Is Disney World Finally Turning a Corner?!
There have been several interesting recent developments, each of which is relatively insignificant in isolation. However, when you add all of these things together, they collectively make us begin to wonder whether Walt Disney World is finally starting to turn a corner, bringing “relief” to disillusioned fans and visitors who have been overwhelmed by crowds, prices, and…pretty much everything else!
Let’s start by sharing the recent ‘signs’ that Walt Disney World might be turning the corner. First, the Walt Disney World Annual Passholder merchandise discount will increase from 20% to 30% for a limited time this holiday season. The extra discount will be available from December 12 through December 23, 2022 at Disney-owned and operated locations throughout Walt Disney World.
Per Disney, this is your chance to finalize your holiday shopping or treat yourself with items from this year’s holiday collections. You can also find that special Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary celebration must-have…before they head to the Disney Character Warehouse Outlet and are sold for 70% off in April 2023! 😉
In isolation, this is evidence of absolutely nothing, except the bullwhip effect in action. We haven’t shut up about this when covering Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts; in case you missed those, what’s happening is essentially the aftermath of supply chain disruptions and inventory shortages.
Due to delays the last two years, businesses rushed to place orders to avoid empty shelves, ordering extras with the expectation that there would be delays due to the aforementioned supply chain chaos. These excess orders continued to arrive as consumer spending has shifted from goods to services.
During their quarterly earnings calls, retailers including Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and many others all reported having a glut of inventory due to the bullwhip effect. Disney has not commented on this phenomenon during its quarterly earnings calls, but there’s every reason to believe gift shops at Walt Disney World and Disneyland are also impacted.
No offense to Disney, but I cannot fathom that their inventory management and ordering systems are more sophisticated than those utilized by titans like Target and Walmart. (When in doubt, just assume Disney uses Windows 95 and the most archaic methods for any and everything.)
Still, it’s heartening to see Walt Disney World discounting merchandise during what should be the heart of the holiday shopping season. It’s good news at best and ‘neutral’ news at worst. Either way, nice to see.
The reason we’re leaning towards this merchandise discount being good news is the fact that it’s not happening in isolation. In addition, Walt Disney World is also offering Annual Passholders 20% off food and non-alcoholic beverages at select EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays food booths from December 12 through December 23, 2022 when using cashless payment methods.
Participating dining locations at EPCOT include:
- Mele Kalikimaka Holiday Kitchen
- Holiday Sweets & Treats
- Nochebuena Cocina Holiday Kitchen
- Chestnuts & Good Cheer Holiday Kitchen
- Bavaria Holiday Kitchen
- American Table Holiday Kitchen
- Tangierine Café: Flavors of the Medina
- L’Chaim! Holiday Kitchen
- Holiday Hearth Desserts
- Yukon Holiday Kitchen
- The Donut Box
- Refreshment Port
- Refreshment Outpost
This also is not totally unprecedented–we’ve seen Walt Disney World offer discounts for Annual Passholders at EPCOT festivals before during the slow season. However, I don’t ever recall it happening during Festival of the Holidays (period), or this close to Christmas.
But wait, there’s more! Walt Disney World has released an unprecedented number of bonus reservations for Annual Passholders in the lead-up to Christmas. Bonus reservations are not a new or uncommon thing, but they’re usually available at a specific park (e.g. EPCOT or Animal Kingdom) and only sporadically every couple of weeks.
Not so now. From December 12 through December 23, 2022 every single park has bonus reservations. This has never happened before since the Disney Park Pass system has been in use, let alone this close to what should be the peak season at Walt Disney World. With that said, normal blockout dates for each Annual Pass tier still apply.
As indicated above, this one is totally unprecedented. However, even it isn’t entirely without precedent or out of left field. The last two years, we’ve seen an increasing number of hotel discounts for this exact same window. Our assumption with the resort special offers has been that Walt Disney World overshot on pricing, and is thus discounting to incentivize more people to visit during what should be a busy time–but one that has lower occupancy despite that because the company got a little too aggressive with pricing.
