Matt Ouimet coming to WDW?

[tjkraz]

Multiple sources are reporting that current Disneyland President Matt Ouimet will soon be relocating to Lake Buena Vista to take over Al Weiss' recently vacated position as President of Walt Disney World.

Weiss, who has a storied career with the The Walt Disney Company was recently promoted to the newly-created position of President of Worldwide Operations for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts. Weiss now oversees operations at ALL Disney theme parks worldwide.

For those not familiar with recent DL history, the park was in a shambles as recently as two years ago. After years of rule by Paul Pressler and Cynthia Harriss, the park had degraded in so many aspects that I don't even know where to begin. Budget cuts...maintenance cuts...low employee morale...cookie-cutter gift shops...the list goes on and on.

In two years as president, Ouimet has lead a startling turnaround. From a maintenance aspect alone, it seems that nearly every building at DL received an exterior rehab from late '04 into spring '05 in preparation for the DL 50th celebration. Check out some of the archived reports at MousePlanet.com to see all of the tarps and construction walls as work progressed:

http://www.mouseplanet.com/articles.php?art=dl040913xx

I don't mean to imply that it has been all wine and roses, but the key factor here is that Ouimet has mirrored Walt's philosophy (good "show", placing priority on the guests) while his recent predecessors ignored that philosophy in favor of budget cuts and executive bonuses.

Comments?

[PoohsPal]

Sounds like a good thing to me. Overall it seems like many have been impressed with the job he's done. Think he'll bring the subs with him? ;)

[GrimGhost]

I think it will be a great thing for WDW. Matt, I believe was the first person to run Disney Cruise Line. The hope is, that there is someone in the pipeline to continue his work in DL.

[bavaria]

I think that this would be a great thing. I used to frequent DL about six times a year until the decline really became noticeable. The homogenization was very noticeable - the unique gift shops in Frontierland and Main Street have been replaced with shops selling identical items.

The food quality and value was never great at DL, but became significantly worse in the past few years. I swear that they even removed a few water fountains perhaps due to maintenance issues, or perhaps to encourage beverage purchases?

The attitude until the past two years or so became one of 'locals come to visit, and we have so many local annual passholders that they are becoming too demanding'. The mix of locals to tourists is significinatly higher at DL than at WDW, and it seemed that the powers that be were using this as an excuse for poor upkeep and decision making. If I were local, I would expect just as much magic as a tourist.

I agree though that if he does make the move to WDW, the recent positive momentum at DL must continue.

[JimC]

It would be a real loss for DL. Matt improved show and earnestly tackled the unbelievable backlog of deferred maintenance and reinvestment.

However, DL has had severe CM labor issues this past year. I don't know how much of that is Matt, corporate or legacy issues carried over from prior leadership. My hope is that it was not Matt's doing.