News Star Wars Galaxy's Edge opening day reports - Disney's Hollywood Studios

[TP2000]

First, can we keep this thread to a DHS discussion? What's going on in DL is interesting but there's a whole separate thread to that.

Sure, but this is a cloned land and the same SURPRISE! phenomenon is playing out at Disneyland, even with a different demographic mix at that park. This can't be the Disneyland thread, but we also can't ignore that there's a clone of Star Wars Land with a 90 day head start out in Anaheim. It's part of the discussion of customer reactions to Star Wars Land.

It’s not gone at all how I assumed it would.

And we're just the fans! Can you imagine how the execs in Anaheim, Orlando, Glendale and Burbank are scratching their heads over the response to Star Wars Lands in America?!? I bet there's been some big bar tabs recently.

Excuses are starting to wear thin. This should not be happening. This isn’t just a Star Wars Problem.

Yes, it's just weird.

So now I'm just perplexed. With DLR, I could propose people were not showing up because of increased costs -- all wait times at DLR were low. But with a 140 FOP wait time, people are showing up to WDW, just not SWGE? Are customers so locked into a 6-month-in-advance FP reservation they don't even know Falcon is open because it's not on their FP list?!

Ready for this shocker?! Last night at the Park-In-Anaheim-We-Can't-Mention the Millennium Falcon ride held steady at 20 to 30 minutes all night long. But the rest of both parks exploded with crowds to kick off the HalloweenTime season. All Disneyland Resort customer parking, including the new 6,500 space Pixar Pals garage filled to capacity and was closed to new cars last night by 8:20pm. Haunted Mansion Holiday was at 75 minutes, Guardians of the Galaxy-Monsters After Dark! was at 105 minutes, even the little Luigi's Honkin' Haul-O-Ween spinner ride had a longer wait than Millennium Falcon.

https://www.sgvtribune.com/2019/09/...how-filling-both-parking-garages-to-capacity/

Something is definitely going on here on both coasts. Despite different demographics at DHS and WDW, it's mirroring the same experience at Disneyland. Again I say, I can only imagine the head scratching going on with execs in both the Team Disney buildings in Anaheim, Orlando and Burbank, and WDI's campus in Glendale.

I imagine there might even be a level of panic setting in once the head-scratching is over.

 

[RSoxNo1]

It’s way above. I’m just fishing for the figures.

It certainly didn't start out that way. I don't know how much operations have improved, but actual capacity was dramatically lower than theoretical capacity in that first month.

 

[RSoxNo1]

80% Fastpass, 20% standby. No joke. This is the standard and any huge draw attraction is doing this ratio most of the day.

70/30 was what I've seen.

 

[Tom Morrow]

70/30 was what I've seen.

It can be anywhere from this to as high as 90/10. But "4 to 1" is the "golden ratio" that is hammered into CM's during training as the standard.

 

[TP2000]

At 6:45pm

Millennium Falcon & Jungle Cruise - 45 Minutes
Test Track - 60 Minutes
Splash Mountain - 70 Minutes
Flight of Passage - 95 Minutes (longest wait time at WDW currently)

 

[RSoxNo1]

It can be anywhere from this to as high as 90/10. But "4 to 1" is the "golden ratio" that is hammered into CM's during training as the standard.

Is that distribution or queue allocation at merge? I had heard 70/30 for distribution, but I also wouldn't be surprised if certain attractions (looking at you Flight of Passage) have lower than 70%. I'm sure they recognize what attractions also see more DAS usage or partial downtime and adjust the ratios accordingly.

 

[TP2000]

Another thing to throw into this bubbling stew of Star Wars mystery...

When Rise of the Resistance opens it will also not have Fastpass. And CM's have reported on another board that it will have slightly less hourly capacity than the 1,600-ish that the Falcon does.

 

[Tom Morrow]

Is that distribution or queue allocation at merge? I had heard 70/30 for distribution, but I also wouldn't be surprised if certain attractions (looking at you Flight of Passage) have lower than 70%. I'm sure they recognize what attractions also see more DAS usage or partial downtime and adjust the ratios accordingly.

