News Disney Park Pass System announced for Walt Disney World theme park reservations

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Headliner wait times is just a bad way to gage crowds no matter how you look at it. For one thing they are the headliners so they are the rides every one wants to do so even on a slow attendance day they can still have a lot of people in the line.

If it’s the slowest day of the year and AK is basically a ghost town but everyone that is in the park is going straight to flight of passage then that ride is going to appear busy.

That was pretty much the whole summer

But I know…too hot

Cincinnati is much more pleasant when it’s 95

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

That’s the issue with pushing LL sales - once people pay for LL they want to maximize it. I believe that’s why restaurants are suffering.

Len has an opinion on that…I bet?
My amateur guess is it’s “significant”

Which is a bad scenario…if lighting lane sales are eating into ancillaries…they’ll lean even more into them due to losses

It’s the equivalent of trying to stop a flood from coming into your house with a fire hose

 

[Disstevefan1]

That’s the issue with pushing LL sales - once people pay for LL they want to maximize it. I believe that’s why restaurants are suffering.

Food and merch hate LL.

LL is taking money from food and merch.

Us on the outside like to think of Disney as one big company and everyone works together to serve the customers but it’s just like any other company; there are better and worse departments to work in and everyone works to try to better their situation.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

But wait times for headline rides are what matters for many people who are planning trips.

Short of counting people through the gate, what other numbers would be useful?

What would REALLY help?

If Noobs who don’t frankly know what they’re looking at would stop going on boards, Reddit, social media, etc and completely overstate crowd size. It helps no one.

Also this legion of vloggers who are promoting a false parks “boom” because they think it will make them rich and avoid getting a job.

These people mulling around the parks are kinda sad. It’s less families and more and more lost Gen Zs

 

[Disstevefan1]

What would REALLY help?

If Noobs who don’t frankly know what they’re looking at would stop going on boards, Reddit, social media, etc and completely overstate crowd size. It helps no one.

Also this legion of vloggers who are promoting a false parks “boom” because they think it will make them rich and avoid getting a job.

These people mulling around the parks are kinda sad. It’s less families and more and more lost Gen Zs

Noobs just purchase LLPPs just to not have to think about it The Mouse wins

 

[ManicMillennial]

But wait times for headline rides are what matters for many people who are planning trips.

Short of counting people through the gate, what other numbers would be useful?

… Counting the people that actually go through the gate.

That’s why the park reservation system was actually a really good idea but everyone threw a fit at the idea of actually having to take a couple extra minutes to decide what park they want to start their day in.

 

[nickys]

… Counting the people that actually go through the gate.

That’s why the park reservation system was actually a really good idea but everyone threw a fit at the idea of actually having to take a couple extra minutes to decide what park they want to start their day in.

The crowd levels give an indication of how busy you can expect the park to be.

That is what many people who like to plan their visit use to decide when to go and how to split their days. Will AK or DHS be busier on the Thursday before race day? Should we go the first or second week of May?

Even if Disney released guest numbers day by day, or even if Len had his team counting people, it doesn’t really tell you much. How many thousand arrive in the evening for fireworks? They don’t impact wait times.

Measuring wait times is much more useful.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

… Counting the people that actually go through the gate.

That’s why the park reservation system was actually a really good idea but everyone threw a fit at the idea of actually having to take a couple extra minutes to decide what park they want to start their day in.

That plan was germinating for literally decades

It was about reducing employees and/overextending who was left

 

[easyrowrdw]

For anyone who doesn't know or has forgotten, the Touring Plans Crowd Levels reflect the stand-by wait times for headliner rides between 10am and 4pm (I think that’s the timeframe they measure).

That doesn’t necessarily match to numbers of visitors in the park.

So using their Crowd Levels to determine how busy the parks are don’t tell the whole story.

Which reminds me of how Josh from EasyWDW would talk about “feels crowded” even if wait times were low, or vice versa (RIP Josh ).

Whenever I walk through Frontierland in the mornings I think to myself, “feels crowded.” And then I throw $1,000 on the ground and go home.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Whenever I walk through Frontierland in the mornings I think to myself, “feels crowded.” And then I throw $1,000 on the ground and go home.

But you don’t stop by Crystal palace for a $60 breakfast, do ya?

 

[Disstevefan1]

But you don’t stop by Crystal palace for a $60 breakfast, do ya?

Mmmmm all you can eat buffet breakfast with characters

 

[ManicMillennial]

The crowd levels give an indication of how busy you can expect the park to be.

That is what many people who like to plan their visit use to decide when to go and how to split their days. Will AK or DHS be busier on the Thursday before race day? Should we go the first or second week of May?

Even if Disney released guest numbers day by day, or even if Len had his team counting people, it doesn’t really tell you much. How many thousand arrive in the evening for fireworks? They don’t impact wait times.

Measuring wait times is much more useful.