This seems similar. Aside from the top-tier IncrediPass, every single Annual Pass is blocked out for at least a portion of (and thus ineligible for) these bonus reservation dates. Our guess is that Walt Disney World has gotten a little too aggressive with the AP blockouts. This is an attempt to course-correct, and fill underutilized capacity during a time that will still be moderately crowded. (In other words, this is not a sign that the parks will be dead those dates.)
There’s also the fact that Christmas is on a Sunday this year, so most tourists are probably going to visit the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, rather than spread out among both weeks prior to the two holidays. This means lower crowd levels than normal in the week leading up to Christmas (but still high as compared to an average week) and somehow worse crowds than normal between Christmas and NYE.
In other words, there’s a logical way to “explain away” each of these AP perks in isolation. In aggregate, though, they collectively provide evidence of a slowdown. Speaking of which, we have even more signs of that…
Thus far, December 2022 crowds have not been as bad as expected. While wait times have increased in the last week or so following the post-Thanksgiving lull we previously discussed in our last crowd report, they are still down year-over-year. There are a number of ways to also explain this away–from longer hours to Fantasmic and other returning entertainment helping redistribute crowds and reduce average wait times.
To be sure, if you told me that attendance has increased in December 2022 as compared to last year despite lower wait times, I would absolutely believe it. Paradoxically, I’d also believe that the number of occupied hotel rooms is up, while the occupancy rate is down. (Let’s see if you can crack that riddle.)
However, if we’re adding context to “explain things away,” I think it’s also important to look back on the circumstances at this time last year. Walt Disney World reinstated face mask rules a few months prior to the holiday season and the Delta variant (followed by Omicron) started causing large numbers of people to cancel vacation plans.
On top of that, there were fears that the first few months of the 50th would bring colossal crowds, causing others to hold off on plans. Finally, not all hotels had reopened, and those that had were operating with a lot of their rooms taken out of the bookable inventory, making it difficult to reserve rooms if you wanted to stay on-site. None of these are major considerations depressing attendance or crowds this year. Demand is more or less organic and not being artificially limited–and yet, crowd levels are still lower.
No matter how you slice it, current crowds are below expectations. (So long as your expectations are reasonable, and premised on 2019 and 2021, rather than 2017 or earlier when attendance was much lower.) Between the two of us, we’ve been in the parks for partial or full days almost every day in the last couple of weeks, and we’ve both been pleasantly surprised at actual crowds as compared to what we expected.
The last time this happened was mid-July, which is not so long ago. The big difference then was that it came after a couple months of surging gas prices and growing concerns about the economy. Right now, the reverse is occurring. The national average price of gasoline has fallen to $3.234 per gallon–the lowest level in 411 days. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index rose more than expected in its most recent reading, amid declining inflation expectations. Both should provide economic tailwinds for Walt Disney World, improving forward-looking vacation bookings and near-term visits among Southerners and also those taking last-minute weekend getaways during the fan-favorite Christmas season.
For our part, we’ve already lowered predictions for early 2023 crowds at Walt Disney World. Specifically, our expectation is that January 9, 2023 through February 17, 2023 will be among the least busy dates of the year (minus the MLK holiday weekend). To be sure, it won’t be dead or off-season by historical standards, but it should be the best time to visit since mid-August through September of this year.
After Presidents’ Day and Mardi Gras (which will be bad–among the worst 5 weeks of the year), we’re expecting more of the same. Of course, we’ve been wrong before–but I’d be surprised if early 2023 is as busy as this year or the same stretch in 2020. (It was quickly forgotten, but before the parks closed, that year was shaping up to be the busiest ever at Walt Disney World.)
Another positive is that Walt Disney World has already released several discounts that run through March or April 2023, and they’ve done so far earlier than normal by historical standards. If past weak discounting and late releases are a sign that pent-up demand has still been running strong, this is a sign that the opposite may now be true.
Walt Disney World currently has 4 discounts that run through Spring 2023, and a few more targeted offers for the holiday season this year, running all the way until the week before Christmas. (See All Current Disney World Discounts – Holidays 2022 to Spring 2023 for a rundown of the special offers.)
When these all dropped in the span of a couple weeks, that alone gave me a newfound sense of optimism that maybe we have finally turned the corner on pent-up demand. While there have been a few “false starts” on that front, I can’t recall the last time there was a slate of deals on par with what we’re seeing for early 2023. You’d probably have to look back all the way to late 2020 or early 2021–and it was a totally different world then.
