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Disneyland Paris: General Discussion

I’m not an expert on investment, but we’ve seen quite a few tech companies achieve sky high valuations without turning a profit. To be fair, some really big ones made loses for a long time, but eventually the investors got their pay off. Many other Dot Com companies went no where.

I haven’t been following Disney’s share price in any detail, but isn’t their rising valuation more to do with future expectations than past profits? I don’t think the rising share price means that they’ve been making big profits over the last year. It’s more that Disney Plus has been going well, and given the size of Disney’s back catalogue and the strength of their brands, investors are expecting a lot more growth to come.

Presumably, investors are also optimistic about the vaccine and the speed of the recovery, and the potential to do well in China.
 
I’m not an expert on investment, but we’ve seen quite a few tech companies achieve sky high valuations without turning a profit. To be fair, some really big ones made loses for a long time, but eventually the investors got their pay off. Many other Dot Com companies went no where.

I haven’t been following Disney’s share price in any detail, but isn’t their rising valuation more to do with future expectations than past profits? I don’t think the rising share price means that they’ve been making big profits over the last year. It’s more that Disney Plus has been going well, and given the size of Disney’s back catalogue and the strength of their brands, investors are expecting a lot more growth to come.

Presumably, investors are also optimistic about the vaccine and the speed of the recovery, and the potential to do well in China.

It is not just their share price. They have posted huge revenues for last year. Revenues that were higher than the totals a few years ago pre pandemic. So it is not like the share price has risen based on speculation or hot air as it can be with companies. The business is conducting massive amounts of business, as proven in their huge revenues. So this is what the share price is based on, a solid foundation of plently of actual trading and business transactions.
 
I’m not an expert on investment, but we’ve seen quite a few tech companies achieve sky high valuations without turning a profit. To be fair, some really big ones made loses for a long time, but eventually the investors got their pay off. Many other Dot Com companies went no where.

I haven’t been following Disney’s share price in any detail, but isn’t their rising valuation more to do with future expectations than past profits? I don’t think the rising share price means that they’ve been making big profits over the last year. It’s more that Disney Plus has been going well, and given the size of Disney’s back catalogue and the strength of their brands, investors are expecting a lot more growth to come.

Presumably, investors are also optimistic about the vaccine and the speed of the recovery, and the potential to do well in China.
It depends what investors you have, how they see the prospects of your business and how the market sees them. The reason tech companies achieved such high valuations is that they were seen as future proofed, in laymen's terms.

If Disney are in good financial health, their brands and products remain popular and they, the market and investors think that they are following the right strategy then their share price will do well. If high investment in parks is seen as a good strategy, regardless of the year they've had, then investors and the market think that's a good strategy.

You also have yields, dividends and a whole lot of technical market politics to consider (look at GameStop!) but generally, stock market listed companies thrive on confidence.

There are companies (I used to work for one) that have healthy balance sheets and are highly profitable, but their share price isn't going anywhere. In that particular case, it's because the market wasn't confident enough of the business plan. It mirrors my opinion of that particular company as well (I sold my employee shares in them at the right time as a result) that they were a good short or medium term bet, but the strategy they were following was not sustainable and that they'd damaged the long term prospects of the company.

They were (still are actually) effectively robbing future Peter to pay present Paul. This was evident at the end of every financial year when the CEO would pat himself on the back every year in front of the market, gaining darling press articles, yet sending me and my a colleagues a letter at the same time holding back part of our bonuses and raiding our pension schemes pleading poverty.

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In conclusion, we know as a matter of fact that Disney is in a very strong financial position, very strong revenues, healthy profits and souring share price, despite the pandemic. Again not my oppinion, a fact.

Given that, we could pretty accurately predict that investors and shareholders have a very strong confidence in Disneys current strategies across their theme parks, strategies that include strong investments across the properties. Including Paris.

This is why I see it unlikely we will see massive cut backs into investment. We may see things toned down a little and maybe even delayed a little but. Overall, a smaller impact than people seem to think.

If there was no confidence in Disneys current plans for large scale investments such as this new Star Wars land at Paris, it would be reflected in the share price and the overall loss of confidence from shareholders and investors. Non of this is apparent at all, quite the opposite. Which shows huge confidence in their current game plan, huge confidence from the people who can make or break projects like this.
 
There's no denying that however badly Disney suffered from last year they did a lot better than all their competitors. Disney+ launched at just the right time. It's become my go to streaming service because of the shear quantity of top quality content, with no given expiry dates either.

Their film and TV departments have been effected but with Disney+ giving them a guaranteed home they haven't had to stop.

