Test track. They sold those hats.
They sold those hats at Test Track.
They sold those. Put it back up.
Caution ahead. Is that what it says?
Yeah. Because the whole theme was
safety like like you was like you.
Were a crap test dummy on the ride.
That was your part, yeah. I never got the ride to.
How old are you in that photo, Derek?
I think 48. Probably caution ahead.
Get it? I gotta go to what's your what
show are we doing that? Hey, this shows all about the
next CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Josh Demaro.
All right. When Derek gets back, he'll be
in a different shirt than he just had on.
Ladies and gentlemen, get ready. Hey everybody, and welcome to
this week's episode of the DC Show.
If you're wondering by the dumbfounded look on my wife Amy
Krueger's face right now, you'll understand that in the past
couple minutes a lot has happened.
We've got senior sales executive for the BBC resale market, Derek
de Boer. Hey now, everybody.
Welcome, welcome, welcome. The Honourable Jeff Haslam.
Why these two gentlemen just changed into suits is beyond our
comprehension. Well, we heard there's a new
opening for CEO and Derek and I are are shooting rooting for it
so. Exactly.
Once we knew that we were doing a show on this, I could show you
the text thread between me and Jeff.
I said, Jeff, how about right before we do this show all about
the CEO, we pretend like we're professionals and let's go wear
like a shirt and a tie. And Jeff said I'm all in, and
that's why we're here. Does does Derek's tie have
camels on it? I'm not quite sure, Derek, can
you hold the tie up a little closer to the?
Yeah, it's a it's a Christmas tie.
Oh. It's my year, didn't have a lot
of options, did you there? Goes the professionalism.
I do not wear ties and I don't even wear pants so I actually
have like short time. Thank you for that
demonstration. If you've ever not watched the
video version of our podcast, please tune in this this week on
YouTube. You're going to see a lot,
including a pantsless, pantsless Derek, maybe.
So welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this week's
episode of the DVC show. I don't know where we're going
to go with this conversation, but these two dapper boys are
going to carry us, I'm pretty sure because Amy and I are just
over here just confused and running on fumes at this point.
It's been a heck of a, you know, 7 to 10 days for us it.
Has been I'm so tired. Jeff looks like he's going to
run a Funeral Home. I thought you were going to say
like run for office or something like that.
We're joking. We were.
Undertaker now. Jeff, Jeff, can you just say I'm
so sorry for your loss? Can.
You say that. Wait, let me straight face.
No. Let me just go go full on Jeff
here for a second. Go ahead, Jeff.
All right. I'm sorry for your loss.
I can't even hear a. Straight face, a smile near the.
End of that I. Feel like.
I gotta stop taking Nyquil. Wait, did.
You dig it before the show. No, I haven't.
Well, this week we are talking about the newest CEO for the
Walt Disney Company, Josh Tomorrow, and everything about
what that decision means for the Walt Disney Company, for Disney
Vacation Club, for Disney Parks in general.
And yeah, really exciting announcement.
I think all of us, I don't know if any of us on this call would
say that we were surprised by the selection of Josh Tomorrow,
at least I I would not say so. I think there were a couple
other people in the running, obviously Dana Walden being
being kind of the other front runner that that every, everyone
heard about. And Dana has run a kind of a
studios division for a long time now.
So of those two, we kind of felt like one of them would be would
be chosen. And more and more as we got
closer to that announcement, Josh seemed like the the the
front runner and and he was. So he will actually assume that
position in mid March. But it leaves a lot of questions
kind of on the table that we decided we jump on and give you
our rambling thoughts about and dress up while we do so.
This and all of our content is always brought to you by key
holder Vacations in the world of DVCDVC resale market where you
can buy or sell a Disney Vacation Club contract, Monera
Financial where you can finance that DVC resale contract.
Purchase the DVC rental store where you can try before you
buy. Rent some points for a fraction
of the cost as it is direct through Disney or rent out your
own points and get some extra cash in your pocket if maybe
you're not going to use them this year.
Looking to go on a different Disney or non Disney vacation.
Last but not least, unlocked magic.com/DVC fan discounted
Walt Disney World, Disneyland and Universal Park tickets
kicking things off. Just want to kind of get the
initial thoughts of everyone here.
What's you know? Are you happy with the selection
of Josh tomorrow as as the next CEO?
I think for anyone that is a Disney Parks fan, I think
there's definitely some good things.
Obviously his background of when I noticed him was what,
president of Disneyland. You you look like you're
surprised that I knew that then Walt Disney World.
So obviously, you know, he has that parks background.
He's not ACEO coming from the studio's background.
And so I think that we might be seeing a little more love for
the parks in this era as opposed to what we would have gotten
from, you know, maybe someone not as parks forward, but I'm
not sure. I guess we'll find out.
Jeff, I feel like you're dressed for a debate, so give us your
one minute rebuttal. Yeah, I think on the off the
cuff, I would say I'm cautiously optimistic.
I think, again, no surprise, he was kind of always been the
front runner. And I think it shows the
direction that the board wants to go by appointing him as CEO,
but also keeping Dan and Walden as kind of in charge of the
studio side of things in the streaming side of things.
I think, I think if they can find a working relationship that
is cohesive, I, I think you're going to see the Walt Disney
Company do really well over their, their reign.
