What is going on with Disney parks?

[Douglas Dubh]

I really enjoyed Eisenhower’s farm at Gettysburg.

 

[Alynw]

Going to Cedar Point and getting all the add ons to 'fast pass' the lines can be as expensive if not more expensive than a trip to Disney! I live within a reasonable drive from CP and never go. We do, however, go every year to Hershey Park. It's a great value! With small children we would combine Hershey with Dutch Wonderland and camp for a few days I also started hitting Kings Island during the off season and making a trip up to Canada for Marine Land. We havent been to Disney World as a family since 2017, we did DisneyLand California in 2018 and DH and I were just at Disney in January and I will be back for a day trip in March (2 days at Universal too). We will probably do another family trip to Disney in 2021.

Current Cedar Point combo ticket- Admission, All Day Dinning and Parking- $49.99. I go to both parks and for me, cedar point is only a small fraction of the cost of wdw but it's not hard to make any trip expensive if u want to. I can spend the weekend at cedar point, ticket combo and hotel for literally the cost of a single 4-day base wdw ticket. I agree with the majority here, cedar point is more of a weekend gateway type vacation whereas wdw is more of a thought out, full blown family vacation. Honestly, I like the weekend getaway vacations though, it's so nice being able to just wake up in the morning and decide to take off and go to cedar point.

 

[mvk]

Current Cedar Point combo ticket- Admission, All Day Dinning and Parking- $49.99. I go to both parks and for me, cedar point is only a small fraction of the cost of wdw but it's not hard to make any trip expensive if u want to. I can spend the weekend at cedar point, ticket combo and hotel for literally the cost of a single 4-day base wdw ticket. I agree with the majority here, cedar point is more of a weekend gateway type vacation whereas wdw is more of a thought out, full blown family vacation. Honestly, I like the weekend getaway vacations though, it's so nice being able to just wake up in the morning and decide to take off and go to cedar point.

Doing a Fri/Sat/Sun, staying at Hotel Breakers, getting the all day drink and dining plans for all 3 days, and fast lane bundle for just 1 day, with 3 adults (11 & older) and 1 child (10 & under) would run over $2,500, at which point I’d definitely start looking into ways to save a little more and just go to Walt Disney World.

One day trip to Cedar Point, maybe staying overnight to avoid 3+ hour drive home? Sure. But at some point it’s diminishing returns.

 

[Remy is Up]

Diminishing returns is a huge deal to consumers and to the company there may be a different view of what point it reaches that. WDW is making moves to thin the herd on APs and therefore be able to manage new guests who will spend $ and have AP holders also willing to spend $.
I do think the direction they are taking with new tiers, new attractions, etc is more in line with the thinking.

Having a daughter who works there helps me better understand some of the decisions they make because while front line in the park CMs may not know everything, they do know some things but generally last minute and in short term goal oriented thinking. Conversely, CMs not in the parks daily who are support CMs in other roles ( Reservations, Help desk, and most importantly ECommerce) and in management, do tend to have a different understanding of decisions made and long term goals because they generally have access to information even CMs in the park may not. They may not be able to divulge it, but, they do know a bit more because they need to. And the overriding theme of late from those who seem to know is the long term goal is to find that point of diminishing returns and maximize it.

 

[tink2424]

I don't think this would have any change to Disney. As for Cedar Point, with offering the Gold Pass now there are so many more people that are fairly local that bought the passes and already went 5-6 times last fall where normally they would only go 1 or maybe 2 times a year and it had no impact on other vacations.

I agree it doesn't seem to be making a difference with Disney but I have seen a lot of posts of people starting to venture to other destinations instead. You can go somewhere else for longer for either less money or the same amount.

At some point the current Disney bubble will burst and they will again have to entice people to come back with lower prices or more "free" promotions/add-ons. We just don't know when the burst will be.

In the meantime I have very little desire to return to the US theme parks. I will most likely go to Tokyo Disney in the next year or 2 and maybe even Shanghai or Hong Kong before I'm back to Florida. I would even be more likely to go out Disneyland in California first.

DisneyWorld is crazy these days and I just don't have the patience even though I love theme parks.

 

[kymom99]

I agree it doesn't seem to be making a difference with Disney but I have seen a lot of posts of people starting to venture to other destinations instead. You can go somewhere else for longer for either less money or the same amount.

At some point the current Disney bubble will burst and they will again have to entice people to come back with lower prices or more "free" promotions/add-ons. We just don't know when the burst will be.

In the meantime I have very little desire to return to the US theme parks. I will most likely go to Tokyo Disney in the next year or 2 and maybe even Shanghai or Hong Kong before I'm back to Florida. I would even be more likely to go out Disneyland in California first.

