Bloody Saturday: July 21 1991

Anaheim,CA (AP) Sept 8 1992 Today the Disneyland Park Company announced that it was filing for bankruptcy and it will close Disneyland immediately. The move came as a surprise as customers also known as guests were waiting to go in to the theme park. The theme park company was spun off from the Walt Disney Company after the leveraged buyout in 1985 broke up sold all core businesses... Some said that Disneyland died on Sept 8th, but it was realy just on life support. The day Disneyland died was last year July 21st: Bloody Saturday.
 

anamarvelo

Banned
free market

the void left by disney will be filled by other companies
so the people who went there it will become just another lost part of there childhood
 
I am Not A good writer, the premise of TTL is that IOTL there was a move in 1984 by some of the shareholders of the Walt Disney Company who wanted to break up the company and sell off all the assets for cash. IOTL the Disney board brought in Micheal Eisner, Jeffery Katzenburg and Frank Wells, who then turned around the company. ITTL the board brought in a priviate equity firm who took the company priviate and loaded it with debt. So in this scenario the film comapny and library are sold for a large amount of cash. The license company was kept because it is a cash cow. the land that the film studio was sold separtly from the film company. Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Park were sold to a consortium of other amusements park companies (Time-Warner,Six Flags, Marriott, Universal Studios and Paramount) Disneyland was spun off in to it's own company. WDW land became Reedy Creek Devlelopment Company. The hotels in WDW were sold to Sheriton, Hilton Best Western and other hotel companies.
 
The names are fictional: Jenneth Hayes 19 yo Tea Cup Operator: "The Park was open from 9A.M. to 1A.M. that day, my shift was 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.. When I got to the park it was already hot and it look like the guest parking lot was filling up." Jeff Albers 42 yo Former Cast member(employee): "The Disneyland Park Company (DPC) outsourced the parking lot connsession to a suspected organized crime connected business and they restriped the lot so that more cars could be parked, but you could see the old lines clearly and that caused problems when the lot got full." Bill Johntson 57 yo Maintenace worker: "Space Mountain and the Haunted Mansion were already down from last night and it look like they were not comming back online anytime soon. We were also getting pre-openning check reports about the Matterhorn not working and we were trying to get updates on the Pirates of the Carribean but there was no response."
 
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So no Euro or HK Disney?
Tokyo will be fine as it has always been owned outside the WDC.
 
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Jeff Albers former cast member:"In 1986 after Disneyland was spun off on its own, the new CEO made his first visit and I was a supervisor at the time and was part of the group that inspected the park with him. The first thing he said was that this was his first time ever in an amusement park and he couldn't see what the big deal was about... the visit went downhill after that." Bill Johntson maintenance worker:"A lot of the maintenance and repair work on rides and other attractions were delayed or deferred and that caused more and more breakdowns as time went on." Cindy Kramer 38 yo mother from Oceanside, CA:" This was the first time I've been to Disneyland since 1985 and when we got to the parking lot you could see how much the place deteriorated. There was potholes and you really couldn't tell which lines were the parking spaces. At the parking attendent booth the attendent would not give back change for a $20 bill and told us to go(bleep) ourselves"
 
Walt is spinning in his grave...and will the fans get together to try and buy it up and run it on their own? (You'd be surprised how loyal Disney fans are...)
 
Cindy Kramer:"After we parked we looked for the tram that was to take us to the entrance of the park but we found it was discontinued." Jenneth Hayes, Tea Cup Operator: "After clocking in, we were told there will be no overtime authorized and strict time limits enforced." Jeff Albers,former cast member:"In the parking lot, the new CEO asked if the parking lot tram was necessary, couldn't people just walk. At the entrance of the park he saw the board with the ride that were closed and asked why did we have that, he was told so that the guests won't be disappointed inside the park. he told us to take the board down NOW. We then went in the park and we started at Main Street USA and he saw the Horse-Drawn Trolley he asked how much it cost to keep and care for the animals the supervisor told him at that point the CEO said to get rid of the animals now and stop wasting money on low unit rides."
 
