Crowd capacity now vs then

[momz]

Pre Covid, it was rare for a park to close to admissions. It would happen in New Years Eve. Otherwise, very rare.

Now, we are seeing the reservations run out well ahead of time.

Does anyone have insight into max crowd volume then vs now? Is the maximum park capacity the same?!

 

[lovethattink]

Disney doesn’t release numbers. But from what I understand, it isn’t up to full capacity yet.

 

[momz]

The maxed out New Year’s Eve days at Epcot were miserably crowded. They had one way lanes to travel around.

with the current maxed out days, is it like that? I really hope not!

 

[_19disnA]

When Disney closed due to covid they also let go/laid off a number of employees. I think they are still trying to balance supply/demand and having park reservations was one way to do that. I haven't seen any recent reports on how many of their employees have yet to return to work. I suspect they are still not fully back to where they were before covid. Some rides can support multiple waiting lines if they have enough employees to staff them. Had the impression they used to do that before covid.

During our last trip to Disney in 2019 before covid there were some areas of parks that were wall-to-wall people even on days when the overall park wasn't that crowded. I think they need to do a better job of managing how many they let into the parks and find ways to eliminate walkway bottlenecks.

 

[Brian Noble]

Is the maximum park capacity the same?!

Almost certainly it isn't. Some of the large entertainment offerings still aren't fully back, and that has an impact. The most recent quarterly earnings call also mentioned that it was difficult to hire food service cast. Unlike Anaheim, a WDW park guest can't just walk 10 minutes out of the gate and eat at McDonalds, so limited restaurant capacity necessarily limits park capacity.