I don't go to Disney parks very often but the "expanded ride reservation system" mentioned in this article has actually gone from good to terrible, and I think it has contributed to longer waits.
The old Fastpass system required you to go visit a kiosk near the ride itself, and acquire a ticket for a specific time window later in the day, at which point you could go in via a shorter priority line. It worked great and was actually kind of fun.
I understand they would want to get rid of the physical passes the machine printed out as the machines were probably maintenance nightmares, but they did more than that. They changed the system entirely to an app, which is fine in itself, but they eliminated the need to visit the ride area to get the pass, which is part of what made the system fair. Instead, you can schedule the passes ahead of time, even for future days, and of course passholders and people staying at the park get priority, so all the popular rides' Fastpasses are already gone by the time the typical visitor is even able to attempt to schedule anything, which means they will just have to wait in the regular long line because there's no way smooth out the demand across the day anymore, since all the scheduling happens for a select group ahead of time without requiring any physical commitment.
In short, they sabotaged themselves, at least from this visitor's POV. Fastpass was one of my favorite bits of visiting Disney parks, but the new system is one of my LEAST favorite bits. Ah well.
On my last visit to the Florida parks I used the MagicBands and FastPass+, which also allows (well, nearly demands) that you schedule rides and other events in advance.
I agree with your observations, but wanted to add that all the scheduling really takes the spontaneity out of visiting the theme parks. The moment you need to keep checking your phone to determine if you can make the next ride window, it's not a vacation anymore.
I understand the capacity of the parks has changed. I used to visit on 12/31 every year and understand what the MK is like with 100,000 people in it. But now it seems like the parks are running near capacity all the time.
>But now it seems like the parks are running near capacity all the time.
Yes, at least in Disney Land this was my impression a few months ago. We intentionally went on a boring weekday when school was in session and it was still packed. The wait times were so terrible that you could maybe do 4 big rides in a full day.
Agreed. To add to this, you spend your entire trip managing your fastpass usage on your phone so you're constantly looking for signal, booking, rebooking, canceling etc... instead of enjoying the park. The old system was much better as you've stated already, because it encouraged you to explore the park.
>they eliminated the need to visit the ride area to get the pass, which is part of what made the system fair
The time spent walking to the ride can be considered part of the time you spend in line. So they shortened that.
That's something my dad taught me once, by putting popular rides far from each other in a park, you should realize your "time spent waiting for the ride" is not just time in the line, but the time it takes for you to get to the line also.
Maybe I just wasn't keyed into it, but the old system you described was still how it was at Disneyland when I visited a few weeks ago. I was super impressed with it.
They "upgraded" the system in Disneyworld (FL) a year or two ago. The new system will be going live in Disneyland (CA) later this year.
However per friends working for Mickey, the new system will not allow SoCal Residents Pass holders to schedule FastPass in advance (i.e., before the day of the trip). For that, you'll need the pricier season passes. SRP holders will be given the same priority as normal ticket holders.
I always wondered why Disney doesn't open a third park somewhere square in the middle of the U.S. There's literally no competition with Disney parks as they're one-of-a-kind and it would both open more space at their other parks and bring in a huge segment of the population that doesn't go to their parks simply because of travel costs. Disneyland and Disney World are always busy. Look at the data. It might be time.
In terms of where to locate the park, Disney was a big early believer in a analytical approach. They hired SRI to determine the best location for Disneyland back in the 1950s. They came up with a amazing amount of operational and systems research that we use now. The big factors where climate, access to a huge population base, and multiple access to freeways.
When it came to Disney World, the factor where those, plus the ability to buy large amount of land before anyone was aware of it, and could drive up prices with speculation.
Disney has tried a number of different strategies in the past to make parks more accessible - including the idea of building a Disneyland on a boat, that would travel the world, and stop in various ports for months, before packing up and sailing to the next trip.
Most of the demand for Disney growth wise is international, with Brazil probably next to get a park.