Disneyland changed the amusement park industry by taking it out of poor and rundown areas,by being clean and well maintained it did not have the reputation of being seedy and dirty, by having a theme Disneyland was a place everybody wanted to go to. Disneyland transformed Anaheim and Orange County tunning Anaheim in to a major convention and trade show destination. With the additional tax dollars, Anaheim built a new stadium for the Angels. Disneyland also changed the Southern California entertainment market with all the new visitors it brought in. MCA the then parent company of Universal Pictures stared the back-lot tours in 1964(ask for Babs). Seaworld was started in 1964 down in San Diego. Knott's Berry Farm only in the 1970's transformed itself into an amusement park. With out Disneyland,would any of those things happend?
 
Bloody Sunday: July 21 1991

Jeff Albers:"As the tour continued, the CEO kept remarking on the number of trash receptacles there was, and all the different styles. we try to tell him it was keeping in each land's themes and styles. He said it would be more cost effective with just one type instead of all the different styles. At one of the trash receptacles the CEO saw a cast member take out a trash bag that was only 1/3 full and he asked the cast member why didn't he wait until it was full? The cast member told him if he waited the bag could overfill and the smell could get really bad especially on hot days. The CEO noted that the grounds crew were all Disneyland employees and that we could save a lot of money by contracting out most of the non "revenue producing units," grounds keeping, landscaping,custodial-janitorial services.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
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So essentially Frank McCourt buys Disneyland.

Jeff Albers former cast member:"In 1986 after Disneyland was spun off on its own, the new CEO made his first visit and I was a supervisor at the time and was part of the group that inspected the park with him. The first thing he said was that this was his first time ever in an amusement park and he couldn't see what the big deal was about... the visit went downhill after that." Bill Johntson maintenance worker:"A lot of the maintenance and repair work on rides and other attractions were delayed or deferred and that caused more and more breakdowns as time went on." Cindy Kramer 38 yo mother from Oceanside, CA:" This was the first time I've been to Disneyland since 1985 and when we got to the parking lot you could see how much the place deteriorated. There was potholes and you really couldn't tell which lines were the parking spaces. At the parking attendent booth the attendent would not give back change for a $20 bill and told us to go(bleep) ourselves"
 
Jenneth Hayes:"When I got to my station there was trash all around the attraction and none of trash can emptied. Usually the the grounds are powered washed on Friday nights but it look like it wasn't done. Cindy Kramer:"After the long walk to the entrance we went inside into Main Street USA;' we could not believe all the trash on the ground and the smell was AWFUL." KNX News Radio 1070:"The time is now 7 A.M. Our top story today is the massive raid early this morning 2:15A.M. at Disneyland by the Immigration and Naturalization Service(INS) and the U.S. Border Patrol. An unknown number of suspected undocumented workers were picked up but sources inside the INS said that this was by far was the largest number of people ever picked up. A spokesperson for the Disneyland Park Company operator of the amusement park placed blame on outside contractors and in no way the Disneyland Park Company was at fault." Jeff Albers:"The the grounds keeping,landscaping and custodial were the first services to be contracted out and of course they went to the lowest bidders who then hired people who would worked for the lowest pay."
 
Bill Johntson:"When we finally heard from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, it was the worst news possible the water pumping system had massive leaks and water had spilled out and it left the attraction without the water level necessary for the ride to operate." Jenneth Hayes:"We got as much trash cleaned up as possible and we barely got the pre-check done when the park opened up. The ride worked fine but it was supposed to have an overhaul in February." Cindy Kramer:"My favorite ride was the Pirates of the Caribbean but when we got there the ride was closed and people were getting angry and this is just when the parked just opened up. We were talking to other guests and they were saying that a lot of rides were down such as Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. We asked another guest why weren't the closed rides listed? The other guest just laughed and asked when was the last time we were there?"
 
Jeff Albers:"As we went from land to land, the new CEO would ask at each ride how many units can be processed in a hour, how many units does it takes to run the ride. at first we didn't know what he was talking about when he said 'units' then it struck us he meant how many guests can ride in a hour, how many cast members it takes to run the attraction. At each ride he was asked if he wanted to try out the ride, he just refused. When we got to my section of Fantasyland, I told him all stats he wanted abut the attractions under my control, he then said 'Can't we cut down on the number of units needed to run the rides?' I then asked if he would like to try to help operate the attraction, The CEO shot a real angry look and asked me 'who did I think I was?' I told him I started working at Disneyland since I was 17, and how working here put me through college at CSU Long Beach with a degree in Business Administration and a MBA also from CSU Long Beach. The CEO gave this smug look and said that he went to Stanford and had a law degree and a MBA from Harvard."
 
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