Let's not continue the narrative overcrowding is perfectly acceptable.

[JD2000]

We asked for overcrowding to be dealt with for years. But now, with lower, more comfortable wait times, it is being talked about negatively. We need to instead give Disney praise for this and hope it remains this way; it doesn't matter whether it was unintentional or not. This is the thread for that.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Summer has been pretty mellow for years because of AP blackouts.

Nobody was expecting this because Galaxy Edge just opened and crowd levels seem to be lower than ever.

 

[drizgirl]

I'm sure heads are rolling as we speak because of recent attendance numbers. Good luck with your praise campaign.

 

[Curious Constance]

Congratulations, Disney. You officially can't get anything right! Amazing!

 

[JD2000]

It looks quite pleasant this afternoon. 25 minute wait times. Thank you Disney!

 

[Monorail_Orange]

Someone made a fair point in another thread...if this is so outside of TDA's projections, how is it the merchandise in Galaxy's Edge is selling out? They can't possibly have so underestimated the participation factor that attendance isn't meeting expectations and yet they're STILL selling out.

 

[Villains0501]

I don't think anyone on here finds overcrowding "perfectly acceptable".

 

[Touchdown]

Psst, TDA doesn’t really care about attendance, what they care about is how much money is coming in. They are perfectly happy with low crowds so long as those crowds are spending. A local AP that spends $10 on a dole whip during their whole stay are not nearly as valuable as a tourist spending the night at the GCA here on a 3 day hopper, buying 3 meals for 4 people and spending another couple hundred on merch. You have to remember that the only people in the park are currently signature pass holders, hopper tickets, $99 AP upgrades and CMs. There is a much higher capex for that group.

 

[drizgirl]

Psst, TDA doesn’t really care about attendance, what they care about is how much money is coming in. They are perfectly happy with low crowds so long as those crowds are spending. A local AP that spends $10 on a dole whip during their whole stay are not nearly as valuable as a tourist spending the night at the GCA here on a 3 day hopper, buying 3 meals for 4 people and spending another couple hundred on merch. You have to remember that the only people in the park are currently signature pass holders, hopper tickets, $99 AP upgrades and CMs. There is a much higher capex for that group.

I don't think so. Why the AP ticket offer? I think profits are king. But attendance is also a metric by which they are measured and they don't want to come up short there either.

 

[Villains0501]

I don't think so. Why the AP ticket offer? I think profits are king. But attendance is also a metric by which they are measured and they don't want to come up short there either.

Agreed. Moreover, I don't think pointing out the obvious regarding lower than expected attendance is the same thing as dancing on the grave of Galaxy's Edge. Nor do I think Mickey Mouse is as thin-skinned as the OP seems to think.

 

[fctiger]

You're right OP but this wasn't Disney intention either. We all know they want the parks busy as possible. But they were simply worried too many would storm the castle when GEopen and took proactive measures to calm the storm. Measures I really welcome but it worked TOO well lol. Summers may be lower season now but its still usually pretty busy. This is outright dead. So I'm not shocked to see them doing everything possible to get people back. I read on one page the only reason they aren't lifting black out dates completely is because they don't want to upset the Signature holders who were told paying $1,000+ would get them a guarantee into the park this summer. That's certainly possible.

Of course while its bad for them short term its obviously great for us. I do also think when you opened up the biggest land in the park that just made capacity a bit bigger it has spread things out much better, which was partly the point. They knew (or thought) GE was going to be a zoo the first year or so but it would eventually balance things out for crowds. CL added a LOT more people in DCA when that place opened but DCA never feels super busy even when it is. But then again that park was designed too handle bigger crowds on day one. With GE and Project Sparkle it may make DL not feel too bad in the long run but we'll have to see.

 

[Bob Harlem]

Someone made a fair point in another thread...if this is so outside of TDA's projections, how is it the merchandise in Galaxy's Edge is selling out? They can't possibly have so underestimated the participation factor that attendance isn't meeting expectations and yet they're STILL selling out.

Ebay reseller hawkers. Seriously, go search for Galaxy's Edge on ebay. Especially some of the quantities people have available.

 

[Monorail_Orange]

Ebay reseller hawkers.

By all reports, they're just stealing everything else that's not bolted down.

 

[fctiger]

Psst, TDA doesn’t really care about attendance, what they care about is how much money is coming in. They are perfectly happy with low crowds so long as those crowds are spending. A local AP that spends $10 on a dole whip during their whole stay are not nearly as valuable as a tourist spending the night at the GCA here on a 3 day hopper, buying 3 meals for 4 people and spending another couple hundred on merch. You have to remember that the only people in the park are currently signature pass holders, hopper tickets, $99 AP upgrades and CMs. There is a much higher capex for that group.

Yes but the problem it's just not enough of those people to maintain the resort. It never was. If that was the case they would've built another hotel years ago and rely more on tourism. The reality is they can only rely on them 3-4 months out of the year, the summer months and December. Thats pretty much it. Thats exactly why they do the SoCal discount every year now. So trust me, they aren't 'perfectly happy' because those guests only make up a fraction of attendance and most only stay 2-3 days average. This isn't WDW where you have 10 times the number of those guests and usually stay 5-6 days average. And none of the Disney hotels have sold out yet either. They may by next month but it sounds like tourist numbers are currently soft as well.

