Len Testa Crowd Analysis

[flynnibus]

That's still faulty math.

Case A

• A ride has a throughput of 1,000 pph.
• Last year, there were 1,100 pph showing up to ride it. So, for every hour, the line grew by 100 people. At the end of 10 hour day, there were 1,000 people on line.
• This year, there is a 10% growth in attendance. So, for every hour, there were 1,210 people showing up to ride it. Every hour, the line grew by 210 people. At the end of a 10 hour day, there were 2,100 people on line.
• Even though overall attendance grew by 10% over the year, the line was 110% greater than the previous year.

Case B

• A ride has a throughput of 1,000 pph.
• Last year, there were 1,100 pph showing up to ride it. So, for every hour, the line grew by 100 people. At the end of 10 hour day, there were 1,000 people on line.
• This year, there is a 20% growth in attendance. So, for every hour, there were 1,320 people showing up to ride it. Every hour, the line grew by 320 people. At the end of a 10 hour day, there were 3,200 people on line.
• Even though overall attendance grew by 20% over the year, the line was 310% greater than the previous year.

There is absolutely *not* a linear growth of overall attendance compared to the overall number of people on line. Once you pass the tipping point the percent growth of all people, those on the rides plus those in the queue, wind up all in the queue.


So, Len is seeing wait times increased by 60%?....

Case C

• A ride has a throughput of 1,000 pph.
• Last year, there were 1,100 pph showing up to ride it. So, for every hour, the line grew by 100 people. At the end of 10 hour day, there were 1,000 people on line.
• This year, there is a 5.4% growth in attendance. So, for every hour, there were 1,160 people showing up to ride it. Every hour, the line grew by 160 people. At the end of a 10 hour day, there were 1,600 people on line.
• Even though overall attendance grew only by 5.4% over the year, the line was 60% greater than the previous year.

You skipped the part where touringplans verified ride throughput is down. That’s the smoking gun that everyone’s anecdotal comments about seasons, experiences etc miss.

 

[flynnibus]

My numbers don't even touch the issue of understaffing. It's just a model to show there isn't a linear correlation to overall attendance to line waiting. Perhaps the current jump in line waiting is combination of increased attendance and understaffing.

You have the right idea... just in completely the wrong conversation.

The point about queues backing up when demand exceeds capacity is great... but your ignoring the impact fact that anchors this to relevancy. We are talking about times of the year when besides finite use cases... demand should be no where near full capacity of the parks/attractions. So all this back and forth about the edge case is neat, but not really relevant to the actual case at hand.

Yet, the facts are waits are increasing faster than attendance... (even when not at saturation) and throughput is down. This will trigger artificial saturation and queuing increases.

 

[flynnibus]

I would NOT say there isn't an exponential relationship between attendance and wait times. There is a far more complex relationship then that. .

You model “tolerance”. In your queuing model you describe the influx of new patrons per time unit to the attraction. But that is not just some constant.. or even a linear number from some overall attendance. You have patrons that are eligible to queue up... from some overall crowd metric... but then there is a decay element that needs to be included that represents the tolerance for wait. That tolerance will be based on things like overall wait times, and the significance of the attraction.

This is how you capture how someone will wait 60mins for space mountain... but not 30mins for the peoplemover... unless it’s a really crowded day and then all tolerances go up (because they have no alternative).

The “tolerance” impact makes queue modeling more realistic... but it doesn’t change the actual wait calculations... just impacts the modeling of demand.

 

[kong1802]

We just got back from a weekend trip.

Speedway running one side on Saturday at 10:15 AM with a 60 minute stanby.

This is the first weekend of Spring Break. Only 2 WDW hotels had capacity for our fam of 5.

Other booking sites showed the weekend was over 90% booked in a 10 mile radius of WDW.

FP were hard to come by. Why would they be running at half capacity on such a day?

 

[Disneyhead'71]

We just got back from a weekend trip.

Speedway running one side on Saturday at 10:15 AM with a 60 minute stanby.

