Bookings for WDW packages significantly down according to Pete Werner?

[act1980]

It was definitely busy last Sept/Oct as I was there. This year was vastly different, could be a number of reasons for the low crowds but it was very much welcomed.

[jocesk]

Originally Posted by neatfrk

Hold on a minute. On the other side of the Atlantic you have to pay fines to take your kids on holiday during school? What kind of nonsense is that?

Can't speak for everywhere in the US... but in my district we write up a polite letter to school indicating that we are taking our child on family vacation for a few days and the school counts it as an excused absence. Students are allotted a certain number of excused absences each year.

I can't imagine a school here attempting to impose a fine over something like this. There would be mutiny. As long as the allotted excused absences are not exceeded - it should be entirely up to a parent's discretion.

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Mutiny over school fines but no mutiny over kids getting shot at school? 🤷🤷🤷 They have bigger problems I would say

[tspill]

Originally Posted by jocesk

Mutiny over school fines but no mutiny over kids getting shot at school? 🤷🤷🤷 They have bigger problems I would say

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And what - they have to pay for medical care?

In general our state (taxes) pays for our children's education. So it is not unreasonable to fine for misuse of this.
What private schools do here is up to them.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by salmim

Disney parks have definitely not been dead since we have been here. September is the new August!
Every park has been substantially busier than previous September's.
We have as a family been Sept visitors for many many years and it's by far the busiest we have seen

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Originally Posted by act1980

It was definitely busy last Sept/Oct as I was there. This year was vastly different, could be a number of reasons for the low crowds but it was very much welcomed.

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This is something I have seen many many times on the DIBB. Perception of crowd levels is a very subjective thing. One person’s “busy” is another person’s “quiet”. One person will think it is busier this year than last year, whilst another will think it was busier last year and quieter this year. I’ve even seen people be in the same park on the same day and have very different views as to how busy it is. No one is wrong.

Which is why the only objective measures that can be used are the wait times. Which, admittedly, are somewhat flawed measures of how busy the parks are.

[antietam]

I went this year and the thing i did notice that there are a lot of extra things you can pay for to upgrade your experience that seem to be well over the top in price.

Its all very well replacing and changing things but all to often its upgraded and then the price is well beyond a family.
An example would be the MK fireworks parties.So high in price and uses all the best viewing areas as well.
If you dont want to pay or cant get a reservation then the fireworks are not as nice to watch as they once were.
I did not bother this year , i made a fastpass for BTMR at 21.00 and was able to see the fireworks going off whilst riding, it was one of the best moments i have ever had in MK.

Yes its Pricey but if you can get by without all the upgrade costs then its still good for the money, look for savings elsewhere in your holiday budget to negate the parks cost a bit

[antietam]

I dont care how busy the parks are.

I use fastpass and Touring plans and get there at rope drop.
Use late evenings if available, i rode jungle cruise with 3 other people this year at quarter to one in the morning, needless to say it felt a bit strange but just as much fun

Busy or not i cant fault it when i have been

[YorkshireT]

Apparently the lady who ran Disney Land and was in charge of SWGE at both parks has left, her role being dissolved.

[BrightlyBob]

We went with our 3 kids 5 years ago in July 2014 staying at SSR in a 2-bed villa for £12,345 (I remember the price clearly - 1,2,3,4,5!) with 3 week Ultimate tickets, free DDP and Economy flights direct from Manchester with Virgin. Superficially not a cheap holiday but compared with other resorts with food, water park and entertainment thrown in for 3 weeks I reckoned the value stacked up. Today the exact same package for the 5 of us would cost £19,000! That’s a 55% increase.

Yet inflation over the 5 years has been 11% so adjusted for inflation the cost of my holiday should now price up at £13,700. The stories of Disney greed are true!

Except the £ has tanked around the world, but especially against the $ and a Disney holiday is priced in $.

Back in July 2014 $1 cost 60p ($1.70/£). Today that same $1 costs 80p ($1.25/£). So that $ now costs me an extra 33%. So to keep up with inflation my holiday should cost £13,700 but to pay for the $ with my Brexit bankrupted £ I now need to pay 33% extra and that puts the price up to £18,200. The rest is extra cost Disney has added in, so Disney “greed” has added £800, or 4.5% of extra cost - that’s less than 1% above inflation each year.

