Hope so. Coming here for 18 years but like this not wirth spending nearly 10K
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Is attendance really down at WDW this or…
- Thread starter coachb
- Start date
I don’t really see the down attendance, seems the same as usual
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
See this way it makes you want to buy G+ more. No need to build more rides either, just pay to play if you want to be part of the new Di$ney magic
even spilling over to the drink stands. Wanted some strawberry whatever, sorry we cant get to it, machine broke. Wanna pay for two diet cokes instead, bear with me, we have some problems woth our register. This is no longer ok. Sorry. Rant over. Will go chill down at my pool
One would think since the parks close earlier than years before that more overnight maintenance can be done to prevent breakdowns ? What about when parks used to close during high season evening extra magic hours park closing 12am, 1am, 2am, how did overnight maintenance do their job compared to now when parks close earlier?
wannabeBelle
Well-Known Member
Great question. Marie
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
No first hand knowledge but I think a lot of the maintenance staff was lost during the pandemic. Less people available and less people that actually knew how to fix/prevent issues has resulted in what you see. As the years go by that knowledge will grow again but for now it's tough to find an unemployed ride tech in Orlando.
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Grimley1968
Well-Known Member
True. I'd imagine it's a more acute issue on the complicated, one-off ride systems like ROTR versus say the Dumbo spinner ride.
If that's the case where is UNI to find knowledgeable ride techs to maintain and service all those attractions at upcoming Orlando Epic Universe? If Disney has issues, then UNI issues will be unreal.
Drdcm
Well-Known Member
I’ve always thought they should try to develop a local program that teaches the unique ride maintenance skills. Like a Disney Trade program or something.
Would help local students and they could later employ those people at various places like the bbb salons and photographers etc… maintenance in particular seems like it would be a relatively difficult position to fill.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
Expand that out to most trades, companies need to account for training costs and develop new talent or they will have a bunch of managers and no one to do the work.
Disney has a several year apprenticeship program for ride techs and other trades before they graduate and are on their own.
Drdcm
Well-Known Member
Huh I did not know that. I thought it was just animators and the creative side of things. I learned something today
I met a tech who advised he started in custodial before he rose up the ladder and went through the appr. program and is a ride tech at DHS.
Nubs70
Well-Known Member
.
Typical maintenance work, given high season constraints, should be broke down into 5 hour, 4 hour, 3 hour activities ( 1 hour to set up, 1 hour to clean up, balance actual activity).
By wanting to control costs, maintenance activity is simply reduced leaving more idle hours overnight.
Seems current WDW maintenance protocol allows for more run to failure and lower OEE.
Willmark
Well-Known Member
Just got back from Cedar Point and the difference in how rides are handled could not be more pronounced.
Disney? Laughably bad with their ride rationing. Think about it, they are monetizing the fact that haven't built jack crap for 20 years other than replacements and get people to pay extra for the "privilege" of flex pricing based on demand?
Cedar Point- Pay X amount (which does change based on the day of the week), but offers Fastlane on two levels. We did Fastlane+ and cost us $145 each which was steep to look at, but consider:
My favorite coaster at any amusement park is the Maverick (Disney has nothing comparable but that's another story) and it the additional cost was worth every penny of it.
Typical Day there:
Staying at the Hotel Breakers (aka on prem); as such get into the park early at 9 AM; also allows for first crack Fastlane passes at the hotel at 8 AM. Already two perks better than staying at a Disney resort.
Got to the resort gate and once opened went to either Gatekeeper or Millennium Force. During early hours Fastlane isn't in effect, but no real matter usually you can do both before the park opens. Gates open and people come pouring in. But with Fastlane+ you don't really care. We would either work the east of the west side of the part in the AM till early afternoon, working our way back to Maverick and Steel Vengeance.
By that point? 75 minute wait on Maverick and 2 hours on Day 1 for Steel Vengeance. But for us? We walked right on, sometimes going back to back. And if people look at you? Shrug. They could have bought it too but chose not to.
Another time we walked onto Maverick and were riding within 3 minutes.
That is what is missing at Disney. I'm not mega-wealthy mind you, but we budgeted and saved for it. The ability to not wait in lines? Priceless. Park hours (not including early entry) were from 10-8 pm. If one waited in line for Maverick and Steel Vengeance with the times I outlined? That's a tad over 3 hours of waiting in line for two rides. That is a huge chunk of the day.