This is the first weekend of Spring Break. Only 2 WDW hotels had capacity for our fam of 5.

Other booking sites showed the weekend was over 90% booked in a 10 mile radius of WDW.

FP were hard to come by. Why would they be running at half capacity on such a day?

 

[MisterPenguin]

You skipped the part where touringplans verified ride throughput is down. That’s the smoking gun that everyone’s anecdotal comments about seasons, experiences etc miss.

How much is it down by?

Take Dumbo, e.g., it can have both spinners running or just one. If it's just one, it's capacity has been reduced 50%. But other attractions, like Little Mermaid, don't have a half-capacity reduced staffing option.

Now, let's say half the attractions can be run at half capacity. The total capacity for the park is 25% down.

Is that enough to spike wait times to 60%? Yes indeed. The example you quoted from me works both ways. An increase in attendance can have a disproportionate effect on line wait once you pass the "tipping point."

In the same way, a small decrease in throughput, if it causes the park to hit its tipping point, can also have a disproportionate effect on wait times.

But, here are questions which I've asked and no one is answering, or has the info for:

• Didn't WDW reduce staff in the winter in previous years? Were they operating at full capacity in late January 2014? If it's the same reduced staffing as before, than the difference is the crowds, which if it is passing the tipping point, has an oversized impact on lines. Did TouringPlans discover that throughput is down more so this winter than last winter? Is the lowered throughput calculated by physically looking at the ride's operation or counting the number of people leaving the ride per hour, or being based on looking at the wait time, which can be affected by attendance numbers?
• When we're talking about reduced capacity by reduced staffing, by how much? Does reduced staffing mean a 10% cut in throughput? 30%? 60%?

Also, remember, winter time is refurb time, that is baked-in reduced throughput every winter.

I'm sure WDW is seeing the 60% jump in wait times, whether because of increased crowds or reduced staffing or a combination of both. The question here is: Are they scrambling to hire more people or not? And if they are, how fast can they restaff?

 

[flynnibus]

Also, remember, winter time is refurb time, that is baked-in reduced throughput every winter.

I'm sure WDW is seeing the 60% jump in wait times, whether because of increased crowds or reduced staffing or a combination of both. The question here is: Are they scrambling to hire more people or not? And if they are, how fast can they restaff?

Did you miss that whole TREND portion of len’s graph? This is not some new anonomly- this is something that is building, and has gotten significantly worse.

If think hitting the “tipping point” in January (and not just marathon week) is ok... then you should also expect total nuclear meltdown come peak seasons.

We already know Disney has a flexible labor pool. We also know that pool is not being maxed out (people still short on hours). So it’s unlikely that Disney is running at full capacity... it’s running “right sized” for what the business finds tolerable.

 

[JediMasterMatt]

I'll add my 2 bits the discussion here...

Touring Plans guides are somewhat beneficial; but, using attraction wait times can be misleading as in the case of reduced staffing consequently reducing hourly throughput.

That said, there is definitely more at play here than just operational thriftiness.

I've been visiting WDW very consistently the last week of January/first week of February for over the last 10 years (other than missing one year where we went to DLR instead of dealing with a ton of refurbs) and I can say that attendance is WAY up over the course of time plotted over the ten years using our 10 day vacations as the barometer.

While I do pay close attention to attraction wait times, there is a metric that doesn't care about how many pennies the Mouse may be cutting - and that's parking.

When you pay attention to the parking lots, you get a very good metric of changes over time as beyond changes to "special parking" like upcharge and disability and guest behavior like staying onsite and not driving - you get a clear picture of attendance before you even step foot in the parks.

I shared my most recent thoughts on WDW from our January visit in another thread; but, I remarked that 2017 saw an uptick in attendance on the NFL Pro Bowl weekend; but, it somewhat ebbed after the game on Sunday. This year, the subsequent week did nothing but continue to drive crowds up.

