Pop Century closing!

[marsrunner]

Well.. given some of the occupancy numbers I heard today regarding Christmas week..

It's not looking pretty at all.

Knox

I haven't heard any numbers, but just checking on the Disney website, its astounding to me that you can get a room at the Poly, GF or CR from Saturday December 20 - Sunday December 28. The GF and Poly have several different room types available. I don't know if this is normal, but I'd have thought reservations for Christmas week would be almost impossible to get.

 

[SelfEmployedDebtFree]

Well.. given some of the occupancy numbers I heard today regarding Christmas week..

It's not looking pretty at all.

I haven't heard any numbers, but just checking on the Disney website, its astounding to me that you can get a room at the Poly, GF or CR from Saturday December 20 - Sunday December 28. The GF and Poly have several different room types available. I don't know if this is normal, but I'd have thought reservations for Christmas week would be almost impossible to get.

I'm not trying to argue with people who obviously know more than I do about this... but all over the DIS there are people posting threads about how HORRIBLE the crowds are at Disney from Nov 28th till today. I saw one picture that showed people wall to wall down the entire street in AK... and I have NEVER in all my trips seen ANYTHING that could compare to HALF that. Everyone is saying things like "40 minute wait for Star Tours" and 90 minutes for Soarin". I'm subscribed to several of them. How can reservations be down if everyone is complaining that WDW is a chaotic madhouse?

 

[Admb]

Everyone is saying things like "40 minute wait for Star Tours" and 90 minutes for Soarin". I'm subscribed to several of them. How can reservations be down if everyone is complaining that WDW is a chaotic madhouse?

I shared a break trailor with Soarin last year and they'd hit that wait time countless times during the holdays and WORSE. It could get up to two hours at times... and that break trailor was just colletively grumbling! Lol! Not that this proves anything either way... other than the holidays are ALWAYS chaotic. I would imagine it would be maybe a little less busy this time around... but maybe not! Park attendance has been slowly going down for years and whenever I'd take a look at the attendance records for daily hits for certain rides, they'd been peaked yeaaars ago. Soarin an exception, of course

 

[SelfEmployedDebtFree]

Park attendance has been slowly going down for years

The CMs I have talked to for the past several years have been saying the exact opposite. They are saying Disney is getting more and more crowded, and there is no slow season anymore.
I'm just trying to make sense of this whole thing. How can park attendance be growing and shrinking at the same time? I'm hearing completely mixed stories from both sides.
I'm not trying to be hateful or rude... seriously. I'm just saying there's a lot of people saying the exact opposite. I realize the recession slowed things a bit, but up till its peak all I heard was "business is booming more every day".
But I'll side with another one here who said Pop will never close. I can see them shutting certain wings down if it came to that, but I agree that Disney wouldn't want to let out a cry of desperation. And closing POP would be just that.

 

[marsrunner]

I'm not "saying" anything, other than I was very much surprised to see mutliple room types available at the big three resorts. Only POP Century, All-Star Music, Port Orleans Resort - French Quarter, Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas and Boardwalk Villas have no availability. Everything else has at least something; most have multiple room types available. I was just surprised because its supposed to be so busy. I know that the Grand Floridian isn't available at all during my January trip and the Contemporary and Polynesian only have suites and concierge level available. Maybe lots of people moved to the 4/3 deal?
Is that kind of availability for Christmas week normal? I don't know, and don't know what it means if it isn't normal. Just interesting.

 

[cigarboo]

I'm not trying to argue with people who obviously know more than I do about this... but all over the DIS there are people posting threads about how HORRIBLE the crowds are at Disney from Nov 28th till today. I saw one picture that showed people wall to wall down the entire street in AK... and I have NEVER in all my trips seen ANYTHING that could compare to HALF that. Everyone is saying things like "40 minute wait for Star Tours" and 90 minutes for Soarin". I'm subscribed to several of them. How can reservations be down if everyone is complaining that WDW is a chaotic madhouse?

