doctornick
Well-Known Member
If you are staying onsite, does the included transportation arrive early enough to get you to the park to take advantage? Or would you need to Uber/drive (if you can’t walk) to get there?
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News Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours coming for resort guests
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
If you are staying onsite, does the included transportation arrive early enough to get you to the park to take advantage? Or would you need to Uber/drive (if you can’t walk) to get there?
They don't open the parking lot until 45-60 minutes before park open. So on-site transportation actually can get you there faster than cars getting into the parking lot. Especially at Magic Kingdom where buses/monorail are direct and skip the TTC.
Yeah its being done over the next few weeks
I should have more accurately stated it was announced that it will be reduced soon. (Seems very soon).
Soon™ if MDE is anything to go by.
v 6.17 added code to support displaying Magic Hours as well as hard ticket events. The rest will just be a server side change most likely for them to set the hours.
Interesting.... is your knowledge of the code a trade secret, or did you find it somewhere?
Not hard to dig into their apps, at least for now.
Decompiling is an art form, but it's impossible to know their intentions 100% of the time based off code alone.
Well, "hard ticket events" is known -- Boo Bash coming in August. The schedule for it likely to be released in the next 2-3 weeks, so it can be included in August hour releases.
So in theory, they might be starting Early Entry around the same time. Or they simply placed it into the code knowing it's coming..... eventually.
Dad 2 M & M
Well-Known Member
This was batted around a few months back.
More specifically the “issue” being batted around was true “rope drop” was happening 15-20 mins earlier than stated Park opening. The concern was Disney’s transportation and could it get you there for the 30 minute Early Entry, AND even if it could get you there, would they STILL rope drop/open the park 20 mins early? Thus absorbing the perk....
doctornick
Well-Known Member
I'm not worried about that. If Early Entry is started and there is an explicit earlier entrance time for resort guests, Disney will definitely run the transportation earlier than than time allowing for sufficient time to get to the parks to make the Early Entry time. Whenever parks had morning EMH they would run the buses etc to that park and hour earlier. If they are advertising the benefit to resort guests, they surely would do have the proper transportation to be able to utilize it.
The "issue" now is that they don't want to hold crowds outside the gates so they open early to relieve that. Since that time they open (early) is variable based on crowds, there apparently have been some issues with resort guests using resort transportation being able to get there early enough. It seems to me that this has been improved with increased earlier transportation but I'm not sure, hence why I asked about it.
But if they feel comfortable enough to run Early Entry - which by necessity involves holding non-resort guests at the gate and will thus have crowding - then it will be at a point where they don't feel the need to simply open early due to relieving the crowds. So, part of the things needed before they start Early Entry is for Disney to be okay with a bunch of people gathered together outside in a crowd, not moving. We're not there yet, but maybe we are quickly moving to that point.
nothing that exists today in terms of crowds, lines, opening times, park hours, and waits is going to be relevant when parks increase crowd capacity, what ever is "working" today is because capacity is still capped so low-that will rapidly change in coming weeks and months as visitor numbers greatly increase and WDW will need to adapt.
Attendance is already closer to normal (for this time of year) then you realize. The parks are "sold out" at 35% capacity. But "normal" isn't 100% -- Normal for this time of year is in the 40-50% range, for the summer, it's in the 50% ballpark.
So WDW isn't currently at 35% of normal. They are at 35% of a Christmas crowd. So they are at about 65-75% of their normal.
Yes, attendance will increase over the coming weeks and months. But not like it's going to double of triple.
And no matter what crowd size, I maintain that an unadvertised/unpublished/unofficial early opening is more benefit (to those who can take advantage of it), then an advertised/published early opening.
If Disney World is drawing 100,000 guests per day -- I'd rather have an unofficial early opening that is available to all 100,000 people but that only 10,000 people know about...
As opposed to an early opening that is available to 65,000 people and all 65,000 know about it.
MK is certainly much higher than 40-50% capacity from Memorial Day into August, and some days would close or be 80%+. Not saying we will see those this summer but clearly travel and vacations are rapidly increasing and yes WDW will need to adjust staffing and other aspects of operations to manage the larger crowds-what is occurring right now in terms of crowds and lines will soon be changing. Unofficial early openings can help and certainly are a strategy, but will take more to address crowds Memorial Day weekend into late Summer.
CastAStone
5th gate? Just build a new resort Bob.
Epcot selling out at 35% is more crowded than it is “normally”, and that’s not snark it’s a fact.
Ahh no. Take a look at the Touringplans crowd calendar. Most days from June-August are about a 5 out of 10 on the crowd calendar. In 2019, they offered free dining all summer long, because attendance was so low. Spring Break reaches 80%, Christmas reaches 100%. Summer is actually below the annual average of 60%.
Here is a very good article about it as well:
Summer Is Not Peak Season at Disney World.
Summer crowds have been low at Walt Disney World the last few years, which bucks conventional wisdom that it's peak tourist season in Florida. Summer 2020 is likely to be the least-busy stretch of the
www.disneytouristblog.com
Years ago, July 4th saw 80% crowds. But the last 3-4 years, summer has been relatively empty.
Dad 2 M & M
Well-Known Member
Well done
The key will be holding the non-resort guests....and how are Resorts Guests not using Disney Transportation handled? Monorail/Ferry early enough? If so, they’ll have many non-resort guests waiting at the Gate
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
Just don’t open the parking lots early. Make everyone take WDW transportation for early entry.
pdude81
Well-Known Member
How did they handle it with EMH before? If they are turning away people who show up early now, I imagine they could turn away people without a resort stay on their mb/phone or have some dedicated lanes for on-site guests.
Then again, if outdoor distancing can be largely reduced soon then it might not be worth holding people at the parking gates for 30 extra minutes.
This is a fair point. If you're staying on site you have access to these options. That will hurt guests at some resorts a lot more than others, but just one of the reasons why they don't all cost the same per night.
CastAStone
5th gate? Just build a new resort Bob.
Neat. That way you can get to the bus stop 45 minutes before Early Entry starts and get to the park 15 minutes after the general public is let in.