The Theme Park and live entertainment division's have of course been hit hard. But again they were quick to react and while thousands of redundancies is a terrible thing it's better than holding onto all their staff and hemraging the money they'll need to kick start the industry again when the pandemic is over.
In an ideal world America would have done what the UK did, allow Disney to Furlough most of their staff, encourage them to support others during the crises and have them ready to return to work when they can.
For the record I'm not saying the UK has handled this tactic brilliantly, but I'm willing to bet without the Furlough scheme we wouldn't have any Theme Parks to go back to. None of our parks are supported by big media conglomerate or have the financial stability of their European counterparts.
 
The theme parks thrive on Disney's brands. They've purchased Fox on top of their already content and IP rich catalogue and launched a subscription streaming service where they've put most of their high quality content. Disney's IP catalogue has never had a better year.

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This is why I see it unlikely we will see massive cut backs into investment. We may see things toned down a little and maybe even delayed a little but. Overall, a smaller impact than people seem to think.

And things have definitely been toned down and delayed, most notably at Epcot but also at WD Studios Paris. trouble is in Florida is Universal are going ahead with a new theme park, now two years delayed due to Covid but at present it doesn’t look like Disney are keeping the pace up to compete, they are cost-saving.

they weren’t building in Florida for years before Universal opened Harry Potter and caught them out and it might be a similar case again.
 
I’m not sure when DLP is currently expecting to reopen, but I’m assuming they’re not expecting it to be too soon, as it’s just been announced that the park will be used as a mega vaccination site, hiring firefighters and other emergency services staff to administer up to 1,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine each day: https://apple.news/ACSDeHNxlTteY-MmhMWCtWA

Interesting; I wonder how long this will be open for?
 
This centre is to be located in the Newport Bay Hotel I believe, so it won’t necessarily stop the theme parks from reopening - although I don’t suspect that will be anytime soon.
 
DLP turned 29 on Monday, and in recognition of this the park produced an hour long special, talking to some of the people who have worked at the park over that time and also looking at some of the ongoing developments at the resort. There’s no dramatic revelations, but if you’re into the park it’s worth a watch.

And yes, the lack of wine is discussed :tearsofjoy:

 
DLP turned 29 on Monday, and in recognition of this the park produced an hour long special, talking to some of the people who have worked at the park over that time and also looking at some of the ongoing developments at the resort. There’s no dramatic revelations, but if you’re into the park it’s worth a watch.

And yes, the lack of wine is discussed :tearsofjoy:



How delightful to see such a video. I will be raising a glass to this video over the weekend and imagine I am sat overlooking the "boulevards" of Parc Walt Disney Studios.
 
Really want to get back over to DLP for a short break. However we're not going anywhere near the place without the full experience.
 
So free fast pass has officially been scrapped at Disneyland Paris, and will be replaced by ‘Premier Access’ this summer, costing at least €8pp per ride for instant access.



‘Standby Pass’ will also be used during busy periods where effectively there is no regular standby line, anyone wanting to ride needs to secure themselves a return time via the app and this will remain free.

More details here:

https://dlpreport.com/premier-access-standby-pass-what-how-much-and-why/
 
So free fast pass has officially been scrapped at Disneyland Paris, and will be replaced by ‘Premier Access’ this summer, costing at least €8pp per ride for instant access.



‘Standby Pass’ will also be used during busy periods where effectively there is no regular standby line, anyone wanting to ride needs to secure themselves a return time via the app and this will remain free.

More details here:

https://dlpreport.com/premier-access-standby-pass-what-how-much-and-why/


Incredibly disappointing news but not that unexpected. It's been rumoured for a while. Covid has ripped a gigantic hole into their finances and they see this as an easy way to fill some of that hole in.

But as with everything else in life....they know people will pay it.
 
Will be interesting to see what Disney does in the USA. Paris has been charged for some FastPass for a while, but in the US FP was removed for Covid reasons, rumours are it won't be back but I expect there will be a lot of people who will not be happy without free FastPass over there.

Personally I'd still rather have no queue jump system at all and just a wel managed, well batched fast moving queue. But places want to make money!
 
Will be interesting to see what Disney does in the USA. Paris has been charged for some FastPass for a while, but in the US FP was removed for Covid reasons, rumours are it won't be back but I expect there will be a lot of people who will not be happy without free FastPass over there.

Personally I'd still rather have no queue jump system at all and just a wel managed, well batched fast moving queue. But places want to make money!

They don't have as much wiggle room when it comes to WDW. It's already over 100 dollars on the gate entrance fee for Magic Kingdom. Asking people to then fork out for Fast Pass too wont go down well and you need Fast Pass in WDW like no other place in the world.
 
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