You know, we can get into some of the pros and cons of this a
little bit later, but I, I think, I think it's a solid
choice and I think it's much better than the last time we
tried to do this. You can only go up from here, I
think, right? Derek?
Running for the next mayor of Windermere.
Yeah, I I mean, I think everybody, at least in our
world, and of course, when I say our I'm talking about ourselves
and all of our viewers and all of our listeners is that I think
if they picked anybody else but Josh, I think everybody would be
like, what? I can't believe it just because
that guy has been very visible in the parks world, you know,
and I think that's what people always associated.
They might not know, Oh my God, they're going to elect, you
know, Jimmy Stevenson. He comes from the finance and
he's a he's an awesome guy. The people like us, you know,
see and go, Oh, I like that Josh guy.
He's always taking pictures with people in the parks to love the
parks. But truly, I think that that
job, that this job as Disney CEO is unlike any other CEO job
because I think it is a very visual job, meaning I think you
are the face of the Disney company that I think no one
really cares. I mean, no offense, but like,
you know, who's the CEO of, you know, Samsonite luggage or who's
the CEO of this company or that company?
It's the Disney company. Because it goes back to, you
know, oh, I used to watch Walt Disney on my team.
A lot of people grew up watching Michael Eisner.
He was the face of Disney. So when people think of Disney,
I think you like the thought of who's running my company is that
good looking smiley guy that I see happy to pose with fans in
the parks. That's what I think people like.
And I think it's important to like Jeff said that they have
someone that's taking care of things that may not be his quote
UN quote Forte. Because I think without delving
too much into what happened before, is you had someone that
was quote, UN quote on the bean counter side perfect, but didn't
know anything about creativity, didn't know anything about, you
know, talent relations and all that.
So I think if you have the combination of Josh and Dana
taking care of things, I think he's wearing Jeff's suit.
But yeah, I think it's a very exciting time.
And like I said, I think anybody else but Josh, people would be
very upset. It's kind of funny that you
mentioned. Did you see the like the memes
going around? So when he was announced, how
many people had a photo with them and Josh tomorrow?
And it was like, so and so. Is Mark safe from posting a
selfie with Josh tomorrow today? But it's true, like when JPEG
JPEG got, you know, became CEO, you didn't see pictures out
there of people that had selfies with him.
But so many people had a photo that we even knew with Josh
tomorrow. So I just thought that was
funny. He is a much more public facing
individual. He very much values the opinions
of fans and the community that's out there.
He's out there in the parks. It's very odd for me to think
through it because if you didn't know better and you put him and
Bob Iger next to each other, you'd be like, are you father
and son? Because it does give off that
impression a little bit. He they, they have very similar
mannerisms. They're just, you know, very
good public speakers. So I expect a lot of the same
almost. And I don't know if that's a
good or bad thing. And we'll kind of get, we'll
dive into that a little bit further.
But walking through Josh's resume, just real quick, a
couple of things that I jotted, jotted down.
As you mentioned, he, he, he worked as the president of
Disneyland for a period of time. Under his leadership of Parks
and Resorts, he's drastically expanded the Disney Cruise Line
fleet. We've got major park additions
and transformations ongoing and that have been developed under
his under his reign. He was around handling the
company throughout the pandemic. So he was involved with kind of
the reopening and a lot of the decisions that came out of the
pandemic. A lot of people are favorable of
that. I will be honest and say that I
think some people pushed a lot of those things off on JPEC when
potentially they were some Josh decisions.
So you know, he is making decisions as an executive and
ACEO that are in the best interest of the bottom line of
this company, company in the best interest, the shareholders
of the company, while being mindful, I think of others,
Genie Plus, the Lightning Lane era, all of that kind of been
under his watch. And again, pricing strategy,
revenue growth for for the division as a whole.
He has always kind of had that parks first mindset with
everything that he does. And I think there was a recent
interview that he did might have actually been with Scott Gustin,
who if you're not following over on X, you definitely should be.
In a recent interview, I'm pretty sure he kind of just
reiterated that he does not plan to stop having that presence in
the parks. He is still going to be out and
about. He wants to mingle, as we said
before, with people. That experience with guests is
where, you know, you get a lot of that really good feedback
that maybe you you turn a blind eye to in certain, certain
situations. He balances guest experience
with monetization. There's a balance there between
those two things. And also he is drastically
bringing back that relationship with Imagineering that kind of
got broken down during Chapex era.
So I think we we hopefully see more of that.
I'm going to pose the question to you all that I just kind of
asked, which was which was basically, do you think he is
going to be someone that comes out of the gates and tries to do
anything drastically different, tries to, you know, completely
reinvent a division, do something new?
Or do you think it's going to kind of be an extent extension
of the Eiger era of of Disney? I'll go.
I think I see him more as as him himself, as as a builder, as
somebody that you know, you touched on his resume, but the
stuff that we didn't talk about, he was VP over Animal Kingdom.
He was. He's done a lot of of his role
in the parks and I think he sees the value in them long term.
He does get a little bit of guff because of some of the nickel
and diming things like the Genie Plus and some of those kinds of
things. But it's hard to know what those
meetings look like, those behind the scenes things.
Was that his decision or was that a directive from Iger
saying, hey, we need to make more money here?
Can he step into this role now and say, look, we can make money
on the parks long term if we're willing to invest short term and
maybe not do what he's being told.
And we don't know, maybe, maybe they were solely his decisions.
