Will Disney miss full price impulse visits?

[Tamandua]

The talk of the reservation system staying around forever reminded me of something I saw some years back. I was in a grocery store and a mom was there with some kids and they were buying tickets to Disneyland. This was up in Ventura, which is probably anywhere from 100 minutes to 3+ hours from the parks, depending on traffic. I heard this family talking about how they were buying their tickets at the grocery store to save time when they get to the park that day. It was perplexing because it was already mid morning by that point and there's no way they'd get into the park before the afternoon. I got so used to being an annual passholder that I forgot that there were people who spend many hundreds of dollars just to go once, and they're extremely casual about it. Will Disney miss having this kind of customer that easily pays the most and takes the least from the parks? It seems like the new system ensures that everybody is going to maximize their time in the parks and prevent the kind of impulse visits that were actually extremely lucrative for them.

 

[cmwade77]

The talk of the reservation system staying around forever reminded me of something I saw some years back. I was in a grocery store and a mom was there with some kids and they were buying tickets to Disneyland. This was up in Ventura, which is probably anywhere from 100 minutes to 3+ hours from the parks, depending on traffic. I heard this family talking about how they were buying their tickets at the grocery store to save time when they get to the park that day. It was perplexing because it was already mid morning by that point and there's no way they'd get into the park before the afternoon. I got so used to being an annual passholder that I forgot that there were people who spend many hundreds of dollars just to go once, and they're extremely casual about it. Will Disney miss having this kind of customer that easily pays the most and takes the least from the parks? It seems like the new system ensures that everybody is going to maximize their time in the parks and prevent the kind of impulse visits that were actually extremely lucrative for them.

Well, right now they don't have a choice, but I would imagine that once they do, they will have done a cost/benefit analysis and determine that the savings in labor costs, wasted product, etc. from under/over estimating attendance on any given day is worth more than this income. If that equation changes, then the reservation system will be reevaluated.

 

[Curious Constance]

Also what’s to stop that same family from going on their phones, buying tickets, and making the reservations for the same day before heading off to Disneyland and saving themselves a trip to the grocery store?

 

[drizgirl]

Also what’s to stop that same family from going on their phones and buying tickets and making the reservations for the same day before heading off to Disneyland and saving themselves a trip to the grocery store?

Exactly. Impulse visits will still happen. Once capacity is wide open again, you'll commit to your park ahead of time, but all parks will be available on all but a small handful of days during the year.

 

[Curious Constance]

And coming from out of state, and having to spend a bundle to get there, it’s really nice to know that I’m guaranteed entry to the parks, no matter what time of the year or how busy it is. I like the reservation system and hope it sticks around.

 

[cmwade77]

And coming from out of state, and having to spend a bundle to get there, it’s really nice to know that I’m guaranteed entry to the parks, no matter what time of the year or how busy it is. I like the reservation system and hope it sticks around.

It also gives you the flexibility to go later in the day and know you can still get into the park, no more Disneyland park is not admitting more guests at this time.

 

[Tamandua]

Exactly. Impulse visits will still happen. Once capacity is wide open again, you'll commit to your park ahead of time, but all parks will be available on all but a small handful of days during the year.

If they plan staffing and other costs based on reservations ahead of time, then isn't it possible that same day reservations would be limited to whatever cap they put on that day based on their expectations? It seems like this new system is going to limit the number of people who can just decide to go at the last minute. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that my family has done a lot of last minute trips when other plans have fallen through or time becomes available at the last minute.

If they have 50,000 reservations for a certain date, and they schedule staff and plan for 55,000, and then 10,000 more people decide they want to go that day based on their schedules, the weather, their health, or whatever other factors might be involved, then you're shutting out 5,000 people when the parks have the capacity. They could always call in more employees (at least in normal times) or send some home when attendance didn't match expectations before.

I don't think the majority of the Disneyland crowd wants to treat DLR like WDW. It's not some self-contained bubble where most people travel and plan everything out in advance. For a lot of people, I think it's a "let's see how we feel on that day/week" thing. There's tons of reasons that might come up that would cause someone to postpone their visit when they're locals. "The Dodgers are in the world series and game 5 is tonight. Let's push Disneyland back until next week."

