Spirited Spring Break News, Observations & Thoughts ...

[asianway]

That just proves there is no need right now to build new hotels. And they are only converting at the poly right now. GF was new construction, bay lake tower was new construction, other resorts have converting also but most have had some sort of new construction. The poly is getting the bungalows as new construction. I don't see a need for a new full hotel and if you did what category would it be?

Bay lake tower stands on the site of what used to be 250 hotel rooms

 

[PeterAlt]

I especially want to see something built on the two remaining EPCOT resort lots! (The ones west of Living Seas and the EPCOT parking lot)

 

[ABQ]

Bay lake tower stands on the site of what used to be 250 hotel rooms

But net, how many rooms did the Contemporary lose to the DVC in that construction? 250 old garden wing rooms taken out, 400+ new Bay Lake Tower rooms added with less than 300 being DVC. So they lost 150 rooms. Not very many really.

 

[Lord_Vader]

I agree it is not the majority of vacationers, but I think there are a significant number of WDW guests that decide less than 90 days out they are going to pay a visit. And the percent that frequents WDW on "spur" of the moment planning may actually have opted to book onsite rather than offsite or the Dolphin/Swan just for the FP+ advantage. It is a motivator, that fear you will not get to see experience your favorite attractions without 120 minute wait times.
I think 2 things jumped hotel occupancy.
I think there was a very small increase in guests choosing to stay onsite rather than offsite for FP+ opportunity.
I think Disney saw an increase in occupancy last quarter because of the freaking ice age winter we all just went through. By January everybody up north had had enough of artic temps and were making southbound plans if possible. Even those along the I-40 and I-20 corridor were ready for sun and warmth.
View attachment 52945

Florida was looking pretty good to everybody in blue and purple...

I can confirm the situation with Spring Break this year... Here I coach two baseball teams (ages 9-12 and 13-15) and in every year past I would have two players at most out of town for Spring Break, this year I had three players on one team of 14 in town and four players on another team of 14 also. Nearly every parent on both teams said the same thing, they simply had to get away from the cold with nearly all going to FL with a good 1/3 going to WDW this year. Several of my younger players actually met up and ate at Casey's Corner.

 

[Lord_Vader]

Last year I stayed 21 nights at POR figuring that the free dining would be worth the extra room price.

After 21 days of QS dining, most days 3 meals a day because we spent 7 days at Uni, SW and BGT, I now never want the restrictions of the dining plan again. I'll stay off site and eat where I want.

If we had been allowed to go Table Service and pay the difference I would have been a lot happier. Although I wouldn't have minded eating at Sunshine Seasons every day.

The food at POR was pretty good but with 3 kids wanting different foods from different counters it took forever to get served.

It would take some big price reductions and not just a few FP+ to make me stay on site again.

WDW does allow you to upgrade from QS to DDP and DDP to dDDP for the price difference.

 

[ParentsOf4]

But net, how many rooms did the Contemporary lose to the DVC in that construction? 250 old garden wing rooms taken out, 400+ new Bay Lake Tower rooms added with less than 300 being DVC. So they lost 150 rooms. Not very many really.

Remember that Disney counts all DVC rooms, including BLT, as 2-bedroom equivalents. By this count, BLT has 295 rooms.

In terms of individually bookable rooms, BLT has 428 rooms.

 

[ABQ]

Remember that Disney counts all DVC rooms, including BLT, as 2-bedroom equivalents. By this count, BLT has 295 rooms.

In terms of individually bookable rooms, BLT has 428 rooms.

Ugh, the hotel maths (sic) make my head hurt. It's worse than high school algebra. I'm talking about you Venn Diagrams and slope of a line. I hate you all!

 

[PhotoDave219]

They are building hotels it's called DVC. That's what's selling right now not just regular rooms. They don't need a whole new resort at the moment. Art of Animation was already in construction as the legendary years they just continued it and made a new theme.

