News 2021 Theme Index

[el_super]

It’s 100% accurate. If there isn’t full capacity at all four parks (bout never so far)…then the cap is not met.

I'm not arguing that, I'm saying that if the cap is hit on Saturday, that doesn't automatically mean people move to Monday. That means for every day the cap is hit, they lose attendance, even if they still technically have capacity to support them on other days.

 

[el_super]

That is exactly the opposite of what fastpass, maxpass, genie is designed to do.

It is absolutely to get people out into the other areas…not the opposite. Because it generates more revenue…

Wow…rough morning?

It's been a great morning for lettuce fans.

I don't disagree with the *historical* point of Fastpass being to get people out of lines, but everything coming out of Burbank now shows that they realize that was a mistake and they want to get more and more people back in line.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'm not arguing that, I'm saying that if the cap is hit on Saturday, that doesn't automatically mean people move to Monday. That means for every day the cap is hit, they lose attendance, even if they still technically have capacity to support them on other days.

That’s why this “system” is inefficient and will never best what they had since they implemented the park hopper program.

It does cause some “wasted” labor…but at minimum wage the potential revenues are high…and if you’re selling stuff that’s profit…gold

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It's been a great morning for lettuce fans.

I don't disagree with the *historical* point of Fastpass being to get people out of lines, but everything coming out of Burbank now shows that they realize that was a mistake and they want to get more and more people back in line.

The mistake is they can’t handle what they have in organic crowd growth.

Neither Orlando or Anaheim.

And what they are now doing is throwing excuses for a reality that they won’t admit: they might be forced to turn people away and forgo revenues and profits. Which is 100 counter to the reason the parks exist.

 

[UNCgolf]

Yeah but it's also a give-and-take. If people are not in lines for rides, they have to be elsewhere, clogging up walkways and taking up benches.

The wait times are misleading from a capacity standpoint because of Genie+ and ILL (they were with FP+ as well). A 75 minute wait today isn't the same as a 75 minute wait if everything was standby only -- there would be far more people actually in line (and thus not elsewhere in the parks) in the latter scenario.

This isn't an argument to shift everything to standby only, by the way, just pointing out that the wait times aren't necessarily a good indicator that the lines are actually holding a bunch of guests.

 

[el_super]

And what they are now doing is throwing excuses for a reality that they won’t admit: they might be forced to turn people away and forgo revenues and profits. Which is 100 counter to the reason the parks exist.

In what way? That the parks be cheap entertainment or an enjoyable experience, because you can't have both.

They want to turn people away, and specifically the people who are paying the least to get in.

 

[el_super]

This isn't an argument to shift everything to standby only, by the way, just pointing out that the wait times aren't necessarily a good indicator that the lines are actually holding a bunch of guests.

Yeah... we don't really know all that much just from looking at wait times online.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

In what way? That the parks be cheap entertainment or an enjoyable experience, because you can't have both.

They want to turn people away, and specifically the people who are paying the least to get in.

It’s designed and functions on mass crowds and revenues. They cannot be “boutique” parks or they collapse and the model breaks. Of all the dumb ideas in the near 30 years of fan sites…the “luxury, Low attendance” one for amusement parks may be the single dumbest. The caribbean canal to Epcot might be the silver medal now.

Yeah... we don't really know all that much just from looking at wait times online.

It’s not really a mystery, kid…you can literally watch the history of ride ops, flow, fastpass on YouTube. There’s some really well done/researched clips out there that hit the marks pretty well.

 

[el_super]

It’s designed and functions on mass crowds and revenues. They cannot be “boutique” parks or they collapse and the model breaks.

It's not either/or.

But if you don't really think that *mass* crowds should be the goal, then you are also advocating for the lowest prices and the reduction in services and new offerings to meet the low price expectation.

It’s not really a mystery, kid…you can literally watch the history of ride ops, flow, fastpass on YouTube. There’s some really well done/researched clips out there that hit the marks pretty well.

Not the point. You don't learn much about why lines are long from watching YouTube videos on history. You don't know which attractions we're down today, or which ones are running at a reduced capacity or what the in park attendance is.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It's not either/or.

But if you don't really think that *mass* crowds should be the goal, then you are also advocating for the lowest prices and the reduction in services and new offerings to meet the low price expectation.

It actually is…but you’ve made it clear you don’t buy it.

