Disney Doesn’t Want Lower Crowds.
Don’t believe everything Disney tells you. If the company never misled, every menu item everywhere would actually be “yummy” or “tasty.” Each new attraction would be the first-of-its-kind somehow. All upcharge experiences would be “magical” and “enchanting.” We’d still have Maelstrom, Universe of Energy, and other attractions they indicated were not slated for reimagining “at this time” shortly before announcements to the contrary.
Disney is incredibly adept at corporate communications, masterfully employing wordsmithery to obfuscate or excite fans, as the case may be. A lot of this strikes me as condescending and cloying with too much feigned enthusiasm and corporatespeak, but fans seem to eat it up.
Nevertheless, the company always stays on the right side of the marketing puffery v. false advertising line. I think most of us recognize this for what it is, and don’t put too much weight in it. We parse press releases and social media posts from Disney for the substantive details, disregarding the colorful language, and taking subjective claims with a grain of salt.
The same is true when assessing corporate earnings calls or interviews with executives. SEC rules prohibit companies from fraudulent, false or misleading statements to investors. This prevents Disney or any other company from releasing reports with inaccurate data or the CFO, for example, from making incorrect claims that analysts might rely upon.
In other words, when Disney asserts that per guest spending is up by 40% as compared to 2019, this impressive number is materially accurate. That’s pretty black and white. Then there are grey areas. A claim that hotel occupancy numbers have increased might be technically correct, even though it’s predicated in part upon rooms being taken out of the active inventory. Then there are the wholly subjective statements, such as cutting portion sizes being good for guest waistlines.
These distinctions are more difficult, but many fans intuitively understand the difference between fraud, favorable framing, and subjective commentary. Even if you don’t brush up on SEC rules in your free time, you probably have the ability to differentiate all of these types of statements and weigh them accordingly.
For whatever reason, this often does not happen when it comes to Disney’s statements about attendance. Otherwise intelligent fans take the company at their word on this, believing that Disney truly intends to reduce crowding. Maybe it’s a matter of wanting to believe. We hope that, if we’re going to pay higher prices for tickets or whatever else, at least there’s upside for us. (I certainly want to believe this!) Yet, despite ample evidence to the contrary, many fans continue to believe Disney cares about crowding. They do not.
When it comes to taking Disney at its word regarding crowds and pricing, this has been happening for decades. Literally. Back in 2010, then-chairman of Parks & Resorts Jay Rasulo stated that Walt Disney World planned to “slowly wean our guests off discounting.” Rasulo and then-CEO Bob Iger talked about ending deep-discounting on countless earnings calls. They indicated that these extreme measures put in place by Disney to prop up attendance and occupancy during the height of the recession were no longer necessary.
That line was repeated ad nauseam by fans for years. Whenever the release of a special offer was a few weeks late by historical standards or a room-only discount was 5% worse than the previous year, fans made reference to this remark. That it was finally happening, for real this time. And then, like clockwork, Free Dining and 40% off rack rate deals would roll out a few days later.
As recently as 2018, we were still addressing this comment about weaning guests off discounts when discussing the future of Free Dining. (It turns out that our prediction that “Free Dining, as we know it today, probably won’t exist come 2020” was correct, but definitely not for the reasons we expected!)
Eventually, that goal was realized. Free Dining hasn’t been offered for the last two years…due to the Disney Dining Plan being temporarily unavailable. Resort discounts have also dropped off due to a mix of pent-up demand and more limited room inventory. Probably not quite what Rasulo and Iger had in mind when planning to wean guests off discounts a decade earlier!
Back in 2016, Walt Disney World adopted seasonal pricing on 1-day tickets. Although that was effectively a price increase by a different name, the company pitched it as positive for guests: “the demand for Disney Parks continues to grow, particularly during peak periods. At the same time, we have an unwavering commitment to exceeding the expectations of all our guests.
Disney spun this as providing maximum “flexibility” and “customizability” as guests could simply choose to visit on less expensive days (tell that to teachers or students!) and save. This pricing model was billed as a way to “help spread out visitation” more evenly throughout the year. This was now ~6 years ago, but more recent press releases and comments from Disney spokespeople strike the same familiar notes about date-based pricing for Genie+ and other price increases.
