Why Are Weekends So Slow at Disney World?!
Much has been made of the slowdown at Walt Disney World, with media reports dubbing the parks dead or ghost towns. If you’re skeptical about the claims that crowds are nonexistent or attendance is anemic, you’re smart. Calling the parks any degree of “empty” is an exaggeration, to put it charitably.
Let’s start with what is accurate, and that’s that crowds are down significantly year-over-year. You are likely to encounter lower wait times in 2023 than during the same times (weeks/months) in 2021-2022. This started after Easter, and mid-April through late May ended up being the slowest stretch at Walt Disney World since Fall 2021. Wait times rose before Memorial Day through late June, before dropping over the Independence Day holiday weekend. They’ve since rebounded a bit, and this week has actually been the busiest of summer.
Regardless, almost all of those dates have been less busy than their counterparts the last two years. This is something we’ve covered repeatedly in recent Walt Disney World crowd reports, and we don’t really want to belabor the point. Suffice to say, you’re looking at attraction wait times that are 6-8 minutes lower on average than the same dates last year. That may not seem like much, but it adds up over the course of the day and is the basis for decreased crowd levels. However, there’s one exception to this when the numbers are down much more:Â weekends.
There have been a lot of theories for the drop in attendance, which is definitely happening, regardless of claims to the contrary on social media. In fact, the Walt Disney Company has conceded as much and offered explanations as to why. Dearly-departed CFO Christine McCarthy attributed it to tough comparisons when “lapping” Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary. Still-current Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro reiterated this, and also suggested that the exhaustion of pent-up demand was playing a role.
Two weeks ago, Bob Iger offered the best explanation of all. He explained that Florida reopened before most other states and saw “revenge travel” earlier, and thus, it’s being exhausted sooner than elsewhere. Iger pointed to lower hotel occupancy tax collections in many major tourist hubs around Florida, and increased discounting at Universal and other theme parks. When specifically addressing the slow Independence Day holiday weekend, the former weatherman (yes, really) talked up triple-digit ‘feels like’ temperatures and 99% humidity.
In our view, Iger did not point to the most plausible explanation of all:Â Independence Day was a long weekend, and weekends have been significantly slower than weekdays at Walt Disney World in 2023.
Of course, that’s not really a “reason” in and of itself, but rather, a trend that has emerged as of this year. Basically, the Fourth of July holiday was like an exaggerated version of what we’ve been observing for pretty much all of 2023.
The more pronounced drop-off in attendance lended further credence to theories covered in crowd reports here, and in our recently updated Best & Worst Days to Do All Parks at Walt Disney World in 2023 that contains a discussion of this dynamic. But before we get ahead of ourselves with reasons why this is happening, let’s take a look at daily crowd levels and wait times for the year to date (all graphs courtesy of Thrill-Data.com):
This is easiest to interpret if you start on the far right–the two highest bars there are Monday and Tuesday, July 24-25. Before that, there are two consecutive days that are significantly lower green bars–Saturday and Sunday, July 22-23.
You can more or less follow it back from there, five yellow bars (weekdays) followed by two green bars (weekends). That is, until you get to July 1-4 (holiday weekend), which are the lowest green bars. The same 5 yellow, 2 green trend is visible before that, until things get a bit wonky in May, which was low across the board.
Jump back even further, and you can see the same pattern play out over Spring Break, and even mid-January through March. Obviously, there are spikes for the usual holidays and school breaks–MLK Day, Mardi Gras, Presidents’ Day, Spring Break, Easter, etc–but the trend is visible even among those periods of higher crowd levels.
In case you remain unpersuaded by the YTD daily crowd levels (or if the graph is too difficult to discern…or whatever), above is a look at average wait times by day of the week. Here, it becomes apparent that Saturday and Sunday are now the slowest days of the week at Walt Disney World.
