WDW Pro
Well-Known Member
Star Wars expansion day three... Disneyland crowds are being labeled "Ghost Town".
https://www.isitpacked.com/live-crowd-trackers/disneyland/
https://www.isitpacked.com/live-crowd-trackers/disneyland/
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News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge Disneyland opening reports/reviews
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
Or is it something sadly more simplistic? That we are just getting a real look at what the full price demand is for a day at Disneyland? Even with a brand new land and E ticket ride, perhaps there really is just a very limited market for paying $149/day and the park attendance is truly wholly dependent on AP's and discounted locals. They cleared the park of AP's and employees to ensure full paying customers could fill the parks, but nobody came. That may be the sobering takeaway for Disney this week.
THE 1HAPPY HAUNT
Well-Known Member
I think the Doc ENDOR AA is the best AA in the whole land and one of the best Disney has ever done. It is waay more impressive than Hondo and soo much more life like. I have not been to the land but from the videos I have seen you can clearly tell Hondo is a AA, Doc Endor looks like a real life alien creature. dare I say i think it rivals the shaman from the navi river ride.
The_Mesh_Hatter
Well-Known Member
How’s rope drop for Galaxy’s Edge? Is it the place to be in the early morning, or does it get hit with crowds at opening? Is it better to go there first or wait until the afternoon?
THE 1HAPPY HAUNT
Well-Known Member
damn good eye. how did you notice this??
MoonRakerSCM
Well-Known Member
Star Wars Land days after opening vs. Carsland days after opening...
The cause can be discussed, but something AIN'T right.
The cause can be discussed, but something AIN'T right.
Jeremy Geertsema
Well-Known Member
Random question: can you request roles on falcon?
nokahoma
Active Member
I know many people who are excited about Galaxy's Edge. They're all waiting for it to open in Florida because it's closer for them and there's more for their families to do at WDW. As others have said, we're seeing what happens when the parks become too expensive and when they block out the locals and APs. There just aren't enough people willing to fly to Disneyland instead of Disney World.
Stripes
Premium Member
Unquestionably, it would have been a much, much better experience. As I said in my earlier post, the land does feel hollow ride wise at the present moment. Everything else in terms of theming and immersiveness is stellar, but Millennium Falcon is not a mega E-ticket in the same league as Radiator Springs Racers or Rise of the Resistance will be, presumably.
There is no doubt in my mind that people were scared off by the thought of crowds. It's not just Galaxy's Edge that is slow, it's the whole resort. Even the CMs we were chatting up said it was incredibly slow. I kid you not, we were standing in front of Space Mountain (excuse me, Hyperspace Moutain) and could count the number of people in our line of sight on the fingers of two hands. It was crazy.
The cause is pretty easy: Disney scared and blacked-out a lot of people.
Let's pretend for a moment that SWL is still a construction site. Wouldn't DL (and DCA) be more crowded this time of year? DL and DCA have enough going for it that they, apart from SWL, should have more guests.
The arrival of SWL takes away nothing from the rest of DL and DCA. There should still be the same number of people showing up for DL and DCA precisely because they are DL and DCA. So, the presence of SWL has to be the cause for the reduced crowds.
Is it because SWL is awful? So awful that people couldn't bear to go to DL because it exists? Obviously not.
That leaves the marketing hype. For people who don't know about the reservation and virtual queuing, they're staying away because of monstrous crowds they presume are there. For people who know about the reservation and virtual queuing, they're staying away because of presumed four hour waits for everything.
And the rest are blacked-out because, as locals, they don't have the top tier APs.
Let's pretend for a moment that SWL is still a construction site. Wouldn't DL (and DCA) be more crowded this time of year? DL and DCA have enough going for it that they, apart from SWL, should have more guests.
The arrival of SWL takes away nothing from the rest of DL and DCA. There should still be the same number of people showing up for DL and DCA precisely because they are DL and DCA. So, the presence of SWL has to be the cause for the reduced crowds.
Is it because SWL is awful? So awful that people couldn't bear to go to DL because it exists? Obviously not.
That leaves the marketing hype. For people who don't know about the reservation and virtual queuing, they're staying away because of monstrous crowds they presume are there. For people who know about the reservation and virtual queuing, they're staying away because of presumed four hour waits for everything.
And the rest are blacked-out because, as locals, they don't have the top tier APs.
