News Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours coming for resort guests

ToTBellHop

Well-Known Member
Can someone explain the business reason for Disney allowing this? I assume those hotels pay Disney for this perk, but surely they will lose more money by people choosing to not stay in the expensive by comparison on-site hotels?

The perks for paying the Disney premium are being eroded more and more every year.
I’m sure they have data suggesting there aren’t too many guests who would otherwise stay at Pop who choose Drury instead. I presume they are trying to convince people who would otherwise stay at a random Hilton Garden Inn to go to Drury instead. Disney gets a kickback from Drury and these perks increase the odds that these guests will keep going to Disney parks and buying $8 pretzels. Plus, as I’ve said, I doubt many from these hotels actually arrive on time for EE.
 

pdude81

Well-Known Member
Can someone explain the business reason for Disney allowing this? I assume those hotels pay Disney for this perk, but surely they will lose more money by people choosing to not stay in the expensive by comparison on-site hotels?

The perks for paying the Disney premium are being eroded more and more every year.
If they regularly have more operating capacity than is used by on site guests showing up, it's more revenue. And those at off site hotels have a much harder time getting to the parks 45 minutes before opening than people who are on site. So these people are theoretically paying full price for the last 3 sips out of a soda can.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
I’m sure they have data suggesting there aren’t too many guests who would otherwise stay at Pop who choose Drury instead. I presume they are trying to convince people who would otherwise stay at a random Hilton Garden Inn to go to Drury instead. Disney gets a kickback from Drury and these perks increase the odds that these guests will keep going to Disney parks and buying $8 pretzels. Plus, as I’ve said, I doubt many from these hotels actually arrive on time for EE.
Also, Drury also pays rent to Disney being in the "Disney Springs Area." Disney wants Drury to succeed.
 

m steve

Active Member
Disney continues to jam its resort guests by making early entry less and less valuable. Each new non Disney resort addition to this list creates more and more competition at rope drop for Disney resort guests. This seems pretty instructive as to what Disney thinks of those who spend the extra money to stay on property.
 

Tha Realest

Well-Known Member
I also think expanding the benefits to “good neighbor” off-site resorts is a nudge to capture some of those dollars as opposed to going to their competitors.
 

Andrew25

Well-Known Member
For anyone who has been to the nighttime extended hours recently... did you find it useful/worth it?

I was at Epcot this past week during one of those nights and found the park busier filled with resort guests while the other parks felt deserted. It's almost like the best plan is to attend the parks that don't have extended hours offerings.
 

DCBaker

Premium Member
Original Poster
Disney continues to jam its resort guests by making early entry less and less valuable. Each new non Disney resort addition to this list creates more and more competition at rope drop for Disney resort guests. This seems pretty instructive as to what Disney thinks of those who spend the extra money to stay on property.

Just to be clear, these are not "new" hotels being added for Early Entry - Disney is just extending the non-Disney hotels that were dated recently to end in 2023, to participate in Early Entry though 2024.
 

MisterPenguin

President of Animal Kingdom
Premium Member
Disney continues to jam its resort guests by making early entry less and less valuable. Each new non Disney resort addition to this list creates more and more competition at rope drop for Disney resort guests. This seems pretty instructive as to what Disney thinks of those who spend the extra money to stay on property.
Disney just expanded early entry to all four parks. Theoretically, there should be only 25% of the crowd in the morning for early entry as there was before.

Disney would have to increase the number of hotels getting early entry by more than 4 times for it to get worse than before.
 

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
Just to be clear, these are not "new" hotels being added for Early Entry - Disney is just extending the non-Disney hotels that were dated recently to end in 2023 to participate in Early Entry though 2024.
It's just more evidence that bookings and attendance look to be soft for awhile.
 

Andrew C

You know what's funny?
Cause everything is fine. There is no attendance issues. It's all over blown
I am not arguing about whether there are attendance issues or not. I am saying it is unlikely that these agreements are directly related to it considering they have been in place during the good times and bad times...
 