With that said, this actually understates the trend. This graph of average waits day of the week is calculated on a rolling basis that also encompasses many dates from last year, including Party Season at Magic Kingdom. However, the trend we’re discussing didn’t truly become apparent until 2023. This means that it’s averaging elevated Saturdays and Sundays from last year along with the lower ones from this year.
The end result is still that weekends are slower, but the degree to which that’s true is not fully evident from the graph. The difference between Sunday and Monday is not 6 minutes per attraction–it’s more like 7-9 minutes. A seemingly small discrepancy, but a meaningful one in the grand scheme of things (and when calculating crowd levels).
Now that we’ve established that this pattern is occurring and you are (hopefully) convinced that it’s real, let’s discuss the potential explanations.
When this trend first became apparent, we posited that it could be a shift towards shorter duration trips. In speaking with travel agents and ticket sellers, we’ve heard countless reports that guests are reducing the length of their visits due to rising costs. Rather than 5-6 day trips and stays, more people are doing 3-4 day Walt Disney World vacations. Of course, this is entirely anecdotal–and the plural of anecdote is not data.
Consumers being more cost-conscious is also supported by higher prices on park tickets, accommodations, and airfare over the weekends. The above chart shows the nightly standard room rates at Disney’s Pop Century Resort. Notice how much more expensive Friday and Saturday nights are as compared to Sundays through Thursday? It’s typically $37 less for weeknights!
It’s a similar story for single-day park tickets, which are typically $5 to $10 cheaper on weekdays than Saturdays or Sundays. (Although Disney diehards who read blogs like this probably never buy them, 1-day tickets are incredibly popular with average visitors.) Unsurprisingly, the most expensive day of the week to fly is Friday; this would mean fewer budget conscious consumers are doing their first day in the park on Saturdays.
Another major explanation is blockouts. The Pixie Dust Annual Pass is blocked out every Saturday and Sunday, and there’s likely a ton of this AP in circulation.
The Pixie Dust Annual Pass costs $399, which is almost half the price of the Pirate Pass, which is the next tier up. It is considerably cheaper than the top two tiers, which are $969 and $1,399 before tax. So again, cost-conscious consumers are likely opting for the Pixie Dust AP and sacrificing weekends to save money.
Equally as significant, the Pixie Dust tier was the only Annual Pass available for over a year, so even Floridians who wanted weekends were stuck with the Pixie Dust AP as their only option for a while. It’s possible that this will change as more of these Annual Passes come up for renewal, but it’s also possible that the exhaustion of pent-up demand and spending slowdown will result in downgrades, making that more or less a wash.
Earlier this year, it wasn’t just Annual Pass blockouts. Cast Members are also subject to blockout dates and reservation availability, both of which have become non-issues this summer. This winter and spring, there was a weekdays-only Florida resident ticket.
Notably, the current Discounted Florida Resident Summer Magic Ticket that runs through September 29, 2023 is not blocked out on Saturdays and Sunday. Much more significant is the 4-Park, 4-Day Walt Disney World Magic Ticket. This is available to the general public and offers $99 per day admission without requiring reservations. It’s our understanding that this ticket has been hugely popular, and it’s also not blocked out on weekends!
However, both of these aforementioned Summer and Fall 2023 ticket deals were blocked out July 1-4, 2023.
When paired with everything else, that right there would seem to be the primary explanation as to why crowds were down so significantly for Independence Day. It was a long holiday weekend–a time that would normally be very busy at Walt Disney World. And yet, average crowd levels were 1/10 and July 4 was the slowest day of the entire year so far.
On top of those blockouts for the two ticket deals, resort rates were elevated. It wasn’t “only” a $37 difference for Pop Century–it was $49 per night more expensive. And that’s a standard room at a Value Resort. The cost difference at Moderates and Deluxes was much more significant.
When you take the pool of people who could not visit over the holiday weekend due to blockouts and add to them the pool of cost-conscious consumers who deferred until prices were lower, it’s much easier to explain why that particular drop was so pronounced, and worse than an average weekend in 2023.
