Len Testa Crowd Analysis

[monothingie]

I think that is absolutely a factor. It is not as click bait worthy as "Disney is cutting staffing because the hate you" so it is not likely to get talked about as much.

In reality, I think we are seeing a combination of several factors. Increased crowds, changing travel patterns and Disney trying a little to hard to keep staffing at a perfect Goldilocks level.

Thanks to MDE and Advance Dinner Reservations, Disney now has data sets available months out to predict demand and crowd levels and achieve that "Goldilocks Level".

Even though MDE was released a couple of years ago, the analysis of that data and its integration into their staffing and operations systems probably took some time to develop and roll out. Posters in the thread have commented that anecdotally it has never been this bad before and that's probably right. But it is because now there is a system that can "help" fine tune one of the largest operational costs of the parks, and as we are all too aware the only thing that counts these days is the bottom line.

 

[mm52200]

I think that is absolutely a factor. It is not as click bait worthy as "Disney is cutting staffing because the hate you" so it is not likely to get talked about as much.

In reality, I think we are seeing a combination of several factors. Increased crowds, changing travel patterns and Disney trying a little to hard to keep staffing at a perfect Goldilocks level.

Exactly, I spent a very brief time in quick service food and beverage, and we would be staffed for certain attendance projections, and some days they were just wrong, but what were you going to do at that point except try and do the best you can.

So exactly that’s a lot of what’s going on. There were random weekdays in January and February that the traffic backup to enter DAK would stretch back a good bit down Osceola past the Buena Vista Drive exit. Crowds have been all over the place.

 

[bhg469]

If true, this is a shame. Simply extending hours to all parks across the board every day, and adding staff would fix the issue but dig into the profit. IMO the way they are handling it, it makes a first time guest less likely to return, and that annual guest that usually comes that time of year, maybe think about skipping a year or two. Its their current business model though, so the profit is all that should matter right?

 

[The_Jobu]

After analyzing the data from many angles they came to the conclusion that Disney is running the parks with reduced staffing, and consequently reduced attraction hourly capacity, resulting in longer wait times even though there might be fewer guests than normal.

Loved hearing this from Len. I've been saying this for months and it's my biggest gripe with Disney.

 

[bhg469]

Loved hearing this from Len. I've been saying this for months and it's my biggest gripe with Disney.

If true, which likely it is, it should be everyone's gripe. The demand is there to keep the parks operating as if they were at moderately high crowds all year and obviously they can plan for peak times. They just dont, they choose to save some pennies when it only translates to a bad show for guests.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I just listened to a podcast from DISUnplugged featuring @lentesta discussing the crowds so far in 2018. I highly recommend listening to it, his information was very interesting.

Apparently his wait time projections were significantly off for the start of 2018. Particularly, wait times in January were worse than almost any month in all of 2017. The thought of wait times in January being close to Christmas level is insane.

After analyzing the data from many angles they came to the conclusion that Disney is running the parks with reduced staffing, and consequently reduced attraction hourly capacity, resulting in longer wait times even though there might be fewer guests than normal.

He goes on to mention a few different motivations Disney may have for doing this, including the obvious reason being that they are simply saving money to the more complex thought that they might be trying to artificially control apparent crowd levels in order to justify price increases and ticket price yielding.

I hadn’t seen this being discussed anywhere on here so I thought I’d mention it. Hopefully Len will chime in, I think it’s a topic worthy of discussion.

I know personally the increased crowd levels over the past decade have really made my trips less enjoyable. We used to enjoy visiting in the off season and with the seemingly constant crowding there is now, I find my trips less enjoyable. Disney is going to reach a breaking point somewhere with this kind of management. I know for me, that point is rapidly approaching.

Having been there in February...I completely agree with the conclusions of his analysis and your opinions.

I've long been a people watcher in parks...and it was both fascinating and alarming to watch the flow this last time.

The experience is declining due to a lack of investment since the Eisner fall...which some of us has shouted for a long time. Now those that agree are growing in mass.

I hate being right...because it sucks for all of us.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Loved hearing this from Len. I've been saying this for months and it's my biggest gripe with Disney.

