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[RivShore]

Yes, it does feel busier. The parks are and resorts are still not offering the full experience they used to which leads to crowding. It's down vs. Pre covid travel.

Can you provide a link to the data? I don't doubt it might be down a bit but would love to see some real data.

 

[RivShore]

I thought the opposite. We were there from Jan 5-14 and thought it was quite light. Didn’t get genie+ at all and did everything. Including at one point a 40 min wait for rise.

You must have hit the right parks on the right days because, holy crap, was Epcot packed shoulder to shoulder on the weekend. I think it was the busiest I have ever seen it, even spring break.

For a few years, when the kids were young, we would go around MLK day for a week and Friday to Monday would be busy like we have seen now, but then it would really be empty the rest of the week. We have not seen that kind of emptiness at all this year.

 

[RivShore]

The parks are and resorts are still not offering the full experience they used to which leads to crowding

What experiences do you think are still missing? With Fantasmic reopening and much of the street entertainment, concerts, etc returning, what other crowd eaters are closed?

 

[New Mouse]

That’s also a completely different operational approach. Pre-Covid Disney was 100% capacity with come on in everybody and fill the parks to the gills.

Post-Covid Disney is operating on attendance caps (which also helps control staffing needs) with the mindset on an increase in per guest spending.

In the short term, that newer strategy is paying dividends as the parks are more profitable than ever. Long term, we’ll see.

They haven't capped anything, they have just moved it around. Not a single day where all 4 parks were closed.

 

[New Mouse]

What experiences do you think are still missing? With Fantasmic reopening and much of the street entertainment, concerts, etc returning, what other crowd eaters are closed?

It's about the bigger picture including restaurant capacity and resorts as well. They have pulled a lot of the stuff at resorts which funnels people to the parks (or elsewhere). At the end or the day the entire philosophy on how they want to take a guests money has changed.

 

[mom2rtk]

They haven't capped anything, they have just moved it around. Not a single day where all 4 parks were closed.

Exactly. At this point the caps are primarily to push people into the non MK, non DHS parks. You know, instead of building them up to appeal to people enough to want to visit. They cap the other parks to push people there. Which is why reservations are here to stay.

 

[HokieRaven5]

They haven't capped anything, they have just moved it around. Not a single day where all 4 parks were closed.

They did, in 2021, which is the last actual known data point for attendance numbers. The attendance numbers for 2022 won’t be released until later this year.

Yes for the most part all of the parks aren’t reaching whatever cap they have currently set in place, but they also recently stating during a meeting with shareholders that they had a 20% cut in capacity compared to pre-Covid times during peak seasons. So yes, they’re still implementing caps.

I don’t disagree that for most of the year the reservation system is useless as Disney usually only hit peak capacity a few weeks of the year during pre-Covid times.

To add the total domestic parks revenue in Calendar 2021 was $12.7B (Disneyland admittedly didn’t open until May 2021)

In 2022 it was $21.4B

Venture they had an increase YOY in attendance. It’s probably not back at pre-Covid, but I don’t see them going back to that either.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023...hoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article

Disney's Streaming Business Is Still Bleeding Cash -- and Now Subscribers
By James Brumley – Feb 12, 2023 at 6:05AM

Key Points​

Streaming subscriber growth is slowing down, possibly because the company's spending less to promote it.

Per-user revenue is also slumping, suggesting Disney's pricing power may be waning in an increasingly crowded and competitive streaming market.

Although Walt Disney's streaming segment is modest compared to its theme park, film, and television businesses, for better or worse its streaming operation is making an oversized impact on the stock's price.

The direct-to-consumer arm continues to lose money, albeit less than it did a quarter earlier. But last quarter may not be the new norm investors truly want.

The good news is that Disney's (DIS -2.08%) streaming business lost less money last quarter than it did a quarter earlier. The bad news is that it's still losing plenty of it.

The media giant's direct-to-consumer arm suffered an operating loss of $1.0 billion during the three-month stretch ending in December, despite driving record revenue of $5.3 billion.

It would be easy to conclude the glass is now half-full -- or at least full enough -- for this young endeavor. And most investors did exactly that. Disney shares popped 8% higher in Wednesday's after-hours trading following the post-close release of the fiscal first-quarter figures.

On balance, though, there's still a great deal not to like about Walt Disney in general, and its streaming operation in particular. Chief among these worries are slowing subscriber growth and weakening per-user revenue in North America, and a shrinking subscriber base for its India-focused Disney+ Hotstar.