As we’ve written several times in the last few months, we’re optimistic that this holiday season will be the “last hurrah” for pent-up demand. Over the course of the last year, household savings have been decreasing, personal debt levels rising, and ongoing effects of inflation continue being felt. People book trips months in advance, and it seems increasingly likely that this is starting to impact Walt Disney World bookings, with the parks and resorts possibly starting experience their own slowdown reflective of the broader economy.
With that said, I also have to admit that “revenge travel” running this hot for this long is not something I expected. Conversely, there has been a lot of talk about a recession on the horizon, including on this blog (see What Does Walt Disney World Do During A Recession?). However, that is not yet borne out by consumer behavior. (As we’ve joked before, economists have predicted 9 of the past 5 recessions!) Even as consumer sentiment dropped earlier this year, spending remained strong–meaning that people were saying one thing but acting differently.
To that point, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said in a recent interview leisure travel demand continues to be strong, and that the company is not seeing a recession in based on its bookings. Kirby half-jokingly noted, “If I didn’t watch CNBC in the morning…the word recession wouldn’t be in my vocabulary, just looking at our data.”
Ultimately, there are a number of positive signs that demand is starting to fall back to normal levels, which is coinciding with capacity and other aspects of the regular, pre-closure experience at Walt Disney World being restored. It’s still premature to get overly excited about lower crowds or better discounts in 2023 based on what we’re seeing so far. However, all of this is good news–and better than signs pointing the opposite way, as has been the case for most of the last 18 months.
We remain optimistic about Walt Disney World in 2023. Even before the return of Bob Iger, there were strong signals that reservations would fade away for most guests (aside from Annual Passholders) in early 2023. Speaking of which, there’s also reason to believe APs will return in the first quarter of the calendar year. These are just two incremental steps in the right direction, but we expect many more to come. Beyond that, Cast Member morale is also improving, and guest satisfaction is likely to follow suit.
The pessimists could dismiss this, saying that it’d be difficult for things to get any worse. However, that’s the kind of attitude that has been met with many head-scratching ‘hold my beer’ decisions from Walt Disney World in the last couple of years. The lesson that should have been learned is that things can always get worse…so we’re really happy that it appears they’re finally getting better.
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 these so-called signs that things might be starting to normalize at Walt Disney World? Do you think pent-up demand is actually exhausted, or is this another false start before more astronomical crowds in 2023? Any other explanations for the AP discounts, bonus reservations, increased resort deals for early 2023, or anything else discussed here? 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!
Back from Disney trip with friends and family. I truly have to admit the magic is diminishing. The cost, the hassle of the app usage, the long lines for food and rides made it all a lackluster event.
I believe this is my last vacation there. The rest of the world seems to be making much more effort to entertain and divert.
Tom, have truly enjoyed your blog and analysis and will continue to read it.
John
That is great that Disney is offering the added discounts on merchandise and the added reservation days. They state these will be offered between December 12 – 23. That doe not do a lot of the annual passholders any good. Unless you have the top notch annual pass, these dates are on blackout for the rest of us passholders.
I want to echo the comments above. We took a short trip Dec 1-5. We are DVC members and former AP holders (expired and haven’t been able to purchase since COVID). I have to say, after going 2-3 times a year for the past 12 years this is honestly the first time I really felt we hit our limit. 2 days of park hoppers and three tickets to the Christmas Party cost almost $1500 for the three of us. Then add $60 per day for Genie + (not worth it IMHO) and another almost $50 to ride the new Guardians ride with Lightning Lane (we didn’t get a virtual queue at 7am so had to pay $15pp + tax). It felt GREEDY.
Epcot on 12/3 was packed- huge lines for everything in the World Showcase. I think we spend far less $$ in the stores and on food than we have in the past. We left the park early and headed to Celebration for a magical (and free) night- lovely walking around there at Christmastime and had a great dinner at Colombia for less than half the price at a resort or park.