It certainly makes a lot more sense than the weather. It’s not like Central Florida is exactly known for its mild summers, and it’s also not as if temperatures plummeted post-holiday. Sure, that weekend was bad even by Orlando standards, but hot and humid summers are very much a known quantity that’s already largely ‘baked in’ to crowd levels. The worse weather was, at most, a minor contributing factor.
Given all of this, you might be wondering what happens next. Honestly, it’s difficult to say.
One prediction I am rather comfortable making is that September 1 to September 4, 2023 will be a repeat of Independence Day weekend. Perhaps even slower. For one thing, Labor Day is never a busy holiday as compared to the heavy hitters. Kids are back in school and it’s Florida’s off-season for tourism. Crowd levels are typically elevated relative to random weekdays in August or September, but low as compared to pretty much any other time frame.
The difference this year is that the same tickets that were blocked out for Independence Day weekend are also blocked out for Labor Day weekend. Room rates are also elevated, as are regular single day ticket prices. Weather is obviously a wild card, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’ll probably be hot and humid. (Just like the other 44 weeks of summer in Florida.) In short, it’s the exact same setup that resulted in lower crowd levels over the Fourth of July.
Beyond that, the difficulty comes in large part with the start of Party Season, EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, plus the popular Halloween and Christmas festivities, as well as conventions and other special events. All of this can distort attendance trends from October through December. (And to a lesser extent in August and September.)
Normally, the busiest day of the week in Magic Kingdom from mid-August through December would be Saturday–by a fairly significant margin. That’s caused by Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party displacing guests due to shorter operating hours, coupled with locals (previously) being more inclined to visit on weekends. Plus some other factors.
Will that be true this August through December? I cannot say with a high degree of certainty. My guess is that the current conditions will collide with that consistent pattern, resulting in Saturdays at Magic Kingdom being busier than they are right now but still not nearly as bad as during the Party Season in prior years.
However, I’m much more inclined to predict that Monday will be the day that gets hit really hard. That’s the safer bet, both because of all of the above and since it’s another day of the week that typically does not have MNSSHP. Monday is currently the worst day of the week at Magic Kingdom (see above), so it’s hardly a bold bet to predict that it’ll continue to be bad. Mondays at Magic Kingdom will be bad for the rest of 2023, no prediction needed.
What I’m actually saying is that Mondays will get even worse, at least relative to other days of the week–especially ones when MNSSHP is held. Stated differently, the gap between Monday and Tuesday crowd levels at Magic Kingdom is going to grow.
I’ll also make the not-so-bold prediction that ‘feels like’ crowds will worsen at EPCOT on weekends. Already, there’s a disconnect between wait times and congestion at EPCOT, as it’s the main local’s park…and a lot of locals do disproportionately fewer attractions than tourists.
There’s a lot more that could be said about EPCOT attendance trends, but this is already wordy. The bottom line is that wait times never tell the full or even partial story of crowds at EPCOT, and that’s doubly true during Food & Wine. EPCOT might continue to have below-average crowd levels on Saturdays and Sundays this fall, but that’s as measured by wait times. Visitors to the park will likely report dramatically different experiences. In this case, trust the anecdotes over the data.
I’d also continue visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Saturdays or, better yet, Sundays. These are currently the best days of the week to do DHS (see above) and that’ll likely continue.
To whatever extent the dynamic changes at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT, it shouldn’t really have much of an impact on DHS. It didn’t last year. That seems like a pretty safe bet.
Same goes for Animal Kingdom. We put far less emphasis on the best day for that park than the best time of day. So long as you arrive early or late, DAK is easily beatable. If you hate money and are concerned about having too much of it, you can also arrive midday and buy Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.
For me, the biggest question is whether to do Magic Kingdom on the day of MNSSHP or MVMCP–our very strong advice last year–or on a Saturday. Due to the shorter operating hours, crowds will be lower on party days. That is as certain as crowd forecasts can possibly get.
