Crowd Outlook

[Aluminum Falcon]

In regards to food: We've been to a few all inclusive resorts. In some areas, leaving the resort was difficult, so we couldn't leave for meals. There was one place that we loved, and it felt like home, but we won't go back because the food was so bad. We find the food at WDW ranges from decent to pretty good, so we are not going specifically for the food, but bad food would be a non-starter for us.

completely agree, they just have to keep it edible if you will. If all they can offer is bad food, it becomes part of the conversation

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Pumping up Uni by saying Disney is unoriginal

Not at all what I said.

Alas, this is supposed to be a thread about Disney crowd levels. There's a fair bit of evidence that crowd levels are currently soft at WDW and will continue to be soft through the fall.

They might be able to boost numbers if they lower their prices.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Not at all what I said.

Alas, this is supposed to be a thread about Disney crowd levels. There's a fair bit of evidence that crowd levels are currently soft at WDW and will continue to be soft through the fall.

They might be able to boost numbers if they lower their prices.

Felt that way based on the way you framed your argument.

I think dropping prices will eventually help (probably next year), i think the remainder of this year is going to be a bust. People already have vacations planned for the year and the economy isn't leaving a lot with money they can randomly dole out coming into the back half of the year

 

[Tigger's ally]

I think dropping prices will eventually help (probably next year), i think the remainder of this year is going to be a bust. People already have vacations planned for the year and the economy isn't leaving a lot with money they can randomly dole out coming into the back half of the year

Back half of the year is busy time. May not be as full as the last few years, but it will pick up for the good weather F&W months and holiday season.

As an aside, I woulda thought the weather would have been considered for not moving F&W up to such an early start.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

Back half of the year is busy time. May not be as full as the last few years, but it will pick up for the good weather F&W months and holiday season.

As an aside, I woulda thought the weather would have been considered for not moving F&W up to such an early start.

i don't know, last year seems to be an outlier in business in the back half of the year. i mean XMas and Thanksgiving are obv going to be busy, the rest of the year is up in the air in my opinion

 

[hildarumpole]

Florida was a tourist destination long before Disney. https://flaglermuseum.us/history/flagler-biography

That's a big part of why Disney chose Florida.

Disney World was a game changer, but Florida was already a major vacation destination. Spring break was already a big deal by 1960.
Weeki Watchee was one of the nation's top tourist attractions as of the 1950's. Gatorland opened in 1949.
Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum opened in 1950. St Augustine was already home to the Castillo de San Marcos.
The Castillo is the oldest masonry fort in the USA, and is over 450 years old.
The Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth Park dates to the 1860's. Silver Springs State Park also dates to the 1860's.
Indian River was also a draw: home to the top FL orange groves.
Kennedy Space Center was a significant tourist destination staring in 1964.
Florida officially adopted the name "Sunshine State" in 1970.
And of course, there's the Everglades.

Disney piggybacked off many pre-existing attractions.

I'd also add Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, renown as Florida's first theme park. It opened in 1936 by Dick Pope, who is called the "Father of Florida Tourism." Lots of movies were filmed there in the 1940's-60's. It's now home to Legoland, but the Cypress Gardens Water Ski show continues on Lake Silver. Central Florida has been a popular tourist destination for a long time.

 

[fatmanatee]

In regards to food: We've been to a few all inclusive resorts. In some areas, leaving the resort was difficult, so we couldn't leave for meals. There was one place that we loved, and it felt like home, but we won't go back because the food was so bad. We find the food at WDW ranges from decent to pretty good, so we are not going specifically for the food, but bad food would be a non-starter for us.

I've never been to an all inclusive but one thing I repeatedly hear about (and this goes for cruises too) when people talk about them is how meals are covered. Incidentally, WDW also used to have something where all meals were covered, and there have been a lot of complaints about how that option has been removed.

As noted... the food has to be good.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I've never been to an all inclusive but one thing I repeatedly hear about (and this goes for cruises too) when people talk about them is how meals are covered. Incidentally, WDW also used to have something where all meals were covered, and there have been a lot of complaints about how that option has been removed.

As noted... the food has to be good.

I did not consider the meal plan, i wonder if that's more a draw for the food itself, or if it is a convenience draw.

 

[ChipnDale79]

I did not consider the meal plan, i wonder if that's more a draw for the food itself, or if it is a convenience draw.

it was for us. the convenience was nice, it was nice to not really think about the price of food and just order what you really wanted.

but i'll be honest with you, the new price for the dining plan next year, its cost prohibitive for us. its over $2600 for our family of 4 for 7 days. Ive priced out our meals and can save us about 1k by not using the dining plan.

 

[wabbott]

Florida was a tourist destination long before Disney. https://flaglermuseum.us/history/flagler-biography

That's a big part of why Disney chose Florida.

Disney World was a game changer, but Florida was already a major vacation destination. Spring break was already a big deal by 1960.
Weeki Watchee was one of the nation's top tourist attractions as of the 1950's. Gatorland opened in 1949.
Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum opened in 1950. St Augustine was already home to the Castillo de San Marcos.
The Castillo is the oldest masonry fort in the USA, and is over 450 years old.
The Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth Park dates to the 1860's. Silver Springs State Park also dates to the 1860's.
Indian River was also a draw: home to the top FL orange groves.
Kennedy Space Center was a significant tourist destination staring in 1964.
Florida officially adopted the name "Sunshine State" in 1970.
And of course, there's the Everglades.

Disney piggybacked off many pre-existing attractions.

Would Universal have chosen FL without Disney? That is a good question.

Sea World opened in 1973. It was predated by a long list of other animal attractions: Alligator Farm (1893), Monkey Jungle (1933), and the Serpentarium (1972).

It is entirely possible Sea World and Universal would have chosen to open parks in Florida if not for WDW.

