Epcot, AK and DHS have been slow all summer?

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

I'm sure you do know where I'm going with this...

And unfortunately the 30 seconds I spent looking after my kids went to bed shows the numbers are much worse than I thought/ remembered...

But I'll elaborate...just can't right this second ( work, schmurk)

But just a preview:

The "1/3 full hotels" is the ball that has been hit completely off the course... That can't be serious...

The overall attendance idea is waayyyyy off... Those three "dead parks" still average 2-4 million more visitors per year than the two "smokin" universal parks... Those numbers are pretty easy to find. The magic kingdom destroys them all.

And the numbers on merch are near shocking...annual revenue from merch is equal to everything else (for the parks Disney owns... Anaheim, Orlando, and about 50% of Marne a la Vallee)...
What is hidden in that is nearly all the overhead is under the "other category"...and the reality is that even if that is a bit of a shell game... And it probably is... The junk shops sell things built by automation and sweatshop labor in china... Shipped en masse back to the US with no tariffs ( thanks to 50 years of moron politicians on BOTH sides of the isle who are bought and paid for by those that have the money and need no more) and is sold by the minimum number of minimum wage employees possible ( or even less if they are college program... Boy, that's an interesting story)...the result is probably 75-80% profit on the low end... It has been estimated as high as 95%.
As Mel brooks said "where the REAL money is made"...satire and many stereotypes are often based in truth...there is usually fire behind the smoke.

You have a point on size and overhead costs... Definitely more and issue at WDW... But the numerical offsets make that a small thorn in the side... Not enough to bring down the horse.

It's common knowledge that the Disney Parks attendance at WDW is very inflated due to park-hopping and resort guests. A week-long WDW guest will go to Epcot 2-3 times during their stay. IOA/US does not have that same occurance at that level. Many scoff at the idea that AK or DHS have 2-3 million more guests than IOA. Also, 1/3 full is exactly what the majority of Disney Resorts are year-round.

When you consider the staff, energy costs and maintenance(let alone groundskeeping and endless busrides) those empty hotels are a mighty weight...especially compared to the compact(and packed property) of Universal.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

It's common knowledge that the Disney Parks attendance at WDW is very inflated due to park-hopping and resort guests. A week-long WDW guest will go to Epcot 2-3 times during their stay. IOA/US does not have that same occurance at that level. Many scoff at the idea that AK or DHS have 2-3 million more guests than IOA. Also, 1/3 full is exactly what the majority of Disney Resorts are year-round.

When you consider the staff, energy costs and maintenance(let alone groundskeeping and endless busrides) those empty hotels are a mighty weight...especially compared to the compact(and packed property) of Universal.

Ok... Still not budging off the fallacy huh?

"Park hopping" is an issue at both... So ease back on that. That's not to say Disney doesn't suffer more... No doubt it does. But no offense you are pulling the effect of that out of thin air ( I'm being " pg") and that place is devoid of evidence.

Since we are going on supposition... It is a myth that people visit 2-3 parks at wdw each day to throw the numbers off. Most still, especially the non frequent traveler, follow the day by day plan of one park that all 2 billion copies of burnbaums tell everyone too. The difference with my " opinion" is that Disney does track that. So it's not out of the ether.

Here's a verified number:
2012 attendance

Universal Orlando - 14,000,000
Wdw - 48,500,000

Now I'm no accountant... But one number looks alot bigger. And if your trying to say that park hopping from animal kingdom is cause for a 200-300% inflation...then we might as well speak Klingon to each other.

We can just stop here...

There are two predictable reasons for your argument:
1. Fan of universal who is attempting to convince themselves that they are on the same level
2. Fan of Disney ( or amusement geek ) who is convinced that Disney will spend / build more than they have any inkling to in an effort to " compete with universal.

Both have merits... Both are completely incorrect.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

Probably should ease off that 1/3 full stance... First off, it's relative and not what's important... Second, it's also incorrect.

