Tell me, is there anything else I should do?
well actually baron there have been a few things that I wish you would do differently, but I don't point them out or really care that much - but if you are going to put my name in your slurring little metaphors that I just can't understand, don't be surprised or act all indignant if I dare to say in public, heaven forbid, that it is lame. Please. If I hurt your feelings I apologize, I wasn't setting out to be mean.
Ah, yes, Tekneek, but this past May there were two spectros during the week - the weekday one was a disaster, and the Saturday one was a breeze because everyone thought the saturday one would be a disaster and went to the weekeday one. Needs some tweeking, but I'm glad they are doing the tweeking.
AV the summer crowds were also higher when there was only one theme park instead of four, and even though I know a lot of people can't accept this, before the terrorism, war, economy, etc.
Now here is the thing-
the "off season" usually saw only a fraction of the guests that go to WDW now.
Before year-round schools, changes in the work place and the general opening up of travel (anyone remember what ticket prices were like before deregulation) most people we forced into the "two week summer vacation"
Now, if we accept this is true, and it seems reasonable enough, then if there was an increase in off-season travel, wouldn't we expect to see a proportional decrease in summer travel? E.g., if the kids are in year-round school and are now going during their two weeks off in October, how can they come in July? Right? So if that is the case, wouldn't we conclude that the hours that were described here - somewhat shorter summer hours, slightly longer off-season hours and more night time entertainment off-season, was an appropriate response to this societal change in vacation habits?
Also, why would summer attendance levels be flat? How could they be? Is it just that more people are going to wdw than they were in the past, or people are making more frequent trips (obviously, with four parks, there are many more guest days today, but I mean in some proportional way; if it is the case that off-season travel is higher and summer is basically level then there would have to be proportionally higher attendance today, correct?)
Now let me say that of course I don't think this change in attendance patterns would explain all of the variance in park hours from the 70s/80s to the 00s. I think that having four theme parks rather than one makes the distribution of people throughout the resort more complex (and so one should consider the resort as a whole and not their favorite theme park when examining park hours), but if the theory that more people are traveling during off-season is actually correct, then the hour changes as described seem appropriate. Thank you for making the point for that perspective, I hadn't considered it, but it rings true.
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