The real question is whether all of the above is enough to depress Saturday attendance to the point that the higher (as compared to party days) crowd levels are still low enough to be “worth it” for the additional ~3 operating hours and fireworks. That’s a question we can’t answer (yet) but hope to be able to speak to credibly by late August.
Even then, the answer will likely be a variation of “it depends.” The determining factors are likely to be what matters more to you: ultra low crowds or fireworks. Whether you’re visiting will also make a difference. Saturday crowds will be much more bearable August and September and other off-peak dates than school breaks (etc.) in October through November.
Ultimately, that’s what we’ve been seeing with Saturday and Sunday wait times versus weekdays. It’s also what we’re expecting going forward for the rest of this year and probably much of 2024. We’ve been discussing our possible theories that explain this for several months, but what happened over Independence Day coupled with the few weeks since have really solidified things in our minds.
Based on all of this, you might think that Walt Disney World needs to pull one of its “levers” that gets people into the parks on Saturdays and Sundays. There’s only so much there that’s in their immediate control, though. There’s also the reality that Walt Disney World is really slow to identify and address shifting attendance patterns. Eventually, they’ll either figure out a better balance by adjusting weekday vs. weekend prices, or it’ll work itself out naturally with the Annual Passholder distribution. But it won’t be a quick fix. I’d expect some version of this pattern to continue into 2024 at Walt Disney World.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on weekdays vs. weekends crowds at Walt Disney World? If you’ve visited this year on a Saturday or Sunday, what did you think of crowds and wait times? Any parks or times of day noticeably worse than the others? Do you agree or disagree with anything in our theories or predictions? 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!
You mention this in the last paragraph, but it seems crazy to me that this phenomenon has been going on for a while now and yet prices are still significantly higher on weekends.
Disney is so slow to adjust anything.
A similar phenomenon occurred with Disney Vacation Club several years ago, and it took years to address. (Some members might argue it still hasn’t been fully fixed/rebalanced!) Point charts were incredibly lopsided, requiring nearly double the points for weekends as compared with weeknights to discourage short weekend getaways. The imbalance had the opposite effect–DVC members used points on weekdays and did cash stays over the weekends to conserve points. To remedy that, Disney Vacation Club redistributed points to lessen the disparity and achieve the right balance.
I’d expect changes to rectify this sooner–not blocking out the discounted tickets on weekends was a good start, but they probably also need to adjust the AP blockout calendars, too.
First Tom, congratulations to you and Sarah! I’ve been following your blog since 2016 and it was very helpful to me for trips to Disney in 2016 and 2018 (even though I had to make adjustments since our 4 month old and 5 year old granddaughters were with us – 2 and 7 years old on the 2nd trip). Can’t wait to see how you and Sarah adjust your recommendations with a baby but I’m sure you will have a great plan worked out soon!
I have 2 rooms reserved at Pop Century November 10-18th this year for a “girl’s trip”
which will include our 2 granddaughters, 3 great-granddaughters ( 2 years, 7 years and 12 years) and myself. I’ve been following the trend of lower crowds on the weekend and have considered doing Disney Springs (T-Rex and World of Disney) on Saturday the 11th, Animal Kingdom on Sunday and possibly Epcot on Monday. No parks on Tuesday to give the kids and myself a break, Hollywood Studios on Wednesday, Magic Kingdom Thursday, and then a second day at either Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios on Friday. Since it is Veterans Day weekend, do you think Sunday would still be less crowded and would you recommend we do Hollywood Studios that day instead of Animal Kingdom?
Thank you for any advice you can give!
I would move DHS to that Sunday. Is there a reason why you’re doing Disney Springs and not a park on Saturday? If that day is an option, I’d actually probably move DHS to that Saturday and MK to Sunday. I’d then probably do MK on Tues or Thurs (both are MVMCP days). The rest doesn’t really matter much.
Oh…I’d also be prepared to change all of that in case weekends start getting busier again at the tail end of the Halloween season. But for now, those would be my tentative picks.