When in Orlando, even if I'm offsite during the day at Universal, I'll always make it back to the MK area each night for fireworks photography and 99% of the time that means I'm in the MK parking lot or passing it (I seldom ever use the resort busses).

Ten years ago, on a week day in late January, you would never see parking beyond perhaps the beginnings of the 2nd tier of the lot (the wooded area). This past January, we saw parking filling the second tier during the week and the 3rd tier well in use by the end of the week.

Attendance was up at Universal as well on the 3 days in the park we spent there.

It's just flat out busier.

Now, I did see less Cast Members and less on the attractions; but, I never did see any clear indicator of less RVs in use on any attraction (although one day there was an odd number of trains on BTMRR for a few hours). The attractions may have been missing some staff; but, that never caused rides to go into cascade shutdowns or things like trains stacking up at unload or anything similar to what you see when real capacity reductions take place at parks - like when seasonal parks suffer from staff when schools go back into session. The number of RV's have far more impact to capacity than just staff alone.

The flip side of all of this is last year I took two trips to WDW during the "summer" parts of the year (June/July) and I can state that our January trip was just as busy if not busier.

I'm sure guests from Europe or South America are a part of the puzzle; but, I've come to suspect that sites like this one and Touring Plans may be part of the puzzle too as since I'm often stationary with my tripod on vacation I act as a lighting rod of having conversations getting started with me and I do hear frequently people say that they come during the January/February period because they've heard it isn't as busy.

There is no slow season anymore in Orlando minus a few weeks in the post back to school nuclear hot season and even those are fading away thanks to Halloween being shoved towards those windows.

I will say that TDO did to an effective job at reducing capacity over my last trip in July as I saw a grand total of zero guests per hour at the Great Movie Ride and Energy the entire time I was there in January/Feb.

 

[flynnibus]

I'll add my 2 bits the discussion here...

Touring Plans guides are somewhat beneficial; but, using attraction wait times can be misleading as in the case of reduced staffing consequently reducing hourly throughput.

That said, there is definitely more at play here than just operational thriftiness.

I've been visiting WDW very consistently the last week of January/first week of February for over the last 10 years (other than missing one year where we went to DLR instead of dealing with a ton of refurbs) and I can say that attendance is WAY up over the course of time plotted over the ten years using our 10 day vacations as the barometer.

While I do pay close attention to attraction wait times, there is a metric that doesn't care about how many pennies the Mouse may be cutting - and that's parking.

When you pay attention to the parking lots, you get a very good metric of changes over time as beyond changes to "special parking" like upcharge and disability and guest behavior like staying onsite and not driving - you get a clear picture of attendance before you even step foot in the parks.

I shared my most recent thoughts on WDW from our January visit in another thread; but, I remarked that 2017 saw an uptick in attendance on the NFL Pro Bowl weekend; but, it somewhat ebbed after the game on Sunday. This year, the subsequent week did nothing but continue to drive crowds up.

When in Orlando, even if I'm offsite during the day at Universal, I'll always make it back to the MK area each night for fireworks photography and 99% of the time that means I'm in the MK parking lot or passing it (I seldom ever use the resort busses).

Ten years ago, on a week day in late January, you would never see parking beyond perhaps the beginnings of the 2nd tier of the lot (the wooded area). This past January, we saw parking filling the second tier during the week and the 3rd tier well in use by the end of the week.

Attendance was up at Universal as well on the 3 days in the park we spent there.

It's just flat out busier.

Now, I did see less Cast Members and less on the attractions; but, I never did see any clear indicator of less RVs in use on any attraction (although one day there was an odd number of trains on BTMRR for a few hours). The attractions may have been missing some staff; but, that never caused rides to go into cascade shutdowns or things like trains stacking up at unload or anything similar to what you see when real capacity reductions take place at parks - like when seasonal parks suffer from staff when schools go back into session. The number of RV's have far more impact to capacity than just staff alone.

The flip side of all of this is last year I took two trips to WDW during the "summer" parts of the year (June/July) and I can state that our January trip was just as busy if not busier.

