MK Daily Attendance

PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Earlier today I was walking around MK (5pm-ish) and found lines of 35-40 minutes for everything I wanted to go on. It felt crowded. It was unpleasant and not enjoyable one bit. Naturally, I left, but it got me wondering about historical crowd levels at the MK.

Have the lines gotten longer in the past 20 years? Yes, with one year's exception. 1991. I have no idea why 18 million people went to Magic Kingdom (MK's 20th) but that was the estimate.

Draw whatever conclusions you want but in the last annual report it had some attendance growth for 2012 but those numbers arent out yet from TEA. Observationally, its been damn busy in the past 3 weeks and I don't see that really slowing down, maybe for the final 2 weeks of April but I think the crowds are here to stay.

I'd love to compare this data with actual MK guest capacity as rides have opened/closed/rehabs/etc. Not sure what this translates into for average wait times, only Len/TouringPlans studied that. I'd love to know what the average wait time for Pirates was in 1994 was versus what we see today.

My observation: It keeps getting busier while we keep getting less for our money.

So Here's the past 20 years worth of attendance estimates (Source TEA or Amusement Business) as well as average daily attendance for the Magic Kingdom:

2011 = 17.1million or 47k/day (46,849)
2010 = 16.9 million or 46k/day (46,301)
2009 = 17.2 million or 47k/day (47,123)
2008 = 17.0 million or 46k/day (46,448) *366 days
2007 = 17.0 million or 46k/day (46,575)
2006 = 16.6 million or 45k/day (45,479)
2005 = 16.2 million or 44k/day (44,383)
2004 = 15.1 million or 41k/day (41,256) *366 days
2003 = 14.04 million or 38k/day (38,465)
2002 = 14 million or or 38k/day (38,356)
2001 = 14.7 million or 40k/day (40,273)
2000 = 15.4 million or 42k/day (42,076) *366 days
1999 = 15.2 million or 41k/day (41,643)
1998 = 15.64 million or 43k/day (42,849)
1997 = 17.0 million or 46k/day (46,575)
1996 = 13.8 million or 37k/day (37,704) *366 days
1995 = 12.9 million or 35k/day (35,342)
1994 = 11.2 million or 31k/day (30,684)
1993 = 12.0 million or 33k/day (32,876)
1992 = 11.5 million or 31k/day (31,420) *366 days
1991 = 18.0 million or 49k/day (49,315)
 
AndyS2992

AndyS2992

Well-Known Member
This is the reason why they keep upping the price. It is for crowd control measures as the more expensive it is the less people (especially poor people) will be put off coming since it is already too crowded. If you think that a day at the Magic Kindom only cost $20 the attendence level would be about 50 Million people per year but ofcourse this would not be practical.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Andys2992 said:
This is the reason why they keep upping the price. It is for crowd control measures as the more expensive it is the less people (especially poor people) will be put off coming since it is already too crowded. If you think that a day at the Magic Kindom only cost $20 the attendence level would be about 50 Million people per year but ofcourse this would not be practical.
Click to expand...

Nope. It is to increase profit growth to satisfy Wall Street. Because it did not cost $89 dollars/day in 1991, it was $33. Hell, it was $52 the first time i moved here.

But hey, this is an interesting dataset to want to add into the mix. Deb has that data over here.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Bob Saget said:
MK is going to have a jump naturally due to the new FLE. But overall, (minus MK & FLE), this is a slow time for WDW. Take for instance this video showing off the ghost town of DAK Wednesday night (3/6/13). From the 2:00 until end of this video, you will see what a wasteland the park was.
Click to expand...

Historically, Animal Kingdom is slow after dark. DAK was a ghost town after dark on New Years Eve too.

It is nowhere near slow right now.
 
George

George

Liker of Things
Premium Member
Well, I have 3 thoughts. 1) With regards to prices, they have risen much faster than inflation. However, one of the amazing things about prices and Disney is that lowering and raising the price doesn't have quite the impact on crowds you think it should (certainly not a linear impact). My gut tells me they are at a price point where another hike will lower attendance. They may already be there, since there was apparently concerns amongst the bigwigs about the lackage of impact FLE had on attendance. 2) More than any other park, you can luck out with crowds at DAK. We've gone twice over spring break in the last 4 years and twice we've had these 4 hour periods in DAK where there seemed to be no crowds. It was very nice. Very different from the wall of humanity at 7:30am taking the ferry over to MK. 3) The parks don't have quite the capacity they used to. I think that coupled with a subtle societal change has increased lines. I swear when I was younger, there was a MUCH larger group of people who would admire architecture, watch live shows, and take in the atmosphere of a land/area..maybe, we just don't consider that getting the most bang for our buck any more.
 