If you’ve never been around Veterans Day before, you might want to adjust upwards your crowd expectations. It’s a consistently busy timeframe that catches a lot of people by surprise.
I’d be curious to know how attendance each day of the week the past year compares with each day of the week attendance say five and ten years ago. I seem to remember when I worked in the parks weekends during the summer and holiday weeks were generally slower due to the fact that people staying for the week generally arrived/departed on weekends. It’s why the Magic Kingdom was almost always busier on Mondays – this is the first park many people visit first, especially if it was their first visit to WDW.
Of course I don’t have the data to support this right now, but conventional wisdom always used to be that Magic Kingdom was busiest on Sundays and Mondays as people arrived for and started their trips with the “best” park. The further back you go, the more likely I’m guessing it would be that Mondays were busier than Sundays (more people driving down, fewer flying).
That trend started to shift ~5 years ago with Florida’s local population growing, plus more Annual Passholders and DVC members doing weekend getaways. Monday was still busy in Magic Kingdom, but the weekends were, too.
This is purely anecdotal but I’ve noticed with local attractions in our area a bit more of an even spread between weekends and weekdays attendence wise. The weekends are still more crowded but the difference between weekdays and weekends is less pronounced then I recall. I wondered if it might be hangover from the pandemic with people avoiding days they perceive to be crowded (weekends) or with more people working remote people having more flexibility in their work hours so they could say take their kids to the aquarium on a weekday and catch up on the work later. Although I would think both of those would impact local visitors, more so then tourist visitors.
“…more people working remote people having more flexibility in their work hours so they could say take their kids to the aquarium on a weekday and catch up on the work later.”
I’d hazard a guess that this is also a contributing factor–good call!
Tom,
Despite your well thought out discussion of various data points, isn’t the notion of crowd-size still contingent on merely comparing year-over-year wait times?
What I’m really saying – we don’t really know if crowd size is actually down, we just know that wait times are down. And there appears to be more hotel availability.
But hotel availability was most certainly negatively impacted last Summer because of staffing shortages. More availability this year could simply be more rooms were made available by Disney, therefore making increased availability a function of staffing, not fewer guests.
Also about staffing in the Parks. The College Program only started back just before Summer, 2021. Is it possible wait times are down because the Parks have more staff from the College Program – which could impact wait times to be lower?
As to looking at weekends in particular – you have a few ideas as to why weekends might slower (i.e., terms of different Annual Passes, costs), but I could posit that folks in the Parks on Monday were guests on Sunday, not just arrivals on Monday….impacted by the locals with those annual passes you discussed.
I think you raise some potentially good points about crowd dynamics as a whole, but not in assessing weekends vs. weekdays in 2023.
(FWIW, from what I understand, the various College and International Programs still are not at 100%.)
“If you hate money and are concerned about having too much of it, you can also arrive midday and buy Genie+ and Lightning Lanes.”
I love money – but it turns out I hate lines and hot temperatures more than I love money. For anyone with budget flexibility, Genie + and LL worked like a charm. I believe all the data presented and the excellent analysis – but when I was standing in the parks, it felt busy and I couldn’t feel the 8-9 minute difference from a year ago.
We were in the parks last week. I read the posts on how to use the system and over 4 days, we waited in two lines (Safari in AK and Figment in Epcot) and we did everything we wanted…and a few things we didn’t really want to do, but did anyway because we had Genie+. Thankfully, Country Bear Jamboree did not have a line because I don’t think that was offered through Genie+!
I would chose weekday over weekends right now to take advantage of the evening extra hours. Had great experiences doing these and can really get a lot done in that short amount of time. Visiting the parks Monday and Wednesday is the only way to tap into this right now so may be a factor for some?