We really have no way of knowing that.
But the fact that it just kind of, it reminds me of a story
when Michael Eisner used to be CEO and he would go to the parks
and he would identify problem areas himself and, and go to the
people in charge of those areas and say, why isn't this fixed?
Why isn't that fixed? Why is the Jungle Cruise skipper
wearing a hat that's not approved?
You know, he was very active in those kinds of things.
And the parks really did well under Eisner.
And, you know, he stayed a little too long at the fair, but
a lot of what we call the Disney Renaissance happened under
Eisner. And I see a lot of similarities
of, of how Josh works and how he kind of sees looking towards the
future. So I, I, I don't think he's just
going to be, you know, Bob Iger 2 point OI think he has some
real talent to bring to the role and to see this company move in
a different direction. And I think he knows where his
weaknesses are. That's why he's, he's got a
cohort that can help steer the studios division because that's
not his jam. He has to answer for it.
But ultimately he knows where he thrives.
And like Paul said, look at what Disney Cruise lines has, has
done. Look at some of the expansions
that the park has done. I'm not sure anybody could have
weathered the pandemic as well as he did getting Disney World
reopened and hitting all the boxes that the state and federal
government were requiring. So you know, like I said early
on, I'm cautiously optimistic. I think he's he's somebody
that's well liked. I think he can maybe repair some
of those governmental relationships that maybe went S
under the Chapec administration. It's it's it's time will tell.
We don't know, but I'm optimistic that he can do some
really good things for us. And since you brought her up, I
do want to just give, you know, Dana Walden her flowers real
quick. You know, how what she's done
running the studio side of the Walt Disney Company has been
amazing. And as part of this
announcement, she will become President and Chief Creative
Officer of the Walt Disney Company, a first really for the
company. And I think that dual leadership
speaks to Jeff. Kind of what you said, this was
the biggest concern coming out of Chapeck, the biggest concern,
the biggest weaknesses that Chapeck had.
I mean, you had the Scarlett Johansson blow up.
You had all of these other issues over in studios.
He just did not have any pulse on that business.
And when you look at tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, when you
look at his body of work, when you look at his resume, you
would have the same concerns. And I'm sure that through the
vetting process that these are kind of the the $1,000,000
questions that the board asked, asked him and the things that
they looked at. And one of the the key decisions
in sort of saying, if we're going to lock him in as CEO, we
need to lock in Dana for an equal amount of time to ensure
that studios continues to churn while he learns that division
more and gets his feet wet over there.
So it'll, it'll, it'll be interesting to see how those two
work together. I hope.
It almost sounds to be like the most cohesive unit that the
Disney company has seen since maybe the Walt and Roy era.
You know, in my opinion, almost. Or even the Eisner and Wells
area if we're being. Honest, that's that's what I was
just going to say Jeff it it's the same thing.
The most successful people always like one person can't do
everything. One person is not a master at
everything and especially when you're talking about a behemoth
like the Walt Disney company, right where you're talking about
streaming channels, you're talking about movie, you're
talking about talent relations, you're talking about theme parks
and imagineers. My God, there's just so many
arms and legs to it that I think the best CEOs and the best times
in Disney were when you you had those people that like, listen,
I'm really good at this take Eisner.
I'm really good at this. And Frank Wells is like, you go
do the schmoozing and you go do that Sunday night TV show stuff.
I'm going to focus on the numbers and I'm going to do all
this stuff over here. I I think for me, the most
exciting part is the news that just happened.
I'm not sure when the show's going to air is the fact that
shows what's going to happen with Josh.
And we talked a little bit about it on last week's show, was that
he looked at what's happening to villains Land.
And apparently according to the stories, the stories were like,
you know what, guys, this isn't good enough.
Like this is not enough of a wow.
Like we need a wow. So we need to go back to the
drawing board and and you know what, budgets be damned, what
can we come up with to make this a wow?
I'm sure the Imagineers, who God knows for how long have had
everything strapped and had 1000 great ideas but told Nope, we
got to scrap it. Look at all the lands that we
have now. But look at those original
renderings of what they should have been, what they could have
been are way different. So I think the fact of Josh
looked at villains land, which is easily probably, I think the
most anticipated land in Disney history, more than the
Fantasyland expansion or anything else.
This is brand new from scratch. The fact that he apparently said
we need to go all out on this, we need to really make it a wow,
makes me as obviously a parks fan, very, very happy if that's
the direction that we're headed down.
And again, like you said, looking at Dana and her history
with the studios, Disney again has at a billion dollar year at
the box office, which is unheard of.
So I think the two of them, I think it's going to be great.
So what do I know? I'm just wearing a suit with no
pants. It was pretty crazy when you
looked at, you know, the theater slate in 2025 and there was
really nothing that jumped off the page at you.
There's a there were a couple, you know, notable names on that
list. Avatar.
You knew that Zootopia was coming.
You knew that even even for the love of Stitch, I don't think
anyone knew that Stitch was going to just blow up the way
that it did for the live action remake just because we've been
so. Concerned about like like let's
let us remember Snow White, which I'm pretty sure was also
last year. Correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff,
but it. Was last year and it's nominated
for a Razzie as one of the worst movies of the year.
Yeah. So, so we had the two extremes
last year. We had LILO and Stitch live
action and we also had that and so.
What is Razzie? The the Razzie Awards.
