News Park attendance showing significant softness heading into the Fall 2018

[monothingie]

I can concur with the OP.

You think this means more hard ticket items and price increases coming down the pike for the Winter? You know Double down on the strategy that help put them into this situation. They've already expanded and raised the price of Disney After Hours, and I'm guessing the seasonal multi-day tickets are almost ready to be revealed.

 

[Magic Feather]

General causes (AFAIK):
-Food and Wine doesn't pack the punch it used to. It takes Epcot's attendance numbers from abysmal to decent.
-Everyone is/was underwhelmed by TSL, GP included. Only some people in corporate on funny gas thought it would have that much pull.
-The whole Star Wars thing. It was pretty inevitable.
-The new "cool" park's new additions being bad
-Halloween at MK screwing up vacation schedules

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

Food and Wine is especially bad, it's not "normal" theme park markups. If I walk into Cosmic Ray's with $15, I'm going to leave absolutely stuffed. If I walk into Flame Tree BBQ with $15, I'm going to be pretty full with a fairly high-quality meal. If I visit F&W kiosks with $15, I'm going to still be super hungry.

The quality of most food booth fare is far above a burger or BBQ, IMO. Same would be true if you compare Cosmic Ray's and Tiffins dollar for dollar -- you'd be full with a few bucks at the former and starving at the latter.

 

[monothingie]

So gotta ask.... REGARDLESS of attendance NUMBERS (gross number of guests) - how is the NET PROFIT looking?
EVERYONE complains about crowds, then has a fit when prices rise, to reduce CROWDS.

GROSS attendance is garbage. "It's the INCOME, stupid". You know, that thing every OTHER Corporation values. The thing called the "bottom line".

So - two extreme choices:

1) NO Gate Fee.... you can guess what will happen.
2) Gate fee of $300 per person per day.... you can guess what will happen.

Between these two extremes? WDW has many choices. I don't work for them.... gonna let 'em balance a high demand resource in order to maximize profit - not the same as letting the entire planet in.

All personal opinion - I'm not necessarily right, no one else is necessarily wrong.

I think the metric that is probably most concerning is not the attendance, but guest spending. Disney for the past couple of years has tried to regulate attendance through price. I don't think they really care as much about how packed the parks are so long as the people there are spending money. It looks as though a combination of factors, chief among them being a perceived lack of value due to exorbitant prices has created a tipping point. Unfortunately, I think their only response will be a short term strategy of cutting and skimping hoping that it holds through the next couple of quarterly reports and is saved by Star Wars in 2019.

Probably the most notable metric of how bad it is, will be comparing the number of holiday parties that sell out versus previous years.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The quality of most food booth fare is far above a burger or BBQ, IMO. Same would be true if you compare Cosmic Ray's and Tiffins dollar for dollar -- you'd be full with a few bucks at the former and starving at the latter.

Agree to disagree I suppose. To me, the food and wine items stand out in terms of excellent variety, but I don't think the quality is any better than any other QS F&B.

For what it's worth, I was referring to Cosmic Ray's half chicken dinner with green beans and mashed potatoes, not burger and fries.

 

[Princess Leia]

-The new "cool" park's new additions being bad

Can you elaborate on this one? The new things that I can remember reading about were the Guardians Epcot show, Donald taking over Dinoland, Toy Story Land, and the Incredibles taking over Tomorrowland.

 

[Clamman73]

LOL...Soarin says 10 minutes...that's walk-on...I'm hoping my trip this fall is quiet compared to the last previous three years or so.

 

[DarleneBurrows]

Hoping it's dead. Just booked November 1.

Will be canceling if Star Wars opens early. Don't want to be anywhere near Orlando for that zoo.

Will locals using annual passes be allowed to go during the Star Wars opening? Hope not, they will cause the majority of the crowd levels.

 

[erasure fan1]

That's actually a good one!

I'll toss another out there. Hotels keep getting more and more expensive, people have already been to the parks multiple times and don't feel the need to do everything anymore. With the amount of money it's taking to go on a trip, people are spending more time at the hotels and less time at the parks in an effort to get more of their money's worth from the hotel. After all, if you're paying for the Disney hotel, you should enjoy the hotel, right? My (extended) family has been doing this more and more. They went from buying seven day park hopper tickets to three days, still staying at the resort seven days.

