird. Also, at a place like Disney, it can’t be utility cost. Even if it’s just sucking electricity, which I doubt as screens don’t eat that much power, it can’t be making Disney flinch. It’s not the cost of operating a data center. I hope they release more details as to why, because it really seems weird to me. 

The SW Dork experience was a scab.  Sometimes you dont just trim the dead tissue you cut the whole thing out.  Opex of sub-park is multiplicative, beyond electricty cost.  Must have all those unique equipment inventory, different employee training for the program, different marketing.  It's not a restaurant offering +1 dish, its a restaurant offering +1 cuisine.

On 5/20/2023 at 5:12 PM, mdmost said:

Supposedly Disney was going to take the whole thing down in December of this year and retool it.

In Q1 they announced 7000 job cuts and targeted $5.5B cost reduction for the year, 2.5 of which is physical (i.e. non content).

Domestic Parks segment of business was losing margin sequentially.  Had increased revenue more than offset by increased wages and inflated costs of supplies, etc.  Reducing pricing on the SW stay would've made that metric worse.

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PenelopeWitherspoon

PenelopeWitherspoon 19165

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 5/20/2023 at 10:51 AM, Brisketexan said:


In terms of ROI…this isn’t far off from what would have to be on offer for me or most any other sane male to sign up.

For $2-3k a night….yeah, there are a LOT more entertaining options out there in this world.

This was my thought.  I love Star Wars, but (1) I hate Florida, (2) I am not a Disney dork, and (3) I would much rather pay $2-3k a night and stay in a place I actully want to be, like the Borgo Sant Andrea in Amalfi, or the Royal Mansour in Marrakech.  

 

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Bevo

Bevo 13602

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Posted
1 hour ago, PenelopeWitherspoon said:

This was my thought.  I love Star Wars, but (1) I hate Florida, (2) I am not a Disney dork, and (3) I would much rather take $2-3k a night and stay in a place I actully want to be, like the Borgo Sant Andrea in Amalfi, or the Royal Mansour in Marrakech.  

 

Or the Motel Inn off of Lelia St. in Houston.

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mdmost

mdmost 43059

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18 minutes ago, The Dog said:

all people wanted was a Star Wars themed value resort.

Yes, I think if Disney had opened it as that it would've worked. Chapek was always focused on the top end customer to the detriment of the budget customer. 

Josh D'Amaro is talking about the closure at a business conference. Write off could be 300 million:

 

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orange dream

orange dream 1256

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Ok, I know 3 different people / families who have gone to stay at this place.  They all said it was really neat.  Hearing their descriptions made it sound interesting but the cost was certainly more than I would have been willing to pay for the experience. Seems like it didn't take long to work through the crowd that was willing to pay the asking price for it.

Based on me randomly know 3 purchasers, some Surly poster has definitely been to this. Time to give us the inside scoop.  I won't lie and say, "no judgment" but it will be administered in a loving surly manner.

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Rimbo

Rimbo 26158

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10 hours ago, 52-80 said:

i want to see the video recording of the people pitching an idea of a $6k stay to disney management.

 

this shit is only $30 from aliexpress

506e781fd268e5dd8e9dca69f433d85e.jpg

 

There's a great story behind that.

Used to be a site called ThinkGeek that sold all kinds of nerd-related merch. It was fantastic; you could pretty much just browse the site if you wanted to get me a gift.

Once upon an April Fool's Day, they put up a ton of hilarious fake products, including this one. But this one led to massive customer demand ... so they went out and made the contacts to make it happen.

It all started as a ThinkGeek April Fool's joke and became real. Glad to see you can still get them, even if ThinkGeek is long dead and gone.

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Rimbo

Rimbo 26158

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10 hours ago, 52-80 said:

Reducing pricing on the SW stay would've made that metric worse.

I mean, that assumes the reduced pricing doesn't coincide with increased demand, which is what you expect; if you're below capacity, you can (and should) end up with increased revenues in total. The high price tag was a huge demand killer in this case; the separation from the rest of the parks was as well.

That's why price cuts and retooling keep getting suggested as alternatives; without knowing more details of the operational costs, they seem, superficially, like good ideas.

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52-80

52-80 19271

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22 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

There's a great story behind that.

Used to be a site called ThinkGeek that sold all kinds of nerd-related merch. It was fantastic; you could pretty much just browse the site if you wanted to get me a gift.

Once upon an April Fool's Day, they put up a ton of hilarious fake products, including this one. But this one led to massive customer demand ... so they went out and made the contacts to make it happen.

It all started as a ThinkGeek April Fool's joke and became real. Glad to see you can still get them, even if ThinkGeek is long dead and gone.

Kathleen Kennedy wants to know your location 

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SydneyCarton

SydneyCarton 48214

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1 hour ago, orange dream said:

Ok, I know 3 different people / families who have gone to stay at this place.  They all said it was really neat.  Hearing their descriptions made it sound interesting but the cost was certainly more than I would have been willing to pay for the experience. Seems like it didn't take long to work through the crowd that was willing to pay the asking price for it.

Based on me randomly know 3 purchasers, some Surly poster has definitely been to this. Time to give us the inside scoop.  I won't lie and say, "no judgment" but it will be administered in a loving surly manner.

You think anyone who has that kind of disposable income cares about your judgement of how they light their money on fire? 

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hornbri

hornbri 1418

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I will step up for the pain.

We went last April and I thought it was a great experience, our two kids 6 and 9 loved it. The actors were running in tune, the hotel was full of people. It is much more geared for young kids. The interactions with the actors played into that. 

But even if you decide to pay 6k for something like this, i don’t see why you would do it more then once. They would need to change all the story lines and to some extent the “sets”. I am guessing when they were going to need get the cost down 50% and to do that was going to be to expensive. 

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