jzarley

^ Actually, there has been talk about a third park in CA (what I've heard mentioned most often is a waterpark...most likely a West Coast version of Typhoon Lagoon). However, you're right--the available land is not contiguous to the current property. Most of the "talk" (and, it's nothing more than that at this point, I'd guess) has focused on additional land Disney owns closer to the Anaheim Convention Center (near the intersection of Harbor Blvd & Katella, I believe...)

Following up on my previous post...like I said--there have been rumors about a 5th Orlando Disney gate for years. Here's actually a link to a story from jimhillmedia.com ( a pretty active Disneyana site) talking about the rumors from 2005... http://jimhillmedia.com/blogs/jim_hill/archive/2005/11/14/708.aspx BTW...occupancy rates at Disney resorts are even worse off now than when this article originally ran five years ago (it was pre-recession, after all), so if that was a strike then against a rumored 5th park, you can think that's it's an even bigger hurdle today.

There's been rumors of a fifth Orlando park since DAK opened. The most plausible rumors in the last few years centered on a more exclusive experience that would be on the order of Discovery Cove, but not focused on sea life. (i.e., limited daily visitors and a $200 or so ticket price.) However, that was before the recession and the recent hard times for the theme park industry. Currently, Disney has announced nothing regarding a new gate in Orlando...and I would be shocked if there was a fifth park within the next decade. (I'd look for a second gate in Hong Kong, or even a water park in Anaheim first...)

I bet six months ago Kinzel would have thought he'd be done with these pesky analyst calls by Q2

It's not a "park" (despite how the Universal publicity reads)--it's a remodel and expansion of an existing area of IOA. Yes, it's true Disney is spending $1B over the next several years on theme park upgrades, but those improvements are spread across multiple parks (and multiple years/capital budgets). So, if your point is a criticism that Universal spent "only" $275M on one ride, that should make that one ride pretty incredible, don't you think?

You're like the fifth person who said that they were thinking it was Thursday when it was Wednesday...must have been some weird space-time continuum thing going on. Despite whether the 4th day is COB Wednesday or Thursday, I think the real question to ask is why wait until the very last minute anyway? What does that say about the respect you have for your unit holders? (And, it's not like it was a big secret--it was on this site and CoasterBuzz by Saturday afternoon--and the fact that they removed Falfas' name from the web site on Sunday speaks volumes...) CF has filed the required 8-K with the SEC as of this morning: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/100617/fun8-k.html

^ The SEC requires an 8-K be filed within four days to disclose the departure of an officer, correct? I wonder if that is four business days (which would put the deadline by COB on Thursday), or calendar days (which would require it by the end of today)?

So, apparently his bio has been removed from the Cedar Fair list of executives and officers, but still no official press release from the company: http://www.cedarfair.com/ir/company/officers/ How can the departure of a public company's COO not warrant even a press release (not to mention the SEC required Form 8-K)?? Just when I think I can't be any more surprised by the decision making coming out of Sandusky...

What a terrible thing. I feel so awful for his family and everyone at Holiday World.

Wow...to put these numbers somewhat into perspective, the CEO of the company I work for (which I won't name here...let's just say that it's a large utility) made $1.25M in salary (info publicly available on Yahoo Finance), and NO bonus in 2009 (because certain organizational goals were not met.) However, that company has a market cap of $16B, had revenues of $13B and EBITDA (Kinzel's fav metric) of nearly $5B. Compare that to CF's poor performance and outlandish compensation for their management, and it looks like the board of directors of the company I work for is getting a really good deal! (Well, either that or...)

Ok...so that may cover the purchase price...what exactly would we do about operating capital?

Read Sherwood Schwartz's book, huh?

^ Yeah, I wondered about the one at the Boardwalk as well. I had read quite a while ago that there were plans to close that location, and open a much larger one in Downtown Disney (possibly in the current DisneyQuest location). Because of that I was kind of surprised the last time I was there that DQ was still open. I'd guess that any plans they may have had to open a bigger ESPN Zone @ WDW are probably on the shelf now.

Well, my guess is that the net income being made on the restaurants didn't justify continued investment/overhead as far as Disney was concerned. By-and-large, Disney venues in the US outside of their "home" areas (AKA Orlando and Southern California) haven't been too successful. DisneyQuest locations outside of Orlando were closed, and planned expansion was cancelled. "Disney Regional Entertainment" was originally the corporate structure for DisneyQuest, ESPN Zone, and Club Disney (a FEC concept for kids that never really got off the ground.) With ESPN Zone biting the dust, Disney's regional operations are pretty much gone at this point.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2010-06-09-espn-restaurants-closing_N.htm Disney is closing most ESPN Zone themed restaurants. Although a few will remain open (in LA), they won't be managed by Disney.

Yeah, I'd bet any amount of money that you nailed this one perfectly... The debt plan is "on hold"?? How can your debt plan be on hold when its the debt that defines your entire existence right now? My prediction is that current management will be out after 2Q numbers are released. At a certain point the Board has to realize that there really is no longer a choice. Something drastic has to be done quickly to avoid breaching the current covenants and to avoid bankruptcy. (And, to be honest, it may be too late for that anyway...) Oh, and on another topic...I haven't commented on any of the Shoot the Rapids posts, but how, in this age of computer aided design (where roller coaster tracks are designed thousand of miles away to accuracy within hundredths of an inch) do you build the boats too big for your flume ride??? Honestly, no one did the math on these things before they tried to put the whole thing together?