In terms of line waits, there are two things at play - one Disney has realized that they have been leaving money at the table. Contrary to this article, the vast majortity of the excess demand is not single day visitors at Disneyland, but rather season pass holders in California. This is why they have jacked up the cost for annual passes a ton. I was listening to a podcast recently that postulated that as much as 45% of the daily visitors to Disneyland might be annual pass holders. Expect the cost to go way up - it’s getting close to double the cost of a Disneyland pass compared to a Disney World pass.
The other thing is that Disney is putting massive capital into the parks, to grow them. They just opened Avatar land in Animal kingdom, but the most exciting are the new STar Wars Land, Toy Story Land, Epcot overhaul, and marvel land in California. Disney will be adding a ton of capacity, but they are trying to raise ticket prices to offset.
My wife and I, and her family, have been Walt Disney World (Florida) passholders for years. My dad was a passholder for years until he moved another 45 minutes away from Disney.
It's a little expensive, but there's always something fun to do. Most of us go to re-ride some of our favorite rides. My dad went to just walk around and get exercise and look at things.
Epcot center also has a ton of live entertainment including live bands and performers. They also have events with foods from around the world, flower or butterfly festivals, and more.
For what it's worth, my impression of Disneyland (California and Tokyo) wasn't nearly as good. They were fun, but they didn't have enough stuff to keep me coming back. But then, I don't live there, so maybe there's more to it. Those parks did have one thing that I wish Florida had: They change some of the rides once in a while to match another theme, such as Nightmare Before Christmas on the Haunted Mansion or "Hyperspace Mountain" (Star Wars) on Space Mountain.
I have to say... You're the only person I've ever heard say they went to Disney once and have no interest in going back.
You can add me to the list of people never wanting to go back.
I was fairly excited to take my kids to Disney as I had never been there myself as a kid for unknown reasons. And while I had good time, once is certainly enough. I'd rather travel and see different places as opposed to going the same place year after year.
I think I have had my fill of Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Last time I was there, I hated just about every minute of it. Every square inch of the park seemed to have been redesigned to suck more money out of my pockets rather than to ensure I was having an enjoyable experience.
Every last one of the rides seemed dated and lame, even if they had been recently renovated. Wait. Scratch that. The Finding Nemo one was okay. And that was back when they were using Fastpass instead of this wristband/app system they apparently have now.
I'll actually be in Orlando again a week from now, and we didn't even consider planning anything Disney. The entertainment value divided by the total daily cost of visiting a park is simply too low now. It isn't just the high ticket prices. They unabashedly overcharge for meals and food, and the nearby lodgings nickel and dime you on everything. And the time cost for everything is ridiculous.
The only reason it is so popular is that Disney cross-promotes everything in its media empire. If you let your kids watch enough Disney Channel on television, they will eventually want to visit a Disney theme park or cruise ship.
FWIW, they're still doing fastpass... It's just that the bands are another way to get a fastpass, as is the smartphone app. You can still just get one the old way, though.
I can't argue about the nickel-and-diming, though. It's getting ridiculous.
I guess it depends where you live and how far you have to travel. I live quite close to a major theme park (that many people travel a significant distance to visit) and for me it's a great place to kill a few hours on a lazy afternoon with my daughter when we have nothing better to do. Sometimes they have fun shows in the evening we'll drop by and watch. If nothing else it's a nice place for a weekend walk.
I’m pretty sure it says a lot about my aesthetic and political preferences, some aspects of which I’m not proud of, as I try to reflect on why this is, but the concept of a corporate theme park being a nice place for a walk gives me a physical feeling of revulsion.
I will likely take my daughter to a Disney theme park at some point, and will be willing to tolerate the hyper-branding experience for a day, but I will do so clenching my teeth while observing (especially) people pretending Disney Princesses exist in reality.
There's barely any pedestrian-safe areas in Southern California where people congregate. And they say the malls are dying. I wouldn't know, I haven't been in one in years.
