Disney World News: Attendance Drops 80%, New Hours & Journey into Imagination ‘Dream’
We’re back with a Walt Disney World news & rumor round-up! This time we have updates on early November 2020 park hours, attendance woes, good news for Annual Passholders, and some wishful thinking about a potential reimagining of Journey into Imagination. First, a look at Walt Disney World’s year over year declines, and how that compares to Universal Orlando’s numbers.
According to an analyst note from Deutsche Bank (reported by Orlando Sentinel), attendance at Walt Disney World is down 80% year over year in the month since reopening. This comes from research by Bryan Kraft and Benjamin Soff, who looked at proprietary geolocation data to make their estimates.
Deutsche Bank reports that EPCOT and Animal Kingdom are outperforming Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios, with Universal Orlando’s parks outperforming all of Walt Disney World. This is especially true on Saturdays when attendance at Universal is “only” down 64% from last year.
Some of this may seem counter-intuitive, so let’s offer some quick commentary. The idea that EPCOT and Animal Kingdom are outperforming Hollywood Studios and Magic Kingdom seems implausible on its face. However, keep in mind that this is relative to last July and August.
If you’ve read our extensive commentary about summer now being off-season at Walt Disney World, you know that EPCOT always struggles from June through August. Between the baseline being lower and the park having a higher capacity, that one makes sense.
Next, Disney’s Hollywood Studios. If judging by Park Pass reservations, DHS is the most popular park at Walt Disney World right now. However, this is where it’s important to remember that popularity isn’t the same as attendance or guest utilization. Even in normal times, DHS has the lowest capacity of any park at Walt Disney World. With most of its shows dark, that’s doubly true now.
As for Universal Orlando, that probably comes down to a few things. First, there’s no reservation system or anything to deter locals from visiting. Second, they had over a month head-start on Disney, during a time when cases were low and their biggest competitor wasn’t open. Finally, Universal has gone out of its way to attract locals with discounts, ticket extensions, and other incentives.
This is a pretty stark contrast to Disney’s approach. While it’s unclear which strategy will be vindicated in the long run, in the near term, Disney’s approach appears to be a colossal miscalculation. Per Disney CEO Bob Chapek, locals and Annual Passholders make up a disproportionate number of guests right now, as many tourists cancelled trips last quarter.
Despite the company being aware of these demographics woes, Disney is still actively deterring Annual Passholders from visiting and practically encouraging AP cancellations. In fairness, this approach was undoubtedly established before Florida’s case numbers spiked, but Walt Disney World has been really slow to pivot.
With attendance being down significantly, park hours cut, and tens of thousands of frontline Cast Members still temporarily furloughed, it’s been a rough reopening for Walt Disney World. Realistically, the near term future is not much brighter with further cutbacks and belt-tightening measures likely.
It’s going to take a stretch of low case numbers, discounts, more entertainment, improved economy for the middle class, reduction of quarantines, and more for Walt Disney World to truly bounce back. Obviously, a lot of that is beyond Disney’s control.
Nevertheless, the Walt Disney Company plans to lift temporary salary reductions for executives beginning on August 23, per a report in Deadline. As you might recall, Disney implemented pay cuts as a cost-cutting measure several months ago, as a “temporary action” that would remain in effect until Disney saw a “substantive recovery” in business.
At the time, the Walt Disney Company announced in an email to Cast Members that executive chairman Bob Iger would forgo his entire salary, and CEO Bob Chapek would take a 50% pay cut. Additionally, all senior executives would take a reduction in pay—all VPs will have their salaries reduced by 20%, SVPs by 25%, and EVPs and above 30%.
Even shortly after this was announced, the feel good story was tainted by reports of backlash from Disney executives who were furious about the cuts and trying to battle against the temporary pay reductions.
I don’t think you really need my commentary on this. Read the room, guys. This isn’t just poor optics, it’s also a reflection of the chasm between frontline Cast Members and the company’s management. (Not to mention that there has been no substantive recovery in the business, even if the inflated stock price says otherwise.)
