Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

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Sandurz

Well-Known Member
Now check availability: I'll look for a week in late July:
Contemporary Resort: 0 availability, not a single discounted room
Beach Club: 0 availability, not a single discounted room available.
Grand Floridian: Outer building rooms available at 25% off
Boardwalk: Garden view rooms available at 25% off. No water view or standard view rooms available.
Yacht Club: No standard rooms available. Water view and garden view available with 25% discount.
Wilderness Lodge: "Fireworks view" only available. Quite overpriced if there are no fireworks: Even with the 25% discount, it's more expensive than the discounted room at Grand Floridian!!

So that's it, those are the only available 25% discounted room for the week of July 24-July 31st.

And that is not normal. That's far far less discounted supply than you usually see for summer.

It appears to be higher than normal summer occupancy rate, but that's partially due to many resorts still being closed. Surely, if they opened all their resorts, they would have a lower occupancy rate. But they have more than enough demand for the resorts that are open.
What do we know re: actual available capacity at the opened resorts? Are they running at 100%? Lack of rooms available doesn't necessarily reflect demand 1:1, just that they're successfully "right-sized" for a given moment in time.
 

havoc315

Well-Known Member
What do we know re: actual available capacity at the opened resorts? Are they running at 100%? Lack of rooms available doesn't necessarily reflect demand 1:1, just that they're successfully "right-sized" for a given moment in time.

Really no such thing as "100%" - With guests checking in and out on different days, rooms down for maintenance, etc, 90-95% is realistically "full occupancy" for resorts.
Basically, the lack of availability suggests that demand is strong for the number of rooms they have -- quite strong.
Doesn't mean they would be able to fill every resort if they opened more resorts. But given the strong demand, if staffing wasn't an issue, you'd expect at least a couple more resorts to open.

While I gave the example of deluxe, demand for values and mods is especially strong:
For that last week in July, cheapest rooms available:
ASM: $153 per night
Pop: $178 per night
Coronado: $202 per night
CBR: $313 per night --- Yes, over $300 for the cheapest room available at CBR. That's only $95 less than Boardwalk. (only pirate rooms and preferred rooms available).

And the kicker... the cheapest room available at Art of Animation: $410 per night. Only suites are available. Yes, the cheapest room available at AOA is the same price as the Boardwalk.

With demand like that, they could certainly open another mod and another value.
 

GoofGoof

Premium Member
It's not "summer peak" -- For the last few years, mid-July to late September has been fairly soft. (especially from mid August)That's why they have almost always offered free dining in recent years -- Which turns into a huge discount, especially for families of 4+ with "Disney adult" children.

This summer, it's 25% with very limited rooms set aside for that discount, may resorts at only 15%. If you were to try to book now, you'd find very very limited availability.

Historical discounts for Mid July - September, courtesy of mousesavers:

This year: 7/11-9/29: 10-25% off
2020 -- some summer discounts were announced but Covid cancelled everything before Disney would have released their full summer discounts.
2019: (now getting into pre-Covid): 7/5-9/30: free dining. 5/28-8/28: 15-25% off (with more availability than this year) PLUS free gift card. 20-35% discount for AP holders, Florida residents, Disney Visa, etc.
2018: 8/2-10/7: 20-25% off. 5/29/18-8/25/18: partial free dining. 8/20/18-12/23/18: Free dining.
2017: 8/1/17-10/7/17: 15-30% off. (25%-35% for AP holders, Visa card, etc). 8/21/17-12/23/17: Free dining.

So 10-25% is on the "soft side" but it really becomes anemic when you see there are no AP/VIsa card discounts announced. No free dining. And there is very limited availiability for that 10-25% off.
Polynesian is currently excluded altogether.
Polynesian Villas are only 10%. (and Copper Creek is only 10%).

This is much smaller than you saw in the past. Where all deluxe usually got 20-25%.
Caribbean Beach Resort is only 10%, again anemic compared to the past.

Now check availability: I'll look for a week in late July:
Contemporary Resort: 0 availability, not a single discounted room
Beach Club: 0 availability, not a single discounted room available.
Grand Floridian: Outer building rooms available at 25% off
Boardwalk: Garden view rooms available at 25% off. No water view or standard view rooms available.
Yacht Club: No standard rooms available. Water view and garden view available with 25% discount.
Wilderness Lodge: "Fireworks view" only available. Quite overpriced if there are no fireworks: Even with the 25% discount, it's more expensive than the discounted room at Grand Floridian!!

So that's it, those are the only available 25% discounted room for the week of July 24-July 31st.

And that is not normal. That's far far less discounted supply than you usually see for summer.

It appears to be higher than normal summer occupancy rate, but that's partially due to many resorts still being closed. Surely, if they opened all their resorts, they would have a lower occupancy rate. But they have more than enough demand for the resorts that are open.
I didn‘t know they offered free dining in July. The Summer super peak season historically back in the day started mid-June when NE schools get out and ends mid-august when Southern schools go back. They rarely had discounts during that time. Free dining kicked in after the mid-August drop off.
 

Wendy Pleakley

Well-Known Member
Wasn't Canada having a lot of supply issues only a week or two ago? How did they open up to 12 so quickly?

Canada is generally going by age for vaccine bookings. In BC the estimate is later in June for the youngest group to get their first shot.

Opening appointment slots to everyone doesn't mean everyone will immediately get vaccinated, just that they'll be able to book appointments over the course of the next couple of months.

I don't know why Ontario would open up to all age groups so soon to be honest, as it doesn't seem fair to older people who have been waiting for their turn.
 