The_Mesh_Hatter
Well-Known Member
Spoke to someone today planning on visiting Disneyland but *not* GE because they think it’s still reservation only and don’t want to deal with the madness. Disney may include the dates of when reservations stop, but the message people get is only “It’s too crowded. Don’t even try”
RobWDW1971
Well-Known Member
That's all undoubtedly true - but the reason they cleared the parks of nearly all AP's and employees and their guests was to allow the full price day/multi day guests to fill the parks being driven by the new land and attraction.
Your point is exactly why the situation is so problematic - if they can only get the same guests and AP's that they got last year with SWGE than the hundreds of million dollars investment will never generate a return. It only generates that level of incremental profit by driving much higher attendance and a mix away from AP's, which granted it's only a few days and the new ride isn't open yet, has not proven to be the case.
Yes, Disney can open the blackouts and be right back to where they were last year with crowded parks full of discounted admission, but they didn't need to spend hundreds of millions to do that. THAT is why there is panic in Anaheim tonight.
Disney Irish
Premium Member
^^This.
What this tells us is that a majority of APs are SoCal and Deluxe, something we all knew but could never confirm. Well this is confirmation.
Add that to all others who would normally have booked a trip during the summer delaying. And you can see why the resort is not crowded. Just wait until September, this will seem like a dream.
Also watch as the number of Deluxe AP decrease in-favor of the FlexPass. As they see it’s not blocked out now and cheaper.
ProjectXBlog
Well-Known Member
Nirya
Well-Known Member
I have to assume this is part of it. Disneyland gets the rap of being a "locals" park for a pretty good reason, being the high amount of APs that go to the park regularly (disclosure: I count myself among that group). With everyone essentially blacked out, it puts more of an onus on single-day tickets, and Disney is probably discovering that their single-day prices are finally past the break-even point for a good amount of people. It's something I've always wondered, especially as they've raised ticket prices over the years. AP prices have gone up, but regular ticket prices continued to do so as well so that your average break-even on the AP usually stayed at the same number of trips. But instead, Disney had this situation where they've offered so many various discounts (APs, the SoCal park hopper deal) that locals never feel the need to pay full-price anymore, which hurts the attendance numbers when you have a situation like this.
I'd also say that Disney's campaign of "no seriously, it's going to be incredibly crowded" worked way too well. The whole reservation system into boarding groups created a situation that had to drive people away, as it set up a mental image of a slammed resort. Obviously that's not the case, but Disney did not prepare for the result.
And then you throw in more general things like the land not being completely done, and the general lower attendance phenomenon that has been happening for a few summers now, and you end up with this situation. I wouldn't be surprised if Disney opened up some of the AP floodgates in a few weeks, and for things to be back to packed by the middle of August.
TP2000
Well-Known Member
Okay, here we go kids!
I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to bother with Star Wars Land until the fall sometime. But then this week the Great Star Wars Flop of 2019 happened and we've been talking for days about how the parks are dead and E Tickets are a walk-on and there's not even crowds in Star Wars Land. So after a very successful nap this afternoon, at 7:00pm I hailed an Uber and went to Disneyland!
This is not good for TDA or major shareholders, but for people who bought a ticket like myself it's great.... Disneyland was DEAD! I got dropped off on Harbor Blvd at 7:25 and waltzed right in with no waits for bag checks or ticket turnstiles. I was standing in the Town Square 5 minutes after my Uber dropped me off. I went straight back to Star Wars Land via Frontierland, as I always thought that center entrance is the one WDI designed to be the main entrance.
Here is my review of Star Wars Land Galaxy's Edge, in my favorite format of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Funny.
The Good - In the summer twilight the land was drop dead gorgeous upon entry, not because it's pretty (it's actually designed to be ugly) but in that light the rocks and textures and patina just looked fabulous. I bee-lined to Millennium Falcon: Target Run with a posted wait time of 30 minutes, but the wait was actually half that including the pre-show. The queue and pre-show are Tokyo DisneySea-esque in their scale and size and detail, and that's a good thing. Being a Confirmed Bachelor, I was placed with a perky-perky family of 5 who actually turned out to be fun and were visiting from British Columbia. I was happy to sit in the back while the kids drove and Mom and Dad beamed proudly. I gamely punched buttons that did nothing. The ride was impressive technically, but really it's just a more intimate Star Tours 2.0. I imagine if they had this tech available (and the huge amount of space required to build it in the old Monsanto ride) in the 1980's that this is what Star Tours would have been all along; flying the Millennium Falcon. I ended up doing this ride three times, once more almost immediately and then a third time a few hours later at the end of the night. I give it an A-. But after this evening's three rides, I can pass on this one for quite some time. Done and done, thanks.
