News Disney’s Q2 FY26 Earnings Results Webcast

[Mr. Sullivan]

Housing crash, padawan

Huh, I seem to remember the thick of that fiasco starting a lot earlier than that, but no you're right.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Huh, I seem to remember the thick of that fiasco starting a lot earlier than that, but no you're right.

It hit in 2009 and lasted clean through 2013.

That’s what the world’s worst “recession” did…back when parks had policies in place to safeguard revenue and clientele if one hit…

Been a long time, folks. Battle stations.

As always…I’ll leave this here from circa 2012

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

It hit in 2009 and lasted clean through 2013.

That’s what the world’s worst “recession” did…back when parks had policies in place to safeguard revenue and clientele if one hit…

Been a long time, folks. Battle stations.

As always…I’ll leave this here from circa 2012

I think I remember the 2009/2010 part of it better because that's when it hit my family more. By 2013, we were personally pulling out of it, so I guess i stopped paying attention to it and worried more about middle school LMAO

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think I remember the 2009/2010 part of it better because that's when it hit my family more. By 2013, we were personally pulling out of it, so I guess i stopped paying attention to it and worried more about middle school LMAO

That’s the way it went. Was super slow for quite some time. Pretty delightful, actually…

But not good for business. I’ve said this before…but the recession response was probably iger’s “best business acumen” period in his 20 years. He outsmarted everyone.

 

[Dranth]

Occupancy rates for 2025 were 87% compared to similar room nights in 2019 (90%) and 2018 (88%) according to their filings. I've posted these before.
View attachment 920700

Sure, but when Disney talks about forward bookings that isn't just hotel stays. They look at ticket sales, restaurant reservations, parties, and anything else that has a date attached to it to tease out those numbers.

For example, in this particular case, Huge was talking about park attendance before making the comment on improved growth in the back half of the year. Hotels could well be stable, but as a whole, they are down from 18/19.

Currently they are claiming that they see things picking up for the rest of the year, which to date may well be true. My original comment was just that the situation will change quickly if external factors don't get resolved as expensive vacations are high on the list of things to get dropped when people get pinched. I expect to see that start to really manifest in Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Sure, but when Disney talks about forward bookings that isn't just hotel stays. They look at ticket sales, restaurant reservations, parties, and anything else that has a date attached to it to tease out those numbers.

For example, in this particular case, Huge was talking about park attendance before making the comment on improved growth in the back half of the year. Hotels could well be stable, but as a whole, they are down from 18/19.

Currently they are claiming that they see things picking up for the rest of the year, which to date may well be true. My original comment was just that the situation will change quickly if external factors don't get resolved as expensive vacations are high on the list of things to get dropped when people get pinched. I expect to see that start to really manifest in Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year.

Any suggestion that theme park travel will increase later in 2026 just doesn’t pass the surface or sniff tests at all…

That could change. But zero economics support it.

 

[Dranth]

Any suggestion that theme park travel will increase later in 2026 just doesn’t pass the surface or sniff tests at all…

That could change. But zero economics support it.

I agree except Q3 and to an extent Q4 would have largely been booked long before the current inflationary issues came about so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the typical 1-2% up or down they have been pushing out of late for the next few quarters until that backlog has cleared.

People who haven't already booked is where they will take a beating if external issues don't change or they don't make internal changes to offset the external.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I agree except Q3 and to an extent Q4 would have largely been booked long before the current inflationary issues came about so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the typical 1-2% up or down they have been pushing out of late for the next few quarters until that backlog has cleared.

People who haven't already booked is where they will take a beating if external issues don't change or they don't make internal changes to offset the external.

I don’t know what the timeline is for average booking window anymore…it was 15-18 months in my day. But a very different world as far as travel and spending now…so who knows? My guess is the window is shorter.

But im not talking about middle eastern gas being the problem. That doesn’t help…but that isn’t the story. The problem is their pricing is above sustainable and has been for quite some time…they have not course corrected.

My thought it’s that not only have they begun to lose attendance (fact)…but they also are starting to burn through the dedicated…as opposed to the casual. That’s really dangerous.

I could be wrong. But I’ve been watching That compound in the swamp as long as yoda at this point. I wouldn’t bet on it.

 

[BrianLo]

I agree except Q3 and to an extent Q4 would have largely been booked long before the current inflationary issues came about so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see the typical 1-2% up or down they have been pushing out of late for the next few quarters until that backlog has cleared.

People who haven't already booked is where they will take a beating if external issues don't change or they don't make internal changes to offset the external.

It’s probably important to reiterate that these comments are just Year on Year. International (Canadian) visitation and Epic are being lapped. It’s not so much things are better, but things were already bad once we enter Q3.

There is a lot of creative messaging going on. They’ll suddenly be talking about global, or wrapping cruises into domestic guest nights, or talking about revenue. They quickly pivot to whatever metric sounds better. But never are they talking about hard attendance at WDW in 2019 versus today.

DCL Destiny can add 1.5M guest nights to their bottom line and DCL Adventure 2.5M. So these two factors can easily be used to cover things up. Not that Universal is any better, Epic is also covering up several years of serious (far worse) attendance retrenchment domestically.