Prior to the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, Bob Iger mused that “maybe I should just tweet ‘It’s opening!’ and that will be enough” during an earnings call, saying that marketing wouldn’t be necessary to draw attention to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, as it would be in “incredibly popular and in-demand” regardless.
When Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge debuted to low crowds in Disneyland and then again at Walt Disney World, Iger explained this away with a laundry-list of reasons as to why guest interest was low. Iger did, however, concede that “attendance was below what we would have hoped it would be” in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge during an earnings call.
Bob Chapek stuck to spin. He claimed that Disney was happy with the crowds and that was part of the plan. “The deep secret is that we don’t intend to have lines. If you build in enough capacity, the rides don’t go down and it operates at 99% efficiency, you shouldn’t have 10-hour lines…So, 10-hour lines are not a sign of success,” he said. “It should be seen as a sign of, frankly, failure.” (Note: Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has never operated at 99% efficiency and had a 7-hour posted wait time 2 weeks ago.)
Since then, it’s been widely-rumored that Disney is contemplating changes (no, not turning it into Aladdin Land!) to make Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge more appealing. A version of the land slated for the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris was also quietly cancelled. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance has been an unequivocal success, but results are more mixed with the rest of the land. You can be the judge of its success v. spin–that’s not really the point of this post.
There is an old adage among attorneys: “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts; if you have the law on your side, pound the law; if you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table.” I’ve always liked that expression, as it can be applied to all facets of life. With its corporate communications, Disney is often pounding on the table.
The point, which is hopefully illustrated by all of the above, is that Disney emphasizes the things that make the company look good and more valuable to shareholders, while also attempting to spin those into positives for consumers. When every other metric was abysmal in mid to late 2020, Disney emphasized guest satisfaction and ‘intent-to-return’ metrics on corporate earnings calls. (As we’ve mentioned before, there’s a reason they stopped sharing that post-Genie!)
If per guest spending is up, it’s due to the strength of Disney’s brand and the premium experience being delivered. If hotel occupancy is up, it’s due to the unparalleled storytelling power of a Disney resort. If prices are going up, it’s due to a supposedly-benevolent desire to deliver an exemplary guest experience and reduce crowds.
“If ___, then [insert hollow corporate buzzwords suggesting a positive for shareholders and consumers].” It’s a pretty simple formula, and we see it used time and time again. If Disney’s Hollywood Studios were invaded by literal aliens tomorrow and they started eating everyone on Alien Swirling Saucers, Disney would proudly tout the 98% of visitors who were not consumed by creatures from outer space as a massive win. The underlying idea remains constant: everything Disney does is good…for you!
As for why we shouldn’t take Disney at its word that the company is doing us a favor with price increases in the name of reducing crowds, quite simply, because there is ample evidence to the contrary.
Across the board, Walt Disney World attendance increased almost every single year from 2007 to 2019. Cumulatively, the increase was by tens of millions of guests, with attendance at Magic Kingdom alone climbing from 16 million to nearly 21 million guests. Animal Kingdom did even better in percentage terms, jumping from 9.5 million to 14 million–with almost all of that coming post-Pandora World of Avatar. Disney’s Hollywood Studios was to have its own coming-out party in 2020 with the completion of expansions, but that didn’t materialize for obvious reasons. Still, its attendance was up by 2 million from 2007 to 2019. EPCOT was just under that.
If the goal was to cut crowds or redistribute attendance, Walt Disney World has proven itself spectacularly bad at that over the course of the last decade-plus!
As we’ve pointed out repeatedly, higher prices do not necessarily translate to lower attendance. There are certain times of year that experience higher demand for a number of reasons–school schedules, seasonal events, weather, etc. Teachers or families with school age children can’t switch their vacation from summer break to mid-September to take advantage of lower prices. That’s not a real solution that works with the schedules of this demographic of guests, which is Disney’s core audience. They will simply pay more to visit in June or July.
Charging incrementally higher prices for these times of year allows Walt Disney World to capitalize on and profit from that inherently higher demand. That’s the goal–not redistributing attendance or whatever the talking point might be. This is the reason spring break, summer vacation, and fall/winter holidays continue to see heavier attendance than any other time of year and have not leveled off with random dates in mid-January, early May, late August, etc. Increasing prices on that quasi-captive audience is simply savvy business or opportunism, depending upon your perspective.
