Are bookings down?

[mshanson3121]

I have received not a word of a lie, four offers from Disney in the last week alone, and at least a dozen in the last month. I have been on their email list for many years, and have never received so many PINS. Why such an influx? Is attendance really down that much? Or at least on site bookings?

 

[rteetz]

Yes and no. October is up compared to September. The holidays are always booked.

Consider this the calm before the Star Wars storm.

 

[davper]

I keep receiving crowd calendar updates showing expected crowds lower than expected for my vacation time period. Yay Star Wars construction!

 

[dm1996]

It is 100% sold out for today through Sunday. The only openings are when someone cancels and those get taken pretty quickly.
Although, some of that traffic is coming from people getting out of the panhandle of Florida.

 

[Newcastle]

Consider this the calm before the Star Wars storm.

I have noticed the same thing as the OP regarding multiple offers lately. We have been trying to decide between waiting until Star Wars land opens versus taking a trip in early May 2018 (finances dictate that we can’t do both). We recognize that we might not get back to Disney World for a few years if we do end up going in May although I’m wondering if that might actually be a more enjoyable trip if there indeed will be a “calm before the Star Wars storm” phenomenon happening. If you don’t mind me asking Rteetz, do you know of any threads discussing the possible attendance trends leading up to the opening of Star Wars land? I wasn’t sure what keywords I would search for to find such threads if indeed they do exist .

 

[rteetz]

I have noticed the same thing as the OP regarding multiple offers lately. We have been trying to decide between waiting until Star Wars land opens versus taking a trip in early May 2018 (finances dictate that we can’t do both). We recognize that we might not get back to Disney World for a few years if we do end up going in May although I’m wondering if that might actually be a more enjoyable trip if there indeed will be a “calm before the Star Wars storm” phenomenon happening. If you don’t mind me asking Rteetz, do you know of any threads discussing the possible attendance trends leading up to the opening of Star Wars land? I wasn’t sure what keywords I would search for to find such threads if indeed they do exist .

Not really. Best bet would be to check the Theme Parks Attractions and Strategies board but I haven’t seen any specific threads myself. There has been some small discussions in various threads here though.

 

[Newcastle]

Not really. Best bet would be to check the Theme Parks Attractions and Strategies board but I haven’t seen any specific threads myself. There has been some small discussions in various threads here though.

Thanks so much for your reply! I will just have to keep my eyes open to see if I can catch any mention of attendance predictions on these boards.

 

[ChipnDale79]

i think star wars is a major reason why crowds are down, but i have a feeling that's not the only reason.

 

[middlechild]

@ChipNDale You are on to something here. The price increases over the last couple of years, and helping kids with college expenses, have certainly removed any possibility of our 6 heading to the World anytime soon. The funny part is my wife said that all along, that it was too expensive, but in this year I have had to come to agree with her.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

I have received not a word of a lie, four offers from Disney in the last week alone, and at least a dozen in the last month. I have been on their email list for many years, and have never received so many PINS. Why such an influx? Is attendance really down that much? Or at least on site bookings?

I've been reading a lot of reports where people have been saying this is the least crowded October they have ever seen.

In recent years, October has become quite a crowded month...but not this year!

 

[mcd2745]

I thought PINs had become a thing of the past. But now we are seeing a lot of people getting them again - but not me, of course. I'm sure bookings will have to be a little soft ahead of Galaxy's Edge opening as people wait for it.

 

[adam.adbe]

@ChipNDale You are on to something here. The price increases over the last couple of years, and helping kids with college expenses, have certainly removed any possibility of our 6 heading to the World anytime soon. The funny part is my wife said that all along, that it was too expensive, but in this year I have had to come to agree with her.

I'm doing 11 nights in Kyoto/Tokyo, including some Disney park days, plus layovers in LA for a whopping $600 more than WDW, and that for half as many days. WDW has never been cheap, but it's stacking up very badly against other options of late, unless theme park days are an absolute requirement.

 

[tlmadden73]

I suspect Disney will be pushing promotions for all next year.

