Disney "Money Grab" and the future of Universal

[keishashadow]

The attractions at Universal heavily tilt towards teens and younger adults. it’s not someplace I would recommend for visitors with very young children or senior citizens.

WDW’s attractions are better at appealing to a multi generational crowd.

WDW heavily markets itself as appealing to the multi generational crowds.

Despite having HP franchise, U specifically went for families with tweens & young adults in their recent advertisement campaigns. I don’t think they will continue to go for that ‘niche’ market much longer with new parks down the road.

Don’t fall into the mistake of discounting the ‘seniors’ among us Not to generalize however, as a whole, that demographic is far more vibrant & fit than the stereotypes of old. Typically, you will observe in the parks, those of a certain age who appear healthy & active…right alongside a good share of likely more sedentary folks (decades younger) that appear to be struggling.

Those packages were released this morning for booking, but most people who attempted weren’t successful (including me).

i refused to jump thru that hoop while staying at SF last month. Wound up finding a slot at Biergarten when the Moana girl is narrator. Surely, one of the lessor lineups this year. no NPH, stamos or Whoop sigh. File it under better than nothing.

even tho we will be onsite 9 days at wdw did book the holiday evening tour for the Saturday after Thanksgiving at U. can’t imagine missing their highlights

Yea, that’s my experience too with checking SeaWorld’s website. Wish they had more information by now. I also notice that their Christmas information says select nights, which makes me think weekends and holidays. Our break from Universal would probably be Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Not sure if they would offer everything on those three days. Hopefully, we find out soon.

i’m sure you’ve seen the recent release. Yes, the weekdays won’t have the shows etc. still on the fence, likely will skip, the nativity show not on the schedule, always a high point for us.

There is a thread on SW boards here with the pre Black Friday disc tix link, good thru this Sunday

WOW - I mean they already cut the quality and standardized across the menus and have maximized their profits on food - and now they want to shame the folks that support them - you can't make this up

it was bizarre as to the delivery. Let them (not) eat cake Lol.

I do agree that the food is generally meh at best, however, the portions are obscene when it comes to the non Signature dining venues, especially as to French fries there.

 

[RossK]

I honestly just don't think Disney knows what it wants to be. But I think it has decided that what it has been in the last 5-7 years is not what it wants to be anymore, and it's using the Pandemic as an opportunity to try things out with less risk, because there's now something they can blame that isn't an executive. I think we'll see lots of chopping and changing over the next couple of years as part of the "phased reopening". It seems the last 5-7 years was primarily about packing as many people in the parks and resorts as possible - and do whatever needs to be done to achieve that through deals, offers, "lower priced" events (I use this term relatively), perks, trying to keep people on property, and so on.

However, it does feel Disney is now targeting... I don't want to use the term 'millennials', because that doesn't quite encompass it, but they are targeting that market segment who are prepared to pay big bucks for a "better" experience. And that segment doesn't want to be crammed in line sardines to packed out events. I think therefore they are genuinely looking to reduce guest numbers, but increase the per-guest spend. The Christmas party, replaced with a more premium (and significantly more expensive) After Hours Party is a great example of this. Assuming they continue to follow the After Hours format as they did for Halloween, then crowds won't be a thing - but Disney will make even more money than they did previously, with much higher levels of guest satisfaction. Obviously though this is excluding a huge proportion of the market that either cannot afford such a price tag, or simply are not willing to pay that. But this is the rather strange position that Disney are in; people complain about the crowds, but the only way to restrict crowds is increase the price, and then people complain about the price. I think this is all a big test to see whether they can get the right formula to attract a smaller, but more "premium" end of the market.

I think Universal is just sitting back watching the experiment. It doesn't really make sense for them to start tinkering with anything when Disney is doing it for them - they can see the impact on their own guest numbers. If it's going in the right direction for them, then they might not change anything at all. I certainly think a lot of UK visitors, who Disney used to be very keen to attract with cheap tickets, will now be spending more time at Universal. It's fairly common for UK guests to do "all the parks" because of the long length of stay (14-21 nights), but with the abolition of the 21-day tickets, this balance will almost certainly shift towards Universal.

It's going to be interesting - because while Disney guest numbers might drop, their revenue might well stay the same or even increase. And that would suggest Universal could snap up more market share - but then do they become what Disney has been over the last 5-7 years (pack'em in).