Sorry, I meant that is the standard merge point ratio. I believe you are right that 70% of the attraction's hourly capacity is approximately how many Fastpasses are distributed per rolling hour (actually, I've heard 67% or 2/3rds of hourly capacity thrown around), to account for DAS and downtime recovery. They used to have more control over this with the legacy system, but now the Fastpasses are booked in advance so they can't account for it on the fly as much. Instead, Fastpasses for attractions that are down get converted into "any time" passes for a list of attractions... which in turn throws off that attraction's ratio. WIth all of these factors, the standard merge ratio is higher than the distribution ratio.

 

[danlb_2000]

Possibly. None of us knows for sure the exact reasons they decided to open a partially completed land.

My guess is they are doing this deliberately while studying guest interactions with the land. Then they will add new offerings to meet expectations and build on that slowly over a year or two.

As an example, they could decide to open a new droid depot. Or a new sit down restaurant. They might decide to open a new light saber built shop where you can customize a legacy saber. Maybe new characters will be added as they emerge from the Mandolrian series or SW9. Could even be new droids.

Point is, this is a slow build up with plenty of space to add content. By continually adding new content they will encourage people to revisit.

It amazes me that people still think TWDC is clueless.

None of that changes that fact the Iger had to stand up in front of the shareholders and explain why the land was not performing up to expectations. Never a comfortable spot for a CEO to be in.

 

[mikejs78]

Another thing to throw into this bubbling stew of Star Wars mystery...

When Rise of the Resistance opens it will also not have Fastpass. And CM's have reported on another board that it will have slightly less hourly capacity than the 1,600-ish that the Falcon does.

@marni1971 have you heard anything re capacity of MF and RotR?

 

[RobWDW1971]

None of that changes that fact the Iger had to stand up in front of the shareholders and explain why the land was not performing up to expectations. Never a comfortable spot for a CEO to be in.

And that was last quarter with only one month (June) of sub-par performance of DL's SWGE - next quarter will be a full quarter of DL's low attendance and WDW with one month (Sept). Not going to be a great story, but he will use "Dorian impact" to buy time until next quarter where the normal holiday attendance will help mask the issue.

You won't see the real picture until you get to the end of next fiscal year, then you will see the full impact of the huge incremental depreciation (partial year for both ROTR's) and incremental operating costs burdening the OI for both parks all year.

Just do the cocktail napkin math on a billion dollar investment (I don't think it's that much for each park, but that's the rumor and it makes the math easy) - average depreciation schedules will be 10-15 years on the merch, F&B locations, equipment and the buildings/infrastructure will be on a 25-30 year schedule, so let's use 20 years average on the entire investment. That means the P&L will take a $50M hit before the incremental operating costs of labor, utilities, COGS, etc. of operating the land. Won't be able to hide that next year.

The bigger issue of course is the actual return on the investment, from a cash perspective factor in a corporate cost of capital of probably about 10% and you will need probably $2B incremental OIBDA discounted back over that 20 year period to get just a minimal corporate expected return so that is $100M/year more growing with inflation. Hence, the panic.

"It's the same as last September" ain't getting you there....

 

[Pam Hates Penguins]

It might not be seen as a failure, but when a billion+ dollar land doesn't meet expectations in it's first few months of operation it has to be making people in Disney management nervous.

Why should Disney be surprised? There is a serious lack of kinetic energy in the land that they promised. The amount of ideas that were scrapped has just been disappointing to those wanting an immersive Star Wars experience they have been asking for. I told people on these forums and others since 2015 that this land would be a "flash in the pan" and they all laughed at me.

 

[Mickeyboof]

Why should Disney be surprised? There is a serious lack of kinetic energy in the land that they promised. The amount of ideas that were scrapped has just been disappointing to those wanting an immersive Star Wars experience they have been asking for. I told people on these forums and others since 2015 that this land would be a "flash in the pan" and they all laughed at me.

Honestly, I would have laughed at you too.

Top imagineers and the suits of Disney, Bob Iger included, stood on stages and told journalists specific experiences to expect in Galaxy’s Edge.

I would have laughed at you too if you said this land wasn’t going to be all that and more.