My guess is that attendance has been propped up by an amazing amount of discounts; PIN codes, free dining into December, bounceback offers, heavy discounts on rooms, etc. But Disney doesn't make as much money with discounts and giving things away. It still hurts their budget even if the place looks crowded. I would venture to guess the chaos is from lower staff levels despite having lots of bodies in the parks.

When I was Epcot in early Nov and had trouble with my ticket, it took what felt like forever to resolve(as people were yelling as I was holding up the line) because the CM couldn't help me "quickly" due to her tending to a whole section(maybe 4 or 5 turnstiles) of entry gates by herself. Now I've never had trouble with my ticket before, but I would have thought that every gate or at least every other, would have had a CM in the morning rush to keep order.

Just think about the buy 4 get 3 free deal. You have many guests who are at the parks and hotels for an extra 3 days, but not really adding that much to Disney's bottem line. It used to be Disney was able to keep those rooms filled and have folks pay full freight. So even though business appears to be booming by the looks of the crowd, I think revenue is down. It'll get more chaotic and service will go down because there won't be the number of staff available to support the crowd.

As far as Pop goes, it's probably the more likely value to close because it's sort of off by itself. I think Disney will try to keep it open, but if things continue to look bad then somethings gotta go. (temporarily)

 

[CanadianGuy]

Attendance HAS been propped up by discounts.. but yet, it is still DOWN. Way down.

The week of Christmas in particular is down a HUGE amount. Normal occupancy at the resorts runs around 97% that week ... or higher.

This year.. that figure for some resorts is below 60% occupied.

So where are all the crowds coming from? Well, not all WDW guests stay on property for one. The DVC crowd are more likely to come anyway since they 'own' their vacations as it were and of course, there are locals etc.

One last thought on this angle is.. sure, MK may be busy as heck on any given day that someone goes there, but how busy is DHS on that same day, or AK? I suspect the answer is a very big "not very".

As for closing Pop, it shares many services with CBR. So, much like the All Stars, it has a shared base of employees between Pop and CBR, so it's not 'All out there on it's own' as it first appears. If I was going to close a value and a mod, I'd close Pop and CBR because those two are so interconnected that just closing one of the two wouldn't see the maximum savings on the table.

Anything is possible.... esp given the occupancy numbers I heard this past week.

Knox

 

[deej696]

FWIW we are having our wedding here and I had to deliver gift bags to 5 different resorts for our guests. POP, POFQ, ASports, BC, and Dolphin. I budgeted almost 2 hours for this because I figured I would have to wait in line at each resorts front desk because this was between 2 and 4pm (prime check in time.) I was done in 45 minutes, and I did not have to wait in a single line because there were open agents at every resort. Perhaps it means nothing, but that to me was an indication its slower than usual for the resorts....

 

[rebecca06261]

Just got off the phone trying to make a ressie for POP Feb 4-8th and was told by the cm that this nothing available for this time. I asked about the following week which illicited the same response. It's February... my inquiry included paying rack rate, AP discount, and FL resident discounts. There was simply nothing there for either of the weeks.

Wonder if something really is up?

 

[Sorahana]

We're going in January since last year it was dead when I got there for my CP, guess it won't be this time with the buy 4 get 3 deal *cue sad face*.
Oh well, at least we're going. We booked back in February and the only dates I could get were Jan 4-10 at Pop. I tried Port Orleans and couldn't get anything. I tried Pop right before the dates we're going and it was booked, week right after was booked too. This was for the buy 4 get 3 thing I think though.

 

[DC7800]

Just got off the phone trying to make a ressie for POP Feb 4-8th and was told by the cm that this nothing available for this time. I asked about the following week which illicited the same response. It's February... my inquiry included paying rack rate, AP discount, and FL resident discounts. There was simply nothing there for either of the weeks.

Wonder if something really is up?

