Chi84
Premium Member
Because they have to stand in line 90 minutes to 2 hours on average each day?
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Lightning Lane at Walt Disney World
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
LolBecause they have to stand in line 90 minutes to 2 hours on average each day?
My point is that everywhere else people accept that's part of going to a park. Ever since FP came along guests won't accept standing in line and that to visit Disney you MUST have use skip the line passes.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
They’re not the same but they are similar. People will accept fewer attractions per guest per hour for grander experiences but not as few as Walt Disney World’s parks can offer. There’s no reason that for most of the year people aren’t able to experience somewhere around 15 attractions over a 10 hour day in a park, except that Walt Disney World instead spent billions to drive that number down and create more uniform crowding to alter expectations.
mikejs78
Well-Known Member
No regional park comes anywhere close to Disney in terms of daily attendance.
Chi84
Premium Member
Disney is different. It draws a different crowd and there is so much more to do there than just going on rides. People don't want to stand in lines when they could be seeing shows, watching Epcot entertainment, going on boat rides, splitting the day with a water park, spending time at the resort pool, etc. These things don't exist - or not at least to the same extent - at regional theme parks. I guess that doesn't make sense to guests who enter MK at rope drop, want to ride every ride that same day and then close the park. But not everyone wants that type of vacation at Disney.
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
Canada's Wonderland had an average daily attendance of around 28,000 in 2018, with the park having approx 3.8 million visits that year spread out over 135 days, give or take.*
The same year, Hollywood Studios had around 30,000 a day being open every day of the year and attracting 11.2 million visits.
Wonderland is unique in being the highest attended seasonal park in NA, but I don't doubt that there are days at other regional parks that attract crowds, if not as large as Magic Kingdom, at least comparable to Disney's second gates.
*I don't know if attendance numbers include Halloween Haunt nights.
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DisneyHead123
Well-Known Member
I don’t know if that’s the case or it’s more that Disney expanded their market with FP. There may be a core group of park goers who would be ok with it either way - but since FP, elderly park goers, or those with maniac toddlers (raises hand) may have joined the ranks in a way that they wouldn’t have before. I don’t have the data to know for sure but given how much attendance has gone up since pre-FP days, certainly possible. There is absolutely no way I could get my little hurricane through a standby line. With LL or FP? On a wing and a prayer, maybe, and I’ll attempt it for his grandparents sake. So for us line skips are the difference between going to the parks at all vs saying no way to them.
Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
Fair point re: year round. I don't see anyone dismissing them, really more just saying that what works for other parks wouldn't necessarily work for Disney.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
It could. Universal shows it does easily. It's not like they are that much different in offerings. Attendance wise it's lower
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Canada's Wonderland is in a suburb of one of the largest cities in North America, though, and everyone who wants to go knows they have to fit it in during that relatively small window. If it was open 365 days a year, average daily attendance would almost certainly decrease -- there's a reason they're only open seasonally. Admission is also half the price of WDW admission.
It's not a useless data point, but it's also far from a one to one comparison. There are too many other variables involved.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
First it's not a small window anymore with Winterfest added. They are pretty much open from May to the end of December now.
The whole point of this discussion is that Express Pass systems work at even some of the highest attended parks and could work at Disney Universal is close in attendance to Disney parks other then MK.
My point is yes it costs a lot but you don't need to buy it every day of your stay if you are there for a week. Buy it for the days you plan on doing headliners and the rest of the week ride the rides with lower wait times if you don't want to stand in long lines.
What app / site is this from? Looks like an improvement over the MDX Tip Board IMO.
lazyboy97o
Well-Known Member
A park’s capacity and operations are built around the hour and the day, so there’s a lot more commonality when discussing this sort of topic.
Jenny72
Well-Known Member
Doesn't anyone else find it depressing that we're looking at Canada's Wonderland, Cedar Point and Universal as models for what Disney should do next?
I miss when Disney used to think out of the box and innovate. I'm convinced that there are ways to make the theme park experience more pleasant while still retaining the unique Disney brand, but the thinking has gotten so narrow.