I'm sure guests from Europe or South America are a part of the puzzle; but, I've come to suspect that sites like this one and Touring Plans may be part of the puzzle too as since I'm often stationary with my tripod on vacation I act as a lighting rod of having conversations getting started with me and I do hear frequently people say that they come during the January/February period because they've heard it isn't as busy.

There is no slow season anymore in Orlando minus a few weeks in the post back to school nuclear hot season and even those are fading away thanks to Halloween being shoved towards those windows.

I will say that TDO did to an effective job at reducing capacity over my last trip in July as I saw a grand total of zero guests per hour at the Great Movie Ride and Energy the entire time I was there in January/Feb.

Looking only at the park lots can be misleading though. This doesn’t account for the huge bus avoidance mentality that has also built up over that time. That also increases the car load... and why services like Minnie vans can even be a thing now

 

[lazyboy97o]

How much is it down by?

Take Dumbo, e.g., it can have both spinners running or just one. If it's just one, it's capacity has been reduced 50%. But other attractions, like Little Mermaid, don't have a half-capacity reduced staffing option.

Now, let's say half the attractions can be run at half capacity. The total capacity for the park is 25% down.

Is that enough to spike wait times to 60%? Yes indeed. The example you quoted from me works both ways. An increase in attendance can have a disproportionate effect on line wait once you pass the "tipping point."

In the same way, a small decrease in throughput, if it causes the park to hit its tipping point, can also have a disproportionate effect on wait times.

But, here are questions which I've asked and no one is answering, or has the info for:

• Didn't WDW reduce staff in the winter in previous years? Were they operating at full capacity in late January 2014? If it's the same reduced staffing as before, than the difference is the crowds, which if it is passing the tipping point, has an oversized impact on lines. Did TouringPlans discover that throughput is down more so this winter than last winter? Is the lowered throughput calculated by physically looking at the ride's operation or counting the number of people leaving the ride per hour, or being based on looking at the wait time, which can be affected by attendance numbers?
• When we're talking about reduced capacity by reduced staffing, by how much? Does reduced staffing mean a 10% cut in throughput? 30%? 60%?

Also, remember, winter time is refurb time, that is baked-in reduced throughput every winter.

I'm sure WDW is seeing the 60% jump in wait times, whether because of increased crowds or reduced staffing or a combination of both. The question here is: Are they scrambling to hire more people or not? And if they are, how fast can they restaff?

Once again, Touring Plans measured throughput and that decrease significantly corrected the model.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'll add my 2 bits the discussion here...

Touring Plans guides are somewhat beneficial; but, using attraction wait times can be misleading as in the case of reduced staffing consequently reducing hourly throughput.

That said, there is definitely more at play here than just operational thriftiness.

I've been visiting WDW very consistently the last week of January/first week of February for over the last 10 years (other than missing one year where we went to DLR instead of dealing with a ton of refurbs) and I can say that attendance is WAY up over the course of time plotted over the ten years using our 10 day vacations as the barometer.

While I do pay close attention to attraction wait times, there is a metric that doesn't care about how many pennies the Mouse may be cutting - and that's parking.

When you pay attention to the parking lots, you get a very good metric of changes over time as beyond changes to "special parking" like upcharge and disability and guest behavior like staying onsite and not driving - you get a clear picture of attendance before you even step foot in the parks.

I shared my most recent thoughts on WDW from our January visit in another thread; but, I remarked that 2017 saw an uptick in attendance on the NFL Pro Bowl weekend; but, it somewhat ebbed after the game on Sunday. This year, the subsequent week did nothing but continue to drive crowds up.

When in Orlando, even if I'm offsite during the day at Universal, I'll always make it back to the MK area each night for fireworks photography and 99% of the time that means I'm in the MK parking lot or passing it (I seldom ever use the resort busses).

Ten years ago, on a week day in late January, you would never see parking beyond perhaps the beginnings of the 2nd tier of the lot (the wooded area). This past January, we saw parking filling the second tier during the week and the 3rd tier well in use by the end of the week.