I get what you’re saying and don’t don’t disagree with using wait times to gauge business levels but what I am confused about is that it seems to me that only using the most popular rides has a lot of ways of getting inaccurate information. As I stated before they can make a slow day seem busier but at a certain point on busy days people will avoid them because they don’t want to deal with a line that’s over 2 hours and go do a usually slow attraction just to pass the time.

That plan was germinating for literally decades

It was about reducing employees and/overextending who was left

This is true but I don’t think that was the only reason they did it. From a business perspective there are a lot of reasons that having people pick which park they are going to be in makes sense.

 

[easyrowrdw]

But you don’t stop by Crystal palace for a $60 breakfast, do ya?

I’m partial to Cinderella cuz it’s more expensive

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I’m partial to Cinderella cuz it’s more expensive

You’re such a whale

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

This is true but I don’t think that was the only reason they did it. From a business perspective there are a lot of reasons that having people pick which park they are going to be in makes sense.

I can think of 1 other…to play with the “cap” to force people into others…which gets us back to it just being about “labor efficiency”

 

[Epcot82Guy]

@lentesta My internal data nerd is curious... Have you adjusted the ratings historically based on overall attendance? Or, are the crowd levels based on some "objective" wait time (or other) baseline? In other words, would a 3 in a year with 20 Million visitors today relate to the same experience as a 3 at 17 Million visitors previously? Or, is the "3" getting adjusted to be relative to the average wait time/visitors in that year?

 

[lentesta]

@lentesta My internal data nerd is curious... Have you adjusted the ratings historically based on overall attendance? Or, are the crowd levels based on some "objective" wait time (or other) baseline? In other words, would a 3 in a year with 20 Million visitors today relate to the same experience as a 3 at 17 Million visitors previously? Or, is the "3" getting adjusted to be relative to the average wait time/visitors in that year?

We adjust over time, but the broad boundaries of each crowd level are generally similar. Like, a '3' now is probably within a couple of minutes of what a '3' was in 2015. I could look if needed - it would probably take a few hours to track down yearly adjustments.

Related to that, we've been doing a lot of work around the question of 'How many crowd levels are there, really?' I suspect it's around 4-7, not the 10 we currently have.

 

[Bocabear]

… Counting the people that actually go through the gate.

That’s why the park reservation system was actually a really good idea but everyone threw a fit at the idea of actually having to take a couple extra minutes to decide what park they want to start their day in.

There was more to that than just deciding where you want to start your day that made people throw a fit...it was the fact that most of the time you could not go to the park you wanted to....because it was all booked up...traveling with friends as we do, we often had the issue of a couple people not able to get into the park the same day as the rest of the group....Which I know there are often work-arounds for but it makes it all feel like a gigantic hassle especially as a passholder.... Disney Annual passes are the most expensive park passes in the country and even when you buy the premium pass, it is crazy you still have to go through the hurdle of booking a reservation to just walk into the MK... Years ago we used to pop in to get a cookie at the bakery or just to walk around for a little while without doing any rides....but now that you have to go through the process of pre-booking, it makes you feel invested ...that you should probably book attractions too....amd then the whole idea of a carefree impromptu visit to a park becomes an ordeal.....

 

[DisneyCane]

There was more to that than just deciding where you want to start your day that made people throw a fit...it was the fact that most of the time you could not go to the park you wanted to....because it was all booked up...traveling with friends as we do, we often had the issue of a couple people not able to get into the park the same day as the rest of the group....Which I know there are often work-arounds for but it makes it all feel like a gigantic hassle especially as a passholder.... Disney Annual passes are the most expensive park passes in the country and even when you buy the premium pass, it is crazy you still have to go through the hurdle of booking a reservation to just walk into the MK... Years ago we used to pop in to get a cookie at the bakery or just to walk around for a little while without doing any rides....but now that you have to go through the process of pre-booking, it makes you feel invested ...that you should probably book attractions too....amd then the whole idea of a carefree impromptu visit to a park becomes an ordeal.....

Well said! I'll also add that it makes it a pain if you decide at the last minute that today seems like a better day for a different park than the one you booked. Even if the reservations are available you still have to go through the pain of changing them before you head out or even in the parking lot. The best benefit of being a passholder was being able to have completely unplanned, carefree days when you felt like it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

There was more to that than just deciding where you want to start your day that made people throw a fit...it was the fact that most of the time you could not go to the park you wanted to....because it was all booked up...traveling with friends as we do, we often had the issue of a couple people not able to get into the park the same day as the rest of the group....Which I know there are often work-arounds for but it makes it all feel like a gigantic hassle especially as a passholder.... Disney Annual passes are the most expensive park passes in the country and even when you buy the premium pass, it is crazy you still have to go through the hurdle of booking a reservation to just walk into the MK... Years ago we used to pop in to get a cookie at the bakery or just to walk around for a little while without doing any rides....but now that you have to go through the process of pre-booking, it makes you feel invested ...that you should probably book attractions too....amd then the whole idea of a carefree impromptu visit to a park becomes an ordeal.....

When were they “all booked” up? On low staffing in 2021?

Let me check my calendar…

Nothing is booked up and they can’t sell the damn things.

It’s all pretense