With that said, there are other ways to reduce crowds while increasing attendance. One would be large scale expansions that increase capacity rather than redeveloping or reimagining existing attractions. (Which typically have the opposite effect–adding demand while keeping capacity flat.) Pandora, Galaxy’s Edge, and Toy Story Land are good examples of this. Even though some of those redeveloped existing real estate, they did so in a way that effectively increased capacity.
Magic Kingdom is the best example of insufficient expansion during that time. Although New Fantasyland was a huge addition, nothing has been added since 2014 despite attendance increasing by millions more guests. Still, there are other ways to reduce crowds while increasing attendance.
Beyond physical park expansion, another option is adding entertainment. This is something that can be done on a quicker timeline, with stage shows, atmospheric acts (“streetmosphere”), parades, nighttime spectaculars, all helping to absorb or redistribute attendance. This was one of the goals of Rivers of Light and the whole Animal Kingdom after dark initiative. We’ll also soon see it play out as Hollywood Studios suddenly becomes much busier the last few hours of the day once Fantasmic returns.
However, Walt Disney World has largely gone the other direction in the last several years. Even pre-closure, entertainment cuts were occurring with regularity even as attendance increased. At Disney’s Hollywood Studios alone, here’s a list of entertainment that will not be running this holiday season: Citizens of Hollywood, Jedi Training Academy, Jingle Bell Jingle BAM!, and Voyage of the Little Mermaid.
If someone complains of the high crowds once Fantasmic returns and cites them as “evidence” that prices need to increase more as the only solution, kindly offer that list as a counterpoint.
The other solution is extending park hours, which increases park capacity and reduces crowds. This occurs in effect because the average guest does not stay for the duration of the operating day, but rather, a subset of it. Most people are not commando tourists who can go from rope drop to park close regardless of hours. They’ll do about 8 hours of the day on average, arriving early or staying late. Extending hours decreases the overlap–and thus crowds in the process–and allows attendees to “redistribute” crowds in a natural way.
This is a time-tested solution, and precisely the reason why Magic Kingdom used to open at 7 am during peak season dates and stay open until midnight in the summer. Even then, Main Street was busy until 1 am, as plenty of people will stay out until 2 am or later unless the weather is prohibitively cold. It’s also why Magic Kingdom used to have Extra Magic Hours until 3 am (back when evening Extra Magic Hours were 3 hours long).
Summers during the Great Recession, park hours as a whole were longer (with the exceptions of Animal Kingdom and World Showcase). Both water parks were open daily until 8 pm. The “Summer Nightastic” celebration brought special fireworks to Magic Kingdom, and nightly performances (sometimes twice) of the Main Street Electrical Parade. Speaking of parades, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom each had daytime parades back then.
Now, attendance is significantly higher (by several millions of guests per year) and regular park hours have been reduced by several hours per day–most notably at Magic Kingdom. There’s also less entertainment due to the stage shows and atmospheric acts that have been cut, as well as the loss of 3 different parades.
All of that should undercut any arguments that Walt Disney World is serious about reducing crowds. In reality, Disney has little desire to reduce attendance; they want to “optimize” wait times, staffing, and pricing to improve margins. That’s precisely why the company has reduced hours and entertainment with ever-increasing attendance instead of adding more to help absorb crowds. It’s not that Disney is inept at cutting congestion–it’s that the actual goal is yield management, and they are incredibly efficient at that!
Ultimately, this isn’t passing judgment about Walt Disney World’s approach to attendance or anything else. It’s simply refuting the misconception that Disney is doing guests a favor with price increases by (supposedly) reducing demand, crowds, improving the guest experience, or whatever else they’ve claimed. The company’s actual focus is on revenue and profits, and the maximization thereof.
To that end, Walt Disney World is trying to thread the needle by incrementally increasing prices in an effort to keep demand relatively inelastic. In short, Disney wants both high crowds and higher prices. That much should be clear by now. (If not, just look around–have you seen crowds decrease since Disney adopted this supposed-strategy in 2016?!)
From a business perspective, it’s hard to fault Walt Disney World for not leaving money on the table. While we hate all of the price increases of the last 2-3 years, it’s also obvious that Disney has pricing power and no shortage of demand right now. Why wouldn’t they continue raising prices?!
