Lowest Attendance ever?

mergatroid

mergatroid

Well-Known Member
Mrs M and I were due to fly out on September 12th 2001 to get engaged in Orlando. Our flight from the UK was obviously cancelled though we got one of the first few flights a few day later when flying resumed. Those first few days that year were the quietest I'd ever seen Disney or have since.

One of the things I'll never forget was visiing The American Adventure in world showcase that year. Before the show itself in the holding area they have a choir who sing to entertain as I'm sure many of you know. When they sang 'America the Beautiful' every guest joined in which is something I've never seen before or since. It was so very moving and patriotic and is something I'll never forget just like watching the Queen's Guards performing the American national anthem outside Buckingham Palace on September 12th 2001 on the news. Even though we're British Mrs M (who wasn't Mrs M back then) and I bought matching American flag t-shirts that year to wear after being so moved by that performance that day.
 
draybook

draybook

Well-Known Member
Cosmic Commando said:
I'd say immediately after September 11th would be the best bet for WDW. In case you don't remember (and it's scary that we can have intelligent conversation now with those that don't!), those were just scary, bad times. I'm sure most people who were there at the time finished their trips, but I wouldn't be surprised if a significant number of people just left WDW early and drove home on/right after 9/11.
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Agreed. My wife and I were in Pigeon Forge on our honemoon and she decided that we needed to leave 2 days early to get home to the kids(yes we had the kids first). Her fears were also prompted by reports of price gouging on gas, and we only had about $25 for gas. Of course this was back when gas was barely over a buck.
 
bgraham34

bgraham34

Well-Known Member
miles1 said:
I'm no authority, but I'd guess in recent times it was in the first few weeks after 9/11. We were at the world about 2 weeks after it and I can remember standing in Future World by myself with "PUSH" the trashcan. It scared the bejeepers out of me when it started talking.
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Now I was there a week after the attacks and the waits for the rides never exceeded 15 minutes. When I went again a few months later in January I never waited more than 5 minutes.
 
DisneyJunkie

DisneyJunkie

Well-Known Member
Actually, immediately following 9/11 is probably the lowest attendance time. We had driven down to Florida to a friend's house for a day or two (and 9/11 had just happened a day or two before) and we weren't even sure the parks would reopen for our stay, but they did. That week, it was almost unreal how few people were there. Granted, it was a horrible time because of what just happened, but there were NO crowds to worry about at all.
 
afar28

afar28

Well-Known Member
Britt said:
I would definitely agree with 9/11...It would be interesting to find out for sure.

I wonder what people did when they were already there....I can't imagine being able/wanting to be there at all during that time.
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Parks were shut down after the towers fell.
 
Britt

Britt

Well-Known Member
I've been reading articles about it this morning and it just sounds so sad. It was evacuated and people were kept at the resorts. WDW did the best they could! Pools were open later, characters visited the resorts and they really tried to keep it "fun" despite what was going on. They gave everyone replacement tickets
 
Clever Name

Clever Name

Well-Known Member
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WDW was like a ghost town after 9/11. There were more CM's in the parks and the resorts than there were guests. The Mickey Mouse American Flag pin shown above sold out in all WDW locations. Both CM's and the few guests that remained wanted those pins. It just so happened that a member of my party had six of those pins. She retained one pin for herself and traded the five other pins for some other rare and valuable pins.

Being in WDW with such low crowds was really not much fun but we did get to talk with a lot of CM's.
 
luv

luv

Well-Known Member
Bob Saget said:
Hurricane Floyd was about to hit. The parks were closed the following day, first time since opening in 1971.
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A day the park was closed would mark the lowest attendance.

Since it was open for such a short time on 9/11, that's why my mind jumped there. But obviously CLOSED will have less attendance that "open for a short time."

We have a winner. :)

Did they close for Charley, too?
 
Clever Name

Clever Name

Well-Known Member
luv said:
A day the park was closed would mark the lowest attendance.

Since it was open for such a short time on 9/11, that's why my mind jumped there. But obviously CLOSED will have less attendance that "open for a short time."

We have a winner. :)

Did they close for Charley, too?
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A day the park was closed would mark no attendance. No attendance is not the same as low attendance. Sorry, but no winner.

Also during the hurricanes there were still many people in the various resorts. After 9/11 the resorts were as vacant as the parks for at least a few weeks. People were afraid.
 
luv

luv

Well-Known Member
Clever Name said:
A day the park was closed would mark no attendance. No attendance is not the same as low attendance. Sorry, but no winner.

Also during the hurricanes there were still many people in the various resorts. After 9/11 the resorts were as vacant as the parks for at least a few weeks. People were afraid.
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You can't have lower attendance than NONE, lol.

If you prefer to go with 1000 people in the park as being lower than 0, I will not argue it further.

But 0 will always be lower than 1, 100 or 1000.
 
Clever Name

Clever Name

Well-Known Member
luv said:
You can't have lower attendance than NONE, lol.

If you prefer to go with 1000 people in the park as being lower than 0, I will not argue it further.

But 0 will always be lower than 1, 100 or 1000.
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You can't have any attendance if the parks are closed. They are not open for business. There is no argument here. You're also forgetting all those people in the resorts.
 

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