There that the worst. You have the Oscars and the
following Sunday you have the worst movies of the year, worst
actors, worst actresses. Do the people show up to this
awards? Are they real?
Not very often, but once in a while.
I think Halle Berry maybe did for Catwoman.
It was hilarious. Yeah, someone did.
I think it was maybe Sandra Bullock or something for
somebody. You did too.
Yeah. Can we have a Razzies party
also? Jeff's throwing a Oscar party,
but I feel like we should have a Razzies party also.
That would be great. That would be great.
Well, I will say this in the past and now that they used to
do it before the Oscars, but back when they did it before,
the loser of my game at the Oscar party got whatever was the
worst movie of the year in their gift basket.
So. Wow, but.
Now we won't know until after the Oscars.
What is the typical? I don't know if the word I want
to say term rain. Like what is the typical
lifeline of ACEO at the Walt Disney Company?
Like how many years did they what?
Six, you had Walt, then you had Roy Miller, who only lasted a
couple years. Eisner was there forever, then
Eiger was there forever, Then Chapeck was only there for two
years, you know, and then Eisner or.
Yeah, I mean the real answer is As for as long as you're making
the company money, I. Guess that's true.
And I mean, you, you have someone young in, in Josh that,
you know, he could be around for a while.
Yeah, he could be around for a good while if he, if he does
things correctly and he sets up that team appropriately.
And from anyone that I've ever heard that has, you know,
written about, right, working with him in any capacity, he,
you know, nothing but positive praise.
You know, he seems to be an amazing person to work for.
He expects a lot of you, which any executive should.
But, you know, very rewarding person to work for, very kind
person to work for. And that just exudes in his
personality, too. I've never personally met him.
I do remember sitting at the boardwalk and I texted you one
day. I know I told you.
To he was across the room and she said go say hi and news
flash I'm an introvert so I was too scared to go say hi so.
But he walked past me once at Disneyland.
That's as close as I ever got. We were coming out of Star Tours
and he was headed towards spacecraft.
You can. You can now say you breathe the
same air as the CEO of the Walt Disney Company.
That's a I've also breathed the same air as you guys and I'll
much take your air. Moreover, they changed.
We changed the furnace filter. Thanks.
So that's. Just wanted to just touch on
real quick, and this came up last, our last round of shows.
Paul, you'd posed the question of what franchise has Universal
or Disney spawned in the last 10 years that really took hold.
And that for some reason that's really sat with me in this
entire month because I was trying to think about that.
And I looked back to because I've kind of been doing a deep
dive on Eisner lately. I don't know why I'm fascinated
with him right now. He's got a great interview on on
the Graham Messenger show right now.
And I think I finally haven't answered your question from like
a month ago. And that is, it used to be
Disney was the franchise. You know, we don't need
something that spawns 18 sequels like Fast and the Furious.
We need Disney to return to what Disney was always good at, which
was storytelling. You don't need 5 Toy Stories if
you have a good solid movie that people can resonate with, that
is the franchise. That's what Disney has always
been about. We didn't need 3 Little Little
Mermaids. We didn't need 3 Beauty and the
Beast. We didn't need 3 Aladdin's.
Some of them we got because of video at the time.
But the stellar movies that you think about in in Disney's last
100 years, less than 5% of them are sequels.
Yeah. So and I, I hope he, he kind of
encourages Dana to abandon what hasn't been working, which more
often than not, the live actions have not resonated with the
fans. Some have done well, let alone
Stitch did well, some of the others.
But for the most part, it was just a cheap money grab for them
because they didn't have to pay for new storytelling they
already had. Yeah, that so.
And let's and let's go back to like, let's go back to diving
into books because you know, the source material for so many of
great movies that are out there come from a book.
And I feel like we're not looking in the right places
anymore for you're, you're, you're looking for the right
screenplay versus the right. It's, it's just like, let's,
let's, let's start just like branching out a little bit more,
but. I would, I would, I would like
to make a request to Dana herself is that can you make
programming now that we have Disney Plus for the Kingdom
Keepers books? Come on.
The fact that nothing has been done with Kingdom Keepers and
they still sell them at some resorts.
They still sell them in the parks.
The fact that you've got Disney Plus to be able to do it, I
think it'd be huge. So that's my quote UN quote wish
list. Thank you.
Well, let's let's go around the room with a wish list real
quick. What are one or two things that
are on your wish list that you hope to see Josh tomorrow do in
his first, we'll say his first year or two as as CEO?
Give it give it a little time because you know, any new
executive walking in doesn't want to necessarily rock the
boat, doesn't want to unless you're Bob Chapek.
You don't want to just completely destroy the company
on day one. But you know, you're definitely
going to leave your mark on some of the things.
You're definitely going to make some decisions.
One of the his biggest decisions that we're going to get into
here in a little bit is going to be who he puts in charge of
parks and resorts. But what do you specifically
hope that he that that Josh Demaro does?
What is? What is something just on that
wish list to that you've either dreamt about or you've heard
about as a rumor for the longest time?
Amy. Oh, sorry.
No, no, go ahead, Jeff, because I I got to think.
Now, this would have to be an announcement because they're not
going to get it done in two years.
We're not going to get what we have done in two years.
But what I would like to see in the next two years from him is
viable plans for expansion at Walt Disney World.
