Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

[Grimley1968]

I can't believe for a second that Disney's business model of building parks that welcomed (and profited from) as many guests as possible since 1955 has been thrown out in favor of a more boutique sort of park experience with purposefully fewer guests spending more money. Sorry; that doesn't pass tests of basic economics or even logic. I think they tried to fool guests into thinking it was more of a boutique experience, and some guests responded temporarily by spending more money, while many others stopped coming. But I think that isn't working as well now, due to their own inability to reinstate items of lost value to guests, and outside economic factors, most especially inflation on core needs.

 

[thomas998]

Whenever we have gone to Universal we have booked a Premium resort with the " Stay More Save More " discount which is 30% for 7 or more days. So last December we had a waterview King bad room at Royal Pacific which gives EP for length of stay for $299 per night. We have always been able to get that deal.

Problem is those rooms seem to be harder to get and there is zero chance we would be paying $500 per night for that room. Also zero chance we would be paying $200 per day per person to buy EP and stay at a cheaper resort.

So if those type of deals aren't accessible we will most likely just cross Orlando off the list of possible vacation spots. Unfortunate because we love it there, but we won't be gouged. Tons of other places to go.

My family has done every level of Disney resort, only did the Cabana Bay suites at Universal... and as luck would have it they preferred the Cabana Bay over anything we've done a Disney. Even prefer it over the deluxe resorts which makes me happy as hell. My plan now is just doing our stay at Universal and maybe a side trip to Disney... but I know in the end Universal is getting more of our money now than Disney which is a complete switch from maybe 15 years ago when we would hit Disney exclusively and at most for all but a side trip to Universal.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

That's crazy. I was speaking about Disney World. They made tweaks to the boarding groups to lessen the crush, but on the days I went there were more people waiting before sunrise than I see on a typical day today. Didn't they have timed entry into the land at some point too? Or am I making that up?

The day it opened; they had BG, I think, to enter the land. by mid-day though it was clear they were not needed. I don't know how long they kept them around.

In a way, Disney forums helped to kill some enthusiasm, IMO. There was a lot of speculation HS crowds were going to be crazy-busy, that it was essential to arrive early, so much so that instead of people wanting to visit, the fear-of-crowds was a turn-off.

I daresay, Disney always has to be a bit careful about that. Universal will too. Epic can't be so crazy busy that parkgoers can't get on any rides. It will be much better if they keep access to tolerable levels when it first opens, IMO.

 

[JD80]

I can't believe for a second that Disney's business model of building parks that welcomed (and profited from) as many guests as possible since 1955 has been thrown out in favor of a more boutique sort of park experience with purposefully fewer guests spending more money. Sorry; that doesn't pass tests of basic economics or even logic. I think they tried to fool guests into thinking it was more of a boutique experience, and some guests responded temporarily by spending more money, while many others stopped coming. But I think that isn't working as well now, due to their own inability to reinstate items of lost value to guests, and outside economic factors, most especially inflation on core needs.

Operationally there is a minimum and maximum that you can operate a park. There's a certain threshold where a park has too many people in it where it starts effecting guest satisfaction.

At that point you need to scale back the amount of people you have in your parks (or build capacity). They chose not to build capacity but try to limit the people in the parks. And here we are today.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Attendance went down due to increases in ticket prices and adjustments to the way APs work. They took actions to limit attendance.

Attendance isn't all that important. It needs to stop be used as a metric of success or failure.

Your “incorrectitude” always amazes

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I can't believe for a second that Disney's business model of building parks that welcomed (and profited from) as many guests as possible since 1955 has been thrown out in favor of a more boutique sort of park experience with purposefully fewer guests spending more money. Sorry; that doesn't pass tests of basic economics or even logic. I think they tried to fool guests into thinking it was more of a boutique experience, and some guests responded temporarily by spending more money, while many others stopped coming. But I think that isn't working as well now, due to their own inability to reinstate items of lost value to guests, and outside economic factors, most especially inflation on core needs.

It hasn’t

Anyone buying intentional losses is buying excuses for bad management…with the added benefit to feed their own vanity.

It’s a nonsensical concept

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

cmon... you can't really believe that? Uni raises their prices when Disney does as well... were they trying to limit attendance too?

attendance did not go down just because of prices...many reasons for that...prices are just a part of it

I think price only factors into the value equation, Disney has raised prices every year for decades and attendance continuously went up…it wasn’t until they took away perks, started nickel and diming us to death, AND continued raising prices that attendance started to fall.