Beyond that, complaints overlook the role of the consumer in all of this. If Walt Disney World is overpriced, consumers should vote with their wallets. The onus is on all of us, if we believe we’re not receiving commensurate value for money for a product or service, to not purchase it. Complaining about rising costs while continuing to pay them does not absolve us from collective culpability.
With all of that said, there’s a case to be made that Walt Disney World is inflicting long-term brand damage, eroding decades of goodwill, and running the risk of alienating lifelong fans. These are all points we’ve discussed repeatedly, wondering if there will be irreparable issues once the current pent-up demand has resolved itself.
There’s also the fundamental question of whether having fewer people–and by extension, children–experience rite of passage vacations to Walt Disney World is a bad thing. (I’d argue that it is and definitely should not be the company’s strategy–it’s clearly at odds with why Walt Disney got into the theme park business.)
However, that’s all beyond the scope of this post. This is simply intended to demonstrate why Walt Disney World is not actually interested in reducing crowds. Perhaps I’m wrong, and this time Disney is super-duper serious about reducing crowds. I guess we’ll find out when Thanksgiving rolls around and Walt Disney World is either jam-packed with people or on par with a random day in September!
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about Disney’s supposed goal of reducing crowds? Do you agree with the company that price increases show an “unwavering commitment to exceeding the expectations of all our guests” or are they simply a way to increase per guest spending? Think there are better ways to improve guest satisfaction or addressing congestion than price increases? Any other considerations we failed to take into account or details we missed? Do you agree or disagree with my assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I definitely think social media is the main culprit in the never ending crowds. To be honest, this isn’t just an Instagram problem. Try booking Antelope Canyon, Zion National park, Yellowstone, etc. There are literally lines to get into these insta-famous locations so you can experience it and get the photo for the gram. Same with Disney. Take all the right of passage guests on a one-big-trip, the regulars who own dvc and go all the time, the repeat families, then add bloggers and Instagrammers. It’s gotten to where I don’t even want to go to anything opening day bc it’s just full of ppl live streaming. It’s almost like half the people aren’t actually experiencing it for what it is, but just streaming it for others. I don’t really have a theoretical problem with this but it creates this unending demand that can never be satiated. Aside from this I think there are just more people with disposable income. We just had one of the greatest stock market runs ever. Let’s be honest, there are a lot of people with a lot of money, and only one Magic Kingdom. As much as people don’t want to hear that. It’s not just crowded in general, but $5k/a day VIP tours sell out instantly at 60 days, etc. Suites are sold out. 3 bedroom villas impossible to book. Private transfers from MCO sell out. This can’t continue forever, and I think with guests who are there in 2022 I’m hearing a lot of ppl saying they won’t be back in 2023, some of it being a $10-15k trip doesn’t feel “worth it” due to issues mentioned here, and that coupled with those who a recession will actually affect in a real way who won’t be able to afford it, and British pound being weaker, we might see at least a partial drop in the next 24 months. Just an idea though. Who knows. But I see families who couldn’t travel elsewhere due to not being vaccinated, could only go to Florida, saying, we can go to Europe or Hawaii for the same price as a deluxe trip to WDW. But I don’t blame Disney really, they have more ppl than they can handle, they just don’t stop coming, why not charge more. Imo though it won’t last forever.
Social media is part of it, no doubt about that. However, I think you’ve probably hit on an even bigger point: demographics.
Not only are there more people who are well-off (as you point out), but the number of people globally in the middle class has absolutely exploded–as has the ease of international travel (not in the last ~2 years, just in general). On top of that, America’s demographics are great–millennials (who have a ton of nostalgia for Disney) are a huge generation and now are having kids of their own. Meanwhile, their baby boomer parents are retiring (many with a lot of money for multigenerational trips).
