Interesting Disney Parks Survey Question I got Today - Tiered Ticket Pricing by Season

bjlc57

bjlc57

Well-Known Member
let me offer one more example about pricing and lack of imagination.. I give you GENERAL MOTORS.. whom my mother worked for for over 40 years and in the end her stock given and purchased by her was WORTH NOTHING. NOT A PENNY.. but at one time was well over $100 a share and split and raised MANY TIMES.. bad pricing and no imagination .. PRIME EXAMPLE.
 
squidward

squidward

Well-Known Member
I mean this with an open heart - Stuff like this just makes it easier for me to pull further away from Disney. They already lost a good chunk of our vacation dollar to Universal. This year, they lost it all. Does it mean anything to them? Of course not. But for me, it makes me realize we've made the right decision. I can't speak for Disneyland, but Walt Disney World is not what is used to be. Who knows what Walt would have wanted, but I know that this is not what I wanted or expected from this company. They're a business, so of course they want to make money. But what Disney has done (and is continuing to do) is flat out greed. More importantly than the actual potential price hike is the damage this does to its already bad reputation for being money hungry to a ridiculous extent. They're just pushing everyone to the limit to see what their breaking point is. Sorry, but that's just a shameful way to do business.
 
DisneyDebRob

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
bjlc57 said:
this is economics.. there IS ALWAYS A TIPPING POINT. always.. the problem is , that once you reach it.. its very very hard to come back to being on the correct side.. its a very very slippery slope.. but Disney is pushing the limits.. you could have said the same about Gimbals.. they were as big if not bigger then Macy's.. its economics.. THERE IS A TIPPING POINT.. and every price raise.. Disney gets closer to it..
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I do agree there is a tipping point for everything but with record profits for WDW, record attendance, record occupancy at the hotels, we are looking at that point being 50 years possibly down the road. And this is with the 100 dollar ticket.
I understand people will go less frequently and possibly go as cheap as they can but there are others that will fill in and take their place which has been happening for many years now.With 200 to 300 dollar tours being sold very well to dinners for 2 costing over 100 bucks at a lot of restaurants to extra ticketed events being sold out frequently, there is no tipping point in the near future.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
raven said:
Haha! What about the millions of dollars they already have to spend on new attractions? Do you see them rapidly spending that money on filling up the parks with a bunch of new rides? No. This money is for their pockets.



Yet durring that time it's extremely difficult to get a table at a sit-down restaurant due to the free dining plan offer.

Will people keep paying these prices if they continue to raise them like this twice per year? Yes, but the families visiting may start to change to households with higher income. So will the guests who have been faithful to Disney by spending their vacations every year at the parks still be paying when prices keep going up? There will definately be families that are dropping out for a better bang for their buck elswhere. I personally have several "Disney" friends who now take they families on vacations in other countries for cheaper than a week in WDW.
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What was the free dining period in 2014?
 
BrianV

BrianV

Well-Known Member
PhotoDave219 said:
What was the free dining period in 2014?
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We were there last august at the end, 23-26th. Crowds were high, but manageable. And best of all, no free dining. We go often at the end of august. It's hit or miss with crowds, but has been getting more crowded over the last few trips.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
BrianV said:
We were there last august at the end, 23-26th. Crowds were high, but manageable. And best of all, no free dining. We go often at the end of august. It's hit or miss with crowds, but has been getting more crowded over the last few trips.
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Fully looking at the crowd levels, that was the beginning of the off-peak month. Week of labor day seems to be the absolute slowest that I can tell.

Edit: But I'm not satisfied with that answer, especially with historical data handy.

Disney had 65 days of Free Dining last year over four periods. So what was the Impact?

Overall, the periods resulted in
  • 34 Off-Peak Crowds (52% of the time, Mostly September)
  • 28 Average Crowds (43% of the time)
  • 3 Peak Crowds (4%, All Holiday/Holiday Related, Veterans Day & Beginning of Christmas Week)
The Average crowds show up during Free Dining at the end of October, beginning of November and Mid-December. Outside of September it does seem to have an impact, drawing crowds up to the average range. 95% of the time, the Free Dining days did not result in a Peak Crowd.

Free Dining only coincided with three peak crowds as they were holiday crowds (11/11, 12/22-23) and would have drawn a peak crowd anyways IMO, regardless of the promotion.