Sightlines inside the land are excellent. You really do feel like you are somewhere else, somewhere foreign, not in a theme park.
The uniforms the CM's are wearing are fantastic. They obviously spent a lot of money on this, and the kids staffing this land tonight looked great! Again, the complexity of the uniforms reminded me of Tokyo DisneySea uniforms. Bravo!
The scale reminded me of New Orleans Square, in a good way. The land is obviously designed to hold huge crowds, but they've created all these interesting alleys and nooks and crannies and courtyards. I just happily wandered for half an hour, and enjoyed getting lost in Disneyland for the first time.
After my second Falcon flight I just started wandering through the land. It was getting dark and the lights had turned on and the land was morphing into an equally stunning aesthetic version of itself at night. I ended up in Ronto's Roasters and was just peckish enough to order the Turkey Jerky and a "Sour Sarlacc", which were both surprisingly good. Detailing both inside and outside of all of these shops and restaurants was really well done! Someone did their homework.
The Bad - The Cantina looked like a mess. The land had barely anyone in it almost everywhere, although there was a small crowd outside the Cantina, not unlike what you'd find at any Outback Steakhouse in America. I craned to get a look inside the joint and the hostesses working what appeared to be the hostess stand were just a mess, crabbing at each other and snapping at people coming up to check in for their reservation. Those girls would never cut it at Outback. Yikes. Why can't Disneyland offer service at their food locations that is above the level of an Arby's on a good day? The shops were almost entirely empty, with no one shopping inside, bored CM's chatting with each other at cashwraps. I checked out Droid Depot, passed on spending 100 bucks on a hunk of Chinese plastic, and marveled at the prices on the kitchen accessories they were selling on a back wall. They have kitchen accessories?!? One cool thing that caught my eye was an R2D2 steel mixing bowl, but when I picked it up and flipped it over it had a price tag of $75 and was made in Communist China. No thanks, I will survive with my brand new All-Clad steel mixing bowls that were made in Pittsburgh instead.
The Ugly - The land feels... cold and lifeless. During my first visit from about 7:45 through the fireworks ending at 9:45, the land was lightly populated. I returned to the land just after 11:00pm and the land was EMPTY. I saw two Stormtroopers wandering around bored, and lots of basic CM's staring at nothing or talking to their friends at their empty snack bars or shop entrances, but there was no life to the place. It felt like someone forgot to turn on the music at a party. It probably doesn't help that the land was designed for thousands of people but is currently abandoned, but from 9:45 until 11:00pm I went back into the rest of Disneyland which was equally uncrowded but it still felt lively and upbeat and fun, plus I got on several major E Ticket rides with absolutely no wait and was surrounded by tourists who were having the time of their lives at Disneyland with no lines. But when I went back into Star Wars Land at 11:15pm and it was even less crowded, what little energy it did have had long since drained away. The land looks great at night aesthetically, with obvious attention paid to lighting and art direction, but there's no life to the place. It's cold and dead, especially without crowds of happy tourists and busy CM's.
What's even worse, I never saw Chewbacca.
The Funny - At 9:30 I had been in the land for two hours and was ready to leave when BOOM! the fireworks started right overhead. This family with Aussie accents were watching near me on this raised patio area and all of a sudden the Mom says "What the bloody hell, where's the bloody music for these fireworks?!?" I considered trying to explain it to her, but instead I just slunked off down the stairs and watched the silent fireworks from around the corner. After my 90 minute break inside the rest of Disneyland where literally every ride had a 5 minute posted wait and were all walk-ons (I walked out the Critter Country entrance past the forgotten Resistance ride and rode Splash, Pirates, Indy and Matterhorn in just over an hour), I went back to Star Wars Land where the Falcon ride looked abandoned. The two girls at the entrance smiled at me and I asked how long the wait was and the one girl said "You look like you've got spunk, you'll probably make it to the ship in 5 minutes". Bravo to her for having a personality! And yeah, it was a five minute wait. The App still claimed it was 30 minutes though.
In short, it was a wildly successful four hour trip to Disneyland. Worth every penny as I now don't need to go back to Star Wars Land for quite some time. If you are in SoCal and have the ability to get to Anaheim, this week would be an excellent time to visit Disneyland. The place is a ghost town!!!
