Why didn't Disney reopen the *new* DCA all at once?

[strikeuptheband]

This might have been asked before but why didn't Disney decide to close DCA for a year or so to work on the whole expansion to have it 1) completed without guest interruptions during the day, 2) make it seem like the whole park got refreshed all at once, 3) to have a significant transition between DCA 1.0 to 2.0 and 4) to build anticipation for all the new attractions opening up all at once?

Instead Disney kept DCA operating while opening/removing things step by step in the past 5 years.

Just imagine... after a year of DCA being closed to the public, the June 15th grand reopening debuts two new lands: Buena Vista Street, Cars Land, a new nighttime spectacular: World of Color, A re-imagined Victorian pier with new attractions: Toy Story Mania and Ariel's Undersea Adventure, the removal of bad puns, new dance parties, and many more of the expansion projects.

NOW THAT WOULD BRING CROWDS IN FOR SURE!

I know our whole idea of "project tracking" won't exist if Disney decided to do this in 2007 but wouldn't it be cool to leave DCA 1.0 with the Beach Boys postcard entrance, an industrial-looking Pier, a land filled with Caterpillar tractors, and giant spaceship hamburgers and come back (after being closed) with the whole 5 year expansion completed?
That would definitely give Disney a reason to advertise a *new* park!

[MrsMonroe]

no because disney would be at loss of a lot of money. they wanted DCA to make money as they were refreshing it. the billion wasnt spent all at once. the over all cost was 1 billion and they figured they could be making the money back as the spent it. plus that would have put many cast members out of work and the local economy would HATE disney for putting so many people out of work

[strikeuptheband]

^ true, true. You've got a good point there. I must have been fantasizing too much about how crazy popular DCA would be if the expansion happened all at the same time. Now if Disney kept DCA open, yet didn't open any attractions until grand reopening, would that make a difference? CM would still be working, the money could still flow through but at the same time still build that GRAND anticipation.

[MrsMonroe]

just like you i like the idea of surprising the public with a mega park on June 15th but money is the issue. people arent spending over $70 for a park that keeps getting less rides every year. now the park is complete. so basically disney would have lost money doing that. opening the new rides when they did balanced out everything

[Theme Park Penguin]

They did it in phases so they have something to attract tourists to come to the park each year for

[MrsMonroe]

exactly

[WorldDisney]

For starters, as the other poster mentioned, Disney would be out A LOT of money!!! Have any idea how much money they would be losing to close a park for a year while at the same time spending a billion dollars on it? Its going to take YEARS to get the money from the expansion back already, so the last thing you do is keep it closed when you can open it little at a time and get more people in the park.

And two, what would be the point exactly? Yes you would have a few new things open at once like WOC and TLM, but the reality is there is a lot NOW that they opened this month with all the new entertainment, rides and restaurants that its already overwelming enough. Now they have a very captive audience thats been building even more with all the new stuff they introduced the past few years.

No what they did was the smart move. And they did push things off like TLM which was originally suppose to open in 2010 and BVS which was suppose to open last year to give them more time and bigger impact!

[dougeebear]

"Generating crowds" is not something Disney needs, or wants, to do. They're not very good at handling capacity crowds, as seen from the Feb 29th disaster. They don't have enough parking, they have to bring in additional staff, and (not that it matters to the numbers crunchers at TDA) the guest experience is diminished.

Closing DCA would have resulted in loss of revenue, certainly from food and merchandise sales. Closing DCA would have removed it as Disneyland's capacity overflow park, and there would have been far more Disneyland closures to new entries as a result.

Given that each new attraction opening at DCA has generated significant crowds for months, imagine trying to push through over 1 million Passholders plus ticketed guests. The park would be at capacity for over a year, with many people giving up trying to get in (and probably never coming back as a result).

Disney did the right thing by staggering new ride and entertainment openings, continuing to generate revenue, functioning as overflow, and generating buzz for new offerings by keeping DCA open during construction. PLUS it meant that the Halloween Parties moved back over to Disneyland.

[flynnibus]

This might have been asked before but why didn't Disney decide to close DCA for a year or so to work on the whole expansion to have it 1) completed without guest interruptions during the day, 2) make it seem like the whole park got refreshed all at once, 3) to have a significant transition between DCA 1.0 to 2.0 and 4) to build anticipation for all the new attractions opening up all at once?

Lets start with...

• If you closed half the Resort - people would demand you change your ticket prices. That means immediate money loss for Disney
• What do you do for those APs who paid for 2 parks
• What do you do when you need to furlow 1/3 or more of your workforce because you just closed their park for a year. That would disrupt all their manpower
• Why would you want more than half of the park be available, but sit completely idle. That is massive assets you have that SHOULD be earning you money just sitting idle COSTING you money because you still must maintain them

It's just not worth it when you really only were changing a small part of the existing park.

[ArchimedesWhatWhat]

As everyone says money...

I also think it would be difficult to keep anticipation up for 5 years.

It would also look really bad if they closed a park. Rebuilt it and it still failed. It is a lot easier to say, we did as much enhancing as we could but the public didn’t accept it. Instead of... we failed twice.

Plus if it would of closed in 2007 that would have been Disney officially announcing they failed, since they would have closed their new theme park after only 6 short years. Keeping it open let them deny this fact. In the future, people will just think the park was different when it first opened, just as we know Disneyland was different when it first opened. Not that the park failed, and Disney pretty much built a new one.

[MrsMonroe]

"Generating crowds" is not something Disney needs, or wants, to do. They're not very good at handling capacity crowds, as seen from the Feb 29th disaster. They don't have enough parking, they have to bring in additional staff, and (not that it matters to the numbers crunchers at TDA) the guest experience is diminished.

Closing DCA would have resulted in loss of revenue, certainly from food and merchandise sales. Closing DCA would have removed it as Disneyland's capacity overflow park, and there would have been far more Disneyland closures to new entries as a result.

Given that each new attraction opening at DCA has generated significant crowds for months, imagine trying to push through over 1 million Passholders plus ticketed guests. The park would be at capacity for over a year, with many people giving up trying to get in (and probably never coming back as a result).

Disney did the right thing by staggering new ride and entertainment openings, continuing to generate revenue, functioning as overflow, and generating buzz for new offerings by keeping DCA open during construction. PLUS it meant that the Halloween Parties moved back over to Disneyland.

Disneyland went 46 years without a problem

[DisneyIPresume]

Also if the park was to close and re-open in the way the OP describes, one thing that would be missing is the dance parties.

I doubt Disney would have closed the park and added the dance parties once the park re-opened. They were meant to serve as a holding pen for people waiting to see WOC. If the park closed and re-opened they wouldn't have needed the dance parties as Carsland would have provided this function instead. As it turns out the dance parties were wildly successful in their own right and became an attraction themselves so much so that DCA 2.0 would be significantly different if they weren't there at all.

[MrsMonroe]

very god point

[Ryan120420]

Opening attractions in phases gives people incentive to come back after each new attraction opens. So instead of one visit to see all the new attractions, they'll come back year after year to see what the new thing is.


And an operational theme park makes more money than a closed one.