the.dreamfinder
Well-Known Member
JII, UoE, Horizons, WoM, Living Seas and other FW attractions had considerable capacity that has been cut since the late 90’s. They’re still in the hole.
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Len Testa Crowd Analysis
- Thread starter GeneralKnowledge
- Start date
MuteSuperstar
Well-Known Member
Hmm yeah good point. I try to forget the crass destruction of the classic omnimovers.
xdan0920
Think for yourselfer
How much more automated could they get? It’s not like there’s people pushing a gear wheel to turn Dumbo. You’ll always need staff to direct idiots and safety check attractions.
EricsBiscuit
Well-Known Member
Using sensors to detect if the lap bars are really down, what row to go in, pretty much everything. You'd still need a few CMs to help people but I have hope that automation will improve the theme park experience dramatically.
They already have sensors to check seat belts and such... and how many times have you been on Star Tours or Tower of Terror and the CM has had to ask everyone to yank on the yellow lanyard?
EricsBiscuit
Well-Known Member
True. It's redundant. But eventually we won't need those CMs.
Yeah, but I'm talking about the second or third yank... On Star Tours, you can see the light panel, and even though the belts are fastened, seems like there's always a red light or two on the panel.
Jenny72
Well-Known Member
I'm pretty skeptical that automation will improve experience in the parks. So far, technology has not had the glorious impact on our lifestyles that was once predicted. It certainly hasn't done much for the experience in the parks so far, so I can't see how suddenly it's going to change wait times and so on.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
The biggest cost in running a business is labour. Disney wants to keep staffing to a minimium to reduce its overall operating costs, even if it means having its guests wait longer in lines for food and rides. It's also why they keep pushing do-it-yourself programs like mobile order, online shopping and opting out of housekeeping.
It's not hard to understand, it just disappointing for those of us who are visiting the parks during what should be slower times of the year.
It's not hard to understand, it just disappointing for those of us who are visiting the parks during what should be slower times of the year.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
If you can't understand this after 16 pages of discussion, another 10 or 20 won't do it either.
Has anyone postulated that CMs are purposely slowing things down to silently protest their wages and benefits?
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Even if that were true, that sounds like a pretty ineffective form of protest to me.
habuma
Well-Known Member
Exactly. TP provides some very useful tools backed by historical data and statistical wizardry. It's up to you to use these tools and any other information at your disposal to plan your vacation. I'm a TP subscriber and have found their information quite valuable, even if the crowd estimates miss from time to time. This is information that isn't freely available elsewhere (yes, there are some other free crowd calendars, but given Len's background, I trust TP numbers more than anyone else).
And, to be clear, this is different than an authorized Disney travel planner. Disney travel planners do help plan vacations for you. (The keyword is "help"...you can still do as much or as little of your own planning as you like.) Disney travel planners get paid commission from Disney and do not cost you any more than it would cost if you did the trip for yourself. The benefit of using them is that they have experience that some Disney travelers do not have and also are willing to get up early to help arrange FP+, ADRs, and apply discounts as they become available. And they've got your back if you need help with some of the stickier vacation planning situations. But again, their services are free to the traveler...if anyone is charging you a fee to plan your travel, then you should probably look elsewhere.
Given that their services are free and they will still allow you to do as much or as little planning as you'd like, it's hard to see any reason why most travelers wouldn't use a Disney vacation planner. Certainly, their services are most valuable to Disney newbies, but even the seasoned Disney traveler could benefit from a little free help.
(Full disclosure, I know these details because my wife is one of those Disney vacation planners. Not an advertisement...just disclosing my interest in the subject.)
MuteSuperstar
Well-Known Member
Yep. Pay more, get less. The New American Corporate way. Guess it works fine as long as the rubes keep showing up. This rube won't be one of them again for a long time if ever.
Barebones staffing should not exactly be a hallmark of a place we are repeatedly told is a "luxury" destination but I guess that's where we are now in the C-suite Neo-Robber Baron era.
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lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
You're numbers are completely unrelated. You're assuming constant demand throughout the day, calculating a daily throughput and then stating that it is the same as wait times, a function more of instantaneous capacity that is calculated using hourly capacity for simplicity.
An attraction with 1,000 pph capacity will take 66 minutes to get through 1,100 people. It will take 72.6 minutes to get through 1,210 people. That is a 10% increase in demand and a 10% increase in wait for the person at the end of that queue. It will take 79.2 minutes to get through 1,320 people, a 20% increase in wait. A 60% increase in wait time is 105.6 minutes, and results in 1,760 people riding, a 60% increase in demand over 1,100 people. That's all assuming a constant hourly throughput and ignoring the measured decrease in hourly capacity.
Len's background is in queue theory. He and his team know to look at actual throughput because it plays a role in getting very detailed information.