The high price isn’t the problem, it’s that the parks have been mismanaged so poorly they no longer justify paying that high price.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I think price only factors into the value equation, Disney has raised prices every year for decades and attendance continuously went up…it wasn’t until they took away perks, started nickel and diming us to death, AND continued raising prices that attendance started to fall.

The high price isn’t the problem, it’s that the parks have been mismanaged so poorly they no longer justify paying that high price.

No matter what business you’re in…if you increase pricing while shaving your margins - eventually you end up with terrible product.

That is the definition of bad management

 

[Tony the Tigger]

So if travel to Florida is up, and travel to not just Disney, but also universal is down, and we know it’s 100° over much of the country: why are we surprised that people are coming to Florida to go to the beaches instead of stand in open sun on hot asphalt fully clothed? I don’t think they’re going to Legoland instead of the other two.

Universal put out a pretty good deal for kind of a partial annual pass into December. That might actually get me to go for the first time in almost 20 years. I’ve always wanted to see the Harry Potter stuff.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

From a semi-reliable source they are adding Sapphire Falls to the premier resorts along with the Helios at Epic.

Speculation is the the 4 older resorts will get EP for the 2 original parks and Helios will get EP for Epic. Not sure if it will have EP at opening though or later on.

I believe their strategy is going to be to try and make this a week long vacation destination for most people. They will do this by having incentives to visit the other 2 parks. I think those that just want to spend a day or 2 at Epic will have to open the their wallets very wide. I'm very curious to see how this plays out.

Definitely will also be interested to see what the rates for the Helios hotel are and how full it is (loner term) and then how quickly an "in park" hotel gets added as part of phase 2 of Beyond Big Thunder

 

[GhostHost1000]

I think price only factors into the value equation, Disney has raised prices every year for decades and attendance continuously went up…it wasn’t until they took away perks, started nickel and diming us to death, AND continued raising prices that attendance started to fall.

The high price isn’t the problem, it’s that the parks have been mismanaged so poorly they no longer justify paying that high price.

I wonder if prices were where they are now BUT quality was back to pre Covid, magical express still existed, park hours were longer, and FP+ was still included for free with no paid LL or ILLs, if they’d be seeing as much attendance drop?

 

[MaximumEd]

I wonder if prices were where they are now BUT quality was back to pre Covid, magical express still existed, park hours were longer, and FP+ was still included for free with no paid LL or ILLs, if they’d be seeing as much attendance drop?

I’m of the opinion they would still be seeing a drop. They’ve finally hit the wall with pricing. Inflation is squeezing almost everyone.

 

[DisneyHead123]

I think price only factors into the value equation, Disney has raised prices every year for decades and attendance continuously went up…it wasn’t until they took away perks, started nickel and diming us to death, AND continued raising prices that attendance started to fall.

The high price isn’t the problem, it’s that the parks have been mismanaged so poorly they no longer justify paying that high price.

In hindsight, it really is kinda surprising how aggressive they were with the perk cuts and simultaneous price increases. Like can you imagine going to your favorite restaurant and they say "Cutlery is no longer complimentary, you'll need to purchase it. Also you enter a paid lottery to see what you can order. And you bus your own table. Oh and we raised prices 40%. Enjoy." Businesses are always trying to up their profits but it doesn't typically happen in such a "Whoa!! What the heck!!" kinda way. This is in no way a comprehensive list but there was: Magical Express, Extra Magic Hours, Magic Bands, package delivery, daily housekeeping at all hotels, room service, airline check-in, street performers, and of course, FastPass+. I'm not an annual passholder so I'm not up on what went on there, but I know that wasn't good either.

I will say that from 2020 - 2022 there was this sense that Disney was invincible though. I remember all the debates on these boards from that time between "People think they're too big to fail but they're not" and "Oh please, for every one person who leaves three take their place." That's probably the only context that the perks slashing / price increase spree makes some kind of sense. They were the 800 pound gorilla for awhile. I am still a starry eyed Disney fan who thinks market correction and a bit of competition from Universal will right this ship quickly, but I do think that era is, again, almost shocking in hindsight. There was no attempt to even "sell" any of it - no purchasing an "Ultra Deluxe Ticket!!" with Genie priced in that came with a sparkly cupcake and trinket or something.

