Disney price increases now even making front page of the Daily Mail website.

[muffa2308]

Originally Posted by louiseybobs

It’s hard isn’t it because you so desperately want to have a good time.

We’ve totally took the pressure off ourselves. We’ve been in HS this morning 8-12:30. And are heading back to the hotel.
We are having a good time but I wish I’d gone the Maldives or Hawaii for what I’ve paid for this.

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Agreed. Apart from today we have left parks early 1pm or earlier. It’s literally uncomfortable with the amount of people. Absolutely swamped. Trying to stay positive for my DW as it’s her 1st time. Stand out things have been discovery cove and some restaurants. Off to the hard rock tomorrow for a week. It will be interesting to get her point of view in terms of comparison

[louiseybobs]

Originally Posted by muffa2308

Agreed. Apart from today we have left parks early 1pm or earlier. It’s literally uncomfortable with the amount of people. Absolutely swamped. Trying to stay positive for my DW as it’s her 1st time. Stand out things have been discovery cove and some restaurants. Off to the hard rock tomorrow for a week. It will be interesting to get her point of view in terms of comparison

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Wow you’ll love it. We did hard rock for 2 weeks back in 2011 and had a ball
🤘🎸

[Libby]

I think Disney is a victim of its own success and many "improvements" have come with added issues.

Our first trip was in 1998 not many of my friends had visited back then. Our planning consisted of reading the Brit's guide to Orlando and the Virgin welcome meeting.

We had a great time, planned a few things (coach trip to Kennedy space centre, Mickey's backyard bbq) but did most things as we felt like it. Made character breakfast reservation once we were there. A long queue was 40 mins, most were 20mins. Exchange rate was reasonable, food was cheap even onsite was ok.

Not sure the order things were introduced but paper fast passes were mostly a good thing for us because we were not planners but are early risers. But the standby queues started to get longer.

Free dining seemed to push up the prices for everyond else and made it hard to get a walk up reservation.

Building, building, building of hotels along with the rise in DVC membership has taken away the exclusivity of being an onsite guest. And personally not being with DVC myself makes me feel less valued by Disney as a company, (not less valued by the CMs)

Booking meals and fast passes before we've even left home was so hard for our family and totally changed the feel of our holidays. Much less relaxing and more of a military operation!

In 2019 we went yo DL in California and it felt like the old times at WDW.

I understand Disney is a business but cramming people into parks doesn't look at all pleasant.

At the moment I have no plans to go back, but I'm keeping an eye on trip reports and hoping that in the next few years things may settle down a bit from the craziness following all of the travel restrictions.

[Fraser789]

I did used to enjoy the Disney parks quite a lot. We went in December for our Honeymoon, we didn't do Disney and didn't miss it! We just did Universal and Seaworld etc it was a brilliant holiday.

[YorkshireT]

Again I’ll say that it’s a lot busier partly because people are now being forced to stay in the parks a lot longer. Saw it with my own eyes at Xmas, EMH was twice as busy as it was before with massive queues. So that’s huge numbers extra in on a morning first thing. Then everyone is on Genie, and you couldn’t get rides until the afternoon- no choice but to mill around, join queue etc. Before this Genie people would in the main have their FP, certainly the thousands on site, and join the parks for shorter periods of time.
Great for Disney as more in park spending, not great at all for customer experience.

[Shani]

It could be argued that most people don't think it's overpriced as the parks are busier than ever.

My answer to that view would be - wait for the wave of holidaymakers desperate to get back there after not going for so long due to covid to be over.

Disney are currently riding the wave of pent up demand. And we all know how waves go...

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Libby

I think Disney is a victim of its own success and many "improvements" have come with added issues.

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In a way you're right. I would rephrase that and say that DisneyWorld has become more successful than it was planned/meant to be and now Disney is trying to reduce that "success" whilst still improving profits. As Disney have said before, it plans to extract more money from less guests. It's succeeding on the former and trying its best to do the latter but, it seems, failing.

BTW, I wish I was a victim of my own success.

Originally Posted by Libby

I understand Disney is a business but cramming people into parks doesn't look at all pleasant.

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But Disney isn't cramming people into the parks.

It's currently limiting the number of people it lets into the park via the park reservation system. By all accounts, they could let more people into the parks but choose not to. Imagine the uproar if Disney reduced the amount of people it allowed into their parks and people found they couldn't visit any of the parks.

Also, it's not Disney who is making people visit the parks. If anything, it sounds like Disney is trying it's best to put people off from visiting based on all the comments about how bad things are. It's people who are wanting to visit the parks that are causing the parks to get fully booked.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Shani

It could be argued that most people don't think it's overpriced as the parks are busier than ever.

