Well, Which Is It?

[Werner Weiss]

Quoted from "At Disney, threat fears not deterring big crowds,"
Miami Herald, October 15, 2001,
http://www.miami.com/herald/content/news/local/florida/digdocs/064912.htm

"Though hotels near the parks still offer rooms at discount prices -- $39.95 a night -- Disney officials said attendance rates for the past several weekends are nearly the same as at this time last year." (emphasis added)

more from the same article
But Saturday, rows of strollers were lined up at the entrances to several rides at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Dumbo the Flying Elephant reported a 40-minute wait; Space Mountain was at 50 minutes.

"It's hard to speculate on what the future's going to bring, but the last few weeks we've had healthy attendance," said Walt Disney World spokesman Rena Callahan.

But on this board, there's news of shorter park hours, WDW part-timers told to stay home, reduced entertainment, projects on hold, and so on.

If the "Disney officials" and "Walt Disney World spokesman" were telling the truth to the Miami Herald, why the severe cutbacks?

 

[YoHo]

It takes time to implement cutbacks. The cutbacks were started immediatly following Sept 11. During the first few weeks, attendence was lower then it ever had been before. Now it is picking up at a surprising rate. More then likely people will be brought back and hours set right as attendence levels reach certain markers.

 

[Safari Steve]

People have been and are working more hours on a week-to-week basis. The hours reductions were implemented 5 weeks ago. Four weeks ago things started to pick up. The confusion comes when all this information collides as a result of people reporting things that happened weeks ago and things that are happening this week at the same time. It's a little mixed up.
Things have and continue to pick up at the resort, but we are not fully back to normal levels, and the results of the first two weeks after the incident were so huge that they will not be erased regardless of how well things go over the next few months.

 

[Another Voice]

The recently announced cut backs and other planned changes are not a response to the current attendance levels. They are being made based on projections for the months ahead, disturbing trends in advance hotel bookings, to meet other Corporate objectives, and “just to be safe” because of the high level of uncertainty that exists right now.

If you also read the Disney comments, you’ll notice they talk about weekend levels being back to normal. This is highlighting another unfavorable trend – the ratio of local guests to out of town guests is not where Disney needs it to be. Parks filled with people paying $50 a day is nice, but the Company depends on parks filled with more people paying $200 a night + tickets + meals + merchandise. Industry “experts” are claiming most Americans will be staying closer to home. That’s great for a place like Disneyland with a huge population base, but worrisome to tourist-dependent areas like New Orleans, Hawaii and WDW.

Disneyland and California Adventure are in the same situation. While current attendance levels are holding their own (although DCA is a whole other problem), stiff cutbacks are being made out of concern for future performance and to support other Corporate requirements (i.e., cash needed elsewhere).

 

[Safari Steve]

...and many of those "$50 for one day" people aren't even paying that much (AP holders)

 

[HBK]

and I'll tell you the most important line i that article is "weekend".

Columbus Day weekend (and the following weekend for that matter) the parks were "packed" (It's all relative to the time of the year). I found the wait times seemed to be a bit inflated...splash had a 45 minute wait, but we were on the ride in 25 minutes. Same with the other favorites....


But the weekdays the place was EMPTY. I did MGM on Thursday and there was no line for either of the big 2 (Aerosmith or TOT). Same with EPCOT (Test Track had a 20 minute posted time), Magic (Walked on to just about everything), IOA (Spiderman had a 3 minute wait posted).....

So in my opinion you're seeing a lot of locals head out on the weekends....but there wasn't that much of a problem for tourists during the week.....


P.S. My first trip to Islands will not be my last. What an awesome park. If Disney could flip flop IOA and DAK I'd never leave the property.