Len Testa Crowd Analysis

[lentesta]

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.

I'm updating this thread to say we've just heard from folks inside Disney that January and February's higher-than-expected crowds were due to staff and capacity cutbacks (also, it wasn't limited to parks & resorts). It's what we suspected. I'm considering this closed.

 

[RSoxNo1]

I'm updating this thread to say we've just heard from folks inside Disney that January and February's higher-than-expected crowds were due to staff and capacity cutbacks (also, it wasn't limited to parks & resorts). It's what we suspected. I'm considering this closed.

Very odd that they confirmed it.

 

[Bender123]

Very odd that they confirmed it.

It likely wasn't "Disney" that did, but some knowledgeable folks inside the company that did...
the lower capacity is almost too obvious...Missing half the studios, major chunks of Epcot and other things.

 

[MaximumEd]

That being the reason is not surprising. The question I have is have they done anything like increase personnel to alleviate it post-Jan and Feb?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I'm updating this thread to say we've just heard from folks inside Disney that January and February's higher-than-expected crowds were due to staff and capacity cutbacks (also, it wasn't limited to parks & resorts). It's what we suspected. I'm considering this closed.

There are very limited cases where staffing is gonna affect standby lines. One track of space mountain and not too many others.

 

[Nmoody1]

What happens when you put a retail man in charge of P&R.

See Disneyland/early 00's/Paul Pressler

 

[Absimilliard]

There are very limited cases where staffing is gonna affect standby lines. One track of space mountain and not too many others.

It is a lot more insiduous than that and easier to hide than your example. Run one stretch room instead of two at Haunted Mansion, use one loading station on each track at Space Mountain and reduce the number of rockets, run four trains at Big Thunder Mountain, etc.

This saves on maintenance of the attraction as well, because you need to inspect less ride vehicles and reduce wear and tear. Ride spare parts cost a fortune and you can't exactly staff maintenance with extra CP's....

 

[Jon81uk]

Disney does seem very staff heavy. Seems to be a difference in the UK that many theme parks are trying to run with a few staff as safe to do so anyway, while Disney are being very retroactive and not designing queue systems that can use fewer staff. Simple things such as designing merge points for Fastpass that need fewer staff could make big differences.

 

[monothingie]

It is a lot more insiduous than that and easier to hide than your example. Run one stretch room instead of two at Haunted Mansion, use one loading station on each track at Space Mountain and reduce the number of rockets, run four trains at Big Thunder Mountain, etc.

This saves on maintenance of the attraction as well, because you need to inspect less ride vehicles and reduce wear and tear. Ride spare parts cost a fortune and you can't exactly staff maintenance with extra CP's....

Going further, MDE gives operations a good look at how busy the park will be on any given day and allows them to make staffing decisions based on big data forecasting.

 

[Dutch Inn '76]

I am certain that WDW reduces staff during times that traditionally have less traffic - just like FedEx and Walmart.

That's probably about the end of it.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

What happens when you put a retail man in charge of P&R.

See Disneyland/early 00's/Paul Pressler

No joke

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It is a lot more insiduous than that and easier to hide than your example. Run one stretch room instead of two at Haunted Mansion, use one loading station on each track at Space Mountain and reduce the number of rockets, run four trains at Big Thunder Mountain, etc.

This saves on maintenance of the attraction as well, because you need to inspect less ride vehicles and reduce wear and tear. Ride spare parts cost a fortune and you can't exactly staff maintenance with extra CP's....

Granted you can adjust trains on those type of rides...

Many of the Disney rides are contiguous and don’t have that capability though

 

[flynnibus]

Granted you can adjust trains on those type of rides...

Many of the Disney rides are contiguous and don’t have that capability though

It's the opposite. Generally you run less vehicles to allow less staff which means you can dispatch slower. Or on cycle rides, like a dumbo, etc... you simply load/unload slower because of reduced staff.. resulting in the same fixed attraction turning through less people.

DAK
Safari - # of trucks
Everest - # of trains
Dinosaur - # of EMVs
Shows - # per day
Trains - # of dispatches an hour

DHS
RnRC - # of trains
ToT - # of shafts and # of libraries in use
StarTours - # of shuttles
ToyStory - efficiency of dispatch and # of vehicles

EPCOT
Frozen, LWTL, Mexico - all impacted by # of boats running
Shows - efficiency of load/unload and cycle time
TestTrack - # of cars
M:S - efficiency of dispatch

Of those three parks, only Nemo and SSE are continuous load without any impact from dispatch. JIIY falls inbetween.

MK I don't want to bother listing through, but only the HM, peter pan, buzz, and people mover are continuous load.

