Who should be excluded to help with the overcrowding problem.

[Missing20K]

They think they're getting a better experience by paying more and doing Disney's own forecasting work.

And as long as the average customer isn't able to see through the ruse, the status quo will continue to be reinforced.

 

[Club Cooloholic]

You fix the over crowding by giving the crowds more to see and do property wide. The new Cirque show is a good example.

Magic Kingdom’s announced Main Street theatre would have helped a lot. MK could also open up Diamond Horseshoe as a performance venue again, reopen closed restaurants, bring back quality entertainment that’s been cut in storybook circus, fantasyland, liberty square, tommorowland, Frontierland, and Adventureland (Main Street is literally the only land that has regular live entertainment.... with the one exception of Main Street philharmonic doing a set in storybook circus).

Running parades day and night. Right now they should be doing FOF as a night parade. Night parades help to distribute the crowds since many guests will choose fireworks OR the night parade and not both.

Running attractions at maximum capacity would also help.

The problem is not the crowds....

This is a great point. Disney Springs is cool and all but if you had more entertainment there, a comedy club...more people would go there instead of the parks
The other issue is the high cost of the ticket means many buyers want to max out the value of the ticket by staying as long as possible in the parks. A solution would be if the park ticket could be discounted for guests staying onsite, maybe if not paying so much you could be enticed to enjoy the hotel and resort more.

 

[Parker in NYC]

You're dead on - it's like some mass hypnosis they've achieved. When I was at WDW recently, you could hear so many conversations of people bragging they got a dinner reservation at 4:00 pm months in advance or got their FP for Jungle Cruise two months ago! Again, not complaining about how insane having to plan where you eat lunch and when you ride the tea cups on vacation months in advance, but actually feeling proud they understood and worked the system. All I could think of was "Thank you, sir, may I have another!"

Thank you!

One of my favorite Disney memories was a lady fast walking toward Akershus (with her little girl trying to keep up in her princess dress and cinderella slippers) yelling at her, "Hurry up Kayla, I made this reservation months ago. We have to get to Norway now or we don't eat!"

<3 Side note, she was Ralph Lauren/Country Club chic, which made it even more memorable.

 

[RobWDW1971]

Thank you!

One of my favorite Disney memories was a lady fast walking toward Akershus (with her little girl trying to keep up in her princess dress and cinderella slippers) yelling at her, "Hurry up Kayla, I made this reservation months ago. We have to get to Norway now or we don't eat!"

<3 Side note, she was Ralph Lauren/Country Club chic, which made it even more memorable.

So true - when we were kids it was the kids that were dragging the parents around theme parks, now it’s the stressed out commando parents power walking to the next FastPass while the kids are being dragged along. Crazy.

 

[Lirael]

Cast Members.

They're clearly taking up space and, the horror, are being paid as opposed to paying! They should do away with CMs and let guests self regulate. More space! Less expense! More profit!

Want to ride something? No problemo! Through MDE, disney will make available a how-to-operate guide for each attraction. For a fee, obviously.

 

[drizgirl]

Cast Members.

They're clearly taking up space and, the horror, are being paid as opposed to paying! They should do away with CMs and let guests self regulate. More space! Less expense! More profit!

Want to ride something? No problemo! Through MDE, disney will make available a how-to-operate guide for each attraction. For a fee, obviously.

Disney's way ahead of you on that one.

 

[willsdad01]

A lot of interesting thoughts on this topic. My family and I have been coming since 2007. We’ve made a total of 8 trips. Here’s our general observations. New fast past system and dining reservations should give Disney an idea of crowd level...as should resort bookings. No guest should EVER have to wait longer than an hour at most for any one ride. Just looking today and over the weekend at the ride times and I feel horrible for those who spent the $ and will probably only get in a few rides. 120 minutes for Peter Pan, 70 minutes for Buzz Lightyear....seriously Disney? Thats horrible to do to young kids. That’s not a positive experience and perhaps Iger and company need to take two small kids to the park to experience what is happening. This is Tuesday, after President’s Day and I’d be furious. At Epcot...55 minutes for Spaceship Earth (an aged ride)...65 minutes for Nemo.... At HS, 185 minutes for Slinky Dog ( a one minute ride). As I said in an earlier post, we were just there a week ago. Ride times were tolerable, but high for February. Disney does many things very well. We were surprised with sparkling juice and two champagne glasses for our anniversary. It was great, a real surprise. We didn’t have kids and could adjust on the fly, but the new FP+ system and ADR for dinner make things very inflexible. Many parents are stressed and you can see it. Not to mention the number of people walking with their heads in their phones...that’s another topic. Perhaps priority needs to take place for those staying at Disney properties, not just for EMH, but for rides or use something similar to the boarding groups/virtual queue for a land or area. I know Disney can use analytics and come up with a solution, but unfortunately people must not be complaining enough. I heard it best said from someone that Disney has turned into a logistics company. They know how to move people around, but they haven’t figured out how to move them through. As someone else stated, people are forced now to plan months in advance. You get penalized if you have to change your ADR the day of, but yet in many cases people have no choices due to the capacity of the parks. I love Disney and have always felt it’s a special place and experience, but the view through the lens of the guest is starting to sour.

 

[Disstevefan1]

My guess is there’s enough of a percentage of people who either don’t know they have bought into a diminished experience (first timers and once in a lifetimers) or genuinely don’t feel a diminished experience. Some folks just have a rosy perspective. I’d be hard pressed to come up with how my experience has diminished in the last 20-odd years other than pricing going up and the loss of the potato-wrapped snapper at the Flying Fish.

As long as families keep having kids, they won’t run out of a new pool of guests.

So in the last 20 odd years, it didn’t feel more crowded in the parks over time? And if it did, I presume the overcrowding does not diminish your experience?