Months? This has been growing since the end of the housing crash/free dining nonsense in 2012

 

[The_Jobu]

If true, which likely it is, it should be everyone's gripe. The demand is there to keep the parks operating as if they were at moderately high crowds all year and obviously they can plan for peak times. They just dont, they choose to save some pennies when it only translates to a bad show for guests.

Exactly. If true there's no positive pixie spin on this. It's purely increased revenue at the expense of guest experience.

 

[monothingie]

Having been there in February...I completely agree with the conclusions of his analysis and your opinions.

I've long been a people watcher in parks...and it was both fascinating and alarming to watch the flow this last time.

The experience is declining due to a lack of investment since the Eisner fall...which some of us has shouted for a long time. Now those that agree are growing in mass.

I hate being right...because it sucks for all of us.

In all fairness, while I do agree in principle with what you are saying. After 9/11 and the recessions in 2008 lot of stuff that had been plan was summarily stopped. These large capital projects require years of planning and can't be just thrown together overnight.

That said, it doesn't excuse lack of maintenance and upkeep of existing attractions and locations.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Exactly. If true there's no positive pixie spin on this. It's purely increased revenue at the expense of guest experience.

Employee costs are such a pittance when you're talking about simply running both sides of big thunder or space mountain instead of one...

And that's what we're talking about.

I think their bigger issue is that those are really old rides...and they'll rattle them apart if they run them 8-12 for 365 days...and that is back to the problem: they abandoned the reinvestment model that Disneyland was opened with and that wdw operated under from 1971-1999.

It's over, Johnny...

5-7 years to add two minor rides in parks that have had more closures than openings since bob took over...

...tale of the tape

 

[wdisney9000]

It really just makes sense from a business standpoint. At most any restaurant/store in the world, labor costs are a HUGE portion of the daily operating expenses, so you schedule lots of people at the times you anticipate it being busy and fewer people at the times you anticipate it being slower. When it comes to an amusement park, you also need to factor in maintenance costs. There are a LOT of moving parts on rides that need to be replaced regularly and if you can get away with running four trains on Thunder Mountain instead of five, you can prolong the time between replacing those parts (especially wheels) with the only negative factor being slightly longer lines. It really just makes sense from a business standpoint.

The big question is what will guests tolerate? As a business, it's best for Disney to spread the crowds out throughout the year as much as possible. The previous incentive for guests to come in January/February/September was the lower crowds, more mild weather, and lower hotel rates, however, to take advantage of these time periods, most families had to take kids out of school in order to go during this time of year. If line lengths are as bad now in January as they are in summer, you have to question if lower hotel rates and milder weather are enough alone to coax families to pull their kids out of school for trips during this time of year and I think it would be...

I think Disney doing what they are doing now will work until the point that Disney starts to raise ticket/hotel prices during these traditionally "slower" periods to rates comparable to what they are during the summer season, but, that's just my opinion on the matter...

The problem (IMO) is that the current executives place a much higher emphasis on doing "what makes sense from a business standpoint" with much less concern for the overall experience a guest has compared to what t was years ago. When one of your theme parks is under heavy construction and has extremely limited attraction capacity and prices continue to rise, you should not be cutting back on staff and operational capacity to make the parks appear more busy in an effort to justify the rising prices and/or save money due to the fact that they finally decided to expand attraction capacity after years of ignoring it.

And as it was pointed out, NGE is the technological terror they use to create this madness. In a twist of irony, it was heralded by so many who believed it was created to reduce wait times and improve their experience, yet time has shown that it does the EXACT opposite. But it was wrapped up in a pretty package which was the ability to use your phone to book a FP so people were salivating for it. I remember the propaganda that accompanied it which was that FastCompany article and its authors tales of how (quote from the article) "During my return monorail ride back to the hotel one cool winter night, two exhausted parents, baby carriages in tow and a tuckered-out young girl wrapped around Dad’s neck, tell me the MagicBand is a lifesaver; they couldn’t imagine going back to the old system, with all those paper tickets and FastPasses." Some of us saw the writing on the wall, others were too busy changing their underwear after soiling their britches when Disney announced it.

