QUESTION FOR UG-or Len TESTA regarding SATURDAYS

[PKS44]

LEN--the UG goes to some lengths defending its claim that Saturdays are one of the less busy days at MK (and the studios too) since it seems hard to believe...I think Mondays (which everyone agrees are the amongst the busiest) are routinely later hours and routinely have Spectros. but if you look at most Saturday hours...Disney fairly routinely makes the hours on Saturdays almost always at least as long or late as any other day of the week at both the MK and the DS...in other words one would have to believe that the presence of 10 and 11pm closings on Saturdays at those parks is done DESPITE them being less crowded days....they also almost always have a SPECTRO on Saturday night...that is more entertainment on SAT than on many other days of the week --so are they are just givning away extra hours and entertainment out of kindness for those smaller crowds?...that is not the Disney company that I or anyone else ever dealt with...that would keep a park open LONGER for less crowds....that would ADD parades for the less busy days of the week? that makes no sense....somebody is wrong--either Disney is "Wasting" extra manpower and entertainment on Saturdays despite the crowds being smaller or the UG is just wrong about Saturdays....which is it? Or am I wrong about Saturday Spectros and Saturday closing times? That is an easy thing to check if you have the historical data....

 

[lentesta]

I'll go back and check the wait times for the Saturdays we have, PKS44.

 

[ralfrick]

I'm going to add a related question here rather than start a new thread. The subject is how long does it take to get to the parks. My UoG (2005) has charts starting on page 210 and page 322. These are some indicated times on each.

The first chart says it takes 6 minutes, 15 seconds to get from the All Stars (AS) to the MK.
The second says it takes anywhere from 11-47 minutes depending on whether it's by car or Disney transportation.

The first chart says 5:45 for the AS to Epcot.
The second says 8-28 minutes.

The first chart says 2:15 from the AKL to AK.
The second says 6-23 minutes.

The first chart says 8:15 from the AKL to MK.
The second says anywhere from 25 to 50 minutes!

The pattern should be clear by now.

Now I fully understand that the maximum travel time can vary due to missing a bus and such, but the minimums should certainly be similar, if not the same. The last example I cited has a difference of at least 17 minutes! Which of these charts do I believe? Can I believe either of them?

Cheers.

 

[ms.ojo]

Looking forward to seeing the data from Thurs at the MK. Were the wait times longer than Tues or Wed at MK??? Thanks!

BTW PKSS...good observations!!

 

[lentesta]

Hi folks,

The blog has wait times from Thu and Wed. Recall that we didn't have anyone in the park on Tuesday this week, but we will next week.

ralfrick, I don't have a Guide handy, but I'll check when I get home. I know the "your own car" transportation between a resort and a park is "door to door" time, and I suspect the other chart is simply driving time.

Len

 

[PKS44]

..and no matter what the UG wait time data says I still would rather know what the DISNEY data says...that is are they open late and do they have more entertainment on Saturdays??? ...because if they do I would trust Disney's behavior on Saturdays regarding hours and entertainment more than I would trust the UG staff gathered wait times to accurately reflect crowd levels---

I would add that if this proves to be true--

1) Disney routinely is open later on Saturdays
2)Disney routinely has more entertainment on Saturdays
3) UG wait times are shorter on Saturdays


I would have serious concerns regarding the UG methodology altogether without a very good explanation of how this sort of Alice in Wonderland contradiction on a Saturday could all make sense....

 

[DrTomorrow]

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

Right This Way!

It's PKS44 vs. The Unofficial Guide!

Seriously, I don't know if it's valid to draw that conclusion about the relationship between park hours / offerings and attendance. Do you have Disney documents / public statements to back that up? There must be other factors that dictate park hours and entertainment offerings.

It could be as simple as "It's Saturday, and that's how the MK runs on Saturday". I know that many restaurants don't get busy until 7 or 8 PM on Fri & Sat nights, yet they still open at 5PM.

And I've done enough work with statistics (not an expert, but a Monte Carlo Simulation programmer/designer) to know that what 'appears' to be obvious - or contradicts the common wisdom - can be the total opposite of the reality revealed by observation and analysis.

Be well!

 

[lentesta]

PKS44, just so I know what data to get for you, what is the specific question you're trying to get answered? Also, what methodology would you use to answer the question?