Not exactly a smashing success

Kudos to Walt Disney for reeling in its quarterly streaming losses. Its direct-to-consumer loss was pared back by $500 million from the prior quarter's loss of $1.5 billion on a mere $400 million improvement in sales. It's the first time since early 2021 the company's offered evidence that this endeavor might eventually turn an actual profit.

Data source: Walt Disney Co. Chart by author.

Except a couple of key metrics suggest this pace of progress isn't sustainable.

The first of these red flags is slowing streaming subscriber growth. As several headlines have pointed out, Disney+ did lose customers last quarter. Only the Disney+ Hotstar platform shed subscribers though... 3.8 million of them, to be exact, bringing the headcount down from 61.3 million to 57.5 million.

Still, Disney+ added a minimal number of new customers everywhere else. The platform's domestic and international customer headcounts only grew from the previous quarter's combined 102.9 million to 104.3 million for the quarter ending in December, and company-wide streaming subscriptions slipped from Q4's 235.7 million to 234.6 million.

Data source: Walt Disney Co. Chart by author. Data is in millions.

Why is subscriber growth slowing down? Good question. It may have something to do with spending less on marketing and promotions.

We don't have the specific spending breakdown. We only know that Walt Disney spent less on selling, general, and administrative expenses last quarter than in it has in the few quarters leading up to Q1, and spent more than $400 million less than it spent on these items during the previous quarter. If the selling budget is where the savings came from, though, that cost-cutting may have been somewhat counterproductive.

There's one thing we do know for sure, however: Profit-improving savings didn't come from lowered programming costs. In fact, the company spent more on streaming content last quarter than it has in any quarter yet. It doesn't seem to have gotten a great deal of bang for those bucks.

The other concern is last quarter's deteriorating per-user streaming revenue figures.

Not every service suffered per-user revenue setbacks, to be clear. ESPN+ saw its average revenue per user (or ARPU) improve from fiscal Q4's levels, as well as grow on a year-over-year basis. Both the North America and international versions of Disney+ saw lower ARPUs last quarter though, and not for the first time.

Data source: Walt Disney Co. Chart by author. Data is monthly.

Granted, the tepid economy could be at least partially to blame. Consumers tend to tighten their purse strings when they're afraid economic headwinds could start blowing in earnest. Advertisers do the same when they fear consumers may not be in a position to respond to an advertisement. As CFO Christine McCarthy commented during the Q4 earnings call three months ago, however, "we do not expect the launch of the advertising-supported tier of Disney+ in December to provide a more meaningful financial impact until later this fiscal year." So these waning per-user revenue metrics do call the actual pricing power of Disney+ into question.

And regardless of the cause, it's certainly not the ARPU lull you want to see headed into a price increase when your subscriber growth is already slowing. It's even more troubling when the weakening per-user revenue metrics are coming from the service generally regarded as Disney's streaming flagship.

Still too many questions (and not enough answers)

It's not the end of the world. Walt Disney operates other businesses besides its streaming ventures. Its theme parks saw 21% growth last quarter. Its film business fared fairly well last quarter, too.

Given the extent to which the company's streaming operation is driving the stock's price, however, know that last quarter's apparent fiscal progress may or may not be built to last. Production and content costs continue to rise in step with revenue growth, and then some. Disney's now just spending less to sell and manage its streaming operation, but it already looks like subscriber growth and ARPU levels are suffering as a result.

You may want to hold off on a new position until it's clearer the company can find a sustainable (read "profitable") streaming budget that still allows for meaningful subscriber growth. It doesn't really seem to have found it yet.

 

[RivShore]

It's about the bigger picture including restaurant capacity and resorts as well. They have pulled a lot of the stuff at resorts which funnels people to the parks (or elsewhere). At the end or the day the entire philosophy on how they want to take a guests money has changed.

Restaurant capacity has looked back to normal lately. Where do you see it still restricted?

What is the resort stuff they pulled?

 

[mom2rtk]

Restaurant capacity has looked back to normal lately. Where do you see it still restricted?

What is the resort stuff they pulled?

Not sure if others are still closed, but 1900 Park Fare hasn't reopened. Some restaurants that used to have breakfast still don't.

 

[HokieRaven5]

Can you provide a link to the data? I don't doubt it might be down a bit but would love to see some real data.

So as far as the resort growth is concerned in post Covid times, in FY21 guests occupied 4,390,000 of an available 10,451,000 resort days at the domestic parks or 42% occupancy.

