Is this a new title for a fiction novel?
-
The new WDWMAGIC iOS app is here!
Stay up to date with the latest Disney news, photos, and discussions right from your iPhone. The app is free to download and gives you quick access to news articles, forums, photo galleries, park hours, weather and Lightning Lane pricing. Learn More -
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Walt Disney World Park Hours cut starting September 8 2020
- Thread starter durangojim
- Start date
Correction: An invisible evil that is very infectious that affects people differently and has a chance of killing you or your loved ones (that you can pass it to without knowing) is what is scaring people.
It is not propaganda, you just don’t see the worst of it because those people don’t survive to tell their story, realatives can’t visit due to public safety and workers can’t get specific due to HIPAA.
So HIPPA is keeping people from telling their story, hiding deaths, that would be the worst of it ?
I agree with all those, except your first paragraph your opinion, yes employment is down, and travel is down, but nowhere near a standstill like you said, already shared the numbers it is coming back. People obvious care about COVID but now as numbers are trending better they are traveling even more.
wdwfan22
Well-Known Member
Fireworks are not coming back in October.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
More people are traveling today then were in April. That’s a fact. That’s why the airfare numbers went from down 95% to down 70%. That‘s because literally nothing was open in April. There was nowhere to go. People flying in April were either essential workers or people attempting to get home from wherever they got stuck. Now Las Vegas is open, WDW is open, Myrtle Beach is open. People are traveling to those places. There’s no disputing that, just way less people than would have in pre-Covid times. Some business travel has started back up too. The sales people for my company are back to work. Many other places are the same. They still are limiting travel when possible but it’s happening a little bit now.
Where I think the disagreement comes from is your assumption that because air travel went from down 95% to down 70% that’s a sign that demand at WDW will increase more and is due to people seeing number trends improving. There are some people who just don’t care about number trends. WDW opened at the worst possible time for numbers in FL. It opened near the peak of the spike and people still flew in to go. Same goes for a place like Myrtle Beach. Many young people flew to Myrtle Beach to party with no regard for case numbers. So I don’t see a trend in improving cases being the driver of that increase in flying. I think that’s just the people willing to travel no matter what and having just that demographic flying leads to a 70% decrease in passengers from the prior year.
The problem for WDW and Orlando as a whole is the summer is ending. Without Covid, demand would drop significantly in Sept as kids went back to school anyway. College students are going back to school too (even if it’s virtual for some) so they are less likely to be traveling starting soon. So the numbers are better right now vs April but its a fact that Disney and Universal cut their park hours and now Universal has joined Disney in moth balling some of the resorts. They are not expecting demand to increase any time soon.
Dan Deesnee
Well-Known Member
RV sales kept the gdp number from bring much worse. RVs are very expensive so the narrative that "Millions are out of work and that's a big reason why the parks are not crowded." doesn't make sense. Their are more examples like this.
Low wage jobs were hit, HARD. I feel for those people, it's a tough situation. But they are not Disney's target audience. Disney has been targeting high income earners for years and most of them are doing just fine (the economic data backs this up in many ways). White collar hasn't been effected by this anywhere near levels that would keep the parks empty.
It is much more related to decreased value for the money and the nuisance of air travel right now. People love fireworks and parades. If someone is only going to go 1-2 times to Disney World, why would they go now???
I feel strongly that once a mostly full experience is delivered, demand will skyrocket. Just think of everyone who pushed 2020 trips to next year...
Just my opinions with some data to back them up. Might be totally wrong.
Low wage jobs were hit, HARD. I feel for those people, it's a tough situation. But they are not Disney's target audience. Disney has been targeting high income earners for years and most of them are doing just fine (the economic data backs this up in many ways). White collar hasn't been effected by this anywhere near levels that would keep the parks empty.
It is much more related to decreased value for the money and the nuisance of air travel right now. People love fireworks and parades. If someone is only going to go 1-2 times to Disney World, why would they go now???
I feel strongly that once a mostly full experience is delivered, demand will skyrocket. Just think of everyone who pushed 2020 trips to next year...
Just my opinions with some data to back them up. Might be totally wrong.
Air travel is going to be hurting for a while. A good bit of that is due to the flight itself, even aside from the destination. How does the phrase go? "It's the journey, not the destination"? Even people that may not be as concerned about WDW, may think twice about getting on an enclosed plane for several hours.
This is very much what I see too-- relatively affluent people who would go to WDW not wanting to because of 1) having to take a flight to get there; and 2) the relative value for what you get now (decreased hours, experience, etc). If they're close enough some have driven that would normally fly, but they also have AP or DVC or both.
If you look at the Sturgis rally, that has drawn over 270,000 people coming in from around the country. Attendance is down by about 10%, but spending is up by double digits. ( https://www.bhpioneer.com/covid-19/...cle_de610534-de57-11ea-962b-bbef366bb50e.html ) It looks like the experience was pretty "normal" with concerts, events, etc. While it's not WDW, it does show that people are willing to travel and spend if the perceived value is there.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I agree with your point on demand skyrocketing. I just don’t see any way to return the full experience without a vaccine or some serious improvements in testing/tracing combined with better treatments. That’s why I think we are looking at 6 months to a year before we see a major spike in demand at WDW. Even then it won’t be an immediate return to pre-Covid levels but a return to something closer to normal. The economics of a theme park work best with large crowds and surge pricing. That’s just not possible with distancing and capacity limits. The transport alone is a nightmare let alone park crowds.