Thanks,

Len

 

[ms.ojo]

Hi folks,

The blog has wait times from Thu and Wed. Recall that we didn't have anyone in the park on Tuesday this week, but we will next week.

ralfrick, I don't have a Guide handy, but I'll check when I get home. I know the "your own car" transportation between a resort and a park is "door to door" time, and I suspect the other chart is simply driving time.

Len

I forgot to check the Blog. Got just what I needed. Thank you.

 

[PKS44]

First by way of explanation---this is not trying to take on anyone.

I have always been impressed with the scientific approach the UG brings to the task of taking on WDW....but scientific inquiry can go off course when assumptions become ingrained...True scientific inquiry means being willing to look at all the evidence and making sure that the theory still is the best fit of the observed evidence...and if it is not...figuring out why and how to make the theory/model more accurate...

Unless I misread the UG and the touringplans.com--there is a common theme that Saturdays are not among the busier days at the MK....(in fact the website has a long defense of this notion written on it)

--so the first data I am looking to confirm is that the UG maintains that Saturdays are one of the less busy days at the MK...( I would add this is in direct contradiction to some other guides that call Saturdays among the worst)--we assume this is based on the wait times data collected on selected Saturdays at the MK

THE DATA that is missing but easily verifiable is the usual closing time on Saturday as compared with any other day the same week at the same time...I thin you will find that it closes as late or later than the latest day of almost every week of the year, whereas Tues and Thurs and Fri it will close earlier...(a confounding variable to avoid is during the MNSSHP and MVMCP which strongly affect closing times)

THE NEXT DATA is how often there is SPECTRO or an extra SPECTRO on Saturday as compared to other days...(I think you will find that when Spectro is only on some nights or when extra Spectros are only on some nights they are most commonly on Mon and Sat---which suggests that Mon and Saturday are when DISNEY thinks the crowds are greatest)

IF- as my perception of a cursory look at schedules over the years suggests--If Saturdays are routinely open longer than any other day and have more entertainment that would be strong evidence that Disney has a very different perception of crowds on Saturdays than the UG..Dr Tomorrow's attempt to explain this as possibly being just "traditional" Saturday hours is not really very satisfying or plausible for a company that routinely has been seen to swap around hours and schedules all the time according to expected crowd levels...so maybe the UG has better data than Disney on when the crowds are greatest---but that is hard to believe Disney would let that happen for very long either....

I have no agenda other than my life long devotion to seek out the truth in understanding the world (including THE WDWORLD) --and this particular issue with UG and Saturdays just does not compute...


Paul

 

[lentesta]

I've looked at the average peak wait times at Splash, BTMRR, and Space for the 21 days we have measurements for in 2005. In order of highest average wait time, here are how the days stack up:

Monday/Sunday (tie - just over 60 minutes)
Thursday
Friday
Saturday (around 35 minutes)
Tuesday (around 26 minutes)

One of the three Wednesdays I have we noted "bad weather." I'll have to check what that means later, but it was enough to bring Wednesday's average down to 21 minutes.

PKS44, I hope this answers your question.

If I may propose an alternate explanation for long hours and entertainment on Saturday, I'd say it's because Disney is trying to maximize revenue by keeping people in the parks longer. More hours in the park means more spending on food, drink, and souvenirs.

Why not do this every day? Because Saturday's the only day that (a) Most people are traditionally off from school and work, and (b) the next day isn't a school or work day either. This means people can stay later than other nights.

Just a hunch, but it fits in well with your "Disney's not doing anything out of the goodness of their heart" axiom.

Len

 

[jcemom]

Please correct me if I'm wrong...but doesn't the UG determine 'least crowded' and 'most crowded' based on wait times? (I'm sure I read that, but who knows how long ago it was.) If so, couldn't the park have more people in it on Saturday than, say, Tuesday, but the wait times could possibly be lower on Saturday because more ride vehicles are in operation? Therefore the UG would list Saturday as less crowded than Tuesday. (I didn't check before typing that, so I don't know that Tuesday was a good example.)

I think how 'crowded' a park is considered on certain days is dependent upon what your definition of crowds is...more people = more crowded...or longer wait time = more crowded. No?

If I'm dead wrong feel free to point it out...it wouldn't be the first time, lol.

 

[lentesta]

Hi jcemom,

Long time no talk. For lots of attractions, including the headliners, the number of ride vehicles can be varied based on demand. That's why we don't like to use raw attendance numbers as a measure of "busy." Most people don't care whether there are 40 or 42 thousand guests in the MK - they want to know what the wait times are. So that's what we use to determine "busy."