Next, some good news. Walt Disney World has once again redistributed reservations from the theme park ticket holders and resort guest “buckets” to Annual Passholders. If you feel like you’ve already read this story, it’s because this is the third time in the last week that Disney has done this–after only doing it twice total in the prior month-plus.
Consequently, there’s currently availability for Disney’s Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, and EPCOT beginning August 22 and availability for all four parks on August 23, 2020. This is the first time DHS has been available on a weekend for Annual Passholders in a while (previously, the earliest you could book it was Halloween).
We’re going to assume this trend will continue given the above 80% drop in attendance, but it’s unfortunate that Walt Disney World couldn’t figure this out before so many Annual Passholders chose to cancel due to lack of Park Pass availability. Better late than never, though.
Now some bad news. Walt Disney World has updated its calendar for all four theme parks through November 7, 2020. Previously, hours were listed through Halloween, so this is essentially only another week’s worth of hours. During that stretch, all four parks keep their previously-reduced September and October schedules (see Fall Hours Cut at Walt Disney World).
Notably, November 8, 2020 would normally be (would have been?) the start of the holiday season at Walt Disney World, including the first night of Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party. While we do not expect that event to occur, we do anticipate the Christmas season being celebrated in some capacity.
Expect to see an announcement about the holiday season simultaneous with another calendar update. Whether that ends up being bad news or good news depends upon resort occupancy, whether Disney wants to play things cautiously, or if management wants to try to boost attendance and numbers during what’s normally the most lucrative season of the year.
The response to the reduced hours in September and October was not good, and Disney undoubtedly saw a surge of cancellations as a result. Between that and pretty much every decision they’ve made being ill-advised, at some point management will realize that Walt Disney World is not recession or pandemic-proof, and further cuts only exacerbate the problem of low demand. We’re optimistic (perhaps naively so) that lesson will be learned sooner rather than later.
Finally, some positive news–or at least, positive daydreaming/wishful thinking. In the “65 Years of Theme Park Evolution” panel discussion hosted by the TEA@USC, Disney Legend Tony Baxter and Tom Morris discussed a range of topics including Disneyland and the future of Journey into Imagination.
In discussing Journey into Imagination, Tony Baxter said “I just wish we would do the ride over. I would come back out of retirement to do that ride over.” Both former Imagineers played pivotal roles in creating the original Journey into Imagination. At past D23 events, Baxter hasn’t been shy about his fondness for the attraction and its characters, and desire to restore the pavilion to its past glory. So this is not particularly noteworthy or novel in that sense.
However, his comments are probably gaining more traction this go-round for a few reasons. First, the USC panel was livestreamed on YouTube (the video has since been deleted) whereas D23 panels are not broadcast and recording is usually strictly prohibited. Second, Tony Baxter is coming out of retirement to help redo another one of his attractions with the Overhaul of Splash Mountain to a Princess and the Frog Attraction. Finally, there have been credible rumors of a Journey into Imagination reimagining.
Despite all of that, I don’t think there’s any chance that a Journey into Imagination redo is going to happen anytime soon, with or without Tony Baxter’s involvement. Had this year played out differently, I’d say there’s a decent possibility that this is a hint of something to come. But it didn’t and there’s not.
I’d still love to hold out a sliver of hope that the final piece of the EPCOT puzzle, to be announced at the 2021 D23 Expo, is a new incarnation of Journey into Imagination. Nevertheless, I don’t think it hurts for there to be “buzz” among Walt Disney World fans about a redo of Journey into Imagination; the more interest and excitement about it, the more likely it is to happen at some point in the future. At least, I hope. If I could will this “rumor” into reality, it would’ve come to fruition already. Sadly, I think we’re probably in for another 5+ years of the current version.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of this Walt Disney World news? Do you believe that EPCOT and Animal Kingdom (as well as Universal Orlando) are outperforming Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios? Thoughts on the Disney Park Pass availability changes or early November 2020 park hours? Hopeful that Journey into Imagination is reimagined at some point in your lifetime? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? 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!
As with any business dealing with the public, it is always easier (and wiser) to first maintain existing customers before adding new ones. Trying to win back customers in a competitive market is not a situation in which you want to find yourself. I can understand keeping numbers low initially, since an outbreak of covid 19 at one of your parks is a death knell to business. That being said, it is time to try to increase the numbers by any means possible. It is a snowball effect. More guest mean more money, which means more areas can open. It is a bullet-biting exercise, but after losing $2 billion it seems like a good idea to get the ball rolling , even if it means a few more weeks of losing.