 

[easyrowrdw]

My post was more about opening day than Rise, but yeah. The whole area is a disappointment, IMO. Falcon should be so much more. Docking Bay is one of the better QS in HS, but that isn't saying much. The merchandise is all wildly over-priced and mostly unappealing. Also, coconut milk? blech. The cantina idea had potential, but the execution is a miss.

It didn't help that the first time we rode Rise it broke down while we were waiting, so it ended up being a 2 hour wait in a enclosed queue that kept getting hotter and hotter with little airflow. I'm not paying $25 to do that again.

The best part of the land- on a later visit- was Mando. Star Wars is beloved, but somehow Disney made a land that is dull and ugly. Seeing Mando confirmed for me just how much better the land should have been.

Alas, I don't want to hijack this thread any more than I already have, so I'll leave it there.

Gotcha. I was fortunate to have ridden Rise a few times just after it opened and everything was working so that colors my impression. Your experience sounds awful. I think the poor reliability and non-working elements in Rise are black marks for Disney.

I don't really care if it's Mando or Rey or Chewy, but seeing them out and actually doing things in the land is always nice. The cutbacks on live entertainment and aliens in the land is my biggest disappointment with Galaxy's Edge.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I wonder if prices were where they are now BUT quality was back to pre Covid, magical express still existed, park hours were longer, and FP+ was still included for free with no paid LL or ILLs, if they’d be seeing as much attendance drop?

I think they’d have gotten the normal grumbling followed by an increase in attendance again back to 2019 levels, or at worst the same attendance.

Replacing FP with Genie was like opening Pandora’s box, they started down a path they are extremely unlikely to change for financial reasons. I love Disney but I think they’re in the doom loop, I don’t think they will be able to correct that without a complete change at the top and sacrificing their already struggling stock price.

 

[GhostHost1000]

I’m of the opinion they would still be seeing a drop. They’ve finally hit the wall with pricing. Inflation is squeezing almost everyone.

Inflation is definitely hitting families hard so I agree that’s a big part of it.

Free FP+ and magical express going away and then charging for LL and ILLs I think were a big part of self inflicting wounds too.

 

[Disstevefan1]

So if travel to Florida is up, and travel to not just Disney, but also universal is down, and we know it’s 100° over much of the country: why are we surprised that people are coming to Florida to go to the beaches instead of stand in open sun on hot asphalt fully clothed? I don’t think they’re going to Legoland instead of the other two.

Universal put out a pretty good deal for kind of a partial annual pass into December. That might actually get me to go for the first time in almost 20 years. I’ve always wanted to see the Harry Potter stuff.

Oh boy! you Gotta see the Harry Potter stuff!!! Its Excellent!

 

[ConfettiCupcake]

I wonder if prices were where they are now BUT quality was back to pre Covid, magical express still existed, park hours were longer, and FP+ was still included for free with no paid LL or ILLs, if they’d be seeing as much attendance drop?

This is my own personal grievance. The prices are high, but they’ve always been relatively high compared to other destinations and certainly other theme parks.

I hate the erosion of the base experience and the addition of endless optional and no-so-optional extras that you need in order to replicate the experience of a WDW vacation of a few short years ago. Particularly grating to me are the FP system, airport transfers, and longer park hours being put behind a paywall (or in some cases not existing at all, for the park hours, hard ticket events don’t come close to the old hours). Honorary mention to the elimination of free Magic Bands, as well as the phasing out older more basic styles, making it easy to spend $100+ for a family of 4 on something that used to be included.

 

[MaximumEd]

Inflation is definitely hitting families hard so I agree that’s a big part of it.

Free FP+ and magical express going away and then charging for LL and ILLs I think were a big part of self inflicting wounds too.

I don’t disagree. In actuality, it’s probably an “all of the above” answer. Ridiculous pricing + loss of what used to be = no longer seems like a value. We have a trip booked for September, but we haven’t been since 2020 and we used to go at least once a year. Don’t see us going back anytime soon after this trip.

 

[celluloid]

Universal put out a pretty good deal for kind of a partial annual pass into December. That might actually get me to go for the first time in almost 20 years. I’ve always wanted to see the Harry Potter stuff.

Shows the genius of Uni's deal. It is not foe tje early or easy adopters/advocates.
It is foe tje people who live in Florida, and have never been in 20 years or ever.