Ugh....Disney After Dark & Crowds

[Virtucomp]

If this new after hours event is after the normal 10 or 11PM close it will be a great thing. That is, if they don't take away Disney resort EMHs. If they are planning to allow guests to come in at 7PM with a hard ticket to stay until 1 or 2 AM in the summer time I would do it. There are a lot of ifs there.

1) You can't take away EMH because you advertise it as a perk for staying in a Disney Resort.
2) You can't kick people out of the park on a normal day to allow the special event.
3) You can't oversell the tickets so the time from 10 PM to 1AM has to be exclusive.

If they are trying this to keep the park open later in the really busy times then that's OK. If they are disguising this as a Pay for EMHs system then they would be guilty of false advertising. You can't broadcast that guest get a perk and then charge them for it.

 

[RaginforDisneyRoy]

Many people, including me, think this is the "test run" for a very big change in EMH. With other things, such as resort fees, Disney is floating this Magic Kingdom After Dark as the precursor to eventually eliminating EMH as a "free perk". When they will do that remains to be seen. As you say, people who booked a WDW Resort stay in October certainly expect to have EMH as a major perk for being a resort guest. I remember when Disney first started having extra hours; they called it "E Ticket Night" and was very reasonable ($10 for 2.5 extra hours or something in that area). I actually enjoyed it and was willing to pay it.

We are doing the After Dark on 4/28 and I am going to be disappointed if there are crowds in excess of this "exclusive" event. In my view, the free ice cream sandwich and diet coke don't warrant $149 plus tax. However, riding 7DMT twice with 5 minute waits are, so I will be interested to see how it works. In the end, the market will drive whatever Disney does. They have a tremendous capacity problem now, with annual attendance increasing double-digits each year for the last decade. 100 minute waits at TSMM, 7DMT and Soarin are not fun and they need to come up with extra capacity, OR reduce capacity by charging more for their product. They appear to be doing the latter and it will be interesting to see if resort occupancy suffers. For the last 10 years, rates at the resorts have gone up consistently and people are still paying it. Disney is clearly pushing that envelope. I'd expect to see this to continue until the market stops allowing it, i.e. fewer people go to WDW and start spending their money elsewhere.

 

[RedAngie]

"Limited" could mean 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 or 40,000. No one has any idea. "Limited" just means less than capacity.

You got that right. If MK capacity is 90K, limited could mean 89,900.

If, as they claim, it will be more limited than the Halloween and Xmas parties, that could easily mean 20K for the after hours event.

 

[buzznina]

Many people, including me, think this is the "test run" for a very big change in EMH. With other things, such as resort fees, Disney is floating this Magic Kingdom After Dark as the precursor to eventually eliminating EMH as a "free perk". When they will do that remains to be seen. As you say, people who booked a WDW Resort stay in October certainly expect to have EMH as a major perk for being a resort guest. I remember when Disney first started having extra hours; they called it "E Ticket Night" and was very reasonable ($10 for 2.5 extra hours or something in that area). I actually enjoyed it and was willing to pay it.

We are doing the After Dark on 4/28 and I am going to be disappointed if there are crowds in excess of this "exclusive" event. In my view, the free ice cream sandwich and diet coke don't warrant $149 plus tax. However, riding 7DMT twice with 5 minute waits are, so I will be interested to see how it works. In the end, the market will drive whatever Disney does. They have a tremendous capacity problem now, with annual attendance increasing double-digits each year for the last decade. 100 minute waits at TSMM, 7DMT and Soarin are not fun and they need to come up with extra capacity, OR reduce capacity by charging more for their product. They appear to be doing the latter and it will be interesting to see if resort occupancy suffers. For the last 10 years, rates at the resorts have gone up consistently and people are still paying it. Disney is clearly pushing that envelope. I'd expect to see this to continue until the market stops allowing it, i.e. fewer people go to WDW and start spending their money elsewhere.

When I first read this I told my DW "isn't that what EMH does, allow you to stay in the park longer". So yeah, I am one of those people that thinks this is a test to eliminate EMH We utilize the night EMH and this would just be another deterrent from going to WDW. This is the first year in over 10 years that we are not doing a trip to WDW and normally we do 2-3.