There are a number of things that are reflecting poorly upon Disney. The corporation’s pompous attitude about maintaining very high prices for a much reduced experience is of course front and center, and yet management seems to be either oblivious or stubbornly refuses to believe that people don’t want to flock there for full price with constantly changing reservation requirements, fewer rides, restaurants, and shows, and without park-hopping, fireworks, character meet & greets, etc. What’s not to like, eh? And are they really surprised that their treatment of AP holders as second class citizens isn’t going over well?
The park prices have been way too high for years, and yet Disney seems to feel that they’re above adjusting for the current situation. Citing expansion and additional attractions for seemingly constant steep price increases over the years doesn’t fly with us. Just throwing out numbers… say a park has 30 rides/attractions and you can only get to 10 in a day. Why would someone be interested in paying a lot more per day because 5 more attractions were added? They can still only get to 10 in a day, so now they’ll have to visit more days to ride/see them all, so the PER DAY value has not increased. We live about an an hour from Disney, over on the east coast, and our local high school band used to be invited to march in the Disney parades (this was some years ago, so I can’t remember if that was every year or every few years). I went with them as a chaperone one year and was shocked and saddened at how many of the kids had lived in the area THEIR ENTIRE LIVES, but had NEVER been to the parks before because their parents couldn’t afford the high prices.
I know that Disney is a corporation and not a charity and so they’re looking to make a profit. However, I’m thinking that their current “numbers people” are too used to Disney in good economic times with money pouring in from adoring fans, and far too inexperienced to deal with a financial downturn and pandemic. They appear to have no real “disaster plan” in place from the financial side. They may be surprised at how many previously loyal fans will not return from the interesting and less expensive alternative entertainment and vacation options they’re seeking out these days.
“I’m thinking that their current ‘numbers people’ are too used to Disney in good economic times with money pouring in from adoring fans, and far too inexperienced to deal with a financial downturn and pandemic.”
Walt Disney World has lost so many management “old-timers” since 9/11 and even the Great Recession. A lot of the current leaders only have experience with unmitigated success, and have an attitude of invincibility. Hopefully some lessons are learned sooner rather than later.
Tom – agree 100%. I grew up in SoCal going to Disneyland when there were ride coupons. A few years ago we had a less then magical experience at D-Land and they, of their own accord offered me 6 D-World comp tickets for our next visit. It was magical, until I tried to use them last year, and then it was not as they cited all these fine print reasons I could not without losing most of the value of the tix. Ended up with some guest relations VP who told me to bug off, Disney was done talking about it. So yes, I agree the current generation of Execs are much more like corporate bean counters then Uncle Walt and the originals.
We were at MK yesterday for a one day visit and if crowds stay at the same level I don’t think the reduced park hours are really an issue. We did every open attraction except Philharmagic and Carousel of Progress and did BTRR, SM, 7DMT and Spalsh twice. Took two rather long restaurant breaks and spent the last 1/2 hour shopping. The biggest issue was the heat. That 1:00-4:00 window is brutal and normally we would take a midday break and come back for the evening. Once the weather cools I hope the reduced hours will be less of an issue.
“at some point management will realize that Walt Disney World is not recession or pandemic-proof, and further cuts only exacerbate the problem of low demand…”
I couldn’t agree with you more. I feel like they are almost in a self imposed death spiral at this point. Cancellations led to cuts, which lead to more cancellations, and then more cuts…
We go back and forth weekly about cancelling or keeping our reservation. My luck we will end up being there the one week crowds tick up and they still haven’t extended the park hours.
I also am reminding myself I’ve always worried about crowds or poor operations leading to a bad experience, and we’ve always had a blast.
Hi!
Any idea on what crowds before and after Christmas will be like thIs year? We live close and want to drive down to see the lights and enjoy Christmas but wondering if the crowds will be too much?
