Disney leadership isn't necessarily motivated nor incentivized to address the same concerns as others. They were doing great at what they were incentivized to do... Drive demand and drive guest spending. The fact they can run the bus into the wall or run it well past it's scheduled service isn't really their primary concern. Priority #1 is meeting growth goals.
They are the ones saying that crowding has become an issue, and that people are spending more money when the parks are less crowded. Their motivation here seems to be long term success by tempering demand and improving the guest experience.
The problem is like I said in the past post. "The point is it's not enough when you spent 15years choking off what you already had and your additions are largely constrained themselves in their ability to soak up people."
So yes, 'its not enough' when the things you are doing don't address your problem. People have been talking about adding more capacity - attractions that spit people out in 15-20 mins are limited in their ability to soak up people.
You're right, I am completely biased here in believing that Disney isn't going to build another revolving theater show, or 3D film in 2021. I also doubt if they would even consider another boat ride like Small World after the Navi ride. We've seen way too many of these attractions just languish in the parks with minimal wait times. Capacity that isn't used, isn't really capacity at all.
So in that regard you're right, that I am biased in seeing new attraction development as something along the lines of Tron or Cosmic Rewind, but that's because that is what Disney is actually building.
The important part here is not just cutting them BUT NOT REPLACING THEM. So they literally are compounding their own problem of reducing activities, reducing their people soak capacity, and funneling people together.
The complaint is the reduction in activities people are interested in. Just cutting dead wood doesn't speak to that.
There's a lot of comparisons here to Marvel's box office success though. There are so many people that want to see Marvel movies, that they often end up squeezing out lesser films, as houses dedicate more and more screens to those tent poles.
So the same thing is happening in the parks. There is more and more demand on Space Mountain, Mine Train and Tron, while things like Swiss Family and Hall of Presidents sit empty. Not due to a lack of availability but due to a lack of demand. People in general, increasingly don't want to ride the lesser attractions. That was a problem that Fastpass was trying to solve for, but all it did was put more pressure on the top tier attractions.
So how would adding more attractions people don't want going to solve anything?
People can't run at full sensory overload at all times. People can't run at full physical exertion at all times. People don't focus on just one person in their party at all times.
I agree in principal, but I think that's fundamentally what is/has changed here. People ARE running at full capacity for longer in their stay. They are hyper planning and prioritizing to ensure they are getting the maximum yield on their time in the park. That means making sure they are maximizing the number of E tickets they ride in a day. We all saw this years ago with the Fastpass hackers (esp at Disneyland) that found every single way to obtain multiple Fastpasses for multiple rides all day long.
Things like Touring Plans and Fastpass+ and soon Genie were all being designed to cater to the group that wanted to get the most out of the day (which reads as, the top tier attractions). Remember how dismissive people were when Genie kept recommending the Carousel?
It's a different audience today.
You do realize people bought individual tickets right? The ticket books were just the discount purchase model.
Sure, but there were financial penalties to just riding the most popular attractions over and over. That curbed the demand. If they introduced per-ride-pricing back into the parks, they could control demand to the point that the crowding wouldn't be an issue anymore. People would still complain though.
non sequitur - Those attractions do not NEED to 'generate the same level of demand as something like a roller coaster or whatever-new-technology system' -- They need to generate enough demand to keep them busy and effective in their role in the park.
Yeah, and I am saying, generally, they can't really do that any longer either. That's why they're not getting built.
Disneyland has more physical space crowd issues than it does 'so busy I didn't get to ride anything DHS' issues. Disneyland's crowd problems were more operational/infrastructure ... issues like surges in parking, uneven demand, etc.. shaped more by the visiting patterns of large amounts of APs - not just crushing crowds.
Yes, because you'll find the wait at Space Mountain at DL will be lower than at MK on average and most of the time. Your comparison is not accurate.
Because Genie+ pricing at Disneyland is being set to cope with the legacy Maxpass situation and differences in photopass infrastructure.
I think you lost the bigger picture here. Yeah Disneyland had different demand profiles, and different attraction rosters and yeah, certainly DHS is in far worse shape than Disneyland. The bigger point though is: Disneyland still had people complaining about long lines. Disneyland still had crowding issues. Disneyland still had Fastpass. Disneyland will have Genie+.
It's one thing to say that people will wait 127 minutes for Space Mountain at Disneyland versus 149 at Magic Kingdom, but it doesn't make the 127 minute wait feel any better when you are stuck in it.
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