Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Crowds will be heavier this month...especially thurs-Monday...”wrap around weekends”. 3-4 day weekend for many schools next week too
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News Park attendance showing significant softness heading into the Fall 2018
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Crowds will be heavier this month...especially thurs-Monday...”wrap around weekends”. 3-4 day weekend for many schools next week too
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
MickeyMinnieMom
Well-Known Member
Thx.
And yes -- about the prices -- I wasn't clear. I was thinking a little wider, about Disney being more malleable as a company with its offerings and its evolving (some might say devolving!) brand. Disney is still listed in many top 10 lists of things like "most loved global brands" -- it's still going strong. Can that change? Sure. Has it? Doesn't seem to have yet. That suggests to me that it still has staying power. The more diversified the company gets, the more levers it can pull across SBUs to adjust to a changing leisure spending landscape.
I think that in an Armageddon scenario they'd have to show extreme flexility wrt decreasing prices, but agree that they have not faced that imperative outside of deep recessions/downturns -- and their reductions have come not in terms of reducing posted ticket prices as we know, but in offering myriad discounts which decrease the effective price (and making cuts in offerings, of course, that they built back up later). But where they have faced that shorter-term downturn pressure, it's hard to argue that they did not adjust and bounce back quite successfully.
LSLS
Well-Known Member
I don't know. Right now (1:30 on Tuesday), I see 10 minutes Pirates, 10 minutes Splash, 10 minutes Big thunder, 15 minute ToT, 20 for Everest, 20 for Safari, 20 for Space, 30 for Soarin, 45 for Peter Pan, 55 for FoP.
That's a big drop from this morning. But then again, it's freaking hot in Orlando right now... feels like 93.
winstongator
Well-Known Member
Yes. Average.
winstongator
Well-Known Member
How would you look at it? I was approximating. What would you estimate DHS attendance to be in 2020?
winstongator
Well-Known Member
I'll be at that park a couple times over the next 2 months.
Geekza - This is a very well thought out analysis and I thank you for the time you took to develop it.
I have come to believe that the Disney Company of 2018 is not focused on improving the long term outlook for any of the parks. They have spent minimal ( in big corporate terms) money to update any of the US parks. the corporation sees the parks as a cash register that is to be used as long as possible while they develop a way to monetize eyeballs looking at the 5 inch screens in our hands. The growth is in online entertainment and not in physical bodies buying mouse ears. If conditions and park experience were truly important to corporate then we would not have reached the current situation -where many ( Note - I say many but not all) long time fans see less and less value in the parks - would not have been allowed to occur. There would be additional capacity being built in both new gates or new experiences in the existing parks. Disney has for some reason made a decision that the current size and capacity in Orlando is all they wish to have and support. All of the new construction is not adding significant capacity to a physical plant that is already filled to the point of being uncomfortable for the "guests"on a majority of the days each year. While the company tries to sell each day as many times as possible. I am of the opinion that they are building parks overseas in order to introduce their IP's to new audiences that did not grow up watching the World Of Disney. If they could think of another way to do this then they would not spend the money on anything like a park today. If Walt had never built a park the current corporate mindset would never build a park in California, Florida, Paris, China or the moon.
I would not be surprised to see in 10 years or so that Disney decides to split the company into a "Park Company" and "Everything Else they want to keep Company" saying that the demands of the two businesses are so different that a single management team cannot adequately address them. The synergies of having these different segments are becoming less everyday. A Guardians Coaster in Orlando is not going to sell more Groot toys in Chicago. It's more profitable to have you order toys by clicking on them than it is to have you carry them out of a store.
I have come to believe that the Disney Company of 2018 is not focused on improving the long term outlook for any of the parks. They have spent minimal ( in big corporate terms) money to update any of the US parks. the corporation sees the parks as a cash register that is to be used as long as possible while they develop a way to monetize eyeballs looking at the 5 inch screens in our hands. The growth is in online entertainment and not in physical bodies buying mouse ears. If conditions and park experience were truly important to corporate then we would not have reached the current situation -where many ( Note - I say many but not all) long time fans see less and less value in the parks - would not have been allowed to occur. There would be additional capacity being built in both new gates or new experiences in the existing parks. Disney has for some reason made a decision that the current size and capacity in Orlando is all they wish to have and support. All of the new construction is not adding significant capacity to a physical plant that is already filled to the point of being uncomfortable for the "guests"on a majority of the days each year. While the company tries to sell each day as many times as possible. I am of the opinion that they are building parks overseas in order to introduce their IP's to new audiences that did not grow up watching the World Of Disney. If they could think of another way to do this then they would not spend the money on anything like a park today. If Walt had never built a park the current corporate mindset would never build a park in California, Florida, Paris, China or the moon.
I would not be surprised to see in 10 years or so that Disney decides to split the company into a "Park Company" and "Everything Else they want to keep Company" saying that the demands of the two businesses are so different that a single management team cannot adequately address them. The synergies of having these different segments are becoming less everyday. A Guardians Coaster in Orlando is not going to sell more Groot toys in Chicago. It's more profitable to have you order toys by clicking on them than it is to have you carry them out of a store.
Scuttle
Well-Known Member
Side note.. I was at Disneyland last week for 12 hours straight and didn’t sweat once. What a difference to leave after all day and not smell my butt on the ride home.
Sorry, I went off track there a bit. Smell is one hell of a memory trigger.
geekza
Well-Known Member
You associate your WDW memories with the smell of your butt?
