Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

[Minnesota disney fan]

Oh sure -- I definitely understand why people want to stay at CBR if they like the Skyliner, and I'm sure the majority like it. If you don't like it, though, it turns those resorts essentially into a no-go. Thankfully I had no interest in staying at any of the Skyliner resorts anyways, so it really didn't change anything for me. I'd be sad if it was expanded to Riverside! We usually end up at EPCOT and/or Disney Springs most evenings too.

I also think it's risky to stay at a Skyliner resort in the summer since it has to stop operation regularly and Disney hasn't been great at substituting in bus service at those times.

UNCgolf, I think we are in the minority about the Skyliner and POR, The skyliner does not interest us at all, and we Love POR!

 

[wannabeBelle]

Riverside is a great resort. I would alternate between there and Coronado. With the arrival of the Gran Destino Tower and the fact that Boatwright's stopped serving sit down breakfast ( Best blueberry pancakes anywhere!!) I have been choosing Coronado Springs exclusively for a bit now. The Skyliner is nice but doesnt influence where I am staying. Marie

 

[HauntedPirate]

My sources tell me that DHS was not particularly busy this morning. Slinky, TSM, and MF:SR were all done between park open and 9:30am, when it was time for the first Frozen show. Oddly, midday was much busier if you go by standby times in MDE. But I thought people were staying away because of the heat and only showing up in the mornings and later afternoon and evening hours.

 

[GimpYancIent]

They need to cut prices, not just discount them.

I have suggested before that a return to 2014 /2015 pricing and perks would be reasonable and marketable to the public. Restore some, we care about our patrons / guests / visitors, appeal "magic" to the Disney experience instead of having the guests leave feeling fleeced.

 

[seabreezept813]

My sources tell me that DHS was not particularly busy this morning. Slinky, TSM, and MF:SR were all done between park open and 9:30am, when it was time for the first Frozen show. Oddly, midday was much busier if you go by standby times in MDE. But I thought people were staying away because of the heat and only showing up in the mornings and later afternoon and evening hours.

I’ve been watching wait times on lines for the past few days to get a feel for our trip next week and todays lines overall look pretty low across the parks compared to other days this week.

 

[jpeden]

It is not surprising to see them discount Riverside considering it is one the the resorts that they appear ready to shutter large portions of based on low occupancy.

 

[JD80]

It is not surprising to see them discount Riverside considering it is one the the resorts that they appear ready to shutter large portions of based on low occupancy.

You can book a 5th sleeper for $299 a night with the D+ Subscriber discount the week before Christmas.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

It is not surprising to see them discount Riverside considering it is one the the resorts that they appear ready to shutter large portions of based on low occupancy.

sort of shows the power of the skyliner (or at least the power of easy transport to a park) as Port Orleans used to have less discounts than CBR but not the discounts are higher and the reports of shuttering some buildings

 

[LSLS]

sort of shows the power of the skyliner (or at least the power of easy transport to a park) as Port Orleans used to have less discounts than CBR but not the discounts are higher and the reports of shuttering some buildings

CBR has also lost a good number of rooms in recent years as well

 

[jpeden]

You can book a 5th sleeper for $299 a night with the D+ Subscriber discount the week before Christmas.

Having never stayed at Riverside and having no need for the 5th sleeper I’m assuming this is a rare thing?

 

[JD80]

Having never stayed at Riverside and having no need for the 5th sleeper I’m assuming this is a rare thing?

Rare price? No, but it's a 35% discount for a moderate which is rare outside of FL residents. Brings it inline with 2017-2019 prices.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Having never stayed at Riverside and having no need for the 5th sleeper I’m assuming this is a rare thing?

It used to be more rare but Caribbean Beach added this option as it was a good choice for a larger family. Marie

 

[Tha Realest]

Very brief trip report. We did a split stay (AKL-Poly-SSR). Never felt like the resorts were overly crowded but certainly weren’t empty. Food turnaround on mobile orders were generally very quick.

Because we’re insane, we decided to do all four parks yesterday. Started at DAK, then DHS, then EPCOT, then MK. Generally felt throughout the day it wasn’t very crowded. The longest waits were during EEH at MK, ironically. Here’s what we managed to do:

DAK - early entry 710am-2pm
A:FOP - walk in rope drop
NRJ - walk on
K Safaris- walk on
EE- 25 min wait, though minor technical issue
Dinosaur - walk on
All that before 11. At that time kids played in Boneyard, then we had lunches at Restaurantosaurus and Satuli Canteen. Did one of the jungle walks and tough to be a bug. Out by 2pm
DHS - 230-630
Star Tours walk on, Indy walk on, Muppets walk on, Swirling Saucers 18 mins, used LL for Slinky, took 5 minutes. By early evening huge downpour hit DHS and EP; family at MK didn’t experience any of that.
EP - 7-930
SSE walk on, Soarin 10 mins, GOTG, walked the countries and had dinner, Remy at 9
MK - 10-1145
Out of steam by now. Visited with family for a bit. Did BTMRR twice back to back with no lines. PP and SDMT all looked to have 30+ min waits at the 1145 mark so called it a day.

