Low crowd trends? Is this true?

[71jason]

Sentinel's Disney beat reporter has picked up on this as well:

http://thedailydisney.com/blog/2010/07/is-disney-world-quieter-than-usual-this-summer/

 

[Christi22222]

Disney must be doing great business ... just look at all the discounts that are not being offered now and right on through the week before Christmas ... oh wait, oops, they are offering massive discounts ... so, nevermind.

I am sure the parks are packed (because perceptions, especially non-educated ones, are so often reality!)

Hi '74! As much as I enjoy your sarcasm , I was wondering if you have any insider info on this? Any official perspective you are aware of and can share? Any clues as to possible explanations? The obvious "sucky economy" explanation should have kicked in last year. I'll even take a little pontificating if you would prefer. Let's have it. :animwink:

 

[Christi22222]

Sentinel's Disney beat reporter has picked up on this as well:

http://thedailydisney.com/blog/2010/07/is-disney-world-quieter-than-usual-this-summer/

Goodness, do they relay our discussions verbatim?!? Or is our discussion that generic? Weird.

 

[floridabill]

Free dining!!!

It's free dining!! it is always like this with free dining people move there vacations for free dining. And now that have even more dates to choose because it has been extended into december. We were on a waiting list for the beach club for the end of july cause it was all booked, and soon as free dining was offered we got a room. i believe that that is part of the issue IMO. they probably did it for a reason, figuring they would take a little hit now but by giving free dining for holiday months people will spend more.

 

[71jason]

IMO. they probably did it for a reason, figuring they would take a little hit now but by giving free dining for holiday months people will spend more.

So people will spend more when they don't have to pay for meals? If anything, TDO takes a bigger hit with free dining during the holidays--they lose out on the price of meals PLUS that holiday surcharge that they claimed they needed because restaurants were just too gosh-dang popular during the holiday season.

Unheard of discounts during the holidays = Disney taking a hit. There's no other way to spin it.

 

[the-reason14]

Mgm was pretty much dead last night. I think it was because they weren't showing fantasmic! I pretty much walked on to tsm about 5 minutes before the park closed. Usually the line is still long, so I was suprised to see it so dead. ToT also was really short, huge contrast to how it was a few nights ago. I guess fantasmic! Is just that populer.

 

[LudwigVonDrake]

I just got back from 10 days at WDW and Space Mountain was consistently between 70-100 minutes the whole week. Buzz was 20-30 minutes, the line for Pirates was in queues that wound around the "lobby" area before going into both indoor queues on several occasions, I waited 70 minutes for Splash Mountain last Monday night, and yesterday on my last day Haunted Mansion was 30 minutes and Philharmagic's line was out of the building. Even Small World yesterday was at 20 minutes!

Tower of Terror was 30-40 minutes, Rock n' Roller coaster was usually at 60 minutes, and Toy Story Mania was just insane.

I thought the lines were manageable for the first few days but it just got got more and crowded as my trip went on. The tour groups were in full force. It rained one day for about two hours other than that, NOTHING!

Thank God for extra magic hours as it enabled me to ride Space Mountain multiple times including once at 3am

 

[disneyrcks]

How long are the tour groups usually there for? We are heading down August 8th and are wondering if we will hit any of them? We were there in August of last year so we will try to observe and compare crowds, etc. while we are there

 

[jrlbc06]

Thank God for extra magic hours as it enabled me to ride Space Mountain multiple times including once at 3am

I'm jealous! We went to MK Extra Magic Hours last week and the line for Space Mountain was still 60 minutes at 2:45 AM.

And the tour groups were obnoxious in that there were so many of them. Everywhere we went we saw those freaking flags. And they totally ruined our ride on Spaceship Earth by taking pictures the entire time. Honestly. Like 40 cameras going off around us the whole time. It was like the whole ride was taking place in a lightning storm.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Disney must be doing great business ... just look at all the discounts that are not being offered now and right on through the week before Christmas ... oh wait, oops, they are offering massive discounts ... so, nevermind.