Disneyland's already getting all their new stuff and we've got a
few things here and there, but like kind of historically the
Walt Disney World has gotten a new park every 10 ish years.
You know, you know, Magic Kingdom opened in 71, then Epcot
83 and so on and so forth. We haven't got a new park since
98. We're past, you know, almost 30
years now. I it's time for 1/5 gate.
I spent a lot of time at the parks last week with my aunt and
uncle in town and they are bursting at the seams,
especially Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, those two
parks with the wait times. It's really hard to have an
enjoyable day now. We had the best day that we've
ever had at Hollywood Studios probably in 20 years.
For me, we did. We rode Rise of the Resistance 3
times, which never happens anymore, but that's what used to
be fun is to see how many of your favorite rides you could
ride more than once and and doing everything in the park
that it has to offer. We went to all the shows, we
went to Fantasmic, we had dinner.
We spent a crap ton of money because we had the time to do
everything and to shop and all that kind of stuff.
There needs to be a release valve.
There has to be. And if it's not a fifth park or
not a fifth gate, fine. But let's, let's put, I don't
know, Australia and Antarctica in Animal Kingdom and let's the
freaking Simpsons and whatever else, the Hollywood Studios.
I don't care what it is. I mean, I do, but you can't keep
having a park like Hollywood Studios where it only has five
rides and all five of them are immensely popular because the
wait times get to Presidents Day weekend.
Guardians of the Galaxy was 3 hours.
That's insane, yeah. Nobody wants that experience.
People will do it because they've already spent the money
to be there, but they want manageable wait times.
They don't want to have to pay $200 for a ticket, plus another
$60.00 for lightning lanes plus dinner, plus this, plus like.
They need a cohesive strategy on the future and how to expand
these parks to make them enjoyable for everybody, not
just those that can afford it. Yeah.
I would also argue that a lot of these things in these parks that
used to be, I don't know if I want to call him time sucks or
people sucks, but they've been around for so long that it's
time to either reinvent them or inject something new.
Great example is the Beauty and the Beast stage show that is at,
you know, Hollywood studios like that.
I've not seen that state like that.
That theater filled for a performance for a long time.
Indiana Jones still draws in a pretty decent crowd.
That's good. But like, what if we injected a
new scene into that? What if we change something up
they unfortunately are happening to right now because the boulder
bouldered bouldered a cast member.
But you know what? If we give give a reason for
people to come back and see that show and liven it up and then it
can hopefully be a little bit of that release valve.
But I agree with you, Jeff, in that you look at what
Disneyland's doing right now and we have the blueprints of
Disneyland forward. We know what that vision looks
like even past the first phase of what this looks like now.
You could say that you know, the the plans are in place, there's
approval in place for 1/5 gate at Walt Disney World.
There's also approvals in place for additional smaller parks.
But all an approval means is that yeah, we have the option to
do it at any point in which we want to, but there's no concrete
like plan and blueprint for this.
So it, it, we're at a point where especially domestic parks
related. I, I think that if they want
people to keep coming back, they have to inject, you know, that
money. And hopefully that is why we've
seen them kind of just stop, put pump the brakes on villains land
a minute and just kind of say this has to be better.
This has to be bigger, It has to be better, You know, no, no
budget right now. Let us and, and when you guys
were talking earlier, that's where my head was going was like
as a creative, as as someone that was a musician at one point
in time, It's so hard to be creative and also have to worry
about the bottom line at the same time.
And that's essentially what Imagineering has been asked to
do for so long that no wonder they probably came to the table
with ideas that also came with a budget sheet sheet saying how
they were going to pay for the ideas.
But to ask those people then to imagine with no concept of, of
funds, I think that's what you have to ask of imagineering at
that point. That's that freedom that you
have to give them. And then you can say at the end
of the day, yes, we can do XY and Z.
That's gonna have to wait. We're gonna have to, you know,
exactly what again, what they did with Epic Universe, you
know, kind of they they made cuts where they had to, but also
they have Plan B in place where after the first year of the
park, if they saw success, which they did, they're already moving
forward with another Harry Potter ride and other stuff.
Gonder. Well, and God, sorry, really
quick and then Derek really quick.
What in God's name do they think has Disney parks in the last 10
year lost money? Have they ever been the one the
the the group of Disney divisions that have been holding
up the rear? Like it's like when you build a
new casino in Las Vegas. The Venetian broke even in two
days and it cost like $10 billion or something when they
made it. Like they know they're going to
make their money back. Why are they counting the
pennies to get there? Sorry.
And it's and well, and it's equally comical for that because
we can also make billion dollar movie flops at the same time and
just laugh it off and just sort of say, whoopsie, that one
didn't hit home. No, and and I was just going to
say to add on because Jeff basically covered my entire wish
list, which as cliche as it is to say, what would you like to
see happen is and mine's real quick.
You got to add a fifth gate. I'm sorry.
And I don't care how exciting and fantastic villains Land is
going to be, it's still in the most visited theme park on the
planet Earth, which means if it is super amazingly awesome, then
even more people will want to be inside the most visited theme
park on the planet Earth. Like Jeff said, you've got to
release the spigot somewhere and you have to have a fifth gate.
You've got a fifth gate because I, I was thinking the other day
and I was like, Oh my God, I can't believe that Lakeshore
Lodge and I saw some pictures is coming along so big.
