Park Capacity

[_19disnA]

Doubt Disney will publish future capacity % since that could be used by places like Universal to their advantage. Assume it will generally be crowded since it is such a draw for people on vacation.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Doubt Disney will publish future capacity % since that could be used by places like Universal to their advantage. Assume it will generally be crowded since it is such a draw for people on vacation.

They didn’t publish numbers in the past so really no one has ever known how many people were max capacity. Even if you knew percentage it didn’t do much good without knowing max capacity number

 

[Dug720]

I have a friend down there now, she said it's busier than this time last year when nobody went because of the delta spike. But it's like night and day compared to February of this year.

As in Feb was busier or this time is busier?

 

[sponica]

As in Feb was busier or this time is busier?

February was substantially busier.

 

[HopperFan]

Doubt Disney will publish future capacity % since that could be used by places like Universal to their advantage. Assume it will generally be crowded since it is such a draw for people on vacation.

Disney has never published their capacity or attendance numbers, and never will. They did claim to have only say "20%" caps but that is just a percentage of an unknown number so fairly meaningless.

As in Feb was busier or this time is busier?

February was substantially busier.

I was there -
July 4th week 2021
First week of November 2022
First week of February 2022
First week of June 2022
Third week of July 2022

Each trip got more and more crowded. February was a cake walk compared to the two summer trips. The wait times this summer made November and February look like walk on.

Corporate just said we are back at 2019 numbers - that is full parks, back to normal crowds.

" ... average daily attendance at domestic parks across its first three fiscal quarters was slightly below 2019 ..." We are now in 4th quarter.

 

[ilovebassets]

It works pretty well at MK and HS, provided of course you stay on top of bookings throughout the day. Not as well as FP+ mind you, but well enough to get on everything you want.

Epcot and AK are trickier because they have fewer high demand attractions and the availability dries up faster. At Epcot for example, its difficult to get Guardians, TT, Remy's, and Frozen as these can be all gone by midday. Soarin' is no longer what I would call a high demand attraction. Standby often is at 30 minutes or below, and LL availability can usually be booked real time or at least less than 30 minutes in advance.

Early august weekday. We got Guardians virtual queue right after 7am—group 39. Then immediately got LL for test track return time around 1230. Boarded guardians around 9:20am. Got out and right at the two hour mark, booked LL for Frozen around 5pm. Thought I had done pretty well. While we were at our resort for a midday break, looked at my phone and nabbed remy LL for 4:30pm. It was amazing. Did all four of those with essentially no lines in one day and no paying for individual LL. We were super lucky.

 

[raidermatt]

Early august weekday. We got Guardians virtual queue right after 7am—group 39. Then immediately got LL for test track return time around 1230. Boarded guardians around 9:20am. Got out and right at the two hour mark, booked LL for Frozen around 5pm. Thought I had done pretty well. While we were at our resort for a midday break, looked at my phone and nabbed remy LL for 4:30pm. It was amazing. Did all four of those with essentially no lines in one day and no paying for individual LL. We were super lucky.

Yes, if you only had to look at your phone once and found Remy, very lucky. We were also there the first 2 weeks of August. On the full Epcot days our experience was similar regarding these 4 attractions. Able to get three, then the 4th (Remy, TT or Frozen) would be gone by 1pm (the 2 hour window). I would do a lot of refreshing the rest of the day trying to get the 4th. One day it eventually worked, the other never showed availability (or it was gone when I clicked).

I'm not complaining, part of the reason we go for 2 weeks at a time is so we are not forced to jam everything into 1 day, nor are we at the mercy of an attraction going down for the entire day, as Rise did on one of our days. But many do not have that luxury.

 

[Prince John Robin Hood]

We're here now and it hasn't been too bad for waits. We went a couple days to Universal and the wait times were really short there.

 

[levismom]

Just returned and some parks were at capacity the days we went and some were not but the parks did not seem terribly busy even at capacity with reservations. Most lines for rides were not terrible either. Other than one ride our maximum wait was about 30 minutes.

 

[DavidNYC]

Basically ignore the word "capacity" unless someone is talking about it terms of legal capacity. Capacity means whatever Disney decides it is on any given day so no one can answer this question. And "capacity" is far from the only thing that affects how busy a park feels - staffing, what they set ride operation at, etc.

Basically - Disney intends to keep the park feeling busy and crowded - if they don't have really large crowds in terms of numbers - they'll reduce staffing and run rides at less than full capabilities. Outside of peak holidays - I doubt you're going to see huge differences anymore since they're using this new system to ensure they're not paying more staff than they need to basically eliminating what were once the less crowded days.

 

[DisneyFive]

Disney has never published their capacity or attendance numbers, and never will. They did claim to have only say "20%" caps but that is just a percentage of an unknown number so fairly meaningless.




I was there -
July 4th week 2021
First week of November 2022
First week of February 2022
First week of June 2022
Third week of July 2022

Each trip got more and more crowded. February was a cake walk compared to the two summer trips. The wait times this summer made November and February look like walk on.

Corporate just said we are back at 2019 numbers - that is full parks, back to normal crowds.

" ... average daily attendance at domestic parks across its first three fiscal quarters was slightly below 2019 ..." We are now in 4th quarter.

I didn't realize we were there at the same time this year. (July 19th-27th 2022). The crowds felt just like they did pre pandemic, at the same time of the year. Didn't felt terribly busy, just normal busy.

Dan

 

[HopperFan]

I didn't realize we were there at the same time this year. (July 19th-27th 2022). The crowds felt just like they did pre pandemic, at the same time of the year. Didn't felt terribly busy, just normal busy.

Dan

Yup, back to normal. Didn't feel like there were any caps happening. The fact that they are also pushing people into the other parks tells me attendance is high, good for business.

But I felt attraction lines were overall longer, food was taking longer, CMs were fewer. And we still didn't have some big things open. The lack of staffing does impact the efficiency of the park.

 

[gharter]

I don't think "capacity" whatever that number is really mean much.
The bigger issue, is are all the attractions and show open and running? Are the attractions running with full CM's or partial capacity?
If attractions that swallow up a large number of guests is down or running at lower capacity, then that puts more people out walking around making the park seem more crowded.

 

[Mle8308]

Just came back yesterday and I felt it was more crowded than pre-pandemic times. Maybe because fewer CM’s. Lots of people everywhere, lines for the major attractions were all at least 60 minutes and they were accurate. Some of the lower tier rides wait times were definitely over posted. And covid is all over, three of the 6 of us tested positive today and two other families who I know and just returned all have covid. All vaccinated and this is the second round of covid for 2 of my family. All the available spaces are being filled!

 

[DisneyFive]

Yup, back to normal. Didn't feel like there were any caps happening. The fact that they are also pushing people into the other parks tells me attendance is high, good for business.

But I felt attraction lines were overall longer, food was taking longer, CMs were fewer. And we still didn't have some big things open. The lack of staffing does impact the efficiency of the park.

I did not notice attraction lines being longer, but it did feel like they still need a little ways to go for staffing levels.

Also, quick service lines took longer if you did not use mobile order. Fortunately we knew about mobile ordering and it was slick and fast. It’s just like with FP and G+, those that don’t know about it (or how to use it effectively) pay the price of long lines and now that has shifted to food ordering as well.

Having the shows open this summer versus last summer really did help move around crowd flow. It felt much more normal in that regard. I do wish that they had Fantasmic open at Hollywood studios. That helps in that park so much in the evening. Plus we just miss it. It’s been a long long time since we have seen that. Can’t wait for the new version

Dan