News 2021 Theme Index

[Jrb1979]

This thread is hilarious on how much people will defend Disney. There is no way Universal is getting better. The numbers are down cause Disney decided to make it happen.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other parks are getting better or they exist at all?

 

[bhg469]

This thread is hilarious on how much people will defend Disney. There is no way Universal is getting better. The numbers are down cause Disney decided to make it happen.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other parks are getting better or they exist at all?

Because:

Some of us have figured out that Universal does a lot of things better lately. It took a long time but they're well on the way to stealing those precious extra days away from people's Orlando trips. More and more people are going to start skipping the lesser 3 Disney parks altogether. 7 day vacations are going to be leaning 4-5 days at Universal.. It will happen and Disney doesn't need to do anything. They will get the guests they want, and the money out of them.

 

[Andrew C]

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other parks are getting better or they exist at all?

Not sure anyone is NOT acknowledging that. Common sense says Uni has generally improved over the last decade or so. The debate seems to be around whether WDW is worried about losing a bit of market share, if that actually hurts them, attendance caps, post covid direction, staffing, demand, etc.

 

[fgmnt]

I think they still want to be known as the premiere vacation destination - the vacation kingdom of the world.

If they keep that status and make more money, I don't think they care if Universal gains some ground but is still a clear #2 ...

Now if that status starts to change then I think they react and put in effort to get back the crown

Yeah, I think they are fine losing market share as long as they are still the leader and still growing. I am really interested to see what the landscape in central florida looks like in 2026.

I can only speak for myself, but for me it doesn't seem worth the bother and expense right now to go to WDW. DLP, at least, is a simpler prospect in that I can just go there for a few days and largely ignore their ride reservation system if I want to and still get on pretty much everything I want to.

If WDW really is still slammed, though, I guess I might not be a typical guest.


While I agree they will always try to extract as much money as possible out of each guest more than shower them with love and appreciation, I don't think they want people to feel like they had a bad time. If after all these changes guest satisfaction starts going down, I doubt they will be lighting cigars back in the executive suites in Burbank and laughing at how much suffering they're inflicting on their guests/friends. I'm sure they know that they need guests to feel that they had a good time for the business to remain viable.

There are some who will go along with whatever Disney throws at them, but this is a volume business that depends on hundreds of thousands of people showing up every week.

If you are a Disney head, i think you would poorly serve yourself to go to WDW now if you have been in the last 4 years and none of the other parks. If I did not have relations in the area, i would not be going at all.

That being said, I do not think you can convince anyone east of the rockies interested in a Disney trip to make one anywhere other than Orlando. A normal person would go to the seemingly bigger, closer place.

I do think they care about feedback and satisfaction in Florida; they would not be pulling the plug on Enchantment or the mistake on the lake after <2 years. I just question if anyone in Burbank can see what WDW looks like 10 years out. I wonder what they actually like about the place other than it being a revenue center. I question whether or not they understand the product. I question what quality they consider the Orlando product to be in comparison with all other resorts the company holds a significant stake in.

 

[el_super]

You absolutely do do those things out of desperation, if you’re frantic to increase income when attendance hasn’t increased enough or you’re trying to justify a decades-long approach to the industry that has cost billions and is based on demonstrably untrue premises or you are trying to cover massive losses in other parts of your massive corporation. Its milking the one dependable part of your company rather then growing it naturally at the risk of permanently alienating consumers.

Eh.... no. If they were just milking their customers, their customers wouldn't be going along with it. When you have a company changing direction and their customers change direction with them, that's a dominant position. Will it always be that way? Maybe not. But for now it is. Come back when the parks revenues nosedive.

 

[Casper Gutman]

This thread is hilarious on how much people will defend Disney. There is no way Universal is getting better. The numbers are down cause Disney decided to make it happen.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other parks are getting better or they exist at all?

To be totally fair, I think we’ve finally passed the point where most Disney loyalists deny Universal is improving. We’re now at a moment where they claim it doesn’t matter, WDW is untouchable, and say, “nuh uh, I’m not worried,” before projecting those ideas onto Disney management.

 

[el_super]

Cap out would have to be 100% capacity or it can - correctly - be labeled still as a distribution system. It’s not really a cap until there are people on the ground being told to go to springs.

So you really think that the reservation system and attendance cap hasn't depressed attendance?

Of course having the reservations made it harder to go, whether the parks were 100% capped or not.

Eliminating the Annual Passes and restricting the Main Entrance Passes also made it harder to make spur of the moment trips, which would have driven down attendance.

Eliminating/Restricting park hopping also would have driven down attendance since it would have eliminated secondary clicks.

