UPDATE p. 37. I finally canceled. Too much uncertainty for us.

[robpa]

You make some good, smart points (that most on this thread will applaud). My question is then, what do they do next? Go to reserving days that you can visit the parks? They really like the DVC.. what business wouldn't? And people really like the DVC.. Not trying to get off the point , but I'm pretty sure that Universal charges people 60+ bucks to get to the head of the line. And their admission prices are no bargain either (unless you're a FL resident). I still truly believe that Disney recognizes and is trying to solve a problem that they know they have. People are saying that they are doing this just to force people to shop more and spend more on gifts. That just is not logical IMO. People throwing their vacation away because of this seems way over the top to me.. Just my HO. I really cannot actually remember, and I've been going to the parks since 1973, when a day in the parks was actually 'relaxing'. Not sure that's the intent of an amusement park. Relaxing is going to the beach, or lounging by the pool at a resort. Cheers.

The thing is I don't think most are throwing their vacation away. Most are just saying that they are postponing until a future date when all the details of this are worked out. It seems that Disney throws a wrench into the works weekly.

That's good if they can do that but a lot can't and are going to have to roll with the punches good or bad and that seems like it could be pretty stressful.

 

[AmyB2006]

Oh yes it does. We were there last/this year from 12/28 through 1/6. And yeah we spent ~2 hours in line for various things - the usual suspects, Test Track, TMRR, Soarin and so on. 2.5 hours in Toy Story Mania. Even the People Mover had a 1 hour wait with a line snaking across the concrete downstairs, beyond the zig zag. Nuts.

One's experience at WDW right is completely dictated by season. If you are used to going when it's off-peak, and you've never been there during high summer or high holiday times, it's hard to believe how crowded it gets... the times when there are so many bodies on walkways that it literally becomes a human logjam.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think they can or should plan so that nobody ever has to wait anytime anywhere. But they should aim for keeping waits at less than an hour for any attraction, even during peak season. And they really should work on building more restaurants in the parks so that you don't have to make reservations at 180 days or not get one.

They just are not right-sized right now.

So you're using crowds at Christmastime to base that statement off of. I just think we need to keep things in perspective. Of course you're going to have long lines at Christmas!

I go to Disney 3 to 4 times a year. I have never ever seen a 2 hour standby line. But I don't go at Christmas. I understand at Christmas. But making that statement like it's that way the rest of the year is slightly over dramatizing things. You make it sound like CoP has a 2 hour stand by line. LOL

Over dramatize all you want. It's funny to me, misleading at best.

ETA... I do agree with your last paragraph though.

 

[xie]

You make some good, smart points (that most on this thread will applaud). My question is then, what do they do next? Go to reserving days that you can visit the parks? They really like the DVC.. what business wouldn't? And people really like the DVC.. Not trying to get off the point , but I'm pretty sure that Universal charges people 60+ bucks to get to the head of the line. And their admission prices are no bargain either (unless you're a FL resident). I still truly believe that Disney recognizes and is trying to solve a problem that they know they have. People are saying that they are doing this just to force people to shop more and spend more on gifts. That just is not logical IMO. People throwing their vacation away because of this seems way over the top to me.. Just my HO. I really cannot actually remember, and I've been going to the parks since 1973, when a day in the parks was actually 'relaxing'. Not sure that's the intent of an amusement park. Relaxing is going to the beach, or lounging by the pool at a resort. Cheers.

They won't cap park attendance until they hit whatever limit the fire marshal has in place. People would be scalping tickets in the parking lot if that happened.

They know they have a problem... too many people and not enough content. They're basically saying "yeah we know, the lines suck, so we're going to let you bypass 3 lines per day".

As far as the "shopping" thing... no. By giving you a fastpass to either Soarin or Maelstrom or Test Track, they in fact are guaranteeing that you're going to stand in two relatively long standby lines. You won't be shopping during that time (until Disney figures out how to get you to shop while you stand in line for the rides themselves).

