Are "After Hours" and "Early Morning Magic" Cutting Into Regular Hours?-Analytics (Long)

[dlavender]

But - Disney is still spending a fair amount of $$ to keep AK open longer to try to get you to try it and want to spend more time there.

Just curious - maybe some CMs know - is there any extra late night maintainance going on at MK (taking advantage of these early close nights?)...just curious how clever they actually are about all of this...

I'm not doubting that's what they are attempting to do....

But it would take more than ROL light and the same 3 rides I can do in the daytime to entice me to leave the premier park earlier for.

 

[whiporee]

I'm not doubting that's what they are attempting to do....

But it would take more than ROL light and the same 3 rides I can do in the daytime to entice me to leave the premier park earlier for.

Yeah, but they don't care what you WANT to do. We would rather have non-stop parades and 13 more E-ticket rides and fireworks and puppies and unicorns.

Their point is that these things are available to you. If you're there for a week, parks were available to you an average of 20 hours more -- that's 3 hours a day -- more than they had been the year before. Those hours may have been at parks you don't wan to visit, but in their minds, that's on you. You can't say the resort experience is cheapened when you lose one hour a day at MK but gain four at the three other parks (I mean, obviously you can, but from a WDW standpoint, they can argue the other way with merit, too).

In addition, they would appreciate it if you'd stop thinking of WDW as just the Magic Kingdom, and in the process help thin out some of the crowds of people at the MK. If you came in June, you had the ability to visit Animal Kingdom in a completely different environment. to do that, in order to keep labor costs in line, they reduced hours at one place while increasing at another.

 

[Boski]

Yeah, but they don't care what you WANT to do. We would rather have non-stop parades and 13 more E-ticket rides and fireworks and puppies and unicorns.

Their point is that these things are available to you. If you're there for a week, parks were available to you an average of 20 hours more -- that's 3 hours a day -- more than they had been the year before. Those hours may have been at parks you don't wan to visit, but in their minds, that's on you. You can't say the resort experience is cheapened when you lose one hour a day at MK but gain four at the three other parks (I mean, obviously you can, but from a WDW standpoint, they can argue the other way with merit, too).

In addition, they would appreciate it if you'd stop thinking of WDW as just the Magic Kingdom, and in the process help thin out some of the crowds of people at the MK. If you came in June, you had the ability to visit Animal Kingdom in a completely different environment. to do that, in order to keep labor costs in line, they reduced hours at one place while increasing at another.

Then they should make the other parks as equally attractive as MK.

Is reducing the hours at MK and upping the hours at AK the best use of their money for guest satisfaction? I'd say the majority of guest would say no at this point in time. When Pandora opens and RoL gets going maybe that will change but right now it probably would have been better to have limited night time hours at AK and longer hours at MK.

 

[dlavender]

Yeah, but they don't care what you WANT to do. We would rather have non-stop parades and 13 more E-ticket rides and fireworks and puppies and unicorns.

Their point is that these things are available to you. If you're there for a week, parks were available to you an average of 20 hours more -- that's 3 hours a day -- more than they had been the year before. Those hours may have been at parks you don't wan to visit, but in their minds, that's on you. You can't say the resort experience is cheapened when you lose one hour a day at MK but gain four at the three other parks (I mean, obviously you can, but from a WDW standpoint, they can argue the other way with merit, too).

In addition, they would appreciate it if you'd stop thinking of WDW as just the Magic Kingdom, and in the process help thin out some of the crowds of people at the MK. If you came in June, you had the ability to visit Animal Kingdom in a completely different environment. to do that, in order to keep labor costs in line, they reduced hours at one place while increasing at another.

And if you are not there for a week? Does adding 3 hours to the same park everyday really count as "gaining four hours at the other three parks"?

I'm sure they would "appreciate it", but then again, they would have to make the others on par with MK to really be fair about it. And I'm not the only one, as I believe MK sees 20 mil while AK sees about 12 annually.....