I have friends who always go to Disney World in Orlando; although that is over the top for me, but to spend time with them we go there too. To have an annual pass makes it relaxed, if you travel around and they are inside the World perimeter to just come back at night and have dinner and drinks at Epcot etc. If you have to pay for it you would not do that, but now we did just that a lot for a few hours and then get back to the hotel. I rather go to difference places but I have friends, which includes them, who just always go to the same place (camping in France, resort in Greece and Disney world to name 3 families we hang with).
It's a very difference experience going as a AP holder then the insane one day visit. It's much more laid back. I typically do the three fast-passes I can get, plus a couple of favorites that I can hit when the lines are not long.
As a engineer Disneyworld is _fascinating_. Every type of engineering is at play, from social engineering to mechanical, IT, operational research etc. Think about the complexity of dealing with 80k people streaming randomly into a park, who all want to be entertained by a combination of rides, characters and shows. in my experience, the average fans wants around 7 rides/experiences a day to feel like it's a good time. Think about the processes and systems you need to support that.
I believe the reason is because they started doing payment plans for annual passes so sales shot up.
I'm sure the capital costs are crazy for building a new park, but with all the demand I'm still a bit surprised there's no talk of building a Disney park in the middle of the U.S. They appear to operate very independently (the fact WDW has had fastpass+ and magic bands for years and DL is just now announcing a completely different system, Maxpass).
You mentioned demand internationally. Disneyland Paris is the only park outside of the U.S. wholly owned by Disney. Not sure if it was a concession (I could see that for China) or as a risk-sharing thing. I would imagine Disney would want to own 100% of any new park if possible.
My biggest disappointment with Disney right now is that the parks no longer feel like places to escape for me. We mainly go to take the kids and, while they have a wonderful time, I used to actually enjoy going there to have fun. Now, every single bit of the parks and the surrounding areas have been engineered (perfectly, I might add) to make the most money for Disney even at the expense of being enjoyable. It used to be that I would gladly fork over a few dollars for a Mickey water-bottle fan because the rest of the park was so enjoyable but now it just feels like they care more about the money than they do about making it an awesome, "magical" place.
I am guessing weather has something to do with this. Do other places in the center of the country have a similar all year mild weather as So Cal or Orlando?
Overall this a great idea though, families could fly in to an airport close to the amusement parks, stay for a few days and directly fly out -- you're right in that there is little reason for an amusement park to be in one of the most expensive places in the country.
This is supposedly the reason WDW was built. Walt, they say, once heard a report that people on a ride at DL saw I5 start to slow down so they decided to leave the park to avoid the crushing commute. Not exactly somewhere you get lost in the magic.
WDW (fascinating origin story, read it sometime) was built out in the middle of nowhere where people can't see what is going on in the real world. It's the only vacation our family has been on that starts and ends at the airport if you stay on property. In 2008 I think the Dow lost 6% the week we were there and we were gloriously unaware of the fire raging elsewhere. It's all Disney coaches, busses, monorails, and boats to get between your resort and the parks.
I thought about weather but there are places in Arizona and Colorado or even Texas that weather would not be a problem. It would almost definitely need to be in the southern half of the US, but I think it could still work.
Most of the US has a "continental climate", with no moderating effect from nearby oceans, so you end up with hot, humid summers, and overcast, biting winters.
So there's a zone of decent climate, where it is far enough north to have just enough freeze days in winter to kill off the worst insects, and far enough south to have a decent selection of perennial landscaping plants.
The northern contour of the zone approximates lines through these cities:
Pueblo, Colorado
Kansas City, Kansas/Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri/Illinois
Louisville, Kentucky/Indiana
Cincinnati, Ohio/Kentucky
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The southern contour roughly follows:
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Memphis, Tennessee/Arkansas
Chattanooga, Tennessee/Georgia
North of that zone, you can't really keep a park open year-round, through the winter, and south of it, the summer months get too brutal for tourist comfort, until you get close enough to the coasts to tame the local climate.
A park near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers would have its pick of 5 different jurisdictions, decent climate, and access to nigh-unlimited water and TVA hydro and nuclear power. And you could reasonably buy up a lot of land cheaply without the locals figuring out who is doing it or why, just as it was done in central Florida.
