Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

[Tony the Tigger]

They “tinkered with philosophy” with their golden goose.

Explain.

 

[monothingie]

Disney will only react AFTER they see what happens to THE MONEY!

They needed to start reacting 5 years ago.

 

[wannabeBelle]

That said, last week family booked AKL and when they saw their room, they wanted to switch and was told there were no rooms available. So maybe its not needed.

Last week 2/9/2024-2/12/2024 that I am aware of, there was a National cheerleading competition being held at WDW. Rooms were really difficult to get across the property with all of the Values and most of the Mods being completely sold out. That might explain that one. Marie

 

[Disstevefan1]

They needed to start reacting 5 years ago.

Nope, only after they see a change in THE MONEY.

 

[PREMiERdrum]

I think that 2025 will be the year that Disney parks…especially those other than magic kingdom…become “overflow” parks

And that is shocking on a level words can’t really capture. There has never been a question as to who the big dog was…that town was built around them from the ground up

History will show that treating the Orlando property as fully mature and mostly requiring capacity maintenance, not expansion, was a costly miscalculation.

 

[Andrew25]

• Magic Kingdom - the "king" of Orlando, will never be topped. Epic opening might increase visits.
• Epcot - APs keep the park afloat, as long as they keep pumping food festivals, no need to worry in the short term. Long term the park will need changes to some of the underutilized attractions like Figment and Mission Space.
• Hollywood Studios - strong IP power, will be #2 at WDW
• Animal Kingdom - will be impacted the most. Paired with imminent closure of Dinosaur, I'd have to imagine this park will be the "easiest" to skip while planning a trip. DAK is my favorite park, but I can't even convince someone to visit it with the current small slate of attractions.
• Universal Studios Florida - if it weren't for the Hogwarts Express, I'd argue attendance would have been cannibalized by Epic. Special events & nighttime entertainment at the park will help draw resorts guests back here at night along with preventing APs from ignoring it. Holiday/Mardi Gras parades are very popular, so only thing Universal has to be worried about is during the "Diet-Epcot" portions of the year lol
• Islands of Adventure - Velocicoaster & Hagrid have made it difficult to "pass" on this park.
• SeaWorld - good luck

I think MK, DHS and IOA are fine. USF/Epcot will need to rely on events, DAK will be interesting to monitor.

 

[Laketravis]

Last week 2/9/2024-2/12/2024 that I am aware of, there was a National cheerleading competition being held at WDW. Rooms were really difficult to get across the property with all of the Values and most of the Mods being completely sold out. That might explain that one. Marie

Yet we stayed at POP, checked in 2/11 and was assigned to a building farthest from the Skyliner. I asked if we could move closer and they upgraded us to a waterview in building 3. From what I could see as the CM scrolled up and down his pad of available rooms, there looked to be plenty.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Yet we stayed at POP, checked in 2/11 and was assigned to a building farthest from the Skyliner. I asked if we could move closer and they upgraded us to a waterview in building 3. From what I could see as the CM scrolled up and down his pad of available rooms, there looked to be plenty.

There are plenty of rooms

People continue to equate the genie lines with aggregate crowds

But they let the standard crowd eclipse the appropriate ride capacity 15 years ago…

I may have mentioned this once or twice before?

 

[wannabeBelle]

Yet we stayed at POP, checked in 2/11 and was assigned to a building farthest from the Skyliner. I asked if we could move closer and they upgraded us to a waterview in building 3. From what I could see as the CM scrolled up and down his pad of available rooms, there looked to be plenty.

Sunday was your check in date, From what I was told when looking for one of the cheer groups who were attending the big competition day was on Saturday. I think this is a situation where a day one way or the other makes all the difference in room availability. Marie

 

[Laketravis]

There are plenty of rooms

People continue to equate the genie lines with aggregate crowds

But they let the standard crowd eclipse the appropriate ride capacity 15 years ago…

I may have mentioned this once or twice before?

Exactly. TSR's were empty. No lines at food kiosks in any of the parks. Barstools and tables open at all the lounges and bars. Lots of empty resort rooms. No crowds at resort pools. Busses often empty during the day, monorail lines short, Skyliner humming on idle.

Yet Rat, Tot, and others often had 120+ minute waits.

 

[Laketravis]

Sunday was your check in date, From what I was told when looking for one of the cheer groups who were attending the big competition day was on Saturday. I think this is a situation where a day one way or the other makes all the difference in room availability. Marie

And most of them stayed thru Monday. Tuesday was their big (and very noticeable) departure day. By Wednesday they were pretty much all gone but replaced by a new crowd for both the Art Festival in Epcot and what seemed to be several large conference/convention groups.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Exactly. TSR's were empty. No lines at food kiosks in any of the parks. Barstools and tables open at all the lounges and bars. Lots of empty resort rooms. No crowds at resort pools. Busses often empty during the day, monorail lines short, Skyliner humming on idle.

Yet Rat, Tot, and others often had 120+ minute waits.

The restaurants have been clear more times than not since the shutdown

And I don’t mean I eat “occasionally “…all times of the year including “peak” crowd periods.

That’s a side discussion in of itself.

People will say “that’s because they didn’t have the dining plan”….