Pop Century is still bookable online (and also at Expedia) for February dates (I checked February 8-18th). Had new reservations been blocked, or when/if they actually are, I'd assume that the resort is facing imminent closure.

 

[Jenvenza]

I really hope they dont. We really enjoyed POP.

 

[manning]

We're going in January since last year it was dead when I got there for my CP, guess it won't be this time with the buy 4 get 3 deal *cue sad face*.
Oh well, at least we're going. We booked back in February and the only dates I could get were Jan 4-10 at Pop. I tried Port Orleans and couldn't get anything. I tried Pop right before the dates we're going and it was booked, week right after was booked too. This was for the buy 4 get 3 thing I think though.

I think the marathon is that weekend.

 

[Sorahana]

I think the marathon is that weekend.

Yea it's that Saturday (the 10th), rooms were booked up after that day, but not before, weird. Oh well it'll probably be busy anyway =(.

 

[Tissa]

I have a lot of friends going for the Marathon and they are all coming in on the 7th and staying until the 13th. All are staying at POP except me, I'm staying at CSR. Things are booked up.

 

[DisneyBaby!]

One thing that you need to look at is not just the occupancy but what people are spending when they are in the parks. Sure there may be hordes of people in the parks but if they aren't spending, it makes the situation worse.

I work for a major midwestern casino, our attendance is up but our revenue per head is down or at least not where we want it to be, so we cut back on the staff because the revenue is not there. We are doing what they want to call riding the peaks, getting as many people in at the busiest times, not worrying about it being slow at other times and cutting back operations to nothing when it is slow. We have closed some restaurants during the week and cut the hours on others so It makes total sense to close parts of a resort, it would be almost impossible to tell if say half the buildings in POR were closed or not occupied, heck we go in the height of summer and never seem to see anyone coming or going from their rooms.

 

[GeorgiaDawg7]

i sure hope there is no truth to this

 

[lisadr]

I think if they shut Pop down it would be temporary but the reason Pop would get the axe is it is totally separate from the other resorts. It has it's own buses to run. The other resorts share a bus line-and I would guess could share staff if needed. But that bus thing can probably be a real thorn in their side. Think about it-if a bus shows up to the MK and is only half full-they still go straight to the MK. BUT if a bus stops at ASM and is only half full-then the just pop on over to ASMovies and fill up-making the trip more productive.
Plus if you are 50% full in two hotels and fill 3 1/2 out of 7 buildings and you then close one of them you have a 100% full resort with all the buildings filled and the empty one you shut down and turn the lights off!

I don't know it's just a thought But I would have to say that it would be Pop to go first because the other values are so close to each other.

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

I'm not trying to argue with people who obviously know more than I do about this... but all over the DIS there are people posting threads about how HORRIBLE the crowds are at Disney from Nov 28th till today. I saw one picture that showed people wall to wall down the entire street in AK... and I have NEVER in all my trips seen ANYTHING that could compare to HALF that. Everyone is saying things like "40 minute wait for Star Tours" and 90 minutes for Soarin". I'm subscribed to several of them. How can reservations be down if everyone is complaining that WDW is a chaotic madhouse?

2 weeks ago we were at the BC, the crowds were the most we have seen in any December. We also tried to extend our stay & the BC & YC they were 100% sold out.

 

[Tink rules]

Two weeks ago was the beginning of Pop Warner... also people book the weekends - or at least they have when they have the parties, ie... MVMCP... so if they are sold for one day it may make it harder to get an extension for those times.

I've also got friends who said that they were at MVMCP and it seems alot of people stayed after the parks were supposedly closed for the party - they didn't have wrist bands - and it was super crowded they said... I don't know if they could have gotten on rides, but the shows and parades were avail they said - she wondered if they didn't push alot of people out that night to see if they could get more people staying in the parks longer and spending money.

She said some days certain parks were crowded and others were nearly empty - they were there over 3 weeks.