How foolish of me! For best results, they'll want to build the 90-foot levee to surround the local airport, power plant, hospital, and resort hotels, too.
I suppose the unacceptable flood risks are why the Mississippi is lined with cities, including Brainerd, St. Cloud, St. Paul/Minneapolis, La Crosse, Dubuque, Quad Cities, Burlington, Quincy, Hannibal, St. Louis, Cape Girardeau, Cairo, Memphis, Greenville, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans.
That list includes two state capitals.
Clearly, Disney was less worried about the average of 3 major tropical storms per year, or the cat3 or above hurricane every 4 years or so, than he was about the fact that prior to Disney World, only 2% of visitors to Disney Land came from east of the Mississippi River. He needed cheap land, interstate highways, and weather that was generally pleasant [whenever a disaster was not in progress].
If you want to see how much Disney cares about making water its bitch, punch in "28.396, -81.578" on a map. They'd build a 90-foot levee. They'd build a 200-foot levee, if they could put mouse ears on it and charge $150 per day for admission.
I don't really feel that is right. A mild climate is one that is neither very hot nor very cold, like, say, that of San Francisco. Calling a subtropical or desert climate mild seems like a stretch.
They just finished building Shanghai Disneyland, which apparently caused a few budget issues in the Parks & Resorts division, so I think you're right about a third US location being off the table for now.
Disney also recently bought out the owners of Disneyland Paris, so they'll probably be putting some investment into that park as well (since it's sorely needed--DLP is considered one of the lesser Disney parks).
Which is a bit unfortunate. I visited it for the first time this year, and absolutely loved it. The Hollywood studios there is very “lightly” themed, but the magic kingdom there was absolutely wonderful. It reminded me of what Disneyland was like in my youth. The pirates land there, as well as the Thunder mountain close are absolutely the best versions that I have seen.
Disney’s been bailing out the French corporation that theoretically owns half of DLP for a while. That structure was difficult to work with, but they also didn’t have the revenue that Disneyland Paris has (where they have a similar structure).
Only time I went it poured it down solidly - still an awesome childhood holiday and will treasure the memories, but not entirely sure the climate is the best for it.
If you want to see your grandchildren more often live near Disney world. 22 visits in 18 years. If grandparents lived in st Louis i doubt each spring they would get a visit ( as the child dictates vacations often)
My neighbor's daughter bought the house across street from her, but it was only a couple months before the epic yelling matches in their driveway started.
I think those Agile guys might be on to something when they talk about Separation of Concerns. =)
Yeah, there were certainly ground-rules established ahead of time, and we wouldn't have even considered it if we didn't have a pretty excellent relationship.
It's been ~18 months so far and things are still going great. I really don't know what we would have done without the extra help just a phone call away...
I love living 5 minutes away from my parents. We are close enough we see each other frequently, drop by to do favors, borrow tools, carpool to events, etc., but there is juuuust enough friction to getting to the others house it doesn't feel as if we are living together / I'm still living at home.
Parents retiring to a place more than a short drive away has unintended consequences. Or children moving far away for employment.
In this particular case the gparents moving near WDW made this outcome: post child rearing, only 35 separate visits for the rest of their lifetime (25+ yrs) each visit required plane trip & time off.
It was the gparents choice to move so far away..... And WDW was a wonderful place to share our time together.
Better than grandparents moving states away to Arizona. We visited them twice in about 25 years (although they visited us several times, so we still saw them once every year or two). My other grandparents lived in the same city, so I got to experience both near and far. I definitely saw the ones in town a lot more often (at least 30 times a year, I think).
They own several hundred acres slightly northwest of Houston. It’s a brilliant location: major airport hub, gateway city to Latin America, solid (but often hot) weather, far enough from the coast to mitigate serious hurricane risk, low costs, large labor pool.
But it takes years and years for these things to happen, if they ever happen.
The land purchase was probably 9 years ago, but with these companies, the price of that sort of land is often just a rounding error, so it’s possible they’ve bought land all over the place to keep options open.