Tony the Tigger
Well-Known Member
There's a Visa Cardholder room discount?
I know about the merch and dining discounts, but never heard of the room discount.
We stayed at Yacht Club about 3 weeks ago and both the FL Resident and AP rates were the same $290, though.
I look at it like this:
WDW, like Disney animated films, is aiming for more than one audience at a time. Parents watching Finding Nemo may get a joke their kids don't get.
So in addition to catering to different income levels, they are catering to different experience levels.
People going for the first time, or only time, may spend quite enough on their room, tickets, and food.
In our case, we "graduated" to different experiences. Once you have an AP and you're going several times a year, "the basics" are kind of a given, so you look for "upcharge" experiences like the tours, the special dining, etc.
Even Food & Wine will have the booths for the newbies (and whoever else) but now we focus more on the F&W luncheons. Eventually I'd like to go more for the other special F&W limited dining events, but we'd have to line up our trip with the dates and obviously pay more.
I don't have to do everything every time. This keeps the experiences fresh!
Clamman73
Well-Known Member
It's a 35% discount for Visa card holders....I haven't seen a Disney Visa card discount for a room only for some years though...maybe goes along with the "softness" of attendance.
Lensman
Well-Known Member
This is one of the most thoughtful and detailed posts in this thread, and gets to something that I wanted to contribute. There's the short-term softness and there's the medium term annual attendance trends, but it's always struck me that Disney's long-term strategic marketing attempts to have identify Disney as part of who they are - to have being "Disney" people as part of their identity. And so all of the things I've emboldened in @geekza's post above could be even more successful in creating people who identify as "Disney people" than they were to the Wonderful World of Disney generation if Disney successfully executed this strategic marketing. And that's still an open question. I'm not even sure they do it and only an insider could tell us, I suppose.
As I look at the major IP that Disney have purchased over recent years, I see them buying property that has succeeded in creating characters who we deeply identify with - or at least want to. Through this, they increase the number of people who identify as Disney. Who didn't want to be Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia at some point? But more to the point, there's someone out there who saw themselves in Spiderman or wanted to see themselves in Captain America.
You can even see another aspect of this back in the '90s in the expansion of the resort system. In making each new resort so distinctive and unique, they got people to not only identify as Disney people, and as WDW people, but as Port Orleans French Quarter people. I think they had the roots of this when the Polynesian Resort people got created in the '70s.
From this perspective, their biggest strategic mistake was in not acceding to whatever creative control Rowling wanted in order to obtain the park rights to HP. The identity draw from that property will empower generations of kids and young adults. (Though I do see how from a financial standpoint that it was more valuable to Universal than to Disney) But this is another story.
I'll end with a funny property - Hello Kitty. Somehow, Hello Kitty has been successful enough in Japan to have resulted in this. (And it's not just the outside!) How do they do it?
By Rsa [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons
MickeyMinnieMom
Well-Known Member
Agree on all of this! The dreaded upcharge events are a definite focus of our trips. We see every trip as visiting “old friends” every time (Haunted Mansion, Main St, etc) AND doing something new every time. And often that something new is a new attraction or show as well — but the add-ons are a huge draw for us.
eddie104
Well-Known Member
See that is where people confuse Disney for Six Flags or Cedar Fair which needs to constantly build attractions to keep attendance. I agree Disney needs to be continuously building good rides for people to enjoy. But a long time ago Dis figured out that even with prices increasing people will still come. Because of the atmosphere and other entertainment they offer they provide something regional parks frankly can’t afford or dream of offering to the quality set by Dis.
Horizons '83
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
They have had the room only discount at least the last 3 years I have had the card. The discount only is worth having the card. No annual fee, and I really only use it to book the initial package/room.
trainplane3
Well-Known Member
Japan's interesting to me just because of they can market something to the masses. They can slap a IP on something and market the ever living crap out of it and be successful because it's usually something really unique. I think Star Wars is known over there but not to the same level it is in the US even though Disney pumps $$ into marketing campaigns around the world.
Another fun train thing too:
Something barely known about in the US had a dedicated bullet train as well and it's a 20 year old series (plus many other things). And like the Hello Kitty train, it was a fully themed experience. It actually ended its' running a couple months ago.
Another point is anything with a giant robot catches on.... (but Evas aren't robots...)
https://kotaku.com/the-evangelion-bullet-train-looks-truly-magnificent-in-1737292763
Daily figures
For example I was at Epcot recently at there were approximately 24,000 guests left in the park by early evening. If that were every day it’d be 8.7 million a year which we know is incorrect.
sorry, got distracted. Talking about capacity and crowds it’s more applicable to look at daily attendance figures. Which obviously aren’t common knowledge.
For example I was at Epcot recently at there were approximately 24,000 guests left in the park by early evening. If that were every day it’d be 8.7 million a year which we know is incorrect.
geekza
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your kind comments. I think that there are a lot of folks around here who think that, because some of us are critical of the current company, we obviously hate everything having to do with Disney. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I'm critical because I care about a place that has had a tremendous positive impact on my life, from the time I was a small child. I've seen it at its best and, like other long-time visitors, know what a truly unique and special place it has been and could be again. I have no problem with Disney making money. I want them to make money so that a place like WDW can endure and continue to enthrall subsequent generations with its magic. If I didn't believe that the right management decisions could ensure WDW's continued success and, yes, growth and evolution, I wouldn't bother. I may have no direct power over whether or not this happens, but pointing out observations and experiences in support of raising guest expectations can be, I believe, useful and constructive.