Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
That's a specific, consistent issue with airport staffing and why I never fly out of MCO with a flight that requires me to get there before 7am. Airline check-ins are understaffed and security are understaffed until their morning shift comes in.
This wasn't checking in your luggage at the counter. This is standing in line to clear TSA which had around 80% of the TSA X ray inspection areas open. The lines were also long to check in your luggage. Thankfully all we had were carry on luggage.
 

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
Everything is fine! See?

"Many Americans say their household expenses are outstripping their incomes, prompting concerns about their financial futures. At the same time, household debt for most Americans has either risen in the last year or has not gone away.

About 2 in 3 Americans say their household expenses have risen over the last year, but only about 1 in 4 say their income has increased in the same period, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
...
About 8 in 10 Americans say their overall household debt is higher or about the same as it was a year ago. About half say they currently have credit card debt, 4 in 10 are dealing with auto loans, and about 1 in 4 have medical debt. Just 15% say their household savings have increased over the last year.
...
"[C]onditioned by decades of pervasive advertising, we have been taught to buy not just all that we need or even all that we want but all that we can," Kelly added. "A prudent consumer, considering their hopes for their own future financial wellbeing, their retirement, and their aspirations for their children's education, might, at this point be ready to trim their spending."
"

Bob doesn't like prudent consumers. Bob needs you to spend, Spend, SPEND BABY!!! Open a new credit card every year and use that to pay for your MAGICAL!!! WDW vacation because the memories are priceless! I'm sure they will keep you warm at night when your house gets foreclosed on because you can't make the payments and your family is homeless.
 

TheMaxRebo

Well-Known Member
It's not smart, but I can understand it to a degree. People keep forgetting what Disney is for a lot of people. It's not just a theme park with rides, but a place that people go with their families. When you look at the opportunity to take a once-in-a-lifetime family trip, what you are really paying for are memories. You're paying for photos on the walls of your house and good stories to tell at Thanksgivings for years to come. You get wrapped up in knowing that your kids can never stay the same age forever and you want to hold onto those memories as best you can.

Yet people here keep thinking the value of a trip to WDW is really in the cost of Genie+ and how many rides you can get done in one day. It's not.

I do get that and can (sortof) understand taking out the money if it meant taking the trip or not ...

but you can absolutely do a really nice trip to WDW for $12,000 .... you don't *have* to spend $17,000 to be at WDW - that's the part I don't get ... is that marginal increase in the experience worth disrupting your retirement plans?
 

TheMaxRebo

Well-Known Member
That was a shocker when we showed up at 4am at MCO Main Terminal and thousands showed up ahead of us.

airports are weird - sometimes they will be crazy at 4am, and then our last trip we were there at around 4pm on a Saturday and it was a ghost town - not lines at security at all
 

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
Everything is fine! See?

"Many Americans say their household expenses are outstripping their incomes, prompting concerns about their financial futures. At the same time, household debt for most Americans has either risen in the last year or has not gone away.

About 2 in 3 Americans say their household expenses have risen over the last year, but only about 1 in 4 say their income has increased in the same period, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
...
About 8 in 10 Americans say their overall household debt is higher or about the same as it was a year ago. About half say they currently have credit card debt, 4 in 10 are dealing with auto loans, and about 1 in 4 have medical debt. Just 15% say their household savings have increased over the last year.
...
"[C]onditioned by decades of pervasive advertising, we have been taught to buy not just all that we need or even all that we want but all that we can," Kelly added. "A prudent consumer, considering their hopes for their own future financial wellbeing, their retirement, and their aspirations for their children's education, might, at this point be ready to trim their spending."
"

Bob doesn't like prudent consumers. Bob needs you to spend, Spend, SPEND BABY!!! Open a new credit card every year and use that to pay for your MAGICAL!!! WDW vacation because the memories are priceless! I'm sure they will keep you warm at night when your house gets foreclosed on because you can't make the payments and your family is homeless.
A prudent customer with excellent financial awareness is the kryptonite to fueling the USA economy. This is a slaves to debt society.
 

Lilofan

Well-Known Member
airports are weird - sometimes they will be crazy at 4am, and then our last trip we were there at around 4pm on a Saturday and it was a ghost town - not lines at security at all
We prefer leaving early AM due to much better chances of the plane already being at the gate and leaving on time. Leaving in the afternoon early evening is a no-go for us, so many delays .
 

Drdcm

Well-Known Member
This wasn't checking in your luggage at the counter. This is standing in line to clear TSA which had around 80% of the TSA X ray inspection areas open. The lines were also long to check in your luggage. Thankfully all we had were carry on luggage.
I wonder if it’s a rush hour phenomenon. A bunch of flights leave right at 6AM. The same thing happens in Baltimore at 8AM and is so consistent, they’ve included runway delays in the flight times.
 

TheMaxRebo

Well-Known Member
We prefer leaving early AM due to much better chances of the plane already being at the gate and leaving on time. Leaving in the afternoon early evening is a no-go for us.

generally try to do that, at least on the way down, but we picked this due to being the most affordable option plus it gave us time on our last day of vacation to sleep in, spend time at Disney Springs, etc - plus we didn't have any plans the next day - basically low pressure on getting home on time
 

el_super

Well-Known Member
That's a pretty good description of how I used to feel about WDW. Disney has squandered a lot of this nostalgia many people felt with their recent decisions. I think the linked articles and many of the posts in this thread have shown that.

Here's the thing though... it can't really be about the decisions they've made. The core is still there. The mickey ice cream bars, the rides on the teacups, the photos in front of the castle, the hugs from characters. It's all still there. That's why people are still going and still paying for the memories.

If you think paying a few dollars to skip a 20 minute wait for a ride can tip the overall experience into the negative, than you are already subjectively undervaluing the core part of the experience.
 

eliza61nyc

Well-Known Member
Like when they lose 60 percent of Market Cap in 2 years?

Maybe when they have to fire the current CEO during a Elton John concert in emergency fashion?

How about when they show weakness in almost every segment of the business ?

Even one of the best performing sectors Parks and Resorts has a massive alarm going off.

15% decrease in attendance ??

Don’t feed me the bs about increased guest spending making up for it.

That is not sustainable.

The entire country is hitting record levels of debt and uncontrolled spending on non essential items can not continue to ramp forever.
i think the disconnect is that how long have this very thing been said?? seriously. I've been hear 10 years and truthfully @Trauma every year we hear how some thing is not "sustainable" yet and still here we are and Disney is still be bopping along .
Now don't get me wrong, I think there will be incarnations of disney and the Disney that you guys fell in love with is done and pretty much not coming back. I know at some point Disney will not be worth it for me and I'll move on. but people are still going.

Im a scientist which means my understanding of macro economics is zip and I'm holding onto my Disney stock, but like I said, if I had 10 bucks for every time one of you guys say this is some type of reckoning for Disneyworld I probably could take that 40K vacation.

Is this the first time in WDW history that attendance has fallen?? personally I'm thinking this maybe a good thing for Disney, with raising cost and universal getting ready to offer a brand new land, maybe this will force the mouseworld to up their game.
 

el_super

Well-Known Member
I'm sure they will keep you warm at night when your house gets foreclosed on because you can't make the payments and your family is homeless.

Rooting for the US Economy to collapse in order to prove that Bob Iger is a bad CEO is ... a weird place to be.

How many recessions in the last 100 years has Disney not survived?
 

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
How about just this one. Call me when the parks revenue starts falling back below 2019 levels.
Gross or Net Revenue??

Gross is simple "did more money come in". Gross does not take into account costs. Inflationary environments almost guarantee in reased Gross revenue.

To truly judge performance, one needs to dig into the ratios and compare to market segment indices. For example, DIS ROCE is about 4% where market indices are.about 11%. Based on ROCE, DIS is substantially underperforming.
 

Drdcm

Well-Known Member
Ok I’ll stop for a bit after this:

Parks revenue drops below 2019… “This is expected. They just went through a major overhaul and structural reorganization. They had to take a loss up front in order to keep the company healthy in the long-term. These things don’t change overnight”
 

el_super

Well-Known Member
Parks revenue drops below 2019… “This is expected. They just went through a major overhaul and structural reorganization. They had to take a loss up front in order to keep the company healthy in the long-term. These things don’t change overnight”

I think 2019 makes a good dividing line between their old operating practices and the new "revalued" practices. All things being equal (generally) if their revenue from the new system starts to drop below 2019 measures, I could see them reversing course on some of their recent changes and their investment plans. I've said all along that their post-2019 strategy was an experiment and it probably wouldn't take much to give up on it and revert back to being a discount volume operator again.

But I also think going back to their 2019 playbook would be absolutely disastrous for the parks long term.
 

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