Weather is a huge issue for Disney parks. Both are busy all year round and a third park would be no different. It makes no sense to open parks that can only make money part of the year. The data shows the busiest times are December, March, and May so it would be really stupid to put a park anywhere those months have bad weather.
This leaves the South and West Coast. Dallas and Oklahoma City are the only realistic places for another park that's easier to get to from the Midwest.
Erratic weather might be a concern... large amounts of severe thunderstorms, hail, tornadoes in the Spring, and snow and ice in Fall/Winter could be quite disruptive. A little further east might alleviate some of that, though
Sounds like WB and Disney both have claims to different aspects. Interesting bit in the Wikipedia article with Disney having a copyright expert on set to help them choose a color of green that wasn't infringing.
I think the mistake with that was the focus: "the park was to have been dedicated to the history of the United States"[1].
Given the popularity of existing parks, I think it's fair to say people (especially those with kids) seeking a vacation at Disney want castles, Mickey Mouse, Space Mountain, etc.
Not the same thing. Disney America was an American History-themed park that was going to be outside of Washington, DC. I mean a park like Disneyland or Disney World, but in Kansas or Texas or something like that.
Yeah Disney America was planned for Virginia horse country outside of DC, some of the most beautiful and wealthy real estate in the region. The NIMBY factor was fierce and the locals were DC elites who wanted no part of it.
It was more next door to horse country than actual horse country. The big rallying point was that it was going to encroach on the civil war battlefield nearby. Disney actually had a large buffer between the park and the battlefield. Now what would have been a preserved forest buffer is either a housing development or is planned to be one. In fact almost all the land that was going to be Disney America is all housing developments which have brought more people and traffic than Disney America would have and less jobs and tax revenue.
Years before Disney America the same people that led the opposition to it blocked Legoland from opening in the eastern half of the same county. Again the area is now all housing developments and shopping centers.
"How can you do a park on America and not talk about slavery?"
Wow, this guy is really with it. Probably going to get some blowback, but he's right.
"This park will deal with the highs and lows . . . We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave, and what it was like to escape through the Underground Railroad."
Sometimes you should just shut your mouth when you're ahead.
If Disney can do it without gross cultural insensitivity, I think it could work.
Because no one lives in the center of the US; most of us live close to the coasts. It's easier to travel to LA or Orlando than to the center of the country.
I live on the coast, but the notion that no one lives in the Midwest is absurd and derisive.
About two thirds of the US population live in coastal states, but that includes gulf coast states which are pretty central on the east west axis. That still leaves a third of the population, with the Chicago metro area being one of the largest and densest catch basins.
Surprisingly, when I went to debunk the original ridiculous statement, I found that if you count the gulf coast, it’s only a third of the US population that doesn’t live in an ocean-adjacent state.
“No one” is still the silliest thing I’ve heard for a while, though!
I don't think it's population density. I grew up in this town called Augusta, Georgia. Every year there's this event that draws people from all over the world. Despite two hours, give or take, major cities, it draws them in. Another point of view is that areas with less population density are use to commuting long distances. Put something like a Disney park in the middle of Kansas and people WILL come, and within ten years the cities closest to that park will be booming too.
> I don't think it's population density. I grew up in this town called Augusta, Georgia. Every year there's this event that draws people from all over the world. Despite two hours, give or take, major cities, it draws them in.
I think there's a big difference here – it's one thing to draw a large crowd for a single ~weeklong event, and another to do it continuously over the course of a year. I imagine the staffing requirements for Augusta National are different the week of the Masters versus the rest of the year (and I know that at least some of the additional staffing is done by volunteers). So the economics are wildly different. A Disneyland in the heart of the US would probably require fairly high staffing levels continuously. So this would require a fairly consistent attendance. Sure, there will be seasonal/holiday variations, but I doubt a theme park could survive the attendance amplitude swing that Augusta National sees between the Masters and the rest of the year.
And they'll continue going to Orlando and LA. The idea isn't to replace the existing parks as a destination. Nor to offer something so different as to be yet another must-see Disney attraction.
