Brightline/Virgin Trains Orlando-Miami update Orlando Sentinel 11/21/19

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If Walt were alive, he would definitely own trains, but his successors are not railfans. That said they seem to have started recognizing the value of transportation rides as a selling point again, after the intervening managements ignored it for years in favor of cheap, nasty buses. The construction of the new gondolas indicates that.
 
I mean, in theory I could see them extending the monorail there...but apparently the per-mile cost there is truly problematic versus where it was in the 70s/early 80s.
The Epcot monorail is sufficiently obsolete tech that it would be crazy expensive to extend. That said, building some new gadgetbahn is very much the Disney way, and there are plenty of candidates. Hyperloop? :eyeroll:
 
Disney buses in Orlando are all owned by Mears. Suddenly Disney will get the urge to own more expensive trains? [emoji849]
They also own thier in cruise ships. Never say never when it comes to Disney. These are the same people that charge 10 bucks to thier guest a night to park thier cars at thier hotels above the nightly room charges. If any one could make rail passenger service profitable it would be Disney. Not that I think it they ever consider it. But who knows.
 
A bus is a bus ... no matter how you fancy it up it still shares the roadway with the crowded Orlando/Kissimmee traffic ... so, Disney may not want to "take ownership" of buses so they lease/rent them. Trains, on the other hand, do not stop for traffic and come in a variety of designs, including some very new technology ... maybe this would be enough to bring Disney to the rail ownership table - with Disney, you never know
 
A bus is a bus ... no matter how you fancy it up it still shares the roadway with the crowded Orlando/Kissimmee traffic ... so, Disney may not want to "take ownership" of buses so they lease/rent them. Trains, on the other hand, do not stop for traffic and come in a variety of designs, including some very new technology ... maybe this would be enough to bring Disney to the rail ownership table - with Disney, you never know
If Walt Disney was still alive this would already be a reality, he Loved Trains!
 
I heard he was alive too. Will he and Sir Rod creature a future model railway once they emerge from suspended operation?

Maybe Disney should just rebuild the monorail entirely and extend it. I hear Alweg is having a special...
 
I've been down in Orlando and it's really not that bad outside of the construction area. At rush hour, yes, but that's about it on a large scale (at least, south of 528...downtown is a mess, but that's not at issue here).
 
Having travelled between Tampa and Orlando many times over the years, I-4 experiences bad traffic jams outside of rush hours. Especially Friday through Sunday. From 5 miles or so west of US27 in Polk County to downtown Orlando there can be backups caused by "normal" traffic. I-4 in general is a busy highway for its whole length from Tampa to Daytona Beach. Downtown Orlando is the epicenter of the worst traffic. If I need to go to Jacksonville from Tampa, I take I-75 to Gainesville to reach US301 and Starke, then east on I-10.

The current Orlando area construction area will expand in future years to US27 on the west end. Also, there is planned major work between Tampa and Lakeland in the coming decade. We went through the first rebuilding of I-4 20 years ago between Tampa and Orlando. It is a highway under almost continuous construction.
 
My brother drives to and between Tampa and Orlando several times a week ... some of this is done during the daytime traffic hours and some of it is done at very early and/or late hours. He talks often about how bad the traffic is in the entire area as it often causes his day to run long.
 
A professional association I belonged to had a conference at a Disney World property. All those hotels have conference rooms, and they aren't for tourists. There may be more business travel than you think.
There's a huge amount of association meetings and minor conventions - those sorts of meetings are going on ALL the time at all the hotels on and around Disney properties. They all use Disney as a huge selling point to their organizations - "Come have your meetings here, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, especially in the cold weather months (but really all year 'round), and bring the family. You can 'meet' while they're at the Parks. Or plan the meetings for the mornings and then spend the afternoons at the Parks. Or have the mini-convention Wed-Fri and Saturday morning for an hour and you've got the rest of it written off for taxes." Etc..... They run the whole thing like a well-oiled machine. Except the oil is all the money brought in by all those guests. And it's a LOT of money. At some of those you can expect to pay $40 to PARK if you're not staying at the hotel that's hosting the organization's meetings. And if you leave the morning session to go elsewhere to get lunch and then come back for the afternoon session, IT"S ANOTHER $40.
 
Disney could do a lot of things ... they seem to get permission to do almost anything they want while other companies get tied up in red tape and court proceedings.

One of the reasons Disney does whatever it wants is that the Disney World property is politically the Reedy Creek Improvement District which controls zoning, building codes, fire protection, etc. And who sits on the district's Board of Directors? It's made up entirely of Disney employees. Neat trick. Old Walt was no fool.
 
I finished reading through reams of documentation of the agreement between VTUSA and Virgin Enterprises. One of the clauses in it is interesting. It says that VTUSA is not permitted to compete with nor help someone compete with any of the Virgin branded services including entities like Virgin Cruises.

I wonder what impact this may or may not have regarding VTUSA property/service being used to transport passengers to Disney Cruises. Honestly, I have no idea. But it did catch my attention.
 
I finished reading through reams of documentation of the agreement between VTUSA and Virgin Enterprises. One of the clauses in it is interesting. It says that VTUSA is not permitted to compete with nor help someone compete with any of the Virgin branded services including entities like Virgin Cruises.

I wonder what impact this may or may not have regarding VTUSA property/service being used to transport passengers to Disney Cruises. Honestly, I have no idea. But it did catch my attention.

Depends how they define compete. Would two cruise ships have to be on the exact same route or near exact same route to be considered in competition? Or are they just in competition because they are both cruise ships and are thus presumably fishing in broadly the same market.

By that definition Disney is in competition with both the Louvre and the Strassburg Railroad as they are all three vacation things.
 
I see that you have identified a few possibilities from a possible large number of them. I specifically avoided that myself since what Virgin's actual intent is I don't know and have no way of knowing. They can also give exceptional dispensations per the agreement. I doubt that we can come to any conclusions. But those addicted to mental gymnastics - they can have a lot of fun with this while playing Virgin and VTUSA CEOs in negotiation :D
 
Depends how they define compete. Would two cruise ships have to be on the exact same route or near exact same route to be considered in competition? Or are they just in competition because they are both cruise ships and are thus presumably fishing in broadly the same market.

By that definition Disney is in competition with both the Louvre and the Strassburg Railroad as they are all three vacation things.

True they are both cruise lines...but they are after decidedly different markets within that stratum. We all know what "Disney" is about...
Virgin Voyages actually bans children under 18. And unlike Disney, they have a casino. So I don't know how many potential cruiser's would cross-shop those two...
 
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