Lack of crowds and Disney's response

[gottalovepluto]

Does it really matter how much they charge for the onsite hotels? The hotels on Harbor are a quick walk to the front gate and staying onsite at DL is not much of an advantage.

It just depends on your perspective. If you’re a shareholder of DIS his comment was potentially rather disturbing as it comes off as burying his head in the sand. It’s well known around here Disney hotels were operating under well under capacity this summer at DLR.

My perspective is I love staying in the bubble, and will pay a large premium for it, but not this much.

 

[Elle23]

It just depends on your perspective. If you’re a shareholder of DIS his comment was potentially rather disturbing as it comes off as burying his head in the sand. It’s well known around here Disney hotels were operating under well under capacity this summer at DLR.

My perspective is I love staying in the bubble, and will pay a large premium for it, but not this much.

There is still wide open availability at all 3 hotels for my trip in 32 days. But I’m not paying ridiculously inflated prices for minimal benefit.

As I said before, the best discount they could bring themselves to offer was 10-15%, Sun-Thurs at DLH and GCH. PPH wasn’t even included. It’s really sad. They would rather the rooms sit vacant than offer reasonable discounts.

 

[smartlabelprint]

If they want to increase crowds, they should look at their pricing, and not have had huge price hikes on everything from APs, tickets, food and rooms! They’ve done it to themselves, pricing many out. I think they’ve found the breaking point.

Heading into a recession it seems like they shouldn’t have gotten so greedy.

 

[poptart90]

I think the real problem for Disney is how to „stabilize“ the situation again...
Right now it sounds like they are in a panic mode trying to cut costs as quickly as possible and that’s the problem I foresee...
I think many guests just took a break because there were scared of crowds and will return in the next months and next spring: beginning of summer at the latest it should be back to normal...
but if Disney now cuts costs without thinking it through and this results in less „magic“, less „pixie dust“, less entertainment, longer waits because they reduced staffing... so essentially a DL in cost saving mode...they probably make the situation worse... because many won’t pay the high amounts of $$$ to visit DL if it isn’t the magical experience they were used to! Many pay those extra $$$ because of the Disney magic because visiting DL is special but it if it isn’t anymore, there isn’t a reason to pay extra $$$...

They miscalculated the situation, but now they should try to limit damage instead of making it potentially worse...

Agree. Wholeheartedly. Shameless plug for the “not so magical” GCH stay we are currently on and my rant about it in another post. Not to spoil the ENDING, but the Disney cost-cutting measures got me in the END. Literally.
My own END. Sigh...

Reference: See Undergarment Thief post. Yeah.

 

[Sue M]

I think the real problem for Disney is how to „stabilize“ the situation again...
Right now it sounds like they are in a panic mode trying to cut costs as quickly as possible and that’s the problem I foresee...
I think many guests just took a break because there were scared of crowds and will return in the next months and next spring: beginning of summer at the latest it should be back to normal...
but if Disney now cuts costs without thinking it through and this results in less „magic“, less „pixie dust“, less entertainment, longer waits because they reduced staffing... so essentially a DL in cost saving mode...they probably make the situation worse... because many won’t pay the high amounts of $$$ to visit DL if it isn’t the magical experience they were used to! Many pay those extra $$$ because of the Disney magic because visiting DL is special but it if it isn’t anymore, there isn’t a reason to pay extra $$$...

They miscalculated the situation, but now they should try to limit damage instead of making it potentially worse...

Yes, they should start by reducing prices instead of services! The constant price gouging has finally bit them in the butt. Sounds like they are adding insult to injury with maintaining high prices and reduction of service.
Guess I’ll find out, we are arriving Sunday, staying offsite at nearby hotel a block from gate.

 

[azdisneylover]

I am hoping this means going forward they slow down or stop with the increases on things. Before the summer began I am sure many people were scared of the crowds. I was one of them. I almost didn't renew my pass b/c I thought going to the parks wouldn't be worth it. But there are many people who just can't afford Disney anymore with the last increase. Since Disney has been advertising the lower the expected crowds, I've met a few former passholders who said they would love to get passes again, but just can't afford it. Some are also waiting until the next ride opens. They figure if they are going to drop thousands on a trip, they might as well wait until everything is complete.