A copy of Orlando some place in the heartland would give access to more Americans.
Well that argues for putting one outside of Fort Worth, TX, then.
But the current hubs might not stay the only hubs. The new Boeing planes are rated for about 500 miles longer range, so that's going to put a lot of airports inland from the coasts as reachable from Europe and Asia, and a lot of coastal cities with smaller, cheaper airplanes.
Burgeoning wait times, and park overcrowding is (in my opinion) largely a result of Annual Pass sales. The AP's come out, clog up the park and make it less hospitable to non-AP guests.
They don't buy (lots of) stuff - AP's often will drop by for half a day and eat off property, but yet will still plop down in a restaurant and take up table space. They also don't purchase much merch either.
They travel inefficiently - AP's often will come to meet up with friends, and like most southern californians, they don't usually carpool - to the point that in 2015, Disney almost stopped selling parking with the AP because of capacity reasons.
So I think clog up is accurate here. AP's in general use the park in very different ways then the people who are vacationing at the park - Disney has made it clear that its primary market is the vacationer - but they cant drop the AP system without alienating a bunch of folks.
> During the first month after it opened, the new Guardians attraction had an average wait time of 93 minutes, with the maximum wait time climbing to five hours, according to the data.
One thing I didn't see mentioned in the article are demographics for visitors. Disneyland has always had a very local crowd, which is why they do things differently from Walt Disney World in Florida. By "local crowd", I mean you get a lot more people with season passes who go just for dinner in the park and then leave. Waiting up to 5 hours for the Guardians attraction would be a novelty to them since they've literally done everything else in the park many times over.
That’s usual opening day insanity. Avatar land, at Animal Kingdom in Florida had a four hour wait - to get into the land to say nothing of rides. It always takes a while to get the operations side figured out.
At Disneyland it’s worse, because they don’t have fastpass plus (which allows Disney to schedule a ton of rides, and also distributed traffic through the park). It’s also that it was unexpected. Disney was counting on Avatar land being the big opening weekend thing, and instead Guardian stole it’s thunder a bit.
From everyone I have talked to, the ride is a blast, but I haven’t been on it yet.
The same thing happened at Harry Potter for Universal. Fans are insane.
Having said that, I was there for the second day of Harry Potter and waited in the 3 hr line to get into the HP area, and then another 1.5 hr line to actually ride the ride. I was there with a friend, and we chatted the whole time and it was a lot of fun. I probably wouldn't do it again for a new ride anywhere, but it was a neat experience once.
Back in '92, right after my discharge from the Air Force, I went to work for a copier company, who sent me to LA for training on how to repair copiers. It happened to be during the week of the LA Riots!
My instructors told us to take the day off and they stayed home to protect their homes. I hopped the bus to Disneyland.
There were no lines there that day. I rode Space Mountain about 12 times!
It looks like by the article raising ticket prices did not reduce the number of people into the park. I think they should have just capped the number of people in the park at one time, in addition to the increased ticket prices. I feel like Disney is a melting pot. It's affordable at some time interval for just about every family. If the prices keep going up it could risk being less of that melting pot, and more of just the pot with more money.
They already do limit the number of people in the park, it just only tends to get hit a handful of times a year.
And for good reason IMO. I don't know about you, but if I planned a vacation and then wasn't allowed in the park during that time I'd be pissed, even more if the reason was so that those who did get in could have less wait times and I couldn't even get into the park to experience it.
And it used to be worse, believe it or not. Disney shuts down now a about 80k people. In the past when Disney wasn’t opened all week, and was cheaper, they had days that the attendence was estimated at 100k.
I'm a bit surprised. I worked at the Magic Kingdom around 2001 and we'd hit capacity at like 10am every day during peak times (the article said Disneyland only hit capacity twice in the past year). I expected Disneyland would be the same.
But now you are just making it so only people that plan it many many months out can get in.
And it comes with it's own slew of problems. Like you'd need to either have hourly booking, or you'd need to assume when people are going to be going for the day, and you could still just end up with an empty park at some times, and crazy long lines at others.
