12/17/06- 1:15pm. AK at Capacity - Entrance Closed

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Christi22222

Active Member
Good god, do you people work for Disney CIA?

What about the AP article that is talking about tourism dropping in Orlando this year? Do we think they are wrong? Or is Disney keeping all the guests on property thereby skewing the numbers to look lower in greater Orlando? Could we have hit the peak and be seeing some smaller crowds in 2007?
 
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pheneix

Well-Known Member
What about the AP article that is talking about tourism dropping in Orlando this year?
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Been to Universal this year? Been to any of the mini golf courses around town? Disney is getting a bigger piece of a shrinking pie. How the hell Sea World is having a record year is anyone's guess.
 
culturenthrills

culturenthrills

Well-Known Member
pheneix said:
Been to Universal this year? Been to any of the mini golf courses around town? Disney is getting a bigger piece of a shrinking pie. How the hell Sea World is having a record year is anyone's guess.
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Because Sea World relies heavily on locals so they are less likely to be hurt than Universal. Also, there product is different than everyone else's so if people have only 1 free day whereas they used to have 2 or 3 they will probably pick SeaWorld because it is different than anything Disney offers. Also, that new Believe show probably helps even though in my opinion I don't think it is that great.

Sat. has always been busy because you have alot of locals hitting the parks but I think they may even more busier now since Disney has been pushing Annual Passes and other florida resident deals more heavily than it used to.
 
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clarkstallings

New Member
MGM's Capacity as of Spring Break 2004 was 47,000. I was at AK on 12/17 during the timeframe of which we speak. Everest's wait was 50 min, Dino was at 20. It seemed a little crowded but I would have never guessed it was at capacity. This whole weekend though, wait times seemed a bit screwy. I personally think that they'd be better off glancing at the queue and making an educated guess. That's what I do on rides that I can see/ figure out what amount of queue they are using and I'm usually more accurate than the signs. On a side note, I'm still royally ticked at a D security officer who called me out while trying to exit Epcot. We were leaving through the international gateway. All of the guests were pouring through the exits. There were two turnstiles to the left with a security guard standing next to them. Both turnstiles had been switched to exit mode so I go to go through those turnstiles. He barks "That's not an exit sir!" I said, "well they are in exit mode." He cuts me off and says "I don't care what mode they're in, you can't use them!" I actually had several cast members be rude to me this weekend. I know it's busy and its frustrating, I know, I've been there as a cast member, but please, just grin and bear it. Don't be unpleasant to all guests!
 
mkt

mkt

When a paradise is lost go straight to Disney™
Premium Member
Original Poster
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Free Beer :D
 
trendicoff

trendicoff

New Member
jmvd20 said:
I'm a little confused here. The true park capacities should not be top secret Disney Company property. Unless the RCD has special regulations the maximum capacity of each park and structure contained therein should be determined by code issues. Such as ventilation, evactuation, and emergency exit capacity.

In all commercial properties the certificate of occupancy with maximum capacity is supposed to be plainly visible, or for larger facilities displayed upon request, usually kept in the maintenance office.

I'm not trying to start an argument here, just wondering if anyone knows the reasons Disney would be exempt from this common rule, and why exactly the maximum capacity would be kept secret to bvegin with.
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Good point to bring up. The capacities are not quite top secret. I spoke to a friend in HR policies and she said its just part of preserving the magical guest experience as in if you know that the park hits capacity at 100k and you're number 100,001 you're not such a happy camper.

As for capacities being posted, I beleive that only applies to enclosed areas (I really have no idea on this) but I do know that at all the attractions I've ever worked they did show us the certificates of capacity by fire code, they're just in backstage areas since we, those filling the attractions, are the ones liable to hold by fire code. I guess if you found a really friendly cast member who was willing to break some rules they could show you the certificate.

A side point, what is secret, and that Disney has been official excused from revealing (withing a period of six years, don;t ask me why six) are the daily attendance figures becasue of terror threats (i.e. they don;t want to let people know exactly what days have high attendance). Just some food for thought.