I miss when Disney used to think out of the box and innovate. I'm convinced that there are ways to make the theme park experience more pleasant while still retaining the unique Disney brand, but the thinking has gotten so narrow.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
It's what happens when you put profits first. In all honesty ever since Covid they seem to be more focused on recouping losses
Rather than dust off and move forward, it very much feels like they find themselves owed everything they didn’t get to earn during covid.
Disney Glimpses
Well-Known Member
That and Chapek making a name for himself by pushing the parks revenue to a whole new level.
Jrb1979
Well-Known Member
With how busy the parks are they would have got there anyways. I understand having a paid skip the line system as every other park does it. It didn't need to be this complicated to use.
I was at Disneyland Paris on a one park one day ticket yesterday, haven’t been for three years and first time using Premier Access. The park was busy as expected for a hot Sunday in summer vacation but it wasn't overly crowded. So it felt like there were a lot of people in the park, especially after 11 am, but waits weren’t too long. There also weren‘t that many people entering at 9.30 but resort guests already had access to the parks through early entry.
Once inside the park at just after 9.30 (it had been open to resort guests for an hour) we booked Big Thunder Mountain on Premier Access, slots were still available for 9.30 - 10.30 am. We paid €18 each. We actually rope dropped it (the ride was late opening and we were on the second train, then went to do Indiana Jones and Pinocchio and then came back to use our pass at 10.30.) When we entered the Premier Access entrance we didn’t see anyone returning with a reservation, we only saw a handful of people using the system throughout the day, and where we joined the line was just before the slope down to loading so only waited a couple of minutes. When we booked our reservation, I’m pretty sure all the other rides using Premier Access in the park (there are only a handful) also had an immediate return time available.
Most waits in the park were between 15 and 45 minutes throughout the day although Thunder Mountain did get up to about 70 iirc. I was with my 16 year old who loves WDW but she commented how nice it was to just chill out and choose what to ride next as the lines weren’t prohibitive and we weren’t having to follow booked reservations. In some ways it felt like when we go to Universal with Express Pass (although we generally wait less time at Uni than we did at DLP.) It was relaxing compared to our most recent experience at WDW in December. We didn’t wait longer than 15 minutes for anything yesterday so I think wait times were slightly overstated, but we did do most of our rides before about 2.30 pm.
At about 2 pm we checked Premier Access return times again, and again most rides had a return time beginning about 30 minutes later. We were able to book BTM (again!) for 3.05 - 4.05 pm. You’re able to buy three rides on each attraction. The furthest out retun time was 4.05 - 5.05 pm for Crush’s Coaster which I was surprised about because it‘s a low capacity attraction and one that has a big rush at rope drop because of how high waits get really quickly. So maybe in Paris people still don’t want to pay to avoid that wait. I must admit we didn’t check the wait time as we didn’t have access to Studios park but I’d assume it was at least 45+.
It felt to me that because very few people were using Premier Access, standby waits were reasonable in Disneyland Parc and it also feels like a park with decent capacity. In fact the longest waits were to meet Mickey Mouse (around 70 minutes during the peak of the day) and the princesses (around 70 - 120 minutes throughout the day) although I wonder if their character casting is an issue and they weren’t running at usual capacity. It’s also a beautiful park with lots to explore (Adventure Isle caves and rope bridge, Alice’s maze etc) and the walkways are wide with multiple paths between lands so it doesn’t get too bottlenecked.
It was lovely to experience a day like this in a castle park, we did ten rides (including the two Premier Access bookings at BTM) in seven hours with several breaks for food and snacks, and we weren’t rushing around or checking our phones, we were just wandering around taking in a really beautiful and well maintained park. My daughter also met Minnie with a five or ten minute wait.
Ten years ago this park felt in pretty bad shape and in need of quite a bit of visual maintenance but it felt to me like it‘s had a complete 180. I know it received a lot of love in terms of refurbishment for the 25th five years ago and that seems to have continued. I don’t know whether to feel hopeful that things could change at WDW (although a different beast and obviously under new management) or depressed that my beloved WDW may never be as relaxing and beautiful and fun again.
We‘re visiting WDW next month (second time since introduction of Genie+) and it may be we stick with DLP (closer, we’re in the UK) and try DLR, with our Florida trips sticking to just Uni for a while if we come away feeling dissatisfied like we did in December because of the stress of Genie+, constant planning, park hopping rules and the poor upkeep of the parks and rides etc.