And then I was talking to my wife Annie and she's like, yeah,
but it's like it's still a Magic Kingdom Resort hotel And you're
like, Oh my God, you're exactly right.
Like one of the biggest hotel size wise that Disney's building
is again a Magic Kingdom Resort hotel, which will mean thousand
10s of thousands of more people taking the boat to go to the
most visited theme park on the planet Earth.
Again, you've got to get a fifth gate.
I don't care what that fifth gate is.
I don't have any blue sky ideas about a fifth gate.
But you have to announce it at least sometime in the next few
years. But his first announcement when
he takes over should be what is coming to Disney's Boardwalk.
Thank you. Hey, breaking news, by the way,
there's been some shrubbery that's been put up outside of.
Shrubbery. The old the old Big River Grill.
There's shrubbery. So I saw, I saw that.
Amy, do you have any dreams or wishes from our next CEO?
They they all went big with the 5th gate.
I'm going to rein it in a little more.
I would like some new pavilions and world showcase.
There's some gaps in some space and there's been rumors for like
20 years now. I feel like we just do, we need
some more countries. So that's all I got and that
kind of. That's great because that kind
of goes back to what I was saying before is if it's not a
fifth gate, then you have to improve the existing parks to a
point that it can handle. More, yeah, we need more
capacity, more, more queues, more rides, more shows, more
things that take people more space.
What's funny to me is how long did it take them to remove
Dinoland from the map like it was. 2nd.
Once Dinosaur closed it just became green space on the map.
Yet that weird building where Body Wars used to be is still
showing on the Epcot map. And then you can visit here, but
you can't go in like I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. There needs to be some some
improvement on capacity. Well, and Epcot in general, like
we're sitting here and they're like this year was the first
year that they were saying the Epcot reimagination is complete
and you're just looking around. I don't like the word.
You're looking around Epcot and you're just like.
But no park. We lost.
We lost more than we gained. No park should ever be
considered complete. I mean, there's it should always
be. Yeah, it should always be
growing. And I think I, I think we
really, it just in parks in general need to get into a
process of having 2345 new things that you're looking
forward to every single year. 2026 is one of those weird years
where there's nothing that jumps off the page that I think anyone
is super excited about that's going to be opening.
Monsters at open. 2028. 80 so you've got a lot.
So 20.6 is is a void. 2026 is kind of a void.
I, I can't sit here and tell you anything that's really
substantial that is really going to be opening.
I mean, we've got big Thunder, we'll be back up and running.
You know, maybe I. Mean I love it but.
Maybe some small things here and there, but you you can really
kind of just argue that there's nothing driving people to to the
parks this year. And that's going to be the
problem they have with some of these larger problems for the
next few years. And you kind of just don't want
to get yourself in a position where you have those in the
future. If you want, if you want that
reason that people come back time and time again, you need to
kind of just space these rides out a little bit more, time them
a little bit more appropriately. Find a new construction company
so that the next Tron doesn't take seven years.
I don't know what you know, whatever it is.
Well, and why, why we're talking about Tron.
You know, Derek made his appeal to Dana Walden.
I'm going to make my appeal to whoever is listening that can
solve this. Can you please, for the love of
God, stop making rides that are only 45 seconds long after
waiting 2 1/2 hours for it? Tron Rock and roller coaster,
You know what I mean? Like give us a ride like
Stardust Racers last for like, I don't know, 17 minutes.
It feels like, like give us a ride that actually is the payoff
for the line that we just waited.
Good. Point, yeah.
For sure. Oh, and and, and and I would
like Josh tomorrow on his second day to sit with the animals at
Animal Kingdom and allow them to have the park stay open later
just because the park's really, really cool at night and the
fact that that shuts down so early any and I went last week
with Connor and it happened to be open later at night.
Man, it just takes on a whole different vibe and you feel like
it could also, again, release the spigot if people decided
that Animal Kingdom was not 1/2 day, Maybe they want to send
their second-half of the day at Animal Kingdom Verse.
You could see people literally running towards the exits of
Animal Kingdom at that typical time because where are they
going? They got to go watch the
fireworks. So they're going to Epcot or
they're going to the most visited theme park on the planet
Earth. That's where they're going.
I really thought Jeff was going to say something there for a
second, but he just took a really long.
Deep breath so I can hold back. So let's go.
Let's dive into the other $1,000,000 question, which is
going to actually probably be Josh.
Tomorrow's first decision is who is going to take over at Parks
and Resorts and what does any of this really mean for Disney
Vacation Club? And I'll answer the second
question first, which is that I, I can sit here pretty
confidently and say that I don't think anything is going to
change with Disney Vacation Club as we know it right now.
Because not only do you still have Josh kind of leading the
ship and he's definitely parks focused.
So he's going to keep an eye on what's going on there.
But a lot of these contenders and some of the primary
contenders that are potentially going to take over as the
Chairman of parks, Parks and resorts have already kind of
worked in this sphere and have already kind of molded what
Disney Vacation Club looks like today.
Again, Scott Gustin over on X. He also has a sub stack where he
writes up some great articles and he put together kind of
justice his thoughts on a laundry list of people that
potentially could be up for this position.
Top contenders include Thomas Maslem, which that should be a
name that's very familiar to anyone that's been around for a
little while. He led Disney signature
experiences, which is what Disney Vacation Club falls
under. He recently moved to Disneyland
supposedly to help oversee Disneyland forward and the
expansion over there. But well-rounded enough to be
probably one of the top picks for this.