On my ride home, my Uber driver told me he has been shocked how slow the business has been in the Resort District. He said there's usually more ride hails than cars available in Anaheim especially this time of year, but right now the business is just gone and he's been focusing on the bar traffic in Newport Beach instead. Something is definitely going on here, and it's weird. Where is everybody???
P.S. Always tip your Uber driver!
I had resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to bother with Star Wars Land until the fall sometime. But then this week the Great Star Wars Flop of 2019 happened and we've been talking for days about how the parks are dead and E Tickets are a walk-on and there's not even crowds in Star Wars Land. So after a very successful nap this afternoon, at 7:00pm I hailed an Uber and went to Disneyland!
This is not good for TDA or major shareholders, but for people who bought a ticket like myself it's great.... Disneyland was DEAD! I got dropped off on Harbor Blvd at 7:25 and waltzed right in with no waits for bag checks or ticket turnstiles. I was standing in the Town Square 5 minutes after my Uber dropped me off. I went straight back to Star Wars Land via Frontierland, as I always thought that center entrance is the one WDI designed to be the main entrance.
Here is my review of Star Wars Land Galaxy's Edge, in my favorite format of The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Funny.
The Good - In the summer twilight the land was drop dead gorgeous upon entry, not because it's pretty (it's actually designed to be ugly) but in that light the rocks and textures and patina just looked fabulous. I bee-lined to Millennium Falcon: Target Run with a posted wait time of 30 minutes, but the wait was actually half that including the pre-show. The queue and pre-show are Tokyo DisneySea-esque in their scale and size and detail, and that's a good thing. Being a Confirmed Bachelor, I was placed with a perky-perky family of 5 who actually turned out to be fun and were visiting from British Columbia. I was happy to sit in the back while the kids drove and Mom and Dad beamed proudly. I gamely punched buttons that did nothing. The ride was impressive technically, but really it's just a more intimate Star Tours 2.0. I imagine if they had this tech available (and the huge amount of space required to build it in the old Monsanto ride) in the 1980's that this is what Star Tours would have been all along; flying the Millennium Falcon. I ended up doing this ride three times, once more almost immediately and then a third time a few hours later at the end of the night. I give it an A-. But after this evening's three rides, I can pass on this one for quite some time. Done and done, thanks.
Sightlines inside the land are excellent. You really do feel like you are somewhere else, somewhere foreign, not in a theme park.
The uniforms the CM's are wearing are fantastic. They obviously spent a lot of money on this, and the kids staffing this land tonight looked great! Again, the complexity of the uniforms reminded me of Tokyo DisneySea uniforms. Bravo!
The scale reminded me of New Orleans Square, in a good way. The land is obviously designed to hold huge crowds, but they've created all these interesting alleys and nooks and crannies and courtyards. I just happily wandered for half an hour, and enjoyed getting lost in Disneyland for the first time.
After my second Falcon flight I just started wandering through the land. It was getting dark and the lights had turned on and the land was morphing into an equally stunning aesthetic version of itself at night. I ended up in Ronto's Roasters and was just peckish enough to order the Turkey Jerky and a "Sour Sarlacc", which were both surprisingly good. Detailing both inside and outside of all of these shops and restaurants was really well done! Someone did their homework.
The Bad - The Cantina looked like a mess. The land had barely anyone in it almost everywhere, although there was a small crowd outside the Cantina, not unlike what you'd find at any Outback Steakhouse in America. I craned to get a look inside the joint and the hostesses working what appeared to be the hostess stand were just a mess, crabbing at each other and snapping at people coming up to check in for their reservation. Those girls would never cut it at Outback. Yikes. Why can't Disneyland offer service at their food locations that is above the level of an Arby's on a good day? The shops were almost entirely empty, with no one shopping inside, bored CM's chatting with each other at cashwraps. I checked out Droid Depot, passed on spending 100 bucks on a hunk of Chinese plastic, and marveled at the prices on the kitchen accessories they were selling on a back wall. They have kitchen accessories?!? One cool thing that caught my eye was an R2D2 steel mixing bowl, but when I picked it up and flipped it over it had a price tag of $75 and was made in Communist China. No thanks, I will survive with my brand new All-Clad steel mixing bowls that were made in Pittsburgh instead.