Universal was already doing theme park entertainment before WDW opened. Universal Hollywood's backlot tours started in 1915, though the tour was discontinued for a long time, it was reborn in 1964. The first attraction was War Lord Tower in 1965. There was also a petting zoo. A 1968 Screen Actors Guild rule = the studio tour shifted significantly towards theme park experience, as they could no longer allow tours on live movie sets. Universal started adding theme park attractions in 1968, with several opening in the early 1970's.

Now of course that came after Disneyland, but it is very likely Universal would have developed without Disney. Coasters predate Disneyland by a wide margin. Leap the Dips - not the first coaster, but now the oldest in the US- dates to 1902.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/201...-saw-orlando-as-perfect-site-for-new-kingdom/

50 years ago, Walt Disney saw Orlando as perfect site for new kingdom

Disney and, perhaps, others aboard the plane knew what they were seeing below. One roadway, Interstate 4, bisected the Sunshine State from east to west. The other, Florida’s Turnpike, would connect South Florida with Orlando and, more importantly, go farther north to connect to Interstate 75, a roadway that already brought untold legions of sunshine-seeking tourists to the state from the North.


According to Richard Foglesong’s “Married to the Mouse,” a 2001 work of immense wealth of details about how Disney created his kingdom here in Central Florida, there was a decisive moment during the plane’s flight south of downtown. It was there, somewhere circling over Central Florida south of Orlando, that Disney looked down, saw the land he wanted to make his own and said, “That’s it.”

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

it was for us. the convenience was nice, it was nice to not really think about the price of food and just order what you really wanted.

but i'll be honest with you, the new price for the dining plan next year, its cost prohibitive for us. its over $2600 for our family of 4 for 7 days. Ive priced out our meals and can save us about 1k by not using the dining plan.

we used it every time we went down and always used the deluxe plan. we also made it worth our money on where we were eating. the way it is now the standard plan is really hard to game around. i really hope they add more options going into 25'

 

[mickeyluv'r]

I'd also add Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, renown as Florida's first theme park. It opened in 1936 by Dick Pope, who is called the "Father of Florida Tourism." Lots of movies were filmed there in the 1940's-60's. It's now home to Legoland, but the Cypress Gardens Water Ski show continues on Lake Silver. Central Florida has been a popular tourist destination for a long time.

I left quite a few off that list.
Car racing tourism in Florida goes back to the very early days of autos.
Baseball's spring training and Florida golf tourism have also been big draws for a very long time.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

WDW has 58 million visitors a year
Central Florida has a total of 74 Million visitors a year.
Florida as a whole has about 135 million visitors a year

I think it's safe to say that WDW carries central Florida tourism
you can argue that it doesn't carry the entire state, but a huge swath of the tourist population would dry up without Disney based on these numbers. I don't see how you can argue that Disney isn't the primary engine in Floridas tourism

 

[ChipnDale79]

WDW has 58 million visitors a year
Central Florida has a total of 74 Million visitors a year.
Florida as a whole has about 135 million visitors a year

I think it's safe to say that WDW carries central Florida tourism
you can argue that it doesn't carry the entire state, but a huge swath of the tourist population would dry up without Disney based on these numbers. I don't see how you can argue that Disney is the primary engine in Floridas tourism

would think the state wouldnt want to upset the mouse...but i better be careful with what i say there

 

[RivShore]

I did not consider the meal plan, i wonder if that's more a draw for the food itself, or if it is a convenience draw.

It was truly both for us, it allowed us to eat in nicer places than we would ever eat with kids (we almost never used those TS meals on character meals, we went wherever the good food was) and in the good old days, that meant all of the current signature restaurants that were on the standard plan. Back then it was a breakeven whenever we compared but it reduced stress so much - just order what you want and don't worry about the price.

 

[Tigger's ally]

i don't know, last year seems to be an outlier in business in the back half of the year. i mean XMas and Thanksgiving are obv going to be busy, the rest of the year is up in the air in my opinion

I'm going our usual first week of October and crowd projections are about what they were the last two years. We don't mind, we take it easy and it is easier to people watch if there are people.

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

I'm going our usual first week of October and crowd projections are about what they were the last two years. We don't mind, we take it easy and it is easier to people watch if there are people.

yeah the crowd outlooks have been completely out of whack since reopening after COVID, i think most calendars are projecting off of last year, because historical data has burned them the last few years. the next few years are going to be whacky, so just don't put to much stock into those

 

[RivShore]

There's a fair bit of evidence that crowd levels are currently soft at WDW and will continue to be soft through the fall.

But let's remember the same is happening to all parks, large and small regional parks are also seeing some year over year declines.

The airlines have been reporting earnings these past few weeks and many have said international travel is breaking records so it would seem revenge travel spend has shifted there for now.

 

[RivShore]

But let's remember the same is happening to all parks, large and small regional parks are also seeing some year over year declines.

The airlines have been reporting earnings these past few weeks and many have said international travel is breaking records so it would seem revenge travel spend has shifted there for now.

Case in point from a few weeks ago:

Citi downgraded Cedar Fair (FUN) to Neutral from Buy with a price target of $41, down from $50. The analyst also opened a "negative catalyst watch" on the shares ahead of the Q2 report, saying disappointing visitation trends for much of last year leaves the threat of yet another miss on the attendance line in Q2

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

But let's remember the same is happening to all parks, large and small regional parks are also seeing some year over year declines.

The airlines have been reporting earnings these past few weeks and many have said international travel is breaking records so it would seem revenge travel spend has shifted there for now.

It borderline amazes me that international travel is up right now, especially with the state of Europe (I guess war isn't as big a deterrent as i thought it would be). The way the market has been acting is a Tsunami in one section of a sector that washes away, and then crashes on another section right after.