Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Not too surprising…so flat.
Considering the dining plan was reintroduced as a “lever” after a year (and counting) of depressed bookings…I give the beaners in the sundial credit for showing “restraint”
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Is attendance really down at WDW this or…
- Thread starter coachb
- Start date
Considering the dining plan was reintroduced as a “lever” after a year (and counting) of depressed bookings…I give the beaners in the sundial credit for showing “restraint”
JD80
Well-Known Member
Not too surprising…so flat.
Considering the dining plan was reintroduced as a “lever” after a year (and counting) of depressed bookings…I give the beaners in the sundial credit for showing “restraint”
The extra $10 or so difference is the snack they took out.
Not too surprising…so flat.
Considering the dining plan was reintroduced as a “lever” after a year (and counting) of depressed bookings…I give the beaners in the sundial credit for showing “restraint”
They kind of had to, as when you dine out with your children at most locaitons, requiring to buy them a meal is not a thing. I have a three year old who can basically still eat off our plate or dine much smaller happily with a side of mac and cheese.
People with multiple kids is a deal breaker if it raised at the same rate.
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
You can’t honestly believe it’s not all about money do you?
Definitely not by the previous post's. The point is shifting now because the others were lost. Onto the next confusion.
JD80
Well-Known Member
The new dining plan is a really good deal if you have kids 5-9. Old enough to want their own food and still not considered a Disney Adult. You can't beat $30 a day especially if you normally do sit downs/character meals.
My oldest was 9 on our last trip and the kid meals were too small for her. Spending the money for a nice sit down meal for her is too much, her palette isn't sophisticated enough to appreciate some of the better sit down places, so buffets are great for her but definitely not worth $100.
There needs to be a Jr price - 10-16 or 18. Unless I get the plan for free in some promo I couldn't ever see myself buying it with kids under 18 and older that 10.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
I think their problem is more “macro” anyways
So all the “news stations”…cause everyone was at home…ran with the “wages are way up!” Narrative in 2020
Well from 2021 until just two months ago those gains were 101% completely gobbled up by price increases. So not at all off script.
So $2000 a week on top of your room, ticket, genie…and party tickets to get away from the genie…is that good?
Who knows? But the old issues with DDP remain. Most of them by design
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For me it was always the all or nothing per day factor too. I was never in the market anyway being a state resident who only stayed in the bubble completely a few times, but we typically eat one large meal a day in a full service, quick service never interested us more than a random.
I was never too great at the DRC compared to what I should have been with my time as a sales agent there. I could never promote Dining Plan and Photopass enough to a family that I did not feel comfortable telling them it was a value. Then add reservations into the mix.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Really good under very specific circumstances
Not only do you have to have kids in the block (the minute they turn 10…you’re screwed (for the first time in 10 years)…but you have to load it up on the highest priced for return spots. Yep…fuzzy animals.
So you can make it work. “Really good deal”? That’s debatable.
The bigger issue is a side by side comparison to pay as you go. That’s a harder case to make.
Grimley1968
Well-Known Member
I don't know, because we have no intention of returning to WDW anytime soon, what the latest discounts are for room-only or room-ticket packages, but I've gathered that they're fairly substantial from posts in this thread.
But in the past, I almost always found it a better deal to just pay for the dining plan if we wanted to know it was paid for up front (or save more money by paying out of pocket at times we actually wanted to eat), and find a room-only or room-ticket package discount. We usually found that 25-30% off a deluxe room more than made up the cost of the dining plan, and that was before the astronomical prices they charge for even Wilderness Lodge these days.
But in the past, I almost always found it a better deal to just pay for the dining plan if we wanted to know it was paid for up front (or save more money by paying out of pocket at times we actually wanted to eat), and find a room-only or room-ticket package discount. We usually found that 25-30% off a deluxe room more than made up the cost of the dining plan, and that was before the astronomical prices they charge for even Wilderness Lodge these days.
el_super
Well-Known Member
Yes we are. We were specifically talking about attractions not being available at park opening.
If you know anything about theme parks, you should know some of the complexities in getting attractions up and running. And yes, other parks have had their challenges too. Hagrid's was down for about two hours yesterday. It's normal.
I think I touched on some of the issues before, but just in case, attraction delays can be due to lack of Operational Cast Members, lack of maintenance cast members, lack of parts availability, supply chain issues, safety considerations, regulatory issues and even legal issues.
