Nobody said there were no advantages, just that it didn’t increase capacity. There are clear advantages in things like staffing.
No, because a recent downturn in visitation is still several thousand more people per day than were visiting in 1993 (the last year before the massive Adventureland Verandah was shuttered and since followed by the Tomorrowland Terrace along with other smaller venues). Visitation can be down over recent years without being at all time lows.
So Disney does not need more dining capacity because people are committed to buying and don’t care if they fit?
It also makes for less crowded dining areas and a more pleasant experience.
But they’re still spending money at a specific venue and have to be accommodated at that venue.
That’s why it’s best to eat an early or a late lunch, same with dinner. Wait times dip as guests eat lunch at peak times. I always try to avoid the major counter service restaurants at lunch time.
Without adequate capacity, mobile ordering on its own makes dining areas worse because people sit first without any awareness of their place in line. This is why Disney restricts access only to ready orders when they operate a venue as mobile ordering only. The improvements to seating access come from operational and design changes that limit access that do not require the use of mobile ordering to be implemented.
The operational change is that when people are called and sit, that is their place in line. Their food is ready to pick up and eat. They are not saving a table for 30 minutes while a family member is waiting to order.
Less crowding from when compared to when? The problem with your argument here is that based on the latest attendance figures we have, you need to compare finding seating now to finding seating in 2012. There were almost 9,000 people on average every day in 2019 compared to 2023. That's a lot of extra people trying to find lunch at MK between 11 and 1, with like 4 places to do it at. It's possible mobile ordering helped. But it's also very possible there are just less people than what you remember from years ago.
No that’s not my argument. I think the place is plenty crowded. I was referring to other posters in different threads.
Meticulously planned? Come on. I was just at the parks, I saw there was a longer wait to something I really wanted, I know the nearby M.I.L.F is gonna take about 20-30 minutes which allows me to get back within the window. That's not really planning, just common sense.
Only planning I really did on my days was LL and what attraction I would rope drop. Everything else was just doing what I wanted at the time/finding room for other stuff.
You have said multiple times mobile ordering has resulted in it being easier to find seats, including when you quoted Lazyboy who was talking about less dining capacity. My question is what are you comparing it being easier to find a seat to? I'm just not convinced that mobile ordering is the reason (or at least the main reason) it's been easier finding seats.
I think we should definitely get off the mobile order topic but it’s definitely easier to find seats from how I remembered going before mobile order as there’s not a ton of people waiting in a seat doing nothing in the 10-15 minutes it can take for 1 member to get food for all of them. They show up, walk up to the counter, get their food and sit instead
I’m comparing it to times when we walked around with trays full of food past multiple people saving places for the ones in line waiting to order food.
Correlation is not causation…
There’s more than enough for probable cause here.