Andrew C
You know what's funny?
I see lower crowd levels compared to peak times and off-season as the same. I get that you do not, which is fine.
And, the last line you wrote above made me literally laugh out loud, BTW.
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Interesting Disney Parks Survey Question I got Today - Tiered Ticket Pricing by Season
- Thread starter MaxsDad
- Start date
I see lower crowd levels compared to peak times and off-season as the same. I get that you do not, which is fine.
And, the last line you wrote above made me literally laugh out loud, BTW.
tirian
Well-Known Member
MK will always feel crowded because it lacks necessary capacity. There was a time that it could easily handle 40k guests; now Ops considers crowding "noticeable" around 30k. It hits at least 30k almost every day of the year. Of course attendance has been climbing annually too, and we all know how Execs chose to play a shell game with FP+ instead of building out attractions at Epcot and the Studios to spread the crowds.
HauntedMansionFLA
Well-Known Member
They offer the free dining plan and parents take kids out of school. We went the first week in December 2011 and it was packed with kids,
Cosmic Commando
Well-Known Member
They have it set up perfectly right now... so they can't help but tinker with it. I am somebody that is "trapped" (trapped by choice) by MYW pricing. I have a trip coming up in November. I want to see Uni at some point, but it costs $40 for an extra day at WDW and $400 for a day at Uni. Anything they do to discourage longer visits is going to drive some families like mine over to other Orlando attractions.
DisneyJayL
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
My God. Why do they have to get difficult?...
Meanwhile, I'll let my wife handle all of this!
Meanwhile, I'll let my wife handle all of this!
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Good. Glad we can have a laughing dialogue.
My point is that in the .... Year?... Of my life I've spent at the Walt Disney World resort (over 10 years.... Not sure I'm proud of that), what was a true off-season where crowds would drop significantly in the spring and fall, is no more. The drop off from summer to fall isn't that much anymore.
So while there are dips in attendance but nothing compared To the way things were in years past. You're not going to get six straight weeks of lower attendance like you used to. First 10 days after Labor Day, maybe. Tuesday-Thursday Both weeks between New Years and MLK day.
Long gone are the glorious days of 35k people or less. Shame.
And this past Christmas wasn't that bad as compared to Christmases past. Parks didn't hit a phased close until NYE. I-4 wasn't the enormous cluster suck it normally was.
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Attendance hits at least 50k almost every day of the year. A "slow" day was described to me as expecting "only" 57k at MK.
Alas I can't stand the park with more than 30k. Lasted 4 hours in MK this last time down.
tirian
Well-Known Member
Not quite 50k daily, but the majority of the year does hit it. A slow day is considered under 35k. An average day is over 45k. And you can "feel" it at 30k, which means the park always feels busy even on days with lower attendance.
Of course we WANT Disney to make money so it can continue to entertain us. Businesses are supposed to make money. But they need to remember they are, after all, just a form of entertainment, and that requires showmanship.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
That's about all I can do at the MK also.
Disneyhead'71
Well-Known Member
They aren't entertainment, they are an American Middle Class rite of passage. An institution, if you will. And really, how entertaining are institutions?
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
You have your sources for numbers, I have mine.
Either way, it's too damn busy for my taste.
DGracey
Well-Known Member
There are some extremely insightful and intelligent posts in this thread. Thanks to all who have chimed in.
Some thoughts ... Disney is doing what 2015 Disney does. Maximize profit short term and squeeze out every penny. With all due respect, many of us really need to accept that the current management of the company are focussed on short term profitablitly only. What matters is this quarter's earnings for Wall Street, and what the stock closed at TODAY. Why do you think all the big execs get paid in stock? It motivates them to raise it. Iger and company are only concerned with the bare minimum capital dollars they need to spend to increase profits ON A QUARTERLY BASIS. It's why Wall St. Loves the guy. He's made many investors a lot of money. Long term profitability is someone else's problem. Just like Eisner stopped spending near the end of his rein, we've seen Iger pull back on WDW capital too. When they spend less it looks like the company is making even more. But as has been outlined by so many intelligent posters here, this will come back to hurt them later when they are forced to play catch up.
As far as guest experience, I remember reading an interview with Rasulo a few years ago who first green lit New Fantasyland. He said he did it not because it was an improvement in the Magic Kingdom experience etc. He said Parks and Resorts was starting to get seriously negative internal polling and surveys back that people were having a negative time in the Magic Kingdom because it was too crowded. So negative in fact - that they may not come back. So what happened? Boom - they build out Fantasyland, pave over the hub etc etc. Not as an additon but a bare necessity to keep the profit churning.