DisneyWorld is crazy these days and I just don't have the patience even though I love theme parks.

I'm actually having fond memories of my one day at MK this past fall. I wouldn't hesitate to do a day here or there again. Much cheaper and less overwhelming as far as planning.

 

[DISdreamer42]

Are there any rumors of them building a new park in Orlando like a Disneysea park???

 

[Douglas Dubh]

Are there any rumors of them building a new park in Orlando like a Disneysea park???

No.

 

[mshanson3121]

Are there any rumors of them building a new park in Orlando like a Disneysea park???

There's always rumors of a 5th gate floating around, but official rumors, or ones that have credibility? Nope. And I've never heard of anything Sea-related.

 

[mvk]

Seems like this whole thread is much ado about nothing considering the recent earnings call. People are (still) coming in droves, staying at the resorts (moreso than usual), and spending tons (upon tons) of money.

 

[Mikey15]

Seems like this whole thread is much ado about nothing considering the recent earnings call. People are (still) coming in droves, staying at the resorts (moreso than usual), and spending tons (upon tons) of money.

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

I forget if it was this thread or not but it sounds like Christmas, New Years, Marathon were up to their typical level of busy. People are happily snapping up FPs and Boarding Groups for that “disappointing failure” Galaxy’s Edge. I understand where this thread was coming from in that they’re pricing people out who have gone for years and it’s frustrating, but others are definitely going.

 

[Tiki Birdland]

“Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.”

I forget if it was this thread or not but it sounds like Christmas, New Years, Marathon were up to their typical level of busy. People are happily snapping up FPs and Boarding Groups for that “disappointing failure” Galaxy’s Edge. I understand where this thread was coming from in that they’re pricing people out who have gone for years and it’s frustrating, but others are definitely going.

I glad they found someone to take my place.

 

[ChipnDale79]

Seems like this whole thread is much ado about nothing considering the recent earnings call. People are (still) coming in droves, staying at the resorts (moreso than usual), and spending tons (upon tons) of money.

i mean..no, not really. i get it, everything is still up, but disney still has people not coming back.

there is still a disconnect with some long time repeating guests and disney.

 

[mvk]

i mean..no, not really. i get it, everything is still up, but disney still has people not coming back.

there is still a disconnect with some long time repeating guests and disney.

I guess, I mean nobody is going to have 100% retention, but you can’t reasonably expect to fill the resorts much more than they do. So yeah, really.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I guess, I mean nobody is going to have 100% retention, but you can’t reasonably expect to fill the resorts much more than they do. So yeah, really.

Resort occupancy isn't directly related to park attendance.

 

[mvk]

Resort occupancy isn't directly related to park attendance.

Park attendance was up 6% this past quarter. It’s not directly related but there’s a pretty close relationship between the two.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Park attendance was up 6% this past quarter. It’s not directly related but there’s a pretty close relationship between the two.

And resort occupancy was up in 2016 (as far as I could find) yet park attendance was down.

Point being they don't go hand in hand. You'll often find posts about "I can't find availability for X dates", "nothing's available what's going on". So many times people ask if the parks will be super busy, packed to the gills, because they can't find rooms available. The answer is that resort occupancy isn't a good indication of actual park attendance.

Just to give an example from my husband and I..in 2017 we stayed 10 days/9 nights and only went to WDW parks 5 of those days. 2 days were lost due to Irma and 3 days were spent at Universal. People have all sorts of reasons for not going to the parks every day of their resort stay, heck people book resort only stays too, people stay on site when they are there for ESPN events and many other reasons.

 

[mvk]

Okay, I guess you’re just looking for an argument here. Attendance is up (yet again at 6% on already high numbers) at the parks and the resorts are booked pretty tight at 92%. If you want to act like things aren’t going really well for them at WDW, go right ahead. The financial results tell a pretty clear picture, though.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Okay, I guess you’re just looking for an argument here. Attendance is up (yet again at 6% on already high numbers) at the parks and the resorts are booked pretty tight at 92%. If you want to act like things aren’t going really well for them at WDW, go right ahead. The financial results tell a pretty clear picture, though.

Nope no argument. Just made a fairly consistent statement made on the Boards regarding resort occupancy and park attendance. Nothing I said is related to the rest of what you're trying to say so yup dunno what you're getting at in relation to what I was talking about

 

[ChipnDale79]

I guess, I mean nobody is going to have 100% retention, but you can’t reasonably expect to fill the resorts much more than they do. So yeah, really.

the point was, they had retention, and theyve ran some of those people off. I still believe there is a disconnect between some long time customers and the company.

there is a bubble to everything.

I stand by my comments that the direction they've taken over the last 5 years is going to hurt them greatly the next time the economy take a downturn. They're going to have offer very steep discounts when it does happen.