Well..... Sorta. They weren't under construction, They had 2 or 3 buildings that sat there unfinished for 10 years and they finally decided to do something with it. Its not like there was any active construction on that side since 2001.

 

[jlsHouston]

I don't think Disney could have ever gotten away with taking FP away entirely from guests... but having advanced FP only for onsite could have been defend-able IMHO.

Yes BUT they were facing the wrath of the the AP holder. I think there was a very loud and vocal customer base yelling about where was their MB and FP+ opportunity.

 

[jlsHouston]

..... I need some transparency & hard data here to believe this is legit.

I wanna think they juked the stats somehow.

Would removing rooms from inventory affect this?

hmmmm...

 

[jlsHouston]

I'm liking the cold weather angle. This was the worst winter in 30 years, for me at least. The only warm spot on the map many days was Florida. It seems it would be easy for people to see that and head down there.

The real way to test this theory is to see how the cruise industry and beach front hotels did during the same period. People wouldn't just go to Florida because of Disney.

My industry is fixing to blow shipping budgets because of the artic blast that froze our nation. The inclement weather that arrived early and lasted and lasted drove freight rates up in some markets to Katrine disaster levels.
If we start adding the weather causing migration, the consumer fear of missing out on FP+ if booked offsite, decent room discounts available, all the advertising Disney has done on tv, I can see where it could have given WDW an occupancy boost. I will defer to @ParentsOf4 to better explain a phenomenal jump like 6%.

 

[CDavid]

But net, how many rooms did the Contemporary lose to the DVC in that construction? 250 old garden wing rooms taken out, 400+ new Bay Lake Tower rooms added with less than 300 being DVC. So they lost 150 rooms. Not very many really.

Wait, what? Aren't all rooms in Bay Lake Tower DVC rooms? Meaning the Contemporary did indeed lose 250 rooms (though I'd argue the real travesty is how badly the new tower clashes thematically and architecturally with the original Contemporary tower).

 

[GoofGoof]

I can confirm the situation with Spring Break this year... Here I coach two baseball teams (ages 9-12 and 13-15) and in every year past I would have two players at most out of town for Spring Break, this year I had three players on one team of 14 in town and four players on another team of 14 also. Nearly every parent on both teams said the same thing, they simply had to get away from the cold with nearly all going to FL with a good 1/3 going to WDW this year. Several of my younger players actually met up and ate at Casey's Corner.

Some of that could be offset by schools that canceled spring break due to snow days. I know several people who canceled trips because they are teachers and were told snow days were being made up during spring break.

 

[wdisney9000]

I can confirm the situation with Spring Break this year... Here I coach two baseball teams (ages 9-12 and 13-15) and in every year past I would have two players at most out of town for Spring Break, this year I had three players on one team of 14 in town and four players on another team of 14 also. Nearly every parent on both teams said the same thing, they simply had to get away from the cold with nearly all going to FL with a good 1/3 going to WDW this year. Several of my younger players actually met up and ate at Casey's Corner.

Where the eff do you find the time to coach two teams? I coach my nephews 12-under soccer team and it eats chunks out of my schedule. Kudos, my friend.

 

[Funmeister]

My guess is the percentage of 'multi-reservers' is small in relation to the total amount of no-shows.

Why have 4 people making $8 and hour serving guests when you can make people financially commit to showing up, turn away everyone else, and be able to get the number down to 2 or 3?

This is another reason why I'm such a big fan of Marrakesh. You can get one of the best theme park meals for lunch, *and* get entertained, as a walk-in.

I was referring to before they implemented the new policy.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Yes BUT they were facing the wrath of the the AP holder. I think there was a very loud and vocal customer base yelling about where was their MB and FP+ opportunity.

Yes. That's correct. Seeing how they don't give a flying crap about pass holders anymore....