If ops cast members call out and you are missing positions, you can always plan to overstaff/hire more. If maintenance takes longer due to OSHA requirements, you can always try to hire more maintenance staff. If you can't find skilled mechanics and machinists, you can always offer to send candidates to training. If you need more skill depth on your complicated attraction that now requires a network engineer instead of just a mechanic, you can always send in recruiters to universities or maybe bring in foreigners for those highly competitive jobs. You have a company in Europe or china that is the only company that can make a part and it takes 4 to 6 months to manufacture one? Maybe you send them a bucket of money and hope they can turn them around faster.
Then you realize you're spending $300 million more just to make sure Dinosaur opens on time 93% of the time instead of 89% of the time.
Making good business decisions sometimes requires understanding that the $300 million can be better spent somewhere else.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
If they're really busy, why are the wait times so low?
I'm not saying you're wrong about the crowds -- it's just weird because what's everyone doing if they're not riding rides?
Kiliminjaro Safari has a 20 minute wait right now. My last two trips were at "quiet" times and the wait was never less than 60. Even Flight of Passage, that often has 2+ hour waits, is under an hour.
PREMiERdrum
Well-Known Member
Fewer and fewer people are paying for Genie+, which normalizes the standby lines a bit as they were designed to operate.
Raw attendance is indeed soft, but G+ utilization dropping is pushing more people out of longer queues and onto the pathways, etc.
networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
That should bode well for our trip next week : )
Grimley1968
Well-Known Member
They obviously made many of those types of "business decisions" (though it's hard for me to consider a business decision that could very well lead to less revenue a "good" one). They also made business decisions to spend billions in the past 15 years or so on crowd throttling, ride rationing, few if any net additional attractions, nickel and diming previously loyal guests over previously included items like resort parking (I believe that's coming back as soon as they feel they can get away with it) and ride rationing (err, reservations), insulting stratification based on guest spending, and other decisions, while also raising prices on guests the entire time. The only thing WDW has hit a home run on, IMO, is the Skyliner. This thread and others are just one way, besides voting with our wallets, to vent guest frustration at the "business decisions" Disney has made in re WDW. Every other major decision they've made is to inevitably push me (and I think many others) away as paying guests.
They can continue to use WDW as an ATM to fund less profitable other parts of Disney, if Disney continues to believe that's wise, but that can only last so long as guests are happy, patient and continue to pay too much for too little in return. There is a limit to that patience, though, and speaking for myself: mine's gone.
el_super
Well-Known Member
I can be sympathetic to people who want to see the parks change in their favor, but the broader point is, these business decisions are made for reasons that are deliberate and calculated. If there was a point where delayed attraction openings did show up as a deeper concern from guests, and spending more money to fix it was an option, they would do it. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes it comes down to Guest A complaining about something Guest B wants and Disney has to make the compromise to appease both. Significantly raising prices, reducing operating hours to accommodate more maintenance, scheduling more long-term downtimes, tend to aggrieve guests just as much, if not more, than missing effects or delayed openings.
Oh look, we're back to money and how to spend it. You say it is not about the money, and then right an essay on how it is about the money in multiple different ways.
We know Disney is bad with priority to guest service right now.
Again, not staffing well on a regular basis and downtime not related to weather is different and a new or complex attraction working out the bugs is not what Disney's problems come from.
It comes from being really crappy at delivering what is expected.
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Tha Realest
Well-Known Member
It’s clear you do not wish to be taken seriously when you use numbers like this
seabreezept813
Well-Known Member
We
We found entry into AK the least organized. It’s probably just not enough staff. Several people lost part of their early entry time, which is not much to begin with but the day didn’t end up being that crowded.
seabreezept813
Well-Known Member
I’ve actually been pricing it out based on what we spent this summer with our 3 kids-19, 5, and 2 to see if the dining plan is worth it next summer. And I’ve included everything-daily snacks, some alcoholic beverages, resort mugs. It’s still not less than what we paid. And we did 5 character meals including Cindy’s, so we didn’t eat cheap. Eating our way still comes out about 300-400 dollars cheaper than the dining plan more when you take tips into consideration. If free dining came back it’d be a different story. Even if we paid 800 more or so for higher hotel rates we’d save almost 2k on food. With that math free dining is a bigger discount (1200) than room (usually 400-500).