Exactly…because their menu prices are bonkers…and now the dining plan fee is bonkers…ontop of excesses everywhere.

Pretty simple, Bob

 

[Lilofan]

And most of them stayed thru Monday. Tuesday was their big (and very noticeable) departure day. By Wednesday they were pretty much all gone but replaced by a new crowd for both the Art Festival in Epcot and what seemed to be several large conference/convention groups.

That's good that convention business is coming back. During Covid , business convention travel became non existent and many in that part of tourism lost their jobs.

 

[Laketravis]

The restaurants have been clear more times than not since the shutdown

And I don’t mean I eat “occasionally “…all times of the year including “peak” crowd periods.

That’s a side discussion in of itself.

People will say “that’s because they didn’t have the dining plan”….

Exactly…because their menu prices are bonkers…and now the dining plan fee is bonkers…ontop of excesses everywhere.

Pretty simple, Bob

I will say that I noticed a definitive difference in food quality at several TS venues from early December to last week which I attribute to preemptive cost cutting in preparation for "free" dining.

 

[Laketravis]

That's good that convention business is coming back. During Covid , business convention travel became non existent and many in that part of tourism lost their jobs.

Good in some ways, bad in others - business travel tends to increase cost for pleasure travel.

 

[monothingie]

Explain.

The golden goose is WDW. The philosophy is monetizing every aspect of the guest experience.

 

[Disstevefan1]

• Magic Kingdom - the "king" of Orlando, will never be topped. Epic opening might increase visits.
• Epcot - APs keep the park afloat, as long as they keep pumping food festivals, no need to worry in the short term. Long term the park will need changes to some of the underutilized attractions like Figment and Mission Space.
• Hollywood Studios - strong IP power, will be #2 at WDW
• Animal Kingdom - will be impacted the most. Paired with imminent closure of Dinosaur, I'd have to imagine this park will be the "easiest" to skip while planning a trip. DAK is my favorite park, but I can't even convince someone to visit it with the current small slate of attractions.
• Universal Studios Florida - if it weren't for the Hogwarts Express, I'd argue attendance would have been cannibalized by Epic. Special events & nighttime entertainment at the park will help draw resorts guests back here at night along with preventing APs from ignoring it. Holiday/Mardi Gras parades are very popular, so only thing Universal has to be worried about is during the "Diet-Epcot" portions of the year lol
• Islands of Adventure - Velocicoaster & Hagrid have made it difficult to "pass" on this park.
• SeaWorld - good luck

I think MK, DHS and IOA are fine. USF/Epcot will need to rely on events, DAK will be interesting to monitor.

I like SeaWorld and they keep adding coasters!

 

[LSLS]

Oh it's going to be a blood bath. The average person in 2025, before looking at pricing, is thinking about an Orlando trip in three different ways:

1) Standard WDW trip but with a day for EU
2) Universal Trip but with a day for WDW
3) Universal Trip

Regardless if that person is a WDW fan or not, EU is going to be on everyone's mind in 2025. Disney and Universal are going to bitterly fighting to get days from people and Uni has the upper hand.

Disney is going to have to fight to get as many #1s as possible. You are going to lose a lot of people to a single day at EU. That is the baseline attrition you need to fight for.

The problem for Disney is that Universal is going to play hard at making their resort a full week stay. In order to do that, they will have no issue to HIGHLY incentivize you for a multi day stay like you said. Buy 2 days at EU and get 2 days at UFL/IoA for steep discounts for example.

To prevent that from enticing too many people, Disney is going to have to do something to incentive at least more day trips to WDW from Universal to at least capture some losses. Disney has to fight hard for as many #1s as possible while being aggressive to save as many #2s from being #3s.

Ultimately we win in every scenario as a consumer.

edit:
Yes there will be plenty of people who are doing a WDW only trip and won't consider Universal at all. There is still a demo of families with very small children that Universal won't capture yet.

If I was Disney, a HUGE worry for me would be the people who always went to Disney, so they've never really been to Universal. I'll talk my family here. Kids have never been, I've been twice, one time probably 15ish years ago, the other maybe closer to 20. We all really want to see Epic. But it's not an option 1 for us. It's an option 2 in that "We've seen everything at Disney, but since we are going to Universal anyways, lets check out the other 2 parks and the water park."

I will say something that will have a MAJOR impact on us is operating hours. Universal needs to operate on MK hours or even better, not DAK hours for us to really be excited about it all.

 

[JD80]

If I was Disney, a HUGE worry for me would be the people who always went to Disney, so they've never really been to Universal. I'll talk my family here. Kids have never been, I've been twice, one time probably 15ish years ago, the other maybe closer to 20. We all really want to see Epic. But it's not an option 1 for us. It's an option 2 in that "We've seen everything at Disney, but since we are going to Universal anyways, lets check out the other 2 parks and the water park."

I will say something that will have a MAJOR impact on us is operating hours. Universal needs to operate on MK hours or even better, not DAK hours for us to really be excited about it all.

Operation hours are going to be interesting to watch. Though during the summer, hours are similar no?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I will say that I noticed a definitive difference in food quality at several TS venues from early December to last week which I attribute to preemptive cost cutting in preparation for "free" dining.

Of course…put up a roadsign so the lemmings know which way the cliff is