Combined with the fact that "park hopping" is really common, especially when you don't have a huge amount of days in a vacation there (or don't want to blow a whole day on one of the smaller parks).
I'm not convinced it's as straightforward as you'd think.
Their solution of the "fast pass" system they have in florida is I think the best of both worlds. You can "schedule" time for a ride months out, but they still let as many people as they safely can in the park.
They do that for restaurant reservations. The effect is that getting a reservation for a restaurant usually needs to be made weeks, or even months, in advance. And that's just the restaurants...
The article misses why this happened. I’ve seen it speculated that on any given day, 40-50% of Disneyland people are annual pass holders. They can jack the daily rate all they want, but it doesnt’ move the needle that much. If you traveled all the way to the states, a extra 15-$20 a ticket isn’t going to set you off.
Annual passholder tickets went up as well, but the same logic applies there. If you are dropping 1K per ticket, a $100 isnt’ going to be a deal breaker.
If you do care, you buy the ticket that is cheaper ($600) that is California only, and not valid for admission on busier days.
It doesn't seem surprising to me that if there is demand, but supply is capacity limited, it's hard to determine the full extent of the demand, and that when more capacity becomes available, the demand may exceed that as well.
If you build more lanes where the roads are generally uncongested, you won't see much 'induced demand', because the there wasn't much demand for travel that was waiting for less congestion.
If you build more lanes where the roads are generally congested, you will see the amount of time the roads are congested decrease when construction is done. However, most additional lanes are built in areas where there is strong population growth, leading to increased demand overtime anyway. For example, in southern california there was a project to add another lane to the I-405; when completed, the average duration of heavy congestion (rush hour) was reduced by several hours; but it's reasonable to expect that over time the congestion will increase again, just as it was before construction.
It's reasonable to expect the same to happen for theme parks. There are a lot of capacity constraints preventing people from attending a Disney park, and you see that in the high attendance. It's probably difficult to predict how many additional parks you could build and still have good attendance, but building one at a time seems reasonable; being a bit hard to get in isn't terrible for Disney's brand perception.
IF this were Uber Disney ..they would do surge pricing, and although the media would get mad but at least the lines would be shorter for those willing to pay
I'd like to take my little girl there but after hearing wait time I am kind of withdraw to the idea. Does someone have any tip to visiting DL to minimize the suffering for us adults (i.e time of year, what ride/fun things are worth the wait, etc..)
Understand the fast pass system. There should be blogs online about it. Don't get fast passes for rides that are not worth getting it for. The main ones where fast passes "run out" are Radiator Springs, Guardians, Space Mountain, and Indiana Jones. Note that the two parks are under two different fast pass systems and if you stay at any of the Disney hotels, I believe you can request specific fast passes.
Try and get into the park first thing in the morning. As soon as you get in, bee line for a fast pass to one ride, and wait in line for another. Some rides such as Toy Story are not part of the fast pass system. While waiting in lines that are 1 hr+, have a friend to go across the park and get more fast passes while you wait. Also, the time window for these passes are not super strict. That being said some cast members can be particularly annoyingly strict. Good luck!
The two parks are on the same network now so you can no longer get a fast pass for each park. MaxPass will be coming soon that will allow you to reserve a fastpass from your phone. That service costs $10/person/day.
Toy Story does now have a fastpass.
Staying at a Disneyland hotel (any of the 3) grants you access to Magic Morning.
* Get there at rope drop. The first 2 or 3 hours the park is open, you can basically walk onto many of the rides.
* Get to know the fast pass system and use it to full advantage. Later in the day, any of the big attractions you'll likely be riding through fast pass. Fill the rest of the time with food, street shows, and smaller attractions.
* Visit During the right time of year. The LA times article lists the best times.
As an AP holder, I end up going at all times of year. During the busiest times, arriving early, using fast passes, and tempering expectations makes it a fun Disney day. During the non busy times of year, no complaints.