Which is funny and ironic because their ridiculous profits are made off a lot of people buying ALOT of stuff at controlled overhead

“Luxury” would be diminishing returns at higher variable costs.

But you don’t believe it…I think because the textbook doesn’t say it…and Iger started throwing distractions like club 33 and upsells within upsells.
But that’s the fringes…marginal. Not the production line.

And mass crowds have been the goal and reality since 1955…you do understand they are the most visited parks on the planet, correct? Targeting the most purchasing power of a group in world history (the American 20th century middle class)?

What do you think “mass” means?

 

[el_super]

And mass crowds have been the goal and reality since 1955…you do understand they are the most visited parks on the planet, correct? Targeting the most purchasing power of a group in world history (the American 20th century middle class)?

That's kind of silly. There were lots of people in 1955 that could not afford to go to Disneyland. There was no public transportation when it opened, and going basically required you had a car. That excluded a lot of the urban population even in LA/California. Nevermind the rest of the country.

And even so, back then you had to pay for each ride you went on. You think that was a better system?

Disney is already proving that it's not really an either/or situation. They can remove and eliminate discounted admissions like Annual Passes and raise the average price of admission and per cap spending, by just eliminating the groups that spend the less. It doesn't mean that they are running boutique parks anymore. It just means the people who desired to pay the least to get in (and how much do you think an AP was paying per entry?) have to pay more or change their habits.

It doesn't mean a wholesale shift in the demographics.

 

[Casper Gutman]

The wait times are misleading from a capacity standpoint because of Genie+ and ILL (they were with FP+ as well). A 75 minute wait today isn't the same as a 75 minute wait if everything was standby only -- there would be far more people actually in line (and thus not elsewhere in the parks) in the latter scenario.

This isn't an argument to shift everything to standby only, by the way, just pointing out that the wait times aren't necessarily a good indicator that the lines are actually holding a bunch of guests.

Seems like a pretty good argument to shift everything to standby only to me!

When Universal tried their short-lived experiment in virtual queues with Fallon, they created a great big waiting area with lots of seating, phone recharging areas, and live entertainment (which, to Uni’s immense credit, still runs despite often playing to an empty room because vqs were abandoned). This is the only way vqs can ever work - with lots of seating and entertainment to hold all the folks who would otherwise be occupied in lines. Despite going all in on vqs to the tune of billions of bucks and contorting the entire theme park experience, Disney has showed less seriousness in making it actually work then Uni did in a quickly-abandoned experiment.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

That's kind of silly. There were lots of people in 1955 that could not afford to go to Disneyland. There was no public transportation when it opened, and going basically required you had a car. That excluded a lot of the urban population even in LA/California. Nevermind the rest of the country.

And even so, back then you had to pay for each ride you went on. You think that was a better system?

Disney is already proving that it's not really an either/or situation. They can remove and eliminate discounted admissions like Annual Passes and raise the average price of admission and per cap spending, by just eliminating the groups that spend the less. It doesn't mean that they are running boutique parks anymore. It just means the people who desired to pay the least to get in (and how much do you think an AP was paying per entry?) have to pay more or change their habits.

It doesn't mean a wholesale shift in the demographics.

You keep saying the same thing without the historical details or the business realities.

No one - last of would be me - said that everyone could afford to go. That’s as much of a red herring defense of pricing as their ever has been.

I’ll leave you here…because we have future conversations and “growing” to do…

But I’ll leave you with this last reality: the last person talking is the not the same as the “winner”.

Keep on truckin’

 

[Casper Gutman]

You keep saying the same thing without the historical details or the business realities.

No one - last of would be me - said that everyone could afford to go. That’s as much of a red herring defense of pricing as their ever has been.

I’ll leave you here…because we have future conversations and “growing” to do…

But I’ll leave you with this last reality: the last person talking is the not the same as the “winner”.

Keep on truckin’

Some folks need to read some cultural history…

 

[el_super]

No one - last of would be me - said that everyone could afford to go.

Well there you go. You've almost got it. All you have to do now is realize that the line between "afford to go" and "can't afford to go" is fluid and can be defined differently. So saying things like "the parks were designed for the masses" is pretty useless.

So as Disney eliminates discounts, and cheaper admissions, and reduces the number of visitation per person, their attendance numbers decrease, their per capita spending increases and there is no fundamental shift to being a luxury. They are still appealing to the same group that was going before.