My husband is an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, and here is what he is seeing: 1) Lots of people that go down to WDW for ‘a week’ travel Sunday – Saturday, with their first park being on a Monday and usually Magic Kingdom. Especially true for 1st time visitors. 2) Those that are staying over the weekend usually pick one of those days as a hotel day or Disney Springs day because they think the parks will be too busy. 3) People that go for a long weekend are typically adults without kids that don’t care as much about rides, which may be why it feels crowded but wait times are down.
We are going Aug 1 – 9 and even scheduled our chill day for Saturday, which I’m changing now! Hard to shift your mindset and the average visitor isn’t looking at crowd trends.
I just got back from a trip to WDW and I can confirm the Saturday I visited (7/15) was the least crowded I’ve experienced MK in years. I was very surprised when I went back the following Tuesday and it was packed, but this blog post provides some clarity! Thanks, Tom.
BTW, I caught a nasty case of Covid while I was down there – be careful out there!
It’s hard to argue with Tom’s line of thinking here. It all seems to boil down to people being more cost conscious. Buy the cheaper pass with weekend blackout dates. Avoid the higher prices for tickets and hotels on weekends. What about Genie+ and Lightning Lanes… are those cheaper on weekdays too?
“What about Genie+ and Lightning Lanes… are those cheaper on weekdays too?”
So this is actually interesting (I think) and a good example of how Walt Disney World is slow-to-react to changing crowd trends. For a while–long after weekends became slower–Genie+ was more expensive on weekends. As of this summer, it’s now typically cheaper.
I can’t imagine many cost-conscious consumers are taking that into account, though. For one thing, those on a tighter budget are probably less likely to buy Genie. For another, pricing isn’t published in advance. So unless you track prices…which I can’t imagine many people are doing…you wouldn’t know it’s cheaper on weekends.
I love the photos on this article, especially the wide angle in Tomorrow Land. What lens did you use for that?
thrill-data.com is a great resource, but lacks the exact analysis to easy compare weeks and months. The chart showing the wait times over a day compared to that same day in other years is fun and insightful, but needs to be replicated to analyze weeks and months between different years.
Nikon 8-15mm fisheye. Any fisheye would do, though; I often use a much cheaper and lighter manual focus one.
Thrill-data actually has a lot of custom tools to create more graphs and make comparisons. I tend to stick with the boilerplate ones on their main pages, but I have played around with the custom ones. They’re usually pretty good–but can be time-consuming to create!
Tom
I hate to ask about something off topic, but I haven’t seen anything posted for awhile about it. Have you heard anything about the other BBB locations opening? We went last year and weren’t able to get a reservation. We are returning next year and would love to take our daughter there!
I haven’t heard anything whatsoever.
There are a lot of upcharges that Walt Disney World still hasn’t brought back–I can’t quite understand why not, as the profit margins have to be pretty healthy on that stuff. I assume it’s still staffing, but am less confident in that assessment than I was last year. It’s really odd.
So if I’m going to EPCOT this weekend, it’s going to be terrible? Or just regular busy?
I’d expect it to be somewhere between ‘regular busy’ and terrible. First weekend of Food & Wine is usually packed. Wait times (for rides) shouldn’t be terrible, though!
I’m going with my 16 year old, and we planned to rope drop (after breakfast at Ale and Compass, can’t wait), and then planning to do rides and start snacking at 11 and head out about 5 or 6. (I have never had a bad experience after dark at EPCOT, but the first weekend of F&W with a teen seems like a bad time to press my luck). We’re locals, so we will come back several times before it’s over, so we can afford to relax a little about it.
I wouldn’t be worried about any drunken shenanigans this weekend. You’re more likely to encounter that once UCF and other schools are back in session.
With that said, it can happen whenever as a matter of (bad) luck. I just wouldn’t be any more worried about it this weekend than last or the one before that, etc.