We did not renew our passes and did NOT take our annual trip in April to celebrate birthdays. The value wasn't there. Disney raised the price on everything, cut thing out, reduced things, and got rid of live entertainment that made the park special. I am still fuming about the removal from the WWS menu the pizza and salad for under $10. That was a great meal! Bring that back!! My kids and I loved that pizza and salad combo. The deluxe pass blocked days for Disneyland were over doubled, if not tripled. Bring back the parkhopper AP with blocked days. 51 days for Deluxe. Bring back if you stay on site, you get free parking. I can go on and on, but the bottom line is, the value is not there for our family. I, too think they (Disney) have not only reached the breaking point, but ran past it.

 

[slpeters]

It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think it comes down to pricing. It doesn't really seem that way to me. It seems to me that it comes down to the fact that they thought they were opening up a whole new demographic and it just didn't quite work out that way. Unfortunately for them they tried to prepare for that new demographic by consciously excluding their existing demographic. I mean they literally took a good portion of the people who would normally be there over the summer and expressly told them they weren't allowed to come, then they put the word out to everyone else that it would be crazy bonkers, so much so that you might not even be able to get in to see the good new stuff. And then no one came. I don't see that that has much to do with the pricing. I mean if there's still no one there when we arrive in November I'd be willing to believe there's a problem with the pricing model. But I'm not exactly holding my breath...

 

[midnight star]

It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think it comes down to pricing. It doesn't really seem that way to me. It seems to me that it comes down to the fact that they thought they were opening up a whole new demographic and it just didn't quite work out that way. Unfortunately for them they tried to prepare for that new demographic by consciously excluding their existing demographic. I mean they literally took a good portion of the people who would normally be there over the summer and expressly told them they weren't allowed to come, then they put the word out to everyone else that it would be crazy bonkers, so much so that you might not even be able to get in to see the good new stuff. And then no one came. I don't see that that has much to do with the pricing. I mean if there's still no one there when we arrive in November I'd be willing to believe there's a problem with the pricing model. But I'm not exactly holding my breath...

I think it's a mixture of everything:
Disney said that their price increases are to control crowds. They also said they were going to restructure the AP program to also help with crowds. People probably thought, "wow if it's going to be insanely packed, why would I drop all of this money to go to Disney??"With the AP structure, I'm sure many AP's didn't want to pay the steep increase and be in ridiculous crowds. I think a few responses back, I mentioned how I almost didn't renew my pass because I didn't want to pay $1399 to be stuck in crowds. But I decided to because I am more of a Disney fan than Star Wars fan, and if I had to stay away from that area, I could.

Some felt the value of their pass wasn't there anymore (i.e. Deluxe and Socal), so then those people let their passes go. I live in LA, and there are quite a few Disney fans and former passholders around. The ones that let their passes go, they mentioned that they would go back in a heart beat if they could afford them since they now see crowds aren't bad.

For those out there who can afford passes or trips, they probably heard of the doom and gloom about the crowds that were supposed to come. They went other places for the summer. So essentially, Disney just lost their business. That would probably explain all of the hotel availability, random flash sales off site locations were having, and easily being able to get things like dining packages only a few weeks or even days before you need them.

I'm not sure how Disney thinks, but I feel like they expected people to drop money, and not look back. But it seems like people really thought about the pricing and what Disney was going to offer them. Just because you may have the money for something, doesn't always mean you will spend it.

 

[EmJ]

Does it really matter how much they charge for the onsite hotels? The hotels on Harbor are a quick walk to the front gate and staying onsite at DL is not much of an advantage.

We’re paying $212 a night for BWPPI. I would have paid probably $265 to stay onsite, even at Paradise Pier, AND have to pay Disney an extra $35 to feed my family breakfast (so total of $300) just for the “specialness” of it and to enjoy the bubble and have access to EMH every day. But like hell are those things worth $450 a night—before breakfast.

 

[goodeats]

We went to USH and Disneyland as day guests this summer. We ended up paying $118 for USH and got a second day for "free". We used our second day yesterday and ended up spending about $100 on food/drink and $25 on parking on top of what we spent on the first day. So now USH shows higher attendance and higher revenue by discounting, but IMO in the long run they'll lose out. I certainly won't go back to USH in another 15-20 years. It was so crowded and the Express Pass made the lines untenable. We needed the second day to see everything we missed and I certainly wasn't going to pay an additional $130 for an Express Pass.

For Disney we paid $149 per ticket. Plus one days worth of food/drink/parking. Now maybe overall Disney had less revenue, but I had a better experience than I did at Universal by paying more for the privilege. They will generate future revenue from my family.

I think Bob Iger is right when he talks about guest satisfaction. Disney has a quality product and they should charge more. There's a point of maximizing your revenue, but Chanel doesn't lower their prices to sell more purses, kwim?