I 100 percent agree social media has caused mass explosion of travel. I have traveled my entire life, and only in the last 10 years has travel exploded to levels I have never seen. As a photographer (Tom, me and you have very similar photography styles. Classic, nicely processed, no fancy filters, classic framing. I do forgive you for being a Nikon Guy, though. Lol.) I have known about things like Horseshoe Canyon for an eternity, but the only people that ever cared before were photographers, and even then, primarily landscape photographers. No one else even knew what it was or where. Then in 2017, it hit critical mass and it just exploded. Before it was hard to find where Horseshoe Canyon was. It was just a random stop on the side of the road and you walked some barely marked path. In 2018 they started construction on a real path, bathrooms and a parking lot and real facilities and put up a rail. Antelope canyon went from being a walk up attraction in 2017 with no reservations required to something that is just like booking ADRs and lightning lanes a year later. Just look at the explosion in new hotels in the area. At least half the hotels were built in a 2 year period. In just one year antelope canyon exploded in popularity. Everyone wants that instagram picture. I love that the natural wonders are getting more attention, but these days it feels people do things just to get a picture and could careless about the destination and experience. If they don’t have a picture of them at the location looking perfect it doesn’t matter.
Combine social media with budget airlines and and a stock market that exploded (and cooled, but almost everyone I know is still well ahead due to the explosion from the pandemic) and pent up demand, and people turn a blind eye to cost. I know I did for many of the vacations I booked this year, and I’m not the only one.
There needs to be a more objective way of looking at the general feelings of consumer satisfaction (and there is). We are all super-fans (or something like it) of Disney. We all know it pretty close to inside out. We know what it was and we are angry it is not still that but we aren’t the general public. So what does the general public think? Well…we can check google reviews. They are about as neutral as you can get. Disney World has 235,005 google reviews with an average score of 4.7. Good job Disney. that is a good score. But what about now? Well just for fun (and apparently I have no life), I looked at the last 100 reviews. That only covers the last 6 days or so. There were 69 5-star, 8 4-star, 4 3-star, 3 2-star, and 16 1-star reviews. Multiple those out and divide by 100 and you get an average rating of 4.1. Not terrible Disney but not 4.7. It would be interesting to see what happens to their weekly google rating. Do we start to see a more downward trend in general public feelings over time? 69 5-star ratings is a descent amount (for now). What if they keep dropping? Is google maybe more of an accurate reflection of general public (Disney-Educated and Disney-Newbie added together)? It would be interesting to track and just see what has been happening to their overall rating. They have a LOT of cushion with 235,005 reviews at 4.7. It will take a long time as people turn sour to move that needle down.
“…but the number of people who feel like it was an expensive slog that they “completed” is on the rise.” Tom’s quote (in the comments) is spot on. I was commenting here just last week about what an amazing time we’d had at the parks in early October. And we did. It was great. But it was also a (very) expensive slog indeed. What I didn’t include in my comment (and should have) was that I was completely wiped out after getting up early every day for Genie and then running around in massive crowds until late at night. And that my energetic, athletic teenage daughter was so done in by it all that we LEFT A DAY EARLY. That’s right, we were so exhausted by what I’d started to call the “terrible fun” that we left a $700+ hotel room empty for the night so we could go home. The Disney bubble had become a pressure cooker and we just wanted to leave. The magic is still there, it absolutely is, but it comes served with a side dish of hustle: get up to get Genie, scramble for Lightning Lanes, get to the ADRs on time (because they were so hard to get!), get to the rides on time, get to the bus/boat/monorail before it’s full, hurry up and call a Lyft. I thought we might go back next year and try a slower pace but my family is in no rush to repeat that part of the experience. We’re going to do something less intense instead.
Agreed, that having to get up early just to try and book stuff is flat out stupid.
We are planning our family vacation for this week and quite frankly the more I read about crowds and money the more discouraged I become. Kind of wish we had something else planned.
My family just returned from 7 days at Disney, staying on property. We made yearly trips until the pandemic and this was our first trip since 2019. I am sad to say Disney has lost its magic from the new Genie + which is a money grab no matter how you dress it up, to the park reservation system. Vacations are supposed to be fun, but this past week had more frustrations and aggravations than any one vacation week should have. The premium, magical experience has vanished. This is the first Disney trip where we were all ready to leave and go home before our last day ended. We are looking elsewhere to spend our yearly vacation. Sad to say it’s the end of the Disney era my family had come to love!
Just got back from 5 days at DisneyWorld parks and 3 night Disney cruise.
All I can say about the comment is DITTO.
On second day and after, all my kids would say at the Disney park is “when are we going back to hotel room”.
