Park Capacity Percentage

[jcmc]

Can someone tell me what percentage the parks are operating (crowd wise)?

 

[RamblingRabbit]

30% Capacity. Though we aren't for sure if that is:
30% of Capacity vs Average this time of year
30% of Capacity vs Max
30% of Capacity based on what all is open

or a mixture of all of it.

 

[lanejudy]

Last Disney stated it was 35%, but that was back in the winter or maybe even fall. Though as PP mentions that is a somewhat nebulous number. And we don’t know if it has changed because WDW is under no obligation to announce such changes.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

The last "announcement" of capacity was shared by Chapek on an earnings call in February to be 35%. He mentioned that any increase in capacity will be determined by vaccine rates. I wouldn't expect further announcements of increase, it will just happen (may have already).

 

[Bobb_o]

I would think the 35% would be of total capacity.

Magic Kingdom probably operated on an average day around 50-60% of total capacity in 2019.

 

[ThumpersWorld]

We are going to WDW in August and I was curious as to what Disney's current capacity percentage is up to right now. TIA!

 

[WDW Traveler]

I believe they are currently at 35%.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

We are going to WDW in August and I was curious as to what Disney's current capacity percentage is up to right now. TIA!

As stated above the last announcement they made was 35%. But it may or may not have increased since then and could increase at any time. They are under no obligation to announce increases in capacity.

 

[20minutesaway]

I wouldn't expect further announcements of increase, it will just happen (may have already).

I'm curious why you think this. What does Disney gain by not revealing capacity numbers?

 

[twodogs]

I'm curious why you think this. What does Disney gain by not revealing capacity numbers?

They want people to feel safe going and to spend that money on the trip. They want people to think they will get empty parks and walk on rides. Once you are there and realize that those things are not true (not because of capacity of people let into the park, but capacity of rides with reduced ride operations/reduced dining/no shows/no meet and greets/no fireworks etc), you have already flown there, taken time off work, taken kids out of school and you will have the experience that they give you, regardless of what you thought it would be.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

I'm curious why you think this. What does Disney gain by not revealing capacity numbers?

I’d ask the opposite question...What do they gain by announcing an increase? There are a lot of people willing to travel right now because of the perception of lower crowds and safety precautions. They would gain absolutely nothing except bad publicity by announcing an increase.

 

[mom2rtk]

They don't announce numbers now for the same reason they don't for hard ticket parties. So they can squeeze in more without needing to issue a revision statement.

 

[StuckInKS]

Although they haven't announced capacity increases, they have sent hiring emails to people who had traditions dates scheduled that were canceled because of the shutdown, so they must be gearing up for something.

 

[tigger2002]

I'm curious why you think this. What does Disney gain by not revealing capacity numbers?

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Purely business. You never want your competitors to know how many people are in the parks, just like you do not want them to know how many employees you have. It's a productivity number. In fact you would prefer that your competition would know no numbers at all.

.

 

[rangebob]

I’d ask the opposite question...What do they gain by announcing an increase? There are a lot of people willing to travel right now because of the perception of lower crowds and safety precautions. They would gain absolutely nothing except bad publicity by announcing an increase.

Disney never announces any numbers. I believe they consider it a trade secret and don't want other parks or people to know how many people are there.

 

[ENJDisneyFan]

Disney never announces any numbers. I believe they consider it a trade secret and don't want other parks or people to know how many people are there.

Well, they did announce that park capacity was at 35% so I wouldn't say never. But my whole point was that I don't see them announcing any increases going forward because your comment is mostly true that they generally keep those numbers private.

 

[rangebob]

Well, they did announce that park capacity was at 35% so I wouldn't say never. But my whole point was that I don't see them announcing any increases going forward because your comment is mostly true that they generally keep those numbers private.

Based on the pictures I've seen they are greater than 35% and it wasn't announced that it increased.

 

[caradi]

Was here in Feb and here now. Park capacity seems the same from my perspective, same wait times and similar visual crowd levels.

I had a split stay this week and the capacity at Pop century seems like another question altogether. Waited over an hour to get back to the resort from MK on Tuesday.

 

[tigger2002]

Well, they did announce that park capacity was at 35% so I wouldn't say never. But my whole point was that I don't see them announcing any increases going forward because your comment is mostly true that they generally keep those numbers private.

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I would say never. What is park capacity? Good explanation here: Let's Discuss Disney World Theme Park Capacity (blogmickey.com)


Capacity vs Attendance
Ok, now that we’ve established that the theme parks are currently operating at “35% of full capacity”, we need to look at the capacity vs attendance argument. It’s important to note that prior to COVID-19, Disney World only hits capacity on a handful of days during the year. Reliably, New Years Eve and some days during Christmas would see the parks enter a phased or complete closure at some point during the day. When the theme parks would hit capacity prior to COVID-19, that would represent that there simply wasn’t enough space in the theme park to safely let more guests in.


Disney does not release capacity limitations, but most estimates put Magic Kingdom capacity anywhere from 85,000 up to 100,000 guests at a time before the park is closed to all new guests. If you’ve been inside the Disney World theme parks when they’ve reached full, pre-pandemic capacity, you know how busy it can be. Let’s use 100,000 as the Magic Kingdom capacity because it’s a round number.
According to TEA estimates, Magic Kingdom welcomed 20,963,000 guests in 2019, an average of 57,433 guests per day. That means that in a year where Magic Kingdom was the most visited theme park in the entire world, it operated at roughly 57% capacity on an average day. Let me be clear, Magic Kingdom is the busiest theme park in the known universe and it was just over half full on an average day.

If we were to apply the figures used above, Disney World would currently be accepting up to 35,000 guests per day into Walt Disney World compared to a pre-pandemic average of just over 57,000 guests per day.
So, going back to attendance versus capacity – Disney World is able to operate at 35% of their total capacity, but that translates to roughly 61% of their average daily attendance.
Feels Crowded

If Disney is currently operating at 61% of their average daily 2019 attendance, shouldn’t the parks be less crowded? Not necessarily.





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[Ermise]

Disney's fiscal second quarter earnings will be released May 13th. The corresponding webcast at 4:30pm that day will shed some light on whether capacity has already been increased. The November '20 earnings call is where we found out capacity had already been increased to 35% of full capacity, from 25%. The February '21 earnings call confirmed the parks were still at 35% full capacity. A publicly traded company has to be careful with what data is released and when it is released.