Even after Harry potter...the universal parks barely cut into the disparity.

Now I give them alot of credit...and that goes to Comcast and the Roberts family - who have no fear of Disney. But at the same time, every Comcast subscriber wants them out of business tomorrow...and as soon as the government and technology allows it... They will be. Everyone hates the cable company.

This notion of "1/3 full" is the ultimate red herring. Wdw parks could never operate if they were at capacity each day... You're talking about 100 million people annually. They couldn't supply to handle the strain and have no shot of pulling off that much labor in Orlando. If universal was "full" you're looking at somewhere around 30 (a guess... But an educated one based on size and their numbers currently in their first real "boom" period)

There's your 1/3.

Coincidentally interbrand just released its annual top 100 worldwide brands list today... Which is a complex and authoritative formula that you can bank on " literally"... And the evidence is damning there too.
Neither Comcast, nor
Universal, nor NBC would be expected on there ( 2 of the three are us only )...

But first is apple, second is google, third coke, Microsoft/windows, Exxon, etc etc

Long story short - too late - there
Are 3 brands that are in entertainment...

Sony is about #60...MTV ( a little surprising)...is #78.

Guess who's 14? Behind only the largest tech companies, cars, coke and McDonald's... Way ahead of walmart.
I couldn't even make up the size of the Disney juggernaut if I WANTED to... I couldn't dream up numbers that big. Gonna have to give the benefit on this.

And I still haven't gotten the calculator out to look at the numbers.

If your stance is that universal makes more pound for pound... That is a reasonable hypothesis.
But it's wrong because the merchandise advantage blows any loss due to size of the operation out of the water. Remember that Disney takes the lions share of the revenue from marvel IN IOA as well. Talk about profit... Literally 100% profit.

Just check an overhead compartment on ANY flight out of OIA to any destination on any day...
The evidence is damning and completely predictable.

And on and on

The "1/3 full" comment is about Disney's 20 resorts. Only 2 or three of them are anywhere near full occupancy.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

It's common knowledge...

those empty hotels

I'm trying to trace "common knowledge"

And I left it alone till now...but what the heck...
Disney hotels are never empty... They're not Hampton inns.

At the low point after the real estate crash... Hotel occupancy at wdw was a ghastly 78%...typically in good economy it's 90-93%

That's for the year, chief. Every room every day.

In 2002...this is my own peepers...it was 67%. There was a historical context there.

So after the only instance of foreign terrorism on us soil...
Those empty hotels that were 1/3 full were - in fact - 2/3 full.

Live long and prosper.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

Ok... Still not budging off the fallacy huh?

"Park hopping" is an issue at both... So ease back on that. That's not to say Disney doesn't suffer more... No doubt it does. But no offense you are pulling the effect of that out of thin air ( I'm being " pg") and that place is devoid of evidence.

Since we are going on supposition... It is a myth that people visit 2-3 parks at wdw each day to throw the numbers off. Most still, especially the non frequent traveler, follow the day by day plan of one park that all 2 billion copies of burnbaums tell everyone too. The difference with my " opinion" is that Disney does track that. So it's not out of the ether.

Here's a verified number:
2012 attendance

Universal Orlando - 14,000,000
Wdw - 48,500,000

Now I'm no accountant... But one number looks alot bigger. And if your trying to say that park hopping from animal kingdom is cause for a 200-300% inflation...then we might as well speak Klingon to each other.

We can just stop here...

There are two predictable reasons for your argument:
1. Fan of universal who is attempting to convince themselves that they are on the same level
2. Fan of Disney ( or amusement geek ) who is convinced that Disney will spend / build more than they have any inkling to in an effort to " compete with universal.

Both have merits... Both are completely incorrect.

I'm a "fan of Disney". I don't care for Universal.

The attendance numbers are not about "park-hopping 2-3 times a day". What they are distorted by is the fact that so many people go to an individual park at least a couple of times during their stay. Hence...the attendance numbers say that Epcot has around 10 million visitors a year. At least a couple of million needs to be chopped off for the same guests re-entering the park over the period of their stay.