They wouldn't have offered the AP discounts this quickly either when summer is just getting started.

 

[mdcpr]

Would be nice if it is less crowded than expected for Thanksgiving week.

 

[fctiger]

Looks like its a lot more busier today. Still not super packed but not dead either. All the bigger E-tickets have around an hour wait or more. My guess is the new AP deal and CMs no longer blocked out is having an effect. Still though, not too bad and if GE is still open for everyone its probably a sign the crowds are manageable.

 

[shambolicdefending]

When Disneyland pivoted from the Eisner vision of a multi-day tourist destination, to being content as an AP-dominated, locals-first resort, overcrowding became expected, and most of us eventually resigned ourselves to it.

So, while the drop off in crowds this month is technically what we've been wanting, it's impossible to believe it's what the suits want. So, I'm not going to get too excited about it because I expect management to do whatever it takes to get the place packed to uncomfortable levels again, ASAP.

 

[shambolicdefending]

Yes but the problem it's just not enough of those people to maintain the resort. It never was. If that was the case they would've built another hotel years ago and rely more on tourism. The reality is they can only rely on them 3-4 months out of the year, the summer months and December. Thats pretty much it. Thats exactly why they do the SoCal discount every year now. So trust me, they aren't 'perfectly happy' because those guests only make up a fraction of attendance and most only stay 2-3 days average. This isn't WDW where you have 10 times the number of those guests and usually stay 5-6 days average. And none of the Disney hotels have sold out yet either. They may by next month but it sounds like tourist numbers are currently soft as well.

They wouldn't have offered the AP discounts this quickly either when summer is just getting started.

The irony of this is that management has basically given the middle finger to the tourist population over the last decade or so. Out-of-towner prices are through the roof compared to what your average local AP pays. And, when the tourist shows up with excited kids in tow, there's a decent chance they'll spend much of their limited, expensive time at the resort facing wall-to-wall crowds and unreasonable wait times to which APs are the major contributors.

So, here we are in June of 2019. For the first time since monthly payments were introduced, Disney took major steps to curb AP attendance and... SURPRISE! The parks are basically empty for the month. Where are all the tourists? I assume a lot of them got fed up with the way DLR was managed years ago and decided to spend their time and money elsewhere.

 

[fctiger]

The irony of this is that management has basically given the middle finger to the tourist population over the last decade or so. Out-of-towner prices are through the roof compared to what your average local AP pays. And, when the tourist shows up with excited kids in tow, there's a decent chance they'll spend much of their limited, expensive time at the resort facing wall-to-wall crowds and unreasonable wait times to which APs are the major contributors.

So, here we are in June of 2019. For the first time since monthly payments were introduced, Disney took major steps to curb AP attendance and... SURPRISE! The parks are basically empty for the month. Where are all the tourists? I assume a lot of them got fed up with the way DLR was managed years ago and decided to spend their time and money elsewhere.

Oh I agree completely. But I have always said this, DLR was always the locals park and I think they have resigned themselves to this reality and basically expect WDW to be the tourist resort, which its always been.

The best example of that this summer is with GE. There doesn't seem to be any real incentive to convince tourists to come. You would think GE for example would've had Magic Morning hours like CL did when it first opened. This is a MAJOR bonus for hotel guests and yet its not included at all. At the same time, they get no extra perks with the new land like FPs (although it looks like they aren't going to have FPs for awhile) or just the opportunity of not having to do the digital queue. There is not a single incentive for hotel guests so why would anyone pay all that extra money if they go through the same hurdles as the others? In contrast to this, we stayed at the GCH back in 2011 for two days when Star Tours 2.0 and TLM opened and we were given actually special two FPs each for Star Tours and TLM (but didn't really need them for that) and already got to ride both rides in advance opening morning before the park officially opened. DCA didn't have MM at the time, they just opened that ride a half an hour early for all the hotel guests to do before everyone else. They even handed us all WOC tickets for the first show that day. We paid a lot (and we are locals) but it was REALLY worth it at the time and at least felt like we were getting something out of it outside of just a nice room.

A year later we stayed at the DLH for two days and got to experience for Magic Morning for CL. We rode it three times before the park officially opened and this was when the ride was getting 3 hour waits all day. Now LUCKILY GE is not nearly as busy as everyone thought but I also suspect many tourists stayed away because they thought it was going to be super busy and there was really no guarantee they would see it like anyone else and probably wait until later when things 'died down'. If there was at least a MM component maybe more would've showed up.

And of course many are just waiting for it to open in WDW if that's already their primary resort and will have Extra, Extra Magic hours for GE starting at 6 a.m. Of course that place is so much bigger so they have to accommodate so many staying on property but its a signal of who has priority there as opposed to DLR.

 

[Deleted member 107043]

So, here we are in June of 2019. For the first time since monthly payments were introduced, Disney took major steps to curb AP attendance and... SURPRISE! The parks are basically empty for the month. Where are all the tourists? I assume a lot of them got fed up with the way DLR was managed years ago and decided to spend their time and money elsewhere.

Yep, and I'm one of them. I haven't been to DLR since 2015, and I have no plans to go anytime soon for precisely the reasons you outlined.