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The Empress Lilly
Well-Known Member
That's on of our gripes with Disney. Because the parks are crowded Disney cuts back on staffing and shows (needless expenditures, apparantly) and parades (the MK at night is too crowded nowadays to run a nighttime parade).
If WDW could enormously increase the comfort of fifty thousand of its guests by spending twenty dollars but that would have no noticeable financial return, it won't spend the $20. But hand a bonus to the manager who discovered you don't need to spend it. Why, Disney is a business after all....
Phil12
Well-Known Member
We've been guests at DL since back in the 1960's and at WDW since it first opened. We learned a long time ago how to manage our time in each park so as to experience the most attractions and maximize our visits. We have never found any of the crowd calendars to be useful nor accurate. There are just too many unpredictable variables involved such as weather, attraction breakdowns, transportation delays, crowd flux and special events.
We have always stuck to the rule that we'll never wait more than 30 minutes in a queue for any attraction and yet by wisely picking times and dates to visit we have always been able to experience any and all attractions on the fly. While we have other rules (such as don't visit the MK on a weekend) we sometimes find that rule can be broken if the weather is bad.
Our strategy is really very simple. We don't fall into the trap of having "must do" events. We do the things that are easy and convenient. If a particular attraction has a long queue, we come back at a later time when we know that the attraction will be easy and quick to visit.
We treat all the restaurants the same way. We eat when we're hungry and if a particular establishment does not have immediate seating, we move on to the next one that does. And by using this technique we've eaten at every restaurant that was our desire.
There is no doubt that Disney loads the deck and manipulates crowds in both the booking of their resorts and the wait time for attractions in the parks. They've been doing this for many years. It's nothing new. I have stayed in Disney resorts that were listed as having no vacancies yet the majority of the rooms were not occupied.
I distinctly remember back in the old days at WDW that Flight To The Moon often had a huge line because they refused to open up the second theater. The whole idea was that they wanted to make the attraction appear to be popular. A long queue will often attract other guests. Same thing was true for 20K. They'd run that attraction at minimum rate to build up the queue in the hope that people would think that 20K was a popular attraction.
Most casual visitors are going to be manipulated by Disney crowd control. There's no way around it because they're not experienced enough to understand how to break free of the control and go their own way. And also they're usually on a very tight schedule and they feel that they must squeeze ten pounds of manure into their five pound bag. Cast members and some locals know the routine and how to side step the controls.
We have always stuck to the rule that we'll never wait more than 30 minutes in a queue for any attraction and yet by wisely picking times and dates to visit we have always been able to experience any and all attractions on the fly. While we have other rules (such as don't visit the MK on a weekend) we sometimes find that rule can be broken if the weather is bad.
Our strategy is really very simple. We don't fall into the trap of having "must do" events. We do the things that are easy and convenient. If a particular attraction has a long queue, we come back at a later time when we know that the attraction will be easy and quick to visit.
We treat all the restaurants the same way. We eat when we're hungry and if a particular establishment does not have immediate seating, we move on to the next one that does. And by using this technique we've eaten at every restaurant that was our desire.
There is no doubt that Disney loads the deck and manipulates crowds in both the booking of their resorts and the wait time for attractions in the parks. They've been doing this for many years. It's nothing new. I have stayed in Disney resorts that were listed as having no vacancies yet the majority of the rooms were not occupied.
I distinctly remember back in the old days at WDW that Flight To The Moon often had a huge line because they refused to open up the second theater. The whole idea was that they wanted to make the attraction appear to be popular. A long queue will often attract other guests. Same thing was true for 20K. They'd run that attraction at minimum rate to build up the queue in the hope that people would think that 20K was a popular attraction.
Most casual visitors are going to be manipulated by Disney crowd control. There's no way around it because they're not experienced enough to understand how to break free of the control and go their own way. And also they're usually on a very tight schedule and they feel that they must squeeze ten pounds of manure into their five pound bag. Cast members and some locals know the routine and how to side step the controls.
That was something that crossed my mind too. I read some reports/posts either here or on disboards about how many headline attractions were down for much of the day during many days in Jan and Feb and wondered if it had anything to do with disgruntled employees. Splash just went through a refurbishment but was down a lot right after it reopened.
winstongator
Well-Known Member
How is SWGE & TSL replacing existing capacity? There should be a lot more people in those lands than there was before. Tron is new, and Guardians should absorb a lot more people than ellen's energy adventure. 7DMT is a huge upgrade. I loved Jules Verne, the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea book, the Kirk Douglas movie, and the ride was probably my favorite as a kid (I wasn't a big coaster fan then). However, I don't remember the 20,000 leagues ride ever having a 2 or 3 hour wait.
Replacing a walk-on ride with a ride with a 2hr+ wait is effectively adding capacity to the park.
winstongator
Well-Known Member
Why did they implement the original FP system?