3 of my last 4 vacations have been spent just using points to stay at the resort and NEVER setting foot in a park. And I'm guessing there are more of us than some would care to admit.

 

[YDdraigGoch]

LOL...Soarin says 10 minutes...that's walk-on...I'm hoping my trip this fall is quiet compared to the last previous three years or so.

Just got back to our room after spending a few hours at Epcot today. Soarin was indeed a walk-on when we road at around 14:30; the FP lane (which we used) and the stand-by line were empty where they both merge. I happened to comment to the wife it is rare that a Soarin FP is a waste!

We spent the last 3 hours of regular opening at MK on a party night (the 09/07) and IASW, HM, BTM, SM & Buzz were all a walk-on!

Wait times seem lower but we've also noticed the wait times seem to be shorter than posted.

 

[YDdraigGoch]

3 of my last 4 vacations have been spent just using points to stay at the resort and NEVER setting foot in a park. And I'm guessing there are more of us than some would care to admit.

The wife wants to do this on our next trip and opt for a single halloween party instead.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Idk about December, but through October they are pushing heavy discounts. Even more so for AP.

@Kingdom Konsultant any thoughts?

I wont presume to answer for the Boss but I will tell you that there are several time frame in the fall that are selling out at many resorts onsite. Marie

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

Idk about December, but through October they are pushing heavy discounts. Even more so for AP.

@Kingdom Konsultant any thoughts?

What dates are you looking at?

Pam

 

[monothingie]

What dates are you looking at?

Pam

Person I was quoting was having difficulty with availability in December.

 

[Kingdom Konsultant]

Person I was quoting was having difficulty with availability in December.

I know December was limited when the last discounted offer came out. Keep trying though since I do see rooms added at later dates a lot.

Pam

 

[TP2000]

Word from inside the park is that there are signs of some significant slowdown in attendance this month.

Alarm bells are beginning to sound, with various areas being asked to trim back labor and begin cost saving measures.

For those of you who may not be regular readers, this isn't entirely new, and has occurred several times over the last couple of years.

Which is even weirder because the economy is booming and summer travel reached a new record high the past four months. https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/airlines-say-booming-us-economy-led-to-record-summer-travel

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...ekend-cap-record-setting-summer-travel-season

 

[erasure fan1]

The wife wants to do this on our next trip and opt for a single halloween party instead.

I'll tell you what, our last stay was 3 days at the Poly and I have NO regrets not doing a park. Hanging out at the pool and riding the monorail, visiting other resorts... was fantastic. Same thing when we did that at the beach club.

 

[SSH]

Food and Wine is especially bad, it's not "normal" theme park markups. If I walk into Cosmic Ray's with $15, I'm going to leave absolutely stuffed. If I walk into Flame Tree BBQ with $15, I'm going to be pretty full with a fairly high-quality meal. If I visit F&W kiosks with $15, I'm going to still be super hungry.

don't even get me started on the barbie doll sized drinks. I'm not there to get wasted, but seriously, for what they're charging, pour me a DRINK. And I'm from a HCOL where a cocktail runs $12-15 on average, with some higher. But at least they're normal sized.

 

[trainplane3]

Is this such a bad thing? There were times in the last 5 years when Disney was “too crowded.” A 10-15% rollback in attendance wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing so long as those attending the parks are the right people that spend money and in the parks. I’d argue that Disney could see flat to slightly up renevues if they ensure the right guests are attending the parks.

The bad is when they start pulling staffing which then affects rides. Example, Soarin' might be a 20 minute wait today with 3 theaters but if they pull staffing back then they might be only running 2 or even 1 theater. Your wait might be near an hour because of that.

They did a similar move at the beginning of this year, crowds surged unexpectedly, and wait times got terrible. I'd hope they don't pull anything as drastic as then.

 

[DisneyGigi]

Just got back to our room after spending a few hours at Epcot today. Soarin was indeed a walk-on when we road at around 14:30; the FP lane (which we used) and the stand-by line were empty where they both merge. I happened to comment to the wife it is rare that a Soarin FP is a waste!

We spent the last 3 hours of regular opening at MK on a party night (the 09/07) and IASW, HM, BTM, SM & Buzz were all a walk-on!

Wait times seem lower but we've also noticed the wait times seem to be shorter than posted.

Wait times were definitely lower than posted all week for us.