Other options include Joe Schott, who is the current
Disney Signature Experiences VP, who again running Disney Cruise
Line, running Disney Vacation Club Adventures by Disney
Aulani. Other names in the running
include Jeff Vale who currently overseas Walt Disney World.
You have Natasha Rafalski who actually is currently the
president of Disneyland Paris. A decision like that could be a
signal that Disney wants to double down on international
parks and resorts. You have Ken Potrock.
Ken, I think is a personally, I, I think it's probably not going
to really be that that person because I think Ken is kind of
moved on from parks and resorts. He's currently kind of, I don't,
I don't even remember his role title, but it's something
related to event integration and he's working on how does
Disneyland integrate with the 2028 Olympic Games.
So to me, it almost sounds like a hey, here's here's the last
retirement gig before you go. And then just a wild card that I
thought was interesting that Scott put on the list here,
which was Bruce Vaughn, who is currently the chief creative
officer of Walt Disney Imagineering.
And that would be a very bold selection kind of signaling the
resurgence of Imagineering and the importance that it has.
But does Bruce necessarily, you know, have the have the chops to
fully run parks and resorts? That remains to be seen.
But this is going to be the first decision that Josh has to
make, and this will solely be his decision.
Any thoughts to any of those options?
Or do we think a different wild card will emerge here?
I think we've put Amy to sleep. It's going to be me I'm
expecting. My phone call?
I'd vote for that. I, I think probably the
clearest, you know, contenders, probably Thomas Masloom.
He's just seems like the anointed one for, for what's
next, Although I don't know that I'm fully on board with that
decision. Personally, I, I, I kind of like
the idea, honestly, of I can't remember her name from
Disneyland Paris. She's, she's done some really
cool things with the second gate over there and the expansion of
that park that was barely a park before that.
You know, when, when I went to Disneyland Paris, we were over
there for about 30 minutes and spent the rest of our time at
Disneyland Paris proper. I like the idea of somebody
renting parks that came up through parks.
So rather than all the other stuff, it seems like, and, and
maybe this is naive of me to say, but it seems like DVC and
cruise line kind of just run themselves based on their
popularity. It doesn't take a lot of
oversight to keep them as business as usual, where the
Parks and the movie sides of things takes a much more active
role from those that are leading them.
So that's why I kind of personally like the idea of
somebody coming up to that position from Parks.
But they stopped taking my phone calls years ago, so my opinion
really doesn't matter that much. But you're dressed for your
formal interview now. I sure AM.
Derek, what are your thoughts on some of these candidates?
You know, well, yeah, I think, I mean, I'm sure they're all
definitely qualified and I'm sure they've all made their
pitches on why they should or should, you know, maybe not get
the job. I just think, like Jeff said, I
think it's important that if you're looking for, you know,
someone to run parks and resorts, you got to have good
parks and resorts experience, you know, and I, I think plus,
if you're going to be replacing him, it's got to be someone that
he's comfortable with because he's obviously going to have, I
would imagine the final say as who's taking my job.
And so if anything goes wrong with the person that you said
you want to replace you in your job, it's going to come back to
you. So I think he's definitely going
to give a lot of thought to it. You know, they all have pros and
this and it it, it just makes me think that parks people are just
different, you know, and that's when we were talking about
people that have met Josh and I obviously being with Disney for
a very long time, still have a ton of friends that are cast
members and many when I asked them about, you know, Josh's
appointment, not one person was disappointed.
Not one. And everybody would have
stories. Anybody that has met him, you
know, on for whatever reason, maybe they introduced and said,
oh, hi, Mr. Demaro, I'm so and so the first thing that he would
always say is call me Josh. That was it.
And so I think park's people are cut from a different cloth
first. You know, I've heard the
complete opposite stories of Mr. J Peck when he was here where
people would meet him and it was referred to him and as Mr. Jake
back. So I think Josh is for me.
I just keep going back to it's there's no picture.
I said always coming up when I'm talking.
Sorry about. Yeah.
So I'm really excited. And I think that's what's
interesting is that Disney fans, I think I would imagine if you
were to do a poll, Paul, you know that I would say in the 90%
would be excited about Josh taking over as CEO versus any
other choice. Yep, totally.
And you mentioned Jeff Eisner at one, at one point, you know, he
came out with some pretty, you know, positive praise for Josh
and, and this selection gave him some, gave him some feedback.
And, and I think the feedback that he gave really is testament
to who who Josh tomorrow is, You know, talking about the
importance of the people, talking about the importance of
the fans, talking about the customer and, and the, and the
priorities there and, and making sure you continue to listen to
them in all of this. I think, I think we as Disney
fans need to remember too, that this is like Derek was saying
earlier, it's probably the most visible CEO.
Nobody cares who the CEO of Universal is.
Nobody knows. I think maybe the only other
company that springs to mind is maybe Apple.
You know, when Steve Jobs left and who was going to focus that
same type of visionary, You know, what's next for the
company? But I think we as Disney fans
have to remember that it's not our company, even though we like
to think it is. And he's going to make some
mistakes. He's going to do some things
that we disagree with. It's important to keep that in
the broader scope of Eisner made some mistakes too, but we still
look at him as he probably changed the Walt Disney Company
more than anybody else besides Walt himself.