In FY22 guests occupied 8,260,000 of an available 10,073,000 resort days or 82% occupancy.

By comparison FY19 guests occupied 9,065,000 days of 10,073,000 available resort days or 90% occupancy.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/02/2022-Annual-Report.pdf

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2021/01/2020-Annual-Report.pdf

 

[RivShore]

So as far as the resort growth is concerned in post Covid times, in FY21 guests occupied 4,390,000 of an available 10,451,000 resort days at the domestic parks or 42% occupancy.

In FY22 guests occupied 8,260,000 of an available 10,073,000 resort days or 82% occupancy.

By comparison FY19 guests occupied 9,065,000 days of 10,073,000 available resort days or 90% occupancy.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/02/2022-Annual-Report.pdf

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2021/01/2020-Annual-Report.pdf

Thanks! I had not thought about looking at attendance from a hotel occupancy perspective. And its actually reported by Disney rather than 3rd party estimates of attendance so it should be accurate.

So, 8% less occupancy from Oct-2021 thru Sep-2022 vs. pre-Covid, about what I would have expected (or maybe better than expected) given international travel was still minimal late 21 into early 22.

 

[RivShore]

So as far as the resort growth is concerned in post Covid times, in FY21 guests occupied 4,390,000 of an available 10,451,000 resort days at the domestic parks or 42% occupancy.

In FY22 guests occupied 8,260,000 of an available 10,073,000 resort days or 82% occupancy.

By comparison FY19 guests occupied 9,065,000 days of 10,073,000 available resort days or 90% occupancy.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/02/2022-Annual-Report.pdf

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2021/01/2020-Annual-Report.pdf

I thought they used to report occupancy in the quarterlies too but I don't see it in last weeks report. Did you find it?

 

[HokieRaven5]

Thanks! I had not thought about looking at attendance from a hotel occupancy perspective. And its actually reported by Disney rather than 3rd party estimates of attendance so it should be accurate.

So, 8% less occupancy from Oct-2021 thru Sep-2022 vs. pre-Covid, about what I would have expected (or maybe better than expected) given international travel was still minimal late 21 into early 22.

Yeah unfortunately on the FY22 Annual Report they list the growth of attendance of the parks at “nm or Not Meaningful” it’s also being compared to a 17% drop from FY20 to FY21

I thought they used to report occupancy in the quarterlies too but I don't see it in last weeks report. Did you find it?

They haven’t done that typically at least for the last 5 years, I didn’t look further back than 2018 though.

 

[Jrb1979]

So as far as the resort growth is concerned in post Covid times, in FY21 guests occupied 4,390,000 of an available 10,451,000 resort days at the domestic parks or 42% occupancy.

In FY22 guests occupied 8,260,000 of an available 10,073,000 resort days or 82% occupancy.

By comparison FY19 guests occupied 9,065,000 days of 10,073,000 available resort days or 90% occupancy.

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2023/02/2022-Annual-Report.pdf

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/app/uploads/2021/01/2020-Annual-Report.pdf

My guess is the spring and summer hotel reservations are much lower then the 82%. Hence the dining offer.

People have to remember that the majority of the parks attendance comes from off-site guests.

 

[jade1]

but they also recently stating during a meeting with shareholders that they had a 20% cut in capacity compared to pre-Covid times during peak seasons.

Yes they admitted that. So attendance is indeed down still by a lot.

The Parking lots are much less full than precovid we have noticed.

They could absorb more here and there though, so attraction waits are still high and therefore selling G+ and LL.

 

[wabbott]

Parks look relatively busy today. 130 minutes at Avatar, 110 minutes at Slinky, but only 45 at Remy

 

[HokieRaven5]

Yes they admitted that. So attendance is indeed down still by a lot.

The Parking lots are much less full than precovid we have noticed.

They could absorb more here and there though, so attraction waits are still high and therefore selling G+ and LL.

Attendance is still down vs pre-Covid but it remains to be seen by how much. All 4 parks were at full capacity during Christmas week minus a few days for the Incredipass, Disney just set a lower limit on how many guests could get in vs pre-Covid. Operationally they are still not fully at 100%, hence the park capacity constraints vs precovid times.

They also had lower capacity constraints in place in FY21 than FY22. FY21 had things still just starting to come back and things were operating at a much lower capacity (started at 35% in Q1 FY21). FY22 saw additional attractions/experiences and restaurants returning which allowed for an increase in overall resort operational capacity, hence the rise in hotel occupancy and I would guess park attendance from FY21 to FY22.