 

[JohnD]

Babylon Bee strikes again

Disney Announces New, Cheaper Travel Option Where You Pay $3,000 Not To Go To Disney

U.S. — In response to overwhelming feedback, Disney has announced a new vacation package in which families pay $3,000 to not visit any Disney theme parks. Currently, only Disneyland in Anaheim and Disney World in Orlando are covered under the new ticketing option. Fans are still required to...

babylonbee.com

 

[UNCgolf]

Seems like a pretty good argument to shift everything to standby only to me!

When Universal tried their short-lived experiment in virtual queues with Fallon, they created a great big waiting area with lots of seating, phone recharging areas, and live entertainment (which, to Uni’s immense credit, still runs despite often playing to an empty room because vqs were abandoned). This is the only way vqs can ever work - with lots of seating and entertainment to hold all the folks who would otherwise be occupied in lines. Despite going all in on vqs to the tune of billions of bucks and contorting the entire theme park experience, Disney has showed less seriousness in making it actually work then Uni did in a quickly-abandoned experiment.

I agree that Disney's overuse of VQs is a major part of the reason the parks feel so crowded all the time -- but I'm not entirely sure what they can do at this point. Of course going on a building spree and adding several new attractions at every park would help, but even if they were willing to do that on a mass scale in a short period (and seems pretty clear that they aren't) I'm not sure how feasible it is with their spiraling costs. That could easily require investing $10+ billion.

There are very few attractions on property I'd wait 60+ minutes in line to ride, and that's likely what would happen for most attractions at the non-MK parks if they switched to all standby now.

It's their own fault in that they let capacity lag and tried to fix it with VQs, but they've kind of put themselves into a box now. Either they invest gigantic sums of money to fix the capacity problem, or they cling to VQs so that guests don't spend their entire day waiting in line to get on a handful of attractions.

I suppose the third option is dramatically decreasing attendance with higher prices, attendance caps, etc., and while they have signaled that's their intent (at least to an extent), it's hard to believe they're willing to take the revenue hit necessary for that strategy to truly work (i.e. to actually decrease attendance enough to fix crowding/standby line wait times).

I believe they're okay with reducing attendance to an extent (a relatively small one), but they still want to fill every hotel room on property, they still want to keep all the restaurants full (maybe "need" is a better word here, especially for all the third party locations), and they still want to move a bunch of merchandise. Food/beverage and merchandise is mainly a question of volume, so attendance can't drop below a certain level without causing a hit to those revenue streams -- unless they cut staffing and close locations, but then you can circle right back to the parks having a capacity problem even with reduced attendance.

 

[Casper Gutman]

I agree that Disney's overuse of VQs is a major part of the reason the parks feel so crowded all the time -- but I'm not entirely sure what they can do at this point. Of course going on a building spree and adding several new attractions at every park would help, but even if they were willing to do that on a mass scale in a short period (and seems pretty clear that they aren't) I'm not sure how feasible it is with their spiraling costs. That could easily require investing $10+ billion.

There are very few attractions on property I'd wait 60+ minutes in line to ride, and that's likely what would happen for most attractions at the non-MK parks if they switched to all standby now.

It's their own fault in that they let capacity lag and tried to fix it with VQs, but they've kind of put themselves into a box now. Either they invest gigantic sums of money to fix the capacity problem, or they cling to VQs so that guests don't spend their entire day waiting in line to get on a handful of attractions.

I suppose the third option is dramatically decreasing attendance with higher prices, attendance caps, etc., and while they have signaled that's their intent (at least to an extent), it's hard to believe they're willing to take the revenue hit necessary for that strategy to truly work (i.e. to actually decrease attendance enough to fix crowding/standby line wait times).

Adding Fallon like waiting areas with phone chargers, seating, and entertainment could make things a bit better relatively quickly. But yes, they really need to spend on capacity.

I really don’t believe all standby would increase individual line duration on any given ride at any given time, since folks would now be in only one line instead of two or three. What it would definitely do is make lines faster, reduce wait time on average across a park, and allow lines to ebb and flow across the day.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Unfortunately…we’ve crossed the rubicon on virtual queues…

They’ve made their choices.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Adding Fallon like waiting areas with phone chargers, seating, and entertainment could make things a bit better relatively quickly.

They sort of did for half a minute. The area in front of the Tangled Toilets was just such a space before it was invaded by strollers. NextGen’s interactive queues (see The Haunted Mansion) were also supposed to serve a similar sort of purpose.