Universal doesn't have nearly that common of an occurance. Hence...many people laugh at the idea of AK having 2 million more visitors a year than IOA.

 

[mrsmomo]

Not that I fully understand this whole thread but I find it very interesting! Just a note based on my recent traveling, bought hoppers one year...never got a chance to use them. Didn't get hoppers this year spent 7 days in the parks w 2 days @ every park except Epcot. Now let's take my 2 days @ AK are we the same ppl entering yes, but did it use up 2 days of tickets yes did we spend money both days yes did we do diff things both days yes so why shouldn't that count towards their attendance twice....

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

Not that I fully understand this whole thread but I find it very interesting! Just a note based on my recent traveling, bought hoppers one year...never got a chance to use them. Didn't get hoppers this year spent 7 days in the parks w 2 days @ every park except Epcot. Now let's take my 2 days @ AK are we the same ppl entering yes, but did it use up 2 days of tickets yes did we spend money both days yes did we do diff things both days yes so why shouldn't that count towards their attendance twice....

It counted as two unique visits. If you had a park-hopper it would also have counted as two unique visits.

That's the point...Epcot doesn't have 10 million guests a year and DHS and AK don't have 8-9. Every WDW park outside of the MK is at par(or maybe below) IOA in actuality.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

The "1/3 full" comment is about Disney's 20 resorts. Only 2 or three of them are anywhere near full occupancy.

Completely incorrect... I covered that

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I'm a "fan of Disney". I don't care for Universal.

The attendance numbers are not about "park-hopping 2-3 times a day". What they are distorted by is the fact that so many people go to an individual park at least a couple of times during their stay. Hence...the attendance numbers say that Epcot has around 10 million visitors a year. At least a couple of million needs to be chopped off for the same guests re-entering the park over the period of their stay.

Universal doesn't have nearly that common of an occurance. Hence...many people laugh at the idea of AK having 2 million more visitors a year than IOA.

It doesn't matter how many there are... They're still wrong.

Multiple visits bleed the numbers at universal too...most especially since the Harry potter add and the compete redo of studios.

So you're saying that people go to animal kingdom multiple times every trip... Even though its "dead"...but that doesn't happen with IOA?

And your theory only matters if its same day hoping...
A butt in the park is a spending customer...if its grandma Moses 6 days in a row... That doesn't eat away at the bottom line. A person is a person...and is only marginal loss if its not "new people". The point is that there are 50 million magic Mickey ticket scanner spins each year... And 15 swipes at Uni...
All the "bleed" reasons at Disney apply to universal. They pull the same tricks.
You have looked at the universal "hopper" tickets and realize they only cost 10% more... Right?

Hell, Disney's hopper sure as heck doesn't equate to that little...it can be as much as 30%
But you're still standing that the disney parks are all a trick but universals numbers are "real"

The hole is starting to get deeper here...

Is this about the desire for Carsland? I mean seriously...it's a little obsessive at this point.

 

[Josh Hendy]

It counted as two unique visits. If you had a park-hopper it would also have counted as two unique visits.

That's the point...Epcot doesn't have 10 million guests a year and DHS and AK don't have 8-9. Every WDW park outside of the MK is at par(or maybe below) IOA in actuality.

I wonder if even a lot of the non-"hopping" visits to WDW parks are ... how shall I say ... grudging.

What I mean is, nearly every family seems to have 1 or 2 parks which nobody particularly wants to visit, at least not very badly. Many people seem to dislike AK. My family loves AK, but the last 2 times we visited DHS we got relatively little enjoyment out of it and DW and DKs wanted to leave early to go back to the hotel, or go shopping, or whatever. So why do we go there anyways? Because of the multiday "magic your way" tickets. If you buy 3-day passes, you look at the price of the 4-day, 5-day, 6-day passes and think, "Gee, the price per day goes down a lot the more days you buy." So you buy the 5-day pass, You can't go to MK 4 days and Epcot 1 day, so you say, "Ok we'll visit MK, then do short days at AK and DHS, then do Epcot and finish up the week with another full day at MK."