I am sure TONS of people are in the "waiting for Star Wars to open" camp.
I am sure that tons of people are cutting down, putting off vacations due to all the increased prices. Eventually the prices that keep going up 10% or more each year will result in lower crowds (not a bad thing .. that's supposedly the reason behind all the prices increases).

I'm in the reverse camp and plan on going 2-3 times this coming year (with an AP) before Star Wars open (not because of that, .. but really just on timing of other family trips that we want to join and the age of my daughter (trying to squeeze as many trips in before she starts costing money).

 

[Mikey15]

I just think they're finding ways to fill the rooms as much as possible. My dates at end of October / early November are packed full with very limited room availability, and that's not exactly peak season. They offered the ~20% off (depending on resort tier) discount recently, and once it all filled up, that discount now only applies from ~mid-Nov on. There's promos out for the Jan-Apr period now, and they'll dwindle away as those fill up. I think their goal is simply as much occupancy as possible, as any hotel's goal is (especially hotels tied to highly profitable restaurants, stores, and theme parks).

 

[sachilles]

I mention this discussion to my wife, and she responds with "oh, we got one of those". 30% of deluxe and 25% moderate.
We only reserved by renting dvc points with David's a few weeks ago for end of February. We are staying in a Studio in Jambo house. Our deal through David's was $1856, the offer through pin code was $2585. Lowest "deluxe" being Saratoga was 2291 or 291/night.
Cornado was 170/night and CBR was 185/night. POR was 228/night.

I think they be reaching that point where they've shot themselves in the foot with pricing.

 

[lugnut33]

It's funny because I was a DVC member for years, have done tons of trips to WDW and DL, but haven't been back for a couple of years now. I have received 0 offers. You'd think they'd want to entice me back, but I guess since I'm not a first time visitor they aren't that interested.

 

[Newcastle]

It's funny because I was a DVC member for years, have done tons of trips to WDW and DL, but haven't been back for a couple of years now. I have received 0 offers. You'd think they'd want to entice me back, but I guess since I'm not a first time visitor they aren't that interested.

It's funny that you mention that lugnut33. I was also a DVC member previously and then didn't travel to Disney for about 5 years. I then started getting unique offer codes under my old address which I have used almost annually since and since our summer trip this year, I have received unique offer codes for both my old address and now my current address. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason around their strategy for releasing UOCs...go figure .

 

[ChipnDale79]

I'm doing 11 nights in Kyoto/Tokyo, including some Disney park days, plus layovers in LA for a whopping $600 more than WDW, and that for half as many days. WDW has never been cheap, but it's stacking up very badly against other options of late, unless theme park days are an absolute requirement.

I used to make the argument that Disney does stack up to a lot of other vacation options, and in fact when you did that, it looked like a good value. I'm not finding that to be true anymore. There are other things that we haven't done for a vacation before, and one of the reasons was Disney was cheaper.

It's cheaper for our family of 4 to fly out west to visit the grand canyon and do some other things on the west coast for a week, than it is for us to drive to disney and spend a week there. If it weren't for our annual passes (I bought them this year with the intent of spreading the cost over 2 week long trips, so i have to pay for them), we would be doing that next year, so our 2020 vacation will be a west coast swing, not a disney world vacation.

We're spending way more money on a trip and are able to do less in the parks than we were 10 years ago, the final nail in the coffin for me was the parking fees. It's a cheap money grab that reeks of greed, I've had enough. It's starting to look like I'm not the only one.

 

[mshanson3121]

My pins have mostly been your regular 20-30% discounts from Disney Destinations. However, the other day we had an offer from DVC for 40% off a 3 night (or longer stay) if I agree to take an Open House Tour and learn more about DVC. I have never, ever received anything like that before.

 

[Newcastle]

My pins have mostly been your regular 20-30% discounts from Disney Destinations. However, the other day we had an offer from DVC for 40% off a 3 night (or longer stay) if I agree to take an Open House Tour and learn more about DVC. I have never, ever received anything like that before.

Wow...I don’t recall ever hearing about a discount like that. That does seem out of the ordinary!