Len Testa Crowd Analysis

[MisterPenguin]

They are actually the reason behind the Fast and the Furious attraction at Universal. South America seems to the current target demographic. Fast has a huge appeal in south america.

F&F does seem to be quite popular... outside the U.S....

 

[Glasgow]

We used to go in Jan or Feb when the kids were little years ago .. Ah those were the golden years for touring the parks. Low crowds, great weather. Then we went in Sept for 4 or 5 years because of the kids holiday schedule. Now we dont go at all (2.5 yrs now and counting). Disney has effectively soured our taste due to limited development and massive crowd growth They wont miss our relatively small investment but if you want to make a difference, stop complaining on the internet and start taking your imperial credits up the road.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Incorrect. What I described is exactly the strategic motivation behind New Fantasyland. It failed for exactly the reasons I laid out. More people showed up than capacity was added.

You're not reading the data right...

New fantasyland is NOTHING...but it opened in 2012-13 when the country/world pulled up out of the second biggest financial disaster in history...

Start the story in January 2007 when housing prices peaked...or August 2008 when they crashed.

Or even better...2004 when they built Saratoga to feed that monster...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

F&F does seem to be quite popular... outside the U.S....

View attachment 269254

So a bad movie that doesn't resonate with North America or Western Europe...made to chase overseas dollars with a less experienced/critical audience?

...hmmm...wish i could think of other movies that fit that category

 

[USofA scott]

It is interesting to read the debates that this caused that or that caused this.
No one here has shown any correltations, much less causation.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

We used to go in Jan or Feb when the kids were little years ago .. Ah those were the golden years for touring the parks. Low crowds, great weather. Then we went in Sept for 4 or 5 years because of the kids holiday schedule. Now we dont go at all (2.5 yrs now and counting). Disney has effectively soured our taste due to limited development and massive crowd growth They wont miss our relatively small investment but if you want to make a difference, stop complaining on the internet and start taking your imperial credits up the road.

Truth...the reality is people haven't cross the mental final frontier...yet.

Big trouble in the dwarf house if they ever do

 

[larryz]

Enough 'anecdotal evidence' becomes the 'wisdom of crowds'.

Hence, internet "experts"...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

It is interesting to read the debates that this caused that or that caused this.
No one here has shown any correltations, much less causation.

This is a mish mosh of a lot of old debates..

And I'm
Sorry to say...having fought these Since around 2000 on several other battlefields..the "naysayers" have been proven right with more and more frequency.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Both of my SILs are tuners and they look at the Fast and the Furious like I look at Star Wars.

I don't get it either, but whatever floats your boat.

Worst "franchise" ever...my opinion. Eye candy and stupidity. But they certainly tapped a nerve somehow.

You know what other franchise needs to stay away from that nonsense...but is being misguided kinda towards it?

 

[Jeff456]

Surprised people are bashing Len and Touring plans quite hard in this thread, always found the advice useful, I'll continue to use it, it seems like crowds are harder to predict but I don't think its a terrible place to start.

 

[bcoachable]

So a bad movie that doesn't resonate with North America or Western Europe...made to chase overseas dollars with a less experienced/critical audience?

...hmmm...wish i could think of other movies that fit that category

Wolf Warrior 2??

 

[MrHappy]

I suspect it's a combo. My guess is that Disney really tried to nail the capacity planning too tightly to get to that optimum staffing level based on prior years. Then this year ended up being higher than typical, due to Irma reschedules, increases from Brazil, and just an overall better economy. Those two things (decreased capacity plus larger than expected crowds) led to the mess that was this Jan/Feb.

I agree that those factors added increased attendance vs historical figures, but wouldn't those factors equate to a drop in the ocean for WDW. Disney knows all this well in advance any ways, so it still goes back to purposely operating at a barely passable threshold.

 

[mikejs78]

I agree that those factors added increased attendance vs historical figures, but wouldn't those factors equate to a drop in the ocean for WDW. Disney knows all this well in advance any ways, so it still goes back to purposely operating at a barely passable threshold.