 

[lazyboy97o]

What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? One has nothing to do with the other. I suppose they're tangentially related with regard to the health of the tourism industry generally, but I think it's just as likely that Avatar has been a tremendous success and the Potter boom is over.

Walt Disney World has been seeing increases in waits and crowding that outpace its increases in attendance.

Disney has always artificially adjusted wait times, I'm not sure why this is suddenly "breaking news" for some. Just this past Sunday, Haunted Mansion (in the middle of the afternoon) was listed as a 40 minute wait and my family and I walked on in less than 15 minutes. A few weeks ago, Frozen Ever After was listed at 60 minutes and I was on in around 35.

This is about actual wait times increasing, not posted wait times.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

In all fairness, while I do agree in principle with what you are saying. After 9/11 and the recessions in 2008 lot of stuff that had been plan was summarily stopped. These large capital projects require years of planning and can't be just thrown together overnight.

That said, it doesn't excuse lack of maintenance and upkeep of existing attractions and locations.

All those decisions were lacking longterm strategic thought...as is the "measured" construction of things like avatar, toy story, and Star Wars lans. 5 years to build things in a theme park dumps you out on the other side with a deeper hole than you started with.

Here's the brutal reality: iger Wants a bubble type escalation of their stock until he parachutes out...then who's left want a crash/recession to try and reset the operational dial the next morning...

That's terrible for us and disney longterm

 

[Kman101]

I talked with a manager from Operations a while back, and he told me that yeah, they artifically inflate (or deflate) wait times in order to draw people twords or away from a ride. This is something that most people guessed, but still.

The kiosks located in the queues where fastpasses and standby meet typically have the actual wait time and the display wait time for the cast members to see. It's not on every ride, but it's definitely there for some. One instance (FEA) I saw the real standby at 21 minutes while the display was at 30-45. If only someone could find a way to access the real numbers as a site/app.

Oh, that's very interesting. I'm not surprised because most of us have suspected that happens. Of course it's not always manipulation, things get backed up, etc.

I didn't know about the actual wait time on those monitors. I'll have to try and pass a glance at them.

I don't know that I mind so much the driving guests to different attractions based on wait times, I don't like it but whatever, but I don't like the reduced staffing, resulting in higher waits, resulting in them charging more for guests to get into the park. That's shady as heck. But again, not really surprised. It's Disney Villain levels lol

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Oh, that's very interesting. I'm not surprised because most of us have suspected that happens. Of course it's not always manipulation, things get backed up, etc.

I didn't know about the actual wait time on those monitors. I'll have to try and pass a glance at them.

I don't know that I mind so much the driving guests to different attractions based on wait times, I don't like it but whatever, but I don't like the reduced staffing, resulting in higher waits, resulting in them charging more for guests to get into the park. That's shady as heck. But again, not really surprised. It's Disney Villain levels lol

Thise "actual wait times" are calculated based on the entry numbers from the mickey spinners at the gate and the fastpass reservations....it's actually quite ingenious - as I've been told.

 

[dreamfinder]

My point is using UNI as a basis of comparison. If Disney waits were longer than they were any other time in 2017, you would thing the waits at UNI would be higher than (their) average as well, no?

Nope. It all depends on how WDW is choosing to handle the crowds and staffing. Pretty sure someone (@WDW1974 maybe) said that WDW management had determined the magical number of attractions a guest wanted to experience a day to get value for their admission, which I think was 14. No idea if this is true, but I can buy the general theory. Previously WDW handled this to a point by increasing hours during busy periods, and decreasing them during slow periods. Bigger crowds, open longer so guests can still hit that number of rides. Now what @lentesta and the rest of the staff at Touring Plans is postulating is that they are now massaging this more by taking the same concept of tweaking hours, and tweaking staffing/ride capacity. Some rides, specifically the omnimover type, this might be harder to do unless they can just slow down the belt, but others it's much easier. Slow down dispatch rates, run less vehicles, etc results in longer waits, with the same number of people in the park.