DisneyFan32

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
I checked on Six Flags Q1 Conference and it said:

- Total attendance for the quarter was 1.3 million guests, a 38% decline from first quarter 2019 which makes sense with covid restrictions and with two year-round parks in California (one with daily ops in 2019) being closed for the entire quarter. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a loss of $46 million compared to a loss of $32 million in the first quarter 2019 (largely for the same reasons). One thing that bumped the numbers up was that Six Flags over Texas was not year-round in 2019 but that doesn't make up for California or capacity restrictions elsewhere.
- They expect to be profitable in Q2
- They have an Active Pass Base of 4.1 million passholders, which included 1.7 million members and 2.4 million traditional season passholders at the end of first quarter 2021. The Active Pass Base is up 1% compared to first quarter 2020 and down only 9% compared to first quarter 2019. In short, they retained 91% of their passholder base through Covid which is kind of insane, especially since they've been charging a lot of them unlike uh... that other company. The number of paused memberships is around 5% right now.
- They will continue to operate the Drive-Thru Safari in New Jersey (Six Flags Great Adventure) as a separately gated attraction
- Applying a pro forma allocation to 2019, admission spending per capita increased 17% and in-park spending per capita increased 14% compared to the first quarter of 2019.
- When allowed to raise capacity restrictions by their respective states they do it quickly if not immediately. The Texas, Oklahoma and Georgia parks are already at 100% capacity. When more states allow it they will do it basically right away. (Just me speaking here: This means that the reservation system at those parks only exists to give guests the illusion that they are capping capacity. They are not. At all...)
- They want to work on reducing wait times at food stands . They see this as a major problem and are ramping up staffing to deal with it. They're confident that they can reach desired staffing levels soon. Unlike other chains that are blaming all of their problems on staffing, it's not a major concern for them going forward.

Hmm. If Six Flags could ended reservation system for 100% capacity as COVID-19 will be no longer a threat in US anymore, then there should be back to normal for Six Flags theme parks by end of the year this year.
 

jmp85

Well-Known Member
PhotoPass question for anyone who can help. We are headed down next Saturday and normally I'd pre-purchase the Memory Maker, but with masks being required and no character meet and greets for the little ones, I think I'd rather purchase 2-3 individual photos of the family in front of the Castle and say the Tree of Life. I know it is quite expensive to purchase the individual photos compared to MM, but I'd like to go that route if possible for this trip. Can anyone confirm that purchasing individual photos is still a thing? Thanks friends!
 

havoc315

Well-Known Member
I didn‘t know they offered free dining in July. The Summer super peak season historically back in the day started mid-June when NE schools get out and ends mid-august when Southern schools go back. They rarely had discounts during that time. Free dining kicked in after the mid-August drop off.

Summers used to be peak at Disney. But the last few summers pre-Covid, summer attendance was declining. Even July 4th, not super high attendance.
Yes, it used to just be dead late summer. But in recent years, even July has been soft.

If you subscribe to touringplans, take a look at their historical crowd calendar: July 2019, a few 8's, a couple 9's at Magic Kingdom, but mostly 5-6's.
July 4, 2019: Magic Kingdom 8/10. Epcot: 6/10. AK: 2/10. DHS: 2/10
July 2018 was even slower: A lot of 3's to 5's. Magic Kingdom did hit 10 on July 4, 2018, but the rest of July 4th week was 3's-7's through all the parks. Mid July was lot's of 3's and 4's.

Summer just hasn't been "high season" the last few years. Even I was surprised when they offered free dining for July 4th weekend last year.
 

HarperRose

Well-Known Member
PhotoPass question for anyone who can help. We are headed down next Saturday and normally I'd pre-purchase the Memory Maker, but with masks being required and no character meet and greets for the little ones, I think I'd rather purchase 2-3 individual photos of the family in front of the Castle and say the Tree of Life. I know it is quite expensive to purchase the individual photos compared to MM, but I'd like to go that route if possible for this trip. Can anyone confirm that purchasing individual photos is still a thing? Thanks friends!
You can remove masks briefly for pictures.
 

Heppenheimer

Well-Known Member
Canada is generally going by age for vaccine bookings. In BC the estimate is later in June for the youngest group to get their first shot.

Opening appointment slots to everyone doesn't mean everyone will immediately get vaccinated, just that they'll be able to book appointments over the course of the next couple of months.

I don't know why Ontario would open up to all age groups so soon to be honest, as it doesn't seem fair to older people who have been waiting for their turn.
From what I understand, the reasoning is that even though the elderly are the most vulnerable, the young do the most spreading, especially with the new dominant variants. So, opening up to everyone is sort of a compromise to hit both ends of the spectrum at once.

Given Canada's slow role out, politics also might play a role. It might be too much of political poison pill to leave out any age group at this point.
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
Why do I get the feeling Disney is going to be the last place to become normal again (without masks, no social distancing, all shows returned etc )

Disney may also use this opportunity to never bring some things back or even charge for fastpasses eventually

not to dive deep in this (again)...but these things are going to happen. They have an opportunity to do it and they will do so.

the era of useful, “free” fast pass (it’s not free...you’re paying 300% of the ticket price than when fast pass debuted) is over
 

Bill in Atlanta

Well-Known Member
not to dive deep in this (again)...but these things are going to happen. They have an opportunity to do it and they will do so.

the era of useful, “free” fast pass (it’s not free...you’re paying 300% of the ticket price than when fast pass debuted) is over
What do you think FP+ will look like when it does finally return?
 

GhostHost1000

Premium Member
8FA7783B-0563-4EB0-9463-8F1D48806699.jpeg

a good sign of things to come
 

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
The backlash if no free option for fast pass returns is going to be HUGE. I wonder if that would move the needle.

I don’t believe it would...no other parks have free anything. That’s what made fastpass ingenious in the first place...along with requiring minimal commitment to use it. Sad that’s gone.

I just doubt that they can handle their average crowds now with what they have without ride bottlenecking?
 
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