For some folks YMMV, but for me? Can't put a price on it. We were last at Disney in 2018 and if I squinted I sorta saw some value (basically none.) Now with the changes and having Cedar Point as a data point?
Also: we included the Coca-Cola Freestyle program in our tickets for $9 a day per person, no lugging anything around to re-hydrate and yesterday was brutally hot. We we slugging a lot of Poweraide and Poweraide zeros but the ability to go refresh every 15-minutes if you wanted to? I did get a chance to try out some of the new Coke Zero flavors on occasion which was nice.
Disney? Laughably bad with their ride rationing. Think about it, they are monetizing the fact that haven't built jack crap for 20 years other than replacements and get people to pay extra for the "privilege" of flex pricing based on demand?
Cedar Point- Pay X amount (which does change based on the day of the week), but offers Fastlane on two levels. We did Fastlane+ and cost us $145 each which was steep to look at, but consider:
My favorite coaster at any amusement park is the Maverick (Disney has nothing comparable but that's another story) and it the additional cost was worth every penny of it.
Typical Day there:
Staying at the Hotel Breakers (aka on prem); as such get into the park early at 9 AM; also allows for first crack Fastlane passes at the hotel at 8 AM. Already two perks better than staying at a Disney resort.
Got to the resort gate and once opened went to either Gatekeeper or Millennium Force. During early hours Fastlane isn't in effect, but no real matter usually you can do both before the park opens. Gates open and people come pouring in. But with Fastlane+ you don't really care. We would either work the east of the west side of the part in the AM till early afternoon, working our way back to Maverick and Steel Vengeance.
By that point? 75 minute wait on Maverick and 2 hours on Day 1 for Steel Vengeance. But for us? We walked right on, sometimes going back to back. And if people look at you? Shrug. They could have bought it too but chose not to.
Another time we walked onto Maverick and were riding within 3 minutes.
That is what is missing at Disney. I'm not mega-wealthy mind you, but we budgeted and saved for it. The ability to not wait in lines? Priceless. Park hours (not including early entry) were from 10-8 pm. If one waited in line for Maverick and Steel Vengeance with the times I outlined? That's a tad over 3 hours of waiting in line for two rides. That is a huge chunk of the day.
For some folks YMMV, but for me? Can't put a price on it. We were last at Disney in 2018 and if I squinted I sorta saw some value (basically none.) Now with the changes and having Cedar Point as a data point?
Also: we included the Coca-Cola Freestyle program in our tickets for $9 a day per person, no lugging anything around to re-hydrate and yesterday was brutally hot. We we slugging a lot of Poweraide and Poweraide zeros but the ability to go refresh every 15-minutes if you wanted to? I did get a chance to try out some of the new Coke Zero flavors on occasion which was nice.
James Alucobond
Well-Known Member
They have a completely different attraction mix that is less skewed toward animatronic-heavy rides.
el_super
Well-Known Member
Yeah this was certainly true in California as well. Disney was paying to send kids to school to learn machining as there was a lack of candidates here. That's was years ago and I assume the pressure to get a real job is even worse now.
With so few people trained to make replacement parts, it becomes harder and harder to operate those legacy rides without buying parts from overseas and enduring all the logistical problems that brings.
So as a disastrous day comes to a close, the night time entetainment is also delayed. This is becoming laughable. No point in having a pretty playground with everything in it broken at skyrocketing prices. For the first time in 30 years really disappointed in Disney. I will not be back next year.
PREMiERdrum
Well-Known Member
As they chip away at their grossly inflated rack rates - both thru promotional discounts and quiet rollbacks - it's worth noticing that they appear to be far less willing to move on the values.
Two things in the works:
- Further capacity reduction, and
- Shifting inventory to other booking sites. It's been a bit since they dumped a mess of "less desirable" rooms out to the less-controlled corners of the internet.
Interesting times.
Two things in the works:
- Further capacity reduction, and
- Shifting inventory to other booking sites. It's been a bit since they dumped a mess of "less desirable" rooms out to the less-controlled corners of the internet.
Interesting times.