So that’s it folks - my 2014 Disney holiday has increased by 4.5% due to Disney inflation and 11% due to general inflation but by far the biggest contributor is the 33% due to our tanking currency.

[YorkshireT]

Originally Posted by BrightlyBob

We went with our 3 kids 5 years ago in July 2014 staying at SSR in a 2-bed villa for £12,345 (I remember the price clearly - 1,2,3,4,5!) with 3 week Ultimate tickets, free DDP and Economy flights direct from Manchester with Virgin. Superficially not a cheap holiday but compared with other resorts with food, water park and entertainment thrown in for 3 weeks I reckoned the value stacked up. Today the exact same package for the 5 of us would cost £19,000! That’s a 55% increase.

Yet inflation over the 5 years has been 11% so adjusted for inflation the cost of my holiday should now price up at £13,700. The stories of Disney greed are true!

Except the £ has tanked around the world, but especially against the $ and a Disney holiday is priced in $.

Back in July 2014 $1 cost 60p ($1.70/£). Today that same $1 costs 80p ($1.25/£). So that $ now costs me an extra 33%. So to keep up with inflation my holiday should cost £13,700 but to pay for the $ with my Brexit bankrupted £ I now need to pay 33% extra and that puts the price up to £18,200. The rest is extra cost Disney has added in, so Disney “greed” has added £800, or 4.5% of extra cost - that’s less than 1% above inflation each year.

So that’s it folks - my 2014 Disney holiday has increased by 4.5% due to Disney inflation and 11% due to general inflation but by far the biggest contributor is the 33% due to our tanking currency.

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Would possibly be correct based on a pure numbers game but Disney hedges against currency amounts, and currency has not had as big an impact. For example we went 2016 on a cash package, when the $ was substantially lower (1.70 was brief) and they were substantially cheaper than now, as in 2017 as well.
There's also the fact that even for Americans, the price has increased substantially.
So whilst you can say it's down to currency, I think in reality a big aspect is simply they decided to increase prices, and would have done the same had currency not budged.
Why when Americans are willing to pay much more, would they have flogged rooms cheap to UK guests?

[BrightlyBob]

Originally Posted by YorkshireT

Would possibly be correct based on a pure numbers game but Disney hedges against currency amounts, and currency has not had as big an impact. For example we went 2016 on a cash package, when the $ was substantially lower (1.70 was brief) and they were substantially cheaper than now, as in 2017 as well.
There's also the fact that even for Americans, the price has increased substantially.
So whilst you can say it's down to currency, I think in reality a big aspect is simply they decided to increase prices, and would have done the same had currency not budged.
Why when Americans are willing to pay much more, would they have flogged rooms cheap to UK guests?

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Getting less $ from Brits because our currency has tanked is a real cost to Disney. For the vast majority of time between 2010 to 2015 the $ cost between 60p-65p. Hedging would not have made much difference to that. Try hedging the $ at even 70p now, no-one will price you! $1 costs 80p today.

As to why WDW sells holidays cheap to UK guests, that feeds into WDW refinancing needs. Every year they have a tranche of multimillion $$$ debt that needs repaying but instead of digging around the back of the sofa WDW finds another lender to loan them the money to repay the maturing loan, churning it over and over again. Creditors lend based on risk and if Disney can show the risk of default is very small lenders will offer lower rates in what is effectively a reverse auction, the lowest bidder gets to lend the money! And lenders are reassured seeing lots of rooms booked up over a year in advance. WDW sells its exceptionalism to the markets in part by showing that unlike any other hospitality operator they have people booking costly holidays in summer one year for Fall the next - and committing to buying theme park tickets too. And all at top-rates - Disney does offer us a deal but it’s not a discount, it’s Free DDP which doesn’t show up on the accounts till we eat it. WDWs refinancing needs are why it offers early booking long staying Brits free dining - and still does.

The facts remain, the $ today costs 33% more than it did in July 2014 when it cost 60p (and wasn’t above 65p that entire year) and I can guarantee that our collapsing £ feeds directly into the increased cost of our WDW holidays - if it didn’t WDW would be giving us a 33% discount against the rest of the world!