Two DCA restaurants close up shop in light of sagging attendance

Can someone say "Market Saturation" ??? because they had these problems long before the 11th of Sept.

Not to mention I wasn't really that impressed with DCA when I got to go there... Had much more fun at DL.

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"Mantis looks too intense for me.."
MF total - 469 laps
VertiGo Launches - 79
June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100

I realize that I am probably going to get nailed for this comment, but I'm not going to completely blame DCA's attendance problem here.  I am going to blame the monetary aspect instead.  This is a park that costs $43.00 per person to get in.  The last thing I want to do is take my wife and two kids (average american family) over to Wolfgang Puck's or Mondavi's for dinner and spend another $60-$100.00.  Tourists would rather have a Disney Burger and get the kids a few stuffed animals than go to a high class restaurant inside a theme park.  It didn't work this time, so don't look for Disney to try it here again.  Why not another ride in doors?  Look on the bright side-Mission and Boudin are talking about pulling out as well.  Oh how we will miss the tortilla tour!

Those upscale restaurants are the type that should be outside the park gates in a CityWalk type environment, why waste precious park time on a gourmet restaurant and miss attractions?

FP said "why waste precious park time on a gourmet restaurant and miss attractions?"

Hostyl answers "What attractions?" heheheh

Seriously, I thought that was the biggest complaint about DCA, not enough to do. Personally, I think *every* park should have an upscale restaurant attached to it. Especially one like DCA which is supposed to appeal to a slightly *older* crowd. Admittedly, I agree that it should be out of the park like Pippin's @ HP or Pastamore' between IOA & USF.
lata,
jeremy
--who still wants to go to DCA

We went to the Puck restaurant. It was pretty cool actually. It's too bad. Guess they'll start selling hot dogs in that building.

DCA is going to have to weather the storm. Additionally, a few more attractions would help a lot. 4500/day. I wish the crowd had been that small when I went!

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Yeeee Haaawwww!

There is no way that people avoided the upscale restaurants because of the cost of the food. In that case, places like the Blue Bayu at Disneyland would be hurting and closing up shop. I highly belive it had to do with poor atendance. Say 5% of the visitors ate at one of the high end restaurants. Well, if the number in the park is low, that percentage will also be low (lower). Its realy sad that these to places closed because I realy enjoyed them. Going to the Cove bar for some frys was a great deal. 4 bucks for a big plate. Oh well ::sigh::

I don't like DCA that much, and to tell you the truth, I agree with what Adam said. I'd rather spend more time getting things for someone else, and maybe see the restaurants OUTside of the park, like in Downtown. Downtown by the way, is cool. But yeah I also think that the park doesn't have enough attractions. Hehe. On a scale of 1 - 10, 10 being the best, DCA in terms of things to do is about a 3.5.

4,500 a day?  Wow!  Kennywood outdraws that!  (By a lot.)
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"Let's go out and have some fun!" (New Order)

One of the main problems is that when a visitor arrives at the main gate, they look left towards Disneyland, right towards DCA, then head left towards Disneyland. They compete with themseleves too much. They should charge $10 extra and allow guests to park hop. They should also build a monorail station in DCA.
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Yeeee Haaawwww!

The monorail is a tomorrowland attraction. The track itself does not belong in DCA [but its there]. A station would be horible. How are ya going to fit that in? (rhetorical)

I am actually a big fan of Disney parks, and I grew up in California, but I'm glad the Disney Corp. is having to figure out again what attracts people rather than just stick something out there and the public comes no matter what.

I have not visited this park yet, and I won't till I'm properly incited by a reasonable price - which by the way, just as of the other day, my credit union has offered tickets for $25.00, (that's the first time they have admitted that it isn't worth as much as the Magic Kingdom since they are $4.00 cheaper) which finally might get me to go there.

I would have loved to see the look on some Disney exec's face a year ago if someone would have suggested a $25.00 price at that time - I'm sure it would have been an arrogant response to the effect of "you gotta be kidding".

The thing is, in the last couple of years, Disney (in my opinion) believes more and more that advertising is their product - rather than it being something that helps sell their product.

Some years back they started to charge for their Disney News Magazine, which when it started out, was a free subscription with the Magic Kingdom Club Card. It has now become a magazine stand periodical - and has a nice price attached too. For what? Telling us where we can go spend our Disney money??! Look through it's pages sometime - if you get with their mindset - it's a privilege to pay for a ticket that gets you into a theme park.

I stopped my subscription cold, and they have sent me endless ads telling me not to miss a single issue - I can only hope others have done the same and they are feeling a pinch.

Then the Magic Kingdom Club card became a subscription only (Oh thank you for that dollar off at the door to begin with - that's really how much it was at times), Now you have to PAY per year (I believe it's $18.00) for the honor of owning the discount card - What's that about!!

Now they open this park, which could have been something really interesting - and decide that it is supposedly worth the same price of their original park. They figured that if they just got the doors open, people would just come on in.... and to tell you the truth, I thought people would too! But they haven't. Thank you public for understanding how to vote with your dollar... or possibly just being to bored to make it to the front gate!! *** This post was edited by bunchastuf on 10/3/2001. ***

As I have said in previous posts, I dont understand why Disney wants to build near an already established park. If they would have built DCA somewhere else in the U.S. that needs a park, the turnout would be alot better. I am beginning to think they dont want to build elsewhere because then the park would have to be seasonal(In most locations).
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"The Peoples Elbow" or "The Spinaroonie?. Cant decide which is the most electrifying move in sports entertainment!!! LOL

Why not a park in Texas for Disney? People on the Eastern states go to Disney World, people from the Central and Mid-West go to Disney Texas and while the rest in the wertern US got to Disney Land. It would bring costs on families really down since a ticket from O'Hare to Orlando or ORD to LAX are over $300-$400 per person round trip. And a ticket to any Texes city from Chicago round trip is around $100-$200, especially since the smaller carriers can go that far, but being from a United Airlines hub and HQ i perfer UAL. What happened to the rumors of a park out here in the Mid-West and/or IL? It was big news like 3-8 years ago or so that they were looking at land out here to buy.
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I may be from IL, but i sure can't get enough of the FORCE. MF!!!

I know quite a few folks who work (worked) at the Mondavi Winery / restaraunt. I guess the Electrical Parade was not quite the shot in the arm they needed. Too bad, really.

I MUCH prefer eating at a sit-down place like Wolfgang Puck rather than having some overpriced, dried-out, cold, raunchy Disney hamburger. I also think having McDonalds there is a bad idea too.

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"X" marks the spot in 2001!

Well, thats just to bad. If this keeps up will the park close too?