 

[drizgirl]

If they plan staffing and other costs based on reservations ahead of time, then isn't it possible that same day reservations would be limited to whatever cap they put on that day based on their expectations? It seems like this new system is going to limit the number of people who can just decide to go at the last minute. I can't speak for everyone, but I know that my family has done a lot of last minute trips when other plans have fallen through or time becomes available at the last minute.

If they have 50,000 reservations for a certain date, and they schedule staff and plan for 55,000, and then 10,000 more people decide they want to go that day based on their schedules, the weather, their health, or whatever other factors might be involved, then you're shutting out 5,000 people when the parks have the capacity. They could always call in more employees (at least in normal times) or send some home when attendance didn't match expectations before.

I don't think the majority of the Disneyland crowd wants to treat DLR like WDW. It's not some self-contained bubble where most people travel and plan everything out in advance. For a lot of people, I think it's a "let's see how we feel on that day/week" thing. There's tons of reasons that might come up that would cause someone to postpone their visit when they're locals. "The Dodgers are in the world series and game 5 is tonight. Let's push Disneyland back until next week."

They will always save room to squeeze in more.

They were doing "right size" staffing before, only using FP+ to predict where most guests were going. This is just a different tool to the same end. And once the new normal settles into place, they'll have data to predict how many last minute guests to prepare for.

 

[D.Silentu]

Also what’s to stop that same family from going on their phones, buying tickets, and making the reservations for the same day before heading off to Disneyland and saving themselves a trip to the grocery store?

But what about snacks?

 

[Curious Constance]

But what about snacks?

You can have them delivered to your house by ordering them from your phone.

 

[D.Silentu]

In that case, everybody to the car!

 

[mlayton144]

But what about snacks?

Disney doesn’t want you buying snacks at store , they want you buying their snacks , checkmate

 

[D.Silentu]

Gotta stick it to the man!

 

[cmwade77]

They will always save room to squeeze in more.

They were doing "right size" staffing before, only using FP+ to predict where most guests were going. This is just a different tool to the same end. And once the new normal settles into place, they'll have data to predict how many last minute guests to prepare for.

Disneyland never had FP+, so no, they weren't using FP+ to guage the demand at DLR.

The problem is even before the closures, they were beginning to miss the mark on crowd levels more often than not in both directions by a long shot. There were days when many food items ran out by mid day as a result for example.

 

[drizgirl]

Disneyland never had FP+, so no, they weren't using FP+ to guage the demand at DLR.

The problem is even before the closures, they were beginning to miss the mark on crowd levels more often than not in both directions by a long shot. There were days when many food items ran out by mid day as a result for example.

True. I was really just talking about WDW.

DL's presents different challenges. The 2 parks are so close together they might as well be looked at as one. And only 3 onsite hotels to gather information from. The local APs are certainly a wildcard for them, although that might be different going forward.

 

[cmwade77]

True. I was really just talking about WDW.

DL's presents different challenges. The 2 parks are so close together they might as well be looked at as one. And only 3 onsite hotels to gather information from. The local APs are certainly a wildcard for them, although that might be different going forward.

I still really think whatever replaced the AP program at Disneyland will become universal across all Disney Parks (except maybe Tokyo since they don't own it, but even then they could work out a deal) and replace all AP programs with one single unified system.

I wanted to point out that FP+ wouldn't apply here since this thread is specifically about Disneyland, not WDW and that Disneyland really has been missing the mark more than hitting it when it comes to predicting crowd levels for a few years before the shut down.l, which is why reservations make sense. I do think in the future the reservations could be for either park out here or any of the four theme parks at WDW rather than park specific.

 

[drizgirl]

I still really think whatever replaced the AP program at Disneyland will become universal across all Disney Parks (except maybe Tokyo since they don't own it, but even then they could work out a deal) and replace all AP programs with one single unified system.

I wanted to point out that FP+ wouldn't apply here since this thread is specifically about Disneyland, not WDW and that Disneyland really has been missing the mark more than hitting it when it comes to predicting crowd levels for a few years before the shut down.l, which is why reservations make sense. I do think in the future the reservations could be for either park out here or any of the four theme parks at WDW rather than park specific.

Sorry! I lost track of which forum I was on.