Disney CEO-Of-The-Near-Future Josh D’Amaro, currently in charge of the company’s only money-making division (albeit less and less of it all the time) involved with “Experiences” is an experienced man, business man, and manager. So he’s got to know an age-old adage we’ve all heard since childhood: “You can’t get blood out of a turnip.”
This, of course, does not refer to actual life juice nor root veggies. What it means is that even for a company like The Walt Disney Igerdom, you can only squeeze the peeps so much before they say “Ooops, all out. Empty. No longer ‘income qualified’ for this Shinola. Bye.”
Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro via Disney Parks YouTube
Why do I mention this axiom? Because this week D’Amaro’s official response to the much-asked question about Universal’s Epic Universe, the about-to-open competition park just up the road from WDW (and paid for, we might note, from Disney’s obligatory and not even finished yet purchase of U’s share of Hulu) and whether it will at all dent the Mouse’s dominance in the Orlando area is….well…curious.
It seems Josh wants us to believe that, to use another old axiom, a rising tide floats all boats. He claims that bringing more people to the Orlando area in general has to be a good thing for Disney, too. The fact that some rising tides are tsunamis that SINK lots of boats doesn’t seem to have dented his positive spin machine mind. But let’s face a few facts and see if we believe that HE believes his own bovine excrement.
Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World at Magic Kingdom during a clear Orlando day – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
First: Families (you remember them—the primary audience for theme park resort experiences and the moms, pops, and grandfolk who actually have the money to spend on such things for their kids and grandkids) are taxed by life these days. After the lockdown crunch and all the effects of years of Bidenomics, people are watching their pennies more because they have to.
That means the number of shekels they have to shell out on major, expensive, nation-or-even-world-spanning vacations is more carefully and more occasionally spent because it has to be.
Epcot Spaceship Earth Walt Disney World Orlando 2010. Photo Credit: chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Second: Disney has done things in the recent past that dilute their “only game in town” strategies that used to keep the Disney fan base on- or near-property. That means keeping folks away from the already existent Universal parks and experiences, let alone the new extravaganza getting all the attention and causing wiser journalistic types to ask the Mouse how come they haven’t seemed ready to compete with it.
Among those major missteps, the key one was eliminating the “Disney Magical Express” free bus ride and luggage transfer from the Orlando airport direct to Disney’s hotels and parks. It was not only a super great perk for guests but a way of stranding them captive at Disney and unable without considerable expense and effort to even visit Universal (or Sea World or any other attraction).
The exterior of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure in Walt Disney World – Photo Credit: M. Montanaro
Throw in the demise and variations of the dining plan versions, the raising of prices on everything from tickets to line-jump schemes to food and merch and you see a company seeming to go out of its way to force the average family to think long and hard about their Disney trip and whether they really need to go EVERY year or whether every two or three would do.
AND THAT of course makes the whole “We go every year anyhow, why not get an apartment and kitchen and equity by buying into DVC timeshares even if they, too, are getting pricier with no limits an annual maintenance fee increases” decision more problematic as well.
The five themed lands of Universal Orlando’s Epic Universe – YouTube, Universal Orlando Resort
Third and, in my opinion, most importantly, because Disney’s past policies kept the customers as captive audience members, EPIC doesn’t just represent a new park to explore, visiting it will also engender visits to the existing Universal parks such as their Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Volcano Bay water park. Not to mention Universal City Walk restaurants and shops. To steal a line from Disney’s prior Arabian adventure, it could bring “A whole new world!” beyond Disney World to their attention and, perhaps, delight.
So thinking of the NEW park as a one-shot competitor is shortsighted in the extreme, especially in an era when Disney, instead of having planned another gate for the past decade, is happily destroying rivers, Muppets, and favorites in their current parks. They’re turning their own “whole OLD world” into a festival of construction walls that, green or not, never seem to “go away.”
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA – NOVEMBER 11: (L-R) Ken Potrock, Asad Ayaz, Ariana DeBose and Josh D’Amaro at Disneyland with a performance from Wish at Disneyland on November 11, 2023 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)
SO…back to Josh’s joshing with the media, will EPIC bring new audiences to Orlando? Absolutely. Will they have the funds, interest, or ability to go there for a day and then come back to WDW with its higher prices, lesser attractions, and self-destruction of landmark memory spots?
Well, Josh, I refer you to the blood-vs-turnip way I began this essay and say “In your Disney dreams, boyo, and you know it, too.”
The portal to Dark Universe at Universal’s Epic Universe theme park – Photo Credit: Marvin Montanaro
Orlando is now indeed a “whole new world” of choices for penny-pinched tourists, and the new and shiny ones are inevitably going to get their primary attention, spending, and leave them with little left over for the tired, old, and retromingent former champs (look it up and chuckle, folks! Trust your Uncle Lew it’ll make you smile.)
What do you think about Josh D’Amaro claiming Epic Universe will help Disney? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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