If you are running 4 trains, sending one every 8 minutes, and each train can handle 100 people, you should be able to handle 400 people in about 24 minutes. Now if you cut down to 3 trains, it still takes just as long to make the loop around MK, so you are only dispatching every 12 minutes, that same 400 people now takes 32 minutes. Same number of guests, but an extra 8 minutes of total waiting, and WDW saves labor costs and operational costs for that 4th train. These numbers are made up, but the theory applies.

I haven't listened to the pocast, but read the blogpost they did on the subject a month or so ago, when they admitted their estimates with off by a much higher margin than they expected. At the time, @lentesta said they were going to try to count guests/vehicles instead of just waits to see if the staffing/dispatch levels was true, or if they were really just seeing higher crowds.

 

[seascape]

Travel from Brazil is expected to be up significantly in 2018. Add that to the reports of Disney's 6% increase in 4th qtr 2017 attendnce it should be expected that parks will be packed this year. That is also why we can expect word soon on the new resorts that will open by 2021. River Country and the new resort in front of Epcot to go along with the new 350 room Swan area tower, the new Tower at CSR, will add lots of new rooms to the stock.

 

[Gringrinngghost]

After analyzing the data from many angles they came to the conclusion that Disney is running the parks with reduced staffing, and consequently reduced attraction hourly capacity, resulting in longer wait times even though there might be fewer guests than normal.

They are not running attractions with reduced staffing or reduced attraction hourly capacity. It's just that the parks are THAT busy. I've been talking to my friends over at Universal Orlando and they've been telling me that the parks have actually been going over projections for how many guests they are getting. Venues have been having to call employees to come in on non-scheduled days. They don't even know where the crowds are coming from either, and I'm hearing this from multiple departments. The rule of thumb for most of these parks is that you can gauge a crowd based off historic wait times (not by using a crowd calendar or estimator) but by looking at the actual wait times of the attractions. A good example of that at Epcot is Imagination, when you see that attraction posting higher than 10mn you know it's a very busy day or SSE where you can see it hit 25mn+ on the weekend with really only 4 people operating the attraction with others as greeter or Project tomorrow. There is no busy season anymore and there is no slow season. It's all just a season, and that's where they achieve in their tiered pricing, they are able to not have any form of fluctuation in guest numbers. In terms of guest numbers look at it this way... if you wanted to come in for a 4 or 5 day vacation you would rather come in when it's cheaper, Monday - Friday where it's value or regular. Then you have those who want to come in when their free (i.e. the Weekend) and pay for Peak tickets. You also have those with APs who with the ever increasing pricing of the tickets feel like they have to come in to get more of their value.


Here is a bit more of the psychology of three tier pricing.
http://www.channeldynamics.com.au/channel_dynamics/the-value-of-a-three-tier-pricing-strategy
https://www.jeremysaid.com/blog/customers-will-choose-middle-offer/
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/marketing/pricing/three-tier_pricing.htm

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don't believe they have, personally. But I'll wait and read more before forming a solid opinion

Just go and observe...it's pretty easy to see without statistical analysis.

I said the example I experienced (several times): 45 minute fast pass wait and a very short standby line with a posted 150-180 minute wait.

That's shocking and there's no way to account for that or fix it, frankly.

If the "Magic Number" of rides is 14?? Nobody is hitting that...it's impossible to string that many Together in the currency conditions...the TTA has a 30 minute wait and a snaking queue.

 

[GeneralKnowledge]

Travel from Brazil is expected to be up significantly in 2018. Add that to the reports of Disney's 6% increase in 4th qtr 2017 attendnce it should be expected that parks will be packed this year. That is also why we can expect word soon on the new resorts that will open by 2021. River Country and the new resort in front of Epcot to go along with the new 350 room Swan area tower, the new Tower at CSR, will add lots of new rooms to the stock.

In the podcast, Len mentions that the number of brazilians actually has a relatively negligible effect on overall numbers. If the entire Brazilian tourist base visiting the US varied by even 50%, it would actually be a very small change in WDW total attendance.