So we’re back, and here’s my sitrep. It was pre-pandemic weekend busy, I’d say. We arrived about 9:30 and left at 8:30. We waited 45 minutes (60 minutes posted) for Remy, and rode Guardians in group 84 (about 2 pm). Early and after about 5 pm, Soarin was 20 minutes. Test Track had long standby lines because of weather but that was the only one. We ate everything we wanted to and didn’t wait long for any of the booths–the only one that was too long in my opinion was France. It was a good day, but I was sad about the lack of BeaverTails.
We love to hear your theories, but perhaps let’s keep them to the topic at hand–which is the discrepancy between weekends and weekdays. Any across-the-board crowd trends or explanations therefore does not ‘answer’ the titular question. 🙂
I don’t think you can separate the many aspects of this attendance “problem” and distil them down to a few reasons, but here goes: Kids are “off” all summer. Parents are generally not. You have two major types of attendees at Disney, Vacationers and Locals. Locals can theoretically go to the parks any time, weekends included. Vacationers generally have set and limited schedules, some including weekends. The key words here are Locals and Vacationers. Many adult Locals are working and, with weekends being their major non-vacation time off, why would they want to spend this time at an expensive and non”exotic” place that doesn’t have the cachet or, in some cases, even the welcoming atmosphere and stellar service philosophy it used to? (Extensive reading indicates the “service” aspect of the parks is a major complaint voiced by many park goers over the past few years!) In my opinion, Locals have found other things to do that are, for whatever their reasons, more welcoming, different and less expensive than Disney. Vacationers are much another animal. Their trips often include “captive”, planned Disney weekends, but with travel expenses being what they are, has this group also found other, less expensive and different places to exoerience? And, even when we go to Disney on extended vacations, we try to avoid the parks on weekends because of the heretofore larger crowds. Perhaps people still do. Generally, a lack of weekend Locals and, possibly, shorter visits by Vacationers conditioned to stay away on werkends would logically account for a drop in weekend park attendance. To me however, the more interesting sub-topic is what, if anything, will Disney do to identify and rectify the cause(s) of this “imbalance” in attendance and, moreover, is it serious enough that they are actually interested in initiating such an analysis?
From my perspective DisneyWorld has just become too costly. Four years ago we took our entire family, all 12, to DisneyWorld and stayed on premises with meal plans and many extras, such as fast passes, etc. we want to do this again, with all 12, but absent the Magic Bus, which would cost me approximately $600 more, along with all the other add on increased prices, we have decided it is not worth the cost.
Hubby and I are at WDW right now on day 10 of a 12 day stay. I can confirm that the parks are FAR from empty. MK in particular is the worst I have ever seen at this time of year and I’m a long term visitor over three decades. The virtual line for Tron was a 90 minute wait a lot of it in searing heat. Disney are allowing too many people in the park. Waits for all rides today over an hour some nearly two. We had a three hour wait for slinky dog. As much as I love Disney the time in lines is just not worth the minimal time spent on rides. The cost of each ride is ludicrous when you sit and calculate ticket values on that basis. Everyone standing in line is commenting. I think guests have just had enough!
I concur with your thoughts! We go to Disney almost every year and it’s just not the same feel. People waiting in line saying this is it it! We won’t be coming back anytime soon. You hear them saying stuff like, Disney is all about making a buck. The magic is gone. They charge more and give you less. I’m afraid Disney priced out the average family.
thanks for the insights!
I’ve been surprised that,given how extremely hot the summer has been I haven’t seen anybody really talking about the water parks. I’m curious what they have been like at universal and disney
I believe a major factor is the heat. With cliamte change, Temps are reaching 100 degrees in the shade, on the regular. I think as time goes on, we’re gonna see winter months become the busiest months at wdw and the brutally hot summer months will have less and less crowds.
It may not be the reason but DVC members usually try not to stay on Friday and Saturday nights due to the points being so much more expensive. As people return to vacationing more often points might be an issue so they can squeeze another vacation into that year.
In my opinion, and for a varried number of reasons, much of the luster has worn off Disney. Again, in my opinion, because of this we are not going to see a general resurgence in park or movie attendance any time soon soon.