So, for our little family of 3 to drop about $3,000 for a weekend away (and we used our DVC so didn’t include lodging) felt like we could have spend the money somewhere else. We traveled to London and Ireland for almost 2 weeks this past summer and didn’t spend much more than that!
Planning to head back in May, but honestly, unless things change a bit we will start to look elsewhere – lots of places we want to see!
Meh, just bring back Disney pre-Iger, treat CMs and guests better than c-suites and shareholder wealth and everything else easily falls into place.
Pent up travel demand? Maybe…..but more likely covid money dried up. One job I have supports cruise lines, my 2nd job is with a high end retail luxury conglomerate. Once covid money dried up lines for retail and aspirational 1st time buyers dried up with it. Disney may finally be seeing that and adjusting after taking their slice of the pie.
Interesting that they have opened up AP availability to Dec. 23 – – yet when I look at the availability calendar for Resort guests, there is not a single day of availability for the Magic Kingdom Dec. 14 – Jan. 03!
I pity the people who booked resorts stays and didn’t know about having to make park reservations!
Ticket prices waaaay too high to justify a trip this year for my family. We are from Arizona and holding out for Epic Universe in 2025!
I’m just so confused on who their target consumer is. We are 7+ year DVC members (which is starting to feel like a scam) and usually go at least once a year if not more. But with 3 kids and the way ticket prices have jumped plus genie + etc. I just don’t know that we can continue to go once a year or even every other. And we do ok financially. Like, who is the consumer that is able to go and pay these hiked up prices?! Even to go on a one time trip I feel like many families will have to save for several years or go in CC debt.
This exactly. We used to think WDW was targeting the whales. The once in a lifetime vacation family that would splurge out on $20K+ vacations. Think wealthy Grampa & Grandma taking the family and grandkids on a big splashy final vacation. But those families have been there and done that by now. That pool is dry. With the looming recession, North Americans who own their own home, are mortgage free, debt and credit card debt free, and have very stable employment, are looking at rising interest rates as a way to earn back a little income on conservative investments. The savers will save to recoup the past 2 years and are unlikely to spend all their disposable income on a pricey WDW trip. If these flush stable saving families take a WDW trip next year, they’re more likely to go for a 5 day mini break to POP rather than the Poly. Disney has overreached on prices. Declining Deluxe and Moderate Resort package bookings may be the tell. Better and deeper discounts and promotions may be on tap.
I have spent some time in California recently and will soon visit Canada and New York again, places that had definitely been off my radar.
“Specifically, our expectation is that January 9, 2023 through February 17, 2023 will be among the least busy dates of the year (minus the MLK holiday weekend). To be sure, it won’t be dead or off-season by historical standards, but it should be the best time to visit since mid-August through September of this year.”
Wouldn’t this be a good assumption even if crowds were elevated? I thought until after Thanksgiving we had seen a return to traditional patterns where mid-Aug through Sept is the slowest season, and most of Jan to mid Feb is the second slowest season. Of course, recent events have thrown that pattern off.
While I’m not sure about the AP discounts, the best argument that Tom might be correct in the long term because he’s seen lower than mid-Aug/Sept 2022 crowds repeatedly over the past few weeks, both in person and in data. While it’s possible that there’s a temporary lull, at this point in time it makes as much sense to assume that demand has declined and crowds are at a lower baseline.
We’re just returned home from 6 nights at Disney followed by 2 nights in Celebration. Disney was always go, go, go. It was so relaxing In Celebration that a few nights post Disney is our new plan. Celebration was fun with the snow and events along with the good restaurants and the fabulous bakery! Better than any bakery in Disney!
Nothing in the article helps the regular, blue collar family. I can’t afford to go anymore. I’m from NY and I used to go once a year, sometimes twice. Now it costs an extra $250 for a week for just myself and my daughter. That is just for busing and fast pass. Plus with no “free” dining and increased hotel and ticket prices it adds even more. Regular inflation plus Disney increases means I just can’t afford it anymore.
I think the foreign travel is a big concern.
I have good friends from the UK who are Super Fans of WDW and make many trips per year. Until now! After their trip post pandemic this year, they stated that they don’t know when they will be back due to the high cost of everything at WDW and the US. If they say that, as uberfans, then I wonder what others are saying and thinking at this time.