Not really. @MisterPenguin pointed out above how wait times can explode pretty easily. My guess is in the past, they cut capacity in January, but did so without all the data that they now have, and factored in a fudge factor in case things were different than expected. This year, I suspect they got a bit too cocky with their big data setup, and tried to be too exact with crowd estimation, and didn't put in any fudge factor. Then, when there was increased attendance, it exploded and they couldn't handle it.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Surprised people are bashing Len and Touring plans quite hard in this thread, always found the advice useful, I'll continue to use it, it seems like crowds are harder to predict but I don't think its a terrible place to start.

I paid for a year's subscription as thanks for the ADR web applet. It was a huge help.

 

[DryerLintFan]

I love the planning tools on TouringPlans and am looking forward to where this conversation goes when Len gets time to respond.

 

[bhg469]

Both of my SILs are tuners and they look at the Fast and the Furious like I look at Star Wars.

I don't get it either, but whatever floats your boat.

I owned an STi and drove it competitively (SCCA) for about 6 years. The people that I raced with all found the movies (at least the first 3) just terrible, and full of jargon. None of us called ourselves "tuners" though. That was reserved for the ones who said "nos" and added obnoxious exhaust. Those movies Ruined my time as a guy who spent a huge chunk of money on a very limited and pretty fast car and put me on the same level as a kid who street raced in his civic asking me to do a "burnout" in my AWD car I would take a trilogy of 3 hour star wars movies with the Fin sub plot over seeing another vin deisel movie where somehow a criminal is now part of a clandestine special forces team.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Wolf Warrior 2??

...that's the one

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

I owned an STi and drove it competitively (SCCA) for about 6 years. The people that I raced with all found the movies (at least the first 3) just terrible, and full of jargon. None of us called ourselves "tuners" though. That was reserved for the ones who said "nos" and added obnoxious exhaust. Those movies Ruined my time as a guy who spent a huge chunk of money on a very limited and pretty fast car and put me on the same level as a kid who street raced in his civic asking me to do a "burnout" in my AWD car I would take a trilogy of 3 hour star wars movies with the Fin sub plot over seeing another vin deisel movie where somehow a criminal is now part of a clandestine special forces team.

...I'd say that about covers it

 

[Master Yoda]

I owned an STi and drove it competitively (SCCA) for about 6 years. The people that I raced with all found the movies (at least the first 3) just terrible, and full of jargon. None of us called ourselves "tuners" though. That was reserved for the ones who said "nos" and added obnoxious exhaust. Those movies Ruined my time as a guy who spent a huge chunk of money on a very limited and pretty fast car and put me on the same level as a kid who street raced in his civic asking me to do a "burnout" in my AWD car I would take a trilogy of 3 hour star wars movies with the Fin sub plot over seeing another vin deisel movie where somehow a criminal is now part of a clandestine special forces team.

Sounds like my SILs. At least the older of the two has the decency to have one of the Aussie made GTOs

 

[disneyflush]

Truth...the reality is people haven't cross the mental final frontier...yet.

Big trouble in the dwarf house if they ever do

Its fun to think of it in these terms. That Disney is on one side of a room and the park visitors are on the other and a thin line of financial sanity lies between them. It'll never happen though. (crossing a mental final frontier that is)

A WDW vacation is a Veblen good, a positional good. A luxury where the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, a strange contradiction of the law of demand. A WDW vacation is a status symbol in a world that has become an Instagram/Facebook/Snapchat/Twitter fueled society where some of your value as a 'friend' or a person comes from how perfectly curated your vacation photos and life are when shared with the world.

This is on top of the income effect globally (consumer choice theory where there is a change in consumption resulting from a change in real income) as applied to so many countries in a shifting global economy. Brazil over the last 10 years would be a prime example. Incomes plotted in a graphical curve for the US would remain flat for going on 30 years adjusted for inflation where a lot of South America would be increasing, historically, over the same time period where the number of families finding happiness in the consumption of a WDW vacation would be at peak volume currently.

Disney can continue to leverage 'the Disney Difference' in pricing and demand forever. Its a challenge being a consumer of a product where demand laws feel broken and price elasticity is actually a positive number.