 

[PhotoDave219]

My industry is fixing to blow shipping budgets because of the artic blast that froze our nations. The inclement weather that arrived early and lasted and lasted drove freight rates up in some markets to Katrine disaster levels.
If we start adding the weather causing migration, the consumer fear of missing out on FP+ if booked offsite, decent room discounts available, all the advertising Disney has done on tv, I can see where it could have given WDW an occupancy boost. I will defer to @ParentsOf4 to better explain a phenomenal jump like 6%.

Yeah, Florida escaped it.

From personal observation, it did seem busy from February & March. More so than I expected.

Then again.... Maybe people were trying to avoid summer crowds and summer heat.

 

[Phil12]

Yeah, Florida escaped it.

From personal observation, it did seem busy from February & March. More so than I expected.

Then again.... Maybe people were trying to avoid summer crowds and summer heat.

I blame global warming.

 

[ParentsOf4]

..... I need some transparency & hard data here to believe this is legit.

I wanna think they juked the stats somehow.

Would removing rooms from inventory affect this?

Rooms, did someone ask about WDW hotel rooms?

As an SEC filing, Disney's numbers represent real data but, as you suggest, it's possible to manipulate the source data to some degree. Did Disney?

Anyone who is bored by numbers, bail on this post now!

Let's start with the basics.

In 2Q2013, Disney reported 2.645M available room nights. That number represents the total number of rooms available to be occupied by guests at all domestic Disney properties for the entire 3 months covered by the quarter, roughly 91 days. (I'm too lazy to count the exact number of days in the quarter.) To be clear, a single hotel room has 91 available room nights for an average quarter.

In 2Q2014, that number was 2.625M or 20K less. 20,000 less room nights might sound like a lot but that's less than one day of operation at WDW.

On the face of it, it doesn't look like there's anything unusual year-over-year.

Now let's consider what's changed in the last 12 months.

WDW's latest DVC, the Villas at the Grand Floridian (VGF) opened last October, representing 100 rooms added. However, about 100 rooms were taken out-of-service at the Polynesian to prepare for the DVC being built there, essentially a wash.

There haven't been any other significant changes at Disney's domestic resorts over the last 12 months, with the possible exception of Aulani where they have been constructing more rooms. However, in the bigger picture, even if they opened a couple of hundred rooms, it's a small number for Disney domestically. (Sorry, I just haven't been paying close attention to Aulani.)

All things considered, year-over-year, the number of available rooms nights at Disney's domestic resorts is about the same and, on the face of it, doesn't show any major funny business.

All this suggests that the 80% to 86% jump in occupancy was a real number.

WDW has about 89% of all domestic rooms so that jump really is about what happened at WDW.

Beyond that, some wonder if Disney plays games with the total number of hotel rooms. Let's examine this next.

It's been suggested that Disney intentionally takes rooms out-of-service to artificially boost occupancy. Disney has done this in the past. Are they doing it now and, if so, to what extent?

If you consider all domestic rooms, including hotels at WDW, DLR, and Aulani, along with DVCs at WDW, DLR, Aulani, HHI, and VB, Disney has slightly under 30,200 total rooms available (the way Disney counts and reports them). Over the course of a 91-day quarter, that's about 2.746M available room nights.

Recall that Disney reported 2.625M for the quarter, a difference of about 121K, or approximately 1300 rooms per night. Roughly, that means that Disney is not reporting about 4% of all domestic rooms.

There are legitimate reasons rooms get taken out-of-service. To know how much of that 4% is legitimate and how much is funny business would require insider information. ("That would be telling.")

Might that number be lower if Disney actually had paying customers needing the rooms? You bet but, on the face of it, 4% is not an outrageously high number.

All things considered, Disney's hotel numbers as reported to the SEC look to be on the up-and-up.

 

[bhg469]

Yeah, Florida escaped it.

From personal observation, it did seem busy from February & March. More so than I expected.

Then again.... Maybe people were trying to avoid summer crowds and summer heat.

I know when I did my annual spring training trip, which lasts a week, my wife joined me for a second week. If this winter wasn't so miserable, she would have stayed home.