Agree 100%. It makes trip planning really difficult to throw in this new factor of huge number of AP holders. It is having and will continue to have some backlash for DLR and they need to get a handle on it. I do not think they have yet.
I think there is convincing evidence that it is a relatively small percentage of AP holders causing these disruptions. Just look at Fantasmic last June. It was crazy busy. After the blackout started in late June the crowds went way down.
From your posts, I understand it has been a very long time since you have been at DL and maybe that contributed to this issue, but I am not sure why you were surprised by the crowds. All reports have been that DL has been crowded this year. Between the birthday promotion still going on, the holiday decor and entertainment being up during your visit, and So Cal having wonderful weather at this time of year while the rest of the country is "brrrrr," I would expect Disneyland to be busy.
I personally do not believe the crowds Alvernon90 encountered are due to the local SoCal AP holders that everyone here seems to want to make the scapegoat. They don't come when it's crowded. They don't have to. They don't wait in lines. They don't have to. They don't camp out for hours. They don't have to. They can just come back another day. Many seem to feel that the local AP holder's time at the park is somehow less valuable than the tourists'. I completely disagree with this logic. The local AP holder fits visits to the Park into their daily life. They don't have the luxury of having a week with nothing to do except enjoy the Parks. They have work, school, kids, errands, appointments, and all that daily life involves. They have no interest in waiting 3 hours for a show. They have to get their visit squeezed in where life permits.
! We had different opinions of the 2 hotels, though. I loved our room at the GCH but did not love the dark lobby. I too thought that Sat. was not crowded at all (we were at DCA, though), and that Sun. through Tues. were more crowded (I think AP's were blocked on Sat). Evenings were very crowded, so that is probably bec. of locals - if I lived in CA, I, too would be haunting DLR quite frequently! While I loved the parade, I don't think I would stake out a spot for it for more than 30 minutes - we did'nt see Fantasmic, either, I am just not a "stake out a spot for hours" girl! Maybe locals are more apt to do this - since I can only go to the parks every 4 or 5 years, I don't want to waste precious park time waiting for a parade, fireworks, or a show. I would rather be on Indy.
I think we have all seen posts from two different people about crowds on the very same day and one says it was "very crowded" and the other says "crowds were not too bad". While Disney has actual attendance numbers, the rest of us are all working off of anecdotal evidence and, well, Al Lutz's reports - which purport to be based on Disney's own data.Fantasmic was "crazy busy" in June because DISNEY created a HUGE marketing campaign for the "Summer Nightastic" offerings, which included Fantasmic's revamped show. The dragon was SUPPOSED to debut, although we all know now that it was delayed for months. I would suspect that a great deal of those huge crazy crowds were coming out AS DISNEY WANTED THEM TO as a result of said MEGA advertising campaign. I really, really don't think Disney considered this turnout to be a "problem".
As for the AP situation, all I can say is that the addition of the So Cal SELECT AP was probably a bad idea. Changed the demographics of the crowds at DLR, and not for the better. Without being specific, I'll just say that a day at DLR is starting to feel a lot more like a day at Six Flags...and I'll leave it at that.
I'm a Deluxe AP holder, and I live 15 min away from DLR. I literally visit EVERY week, usually on Wednesdays, as my preschool son is off from school every Wed, so I take him for our special "mommy and me" time, without his older brother along. In general, I do not experience these HUGE crowd issues that everyone complains about. I've been going to DLR as an AP holder since 2001, and things have really not changed that much. You can still (at any time of year) show up at park opening and have a relatively EMPTY place to play up until about noon. I tend to show up at opening, and leave after lunch (around 12:30). Later in the day = bigger crowds, no matter WHAT time of year it is.
I think the AP program is doing just fine, save for the So Cal Select pass option. They should do away with that one...
(emphasis added)
I think LOTS of factors contribute to it being different than several years ago, including the "Free on your birthday" promotion. Without knowing how many people in the Park on the days you were there were SoCal AP holders, it is impossible to credit crowds to them or not. JMO.
I find this statement interesting because of all the people I know who are SoCal residents and have annual passes...my four family members are the only ones who have the SoCal version. Most of them have Deluxe and a few actually have Premium. As a result they have far less blackout days than I do (heck, Premiums have NONE) and they all go a heck of a lot more often than I do. So...in those cases...they're SoCal residents, they go ALL THE TIME (seriously, sometimes more than once a week), but they're not paying a whole lot more than me in the grand scheme of things. What would they say to all those people? You live in SoCal, stop going so much?
Frankly, when I come to the parks for a short time (or heck, anytime I visit the parks really) I never even bother wasting my time waiting in highly desirable lines or waiting around for parades/fireworks/shows to start (and actually if it's been too crowded we've been known to leave). After Nemo opened it was months and months before I even went on it because when we'd go if the line was too long we just figured we'd have an opportunity to come back later when it wouldn't be long and just go on it then. That's been the case with any semi-long line. We just don't wait in them. There have been times where we've gone and been able to go on just one ride because it was the only one that didn't have a line up (usually that's Buzz Lightyear, oddly enough). The rest of the time we steer clear of the crowded areas because we're familiar with the park and know how to avoid them by now. I don't even go to the park THAT frequently (maybe once or twice a month), but I imagine that those who go more frequently than I do and have the APs have the same policy of not even bothering waiting in the long lines. So I have a feeling that those people are not the ones driving up the wait times. And people camping out in the esplanade? I think that just pertains to the level of dedication a particular person has...AP or not. I personally don't see a reason to do that if you have an AP, but whatever.
If that were the case don't you think when the soCal AP blockout starts and lifts we would see the crowds stay fairly level? How would free birthday admittance swing the crowd levels so much and why would that happen on the same days as the SoCal AP blockout changover?
Yes, that's my theory too. The incremental cost of the AP is so low then why not buy an AP. If this is the case then the issue will slowly taper off at those "windfall" AP's expire during 2010. If not then chalk it up to global warming.
