The crowds this past Thanksgiving week were huge, but not on the days you would expect them to be. We've been documenting for you
the meteoric rise in the numbers of Annual Passholders the past few years, and it seems almost quaint that we once breathlessly announced that Anaheim had passed the 500,000 mark. That number hit 800,000 coming out of the summer season, and
as of late November the number of Annual Passholders has now nudged over 925,000.
With the busiest Annual Pass buying weeks of the year still ahead around Christmas and New Years, TDA planners now fully expect the numbers of Annual Passholders to
break the million mark just as the calendar flips over to 2010. That huge number is good news for the sharp pencil boys tallying up TDA's ticket receipts, but
it's bad news for anyone trying to find a place to park, get a Fastpass for Indiana Jones, or buy a Dole Whip once they get into the park.
The
Thanksgiving week illustrated perfectly how the huge numbers of Annual Passholders have turned half a century of theme park operations on its ear. From Sunday through Wednesday before Thanksgiving, none of the cheaper Annual Passes which make up the bulk of the 925,000 figure were blocked out. Those days were pegged for huge
daily Disneyland attendance numbers of 60,000 and above, with AP's making up 35,000 or more of those daily visitors.
For instance,
the day before Thanksgiving had an attendance estimate of 61,000 and by the end of the day around 64,000 had shown up. Of that huge number, nearly 40,000 were Annual Passholders, all arriving in their own personal cars and stretching the Resort infrastructure to the breaking point. The park itself was slammed with crowds in the days leading up to Thanksgiving; walkways ground to a standstill, trashcans overflowed, lines were long for everything from E Tickets to bathroom stalls, and the tempers of both the customers and the Cast Members flared at the slightest provocation.
But then Thanksgiving arrived, with all but the Premium Annual Passes were blocked out, and the daily attendance figures plummeted. Even the day after Thanksgiving, which has traditionally been one of the busiest days of the year for decades at Disneyland, barely saw 47,000 people through the gates. By Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, the attendance at Disneyland had slumped to 38,000, ranking as one of the slowest Saturdays of the entire year.
As anyone who was there on Saturday can attest, Disneyland performs beautifully at that easy attendance level, with wait times nearly nonexistent, the Custodial team staying ahead of the curve, and the park open until Midnight and the full roster of holiday entertainment offerings available. This same pattern will play out in December, with the first few Fridays and Sundays dealing with record crowds, but in late December when the blockouts kick in the attendance will decline noticeably.
TDA is now
grappling with how to best manage the growing number of Annual Passholders. It's had to spend millions of dollars over the past year to set up alternate parking at GardenWalk and the Convention Center, and then contract out private buses to transport those grumpy folks left waiting in the satellite lots back up to the park entrance. The cost of the massive shuttle bus operation won't be going away in 2010,
with World of Color promising to bring in epic crowds to DCA this spring and summer.