All in all, never found it very crowded and only thing limiting us from experiencing many more rides were the need for kids to sit and eat for a moment (a luxury my parents never allowed me growing up while visiting the parks) and the insane desire to hit all four in one day. I did feel MK was more crowded for EEH than I’ve experienced in the past, and they had some people still accessing via LL (not sure if they were makeup passes from earlier in the day)

 

[Drdcm]

Riverside is a great resort. I would alternate between there and Coronado. With the arrival of the Gran Destino Tower and the fact that Boatwright's stopped serving sit down breakfast ( Best blueberry pancakes anywhere!!) I have been choosing Coronado Springs exclusively for a bit now. The Skyliner is nice but doesnt influence where I am staying. Marie

Coronado is so underrated on my opinion. Always seems to be available, rooms are nice, grounds are fun to walk around. I’m also partial to POR as well for similar reasons.

 

[wannabeBelle]

and looking to expand crowds maybe: https://www.wdwmagic.com/other/myma...sXZ0qvN3u4C34edYvN9Sfx8f_ObC8N4RguYrHErLSaGFc Marie

 

[Lilofan]

Coronado is so underrated on my opinion. Always seems to be available, rooms are nice, grounds are fun to walk around. I’m also partial to POR as well for similar reasons.

I like Coronado, the scenic lake , the Mayan pyramid pool , the lap pool by Casita 4, the workout gym , food court etc . Haven't been back with Riveria opening but I heard it is nice.

 

[Patcheslee]

Heh. Happy to help.

A couple of things:

1) I think WDW attendance is down overall vs 2022. Our travel agency bookings for WDW are down about 20% vs last year, and TP subscriptions for WDW are down about the same amount. And in talking to other travel agencies, WDW bookings seem to be down about that amount across the board - everyone seems to be in the 20-25% down range.

In conversations with Disney about this, they acknowledge it. I will be astonished if Iger says WDW attendance is the same or higher this year vs 2022 on the August earnings call.

And while WDW bookings are down, other destinations like Europe and cruises are up such that our overall TA numbers are much higher than in 2022. (I think DCL is running at ~96% capacity out of Port Canaveral, for example.)

FWIW, Universal says they're softer than expected too. While they won't say so publicly, in talking to them they acknowledge that a significant amount of their traffic comes from add-on trips after folks visit WDW.

So it's not a huge leap of logic to infer that the WDW slowdown is impacting all of central Florida's tourism numbers. That's why we see Orange County tax revenue down. (Why is tax rev down 6-7% if tourism is down 20%? The tax rev is on hotels, and my guess is day trip guests from within Florida don't use hotels. Intrastate travel is something like 46% of Central Florida traffic, IIRC.)

2) That said, I think the low wait times specifically for July 4 weekend were probably more related to weather and holiday trends, than anything else:

• There was a "stay indoors" heat advisory in effect for Central Florida for July 4, with a heat index of 112. That was part of a "heat dome" weather pattern for the previous weekend.
  
  
• Everyone knows Florida is hot in July. But this advisory specifically said it was "unusually hot".
  
  
• Likewise, there's always a chance of thunderstorms in Florida in July. And there was a 50% chance of afternoon thunderstorms.

So for July 4 specifically, I think the combination of the "stay indoors" advice along with the thunderstorms, kept people out of the parks.

3) Wait times for July 5-7 bounced back to average/above average. Magic Kingdom crowd levels were 7/6/6 on that Wed/Thu/Fri, on our 1-to-10 scale.

4) Here's some of the data I collected for the media interviews on this a couple weeks ago.

View attachment 733424

- There's been a general trend towards avoiding WDW on July 4 since at least last year, and probably going back to 2019.

- Universal Orlando and Disneyland also had low crowds on July 4. The low crowds at UOR seem to support the weather hypothesis.

- The low crowds at Disneyland seem to refute the idea that the slowdown is related to politics. For one thing, I don't think the Florida governor's advice has much impact on the vacation decisions that Californians make. Second, it would be awkward for the governor to acknowlege that his dispute with Disney specifically is hurting all of central Florida. That's a topic that nobody is going to touch.

5) I could be wrong on all of this. If there's better data that I missed, let me know.

Very late to the conversation, but how much would which day of the week a holiday falls on influence this? This year, we only got off work Thursday, and had to report Friday, so holiday trip without burning PTO would have been a negative. Next year we get Thursday & Friday, so we can travel.

 

[Gran Fiesta]

Just got this email. Interesting that it’s so resort specific

View attachment 735013

Interesting that they leave off August 20th-26th. I wonder if they are booked up that week more than the rest of the dates?

 

[lentesta]

Very late to the conversation, but how much would which day of the week a holiday falls on influence this? This year, we only got off work Thursday, and had to report Friday, so holiday trip without burning PTO would have been a negative. Next year we get Thursday & Friday, so we can travel.

Happy to help. The in-line image shows historical crowds on various days of the week too.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

Interesting that they leave off August 20th-26th. I wonder if they are booked up that week more than the rest of the dates?

I wonder if it is due to the Halloween parties. The first one I think is Aug 11, but I think in prior years they started more mid-August. Most of the August parties are sold out. Personally, the idea of celebrating Halloween in August is a bit crazy. not just because Halloween is a fall holiday, but also FL's August weather, when storms are common. I suppose a counterpoint is that August is still summer break for many students.

It is also one of the lower-priced times of year to visit. It used to be that Jan was a slow month, but last Jan was pretty busy. With WDW's prices I wonder if some people might be shifting/seeking the lowest priced seasons.