Dranth

Well-Known Member
Cause everything is fine. There is no attendance issues. It's all over blown
Did they or did they not just report record profits from the parks? Did we all not sit here and talk about how over crowded Disney was and how many weren't going to go anymore because it was such a miserable experience as recently as 2019?

Now we have lower crowds while Disney is making more money but it means everything is falling apart and the company is a raging dumpster fire? They have problems, no doubt, and some of the lower attendance is directly related to those problems but people are really blowing things way out of proportion.
 

Jrb1979

Well-Known Member
Did they or did they not just report record profits from the parks? Did we all not sit here and talk about how over crowded Disney was and how many weren't going to go anymore because it was such a miserable experience as recently as 2019?

Now we have lower crowds while Disney is making more money but it means everything is falling apart and the company is a raging dumpster fire? They have problems, no doubt, and some of the lower attendance is directly related to those problems but people are really blowing things way out of proportion.
I'm not saying they about to go bankrupt or falling apart but I do think they things are also not as good as many of make it to be. Judging by everything that have done lately bookings and attendance forecasts to be down for quite awhile. The parks will continue to make a profit. The problem is they seem to need high profits from the parks to prop up the media side right now.
 

Dranth

Well-Known Member
I'm not saying they about to go bankrupt or falling apart but I do think they things are also not as good as many of make it to be. Judging by everything that have done lately bookings and attendance forecasts to be down for quite awhile. The parks will continue to make a profit. The problem is they seem to need high profits from the parks to prop up the media side right now.
As almost all of us have said, Disney has all kinds of issues, I just don't feel the rate they are recovering attendance is one of them. Look at the year over year numbers and they are increasing significantly and at a relatively similar pace to every other park on the planet with a few exceptions.

They have a number of mistakes they need to fix, and some of those fixes have already been put in place, they just take time to trickle through. For example, Iger (who I don't care for but we should acknowledge when he does something right) came back in and reorganized the media side completely so that the people making these movies and shows have to answer for how they perform. Want to write and film a super niche, small appeal film, fine, but you budget better be tiny so that it still performs well. Want to put out a flat-out boring movie, you are going to answer for the box office bomb it ends up being.

That is the kind of thing that over time starts to address some of the issues we have been seeing but it isn't an immediate fix. Nothing is, you can't just produce good content overnight. For now we just have to let it play out on the media side but as that improves, less and less of the parks money will be needed to supplement/cover the media side.
 

Comped

Well-Known Member
Just to be clear, these are not "new" hotels being added for Early Entry - Disney is just extending the non-Disney hotels that were dated recently to end in 2023, to participate in Early Entry though 2024.
Realistically however, I don't see them removing any hotels from the list. Too big of a draw for Good Neighbour hotels compared to off-site, and that's money for Disney in the end.
 

esskay

Well-Known Member
People keep saying 'why are they doing this' and 'stop expanding it' - its not new, and its not expanded. These are all places that already offered this, it's just the time of year the contracts for it get renewed. If you've never been affected by it before that wont change in 2024 given its the same deal. Even if a couple more hotels are added, you're going to notice precisely squat.
 

Sans Souci

Well-Known Member
I love your cat!

Thank you! She's not really mine, she's a feral cat who showed up at my patio door last year. I put out a can of tuna for her and she has since made my yard her base of operations. 🤣 She has a personal heated house for the winter and a mesh cot to keep her cool in the summer. Sometimes she lets me put her flea and tick medicine on her, too. Sadly, she's too feral to be a house cat.
 

surfsupdon

Well-Known Member
I just hate that I can stay at a Deluxe Resort- and pay for it- but not get access to Extended Evening Hours!! It’s only 2 nights per week, and I might not be there those nights! Grrr!
 

DCBaker

Premium Member
Original Poster
Extended Evening Hours is returning to Disney's Hollywood Studios on September 30, October 5, October 11, October 19 and October 25, 2023.

Here are the attractions that will be available.

Alien Swirling Saucers
Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run
Muppet*Vision 3D
Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
Slinky Dog Dash
Star Tours – The Adventures Continue
Toy Story Mania!
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom