Is attendance really down at WDW this or…

[lentesta]

They'll no doubt use AI for this.

As an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information about park reservation availability or your specific admission options. However, based on my knowledge, Walt Disney World is a magical destination filled with sparkles, laughter, and memories.

 

[wannabeBelle]

As an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information about park reservation availability or your specific admission options. However, based on my knowledge, Walt Disney World is a magical destination filled with sparkles, laughter, and memories.

Marie

 

[JD80]

As an AI language model, I don't have access to real-time information about park reservation availability or your specific admission options. However, based on my knowledge, Walt Disney World is a magical destination filled with sparkles, laughter, and memories.

Heh. I can totally see a comic strip where a parks OP person is furiously trying to rephrase the question to get the answer he needs.

Ultimately, I would have to guess that a good use for AI in park operations would be to find patterns in all the data to predict large scale movements of people.

Just to name a few:

• Weather
• Time of Year
• Hotel occupancy and where those guests are coming from
• Food sales
• Turnstyle data
• Wait times

All this impacts or tips scales of large movements of people one way or another. However that is only predictive. I am totally surprised that the only tool they think they can use to get people from one park to another is reservations or G+/ILL availability (however I'm guessing G+ availability has very little influence).

I would think the My Disney Experience app can be used to influence people to hop to other parks or go to one they had no plans on going to. Imagine getting a notification on MDE offering you something like:

• (Customer is in MK at 11am) Animal Kingdom is calling your name! Take these free hopper tickets and head over to AK now! While there here is a coupon for a free popcorn!
• (customer not in the parks but has valid tickets) Heading to the parks today? Head over to DHS and have a free ice cream on us!

No idea if the cost of offering free popcorn or ice cream to get 10,000 people out of MK and into other parks is worth it operationally and guest satisfaction wise.

 

[Tha Realest]

Heh. I can totally see a comic strip where a parks OP person is furiously trying to rephrase the question to get the answer he needs.

Ultimately, I would have to guess that a good use for AI in park operations would be to find patterns in all the data to predict large scale movements of people.

Just to name a few:

• Weather
• Time of Year
• Hotel occupancy and where those guests are coming from
• Food sales
• Turnstyle data
• Wait times

All this impacts or tips scales of large movements of people one way or another. However that is only predictive. I am totally surprised that the only tool they think they can use to get people from one park to another is reservations or G+/ILL availability (however I'm guessing G+ availability has very little influence).

I would think the My Disney Experience app can be used to influence people to hop to other parks or go to one they had no plans on going to. Imagine getting a notification on MDE offering you something like:

• (Customer is in MK at 11am) Animal Kingdom is calling your name! Take these free hopper tickets and head over to AK now! While there here is a coupon for a free popcorn!
• (customer not in the parks but has valid tickets) Heading to the parks today? Head over to DHS and have a free ice cream on us!

No idea if the cost of offering free popcorn or ice cream to get 10,000 people out of MK and into other parks is worth it operationally and guest satisfaction wise.

I have a vague recollection that one of the things Genie would do would offer food discounts or the like. Is this a Mandela effect thing? I feel like Josh announced it.

 

[BrianLo]

I think ultimately, since this is a central Florida issue specifically (I.e both WDW and Uni are down), the clearest explanation is the resumption of travel alternatives. Comcast had it correct, cruising occupancy really returned in a proper way last Spring. As did International travel, but that should both bring and send away attendance.

I don’t think revenge travel was truly ever a thing. It was simply returning to travel with more limited post pandemic options concentrating guests into things that were operating more ‘normally’.

15+ million passengers are cruising out of Florida now and that is a meaningful capacity bump that both resorts suddenly had to compete with.

While the other theories are valid, the fact this is a WDW and USO issue, but not a DLR one means there’s something structural to Florida really driving it. The Florida cruise market to me is that difference maker. On top of the fact the Florida cruise capacity has increased meaningfully from pre pandemic. Both In terms of new ships and way more concentration in the caribbean.

Now the curious thing will be as we lap that occupancy/attendance downturn In Q3. Will attendance decline further at both resorts this summer?

 

[PREMiERdrum]

Parks have been busy in the first week or so of spring break season. As expected, onsite resort occupancy is at historic lows for the time period. Outside of some DVC properties, there is literally resort-wide availability for the next two weeks, and only a few resorts unavailable for Easter and the days after.

Rather significant reductions in capacity at multiple resorts, and they still can't sell them out.

The recently-announced ticket promotions show us exactly what's happening. And while there is movement within to actually address it, they haven't hit those buttons yet. The forecasted decline this summer just might tip things.

 

[DisneyDebRob]

I have a vague recollection that one of the things Genie would do would offer food discounts or the like. Is this a Mandela effect thing? I feel like Josh announced it.

Not a Mandela effect, it actually happened. I was in AK one day about noontime and it was a slow day. Up on my phone popped a 15 or 20% I don’t remember, if I hopped on over to pizzafari. I only remember seeing it happen that one time but could have been more. I have a habit of just deleting and swiping to get rid of things so maybe I missed another time.

 

[el_super]

My hypothesis is, the max number of reservations they will give out for a given day is a finite number that they know ahead of time, and they staff based on that.

And you would be right. For a day that far in advance like Sept 15th, they already have an expected attendance level when they set the park operating hours and labor budget out in advance. They already know how many people they are expecting when they set the number of available reservations. That number can change (more likely go up) if they start seeing a lot of reservations come in, or it eventually hits the cap, but there isn't really any cost savings to be had unless they are trying to reduce the already set budget or reduce the number of reservations after they've been posted... which leads too...

So if they guaranteed X number of CMs shifts at DAK and it looked like they didn’t need that many based on demand, to avoid paying OT at the Magic Kingdom for extra CMs there, they’d just shut off reservations at MK and drive guests to visit AK.

So the obvious follow up question here is, when and how were they shutting off the reservations? And were they shutting them off or just refusing to bump up the number? Avoiding overtime makes it sound like it was going over what was already set and budgeted, which is something that can happen.

There are instances where the park hours have to be increased and additional shifts created/called in post initial planning because of revised attendance projections. It's incredibly rare for those to ever be revised down and the only time I can really think of that happening is for bad weather.

The reservations DO allow them to bump up hours and labor in advance, but would they ever announce ahead of time that they are reducing park hours? Almost never.

 

[Tha Realest]

Parks have been busy in the first week or so of spring break season. As expected, onsite resort occupancy is at historic lows for the time period. Outside of some DVC properties, there is literally resort-wide availability for the next two weeks, and only a few resorts unavailable for Easter and the days after.

Rather significant reductions in capacity at multiple resorts, and they still can't sell them out.

The recently-announced ticket promotions show us exactly what's happening. And while there is movement within to actually address it, they haven't hit those buttons yet. The forecasted decline this summer just might tip things.

What might be these remaining buttons? “Buy X, get Y days free” either on resorts or tickets? Free Dining Plan?

 

[GhostHost1000]

What might be these remaining buttons? “Buy X, get Y days free” either on resorts or tickets? Free Dining Plan?

Could be things like that or even dare I say annual pass discounts or incentives for the people they hate until needed

 

[el_super]

G+ looses its luster when more guests purchase it. It also creates gridlock in the parks by slowing standby to a virtual stop. I would think the G+ pool is related to the ticket system and some algorithm determines availability.

And I agree with this. I don't think they ever intended to have as many people buying into G+ as they do. They need to continue to limit access to G+ but at this point, they can only raise prices on it and then get the complaints from that side of the fence.

And it was explained that when management wanted to re-balance park attendance using reservations as the tool, management would also want to know the financial implications of re-routing guests from one park to others. So those projections would have to be updated ASAP, including on weekends.

So that does sort of answer the question that these were recommendations for day-of actions and not really part of the long term planning. It is interesting though that, if they were making those decisions just days in advance, the only real group it would ever impact are the AP holders (and or other locals) making reservations just a couple days out.

On the one hand, that's an impressive set of capabilities. Hats off to Disney for building it.

On the other hand, it makes pretty clear that park reservations benefit shareholders more than guests.

And on that I do disagree. Saying they don't want to have a high number of people in the park because it exceeds what they think the labor can support is just as much guest-friendly policy as it is a money saving policy. Knowing at a certain point that you would end up cramming more guests into a park, or asking CMs to stay for overtime and eat up additional operating costs is just bad for everyone all around.

 

[el_super]

Honestly the discussion is hilarious. A company who collects all the data they possibly can

It is pretty hilarious in the sense of people thinking that Disney is this super-clever, all powerful nearly omnipotent company at the top of it's data analytics game, but apparently they can't see that there decisions are terrible? That they somehow can't see all these potential negative impacts everywhere?

Data Analytics has already been a two pronged fight: getting the data and then learning what to do with it. It shouldn't be assumed at all that because Disney has the data, they are actually taking any action against it.

 

[monothingie]

And I agree with this. I don't think they ever intended to have as many people buying into G+ as they do. They need to continue to limit access to G+ but at this point, they can only raise prices on it and then get the complaints from that side of the fence.

Sure they did, because they created the environment for people to *HAVE TO* buy it. What they didn't expect was for guests to have such a high price tolerance to the product, hence the rapid progression from $15 to whatever the max price is now.

 

[el_super]

While the other theories are valid, the fact this is a WDW and USO issue, but not a DLR one means there’s something structural to Florida really driving it. The Florida cruise market to me is that difference maker.

I do wonder if that "revenge" travel theory really just meant pushing WDW's normal audience to further destinations like DLR or DLRP since they had the savings and opportunity to pay for it.

The cruise question is an interesting one because generally, cruising is an entirely different genre of vacation from theme parks. If it shows a long term trend away from people wanting to be crammed up in a theme park, and standing in long lines (maybe a natural reaction to surviving a global pandemic?) that could manifest in a huge cultural shift.

Disney's indications on spending toward the cruise line seems to indicate they might be seeing that at a deeper level.

 

[el_super]

Sure they did, because they created the environment for people to *HAVE TO* buy it.

Absolutely true. It really is their fault for building attractions so many people want to see.

 

[monothingie]

Absolutely true. It really is their fault for NOT building attractions so that many people can see.

FTFY

 

[PREMiERdrum]

What might be these remaining buttons? “Buy X, get Y days free” either on resorts or tickets? Free Dining Plan?

Ask 10 people involved and you'll get 12 answers.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Sure they did, because they created the environment for people to *HAVE TO* buy it. What they didn't expect was for guests to have such a high price tolerance to the product, hence the rapid progression from $15 to whatever the max price is now.

I was just talking to someone the other day. While you or I might not buy it, a lot of people, right or wrong, have the perception that they HAVE to buy it or they wont be able to get on any attractions at the parks. They can hike the pricing to limit people who will purchase it, but that might drive people away from doing the vacation at all. They can limit the number sold but again this might turn people off, as some think they HAVE to have this to do the parks successfully. So this is where we are right now. Marie

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

FWIW: We have been going to Disney since l977. We went yearly or twice a year from 2011. We definitely noticed a change in the staffing around 2018. A lot of the attraction capacity was less, with only one track or side operating most of the time. The number of CM's were down too. And this was before Covid and what it is now. I remember we spoke about this trend and didn't like it at all. We even went at slow times (yes, there were once slow times So, this has been coming on for quite a while now, but just exacerbated post covid.

 

[monothingie]

I was just talking to someone the other day. While you or I might not buy it, a lot of people, right or wrong, have the perception that they HAVE to buy it or they wont be able to get on any attractions at the parks. They can hike the pricing to limit people who will purchase it, but that might drive people away from doing the vacation at all. They can limit the number sold but again this might turn people off, as some think they HAVE to have this to do the parks successfully. So this is where we are right now. Marie

I think an interesting piece of data to see would be how many people after using it would/do buy it again.

One thing I've rarely heard is people raving about the service or have been excited to have purchased the service. Rather, it seems most guests have begrudgingly purchased the service.