We spend Winters in Florida, about 5 miles from Disney. We have Platinum Plus passes and go to a park 5 nights a week just to walk. Our passes are $1,200 each. We have 3 of those. It’s a chunk of change. I am hoping by January the AP passes restrictions of only booking a few data at a time are eliminated. We have lost so many benefits from it particularly the park hopper feature and water parks. Just feels like they have taken their most loyal for granted by limiting passes. When will they open it up to AP’s going when they want. Parks look so empty.
We spend Winters in Florida, about 5 miles from Disney. We have Platinum Plus passes and go to a park 5 nights a week just to walk. Our passes are $1,200 each. We have 3 of those. It’s a chunk of change. I am hoping by January the AP passes restrictions of only booking a few data at a time are eliminated. We have lost so many benefits from it particularly the park hopper feature and water parks. Just feels like they have taken their AP’s for granted by limiting passes.
Disney’s attitude of pay full price for half the experience isn’t working? Guess the hubris is finally not working
Maybe this fix their bad attitude going forward.
Doug Yarnold makes very good points. . This is the criticism I have heard for several years from neighbors who finally gave up their AP and/or DVC. Not good when those now running the company lose sight of the vision that Walt Disney used to create The Happiest Place on Earth.
As a Florida native, I would go to WDW several times each year. But my memories of Disney go back to my first trip to Disneyland in 1960. My parents were not wealthy and had worked a lot of overtime to save for a family vacation that included a day in Disneyland. It was a dream come true. Over the years I have been to both parks many times with my own children. We have seen the price increases affect middle class families, even locals. And now we read the executives are upset about a pay cut during the pandemic? Incredible tunnel vision.
Agree, I have enjoyed visits to Disney world with my 2 children and then with my grandkids. The prices have gotten too unreasonable. We have discovered many other places closer to our home at a fraction of the cost of Disney and we still have amazing fun and family experiences!
Ditto
You mentioned Disneyland in the pane Meeting. Anything you can elaborate on that? Thanks !!!
Panel
Mostly just reminiscing about the park’s 65 year history–nothing in terms of rumors, if that’s what you’re asking.
You did get Sam the Eagle to be part of the new BBQ restaurant. Let’s go for this one too!
Last day at the Caribbean for us. No bounce back program available.
Had a great time.
I’ve never felt safer anywhere else I’ve been since this pandemic started. Staff is on top of everything and A day never went by that we weren’t on a ride or two that was held up for ten minutes for cleaning. Witnessed the cleaning process at Mickey and Minnie’s ride and it was executed flawlessly with incredible precision. It was a very impressive sight and the waits are so short that the cleaning process is painless.
Mostly short waits. Presently You don’t need more than 8 hours in any one Park but will that change when actually applied? We had 10 hour days and it leaves plenty of down time which means you need to be at a nice resort like Caribbean with it’s super pools and beaches with hammocks. Do some mini golf and schedule a meal at the different resorts so you can take some long walks and check them out.
I think Disney could bring more people in if they did a few things like allowing people to use the open slots near the end of the day at another Park if they are finished with the Park they had scheduled. A kind of Park Hopping where you relinquish the rest of your time in your scheduled Park and get another one if available.
When they go to 8 hours they need to find a way to let people use restaurants in other parks at least after the park has closed. Maybe an escorted ride from the front of the Park and back after the meal. Hey it’s not like they don’t know where we are at all times anyway.
We had no problems with face masks. I was surprised how often I forgot I had one on. That said I’ve heard that Universal is allowing Face shields as an alternative. I wonder if that has helped their higher attendance.
Thanks for sharing your experience–glad to hear you had a good trip.
A couple of things:
1) Bounce back offers are definitely *not* available right now. Given that the next bounce back would be Free Dining (historically speaking), they’re probably done for the year.
2) Definitely agree about finding a way to dynamically fill the parks throughout the day, and offering some sort of Park Hopper would be win-win for Disney and guests. Unfortunately, they’ve been so slow to make any adjustments that this could take a while to be implemented.