Attendance was up at Universal as well on the 3 days in the park we spent there.

It's just flat out busier.

Now, I did see less Cast Members and less on the attractions; but, I never did see any clear indicator of less RVs in use on any attraction (although one day there was an odd number of trains on BTMRR for a few hours). The attractions may have been missing some staff; but, that never caused rides to go into cascade shutdowns or things like trains stacking up at unload or anything similar to what you see when real capacity reductions take place at parks - like when seasonal parks suffer from staff when schools go back into session. The number of RV's have far more impact to capacity than just staff alone.

The flip side of all of this is last year I took two trips to WDW during the "summer" parts of the year (June/July) and I can state that our January trip was just as busy if not busier.

I'm sure guests from Europe or South America are a part of the puzzle; but, I've come to suspect that sites like this one and Touring Plans may be part of the puzzle too as since I'm often stationary with my tripod on vacation I act as a lighting rod of having conversations getting started with me and I do hear frequently people say that they come during the January/February period because they've heard it isn't as busy.

There is no slow season anymore in Orlando minus a few weeks in the post back to school nuclear hot season and even those are fading away thanks to Halloween being shoved towards those windows.

I will say that TDO did to an effective job at reducing capacity over my last trip in July as I saw a grand total of zero guests per hour at the Great Movie Ride and Energy the entire time I was there in January/Feb.

have to agree with all of this...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

We just got back from a weekend trip.

Speedway running one side on Saturday at 10:15 AM with a 60 minute stanby.

This is the first weekend of Spring Break. Only 2 WDW hotels had capacity for our fam of 5.

Other booking sites showed the weekend was over 90% booked in a 10 mile radius of WDW.

FP were hard to come by. Why would they be running at half capacity on such a day?

You know the answer: because you were still there...

And you're not NEARLY as clustered as either the newbies or most of the sycophants

 

[lazyboy97o]

The math is right, but you're correct that I was not looking at it from the designing of the attraction POV. But I was taking issue with your previous statement that one hour peak was all that mattered. And that different from what you just said above.

I said hourly park capacity is based on the peak design day hour. You won’t have an appropriate capacity without that number. Building less than that capacity is an operational choice regarding acceptable wait times.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Coincidentally, @kong1802...which 2 hoties were booked?

Dixie and ???

 

[kong1802]

You know the answer: because you were still there...

And you're not NEARLY as clustered as either the newbies or most of the sycophants

That's got to bite them at some point.

I honestly felt bad for those in line. Probably paid way too much (IMO) to be there in the first place. Now they are being held at the go carts for 60 mins when they should be waiting no longer than 30 with both lanes running.

It's really their fault for being cheap and not upgrading to CL so they could pay more to get more FP's.......

 

[kong1802]

Coincidentally, @kong1802...which 2 hoties were booked?

Dixie and ???

The only ones not booked were AKL and the Grand DVC cash side....

But even if Dixie had a spot, we weren't filling that at $279/night.

 

[larryz]

Assume it would take a drop in guest attendance and profit. The reason they would add more staff would be to fix the problem of lower guest attendance. Wouldn't that be ironic?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

The only ones not booked were AKL and the Grand DVC cash side....

But even if Dixie had a spot, we weren't filling that at $279/night.

Surprising...there's like...probably one dvc at cash...the place is always packed.

Akl is surprising...I love it but many people don't and make up excuses. They're wrong.

Price of moderates would be my crusade now...if I hadn't unofficially retired from "crusading"

 

[kong1802]

Surprising...there's like...probably one dvc at cash...the place is always packed.

Akl is surprising...I love it but many people don't and make up excuses. They're wrong.

Price of moderates would me my crusade now...if I hadn't unofficially retired from "crusading"

Yeah, but those AoA suites are a steal at $460/night!!

Who needs deluxe amenities like at AKL?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Yeah, but those AoA suites are a steal at $460/night!!

Who needs deluxe amenities like at AKL?

Don't.....poke...the....