Continuous load was a hallmark of classic disney for throughput... and the other big Es used important things like grouping, separate load/unload, multiple load stations, etc to increase throughput. But those types of tricks require running efficiently to squeeze the dispatch times which means more labor... and is easily scaled back.

 

[Amos1784]

I'm updating this thread to say we've just heard from folks inside Disney that January and February's higher-than-expected crowds were due to staff and capacity cutbacks (also, it wasn't limited to parks & resorts). It's what we suspected. I'm considering this closed.

Thinking that this trend is something that will be repeated in 2019, with them cutting back capacity?

 

[MisterPenguin]

It's the opposite. Generally you run less vehicles to allow less staff which means you can dispatch slower. Or on cycle rides, like a dumbo, etc... you simply load/unload slower because of reduced staff.. resulting in the same fixed attraction turning through less people.

DAK
Safari - # of trucks
Everest - # of trains
Dinosaur - # of EMVs
Shows - # per day
Trains - # of dispatches an hour

DHS
RnRC - # of trains
ToT - # of shafts and # of libraries in use
StarTours - # of shuttles
ToyStory - efficiency of dispatch and # of vehicles

EPCOT
Frozen, LWTL, Mexico - all impacted by # of boats running
Shows - efficiency of load/unload and cycle time
TestTrack - # of cars
M:S - efficiency of dispatch

Of those three parks, only Nemo and SSE are continuous load without any impact from dispatch. JIIY falls inbetween.

MK I don't want to bother listing through, but only the HM, peter pan, buzz, and people mover are continuous load.

Continuous load was a hallmark of classic disney for throughput... and the other big Es used important things like grouping, separate load/unload, multiple load stations, etc to increase throughput. But those types of tricks require running efficiently to squeeze the dispatch times which means more labor... and is easily scaled back.

People Mover has continuous load, and yet, in the time frame in question, it was having the same back-up of a line that many of the other rides did. And without FP to blame.

 

[lentesta]

Thinking that this trend is something that will be repeated in 2019, with them cutting back capacity?

I don’t. I think it was a disaster.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It's the opposite. Generally you run less vehicles to allow less staff which means you can dispatch slower. Or on cycle rides, like a dumbo, etc... you simply load/unload slower because of reduced staff.. resulting in the same fixed attraction turning through less people.

DAK
Safari - # of trucks
Everest - # of trains
Dinosaur - # of EMVs
Shows - # per day
Trains - # of dispatches an hour

DHS
RnRC - # of trains
ToT - # of shafts and # of libraries in use
StarTours - # of shuttles
ToyStory - efficiency of dispatch and # of vehicles

EPCOT
Frozen, LWTL, Mexico - all impacted by # of boats running
Shows - efficiency of load/unload and cycle time
TestTrack - # of cars
M:S - efficiency of dispatch

Of those three parks, only Nemo and SSE are continuous load without any impact from dispatch. JIIY falls inbetween.

MK I don't want to bother listing through, but only the HM, peter pan, buzz, and people mover are continuous load.

Continuous load was a hallmark of classic disney for throughput... and the other big Es used important things like grouping, separate load/unload, multiple load stations, etc to increase throughput. But those types of tricks require running efficiently to squeeze the dispatch times which means more labor... and is easily scaled back.

People Mover has continuous load, and yet, in the time frame in question, it was having the same back-up of a line that many of the other rides did. And without FP to blame.

There is some play...particularly on boat rides...

The notorious example from this year was running half of space mountain.

But there were also long standbys on things like buzz and tta...haunted mansion was rocking a 1 hour wait in February...

That really ain’t a staffing thing. You turn the switch on and load the ride...or you don’t.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I don’t. I think it was a disaster.

I could see this being permanent...it fuels upsells.

 

[lazyboy97o]

There is some play...particularly on boat rides...

The notorious example from this year was running half of space mountain.

But there were also long standbys on things like buzz and tta...haunted mansion was rocking a 1 hour wait in February...

That really ain’t a staffing thing. You turn the switch on and load the ride...or you don’t.

Those continuous load attractions get longer waits because of reduced capacity elsewhere.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Those continuous load attractions get longer waits because of reduced capacity elsewhere.

Well...they were all inflated...so it’s “suck sandwich” any way you slice it.

I’m very interested to see what they do in the next few months.

1. We are WAYY overdue for a recession...ticking time bomb
2. 2019 bookings/attendance is not gonna be banner year
3. They’re expecting major upsells and price increases 2020-2021...so do they “let it ride” for 19?

I’m not just talking operational cuts...pass discounts should roll out but the hour is getting late.