Magic is gone, and we are going to look at that other places.
Great article. Agree completely. As a fan I kept going for a while, but I’m finally backing off. Our trips will now be more infrequent, shorter, and involve less spend on Disney property. The irony is that if they *actually* cared about lowering crowds, I’d be pretty willing to pay more for that. But higher prices AND increasing crowds is not something I’m interested in at all.
Great article… I spent the last few days of my annual pass on whether we should renew. No, NEVER after seeing the renew price jump and only the highest tier available, nearly $2600 for both my wife and me. This is nearly double what we use to pay. Additionally, the few hours I spent on the last couple of days were very unpleasant with the huge crowds at EPCOT. We are also selling our DVC but have noticed that it is a buyers market… i don’t think I have ver seen so many DVC resales. Your article supports the current market condition.
By the way, our “renewal offer” is no longer being accepted and Disney stated all annual passes were on pause. So annual pass holders being squeezed out?
Mine expired Sept 25. I just checked and it would allow me to renew but said sales of new AP are on hold right now. Since I only did one trip this last year, and got screwed for $150 for a one-day ticket to MK of 1 Oct because by the time they let me renew last year, no slots for that day were available and Guest Services did nothing to help, I lost money even counting the “free” parking, meal and merchandise discounts. So, for that $98/mo I can consider buying the multi-day park hoppers from military bases IF we go for EF&WF or EF&GF.
Great insights, Tom. Piggybacking on some of the other comments, I think the concept of “Disney” is staggeringly complex as a cultural touchpoint. There’s so much mythology and nostalgia baked into everything relating to the parks and the characters/stories at their foundation.
But there’s also such a wide chasm between the experiences associated with the parks (and the truly sincere desires of cast members to please and delight) and the business realities/direction at the executive level of the corporation. This dichotomy creates an incredible level of cognitive dissonance among Disney fans and guests, including myself. It’s so hard to try to hold the competing narratives in one’s head — that on one hand the Disney corporation has spent the better part of a century honing an ability to create environments that are truly “magical” in ways that are hard to express, while at the same time it has been ruthlessly honing its ability to maximize profits and efficiently extract as many dollars from as many human beings as possible. Yes, both of these things can be true, that truth is an uneasy burden to carry. One part of me wants to flee from the soul-devouring sorcery of synergy and profit margins, and the other part of me wants to turn off my conscience and my rational mindset, and blithely hand over my wallet to let the Disney overlords enchant me and my family.
I’m glad there’s a blog like this that can speak to both of these voices inside me. 🙂
Tom, in this context does Disney actually care about guest satisfaction, or lack thereof, even if only as a potential symptom of future earnings decrease?
It feels like their satisfaction ratings are way down since pre covid. Tripadvisor ratings were always high with the parks being the top rated attractions in the Orlando area. Now they’ve dropped significantly and poor reviews are common, for the parks and hotels. This concerns me more than all the price gouging. I understand it costs mega bucks to stay in a Disney hotel, but if I find those mega bucks and they can’t be bothered to clean my bathroom or make my bed in 2 weeks, I’m really Not Happy.
Tom – my wife and I were just having a discussion on our weekend hike about this topic. I had to look up the price elasticity of demand theory to refresh my memory about it. We concluded that as far as Disney Parks, there is no elasticity that we can see yet and prices keep rising. I liked your comments about dynamic pricing to help spread out visitation but really results in just more expensive times to visit. That makes sense. It’s really all about maximizing revenue.
Yes! This truth!
Well said, Tom! you’re 100% correct!
Excellent article! The era of instagram and social media drove Disney into overdrive. Before people would only see pics of someone’s vacation if they were close friends or maybe a coworker brought them to work for people to look at on a lunch break. Now everyone is bombarded on social media about going to to Disney and now as a parent you have so much social pressure to bring your kids to Disney. Before you only talked about it with friends and saw an occasional commercial. Now you have Cinderella’s castle as the #1 most instagrammed site on earth.
I desperately tried to vote with my wallet this last year avoiding Disney like the plague due to all the changes (and this is from someone who has been going since he was a kid in 1982, and have been an AP on and off since 1998). I had done a great job avoiding Disney, but over the summer my wife was run over by a car when we were vacationing in Zimbabwe. She sustained severe injuries and is just relearning to walk 4 months later. We went to Disney for a day as it’s just sooooo accessibility for those that are mobility challenged.