Re: Universal's pricing structure, yeah I am aware they do it. I've never stayed there and only gone to their park once, last Christmas, since a visit in 1997 (for one day, just to see Harry Potter land). I will say that the park now looks nothing like it looked in 1997. Universal had replaced and refreshed a lot of content. But with the pricing, our friends that go there are convinced they are getting more for their money than staying on property at WDW, and they're the types to do spreadsheets with maths, so I believe 'em. I think going to ANY Florida theme park area for a few days is a very expensive endeavor.

 

[agavegirl1]

xie, you apparently don't post often, but when you do, it is very insightful and right on the money.

Rationing is only required during times of extreme scarcity of the desired product, in this case attractions. They can limit ticket sales, making the tickets themselves the desired commodity or limit attractions. Limiting attractions is more lucrative to Disney. Pretty simple I guess. Pretty unpleasant for the guest as well. There will be a time when a critical point is reached when the unpleasantness creates a reduction in the desire for the product. Disney is banking they have all kinds of time before that happens.

 

[rebbyparker]

I don't know, we've had 2-3 hour lines, (one was for Tinkerbell, of all things) at Spring break and in July. So maybe not ALL the time, but more crowded times, it isn't at all unlikely you will have a 2 hour wait in line. I'm not complaining, because we wanted to do those particular things and the wait was the wait. However, as more and more people visit the World, I imagine 1-2 hours are going to be usual.

 

[WILDERNESS FAN 55]

Last few vacations have been in May (including Memorial wknd) January and November time frames. Except for the Saturday of Memorial wknd there have NOT been these overblown stories of long wait times. And those were TSM and Soarin.
Way too much exaggeration by people. I do not doubt there are 2 hr wait times at Xmas-NYE-Easter so if you don't want to deal with that don't go at that time.
Pretty simple eh ?

 

[rebbyparker]

Thanks so MUCH for the permission to not go. You did see that there was a mention of no complaining? I mentioned the lines to back up another poster who posted about long lines. But I do so appreciate your concern about when I visit the park.

 

[notnothin]

So you're using crowds at Christmastime to base that statement off of. I just think we need to keep things in perspective. Of course you're going to have long lines at Christmas!

I go to Disney 3 to 4 times a year. I have never ever seen a 2 hour standby line. But I don't go at Christmas. I understand at Christmas. But making that statement like it's that way the rest of the year is slightly over dramatizing things. You make it sound like CoP has a 2 hour stand by line. LOL

Over dramatize all you want. It's funny to me, misleading at best.

ETA... I do agree with your last paragraph though.

I have started imagining your posts in pink and it always gives me a good chuckle.

 

[robpa]

Last few vacations have been in May (including Memorial wknd) January and November time frames. Except for the Saturday of Memorial wknd there have NOT been these overblown stories of long wait times. And those were TSM and Soarin.
Way too much exaggeration by people. I do not doubt there are 2 hr wait times at Xmas-NYE-Easter so if you don't want to deal with that don't go at that time.
Pretty simple eh ?

Fact is no one knows what the new system will do to standby lines so no one can say I told you so yet(Not saying this is your intention,just generalizing)

 

[PEC]

I guess. I kind of have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but I will try to sum up succinctly.

Disney has oversold their parks. If you have to stand in line 2 hours for most activities, the park is oversold and there are too many people inside (regardless of the fire marshal's opinion). Disney has exacerbated this by adding very little new content, watching as their attendance goes up. Most of the development money has gone into building lodging, not adding activity for those overnight guests to partake in.

We've been going for 20 years. There was a time when a Disney trip was relaxing and fun. As the crowds rose, we had to adjust our trips significantly. So from the latter '90s, when we could wander into Epcot at 10am, walk up to a kiosk and book a lunch reservation anywhere we wanted to go, and do everything in any of the parks by mid/late afternoon... to what it is now, where if I don't engage in heavy duty planning at the 6 month mark, we are going to be eating burgers and fries the whole trip. Disney is no longer relaxing. It can still be fun, but it is an extremely scripted experience at this point, because the parks are oversold and overcrowded.