Again.... more results that I hate coming to.
 
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squidward

squidward

Well-Known Member
DisneyDebRob said:
I do agree there is a tipping point for everything but with record profits for WDW, record attendance, record occupancy at the hotels, we are looking at that point being 50 years possibly down the road. And this is with the 100 dollar ticket.
I understand people will go less frequently and possibly go as cheap as they can but there are others that will fill in and take their place which has been happening for many years now.With 200 to 300 dollar tours being sold very well to dinners for 2 costing over 100 bucks at a lot of restaurants to extra ticketed events being sold out frequently, there is no tipping point in the near future.
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I don't think so. All signs are pointing to a downturn in the economy (if we're lucky). Many financial experts are saying we're headed towards a serious recession or even depression. If that happens, Disney would be hurting anyways. The way they're going, a turn in the wrong direction will be a devastating hit to Disney.
 
raven

raven

Well-Known Member
PhotoDave219 said:
What was the free dining period in 2014?
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BrianV said:
We were there last august at the end, 23-26th. Crowds were high, but manageable. And best of all, no free dining. We go often at the end of august. It's hit or miss with crowds, but has been getting more crowded over the last few trips.
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Ha! And here I didn't even realize it had changed! I just got used to avoiding Epcot anytime there was free dining knowing I wouldn't be able to eat where I want.
 
rkleinlein

rkleinlein

Well-Known Member
JWG said:
I got this survey but based on how I answered my demographics up front I was not chosen to complete the survey. That said, note that the bronze pricing is closest to today's pricing (for a 1-day ticket anyway). Silver and Gold are premiums. This nickel and diming is getting ridiculous. And, how many times will people buy the wrong tickets for when they arrive? And, how upset will people be when their trip has 1 day in Gold and they have to buy the total 7-day package at gold?

This is getting far too complicated.
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Absolutely! As if planning a Disney vacation isn't already too complicated and time consuming. What a nightmare. For everyone: guests and Disney employees alike. And because ONE of my six days happens to be "gold" day I have to pay the higher price for the other five "silver" days? Really? I can't believe anybody working at Disney is even entertaining the vague possibility of this lame idea. But then again, these are the same people who want us to make reservations for sidewalk space to view fireworks and parades. If they think it's going to encourage people to plan to come on less crowded "bronze" days they are dead wrong: people who CAN come on less crowded days already do. And "tiered pricing" is already in effect: on "gold" days can't do as much because it's so crowded. You pay more in time and aggravation. Why make guests pay more money too? So misguided.
 
pajammies

pajammies

Well-Known Member
I have to say, the more I think about it, the more this frustrates me. We already have to deal with planning meals way ahead of time, then they added fastpass+ (I haven't used it yet, but I don't like the basics of it) which is more planning ahead of time.
And I am a planner, it's just a weird thing to do... I want to ride Peter Pan at 6:00 p.m. Tuesday July 14th 2015. :banghead:
The resorts are already tiered and now they want tickets to be tiered.

I have to believe that there will come a time when lots of people decide it's just too much money for all the planning and nothing new. (or at least not much right now).
There are just some vacations that some people can not afford, Disney is just going to alienate more families. And eventually it's gonna bite em in the butt.

In November we will be going on our 6th trip within a ten year time frame, and even though a few pages back I said it wouldn't stop me from going, I truly believe it will slow us down.
Honestly for me, a lot of it is all the pre-planning. My trip costs more and it's becoming a pita to plan. You have to account for every minute of every day... no thank you.

We will choose other places to vacation for a lot less hassle and money. We likely will not be going every other year anymore. :depressed:
 
BernardandBianca

BernardandBianca

Well-Known Member
Another data point. We went to the MK today, deciding about 10:00 am. by making lunch reservations at the Wave, and figured we'd look around. We walked over, and saw a medium sized crowd, which was surprising for a Sunday at the end of May. Went standby onto Pirates (10 minute wait), then on Mansion (20 minutes), and then Peter Pan (25 minutes). All reasonable wait times, and we could have done Small World (10 minute standby listed), Splash (45 standby listed), big thunder (30 minutes), and we assumed the rest of the park would be similar.