Disney also has a monopoly on nostalgia. No matter how much Universal tries and how good there parks are, nostalgia is strong and Disney has the ultimate monopoly on that. However, if they limit the access do to the insane prices, at some point, the kids who are now adults will not have the same sense of nostalgia and “need” to bring their kids to Disney.
Yikes! Sorry to hear about your wife and hope her recovery is going well. You’re right about Walt Disney World being incredibly accessible for those with mobility challenges.
And to be clear, voting with your wallet doesn’t mean swearing off all things Disney (although it can). It can be as simple as not buying souvenirs, doing fewer table service restaurants, no snacks, grocery delivery, or any manner of other cost-cutting measures. It’s not necessarily black and white–it’s a spectrum.
Tom,
I agree there is a spectrum, but for us since we’ve been sooo many times, Not as many as you, but 40 + years of Disney, including many years of 20+ days of visiting per year, we spend almost nothing in the parks but the price of admission or an AP. My parents live in Orlando so we stay off site. We are not big eaters but do one new restaurant per visit. This last Oct in was space 220. And my kids are not allowed but one 20 dollar souvenir each. We could cut out a the one table restaurant per visit I guess.
I just feel Disney just doesn’t even care anymore, as they have social media on their side. Until they see a wave of sentiment against them (ala Black Fish) like Sea World they are not gonna change. At this point, I know sooo many people with incredibly limited incomes either going into debt, or saving up for many years to go. Of those 75 percent seem disappointed and unimpressed due to the crowding and price, and 25 percent love it. At some point the price will break people. Much like college educations. Thank god the price increases on that finally slowed down.
It will take a massive investigative journalism scandal to make Disney change direction. Thats the only thing I can see turning this tide at this point. If social media turns on Disney they will have to change.
Well, Blackfish was a propaganda hit piece intended solely to harm the company financially over accuracy, so I don’t see anyone coming out with anything comparable for the magnitudes-larger Disney. But you just never know.
The parks this week have had more people than I ever remember or expected- even after reading warnings in blogs about record level crowds. We used to take Disney trips once a year, but this is our first trip in about the last 10 years. Crowd levels off the charts, increased prices, price gouging at every turn, entitled and rude guests and sometimes cast members, filthy restrooms. This trip is anything but ‘magical’. The complaint list is getting long and we’re not halfway through our vacation. This was supposed to be a special trip for my daughter’s first time ever to Disney. After this, we won’t be returning anytime soon. I honestly can’t wait until we get back home. And to top it off, I feel like it’s Disney putting a thumb to their nose and saying, ‘yeah, so?’
The entitled guest thing has got worse since the pandemic. But there’s also a way this is kind of Disney’s fault too. When you consistently increase prices to unaffordable levels, it also increases the pressure for everything to be “magical”. How would a guest feel about something go wrong if they were paying 2001 prices vs today’s? Very different I think.
You’re right that Disney is enjoying raking in the money, but I doubt there are fewer children going. With millions more people attending – surely tons of them are bringing children. I saw no shortage of children when I was there in March! So I doubt there’s a long-term impact.
Ha, that’s a fair point. It is safe to say that many more children are visiting Walt Disney World than did in 2010.
What I mean, more accurately, is that attempting to price people out to address over-attendance (in theory) is not better than the alternatives of actually increasing capacity. In the latter case, attendance can go higher while crowds remain (more or less) static.
You’re about this Tom, and we are growing weary of the pricing in conjunction with insane crowding. The experience isn’t even close to what it was by a long ways. But it’s still better than anyone else’s parks. The bad part is, I don’t see demand slacking off. I’ve long said they could double ticket prices overnight and it wouldn’t even cause a blip in attendance.
“I’ve long said they could double ticket prices overnight and it wouldn’t even cause a blip in attendance.”
I don’t agree with this, but I’ve also been very surprised with how far they’ve already been able to push prices, so it’s entirely possible that I would be wrong (again).
Thanks for the great analysis. This kind of insight—written by someone who spends so much time following the parks in a clear-eyed manner—is why this is my favorite source for Disney parks news.
