I was at Disneyland yesterday and it was a nightmare.
Hordes of people on a Thursday in October. Lines for everything - Pinocchio's queue spilled out past the carousel after 9PM. Restaurants understaffed. Smokejumpers had a line out the door at 3PM.
Disneyland was open from 8AM - 11PM, so they knew this was going to be a crowded day. Hilariously, DCA was open from 8AM - 8PM, so at 8:15PM, Disneyland got about 10x more crowded. Great work team!
Such long hours would necessitate some entertainment, right? Wrong! One performance of Soundsational, one World of Color, three Frozens. No Magical Map, no fireworks, no Fantasmic and no second performance of Soundsational or World of Color.
No nighttime entertainment in DL when the park is packed to the gills and open till 11PM is a huge mistake. Attraction lines were ridiculous (see Pinocchio above, Snow White was just as full). Sure you didn't have to navigate around show viewing areas, but instead you had to navigate around massive extended queues and gridlocked guests. Columbia was docked. Even Pooh had a solid 15 minute wait. POOH.
Everyone makes fun of MiceChat for beating the drum about execs having no idea what a real day in the park is like for regular guests, but they're absolutely right. Disneyland is a premium priced product that does not deliver a premium experience unless you go during "peak" seasons that are no longer peak. The park is delightful in July now, for example.
Despite Disneyland completely shifting its business model to making previously off-peak times peak and previously peak times off-peak, they have not shifted their scheduling or operations to match. July attendance was weak, and yet Disneyland was open from 8AM - 12AM every day with a full entertainment roster. October is miserably crowded - why isn't the park open with entertainment each day that month instead? Why don't they schedule more CMs in shops and restaurants during the week instead of Saturdays, when they all stand around looking for something to do? During the week the poor CMs are working to death with inadequate teams to support them.
HMH is too popular. If they are going to insist on using FP on that poor ride, the standby queue becomes absurd. It's the slowest moving thing I've ever seen. FP isn't much better - I waited no less than 34 minutes in the FP line for HMH yesterday. 34 minutes. I can't imagine the posted standby wait of 80 minutes was anywhere close to accurate since in the time I was going through the FP queue, the standby queue moved small amounts three times. The whole of the NOS fountain area was taken up with extended queue, and the FP return line stretched to the ride exit. Something is wrong.
Disneyland's old system of only running big entertainment during peak season/weekends is antiquated. If they want to be a resort destination, they need to start acting like one. WDW and TDR do Fantasmic every day, 365 days a year. We can't do fireworks every day at Disneyland due to local regulations, but World of Color isn't enough. Fantasmic and Magical Map should be daily at this point with the resort's attendance, and nothing is going to get better when SWGE opens and madness descends.
All of this goes hand in hand with TDA's utter failure to address parking. Years of kicking the can down the road thanks to vision-free leadership who just were looking for their next promotion, and now it's too late. It's literally too late. I don't think they could do any new structures at this point that would be ready by early 2019. Meanwhile, guests and cast suffer in insane parking arrangements that were always meant to be temporary.
As long as temporary budget wins to obtain reward bonuses are the focus of TDA suits and not the actual guest/cast experience, I'm afraid the parks will continue to slide into operational chaos. The last five years have been incredible to watch, and there's no reason to assume they'll improve - why would anything change when the numbers look good on paper? Never mind the irreparable brand damage being done, that's someone else's problem down the line.
I experienced a very similar thing a year ago this month. I'm sad to hear that things have not improved or even gotten worse. Fortunately, I was sent a survey asking what I thought and the following is what I sent them. I didn't save the questions they asked, just my answers, but I think they stand alone just fine:
"The parks were grossly overcrowded. At Disneyland in particular, so many people-eating attractions have been temporarily or permanently shuttered. The problem is exacerbated by Fastpass. When it becomes impossible to even get from place to place, have easy access to bathrooms and restaurants, it's clear that the people running Disney don't know what they're doing anymore. It smacks of greed. You don't know how to please people, manage large crowds anymore. You don't know when enough is enough."
"On this day in particular, Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, Indiana Jones, Space Mountain were all down at different times throughout the day. After waiting in long lines or traversing the park and the crowds just to find a closed attraction was very frustrating. There was nowhere for anyone to go on several occasions. Packed, frustrated, hot crowds with no idea what was open or how to escape."
"When attractions went down, so did their fastpass distribution. When returning for a fastpass time attractions were sometimes closed which meant going back through the crowds to somewhere else. With so many people holding fastpasses, the number of people in walkways and lines for other attractions was greatly increased. Standby lines are delayed to allow more fastpass riders into lines. Fastpass creates a negative experience overall for a few moments of satisfaction."
"In addition to temporary closures, most lines were overrun. The entrance to lines for HM, Pirates, Matterhorn were hard to find because they extended way past wait time signs or ropes. It was hard to discern the line from the crowd trying to get through the walkway. Your crowd control expertise has declined. Positioning costumed cast members and signage in the right places, creating a proper flow of traffic, goes a long way toward creating an air of control and reassurance to a confused crowd."
"The overcrowding made it difficult to shop in any stores which of course made it hard to spend any money. I spent the least on souvenirs this trip than any Disneyland trip in the last 30 years, even leaving money budgeted for merchandise unspent. It became more about navigating the aisles than looking at the merchandise. Aisles were sometimes inaccessible due to volume of people. People with strollers and wheelchairs found themselves either roadblocks or prisoners."
"While some cast members were exceptional (Carthay Circle, for example), most were clearly just trying to make it through their day. The overcrowding and demanding conditions appear to be hard on the cast. The most consistently disappointing cast members, not just this visit but for several years now, are the ones who greet you at the gates and take the tickets (not security). They are a remarkably joyless, gruff group for being the first non-security cast members that guests interact with."
"The security process is understandably slower with the metal detectors now. Many more lines (tents and tables) are needed at peak times. The ticket scanning process is painfully slow. The cast in this role (not security) have consistently for years had the worst attitudes of any in the parks. They are sullen, barely communicate, and exhibit more contempt than "magic." These people should be your best, happiest, freshest. They need to be greeting people with enthusiasm, making them feel welcome."