Any other questions, feel free to ask me, and I'll ask the appropriate people.
 
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pheneix

Well-Known Member
The only reasons Disney does not like to reveal attendance trends and capacities are because financial pundits for every wall street rag in the world would use them at the ultimate barometer of how their parks are doing. And lets face it, if every knew how poorly some of Disney's parks perform compared to the rest of the chain, Wall Street would be tearing Disney a new one. Euro Disney and Tokyo Disney DO release annual attendance figures as part of their yearly reports. According to those reports, DLP and TDR pull down roughly 12 million and 25 million respectively (thats going by last year, I know there are some small differences, but not much). Universal Orlando also releases its attendance numbers every quarter. According to those reports they have pulled down around 9 million guests so far this year. Disney used to report attendance for its American parks as well, but that stopped with Eisner.

There are some security concerns as well, but they are overprotective at best. Disney will always be a target if there are 1,000 or 100,000 guests in one of their theme parks, and anyone with a calculator and access to Disney's quarterly reports can figure out when a theme park is busy and when it is not.

That theme parks have been officially excused from revealing attendance because of terror concerns is new to me, and I'm curious enough to research the issue myself. If this is true, then pretty much every theme park on the continent not named Disney or Six Flags could start burying a lot of skeletons in their closets.
 
MSTINKHERBELL01

MSTINKHERBELL01

New Member
We were there! On 12/17, very very busy! The line for Finding Nemo the Musical was all the way back to Dinosaur for the 2nd show. My family and I found a manager and she let us sit in line almost 2 hours prior to the show. Actually, I sat in line and they rode rides..:brick: . It was so well worth it though...great show. The fast passes for Everest were done at like 11 am :eek: . Very busy day indeed.
 
lentesta

lentesta

Premium Member
Hi folks,

If I've read the entire thread correctly, the AK seems to have closed on 12/17 due to some operational issue, possibly understaffing. Peak wait times at Everest were in the 40-50 minute range despite the closure.

Does that sound like the general consensus of opinion from folks who were there?

Thanks for the help with this - I'm trying to ensure the crowd calendar and blog get updated.

Len
 
wdwmagic

wdwmagic

Administrator
Moderator
Premium Member
According to my information, no WDW park has ever hit 100,000 (or even near). Also, all attendance records have been set in the last 7 years (with the 4 parks in place), none exist from before that time.
 
juan

juan

Well-Known Member
capacity doesn't take in the non-turnstile people
like at Epcot - CP's and IP's riding the bus system enter through cast services whether they're guests or working --- none are counted
also all of the CMs that worked a morning shift and then stay as a guest after their shift

while this usually doesn't account for many people on normal days-- it does on days like the 4th of July when hundreds and hundreds of CPs were guests in the parks
 
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pheneix

Well-Known Member
According to my information, no WDW park has ever hit 100,000 (or even near)
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Several of my managers and co-workers from my days at Space Mountain swear that there were 100000+ days at the Magic Kingdom before the days of four parks and Fastpass. Although admittedly, the only Disney park that has publicly documented evidence of allowing more than 100,000 guests at once is Tokyo Disneyland.

Of course, if you really want to get down and dirty, all the Disney parks are small potatoes compared to Coney Island in its heyday. That cluster of seaside parks regularly drew hundreds of thousands of guests every summer weekend.

capacity doesn't take in the non-turnstile people
like at Epcot - CP's and IP's riding the bus system enter through cast services whether they're guests or working --- none are counted
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Fire Code - Cast Members = Guest Capacity

There are many other variables that I don't have time to describe, but the fire code requires that theme parks take their employees into account.
 
unkadug

unkadug

Follower of "Saget"The Cult
pheneix said:
Fire Code - Cast Members = Guest Capacity

There are many other variables that I don't have time to describe, but the fire code requires that theme parks take their employees into account.
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True...but I got a question.

Since Disney has it's own Fire Department, do they set there own occupancy levels? Therefore there own park capacities?
 

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