I am planning my Sept trip at CB, so thanks for saying this. And I agree, even if they just opened up EPCOT for evening park hopping so we could have more restaurants to choose from! We opted to rent a car so my current plan is just to go to different resorts. But there are so many good places in Epcot- I feel like it would be so easy just to spend evenings there enjoying the World Showcase using the Skyliner! Alas, I know Disney IT does not move on a dime. So I will just enjoy other resorts.
I agree. We usually stay at one of the resorts near Epcot because we love to go over there to eat at different countries. It would be the #1 reason why we would hate NOT being able to park hop. It is an added expense to add Park Hopping but we have gotten so used to it and when we stay at say the Beach Club we love to just go over in the middle of the day and walk around Epcot.
Experience has taught me that is nothing short of quixotic to anticipate a full-on restoration of Journey Into Imagination, Imageworks, and even a revival of Magic Journeys, but there are worse ways to use my time than daydream…
Ha, yeah.
I still think there’s a reasonable shot (50/50) at the Rainbow Corridor returning at some point in the next few years. It’s such low-hanging fruit and there are plenty of current Imagineers with fondness for it. Wouldn’t even be remotely surprised to see it in the Play Pavilion, or added to the current ImageWorks once some of the current stuff is removed.
You know? All things considered, I’ll be pretty thrilled with the rainbow tunnel showing up in the Play Pavilion!
I think Disney is in a no-win situation with increasing AP availability. It appears they were keeping APs limited as a way to keep crowds lower to accommodate resort guest park availability, especially out of state travelers who have to pay full price right now. Those out of state travelers have not materialized like Disney hoped, so they are increasing AP availability. Unfortunately, that is further driving down demand from out of state travelers like me. Disney is significantly increasing AP availability the week after reports of “larger” (relatively) crowds were reported and fall hours reduced. So now people like me, who were willing to pay big bucks for “full price for less experience” in order to get extremely low wait times experienced those first few weeks, are even more likely to cancel. I am reading wait time reports daily and will wait until the last minute to decide. Unless the wait times are very short as you predict for October, I will be cancelling.
Thus far, there hasn’t been a significant spike in crowds due to the latest availability dumps in the last week. And that’s also with Cast Members being unblocked. I think overall demand right now is pretty low–but I do understand your concern, which is likely to mirror some of Disney’s thinking.
The easiest “win-win” approach to AP availability would be opening up EPCOT more (which isn’t even what Disney has been doing). APs are going to primarily hang out, do dinner, and buy stuff–not ride Frozen Ever After for the 16th time.
Eventually, I think Disney will rethink its approach to EPCOT park entry.
I’m planning a trip in October. I certainly see where park hours being reduced is a problem for some but we wouldn’t stay at a park that long anyway. To me it’s worth it for the low crowds which we will not see this low again once the pandemic is over.
here me out- muppet takeover of the imagination pavilion! ok, so we have sam eagle’s bbq at epcot, let’s expand on that and make epcot the muppet mecca. let’s move great moments in history to the american adventure also as the perfect tie-in. as far as imagination- they currently have a reboot of muppet babies on disney junior, introducing a new generation to the muppets. the muppet babies have always been primarily about using their imaginations, so why not springboard from that? everything is going to get IP shoehorned in somehow anyway. so let’s introduce figment to the muppet babies in a brand new ride using their imaginations (figment and the imagination song are a must though, not negotiable). rid ourselves of the entire imagination institute disaster. then in the theater currently showing pixar shorts, let’s rebuild the muppet theater to it’s former glory and move muppet vision 3D from hollywood to epcot. it’s obvious they want to elbow it out where it is, so let’s incorporate it here instead. and post-pandemic, a muppet meet and greet is a must in the image works area post-ride. let’s wish this into reality. as much as i want the original dreamfinder and figment ride back, i fear that ship has sailed.
I don’t see Disney be willing to take that big of a risk on the Muppets. Too many recent shows/movies/shorts have been flops. I’d also add that many of those have been misfires in terms of the Muppets tone and humor, so I’m not really sure I’d have complete confidence in Disney to get such a pavilion right. (In fairness, ‘Great Moments’ has been the best Muppets thing in ages. Get that creative team to work on something else Muppets-related!)
Get all the characters out of Epcot all together. Epcot is supposed to be the future reality or the current world reality. Why do we have imaginary countries in Norway? Why do we have talking eagles in America? You don’t need to make every land a child’s paradise.
