Attendance: Cast vs Tourists

[PhotoDave219]

For some reason it showed I was replying to the last post in the thread, now my post is redundant.

I would like to add one thing, When I was hired one of the listed benefits was free admission to Disney Theme Parks 365 days a year. Now that has changed.

Well if that's not the case, then maybe you're due for a raise in financial compensation…

I'm not arguing for blackouts nor my arguing for any more blackouts.

The general observation is about how much of the Star Wars weekends crowd was made up by cast members. Which is rather disturbing in and of itself…

The other observation is how much of an impact the entire college program has on daily attendance and special events. Case in point, the disaster that was the villains party last Friday the 13th in September. When the entire college program decides to show up to a special event, it's an issue.

 

[natatomic]

Well if that's not the case, then maybe you're due for a raise in financial compensation…

I'm not arguing for blackouts nor my arguing for any more blackouts.

The general observation is about how much of the Star Wars weekends crowd was made up by cast members. Which is rather disturbing in and of itself…

The other observation is how much of an impact the entire college program has on daily attendance and special events. Case in point, the disaster that was the villains party last Friday the 13th in September. When the entire college program decides to show up to a special event, it's an issue.

Also - I don't think this has been stated yet - even if CMs go to the parks, I feel like they are less likely to stay all day, since they have the ability to go whenever they'd like (for the most part). For instance, my husband and I went two separate days during SWE; but the one day, we were only there to shop Darth Maul/Mall and the other day, we only were there to watch the fireworks (so we did have time to kill, which we did by doing OMD and...walking around. Pretty much it.) But our two clicks count the exact same as someone who arrived at 8am, stayed till close and did all the rides and M&Gs in between.

 

[asianway]

For some reason it showed I was replying to the last post in the thread, now my post is redundant.

I would like to add one thing, When I was hired one of the listed benefits was free admission to Disney Theme Parks 365 days a year. Now that has changed.

And you could have gone to other Disney theme parks that day. Pays to read the fine print

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Sort of back to Dave's OP, I'm not sure how much CMs added to the parks #s, but I'm pretty sure that the BIG CM discounts given on rooms gave the occ rates a big bump during the Magic Bands roll out.

 

[StageFrenzy]

Sort of back to Dave's OP, I'm not sure how much CMs added to the parks #s, but I'm pretty sure that the BIG CM discounts given on rooms gave the occ rates a big bump during the Magic Bands roll out.

So are they trying to funnel cms into certain times a year to give the resort boost in the times they need?

 

[Disneyhead'71]

So are they trying to funnel cms into certain times a year to give the resort boost in the times they need?

No, I don't think they are doing that. It's just that when they first started rolling out Magic Bands they had a lot of CMs staying in the hotels as test subjects.

 

[wogwog]

No, I don't think they are doing that. It's just that when they first started rolling out Magic Bands they had a lot of CMs staying in the hotels as test subjects.

That was a plan to work out all the bugs and known issues before having guests suffer early on with problems. That plan was a failure.

 

[maxairmike]

That was a plan to work out all the bugs and known issues before having guests suffer early on with problems. That plan was a failure.

I firmly believe they ended up trying to put the cart in front of the horse because they were trying to rush into getting the returns they (for some reason) expected. They should have continued to test it with CMs and completely rolled out the system, bands and all, to them first. They could have tested and refined issues and features that are still problematic/missing, like non-resort guests using their bands for tap-to-pay functionality, as well as given the entire CM base hands-on experience with the entire system so that any CM could possibly provide adequate minimal guest service for basic, common guest questions with the system, instead of just shrugging their shoulders and pointing you to the MM+ specific Cast.

As to the original question/topic of the thread; CMs definitely make up a good chunk of SWW attendees, and yes, they have a tendency to be over-represented at special events. From what I hear from friends, I think the most annoying thing for them has been the recent addition of getting completely blocked out of a park for something, especially with the short notice that happened with Mark Hamill weekend. They understood the blackout for the 24-hour event (maybe not happy, but they understood it), but many of my friends that attended the last two on their comp tickets felt that they could have lifted the complete blackout for the overnight hours, though I can also see that being a pain to handle for the working park CMs and the backend folks that control the admissions system for stuff like that.

What someone also noted about them not seeming to be there for long is also true based on how my friends tend to visit. They tend to be there for maybe 5 hours tops, except for special stuff like SWW, before leaving the park to either park hop/eat/go elsewhere. From what I hear, that seems to be how most CMs visit the parks in their spare time.