So even after you've subtracted a certain number of "hopper" guests from the WDW park attendance numbers, I think you can subtract a certain number of guests who only visited certain parks because the additional extra cost of tacking more days onto their multiday tickets was quite low.

Last visit to Orlando I think we paid almost the same admission price to visit 2 Universal parks for 1 day each as we paid to visit 4 WDW parks for 1 day each, thanks to the magic of "magic your way".

A more meaningful comparison of WDW versus Univeral park attendance would take into account the average amount of money paid for admission for each park guest per visit. Maybe insiders have this information, maybe it's buried in financial analysts' reports on Comcast and Disney, but I wouldn't expect to see it published out there for everyone to see.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I wonder if even a lot of the non-"hopping" visits to WDW parks are ... how shall I say ... grudging.

What I mean is, nearly every family seems to have 1 or 2 parks which nobody particularly wants to visit, at least not very badly. Many people seem to dislike AK. My family loves AK, but the last 2 times we visited DHS we got relatively little enjoyment out of it and DW and DKs wanted to leave early to go back to the hotel, or go shopping, or whatever. So why do we go there anyways? Because of the multiday "magic your way" tickets. If you buy 3-day passes, you look at the price of the 4-day, 5-day, 6-day passes and think, "Gee, the price per day goes down a lot the more days you buy." So you buy the 5-day pass, You can't go to MK 4 days and Epcot 1 day, so you say, "Ok we'll visit MK, then do short days at AK and DHS, then do Epcot and finish up the week with another full day at MK."

So even after you've subtracted a certain number of "hopper" guests from the WDW park attendance numbers, I think you can subtract a certain number of guests who only visited certain parks because the additional extra cost of tacking more days onto their multiday tickets was quite low.

Last visit to Orlando I think we paid almost the same admission price to visit 2 Universal parks for 1 day each as we paid to visit 4 WDW parks for 1 day each, thanks to the magic of "magic your way".

A more meaningful comparison of WDW versus Univeral park attendance would take into account the average amount of money paid for admission for each park guest per visit. Maybe insiders have this information, maybe it's buried in financial analysts' reports on Comcast and Disney, but I wouldn't expect to see it published out there for everyone to see.

That may cover the repeat offenders... Though...again....there are alot of universal visitors who walk in and out of their parks in
30 minutes too...it the nature of the hopper beast...
But It doesn't take into account first timers... Who don't decide that the parks "suck" and "aren't" for them prior to their trips and typically only in memory or retrospect...

The problem is the premise that Disney's raw numbers are a myth... But that really is only a marginal issue.
The ticket sales, hotel rooms sold, and revenues are indisputable.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

@lockedoutlogic

I'm not obsessed...I just hear a LOT of people both in "real life" and on thse boards that repeatedly talk about how choked with people IOA is(no matter what time of year) and how empty AK/DHS/Epcot are.

The numbers say that those three parks host 2 million more visitors a year. Something is off-kilter.

 

[nkosiek]

I don't have a horse in this race, BUT just some quick facts:

IOA: 110 Acres
EPCOT: 300 Acres
AK: 500 Acres
DHS: 135 Acres

Perception is reality, and so naturally the three Disney parks are going to look less busy compared to a much smaller park simply because even if the numbers were exactly equal they would be more spread out at any of the Disney parks.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

I don't have a horse in this race, BUT just some quick facts:

IOA: 110 Acres
EPCOT: 300 Acres
AK: 500 Acres
DHS: 135 Acres

Perception is reality, and so naturally the three Disney parks are going to look less busy compared to a much smaller park simply because even if the numbers were exactly equal they would be more spread out at any of the Disney parks.