Availability is quite limited.

 

[Duckberg]

I just got back from 10 days at WDW and Space Mountain was consistently between 70-100 minutes the whole week. Buzz was 20-30 minutes, the line for Pirates was in queues that wound around the "lobby" area before going into both indoor queues on several occasions, I waited 70 minutes for Splash Mountain last Monday night, and yesterday on my last day Haunted Mansion was 30 minutes and Philharmagic's line was out of the building. Even Small World yesterday was at 20 minutes!

Tower of Terror was 30-40 minutes, Rock n' Roller coaster was usually at 60 minutes, and Toy Story Mania was just insane.

I thought the lines were manageable for the first few days but it just got got more and crowded as my trip went on. The tour groups were in full force. It rained one day for about two hours other than that, NOTHING!

Thank God for extra magic hours as it enabled me to ride Space Mountain multiple times including once at 3am

Always enjoy on the scene reports! Duckberg :sohappy:

 

[cslafferty]

So people will spend more when they don't have to pay for meals? If anything, TDO takes a bigger hit with free dining during the holidays--they lose out on the price of meals PLUS that holiday surcharge that they claimed they needed because restaurants were just too gosh-dang popular during the holiday season.

Unheard of discounts during the holidays = Disney taking a hit. There's no other way to spin it.

IMO the free dining promo is the deciding factor to those families who are on the fence for affording a WDW vacation or not. For us Disney die-hards who plan trips to the World annually regardless, the DDP is a nice "bonus" (or not, depending on how you look at it!). But, for everyone else, promos like DDP are what they need to make those reservations, especially in today's economy. I had already scheduled my vaca for Aug 16-21 before they announced free dining, so I was pleasantly surprised at the money I was going to save. But, after reading about how the parks have been less crowded than usual, I am afraid that many other people waited to schedule their summer vacations for the same week to take advantage of the DDP while most kids are still out of school. We are bracing ourselves for big crowds that week!

 

[parkgoer]

2 nights ago magic kingdom was busy enough to open the backstage area in tomorrowland to assist guest leaving the park...

 

[CaptainJackNO]

Guys,
The economy is bad and credit card companies have tightened their belts considerably. Expect this year to see signs of the recession as credit card lenders have tightened the noose and expendable cash dwindles. Unfortunate, but as a previous poster stated, Dining is severely restricted. Not everyone gets that deal. There are a number of rooms available for free dining and once they are gone, the deal is gone. Not as widespread as once was.
Have a magical day!!:wave:

 

[Minnie17]

I have just recently come back from my stay in orlando! I was in florida over the july 4th weekend.... We went to the Magic Kingdom on Saturday July 3rd and expected it to be very very busy... but we found it was completely dead...
Without any fast passes we went on everything by about 4pm and the longest queue of the day was 20 mins for Space mountain!:veryconfu

Is that normal for a holiday weekend? I doubt it!!

 

[wdwmagic]

I have just recently come back from my stay in orlando! I was in florida over the july 4th weekend.... We went to the Magic Kingdom on Saturday July 3rd and expected it to be very very busy... but we found it was completely dead...
Without any fast passes we went on everything by about 4pm and the longest queue of the day was 20 mins for Space mountain!:veryconfu

Is that normal for a holiday weekend? I doubt it!!

Magic Kingdom hit a phased closing on July 4. So being in the park on the 4th would not have been pretty. The extremely bad weather on the 4th weekend would have had a large impact on attendance for many Floridians and those who had a choice of when to go to the parks.

 

[Christi22222]

I am shamelessly bumping my own thread in the hopes that we get a bit more anecdotal crowd info as folks return from summer trips and report. I'll still take factual or insider info as well! I'm just very curious to track where things are headed at the world this summer. Especially with the economy doing fake outs and Harry Potter getting an apparently bigger draw than I anticipated.

 

[unkadug]

nevermind