They use mathematical optimization techniques to predict the best order to visit things. Typically cuts Several hours of waiting out. IT’s well worth it.
(Len Testa, I will DM you for my referral check ;-)
So much this. My and my GF used to go to Disneyland Paris on crappy days in February or March. If it wasn't for the stupid rule that you are not allowed to stay in the cart after the ride we could've done Space Mountain a few times in a row without leaving the train.
The touringplans site mentioned in the LA Times article has a crowd calendar that may help you.
From my experience, typically slower periods at Disneyland is September to November (before Thanksgiving) and mid-January to April. Go during the week. The article mentioned Thursday typically has the shortest wait times.
The Disney MagicBands? Those are only available in Walt Disney World in Florida, not Disneyland in Anaheim.
Anaheim only has paper FastPasses, which are the same concept, but a little more difficult to manage since you need to run around the park getting them. MaxPass for $10 extra per person per day is coming soon, however, and will let you book FastPasses via their app, but it's a shame it's an additional cost.
Unless you are talking the magic bands (which give you three rides at assigned times). Those are great, and free, but are very limited, especially with attractions that just opened.
Do they do staggered ticket pricing based on what attractions are accessible? Last time my family was passing through LA, I looked into taking my 3 and 7 year olds. We could only see the one ticket price. Thought it was just too expensive considering the younger kid wouldn't have been able to nor would have wanted to ride most of the attractions. It would have been nice to bring them just to poke around...
They probably need to create a phone app that tracks guests, and then offer a discount for people to install it on their phones. It might be the best way to divide the customer base into various profiles that could later serve for computer simulations & models for when different events happen: ticket price changes, rides opened & closed, etc.
"passholders and people staying at the park get priority"
They didn't trade a faster system for a slower system, they started price descriminating to further maximize their profits. You just happen to be in the group that gets a slower experience.
> Average wait times at the Disneyland Resort have been on the rise over the past few years, despite efforts by the park to ease crowding by raising ticket prices on peak demand days
They raised prices because there was more demand, so they could make more money.
Yes and no. They haven't maxed capacity, they get paid if people wait in line in the park. Selling fewer paak day tickets at higher prices is better experience for customers.
Does anyone know if Disney publishes any of their operations materials or data, a la Toyota? I didn't find any on a quick search; it'd be fascinating to dig into materials on how they do planning, capacity, traffic flows, etc.
Or do like Burning Man, Yosemite, Hamilton, etc... schedule sale of limited tickets well in advance. This has the added benefit of not taxing lower-income people and makes the experience much more scarce and something to look forward to.
They have already capped the people going into the park. People with single-day passes can be turned away at the gate if the park is full. Two-day or multi-day pass got priority.
This could definitely work if they changed how their annual passes worked. Right now, pass holders can come in whenever there is not a black out date, but Disney needs to first implement a system where days have to be booked in advance. Otherwise, first come first serve would unfairly block those traveling from out of town.
The results are posted further down the article. You're right though, title is most definitely click bait. The notion of raising prices for the sake of shorter wait times is barely an assumption.
The old Fastpass system required you to go visit a kiosk near the ride itself, and acquire a ticket for a specific time window later in the day, at which point you could go in via a shorter priority line. It worked great and was actually kind of fun.
I understand they would want to get rid of the physical passes the machine printed out as the machines were probably maintenance nightmares, but they did more than that. They changed the system entirely to an app, which is fine in itself, but they eliminated the need to visit the ride area to get the pass, which is part of what made the system fair. Instead, you can schedule the passes ahead of time, even for future days, and of course passholders and people staying at the park get priority, so all the popular rides' Fastpasses are already gone by the time the typical visitor is even able to attempt to schedule anything, which means they will just have to wait in the regular long line because there's no way smooth out the demand across the day anymore, since all the scheduling happens for a select group ahead of time without requiring any physical commitment.
In short, they sabotaged themselves, at least from this visitor's POV. Fastpass was one of my favorite bits of visiting Disney parks, but the new system is one of my LEAST favorite bits. Ah well.