FY22 also had less instances than FY21 where individual parks were at capacity to play the “force someone to another park” game.

 

[wabbott]

https://www.fool.com/investing/2023...hoo-host&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=article

Disney Is Spending a Fortune on Streaming Content, but Is It Enough?​

By James Brumley – Feb 12, 2023 at 9:35AM

Key Points​

• 
  Walt Disney saw a sharp reduction in streaming losses last quarter.
• 
  This improvement wasn't driven by falling programming costs.
• 
  The cost savings coincide with poor subscriber growth for its flagship streaming platform, Disney+.

The media giant's streaming business is in the process of a major shake-up.

Walt Disney's (DIS -2.08%) streaming businesses finally reduced their operating losses last quarter. But it didn't happen for the reason you might be thinking. Content costs -- the cost of producing or licensing the films and shows for its various platforms -- actually grew again during the quarter ended in December. Indeed, these costs actually grew more than Disney's streaming revenue did, seemingly in conflict with the company's plans to curb spending.

So how'd the company make net progress toward profitability for the quarter in question? It dramatically cut other operating expenses. It's a decision, however, that just might come back to haunt Walt Disney's long-term streaming ambitions.

Disney's streaming content costs are still sky-high​

As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Take a look at the comparisons of each of Disney's streaming services' programming and production costs. As a percentage of streaming revenue, Walt Disney isn't actually making any net progress in terms of curbing its net or relative content costs. In fact, the difference between its content costs and streaming revenue has been shrinking since early last year.

Data source: The Walt Disney Co. Chart by author. All figures are in millions.
The $500 million sequential improvement in Disney's streaming bottom line for the fiscal 2023 first quarter instead stems from a dramatic reduction in selling, administrative, and general expenses. Last quarter's $545 million reduction in this spending drove the figure down to $1.16 billion -- the least Disney shelled out for these costs since the middle of 2021.

Data source: The Walt Disney Co. Chart by author. All figures are in millions.

The organization's supplemental disclosures don't detail exactly how this money is spent (or isn't spent). It's not a stretch, however, to suggest the savings came from lowered selling costs ... namely, less promotional and marketing activity. Administrative spending is typically difficult to cull in a single quarter. Selling expenses aren't.

And like it or not, every spending decision has an effect. Sometimes, the effect is for the better, and sometimes, it's for the worse. Occasionally, you get a little of both.

Given this, the question investors should consider here is whether or not the sharp, sudden reduction in streaming-related selling and administrative spending took a toll on Disney's streaming subscriber growth. As a reminder, on a worldwide basis, Walt Disney lost 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers last quarter.

Data source: The Walt Disney Co. Chart by author. All figures are in millions.
It did see net customer growth in the all-important North American and international markets (excluding Disney+ Hotstar). It saw very little such growth, though. The entertainment giant only added 1.2 million international Disney+ users and a mere 200,000 North American Disney+ subscribers. Both are less-than-magical results.

Not a fiscally viable, stand-alone business​

To its credit, the company is planning further cost cuts and renewing its focus on profitability. It's starting by laying off 7,000 employees, en route to a target of $5.5 billion worth of savings.

Walt Disney is also reorganizing itself -- again -- into three distinct operating units. These are Disney Entertainment, ESPN, and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products. These divisions will operate independently of one another, particularly as it pertains to their profit and losses. More to the point, it looks like the shake-up will meld streaming with the company's studios and television arm.

None of this changes the fact, however, that its streaming endeavors have yet to reach fiscal viability on their own. It's not even clear they can reach fiscal viability as-is, and as they're currently priced. Again, streaming subscriber growth hit a wall last quarter, coinciding with considerably less selling and administrative spending.

It matters to investors simply because -- as CEO Bob Iger put it on the latest earnings call -- streaming is "in many respects, our future.

 

[RivShore]

Not sure if others are still closed, but 1900 Park Fare hasn't reopened. Some restaurants that used to have breakfast still don't.

Your right 900 is still closed and I had not noticed the changes to breakfast at some (we are not breakfast eaters so just never noticed).

I don't think a closed restaurant/reduced hours here or there is unusual in an operation as large as WDW. Some on here want to point to it as a major post-covid reduction of the overall experience solely to make the company more dollars, when in reality there have always been closures of restaurants during a given year for whatever reasons (remodel, lack of employees, lack of demand, menu revamp, etc.).