@nkosiek

Understood...but what the guests are reporting are huge lines for numerous attractions at IOA and also packed restaurants. There are many, MANY more attractions at IOA than the three non-MK Disney Parks...and their lines are huge. Mosts guests here(and other places) report walking on to most of the major attractions(which are few in comparison at each respective park) . They also report empty restaurants.

*I'm* one of those guests that also experienced exactly *that* at the three non-MK parks this past July. July is SUPPOSED to be a "peak period", right?

 

[nkosiek]

And I was there the first week of August and I didn't experience that at all, except for the last hour at AK. Every other place had hour+ long waits, even AK earlier in the day.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

And I was there the first week of August and I didn't experience that at all, except for the last hour at AK. Every other place had hour+ long waits, even AK earlier in the day.

How many posts(let's just use disboards posters as a guide for now) have there been on these boards where guests are reporting riding Expedition Everest three or four times in a row? The same thing for the Safaris. You would have to look long and hard for those same accounts with The Forbidden Journey.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

So many posters lamenting the fact that they hardly got anything done at IOA due to the lines. The only Disney park that seems to share this situation is the MK.

Toy Story Mania is the only ride of the nonMK Disney Parks that is in this league...and *that* is due to it's limited loading capacity. Many, MANY guests report how much longer it is to ride Rip-Saw Falls at IOA than Splash Mountain and the ride capacity is near-identical.

 

[OnSpaceshipEarth]

I don't have a horse in this race, BUT just some quick facts:

IOA: 110 Acres
EPCOT: 300 Acres
AK: 500 Acres
DHS: 135 Acres

Perception is reality, and so naturally the three Disney parks are going to look less busy compared to a much smaller park simply because even if the numbers were exactly equal they would be more spread out at any of the Disney parks.

The only comparison that is really valid(imho) is DHS.

Epcot's acreage is in large part a small lake in the center of World Showcase and a number of ponds in Future World. Animal Kingdoms acreage total includes huge portions that are off-limits to guests and also a part of an attraction(safari, walk-up to EE, etc.). The actual areas where guests are walking around is quite similar.

 

[beer dave]

How many posts(let's just use disboards posters as a guide for now) have there been on these boards where guests are reporting riding Expedition Everest three or four times in a row? The same thing for the Safaris. You would have to look long and hard for those same accounts with The Forbidden Journey.

Just because people don't post their experiences and opinions doesn't mean they don't exist. Disney has been increasingly crowded every year for the past 8 years according to my experience and my opinion. We go 3 to 4 times a year for 2 to 5 nights. Locked out has posted attendance numbers. The size comparisons have been made to show why universal appears more crowded. Maybe we need to count attractions in each category to compare the number of attractions.........nah. this dead horse has been beat.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

I think part of the problem with this back and forth is that it has devolved into opinion about the "feel" of the crowd levels and the length of lines...that's my fault, I didnt realize this was a "everyone in Kissimmee says its more crowded" sooner

The problem is while those things are an indicator - they are not nearly as important as its being made out to be.

The line at the hulk coaster or the quiddich ride does mean universal is cutting into Disney's market or dominance...especially in money...which is the whole ball of wax.

Lines are bad for business...that insider secret leaked out.
And by "leaked out"...I mean Disney spent a billion dollars sending out radio tags and putting scanners in so the bushes talk to you...that system is about getting people out of lines and freeing up time...
So did they misread that? Lines equal success? Hmmmm...I'm willing to bet there might be math behind that. Bob Iger didnt walk into magic kingdom on the Fourth of July and say "hey, it's really crowded here...lets put in a smart scanner reservation system"

This still is the "universal is catching up...Disney better watch out"

But the problem is that is incorrect...and that opinion is usually determined by chasing decoys...which is what happened here.

When universals attendance goes up, wdw numbers respond accordingly...when the revenues go up on kirkman, they go up more on world drive. This is just the same old argument based on a false conclusion. The numbers are out there if you want to understand the game.