Incidentally, peak wait times at the headliner MK attractions on Saturday seem to have been around 55 minutes. Weather may have been a factor, as I'm told it rained. Grad night may also have been a factor.

Len

 

[jcemom]

Hey Len! Thanks for the reply...I thought that's how the UG determined best days, thanks for confirming!

Hmmm...I forgot about grad nights! I'll bet that would do it! Now that you can save money with the non-hopper passes, I wonder if early closings like that would affect attendance? If it were me, and I couldn't hop, I wouldn't choose to go to the MK on an early closing night (no Wishes either if I remember correctly) if there were any other alternatives!

 

[lentesta]

I think that's what we're thinking - that with the new tickets, people without the hop option ("hoption") just skip the park that closes early. We should see that same behavior in two weeks with the Studios and Epcot. And we'll have some of the Orlando staff in those parks, to start seeing if it's true.

Len

 

[PKS44]

Len-

thanks--this is very interesting and thought provoking....if people do start skipping the early closing park...and Sat ends up being a later day for the MK for whatever reason...might that then make Sat wait times creep up?

 

[lentesta]

It's something we'd look at, I suppose.

I went back and computed the average time the MK is open every weekday from January 1, 2004 through April 1, 2005. The MK is open on Saturday, on average, something like 35 to 40 minutes longer than any other day of the week (13 hours, I think, per day is its average), with Monday (I think - don't have the numbers in front of me) the second-longest.

Percentage-wise, the MK open something like six percent longer on Saturdays. I'm not sure if six percent is enough to support the "it's open later because it's more crowded" idea. It might support the alternative "revenue" hypothesis, on the idea that the incremental extra time is still a positive return on investment, just not the ROI the MK normally gets. Again, that's all just a hunch.

Another thing that we'd need to explain about the "MK is busier on Saturdays" idea is why the other parks don't see the same effect. The MK is the second-most visited theme park in the US, with Epcot third and the Studios fourth, last time I checked. I can understand why Epcot's not crowded - it's the best engineered theme park in the U.S. (MHO). Why isn't the Studios jam-packed on Saturdays? That is, why doesn't the same reasoning used on the MK apply to the Studios? I don't believe locals' preference for one park over the other should be vastly different from the national averages. And the Studios have fewer attractions, and it's a smaller park (I think - don't know the acreage off the top of my head), so any increase in crowds should be felt more at the Studios. Maybe Matt can chime in here. But if the assumption is that the MK is crowded because of locals, why isn't the Studios?

Lots of questions. Enough to keep us all busy for a very long time.

Len

 

[nybound]

The size of Disney Studios may be the big factor. I wonder what the average time spent in the park is at Disney Studios versus Magic Kingdom for the average guest (and further broken down by age group)?

If people spend more time at Magic Kingdom, there will be more people in the park at any given time (more people coming in than exiting) leaving the impression that it's busier.

Beyond just the wait times for the rides, is there any measure of wait times for counter and table service restaurants? I worked at Hersheypark many years ago, and on the busier days, ride times were adjusted to maximize guest flow (more trains, shorter ride times, etc.). It kept the wait times down for the rides, but the food services took a big hit (you can only do so much to increase guest flow when serving food).

The trouble is that no matter how much information you collect, it will always be less than what Disney has collected. The fact that you are able to have enough of a statistical base to come up with these recommendations speaks volumes to your work (that and the fact that you are looking to refine and make it better).

 

[lentesta]

Thanks NYBound. As a matter of fact, the 2006 edition of the Guide will have updated transportation *and* restaurant timings. So, for example, during our most recent trips, we tried to count the number of people going into and out of the Frontierland entrance to Pecos Bill's in Frontierland, to get a rough idea of crowds. We also had someone count the number of people in line at several of the registers every 60 seconds from 10:30 am to 2:15 pm. Another person counted how many people had trays of food, and yet another person timed how long it took from the time of order until the food arrived. We also had other people at Columbia Harbor House, Pinocchio Village Haus, and Cosmic Ray's.

I'm not crunching the numbers (our statistican is), so I don't know where they're headed. It seemed to me, however, that Pecos Bill's was most crowded from 12:30 pm to 1:30 pm, at least according to the number of people in line at the registers I was observing. I would have guessed peak would have been earlier, but we'll see how it ends up.

In case anyone's wondering, this task wasn't nearly as boring as you might think. Oh, and there's a bump in traffic every time Country Bear Jamboree lets out, which seems to be on the hour, 20 past, and 20 'till.

Len