-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Is attendance really down at WDW this or…
- Thread starter coachb
- Start date
PREMiERdrum
Well-Known Member
Going back to my earlier post, LOTS of inventory was removed for this fall and winter over the past week or so... giving the appearance of higher occupancy and greater demand. When you see empty hallways and fewer housekeeping carts, it starts to add up.
Willmark
Well-Known Member
“Pay no attention to the man behind the screen.”
Drdcm
Well-Known Member
Yeah I saw your posts. Why would they do that? Seems like a really stupid way to run a business. I would have booked a room today if they had anything even remotely reasonable. Now I don’t care.
Thanks for posting about the inventory being removed.
Grimley1968
Well-Known Member
Totally agree with value, or perceived lack of it, being the biggest factor in lowering attendance.
I took my family to 3 national parks in Wyoming and Montana last summer, pretty much during the peak of the inevitable post pandemic inflationary cycle. It was ridiculously expensive to stay in decent hotel rooms within an hour of each park, to the point where I finally paid off the last of our credit card balance a week ago (13 months since the trip ended). The trip ended up costing probably a little more than the same number of days at WDW. But I don't regret it, and I don't think my family does, because we enjoyed what we perceived to be great value for the exorbitant costs.
Compare that to a week at WDW these days, with the complicated process of just trying to queue for the popular rides, homogenized food offerings, homogenized resort offerings, CM's that act increasingly like what other companies refer to as "employees", and our perceived value comes nowhere near being equal to costs not much less than our blowout trip to Wyoming and Montana last year. We're thinking of going to Florida next spring with our now-grown girls, and they're interested, but if I offer trying to go to WDW for even a day or two of the trip, no one is interested any longer. These are girls who were raised going to WDW almost every year.
It wouldn't be impossible for Disney to right the ship and bring value back to a WDW vacation. Like others have said, though, it's not simply a matter of discounts to monetarily cheapen a WDW vacation to bring it in line with people's decreasing view of the value of one. I'd rather see Disney bring the value back that would make the premium worth it again. This could be done regardless of the weather and how well or poorly Disney is doing in non-parks business. From appearances, though, that doesn't seem to be Disney's approach right now, shuttering sections of resorts, etc. They did something right a few years ago, the Skyliner. That's an example of something that can increase the perceived value to guests like us. Unfortunately, moves like that seem to be in the great minority of their overall strategy.
Tha Realest
Well-Known Member
Not just the appearances…less wings/buildings that need to be cleaned/maintained = reduced hours for employees.
Drdcm
Well-Known Member
Why don’t they close those areas on shorter notice? It seems like self sabotage to completely sell out your artificially lowered inventory three months ahead of time.
Tha Realest
Well-Known Member
I think they’d rather make certain margins on less guests than make the hard decision to cut rack rates too much.
I also feel like propped up rack rates justifies the calculus for prospective DVC buyers.
Starting to feel like having so many revenue streams oppositional to one another isn’t a good thing when we’re no longer in the salad days.
PREMiERdrum
Well-Known Member
They were hoping to discount their way out of it. It was too little too late, as I said, so this "solution" is super obvious to guests and shareholders alike.
A broken pricing model and failure to read the market brought them here. Arrogantly clinging to these factors will keep them here.
AEfx
Well-Known Member
Agreed.
Even at Universal, where the Express Pass is also expensive, it just feels...different. Again, it's pay one price and not this a la carte nonsense, but it also doesn't seem to operationally effect things to anywhere near the levels as it does with WDW.
I also just think it can't be over-stated just how much of a value that has been lost when they went from just plain old "everyone can get a FP" to FP+, and then really going over the edge with this LL garbage. When they charge premium prices to get in but then everyone is entitled to a full experience is far different from the mad rush to spend more and hope to heck the entire time that you somehow end up taking enough advantage of it all by playing the WDW app game during your entire stay.
What's really funny is - when you talk to people in the real world about what it's like to go to WDW and all the processes, procedures, planning etc. - they just can't believe it is true. I mean, people used to gawk at hearing that you got up early so you could book a restaurant six months out, but everything else that has been added since then? It's lunacy.
It's a long story but I'll make it short - had a friend who just wanted to see Star Wars land. Was like "whatever, I'll pay, figure it out for me, I want to see it". And I had to explain that, even if he had park reservations, that the only way to guarantee he could get to ride even once was to play the phone app game...he was like, "I can't just pay that ahead of time? Like, $100 bucks, to make sure I get to ride?" He had avoided the videos of the rides before that, but was like, "wait, I'm gong to watch it to see if this is really worth it". And he did. And he laughed that we just saved him like five grand. "There's no Darth Vader?"
Before this, even if you had to wait for 3 hours for such an in-demand ride, or if you missed it one day, you could just pop over for the morning to rope drop it to make sure you got to do it at least once that week, you still knew, barring some major mechanical failure that put it out for days, that at least you would get to experience the big new attraction you came to see. Even in Disney's new "in app purchase" reality, you still are playing a lottery game - just like those predatory phone games (of which Disney also makes billions through EA, for those who wonder why they don't make many big console games any more, they make so much on crappy little phone games they don't have to).
If you take the promo off there are more resorts well under this, including Riverside, Coronado, and French Quarter.
But as was noted earlier they’re taking resort sections offline to make it look more full to try and drive people into what I can only assume they hope are FOMO bookings.
When resort guest buildings are shuttered , power is shut off for cost savings. Prior to opening again , mold mildew and dust have to be deep cleaned before guests occupy hotel rooms.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
It makes sense why they are doing it. IMO it's a bad look
I imagine it isn’t a full shuttering. I’m sure they still run HVAC and do basic cleaning. But cleaning once a week or so is a lot cheaper than turning those rooms every day.
It’s an awful look. They know what they need to do fill the rooms - they just aren’t willing to do it.
Pride cometh before the fall.
That's wishful thinking. Not when we stayed at Coronado when other buildings were closed back in the day.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
IMO it's cause they are afraid to admit they aren't a luxury vacation destination they think they are.
PREMiERdrum
Well-Known Member
This practice changed with the more recent rounds of room renovations. There were some - ahem - interesting discoveries at a few key moderates.
Power isn't cut and HVAC remains active, albeit a bit more restrained.
My charging of my credit cards allow me to accumulate points. One option to redeem is to receive gas cards to use at Shell. I redeem and filler up on a regular basis.