A Spirited Perfect Ten

SpaceMountain75

Well-Known Member
Why am I doing a Data Analysis of the 2014 WDW crowds at 1:40 AM?

Best Observation? Slow days are far and few between. Tiered Pricing wont work; there are simply not enough days that one could categorize as "off-peak"
Great, now send that info to the Disney execs who are overseeing the tiered pricing and use the PhotoDave vigor and sarcasm we all know to get the point across.
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
Frozen...is spectacle. Popular lowest common denominator fluff crap.

The thing about the Frozen backlash is that the backlash is among middle-aged adults. I'm sure that middle-aged adults at the time of Little Mermaid and Aladdin felt the same way. We simply aren't the target audience.

While I certainly won't say that Frozen is the best film ever made, or even the best Disney animated film, it certainly is not "fluff crap" - and let's be honest here - even the "Disney classics" aren't "high art". They are made to be popular among youths and families. Even the films Walt Disney worked on - he wasn't trying to make significant art, he was trying to make entertaining and therefore profitable films.

The film also has a clear, positive message of acceptance - a lot more so than many of the Disney classics, particularly the older ones who really boil down to "you'll find a man who will make you happy and complete your life" or "wish and it will come true" as their central thesis.

Sorry, I can agree with folks who may think that it's popularity may not equate to quality, but your statement is simply outrageous - while I believe it's more than spectacle, if it wasn't - what the hairy heck do you think Disney is known for, if not spectacle? And let's be real here - Disney is generally thought of as low culture to begin with, so let's not get too high on that horse, LOL.
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Great, now send that info to the Disney execs who are overseeing the tiered pricing and use the PhotoDave vigor and sarcasm we all know to get the point across.

Working on it. Gonna take another two nights to get through all 365 days.

Short version? Most of the days are Average attendance or Above. Which means the M-F model of lower attendance is not reflective of how WDW attendance patterns are. Slow days are few and far between.
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
The thing about the Frozen backlash is that the backlash is among middle-aged adults. I'm sure that middle-aged adults at the time of Little Mermaid and Aladdin felt the same way. We simply aren't the target audience.

While I certainly won't say that Frozen is the best film ever made, or even the best Disney animated film, it certainly is not "fluff crap" - and let's be honest here - even the "Disney classics" aren't "high art". They are made to be popular among youths and families. Even the films Walt Disney worked on - he wasn't trying to make significant art, he was trying to make entertaining and profitable films.

The film also has a clear, positive message of acceptance - a lot more so than many of the Disney classics, particularly the older ones who really boil down to "you'll find a man who will make you happy and complete your life" or "wish and it will come true" as their central thesis.

Sorry, I can agree with folks who may think that it's popularity may not equate to quality, but your statement is simply outrageous - while I believe it's more than spectacle, if it wasn't - what the hairy heck do you think Disney is known for, if not spectacle?

Ive learned to accept Frozen for what it is.... and learned to 'Let it Go.'

I'm just disappointed in the lack of reinvestment in the Orlando parks. Imagine what that extra $800M that went to the Shanghai project could have done in Orlando.....
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
Working on it. Gonna take another two nights to get through all 365 days.

Short version? Most of the days are Average attendance or Above. Which means the M-F model of lower attendance is not reflective of how WDW attendance patterns are. Slow days are few and far between.

Then we are back to the original flawed premise that this will somehow even out crowds, which I think pretty much everyone agrees it won't. The only impact on attendance would be less overall, not redistribution which seems to be what Disney is obsessing over with MM+, this insane ticket scheme, etc.
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Then we are back to the original flawed premise that this will somehow even out crowds, which I think pretty much everyone agrees it won't. The only impact on attendance would be less overall, not redistribution which seems to be what Disney is obsessing over with MM+, this insane ticket scheme, etc.

Well, The crowds already ARE evened out. About 120 days in, 18 days were 3 or below. 28 days were 7 or above. Everything else was a good 4-6. What Glendale is doing with this tiered pricing idea is ... well its price gouging and pretty messed up. The idea that M-F has low attendance or is "off peak" is ridiculous.

The Data simply does not support that.
 

SpaceMountain75

Well-Known Member
Working on it. Gonna take another two nights to get through all 365 days.

Short version? Most of the days are Average attendance or Above. Which means the M-F model of lower attendance is not reflective of how WDW attendance patterns are. Slow days are few and far between.
Thanks for taking the time to do that, by the way. Gosh, nowadays it seems like Disney doesn't even look at the facts. I imagine the average conversation in their meetings to follow this format more or less:
Exec 1: "Alright guys. I have an amazing new idea. And no, don't worry, it won't cost any money, in fact it's just the opposite! What if we introduce a tiered system into the park tickets and divide them into three different sections, each one being more expensive than the previous?"

Exec 2: "Would we give additional offerings to the people paying extra?"