I am a huge huge huge figment fan ever since the original ride first opened now I take my daughter and we both love him! We have so many figment dolls! They have to keep that song and figure out how to make that ride magical again!
I’d love to see Disney nail a Muppets attraction. I recently watched the original Muppet Movie with my kids and laughed out loud the entire time. That prompted a weekend-long visit with our original Muppet Show DVDs. The Muppets are a little too anti-establishment and zany for the typical Disney formula to work. It seems like the Muppets need a separate, eclectic creative team, empowered with free reign, before they’ll turn up a project that resonates as authentic Muppet magic. Clearly SOMEONE in there understands this, because, (to second Tom’s enthusiasm), “Great Moments…” was the first Muppet production in ages to accurately capture the joy, humor and irreverance that made the Muppets so loveable.
Not at all surprised Universal is outpacing Disney in attendance numbers. When the Florida entertainment industry leaders sat at the roundtable meeting with the Vice President and the governor of Florida a few months back, the representative for Universal seemed to be enthusiastically onboard with reopening as opposed to the Disney guys who seemed to have a bit of a negative attitude.
Numbers will no doubt improve as soon as congress passes some type of liability protection for businesses, perhaps after the election. Then the mask requirement can be relaxed to the point of being optional. At this point, many of us will want to go back to the parks.
I feel like more guests would be lost than gained if masks were optional. I’m certainly not excited about masks, but I would absolutely be canceling my trip if Disney were to make masks optional.
I also suspect that Disney cares as much about the optics of its safety procedures as the liability risks. If there were a huge outbreak linked to Disney World, they would get lots of bad publicity and people would lose a lot of confidence in booking trips with them. That’s likely to be at least as costly as any lawsuit that would result.
Agreed. I wouldn’t go if masks were not required. Also, I believe it was one of the union stipulations for CMs to be willing to return to work. Unmasked masses from all over the country talking to CMs would be very unsafe for them.
Tom I totally agree with your assessment! They have done every possible thing you could to keep people away. And as slim as it was to begin with, they keep shaving away more. There is a limited amount of restaurants to choose from, and nothing to do at night. I would not go now, despite how much I miss being there.
When you’ve been at the resorts have you noticed if they have the bounce back offers out? And if so at what discount rate?
I have been very disenchanted the last few years with Disney World management. I have been an annual passholder for almost 10 years, and have been making four trips a year for the past seven years. But the steadily increasing prices, several times a year, year after year, have seemed to me to be very unfair, almost making it an impossibility for middle-class Americans to vacation there. Ultra luxurious resorts are continuing to go up at Disney World, and the only people that can afford staying there are very wealthy Americans, and rich foreigners.
.. which leaves a very bad taste in the mouths of Americans who have been devoted fans of Disney. I can’t tell you how many friends I have, who have been going to Disney several times a year, some for decades, and cannot afford it anymore. The multi multimillion-dollar salaries of Disney executives have not made it any more palatable either. I think Disney management has made some extremely poor decisions over the past six months, they have made their bed, and now they have to sleep in it! Walter Elias Disney’s vision was not to please only the ultra-wealthy in this country and abroad. He built these theme parks so the average American family could go somewhere and have good clean fun at a reasonable price, and affordable price, that wouldn’t put them almost into bankruptcy, which it does now.
We just got back and had stayed at CBR. No bounce back offer.
Even with that, we are currently scheduling a trip back down for end of Sept. We happened to be on Disney site yesterday and snagged POP for $112 a night. No idea even what the discount was because now we don’t see it on the official site.
“Hopeful that Journey into Imagination is reimagined at some point in your lifetime?” – Yes! (Not optimistic, but hopeful. When my daughter was 5, she refused to ride for several years because she didn’t like a ride that blew skunk smell into your face. I think that pretty much sums of the ride’s quality.)
“Thoughts on the Disney Park Pass availability changes or early November 2020 park hours?” Glad for the availability changes, the hours kinda suck. We have a trip booked for end of October during a school mini-break and wonder if 8 park hours a day is worth the cost/effort/risk.