On the economy, there are many, many small business owners suffering terribly right now. Not all, but some are in the demographic of WDW regular visitors. So while the waitress making minimum wage may not be in the key demographic for WDW the restaurant owner and his family probably are. There are other people impacted like managers and higher paid workers in the hospitality industry too. Airline pilots, hotel managers, etc. My only point is not all the pain is limited to just hourly workers. They make up the vast majority, but there are many others impacted. Another point to consider is many families are 2 earner families so if mom has a good corporate job that’s been untouched by Covid and dad is a bartender who has been out of work since March it may be that the family can get by financially with a little belt tightening but that extra money they usually would use for a vacation just isn’t there anymore. Another way this applies is people with second jobs. My good friend works a regular 9-5 job which hasn’t been too impacted by Covid but he also bartends 1 or 2 nights a week for extra money. That extra money isn’t there right now. So he is still paying the mortgage but has no money for vacations. His family are regular visitors to WDW but won’t be going any time soon.
All this tracks, even with the experience in WDW not being the best, people are still complaining they can't get reservations, especially AP holders. Look at all the trip reports of people flying in from out of state vacations on this board and others, they have been picking up steadily. Once WDW is able to relax the mask rule demand will really pick up. When that will be who knows.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
Look how well a relaxed mask rule worked in the GA schools. Not trying to be a downer, but it’s unlikely Disney relaxes the mask rules any time soon. It’s way too much liability and they would get killed in the media. PR matters a great deal to TWDC.
But was it really that bad, The school from the photo is back in session on a hybrid model this upcoming week. 35 cases out of 2000 students, large majority asymptomatic and no hospitalizations. The majority of parents still strongly support in school learning.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
The district just closed a second high school and thousands of kids are now in a mandatory 14 day quarantine. I’d say it’s a complete train wreck. In 14 days when they go back if more kids test positive they will be right back to quarantine. I don’t see how they don’t pivot to full distance learning at least for a little while.
Georgia school district closes a second high school over COVID-19 outbreak
The Cherokee County School District announced Wednesday it was closing Woodstock High School, effective immediately — the second closing in a week.
www.businessinsider.com
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
Nothing to see here. People that where Mickey coloured glasses don't see things like that. They also don't see how people aren't interested in going to Disney and theme parks right now.The district just closed a second high school and thousands of kids are now in a mandatory 14 day quarantine. I’d say it’s a complete train wreck. In 14 days when they go back if more kids test positive they will be right back to quarantine. I don’t see how they don’t pivot to full distance learning at least for a little while.
Georgia school district closes a second high school over COVID-19 outbreak
The Cherokee County School District announced Wednesday it was closing Woodstock High School, effective immediately — the second closing in a week.
The district just closed a second high school and thousands of kids are now in a mandatory 14 day quarantine. I’d say it’s a complete train wreck. In 14 days when they go back if more kids test positive they will be right back to quarantine. I don’t see how they don’t pivot to full distance learning at least for a little while.
Georgia school district closes a second high school over COVID-19 outbreak
The Cherokee County School District announced Wednesday it was closing Woodstock High School, effective immediately — the second closing in a week.
Opinion is the trainwreck is closing the school with so little positive asymptomatic tests. A huge overreaction, but expected with the fear going on,. My bet , they will stop closing the schools for so little of test in the future and realize it makes no difference., but this is probably not the place to discuss that so I see your point etc.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
I have 2 school aged kids. I wanted them to be able to go back to physical school in Sept. Under no circumstances would I support a plan where you only quarantine the kid who tests positive. You have to also quarantine anyone they had direct contact with and when you hit a tipping point where too many kids are quarantined it makes more sense to close the school. That’s what happened there. The sad part is in September when they re-open the schools the same thing is likely to happen again within a few weeks of re-opening so the kids will just get jerked around, back and forth with no continuity of learning sorta like what we had back in March for the end of last school year.
Wouldn’t the best bet to stop spread in the schools be to attempt to distance the kids and wear masks? Similar to what WDW is doing at the parks? You can’t do nothing and expect the virus to just skip your school or theme park. Unfortunately unless we get to weeks of very low or no cases I don’t see WDW removing the restrictions.
DisneyDebRob
Well-Known Member
Not just disney but anywhere. Just ask a travel agent and find out where everyone is going now. Besides my wife, she knows of many agents and the demand is not there for travel except for more local areas to the client. Doesn’t matter what people think here on how things are “ picking up”, they are not unless you want to use 50-10 miles from their house. Then you would be correct.
GoofGoof
Premium Member
That’s why the Jersey shore is as crowded as ever...even without bars. From what I understand the FL panhandle is a similar situation. Lots of people still going and beaches are crowded but it’s a driving crowd not a fly in one.