Keep in mind, FP+ has not been fully rolled out yet, nor has NG. We don't know the plans in place for day-guests, just what's being speculated on and rumored. The company obviously does want to steer people to on-property rooms, because they have a lot of them, and that's where the cash-cow is. But there is a plan in place for day-guests, as well, and it doesn't do the company any good to ignore or shortchange them. We just don't know the full picture yet.
Oh god. You guys just crossed the line... Haha.
Have you ever realized how inane you sound calling everything junky?
Wow, I must finally be understanding TDO's brain. See here for my theory on NextGen's big impact:
Epcot looking sad for the holidays? Yup. Even my teenagers commented on this during our Black Friday stop at Epcot. We would have spent more time but were too excited to head to Universal to use our $199 Annual Passes!
Hey now.Interesting crock of bull. I guess they should get rid of the park hopper and pools at the resorts while they are at it along with shutting down the restaurants at the resorts so people will be forced to spend all day in the parks since that is when the average guest should be there. I also suppose That every attraction will be open the entire day instead of shutting down early. The idea that the company can't manage 9:00am - 1:00am and still keep everything working is a complete joke. For years, this was the normal everyday hours in the summer. All the attractions were maintained and open from open to close. Yes, the parks closed earlier in the off-season. But, there was also plenty of entertainment in the resorts in the evening. Live music and dinner shows were available at the Contemporary, Polynesian and Ft Wilderness. Over the years the non-park options at night grew. I was never really bothered if the parks closed at 9:00PM. I'd spend my evening enjoying Disney entertainment over at Pleasure Island. It filled that night time need for people who are more inclined to enjoy things at night.
Of course, as they expanded the later hours, they cannibalized a lot of the night time options. Entertainment in the resorts got cut back. Last call in the lounges got earlier and earlier. They stopped investing in PI creating the double whammy of reducing the guests, since they were in the parks, a the same time that they eliminated a lot of the draws from the entertainment side or just allowed them to get stale by no longer refreshing them and cutting them (I. E. the slow painfulness of the nightly NYE show from when it started to when it ended years too late). Now, PI is not even an option.
On property rooms also grew from about 1,000 or so plus campgrounds back in the 70's to over 27K now. Even assuming 80% capacity and 2 people per room, a very conservative number, you have 43K people on property every night. The boom in constructing hotel rooms on property directly added to the pressure of needing to have something for these people to do. That 27K doesn't even include Art of Animation. That probably added another 4K+ rooms to the portfolio. You have added all these rooms on property but nothing to entertain them when the parks close early and charge a premium for the rooms. The parks have to stay open later because WDW created its own built in and trapped audience with the idea of keeping them on-property. If you are going to do that, you have to provide them with entertainment to justify the cost. This is why the parks are open later now. They can get rid of evening EMH all they want but they still have a problem of having nothing to do after 10:00PM if all the parks are closed. I never saw EMH as an entitlement but as a necessary cost of continuing to grow the on-property customer base. What is Disney going to do to keep the people entertained after 9:00 PM and all the parks are closed? Free movies by the pool only goes so far. Why do you think Disney is so desperate to add Avatar to DAK? They need it to stay open later. This isn't the WDW of the 1980's that could roll things up at 9:00PM. The average customer is not a single kind of person. You have over 40K people on property expecting value for their dollars and not everyone of them is a morning person.
PS: Want to cut hours? Open the park later on some days and keep it open later. Let people sleep in and have a nice breakfast. Like I said, not everyone is a morning person.
First, the park being open 8a-12m/1a on a regular basis alongside staffing cutbacks is what leads to the park being in the condition it is today. There was a lot longer period of time that the parks were NOT open from 8a-12m/1a, and that was for good reason. I can tell you without doubt the parks need more maintenance time than they are getting, or have been getting for a long time. Whether you believe that or not is up to you. Up until the 90s, the parks were not open nearly as much as they have been the past 15 years. The maintenance depts had a lot more people then as well. Cut those people, keep adding to the property, and take away time to work, and for a while, yes, things will roll along, but then infrastructure will start to fail after a period of time, and that's what's happening over the past 5-8 years. So, no, things were not just fine previously under the same circumstances. During the 80s, it was suggested that MK and EPCOT stay open later than they were. During that time period, if something like this was suggested, it was put to all of the affected dept. managers to find out if they had issues with the idea. If someone said 'no', it didn't happen. Period. When this was floated, maintenance said no. They knew what they were talking about. During those hours, the attractions should be working, yes. The rest of your own post is illustrating what I think needs to be done: the company has added rooms by the boatload, while not expanding non-park activities in a meaningful way. That imbalance needs to be corrected. Animation added 2k more rooms. They now need to look at PI and other entertainment/dining/retal/nightlife options to fix what's been lacking. And I'm not saying the parks should all close at 10p and never be open late. They just need to correct the fact that MK is now open til 12m as a matter of course.
LOL. Yes, we've danced this dance many times before.
Hey now.
The average guest should be there when the park is open. They can choose when to arrive or leave, but within normal operating hours works just fine, thank you.
This I agree with, and I think we're pretty much on the same page, actually. I don't necessarily think I'm identifying the wrong root cause, I'm looking at it from a different standpoint. There does need to be more budget allocated towards maint. I doubt that will happen. So, the next best thing is give the current resources more time to do the work. My other point is simply pointing out how the property has gotten to the point it is currently at, since the original conversation was regarding cutting out EMH, which I have always thought has been used as a reason to help justify the decimation of the maint. depts. If enough maintenance staffing and outside resources are paid for, it is possible to get enough done over a single third shift. But that's not easy to come by these days.
People who snort dust never have the brain capacity to make sense with their comments so take it from where it comes...
Agreed! And I think the company should be doing more for the guest in the short term, not less. The discounts for annuals, added value events, etc. should be more common, while things are worked on.
It made no sense to me either. It's beautifully designed and detailed, has an awesome soundtrack and really sets you up for the adventure that's about to unfold. To me, it's one of the most perfect theme park entrances ever designed.