And what should really be above all else: raising the prices would have driven down attendance.

You were there in most of these threads over the last two years, so I know this can't be news to you. But maybe you can offer an explanation as to why, when these things were all implemented to drive down attendance, you now think that lower attendance numbers were unexpected and a harbinger of market share loss?

This thread is hilarious on how much people will defend Disney. There is no way Universal is getting better. The numbers are down cause Disney decided to make it happen.

I can't speak for everyone but I have no ill-will toward Universal at all. It's not a terrible place, just not my cup of tea.

It is hard to have a conversation with people who are not acknowledging simple truths though.

 

[danlb_2000]

I am trying to think, world wide, which parks were open for all of 2021? The Florida parks were open, but the California ones were not. Disney Paris had a closure in 2021 and I would guess most of the Asia parks did also.

 

[Jrb1979]

I am trying to think, world wide, which parks were open for all of 2021? The Florida parks were open, but the California ones were not. Disney Paris had a closure in 2021 and I would guess most of the Asia parks did also.

I am more curious what the numbers will be for all parks this year. From all the parks I visited this year many of them were busier then have ever been. I can't even tell you how many times I ran into people visiting these parks for the first time.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

I do think they care about feedback and satisfaction in Florida; they would not be pulling the plug on Enchantment or the mistake on the lake after <2 years. I just question if anyone in Burbank can see what WDW looks like 10 years out. I wonder what they actually like about the place other than it being a revenue center. I question whether or not they understand the product. I question what quality they consider the Orlando product to be in comparison with all other resorts the company holds a significant stake in.

Completely agree, and the examples of Enchantment and Harmonious are exactly what I was thinking about how they do respond to what the numbers are telling them. The question is not whether they want guests to come away feeling they had a good time, but whether they have any feel for the product they're offering and thus would even know how to interpret what the numbers are telling them. It's easy to interpret whether people say they like a show and how many people bother to watch it, but it's harder to read why people aren't enjoying the overall experience of visiting a theme park or themed resort if they aren't really your thing so you don't know why people like them in the first place.

Part of the reason DLP seems to have fared better in recent years in terms of quality and upkeep is that they seem to have a management team over there that is both far enough away from Burbank and more genuinely proud of and invested in their resort to want to offer a quality product in order to make money. WDW seems to have become too big and bloated and both 'just a job' for management in Orlando and a cash machine on which levers can be pulled in terms of inputs and outputs in a way that has impact on the company's overall performance for corporate in Burbank.

 

[el_super]

I am trying to think, world wide, which parks were open for all of 2021? The Florida parks were open, but the California ones were not. Disney Paris had a closure in 2021 and I would guess most of the Asia parks did also.

Disneyland opened midway thru Q3 of 2021 (April 30th).

They haven't posted the year-end for FY2022 yet, but for Q3, their park revenue went from 4.3 in 2021 to 7.4 billion in 2022. That was a 72% increase year over year. Going back to Q3 of 2019, their revenue was 6.5 billion, so they have exceeded their numbers for 2019 already, just two years after the pandemic.

 

[peter11435]

This thread is hilarious on how much people will defend Disney. There is no way Universal is getting better. The numbers are down cause Disney decided to make it happen.

Why is it so hard to acknowledge other parks are getting better or they exist at all?

Universal is absolutely getting better. Both in terms of quality of product and attendance. I don’t think anyone has denied that. That doesn’t change the fact that 2020 and 2021 attendance numbers are not comparable between the two resorts. Both things can be and are true.

I’m a passholder to both resorts. Since reopening I’ve been able to go to UO any day I wanted weather planned or spur of the moment. My Disney days have largely needed to be planned in advance and there have been many…. Many days I wanted to visit a Disney park but was unable to due to park pass.

 

[Andrew25]

We can't compare 2021/2020 numbers, but we can compare 2019 to 2011:

Attendance Change
Universal Orlando: 55.2% increase (doesn't even include Volcano Bay which has been a real winner for UO)
Walt Disney World: 23.9% increase

Market Share
Universal Orlando: 22.4% to 26.6% (2022 - 33.3%)
Walt Disney World: 77.6% to 73.4% (2022 - 66.7%)

There's an obvious change happening in Orlando that will be magnified by the increased hotel rooms at UOR over the next few years and Epic Universe. Realistically, I can see a 40/60 split between Universal/Disney.


As a fan of Disney Parks, you want Universal to completely dominate the next few years to get Disney worried enough to start doing something about it.