If you have to tell people who paid your high ticket prices that they're going to spend the day waiting in line for all but 3 attractions, that's bad. If you further have to tell people that in Epcot, the attractions are tiered and guess what, for those 3 special rides you can only pick 1 good one and 2 not so good ones... that's even worse.

They really need to stop building DVC resorts and start building magic again. Maybe in 10 years the park landscape at WDW will be better- with Cars Land, Star Wars Land, and Avatar Land (if any of those actually come to pass, a lot of stuff never does). But right now, it is flat out oversold and the Fast Past Plus system is just a bit of a shell game.

From a Corporate viewpoint Disney does not see an overcrowded park, they see dollar signs. And if I owned a significant amount of stock in the company I too would want them to worry more about how to make more money vs rather somebody does not like crowds.Put it this way if I owned a significant amount of stock in the company and the CEO came in and said that instead of making 2 billion dollars profitthis year on the parks we are going to lose 2 billion dollars at the park so Johnny over here never has to wait more than 5 minutes in a line and can walk up and eat anywhere he wants at anytime, I would be voting for a new CEO. That said I do agree that 3 of the parks do need upgrading and without it long range Disney will suffer.
EPCOT - Look no further than the new tier system. They need at least one maybe 2 more headliners.
DHS - People call AK the half day park but I think you could easily win the argument that DHS is a half day park as well. It needs a new land. Cars Land, Star Wars land, Pixar Land. It needs something with at least another headliner for the entire family to take pressure off of TSM and at least another ride to boot.
AK - No I am not a big fan of the movie Avatar but I am looking forward to the addition of a new land at AK. If Avatarland is it then I am fine with that.

To me the odd thing was the park that least needed an additional area was MK but it was the first one to get a big upgrade. There was already a good mix of attractions there for all ages.

 

[ArwenMarie]

xie, just wanted to say I enjoyed reading your comments, especially your first one on this thread. You really hit the nail on the head. Oversold is right.

 

[soccer mom]

We cancelled our November trip for family health reasons, but this is the first trip I have EVER planned that wasn't fun. I, too, hope that when the dust settles things will be fun again and traveling through a park won't be too structured. Why fix something that wasn't broken?

 

[robpa]

Probably because it is the park everyone thinks of when they think of WDW and also has the highest attendance.

 

[Jeslynb]

I guess. I kind of have mixed feelings about the whole thing, but I will try to sum up succinctly.

Disney has oversold their parks. If you have to stand in line 2 hours for most activities, the park is oversold and there are too many people inside (regardless of the fire marshal's opinion). Disney has exacerbated this by adding very little new content, watching as their attendance goes up. Most of the development money has gone into building lodging, not adding activity for those overnight guests to partake in.

We've been going for 20 years. There was a time when a Disney trip was relaxing and fun. As the crowds rose, we had to adjust our trips significantly. So from the latter '90s, when we could wander into Epcot at 10am, walk up to a kiosk and book a lunch reservation anywhere we wanted to go, and do everything in any of the parks by mid/late afternoon... to what it is now, where if I don't engage in heavy duty planning at the 6 month mark, we are going to be eating burgers and fries the whole trip. Disney is no longer relaxing. It can still be fun, but it is an extremely scripted experience at this point, because the parks are oversold and overcrowded.

If you have to tell people who paid your high ticket prices that they're going to spend the day waiting in line for all but 3 attractions, that's bad. If you further have to tell people that in Epcot, the attractions are tiered and guess what, for those 3 special rides you can only pick 1 good one and 2 not so good ones... that's even worse.

They really need to stop building DVC resorts and start building magic again. Maybe in 10 years the park landscape at WDW will be better- with Cars Land, Star Wars Land, and Avatar Land (if any of those actually come to pass, a lot of stuff never does). But right now, it is flat out oversold and the Fast Past Plus system is just a bit of a shell game.