Except...pythons aren't venomous--they're constrictors... However, I'm sure they'd still do a pretty good job at protecting Pepsi

Comcast COO Steve Burke said at the "All Things Digital" conference that they have no plans to sell off the NBC/Universal theme parks (or anything else) after the merger. Obviously, this is far from a guarantee--sometimes things look a lot different once you get thru an acquisition--but, I think it's a positive comment, none-the-less. Stability in the industry would be a good thing right now. (And, it's the first time--to my knowledge anyway--that they've specifically mentioned the parks.) Way to go "Kabletown with a K" http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20006573-56.html Also, kudos to NBC/Universal for the special they're airing Sunday night on the making of the "Wizarding World..." at IOA. I was becoming convinced that Disney really was the only company that knew how to leverage the synergies between their parks and other media outlets!

"The obvious answer was cost savings since Cedar Fair already owns the rights to the Peanuts characters." This is a somewhat incorrect statement. Cedar Fair does not own the rights to Peanuts--they license it for use from another company. I know that sounds like being picky with semantics, but it's a huge difference when talking about intellectual property. Cedar Fair (since the acquisition of Knotts in the 90s) had been licensing Peanuts through United Media Syndication (a subsidiary of the Scripps Co.). However, the rights to Peanuts (and a few other character franchises, like Ragedy Ann & Andy) were recently sold to Iconix Brand Group (they also own the apparel brands Joe Boxer and London Fog). So, Peanuts now has a new owner, and CF has a new licensor to work with. Whose to say whether the relationship with the new licensor will be as beneficial to CF as the old licensor? Lots of changes can occur when ownership changes. It's very possible (if future license agreements aren't as "agreeable" to CF) that we may see Snoopy someday go the way of Nick at the parks... (Maybe dust off the old Berenstain Bears costumes? )

Or, maybe sophisticated might be a better idea

I really don't mind the "the fun & only" campaign. Actually, I think the tune is pretty catchy, and the commercials are fun. (It sort of reminds me of CP's "music video" campaign a few years ago...) However, being in the Columbus market, we have commercials for both CP and KI and I've found that I can't tell which park the commercial is for until the name of the park is said! (That's especially true for the radio commercials.) So, in a shared media market like this they're creating very little distinction between the two parks. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it's interesting... Obviously, park marketing has little affect on people like us (enthusiasts), because we'll visit the parks regardless of the advertising. But, I have to wonder if identical advertising for two parks in the same market area causes confusion among the GP? (A majority of whom, I would guess, don't understand--or even care about--the current corporate structure of the parks.) In Ohio there's always been a CP vs. KI vibe--your family was in one camp or the other. (Granted, most of that was encouraged by the parks themselves.) So, how confusing is it to the GP now when the parks are marketed in identical ways? Or, does it even matter? (Sorry for all the deep philosophical questions on a Monday morning )

For some reason, when I was a small child I was allowed to ride the KMLF, but I wasn't considered old enough to ride KCKC (height restriction...or maybe just over protective parents?). Anyway, I think it was the Summer of '76 or '77 before I was finally allowed to ride KCKC. Of course, by then a friend(?) had told me that sometimes snakes would fall from the trees in the wooded part of the ride, so I was always paranoid looking for falling snakes and could barely enjoy the ride. What's really funny is that even though I knew it wasn't true, I thought about the snake story every time I rode KCKC right up until the time it was removed Ahhh...good memories

...and, Charles Infosino (aka Italianchef) used to be a frequent poster here, but I haven't seen him around here for quite some time...

It's unfortunate, because I really do think Mark Shapiro was a real visionary for how the future of theme parks will look. (I always liked his ideas of the parks being "experiential" media.) Unfortunately, by the time he and Dan Snyder came in, the company was already leveraged to the hilt and heading down the spiral. Maybe if the credit markets wouldn't have blown up in 2008 they could have turned the company around on the path they were following, but even then--at best it was a long shot. I do think the board of SF did a smart thing by bringing in Al Weber--a guy with a proven track record in successfully running parks. Interestingly, SF hasn't had an "operations guy" at the helm for quite a while...Bob Pittman (under TW) was a media guy; Burke could best be considered a financial guy (we could argue about how good of a financial guy ), and Shapiro is a media/marketing guy. It will be interesting to see how all of this shakes out in the coming months. Not to mention--what's up with the whole Comcast ("Kabletown with a 'K') and NBC/Universal merger? I haven't read much about it recently...of course, that deal also has the potential to completely change the theme park industry as we currently know it.

The FUN calls have always been relatively drama-free, but you'd think if there would ever be fireworks in one, now would be the time For pure entertainment value, the best conference calls in my opinion were the old PKS/SIX calls with the old mgmt of Burke, et. al. There was always lots of drama on those!