 

[Jrb1979]

We can't compare 2021/2020 numbers, but we can compare 2019 to 2011:

Attendance Change
Universal Orlando: 55.2% increase (doesn't even include Volcano Bay which has been a real winner for UO)
Walt Disney World: 23.9% increase

Market Share
Universal Orlando: 22.4% to 26.6% (2022 - 33.3%)
Walt Disney World: 77.6% to 73.4% (2022 - 66.7%)

There's an obvious change happening in Orlando that will be magnified by the increased hotel rooms at UOR over the next few years and Epic Universe. Realistically, I can see a 40/60 split between Universal/Disney.


As a fan of Disney Parks, you want Universal to completely dominate the next few years to get Disney worried enough to start doing something about it.

With that thinking it will too late.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

So you really think that the reservation system and attendance cap hasn't depressed attendance?

Of course having the reservations made it harder to go, whether the parks were 100% capped or not.

Eliminating the Annual Passes and restricting the Main Entrance Passes also made it harder to make spur of the moment trips, which would have driven down attendance.

Eliminating/Restricting park hopping also would have driven down attendance since it would have eliminated secondary clicks.

And what should really be above all else: raising the prices would have driven down attendance.

You were there in most of these threads over the last two years, so I know this can't be news to you. But maybe you can offer an explanation as to why, when these things were all implemented to drive down attendance, you now think that lower attendance numbers were unexpected and a harbinger of market share loss?





I can't speak for everyone but I have no ill-will toward Universal at all. It's not a terrible place, just not my cup of tea.

It is hard to have a conversation with people who are not acknowledging simple truths though.

It’s 50/50

On one hand…not hitting the cap across property is empirical evidence that the cap hasn’t “turned anyone away”

On the other hand…the hassle of reservations has likely deterred “some”.

Those not too terribly committed though

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

But there are. There are people who are unable to get a park pass. And there are people turned away at the gate because they do not have a park pass. I’m sure you remember the story of the elderly couple with tickets turned away at the gate.

If that is happening…it is a very new development. But October is hell…so I believe you there.

It’s gonna take a lot more that mid level wdw “managements” word…or the jockeys…to convinced me that significant numbers of paying customers have been turned away.

You do understand why they open the parks…it’s to sell stuff. Not for “guest satisfaction ratings” or to not overextend labor.

This dog don’t hunt.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

We can't compare 2021/2020 numbers, but we can compare 2019 to 2011:

Attendance Change
Universal Orlando: 55.2% increase (doesn't even include Volcano Bay which has been a real winner for UO)
Walt Disney World: 23.9% increase

Market Share
Universal Orlando: 22.4% to 26.6% (2022 - 33.3%)
Walt Disney World: 77.6% to 73.4% (2022 - 66.7%)

There's an obvious change happening in Orlando that will be magnified by the increased hotel rooms at UOR over the next few years and Epic Universe. Realistically, I can see a 40/60 split between Universal/Disney.


As a fan of Disney Parks, you want Universal to completely dominate the next few years to get Disney worried enough to start doing something about it.

You absolutely do…

…the problem is management is terrible on strategy and WDI is close to as bad on producing and has been for years

Everyone praise SAINT Bob Iger now.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

So you really think that the reservation system and attendance cap hasn't depressed attendance?

Of course having the reservations made it harder to go, whether the parks were 100% capped or not.

Eliminating the Annual Passes and restricting the Main Entrance Passes also made it harder to make spur of the moment trips, which would have driven down attendance.

Eliminating/Restricting park hopping also would have driven down attendance since it would have eliminated secondary clicks.

And what should really be above all else: raising the prices would have driven down attendance.

You were there in most of these threads over the last two years, so I know this can't be news to you. But maybe you can offer an explanation as to why, when these things were all implemented to drive down attendance, you now think that lower attendance numbers were unexpected and a harbinger of market share loss?





I can't speak for everyone but I have no ill-will toward Universal at all. It's not a terrible place, just not my cup of tea.

It is hard to have a conversation with people who are not acknowledging simple truths though.

Maybe all those people saying they’d only go to Universal since it didn’t require masks, and Disney did, were telling the truth.

I just don’t know how anyone can take data from a year with a thousand outside variables and use it as proof of anything long term.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Maybe all those people saying they’d only go to Universal since it didn’t require masks, and Disney did, were telling the truth.

I just don’t know how anyone can take data from a year with a thousand outside variables and use it as proof of anything long term.

I think we can move on from that….

I’m sure some did…but very small %

 

[Andrew C]

Maybe all those people saying they’d only go to Universal since it didn’t require masks, and Disney did, were telling the truth.

I just don’t know how anyone can take data from a year with a thousand outside variables and use it as proof of anything long term.

Either way, I am all for increased competition so I see Uni gaining in market share as a good thing. Typically it benefits the consumer, or in this case, the guest.