 

[Nevermore525]

Sea World seems to need to get it together too. Attendance down 5% YoY per their recent reporting on Monday.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Sea World seems to need to get it together too. Attendance down 5% YoY per their recent reporting on Monday.

Nevermind attendance!

Disney’s revenue is going up as attendance goes down!

Seaworld, Q1 2026, with a net loss of $34.1 million on $278.3 million in revenue. The results, released May 11, 2026, showed a widening loss compared to a $16M loss in Q1 2025.

Disney learned it’s not about attendance, it’s about per capita spending.

I did not realize Seaworld was in so much trouble.

The producers of Blackfish must be proud….

 

[JD80]

Sure, but when Disney talks about forward bookings that isn't just hotel stays. They look at ticket sales, restaurant reservations, parties, and anything else that has a date attached to it to tease out those numbers.

For example, in this particular case, Huge was talking about park attendance before making the comment on improved growth in the back half of the year. Hotels could well be stable, but as a whole, they are down from 18/19.

Currently they are claiming that they see things picking up for the rest of the year, which to date may well be true. My original comment was just that the situation will change quickly if external factors don't get resolved as expensive vacations are high on the list of things to get dropped when people get pinched. I expect to see that start to really manifest in Q4 of this year or Q1 of next year.

I'm only commenting on what numbers have been released, I'm mostly ignoring C-Suite speak. I think you can make some inference with these numbers. I believe the previous few quarters are softer than previous years.

For example Q2 last year, hotel occupancy was at 92% compared to 88% this year.

Source: https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001744489/69985470-844d-45f6-aaac-2176d5ec3ac4.pdf

So the "picking up" is maybe a softening of the curve of the dip they had Q2 this year.

I like using this occupancy number because you can see how they measure it and it remains mostly consistent.

Just comparing the last few quarters.

2026 Q1 87% Q2 89%
2025 Q1 85% Q2 92% Q3 86%

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Sea World seems to need to get it together too. Attendance down 5% YoY per their recent reporting on Monday.

The problem with travel and price crunches is everywhere…so you’ll see the same reports across the board.

Cruises posted the best “growth”
Coming out of shutdown…that’s tipping as well.

People seem to have amnesia of what a recession - even if we rig them not to be called as such anymore - look like…
Forget the terminology…the day to day effects will be recognizable.

Problem is it’s been 20 years…this is gonna hit hard because of detachment from reality…

 

[HauntedPirate]

Again - "Room nights" should not move every quarter unless there is new inventory in the mix, or room inventory permanently removed (DVC conversions) because by their current terminology it includes rooms in and out of service, but the numbers constantly move. Why?

 

[Nevermore525]

Again - "Room nights" should not move every quarter unless there is new inventory in the mix, or room inventory permanently removed (DVC conversions) because by their current terminology it includes rooms in and out of service, but the numbers constantly move. Why?

It changes based on how many DVC rooms are booked via points or not. Available rooms nights is only room nights that are available for cash booking for the quarter. Q2 FY25 and FY26 were both 90 days. FY 26 has more available rooms nights because lower DVC room bookings by points put more of those rooms on Cash available room nights.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Again - "Room nights" should not move every quarter unless there is new inventory in the mix, or room inventory permanently removed (DVC conversions) because by their current terminology it includes rooms in and out of service, but the numbers constantly move. Why?

Since they’ve added no more than 10% inventory in 20 years and the reported foot traffic is also up 25% (but back down 10)….occupancy should be 97%

Especially with overloaded timeshares

 

[BrianLo]

Especially with overloaded timeshares

For clarity their occupancy does not include DVC rooms booked by members. It includes only rooms not booked by members that can be then sold for cash. Or undeclared rooms. Which fluctuates quarter to quarter.

97% occupancy in the hotel industry is also a bad thing. Ideal for Disney does seem to be a bit ahead of the standard industry, but is at most ideally high 80’s. Otherwise they should add more revenue rooms when it approaches 90.

Cruises on the other hand are a different beast and want 100 + 5% or so.

 

[Mr. Sullivan]

Sea World seems to need to get it together too. Attendance down 5% YoY per their recent reporting on Monday.

SeaWorld is going to either be out of business or get broken apart and sold for scraps in a decade or less, mark my words on it. The signs are at this point giant blinking neon.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Nevermind attendance!

Disney’s revenue is going up as attendance goes down!

Since 2020, WDW's attendance has gone up every year according to TEA.

Stop using disgruntled forum users as your source of information.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

For clarity their occupancy does not include DVC rooms booked by members. It includes only rooms not booked by members that can be then sold for cash. Or undeclared rooms. Which fluctuates quarter to quarter.

97% occupancy in the hotel industry is also a bad thing. Ideal for Disney does seem to be a bit ahead of the standard industry, but is at most ideally high 80’s. Otherwise they should add more revenue rooms when it approaches 90.

Cruises on the other hand are a different beast and want 100 + 5% or so.

Disney rooms are solely to feed secondary spending outside the room, but with the property.
Which really is the scenario no where else.

So “industry standard” never really applied