As you touched-upon, if less children are taking “right of passage” trips, it is likely that they will not have the same attachment to the parks. They will not become “Disney adults”, they will not feel compelled to take their own children, they will not be buying Disney Halloween costumes, toys, shirts, massive popcorn buckets… Disney+. If that becomes evident years from now, will Disney have enough time to right the ship?
I grew up in California, and the parks are a treasured part of my childhood, so I find it hard to entirely “quit” them even with the present changes, but those changes do mean my (still very young) children have barely visited and do not have the same attachment to the parks that I did as a child. Within one generation in my own family, Disney has certainly experienced a precipitous drop in brand loyalty.
I feel like there are a half-dozen other articles that are offshoots of this one (and to that point, I actually cut ~1,000 words to save for a future post as they felt tangential to the main point…which already rambles a bit too much) but future brand affinity is definitely a big one.
One thing Disney has working to its advantage right now is that the creative content they’re producing outside the parks is SUBSTANTIALLY better than 2000-2010. I do have to hand it to them there, and that’s even setting aside Star Wars and Marvel. The WDAS output has been very strong for the last decade, so I think that definitely does help.
However, the same definitely does not apply to the park experience.
You’re right! And our family is chiming in with our wallets! We didn’t go to WDW this year, nor will we go next year after having gone every year (sometimes twice) since 2004; always staying 4-10 days and always on-property. And it’s not that we can’t afford, it’s that we refuse to afford it. We find the price gouging so infuriating and insensitive to hardworking families who save their money to take their young kids to Disney that we’re simply not going to indulge Disney anymore. Hope they feel the sting and return to the right thing once more.
If you haven’t, I would also encourage you to respectfully express your disappointment, and how the company’s decisions and practices have impacted your vacations or future business (or lack thereof) with Walt Disney World by emailing [email protected].
Given all of the negative changes and guest unfriendly policies that Walt Disney World has enacted in the last couple of years, it might seem like the company no longer cares about guest satisfaction and feedback. It’s probably true that there are some at the highest levels of leadership who don’t, or focus more on objective KPIs, but there most certainly are leaders on the ground in Florida who care.
In many cases, it’s simply a matter of them being able to show “support” when fighting for things, budgets, etc. Emails from people like you can actually be quite impactful in effectuating positive changes. 🙂
Great article.
If Disney had an “unwavering commitment to exceeding the expectations of all our guests” they’d be a market leader in pay and benefits for their staff. They also wouldn’t roll out half-baked IT systems for their guests who are in the middle of their multi thousand-dollar vacation. But who knows, maybe it’s all working. For the first time since our youngest was in kindergarten we have no plans to return to Disneyworld, so maybe they are reducing the crowds…
I think Disney does not understand the network effect of all these negative experiences. We were the family that people came to for advice about trips to Disneyworld. We still help folks out, but I am very blunt and tell them I don’t think it’s worth it with the new pricing. When I talk to folks when they get back, it’s always a variation of “Yeah, we had fun. But it was expensive, and hard to navigate.” Admitting you didn’t have a great time after spending that much money creates a lot of cognitive dissonance. Anything but effusive praise is probably a good indicator that, as Johnny Utah would say, “he’s (she’s) not coming back.”
If Disney had an “unwavering commitment to exceeding the expectations of all our guests” they’d…
This list is so long that it could be its own article.
We still hear from a lot people who have great trips (that’s one of the things that keeps me going!) but the number of people who feel like it was an expensive slog that they “completed” is most definitely on the rise. Disney was always a rite-of-passage trip that people did for the sake of their kids, but it also ended up pleasantly surprising many of them, subverting the stereotypes or their expectations. Now, it seems, Disney is exactly what they expect.
There’s another thing I’d be willing to pay for: treating their staff well! Disney cast members remain the best thing WDW has going for it. Happy to pay more for that, but definitely not to help them further pad their corporate profits.
I can’t agree more. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting with several to get an insider’s tour… the passion, dedication and true customer focus is absolutely amazing.
i think the whole “work from home” concept has possibly resulted in more crowds, particularly as more families adopted homeschooling to go along with their remote work lifestyle. this gives families the ultimate freedom to travel and do so much more outside the limitations of brick and mortar offices and schools.