Mista C

Mista C

Well-Known Member
How times have changed! I remember back in the mid-late 80's and even the early 90's when the first half of December was the sweetest time of the year to go to WDW. My family and I took our anual Christmas trip the first week of December every year and the MK was always a ghost town! With insane crowd levels now being the "new normal" I'm not sure if I'll ever see the Christmas decorations on Main Street again...
 
Glasgow

Glasgow

Well-Known Member
The business model for TWDC must be mind-bogglingly complex. From ticket prices to park capacities, you can only imagine the different test scenarios that they go through. While I certainly don't like paying more to go, I fully understand the supply and demand concept and I'm willing to pay the asking price provided the content is there (ie. value). I think there is not so much a pricing problem but rather a content discrepancy (ok, they are directly related, I know).

The only fix I see in the foreseeable future - 5th gate. How else can you expand existing capacity so quickly and ensure prolonged visitation? Unfortunately I think this would be the proverbial straw that broke the camels back with regards to maintenance and upkeep.
 
B

billDozer

Active Member
they have been expanding pretty much every park by alot in the last 20 years while attendance has gone up each park's capacity has gone up aswell i think we can only look at attendance rising as the crowds getting worse from 2005 on because AK finally had people going because of everest and there wasnt another huge park busting expansion until new fantasyland in 2012 and attendance only increased 2000 people a day which is not a horrible thing to avoid when you think that pretty much every major attraction can put that through in an hour by itself
 
D

DisneyJoe

Well-Known Member
PhotoDave219 said:
Earlier today I was walking around MK (5pm-ish) and found lines of 35-40 minutes for everything I wanted to go on. It felt crowded.
Click to expand...

TouringPlans.com put yesterday in MK at a 4.2, and listed as the Park to Avoid, probably mostly due to it being an morning EMH.

The same Thursday last year was a 6.5.

I don't consider 35-40 minutes at 5pm in early March to be that bad.
 
Dads 2 Boys

Dads 2 Boys

Well-Known Member
Glasgow said:
The business model for TWDC must be mind-bogglingly complex. From ticket prices to park capacities, you can only imagine the different test scenarios that they go through. While I certainly don't like paying more to go, I fully understand the supply and demand concept and I'm willing to pay the asking price provided the content is there (ie. value). I think there is not so much a pricing problem but rather a content discrepancy (ok, they are directly related, I know).

The only fix I see in the foreseeable future - 5th gate. How else can you expand existing capacity so quickly and ensure prolonged visitation? Unfortunately I think this would be the proverbial straw that broke the camels back with regards to maintenance and upkeep.
Click to expand...

The only issue with your fix is it takes, 3-4 yrs to build a few attractions now.....it would take 5 to build a park at the pace they are going.
 
shannon12

shannon12

Active Member
I don't know, maybe my memory is not so reliable anymore, but on my couple of childhood trips I can remember standing in line for HOURS for a lot of things. We go when the parks are supposed to be "quieter" and I notice tons of people in the park, but the lines aren't out of hand.
 
HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
I know lines in the 80s seemed to feel longer.

Now for the current crowds....all of the schools in our area start spring break at 12:30pm today. Considering it's a half day...lots of them headed to WDW either yesterday or late Wednesday. I've been getting live updates for over 24 hrs from several friends on spring break there right now.
 
Glasgow

Glasgow

Well-Known Member
Dads 2 Boys said:
The only issue with your fix is it takes, 3-4 yrs to build a few attractions now.....it would take 5 to build a park at the pace they are going.
Click to expand...

Absolutely correct - but FLE and Pixar Place are really only temporary capacity fixes. They need a large scale expansion to absorb crowds. When I say "need", I really mean frequent visitors, like us, "want" an expansion to reduce the crowds to manageable levels again :) All of these intra-park expansions are only a nominal capacity band-aid. I've never been a proponent of a 5th gate but I have to say, based on my last few trips, I'm being squeezed out of my yearly WDW vacation .. literally!!

In addition, the in-park expansions take so long not only because of reduced budget, but also because of reduced park access. If they want to, a new park could be built in 2 years (Epcot, anyone?) if the money was there. Depends upon the overall TDO long term strategy.
 
D

DisneyJoe

Well-Known Member
Question - did the MK seem less crowded when Studios opened and when AK opened? or did MK feel just as crowded?

In other words, did adding another gate relieve the crowds at MK?

Looking at the stats in the first post, perhaps AK did have an effect when it opened in 1998.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
DisneyJoe said:
TouringPlans.com put yesterday in MK at a 4.2, and listed as the Park to Avoid, probably mostly due to it being an morning EMH.

The same Thursday last year was a 6.5.

I don't consider 35-40 minutes at 5pm in early March to be that bad.
Click to expand...

Okay, I need more transparency from Len. What does a 4.2 mean? (Projection was 45k.) What does that translate to in actual people?

You can throw around TP's numbers all you want, but that doesnt mean anything to me until its translated to wait times and crowd numbers.
 

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