So foreign travel and revenge travel are both slowing down IMO.
I also think that as other international destinations have opened up, people who otherwise might have gone to WDW or DL will head overseas instead. We went to France last Christmas when masks and testing were required… most people aren’t willing to do that. Now that those are all finished, people who balked at those requirements will be more willing to go. And we spent less to take four of us to France for a week than we did to take five of us to WDW for four days in October 2022 (and we stayed at Pop!).
Another great point. It is also so much cheaper for Americans to travel internationally right now thanks to the dollar’s strength versus most other currencies.
I do wonder what percentage of Walt Disney World guests consider Europe or Asia ‘alternative’ vacation destinations, though. It can’t be that high, but even 5-10% is a significant number that adds up in the grand scheme of things.
Even if it’s the Bahamas or Mexico, the fear of getting “stuck” with a positive COVID test is pretty much gone for most people, so that opens the door. Add in word-of-mouth with the “hassle” of a WDW vacation (setting aside whether it’s true or not), and people may be more willing to spend their money elsewhere. My wife is a reluctant WDW visitor, and she said “Never again!” when we returned. We’re already planning a trip to Germany in two years and perhaps Quebec next year.
Opening up more dates for AP’s for already crowded parks is not something I’m excited about. I’m betting the actual % of us in the parks without AP’s is 99%+. How about Disney take the boatload of $ they are making and expand! A basic room at many Deluxe resorts are nearly $1000/night. Universal is gaining ground fast!!
Tom, Just returned from 8 nights at WDW and it was BUSY (12-2 thru 9) in my eyes. My wife and I visited twice in 2021 (May and October) and the crowds were much more manageable then than now. We were also there in Dec 2019 and it was nice then but the crowds THIS December drove me crazy. I would not want to see what the “busy” weeks look like! This was my 14th trip since 2000 and the most busy I have seen. Hopefully we can return when the crowds are much more “manageable”, but not anytime soon. Too busy for the money!
We were there the same time and totally agree
Thanks for the update, Tom.
My biggest wish is that they cancel the park reservation requirements and any lingering park hopping rules.
I can confirm that this trip we are just wrapping up was our trip planned and cancelled for 2020. As Canadians this was the first/best Christmas to visit with the boarder crossing stuff. We won’t be back as we are part of the once in a life time people that Disney seems to like to target. I followed smart touring and didn’t buy genie plus. They sent me a survey and I shared my feelings on the program. We had a great time but this is it. I told my daughter she can come back when she is able to pay her way when she is an adult. So our revenge travel is done. Our cost over when we originally booked was up about 50%. Part due to all the things Disney has taken away and part because of price increases and part because of revenge travel justifying me staying at a nicer hotel. I’m thinking there will be a number of Canadians and other internationals in the same boat. Also, increasing capacity at hotels faster than bookings leads to more rooms rented while still seeing lower occupancy.
“I’m thinking there will be a number of Canadians and other internationals in the same boat.”
You’re almost certainly correct about that. I didn’t even address the strong USD, but it’s likely putting a damper on pent-up demand from international visitors.
You are also right about the hotel capacity conundrum. 🙂
Something that rarely gets mentioned is that Florida residents feel more comfortable heading for vacations out of state again, so that impacts the amount of locals available to visit the parks.
Not to get into a discussion about policy, but for awhile much of the country looked undesirable to visit for me as a Florida resident because it involved different hassles or a concern that I would be treated like a “Florida man”. Besides Florida and Mexico, many North American places seemed unattractive to spend time and money in over the last couple of years.
I have spent some time in California recently and will soon visit Canada and New York again, places that had definitely been off my radar.
This is an excellent point, and it’s actually not just you as a “Florida man.”
Florida was a top tourist destination in early to mid-2021 because of its approach–meanwhile, many cities took much longer to recover. Most people do not visit WDW annually, so I’d imagine there was some pulled forward demand last year and this year that’ll now start heading elsewhere.
Cancel Genie+ and bring Mando & Yoda to Batuu and I’ll be happy
I hope you’re right Tom. Now if they could just make some changes to Genie+ to solve its flaws then I would believe it myself (the amend option was a good start, but just a start)