Why the reasonable wait times? We believe it is because Both Tomorrowland and Fantasyland were closing at 5:00 pm., and the entire MK was closing at 6:00 pm. We're speculating a private party (if anyone knows please inform), but droves were apparently avoiding the MK since the park hours were so limited. We saw numerous people turning around upon seeing the boards advising of the reduced hours (we didn't care since we have APs), so that is first hand knowledge that certain things can adversely effect the crowd levels at the MK and by extension the rest of WDW.
 
wogwog

wogwog

Well-Known Member
BernardandBianca said:
Another data point. We went to the MK today, deciding about 10:00 am. by making lunch reservations at the Wave, and figured we'd look around. We walked over, and saw a medium sized crowd, which was surprising for a Sunday at the end of May. Went standby onto Pirates (10 minute wait), then on Mansion (20 minutes), and then Peter Pan (25 minutes). All reasonable wait times, and we could have done Small World (10 minute standby listed), Splash (45 standby listed), big thunder (30 minutes), and we assumed the rest of the park would be similar.

Why the reasonable wait times? We believe it is because Both Tomorrowland and Fantasyland were closing at 5:00 pm., and the entire MK was closing at 6:00 pm. We're speculating a private party (if anyone knows please inform), but droves were apparently avoiding the MK since the park hours were so limited. We saw numerous people turning around upon seeing the boards advising of the reduced hours (we didn't care since we have APs), so that is first hand knowledge that certain things can adversely effect the crowd levels at the MK and by extension the rest of WDW.
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Yes, private party associated with a convention I think.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
BernardandBianca said:
Another data point. We went to the MK today, deciding about 10:00 am. by making lunch reservations at the Wave, and figured we'd look around. We walked over, and saw a medium sized crowd, which was surprising for a Sunday at the end of May. Went standby onto Pirates (10 minute wait), then on Mansion (20 minutes), and then Peter Pan (25 minutes). All reasonable wait times, and we could have done Small World (10 minute standby listed), Splash (45 standby listed), big thunder (30 minutes), and we assumed the rest of the park would be similar.

Why the reasonable wait times? We believe it is because Both Tomorrowland and Fantasyland were closing at 5:00 pm., and the entire MK was closing at 6:00 pm. We're speculating a private party (if anyone knows please inform), but droves were apparently avoiding the MK since the park hours were so limited. We saw numerous people turning around upon seeing the boards advising of the reduced hours (we didn't care since we have APs), so that is first hand knowledge that certain things can adversely effect the crowd levels at the MK and by extension the rest of WDW.
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Yeah, if I recall its a travel industry convention that rented it out for the evening. Someone mentioned it on another thread a few weeks back.

Thought my "fun with numbers" ... (Which @flynnibus rightfully pointed) is essentially an educated guess based on wait times and other algorithms.... Yet it's the only educated guess we've got, so I'm rolling with it.

The data supports a few conclusions: more often than not, when the MK closes early for an event, those days are generally seeing an off-peak crowd, 65% of the time. And then the next day, MK gets a spike in the crowd level. For example, the only "average" crowd levels MK had in September 2014 were days immediately following a MNSSHP. During those same days when there was a party & MK closed early (again this is September were talking about) the data doesn't show a negligible increase at other parks.

Just some food for thought & YMMV.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Here's something weird..... 2015 thus far is shaping up to be more like 2013 in the distribution of peak/average/offpeak days. There were a lot more average days in 2014.

I need to go back farther to figure out what the trend is and whether 2014 was a fluke.

Because if it was a fluke, then Disney is proposing to sell you a premium ticket on days that historically may not support that kind of pricing.

Suffice to say, the one true constant is that the week of Labor Day in September is a GLORIOUS week to visit, with the smallest crowds of the year. Highly recommend that being the time to go.
 
kucarachi

kucarachi

Active Member
It's sad to see such a sharp rise in 10 years. We went for 15 straight years, sometimes twice in a year, and it went from a few grand to buying a used car almost overnight. The hotels i can understand, but the ticket prices can't be justified. How can you ask any 5 person working family to drop over 500 in one day tickets, and another 20 to park, at least 150 in food and god forbid you actually buy something you can take home. 800 for 12 hours looks ridiculous on paper, because it is.
 

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