Now, I feel absolutely lied to. I wouldn’t have flown to Disneyland for opening if I knew what really was there. A shell.

 

[jt04]

Why should Disney be surprised? There is a serious lack of kinetic energy in the land that they promised. The amount of ideas that were scrapped has just been disappointing to those wanting an immersive Star Wars experience they have been asking for. I told people on these forums and others since 2015 that this land would be a "flash in the pan" and they all laughed at me.

You say that about everything. That's what people find funny.

 

[jt04]

Honestly, I would have laughed at you too.

Top imagineers and the suits of Disney, Bob Iger included, stood on stages and told journalists specific experiences to expect in Galaxy’s Edge.

I would have laughed at you too if you said this land wasn’t going to be all that and more.

Now, I feel absolutely lied to. I wouldn’t have flown to Disneyland for opening if I knew what really was there. A shell.

You were lied to it someone told you the land is complete. Big time.

 

[Pam Hates Penguins]

You say that about everything. That's what people find funny.

Actually not. There are more pros than cons when it comes to how the parks stand today in my honest opinion.

Why there were laughing was because of all the hype going around and to think that one person saying it would be a complete flop back in 2016 after all the beautiful concept art was released would have resulted in some laughter.

 

[jt04]

Actually not. There are more pros than cons when it comes to how the parks stand today in my honest opinion.

Why there were laughing was because of all the hype going around and to think that one person saying it would be a complete flop back in 2016 after all the beautiful concept art was released would have resulted in some laughter.

It still sounds funny. Let's see what the next few months bring. RotR might get the last word.

 

[Pam Hates Penguins]

You were lied to it someone told you the land is complete. Big time.

The land is complete. I hate to say it but I don't see any way Disney is going to invest in what they promised. I don't see them adding any more characters or any droids to the streets of Batuu, or anything else. The only thing that is left is Rise of the Resistance.

Heck if Disney can't even get the bags to carry your merchandise to be themed to Galaxy's Edge, instead carrying the traditional Disney logo, then we are most certainly should not be expecting anything more.

 

[SplashJacket]

At 6:45pm

Millennium Falcon & Jungle Cruise - 45 Minutes
Test Track - 60 Minutes
Splash Mountain - 70 Minutes
Flight of Passage - 95 Minutes (longest wait time at WDW currently)

After looking up capacity for FOP and MFSR I have received mix results, however, the general consensus is FOP is around 1500 an hour and MFSR is 1800 people an hour.

FOP, which would have at least 75% of its capacity dedicated to FP would make its standby capacity around 375 an hour.

If this figure is correct, that would mean the ride had around 554 people in the queue.

Falcon would have around 1350 people in the queue, which for a brand new ride is not very significant.

I went to GE the Sunday after opening. On the Friday after opening, I went to Animal Kingdom and got into a conversation in Single-Rider with this middle-aged woman. We discussed how empty the parks are and how great it is, however, she believed Hollywood Studios was absolutely swamped with people. After the ride, I checked the app and all the wait times were walk-on or close to it besides MFSR. When I went to HS on Sunday, I walked on TOT, RRC single rider, and Star Tours (had the last two rows to myself).

If you notice, all the waits you mentioned are not in HS. Two MK, one Epcot, and one AK.

To be fair, Hurricane Dorian greatly contributed, but MFSR continues to have a weak wait.

Personally, I believe the three primary factors which contributed to the low waits are lack of FP, people staying away from the parks because they believe they will be extraordinarily crowded, and the bad reviews of Star Wars land.

My brother mentioned his interest in skipping the land until our following trip in January when Rise will be open.

I also think it is unfair to compare the wait times because the land itself is an attraction. I found myself spending a couple of hours just wandering around the land. The land felt crowded, just not to the point of suffocation as some expected.

The land is enormous it adds an extreme amount to HS. I have been to Tokyo DisneySea and acknowledge the theming is unmatched, but my personal favorite park is Disneyland Anaheim park. After visiting HS I could not help but smile at the thought of Disneyland park having Star Wars land IN ADDITION to everything it already has.

Moral of the story, while Star Wars land may appear on paper as a failure, in time, it will prove to be a success, despite its flaws.

 

[John Hendershot]

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