The Ugly - The land feels... cold and lifeless. During my first visit from about 7:45 through the fireworks ending at 9:45, the land was lightly populated. I returned to the land just after 11:00pm and the land was EMPTY. I saw two Stormtroopers wandering around bored, and lots of basic CM's staring at nothing or talking to their friends at their empty snack bars or shop entrances, but there was no life to the place. It felt like someone forgot to turn on the music at a party. It probably doesn't help that the land was designed for thousands of people but is currently abandoned, but from 9:45 until 11:00pm I went back into the rest of Disneyland which was equally uncrowded but it still felt lively and upbeat and fun, plus I got on several major E Ticket rides with absolutely no wait and was surrounded by tourists who were having the time of their lives at Disneyland with no lines. But when I went back into Star Wars Land at 11:15pm and it was even less crowded, what little energy it did have had long since drained away. The land looks great at night aesthetically, with obvious attention paid to lighting and art direction, but there's no life to the place. It's cold and dead, especially without crowds of happy tourists and busy CM's.
What's even worse, I never saw Chewbacca.
The Funny - At 9:30 I had been in the land for two hours and was ready to leave when BOOM! the fireworks started right overhead. This family with Aussie accents were watching near me on this raised patio area and all of a sudden the Mom says "What the bloody hell, where's the bloody music for these fireworks?!?" I considered trying to explain it to her, but instead I just slunked off down the stairs and watched the silent fireworks from around the corner. After my 90 minute break inside the rest of Disneyland where literally every ride had a 5 minute posted wait and were all walk-ons (I walked out the Critter Country entrance past the forgotten Resistance ride and rode Splash, Pirates, Indy and Matterhorn in just over an hour), I went back to Star Wars Land where the Falcon ride looked abandoned. The two girls at the entrance smiled at me and I asked how long the wait was and the one girl said "You look like you've got spunk, you'll probably make it to the ship in 5 minutes". Bravo to her for having a personality! And yeah, it was a five minute wait. The App still claimed it was 30 minutes though.
In short, it was a wildly successful four hour trip to Disneyland. Worth every penny as I now don't need to go back to Star Wars Land for quite some time. If you are in SoCal and have the ability to get to Anaheim, this week would be an excellent time to visit Disneyland. The place is a ghost town!!!
On my ride home, my Uber driver told me he has been shocked how slow the business has been in the Resort District. He said there's usually more ride hails than cars available in Anaheim especially this time of year, but right now the business is just gone and he's been focusing on the bar traffic in Newport Beach instead. Something is definitely going on here, and it's weird. Where is everybody???
P.S. Always tip your Uber driver!
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I won't be ashamed to say I actually waited up hoping you wrote a review lol. I agree with nearly everything you said although I haven't been there when its been dead yet (I mean GE) but will be there this Sunday, going to see the land since my first trip a few weeks ago. I expected to maybe do GE once more after our reservation day and then maybe not bother for the rest of the summer with the 'hordes' of people there. Now, may be seeing it a lot more! Can't wait to get back to DLR this weekend!!!
truecoat
Well-Known Member
Let's just cut to the chase. Are you suggesting the photos posted in that Tweet from this afternoon are faked? Are you suggesting that the information from multiple sources the past 48 hours about 30 minute or less wait times for the Falcon ride are part of a grand conspiracy?
The photos speak for themselves. There are more CM's in those photos than paying visitors.
View attachment 384303
But seven years ago in late June 2012 when Cars Land was a few days old, it was impossible to take a photo of the land that didn't include a sea of people.
I can only imagine the level of panic that has swept over TDA's executive suites the by midweek here.
I'm not saying it wouldn't happen but if you did previews like they did for GE, would that have mitigated an opening like this in Carsland? Also building one in Florida must have had a little impact on crowds although all the west coast bloggers were there.
ThistleMae
Well-Known Member
I just downloaded the Disney Play App yesterday in preparation for my Nov. trip. I haven't read too much about the game and I hope it's more sophisticated than Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom. I'd pay a buck or too to upgrade.
ThistleMae
Well-Known Member
That's a good question. If I was planning a trip based on SWGE opening, because I live on the East Coast, I would definitely wait till both rides were open to go. As it turns out, we just randomly planned a Nov. trip. If there are long lines, I won't even go on the one ride. I'll walk through the land but that's about it. I saw many posts regarding this same line of thinking. Now I'm planning a trip to WDW in Jan/Feb of 2020. I am flexible with dates, so I'll be watching to see when ROR is announced. As for DL, let's see what the weekend brings for crowds.