*boardroom laughs*

Exec 1: "So go ahead and stop whatever plans you had where we would have to put money into the parks and start thinking about how we're going to sell this to the consumer as being "magical". Aaannnd go!"
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Thanks for taking the time to do that, by the way. Gosh, nowadays it seems like Disney doesn't even look at the facts. I imagine the average conversation in their meetings to follow this format more or less:
Exec 1: "Alright guys. I have an amazing new idea. And no, don't worry, it won't cost any money, in fact it's just the opposite! What if we introduce a tiered system into the park tickets and divide them into three different sections, each one being more expensive than the previous?"

Exec 2: "Would we give additional offerings to the people paying extra?"

*boardroom laughs*

Exec 1: "So go ahead and stop whatever plans you had where we would have to put money into the parks and start thinking about how we're going to sell this to the consumer as being "magical". Aaannnd go!"

The absolute easiest & smartest thing for Disney to do (and most fair, IMO) is for Disney to only charge extra for the Peak Attendance days of Spring Break/Christmas.

The one thing that we're missing on these Tiered pricing is that those tickets are the cost for people who arent staying on property and dont have a KTTW package. If you're on property? No need to worry. People off property? Uhhhhh you might be hosed come peak season.
 

TP2000

Well-Known Member
That being said, I would lean more on somewhere in-between 1100-1300. Even with an additional scene or two, it's just too small of a space to have any more than a modest increase.

Adding scenes doesn't increase hourly capacity. They could run a flume out of the Norway building and connect it with all of Gran Fiesta Tour next door and then send the boats back to the Norway unload area, and it wouldn't increase the hourly capacity. It would just make the ride longer, and give you a view of the employee parking lot.

Hourly capacity is dictated by how many passengers are dispatched in a vehicle at what time interval. Example: 10 Passengers Dispatched Every 30 Seconds = 120 Riders Per Hour.

If Maelstrom dispatches a boat every 45 seconds, they get 80 boats into the ride per hour. If a Maelstrom boat seats 12 people the equation becomes: 80 x 12 = 960 Riders Per Hour

The on-ride YouTube videos available show that the boats are dispatched, and unloaded, roughly every 45 seconds. That gets you the "every seat filled" number of 960 riders per hour for Maelstrom. But since every seat isn't filled, some rows only have two people, and some boats take longer to load or unload, the real world numbers for Maelstrom were likely 850 to 900 riders per hour.

They could add an extra row to the boats, and that would get them up to a theoretical 1,200 per hour. (80 x 15 = 1,200) But probably closer to 1,100 per hour in the real world, with new boats with an extra row.

Otherwise, any additional capacity would require major changes to the ride system. And the track switch mid-ride that sends the boats backwards is the bottleneck there, as that operation requires 30+ seconds to perform. They'd need to engineer a faster track switch operation, or eliminate that and rework the flume to route around it and keep the boats pointed forward, to get any increase in capacity beyond 1,100 per hour.

But if Frozen Flume Ride is just a redressed version of Maelstrom using the same 12 passenger boats and same ride system, then 900 riders per hour is what you'll get. Nothing more.

As a point of reference, Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland has a theoretical hourly capacity of 3,400 riders per hour, but the real-world numbers are around 2,800 riders per hour because modern Americans can't fit four to a row anymore.

But 2,800 riders per hour is dramatically more than 900 riders per hour.

"Math is hard!" -Teen Talk Barbie, 1991
 
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culturenthrills

Well-Known Member

Next Big Thing

Well-Known Member
Why do I have a feeling that the failure of Tomorrowland is the reason Tron 3 is dead. I gotta say I am really disappointed. I thought the way Legacy ended set up a some pretty cool ideas for the third one. That and I just wanted to see Olivia Wilde as Quorra again.
They say it's because their film schedule is filled and they have no place to put such a large investment. Quite frankly, there's a level of truth to that as their film schedule all the way out until the 2020 timeline or so is jam packed.

However, I do think Tomorrowland doing worse than expected is the main reason. The Disney exec that gave a quote in an article I read said the door is still open and Tron 3 is still on the table, however, by the point they'd actually get this thing going and out there (if it ever were to happen), would Garrett Hedlund and Olivia Wilde still be interested? We'd also be over 10 years past Legacy at this point so the script would likely be in need of a fairly major rewrite as well (from what they currently have).
 

SJN1279

Well-Known Member
By removing the backwards section and track switch, I would think Frozen capacity will improve a decent amount. I wonder if that will be one of the moves for this refurb.
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Next Big Thing

Well-Known Member
By removing the backwards section and track switch, I would think Frozen capacity will improve a decent amount. I wonder if that will be one of the moves for this refurb.
.
I believe @marni1971 has said the backwards section is staying. However he has also said they are extending the boat path into where the former queue was, so there will be a slight addition to the existing track.
 

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