If so, thats great! Just asking.

 

[Genie_naughty_whispers]

incentives to drive people to other parks. In other words...attractions. Make the other 3 parks full day parks. And when that doesn’t work, a 5th gate....but let’s face it, they will just raise prices “hoping” that will help but just laugh all the way to the bank.

 

[Genie_naughty_whispers]

I know Disney can use analytics and come up with a solution, but unfortunately people must not be complaining enough

They probably already are leveraging analytics. The problem is because of their views on the customer experience, they pick raising prices as a solution rather than any customer friendly result the analytics comes up with.

 

[ELG13]

I had friends that had to move their day ticket from November and they chose presidents day weekend....and they decided 6 days prior to going. We are AP holders so when they told me I was nervous because they are the kid of people that don't do well with inconvenience. If they pay their money, they expect DISNEY. luckily for them, Disney had a big flub on their tickets and they ended up with 4 additional fastpasses per person. They were able to ride all the rides they wanted in the time they wanted. Had that not been the case, I can only imagine. My husband and I look at waiti times from time to time to just for fun. 2 hours for small world?! No way. But, that's what it is when you are talking about a holiday weekend. We normally go for a week and I try my best to plan when crowds are decent. We purposefully go during the week and avoid weekends when possible. Even with that, We expect we will make our fastpasses and then maybe 3 or 4 more rides every day. This works for us because we have multiple days. We also have children who I am not going to drag around the parks miserable. We make use of the resort pool A LOT. I hate the idea of excluding anyone but i would guess if It did happen it will be when Disney is priced out of people's range. We are ok with one trip a year. We save for it and anxiously await it. I don't see that changing any time soon. As long as people show up, Disney will keep slowly raising prices. Had we purchased Our annual passes a week later, it would have been $100 more for our family. Not that big of deal when you consider the full price of the trip but when you see $20 a ticket you think "oh it's only $20". But for a family of 5, those increases hit a little different.

 

[Mousse']

Lower the park capacity by 50% on site guests get priority

Disney already has this SOMEWHAT on the board: Keep adding more and more on-site rooms, more DVC, etc... and then ONLY allow people staying in their rooms to use the parks. Allows them basically 100% control on who comes based on room pricing, incentives and specials, etc... At Christmas only millionaires and celebrities could afford to be there and I'm pretty sure Disney and those guests would like that.

 

[Touchdown]

Let’s not exclude people, let’s look at how to more efficiently move people through the park. Fall was very pleasant this year, and a big factor in that was they extended hours in the park, while I would have personally preferred the DLR’s extended hours (8-midnight) 6-10 is just as long an operating day.

Being open 16 hours means that most people are not going to do open to close. Some won’t rope drop, some won’t stay to close and the smart people will rope drop, take an afternoon nap, and then party to close. This spreads the crowds out and provides everyone a better experience. Disney needs to extend their hours during high volume times, which realistically should be every weekend, most of March/April, June, mid Sept-October and Thanksgiving-New Years.

 

[Bbentler]

Simple either stop building hotels or build a 5th park.

 

[Mousse']

My guess is there’s enough of a percentage of people who either don’t know they have bought into a diminished experience (first timers and once in a lifetimers) or genuinely don’t feel a diminished experience. Some folks just have a rosy perspective. I’d be hard pressed to come up with how my experience has diminished in the last 20-odd years ...

So So True... The last trips over the past few trips I keep saying I'm never coming back, selling the DVC, it's lousy compared to 20 years ago... (Just being more and more of a grumpy getting-older man). And then I go home and book another trip and find myself chomping at the bit to go back... Nostalgic amnesia? Heroine in the sawdust burgers?

 

[The Visionary Soul]

You fix crowding by adding more attractions to the park (capacity). There’s no other possible way to fix it except by raising prices, but there will be a limit to that eventually. Imagine paying 500 dollars a day to enter the parks. You might begin to ponder if the parks are worth that price, even if they are less crowded, they still have to provide more things to do.

 

[FCivish3]

There clearly is one group that is already largely excluded from Disney World. That group is heavily weighed towards people on the lower end of the socio-economic income scale, but it is also including many people from the middle class, who just can no longer afford Disney.

 

[sunshineday]

It’s not a problem it’s a choice for them. They could easily have lower crowds if they added the park hours and ride vehicles they have for christmas year round. But instead of say 6am - 2am (a Wednesday in easter I attended that was awesome) the parks are open 9am-9pm.

The ones who will be excluded are the same ones that always were. The ones who can’t afford it. That’s why they keep raising prices but not extending hours.

 

[Incomudro]

Children under 4, and anyone using a mobility scooter because they are obese.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Here’s what’s easy to deduce:

1. The “crowding” problem is due to shifting crowds over the calendar and the parks actually going backwards as far as attractions Installed/hours/ and perks and extras that provided an additional “touch” to distract people.

2. Prices are being pushed to their limits by the current, “modern” management and their blue ocean theory. It’s gonna continue till you turn around and punch the bully in the nose.

But BS aside...they will in no way tolerate less people in the parks. That is never and will never be the goal no matter what they say or let people - like here - assume by floating this nonsense of “luxury”

The reason why they are building now and jacking prices with low 50’s of gate clicks is because behind the big boardroom doors Bob(s) have forecasted 60’s or 70’s at even higher prices.

How do i know? Business 101 combined with common sense.

The reason to “reduce” crowds by design would be to lose employees and gut overhead - making each dollar spent give more yield back...

Is that what they’ve done? Not at all.

When you don’t know a thing...trust common sense...



How to solve the original problems of the OP? Easy: a recession to kick the dials back. That has been a necessary component to govern crowds and prices in the past and it still is.