Dr. David Orman

The once-cherished magic of the The Walt Disney Company in its theme parks is increasingly overshadowed by a sole focus on profit and shareholder value. Long-time guests and passholders are discovering that their loyalty is worth little once the boardrooms in California start pushing cost-cuts and price hikes with little regard for the people who made the parks thrive. For example, the beloved annual pass program at Walt Disney World Resort has seen perk reductions, increasing prices and thinning value while the crowds of casual visitors and new “premium” experiences are courted more aggressively. The creators in all this, those who built the parks with imagination and a guest-first ethos, have become the destroyers of the very culture they claimed to uphold.

This shift is nowhere more visible than at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort & Campground and the surrounding areas, where massive construction (Vacation Club) and relentless expansion are eroding the original spirit of the place. The resort’s wooded charm is being disrupted by the looming 900-room Disney Lakeshore Lodge project and other massive developments that checklist “growth” rather than authenticity. What once felt like a rustic escape is turning into a heavily monetized zone, heavy on footprint and light on character.

Guest feedback from those staying during this construction reports noise, disruption and a sense that the immersive storytelling has been sacrificed in favor of higher revenues.

Meanwhile decisions appear to be made far from the parks, by executives who are chasing metrics instead of magic. The expansive build-out, the perk cuts, the aggressive price increases all suggest a corporate directive that values stock performance above guest experience. The disconnect is felt by the most loyal patrons, the passholders and longtime resort guests who expect more than margin-improvement memos. With its sights set on quarterly earnings, Disney has sidelined the very community that sustained it.

The creators have indeed become the destroyers.