Walt made his own mistakes, you know what I mean?
So let's not, let's not like crucify him when he missteps.
Just encourage forward thinking. And we're all very parks
focused. But you know, truth, truth be
told, while parks is the private, the the profit driver
for the Walt Disney Company right now, what really needs
fixed in the company is in the other areas.
It's related to looking at Disney Plus and looking at how
that relationship, looking at ESPN and how does that evolve
moving forward and then looking at studios.
Those are really the areas of opportunity I view right now.
You know, parks will do its thing.
And I don't want to say parks can be ignored, but parks, you
know, to, to as we said, parks can kind of just churn along
Disney Vacation Club can kind of just churn along Disney Cruise
Line. The, the Cruise's industry's
growth post pandemic is insane. And people are just, you know,
chomping at the bit to get on a cruise ship left and right no
matter what what cost is thrown at you.
Even companies that we praise, like Royal Caribbean, they're
not offering the deals that they used to because they don't have
to because they're just like, we're 75% booked for two years
from now. Why?
Like, why discount it? You know, people are booking
supply and demand. We're going to increase the
price. And so it'll be interesting to
see just where his focus goes at first in the company and, and
kind of what he tackles because again, like just trying to look
at it from pure profit and revenue standpoint, you're like,
you could, there's so much that could be fixed over here with
studios and with television and the evolving streaming wars that
we're getting into these days that that can really be where
they can make some money. And that's what a shareholder is
really looking for at the end of the day.
And and, and just like you said, Paul, which is perfect is a lot
of these moves, they may not be quote UN quote sexy.
They may not be, you know, something that you, you know,
read about and we see it on DVC fan blah, blah, blah.
It could be behind the scenes stuff with ABC, it could be
behind the scenes stuff with ESPN.
But at the end of the day, does it make the board members happy?
That's all. They don't care that we're
sitting here saying you got to make a fifth gate.
They don't care. You know, they want to know.
So these moves that he might make, again, may not make, you
know, quote UN quote, front page news, but they could be very
instrumental in the company because then it only helps us if
everybody's successful. That gives us in the park world
more reason and more money to be more successful and to replace
Jelly rolls. So it'll be exciting.
Well, and I've always said that change is good.
You know, if you're an adaptable person that can adapt to the
changing landscape, I think that's really important.
Look at what they've, the moves that they were making even pre
Josh with, you know, Lucasfilm and Kathleen Kennedy stepping
down as as Dave Filoni steps up and Jon Favreau fills a greater
row. I, I, I think we're at a really
exciting precipice with what Disney's going to bring us.
I'm, again, I keep saying this over and over again, I'm
cautiously optimistic because it seems like they're putting the
pieces in place to do some things that we've been wanting
them to do for a long time. I mean, I'll be the first one to
admit I'm probably the biggest Star Wars fan in the room.
And I'm also really, really pissed about how Disney handled
that franchise. So if they can find a way to
right this ship, I think I think we're in for some some fun
things. What did you think of The
Mandalorian and Grogu trailer? I'm pretty excited about it, I'm
not going to lie. I.
Thought it was awesome. I thought it was awesome.
I thought it was just, it's so fun, Fun.
It's so nice to see Star Wars stuff that when you see it, you
look at it. And I know there's some Star
Wars people that may be like, no, it's not serious enough.
It doesn't battle the 4th quadrant from this video game
offshoot. Whatever it is, it's just fun.
It was just a fun trailer. It'll be a fun movie.
So yeah. I will leave you all with one
final question for the night related to our new CEO, but it's
actually related to who is leaving, which is Bob Iger.
Do you think this is Bob Iger's last hurrah?
Yes or no, Amy? I think, oh, go ahead.
Just wanted to make sure she was still awake more than anything.
Yeah, 75. 75. He has money.
He wants to retire. He does.
He has publicly said he wants to spend more time on his yacht, so
yeah. I think I think you'll see him
right out his contract to the end of the year and be there as
a sounding board for Josh when he has questions.
But I think he's done. I think he has other ambitions
and other he wants to spend time with his family.
He, you know, you keep hearing rumors about political
aspirations. I don't know how true that is.
But he he's he's done his fair share and more.
I think he's looking forward to some quiet time.
Derek's nodding his head and agreement so.
Yes, he's done. He's done.
He just wants Amy to take a nap. That's all about buying.
Amy wants Amy to take a nap. It's been a long week.
Well, we're curious about your thoughts.
Let us know in the comments what you think about the choice of
Josh tomorrow. Obviously from us, our entire
DVC fan community, all of that. We wish him the best of luck in
this role. We're going to be rooting for
you. Yeah.
We're going to tell you when you probably did something wrong and
let you know that's. I think what's what's great
about this community is you know, it's, it's it's good to
have, you know, some critics from time to time tell you when
you're wrong, but we'll equally congratulate you and tell you
when you're right. And I think more than anything,
congratulations, Josh on on on being chosen, chosen for this
position because no, no real better person, I think ever,
ever suited during this entire ride of, of choosing the next
Disney CEO. And we wish you the best.
SO that's going to do it for this weeks episode of the DVC
show. Again, let us know in the
comments what you think about this decision.
Maybe what you hope one of those things might be that Josh does
within the first year or two on the job.
But until next Monday, we will see you then see you.
Then get this tile.