Disney is so worried about short term profit and the repeat guest situation that this leaves us with their current obsession of DVC. Two problems - one solution. DVC sales pump huge cash into Parks and Resorts revenue stream and locks those people into being repeat customers.
The question is where is the tipping point for the public when being asked to shell out more money for what kind of product? Disney is slowly and strategically testing the water of saying - would you pay more for a less crowded park? Disney Parks are being pitched as a Premium offering at a Premium price. They've hit the wall on attendance at MK that's for sure. So instead of heavily expanding capacity, they're considering reducing attendance capacity while simultaneously increasing profits by charging more. You've got to hand it to the accountants in short pants at TDO. There's a reason this place is swimming in billions. They know how to make pricey lemonade out of 1980s lemons.
Interesting days ahead for WDW.
worldfanatic
Well-Known Member
There's also some extremely long, moronic, and whiney posts as well.
Lots of them.....
Mike S
Well-Known Member
And now a short one...........
HauntedMansionFLA
Well-Known Member
Do you think Disney will get rid of the free dining plan during the slow times if they go with this idea? That's when I started to see families at the parks when kids should be in school. If the bronze plan is during the traditional slow periods and gets families to take their trips at that time, why not knock out the free dining to make more money?
PhotoDave219
Well-Known Member
Of course not.
yensid67
Well-Known Member
Just wondering here...
Would it be feasible to incorporate something like the ticket books of Yesteryear when the park opened?
My thought:
Keep park entrance pricing $85 PER park and then have a A-E ticket ride book that tells you how many tickets each ride would take then you would buy the amount of tickets to ride the rides you want, do you think that would cut the wait times or create another Disney fiasco? Of course Popular rides would be say 4 tickets at a price of $3 per ticket, etc. Kind of like the open-air parks where it doesn't cost to get into the park, only to ride what you want! I know this is Disney and they will still charge an admission fee!
No bashing required just an idea off the top of my head!
Would it be feasible to incorporate something like the ticket books of Yesteryear when the park opened?
My thought:
Keep park entrance pricing $85 PER park and then have a A-E ticket ride book that tells you how many tickets each ride would take then you would buy the amount of tickets to ride the rides you want, do you think that would cut the wait times or create another Disney fiasco? Of course Popular rides would be say 4 tickets at a price of $3 per ticket, etc. Kind of like the open-air parks where it doesn't cost to get into the park, only to ride what you want! I know this is Disney and they will still charge an admission fee!
No bashing required just an idea off the top of my head!
tirian
Well-Known Member
Good point!
Nubs70
Well-Known Member
After all the talk of price elasticity, I submit WDW is quickly approaching/ passing the point exceeding marginal utility (MU). Once MU is surpassed, the consumer gets no additional satisfaction from the purchase of an additional item.
I see WDW cultivating high proportion of "once and done clientele" that conflicts with the focus on DVC.
I see WDW cultivating high proportion of "once and done clientele" that conflicts with the focus on DVC.
ThemeParkJunkee
Well-Known Member
After reading this thread and thinking about my own experiences, I have mixed feelings about the tiered pricing. I don't know where TDO is going with this for sure. I am surprised I didn't get the survey, actually. I would have been a person impacted by this pricing. I attended the parks during the periods surveyed. I answered a number of surveys during my stay. Anyway...
There are no more "slow" periods at WDW. I have purposely chosen lower crowd times for my trips in November 2010 and October 2014. No Free Dining but a room discount was available. The 2014 trip was by far more crowded than anticipated. I was unable to do what I wanted. FP+ was rather distasteful to me as it was too new for me to use it as effectively as I wanted. Would I pay more for lower crowds? Now that is the best question. Would that mean WDW would allow fewer people in the park? Unlikely. Would I even go on a weekend if that upped the price of a multi-day ticket to the Silver level? Quite possibly not.
But, if this ticket pricing scheme meant the end of "Free Dining", I would like the change.
There are no more "slow" periods at WDW. I have purposely chosen lower crowd times for my trips in November 2010 and October 2014. No Free Dining but a room discount was available. The 2014 trip was by far more crowded than anticipated. I was unable to do what I wanted. FP+ was rather distasteful to me as it was too new for me to use it as effectively as I wanted. Would I pay more for lower crowds? Now that is the best question. Would that mean WDW would allow fewer people in the park? Unlikely. Would I even go on a weekend if that upped the price of a multi-day ticket to the Silver level? Quite possibly not.
But, if this ticket pricing scheme meant the end of "Free Dining", I would like the change.