I agree. We've only been going since 2009, so we've never had anything but a "highly scripted" experience. Fun and exciting, but frenetic largely due to the crowds and the overall stressed-out "vibe" of the park.

While we've enjoyed our trips to WDW, they haven't overall been great enough experiences for us to return regularly, especially when compared with other trips we've taken. We do like the parks and we do return, but not as often as we would otherwise do.

It's very helpful to hear everyone's perspective - I'm glad the board isn't limited to "positive only" reviews/discussions.

 

[WILDERNESS FAN 55]

Fact is no one knows what the new system will do to standby lines so no one can say I told you so yet(Not saying this is your intention,just generalizing)

Totally agree with this. As it stands right now and in the recent past this has been my experiences.
Why everyone is up in arms without experiencing it for themselves is beyond me.

AGAIN here is some booking advice 1st week of Dec low crowds = short lines
Christmas/NYE week big crowds = long lines
Simple

 

[Jeslynb]

Last few vacations have been in May (including Memorial wknd) January and November time frames. Except for the Saturday of Memorial wknd there have NOT been these overblown stories of long wait times. And those were TSM and Soarin.
Way too much exaggeration by people. I do not doubt there are 2 hr wait times at Xmas-NYE-Easter so if you don't want to deal with that don't go at that time.
Pretty simple eh ?

Well, I haven't been as often as you, but on both of our last trips (end of August) there were waits approaching 2 hours at most headliners by early afternoon. The rest of the lines were quite manageable.

We're going the first week in December this year - I had anticipated short lines overall, but in light of all the changes, we bought tickets for fewer days. We'll wait and see how it is and then either add days at Disney or head over to other attractions like Universal.

 

[xie]

From a Corporate viewpoint Disney does not see an overcrowded park, they see dollar signs. And if I owned a significant amount of stock in the company I too would want them to worry more about how to make more money vs rather somebody does not like crowds.Put it this way if I owned a significant amount of stock in the company and the CEO came in and said that instead of making 2 billion dollars profitthis year on the parks we are going to lose 2 billion dollars at the park so Johnny over here never has to wait more than 5 minutes in a line and can walk up and eat anywhere he wants at anytime, I would be voting for a new CEO. That said I do agree that 3 of the parks do need upgrading and without it long range Disney will suffer.
EPCOT - Look no further than the new tier system. They need at least one maybe 2 more headliners.
DHS - People call AK the half day park but I think you could easily win the argument that DHS is a half day park as well. It needs a new land. Cars Land, Star Wars land, Pixar Land. It needs something with at least another headliner for the entire family to take pressure off of TSM and at least another ride to boot.
AK - No I am not a big fan of the movie Avatar but I am looking forward to the addition of a new land at AK. If Avatarland is it then I am fine with that.

To me the odd thing was the park that least needed an additional area was MK but it was the first one to get a big upgrade. There was already a good mix of attractions there for all ages.

Honestly I do think they understand there are crowding problems - that is why the Fast Pass systems exist at all, so they can give guests some "free skip these long lines" passes. They also understand there is crowding for the table service restaurants, hence the deposit/guarantee fees and the changes to the reservation system to prevent double-bookings. They do see crowding and do make attempts to mitigate it. (You could also argue that they simply coldly want the tables filled for $$$, but I choose to believe they also care about the guest experience and want everyone who wants a table to get one.)

I'm with ya on MK and Fantasyland. It was the most overcrowded area of MK usually, the walkways were small and full of strollers, and did need a bit of TLC. But as to why they prioritized it over other things in other parks, my guess is that it was simply an attempt at "like for like" with Harry Potter land over at Universal. Hey look, we can build a castle on a mountain, too.