My answer to that view would be - wait for the wave of holidaymakers desperate to get back there after not going for so long due to covid to be over.

Disney are currently riding the wave of pent up demand. And we all know how waves go...

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That is the current theory. And there may be some truth to that.

But, personally, I don't think this wave will end as some think. I think crowds will remain high. The crowds might not grow as much as they have recently but I don't think the crowds will noticeably reduce. Crowds have been growing for many years before the pandemic hit. People have been moaning about increasing prices and changes Disney have made in the last ~10 years but that hasn't stopped more people visiting each year. I remember people complaining when FP+ was introduced and how terrible that was. I remember people calling Disney greedy every time they increased ticket prices or added a couple more dollars onto the cost of parking or when they made onsite guests pay for overnight parking. But more people continued to visit.

Also, even if the current post-pandemic wave subsides, that leaves us back with crowd levels similar to what they were back in 2019. People thought the parks were crowded then.

ETA: By the way, I do think it's overpriced. But that isn't stopping the parks from being busier than ever. Even if it's due to pent-up demand, people are wiling to pay those overinflated prices in order to visit.

[Shani]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

That is the current theory. And there may be some truth to that.

But, personally, I don't think this wave will end as some think. I think crowds will remain high. The crowds might not grow as much as they have recently but I don't think the crowds will noticeably reduce. Crowds have been growing for many years before the pandemic hit. People have been moaning about increasing prices and changes Disney have made in the last ~10 years but that hasn't stopped more people visiting each year. I remember people complaining when FP+ was introduced and how terrible that was. I remember people calling Disney greedy every time they increased ticket prices or added a couple more dollars onto the cost of parking or when they made onsite guests pay for overnight parking. But more people continued to visit.

Also, even if the current post-pandemic wave subsides, that leaves us back with crowd levels similar to what they were back in 2019. People thought the parks were crowded then.

ETA: By the way, I do think it's overpriced. But that isn't stopping the parks from being busier than ever. Even if it's due to pent-up demand, people are wiling to pay those overinflated prices in order to visit.

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Absolutely, I don't disagree.

Over the years it's often been said Disney parks very rarely close to capacity. The odd time over Christmas and Easter obviously, but it was unheard of any other time of year - no one ever had to worry about being able to get into a park.

These days, parks are closed to capacity often.

Are they actually at the capacity they used to be at? Are the numbers of people visiting more than ever before?

Or, more cynically, are Disney still unofficially limiting ride capacity in order to upsell LL and G+? Are they struggling with staffing therefore not enough room in restaurants to swallow crowds or to operate rides at their full capacity?

I don't doubt they're *very* busy - but how much of it is "managed"? I find it hard to trust anything anyone says these days.

And, from another angle - there's so much uncertainty - inflation, recession etc - will there be a point when the bubble bursts?

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Shani

Over the years it's often been said Disney parks very rarely close to capacity. The odd time over Christmas and Easter obviously, but it was unheard of any other time of year - no one ever had to worry about being able to get into a park.

These days, parks are closed to capacity often.

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Ah, no. They aren't closed due to capacity.

The park reservations have run out but the parks aren't at capacity. Disney has stated that the number of available park reservations is less than the capacity. There are currently less people in the parks than there used to be during the busy Christmas periods when the parks were at capacity.

Originally Posted by Shani

Or, more cynically, are Disney still unofficially limiting ride capacity in order to upsell LL and G+? Are they struggling with staffing therefore not enough room in restaurants to swallow crowds or to operate rides at their full capacity?

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I don't think they are limiting ride capacity? I suppose they might be.

They are limiting the number of people in the parks though and that's probably because they are struggling with staffing levels, not letting as many people in the restaurants and not running some of the shows that swallow crowds.

Disney have said a couple of times that they are using the park reservation system to limit the number of guests in the parks. Recently, CFO Christine McCarthy said that Disney is limiting attendance through the reservation system in order to increase “guest enjoyment” (which doesn't sound like it is working for some people ).

Imagine how much more busy the parks would be if Disney didn't restrict the number of park reservations!

Originally Posted by Shani

I don't doubt they're *very* busy - but how much of it is "managed"? I find it hard to trust anything anyone says these days.

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For how things are now and have been over the last 6 months or so, I can only go off what DIBBers are saying. And quite a lot of DIBBers have said the parks are busier than ever and crowd levels are horrible. And we're not just talking wait times and queue lengths - some DIBBers have said that they feel there are more people in the parks now.

Before the pandemic, the TEA published attendance figures that showed that the number of people visiting was increasing year on year and hence the parks were slowly getting busier each year.