yes but DL is probably 76% or more locals - way more than WDW. It was specifically stated by someone in the company that was exactly the reason WDW doesn't receive it. It would anger too many people, coupled with the fact that WDW doesn't need it to drive tourists. (It should be pointed out TDL is also locals heavy).
That rep from the company was most likely lying. Come on now, do you actually think people would be so angry about a ride being down that it would significantly affect their attendance numbers/reputation? If WDW doesn’t need overlays for tourists because they’re going to come anyway, then why offer anything new at all, ever? Also, by this logic, why close rides at the resort? Wouldn’t that anger all the tourists who apparently will either never come back or will come back in seven years?
Disney doesn’t actually care about any of this. TDO doesn’t do overlays because they don’t want to and they're cheap. I heard two TDO executives with my own ears at Disneyland mock and laugh at TDA for spending money and brag about how they don’t include “all these extras” in Florida and are therefore able to conserve money.
Cheap.
When I worked there the average WDW guests would return about seven years later. And if "locals" weren't that big a deal, why did DL do away with annuals due to overcrowding?
I never said “locals weren’t a big deal,” not that they are. I said there’s no way that the majority of DLR guests all live within a 2-hour drive from the parks. That would mean everyone is coming from either Greater Los Angeles or San Diego.
Since you mentioned passholders, not all DLR passholders lived two hours or less from the parks. Passholders consisted of locals, Californians from the rest of the state, and people from various western states, such as Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona to name a few. I’d met a few Hawaiian passholders as well. There were also passholders who didn’t live in any western states, but further out. Just because APs tended to crowd the parks, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were all locals. Many of them flew/drove down from Northern California or from other states, sometimes last minute.
The DLR also gets foreign tourists as well, by the way, mostly from Australia and Asian countries like South Korea and Japan. Also, the DLR doesn’t need to keep bringing back these overlays because guests will come either way.