Perhaps riding Everest at night will be enough for patrons to forgo an entire theme park for....So far, it doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[jade1]

Yes, it is hard to simply say that. When the MK is open until 1:00, the whole park is open. When AK is open until 11:00, half the park is shut down. Simply adding up the number of hours that AK is open only tells a part of the story and can be very misleading. If you want to give Disney hour-for-hour credit for every lost hour at the MK and every gained hour at AK, then you can do that. I don't so I won't. I seriously doubt that even 50% of Disney guests who travel in the summer and who enjoyed longer, cooler hours at the MK are now mollified by the added hours at the MK. Can I prove it? No. But that's the beauty of a Board like this. People can chime in. I smell a poll coming on.

If you visited a week this June would you:

1) Go back to last summers hours

2) choose this summers hours

 

[jade1]

Looking into this, you will find that most of those 86 hours are from one park, AK. And that's because last year it closed at 6-8 everyday last year.

So are you claiming that since hours were increased by one park, that justifies closing MK earlier? Which park has the most attendance? I'll save you some time....MK by a mile.

Been established.

I prefer they all stay open until 1AM every night. But can easily work around 2 nights each week at MK when it is late, and 2 nights at AK.

But MK only lost 1 hour a day, AK gained 4 or 5.

And which would you prefer? Close AK at 6 or 7 every night?

I'm not saying you (or even a lot of guests) wouldn't prefer to go back to a few more hours spread over the month at MK and closing AK at 6 or 7, eliminating the TOL shows, Night Safari and JB (soon ROL), EE in the dark, and cooler touring at AK. That's a valid argument as well, but so is mine.

 

[jade1]

And if you are not there for a week? Does adding 3 hours to the same park everyday really count as "gaining four hours at the other three parks"?

I'm sure they would "appreciate it", but then again, they would have to make the others on par with MK to really be fair about it. And I'm not the only one, as I believe MK sees 20 mil while AK sees about 12 annually.....

Perhaps riding Everest at night will be enough for patrons to forgo an entire theme park for....So far, it doesn't seem to be the case.

Hour for hour I could see, not 4 to 1.

That opened up whole new night option.

 

[jade1]

When Pandora opens and RoL gets going maybe that will change but right now it probably would have been better to have limited night time hours at AK and longer hours at MK.

That will change even more minds I agree. Just some of us (seemed like a lot even a 11:30) are already there.

 

[jade1]

Perhaps riding Everest at night will be enough for patrons to forgo an entire theme park for....So far, it doesn't seem to be the case.

How did you reach that conclusion? That would mean even we never went? Nobody went?

And nobody needs to forgo an entire them park-just hop to AK.

Pretty sure an evening at AK is more of an "arrival" night, or a hop to after a different park. That's what we did. Granted its not all in the dark and indoor stuff doesn't really matter.

But we did FOTLK at 7:30 while still a bit sticky out so that was nice, then we had Kali, TTBAB, Dino, EE a couple times, N Safari, J Book and the TOL shows, noticed a lot of folks on the P WHirl area. And will only be getting better.

It was a refreshing change from past summers at AK. Esp the days after a late afternoon rain-very nice nights.

Tack more hours back on at MK, just don't take away AK at night for us.

 

[jade1]

Yeah, but they don't care what you WANT to do. We would rather have non-stop parades and 13 more E-ticket rides and fireworks and puppies and unicorns.

Their point is that these things are available to you. If you're there for a week, parks were available to you an average of 20 hours more -- that's 3 hours a day -- more than they had been the year before. Those hours may have been at parks you don't wan to visit, but in their minds, that's on you. You can't say the resort experience is cheapened when you lose one hour a day at MK but gain four at the three other parks (I mean, obviously you can, but from a WDW standpoint, they can argue the other way with merit, too).

In addition, they would appreciate it if you'd stop thinking of WDW as just the Magic Kingdom, and in the process help thin out some of the crowds of people at the MK. If you came in June, you had the ability to visit Animal Kingdom in a completely different environment. to do that, in order to keep labor costs in line, they reduced hours at one place while increasing at another.

Exactly and well said. Heck if we were there for only 3 days in the summer, one evening would be at AK already, and esp once ROL and Avatar open.