Why Doesn't Disney build more restaurants?

[Palendat]

With the popularity of the DDP, why doesn't Disneyworld simply build one more TS restaurant in each park?????

 

[paulh]

erm new one being built in AK,new ones being built plesure island alfredos changing epcot?
so are they not adding
Paulh

 

[Palendat]

I knew about the one in AK, but as far as MK, EP, or MGM is concerned, SO MANY people complain about not being able to use their TS credits in the parks (at short notice), that i'm wondering why Disney is not capitalizing on this by building at least one new restaurant in EACH park!!! I'm no business major, but unless Disney plans on eliminating the DDP, I really can't see demand diminishing substantially.

 

[hmp2z]

I agree with you, and here are the only responses I've gotten. I disagree with most of them, but here are the reasons, for what it's worth:

- It's costly to build a new restaurant
- It takes quite a while to get a new restaurant up and running, from planning to doors opening.
- Guests who purchase DDP and can't use it are just shoveling money back into Disney's pockets, so there's no real incentive for them to provide an opportunity for guests to utilize all dining credits. Sure, guests could vote with their wallets by not returning, but, with Disney running extremely high occupancy rates in resorts, that's obviously not happening.

As locals, it's frustrating to not have the ability to spontaneously go out for dinner on a Saturday night. Everything is booked solid around here, since we live right by the parks. We're stuck with driving 30-45 minutes to get out of the Disney area (60-90 minutes on weeknights) or staying home, which is what we actually end up doing.

Cheers!
Heather W

 

[kaytieeldr]

Well, they already have more than twenty sit-down restaurants in the parks, plus at least 25 more in the Disney-owned resorts, plus the restaurants in the Dolphin, the Swan, Shades of Green, and at Downtown Disney.
Now, granted, not all of these restaurants participate in the DDP - but enough of them DO, that any DDP Guest willing to be flexible can find somewhere to use their Table Service credits.

 

[Allison]

I knew about the one in AK, but as far as MK, EP, or MGM is concerned, SO MANY people complain about not being able to use their TS credits in the parks (at short notice), that i'm wondering why Disney is not capitalizing on this by building at least one new restaurant in EACH park!!! I'm no business major, but unless Disney plans on eliminating the DDP, I really can't see demand diminishing substantially.

I don't think anyone knows what Disney's long term plans are for the dining plan. A restaurant is expensive to build and I imagine it would take a long time to recover the start up costs.

 

[wolverine2010]

I agree with you, and here are the only responses I've gotten. I disagree with most of them, but here are the reasons, for what it's worth:

- It's costly to build a new restaurant
- It takes quite a while to get a new restaurant up and running, from planning to doors opening.
- Guests who purchase DDP and can't use it are just shoveling money back into Disney's pockets, so there's no real incentive for them to provide an opportunity for guests to utilize all dining credits. Sure, guests could vote with their wallets by not returning, but, with Disney running extremely high occupancy rates in resorts, that's obviously not happening.

As locals, it's frustrating to not have the ability to spontaneously go out for dinner on a Saturday night. Everything is booked solid around here, since we live right by the parks. We're stuck with driving 30-45 minutes to get out of the Disney area (60-90 minutes on weeknights) or staying home, which is what we actually end up doing.

Cheers!
Heather W...I Agree

 

[TDC Nala]

The new restaurant at AK likely will not accept DDP so it won't help with those reservations except that the folks not on DDP will have somewhere else to go.

 

[Colleen27]

With the popularity of the DDP, why doesn't Disneyworld simply build one more TS restaurant in each park?????

To some degree they are, I think. There is the new, probably DDP excluded table service going up in AK, plus the change-over of Tusker House from CS to TS. Screamscape reported rumors about a pirate character meal at MK that would mean the addition of a new TS there. And those are the two parks where the inadequacy of TS capacity seems most obvious.

 

[bicker]

Keep in mind that a really successful restaurant keeps its tables full. Building more restaurants will increase capacity, but increasing capacity is only a profitable objective when the lack of capacity is resulting in more lost revenue than building and staffing the additional capacity would cost. Only Disney has the hard information that would indicate how much additional revenue they could derive from more restaurant space, as well as information about what else they could do with that space and that capital (and they're not sharing that info with us, except through their actions, and they're not building lots of new restaurants, so it is a logical conclusion that there isn't much advantage for them from doing so.)

 

[Nancyg56]

As locals, it's frustrating to not have the ability to spontaneously go out for dinner on a Saturday night. Everything is booked solid around here, since we live right by the parks. We're stuck with driving 30-45 minutes to get out of the Disney area (60-90 minutes on weeknights) or staying home, which is what we actually end up doing.

Cheers!
Heather W...I Agree

I live in an area that is not a tourist attraction. In our neighboring towns we have a lot of restaurants and it is impossible to get near any of them from Friday evening through Sunday evening. AS more restaurants get added they fill up and the wait time is way longer than DH and I are willing to deal with. We also travel a distance for meals. It can be annoying to want a nice dinner after shopping and find that we cannot walk into any of many establishments, but it is what it is.

 

[Lewisc]

Disney is building a new restaurant in AK. Disney is converting Tusker House to a TS restaurant. Disney is converting a little used CS restaurant in Adventureland to a TS restaurant. Years ago Disney came up with Mickey's BBQ to basically take care of the overflow from HDD.

The complaint isn't really crowded restaurants, the complaint is from posters that can't get the restaurant they want at the time they want. Le Cellier isn't a big restaurant. CG can only seat so many patrons during Wishes. One recent poster, commenting on how full the restaurants are, said at 6p only 2 restaurants in EPCOT had same day availability. The other way of looking it is even at the last minute those guests had two restaurants to pick from.

 

[bicker]

The complaint isn't really crowded restaurants, the complaint is from posters that can't get the restaurant they want at the time they want.