HS has been a half-day park for us for years. We don't have any small children anymore who want to do the little kid toon stuff there. We've seen all the stage shows so many times, we no longer go to them. We usually pop in, ride Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, eat lunch at the Derby, explore around the park a bit, then leave. Sometimes somebody wants to do Rockin or TT, but we don't do them every trip. If they were going to drag their heels on rides at HS for so long, they probably should have refreshed the stage shows a bit more often. Oddly, the only stage show I wish I could see again is one they closed, the Hunchback. I enjoyed that one.

Somehow seeing the Indiana Jones skit for the 27th time isn't as captivating as riding Big Thunder Mountain Railroad for the 107th time (we usually stand in line for it over and over, we love it so much, lol - at least 4-5 rides per trip).

Epcot - it needs help. And tragically it's probably the easiest one to help, because there's already land cleared and available. IDK why they ignore it. I suspect when they turned on Fast Past Plus and realized that most people wanted to pre-book the Test Track/Soarin/Maelstrom trifecta, perhaps it was a wake up call that they should perhaps work on the park a bit. That's certainly the reason for the new tiering.

AK - I wish they had done the mythology land. I really do. There's so much "free IP" out there in the form of Grimm's tales about mythical creatures, it could have been Fantasyland for Grownups. Cameron is a little bit crazy so it's hard to say how Avatar land will turn out (or even if it will, they could still have a blow up and part ways).

Anyway. Here's hopin for new content! We only go 1x per year now, down from 2-3x per year... largely because everyone in the family just kind of said "there's nothing new to see when we go". So we go once a year to ride our old favs.

 

[dennis j]

They won't cap park attendance until they hit whatever limit the fire marshal has in place. People would be scalping tickets in the parking lot if that happened.

They know they have a problem... too many people and not enough content. They're basically saying "yeah we know, the lines suck, so we're going to let you bypass 3 lines per day".

As far as the "shopping" thing... no. By giving you a fastpass to either Soarin or Maelstrom or Test Track, they in fact are guaranteeing that you're going to stand in two relatively long standby lines. You won't be shopping during that time (until Disney figures out how to get you to shop while you stand in line for the rides themselves).

Re: Universal's pricing structure, yeah I am aware they do it. I've never stayed there and only gone to their park once, last Christmas, since a visit in 1997 (for one day, just to see Harry Potter land). I will say that the park now looks nothing like it looked in 1997. Universal had replaced and refreshed a lot of content. But with the pricing, our friends that go there are convinced they are getting more for their money than staying on property at WDW, and they're the types to do spreadsheets with maths, so I believe 'em. I think going to ANY Florida theme park area for a few days is a very expensive endeavor.

Yeah, we have been to Universal as well. They have done a lot. Mostly motion/video rides Transformer, Minions, Simpsons (which do get pretty 'predictable' after a couple of rides.. as most rides do) . Harry Potter.. excellent job and still getting better I agree too that Epcot could really use an update. Captain EO .. Really? Universe of Energy.. yikes, and some new countries to visit would be real nice too. HS could use a few of those motion/video rides on Streets of America.. How about that? How bout a Mickey and gang ride like Star Wars?? But I try to remember, as well, that we go a lot. Being spoiled like that tends to lead to boredom in some people. Those that only come to Disney once or twice in a lifetime, probably see things a whole lot different. But , I digress.. this is off the subject matter of this thread.. (unless of course this thread was started just to bash Disney) I don't think that is so though.

 

[AmyB2006]

I have started imagining your posts in pink and it always gives me a good chuckle.

I can start posting in pink if you'd like. I hate to disappoint.

Xie... I do agree with 99% of what you're saying. But I got "distracted" by your misrepresentation that it's like that 100% of the time in the parks.

 

[mom2rtk]

From a Corporate viewpoint Disney does not see an overcrowded park, they see dollar signs.

Yep. We all look at the parks and see long oversold lines for the headliners.

Disney execs look at the parks and see short "underutilized park capacity" at the second tier attractions.

Voila FP+.