Summer 2023 Crowd Stagnation & Surprise Slowdown at Disney World
We’re back with another report on summer season crowds at Walt Disney World, and this one is really a tale of two months. We’ll take a look at final June wait times and how they compare to normal, plus the holiday weekend surprise to kick off July 2023. Plus, predictions for Independence Day and beyond at Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom.
Let’s start by quickly recapping the last couple of months for those who haven’t been paying attention. Spring break had highs and lows, but was generally slower than last year as measured by wait times. Peaks predictably happened in mid-March around Central Florida school recesses, and again in the week leading up to Easter.
After that, crowds fell far and fell fast. The week after Easter kicked off the Slowest Six Week Stretch at Walt Disney World Since 2021. That was essentially the second half of April through late May, with the latter being the least-busy month since last September. Normally, the fall off-season is far less busy than the pre-summer shoulder season (hence the different monikers!).
There have been a lot of theories for the drop-off in crowds, and we’ll circle back to some of those in the crowd commentary later in the post. The one piece of good news, at least from our perspective in combating contentions on social media that Walt Disney World is actually busier than ever, is that the Walt Disney Company has directly addressed the slowdown.
Dearly-departed CFO Christine McCarthy warned investors of a slowdown as Walt Disney World “lapped” the 50th Anniversary. Still-current Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro reiterated this, indicating there would be a drop in demand at the Florida parks even as Disneyland attendance stays strong (attributing that to the latter reopening almost a year later).
Discounting has also gotten more aggressive. As we’ve mentioned repeatedly, Walt Disney World already has released over a dozen different discounts through Christmas Day 2023, which is more than were available for the entirety of last year. Most recently, the return of bounceback offers for 2024–that are better than what was last available in 2019/2020–joined that ever-growing list. (This one is especially significant since it suggests that Disney believes the slowdown will continue into next year.)
In addition to the resort offers, there are two new ticket deals for this summer, plus an increase in merchandise and dining discounts for Annual Passholders and Cast Members and V.I.Passholder days meant to get locals to EPCOT so they spend money on festival food & beverages. (That free Figment magnet was purely out of corporate kindness–but it did kill two birds with one stone!)
Frankly, I can’t believe there’s still any debate among fans about Walt Disney World experiencing a slowdown. The remarks from executives should’ve put that to rest, but if not, Disney is literally putting its money where its mouth is. The company doesn’t discount out of corporate generosity, and more APs were long ago branded as an “undesirable guest mix” from a revenue perspective.
At this point, it should be self-evident that “revenge travel” is officially over…at least at Walt Disney World!
Against that backdrop, let’s turn to the data and see how the back half of June 2023 and the Independence Day holiday weekend played out. As always, what’s covered in these “crowd” reports is actually posted wait time data scraped from My Disney Experience and compiled into graphs covering various days, weeks, months, and years. A lot can be gleaned from posted wait times, but it’s not necessarily conclusive of in-park congestion or crowds. Just wait times, which is only objective way to measure crowd levels.
Nevertheless, wait times are an imperfect measure of Walt Disney World’s crowds, especially if you’re comparing current conditions to prior years. Walt Disney World attendance has increased by several million people over the course of the last decade-plus, so the vast majority of days in 2023 will be more crowded than their counterparts in 2015 or 2017.
With that out of the way, let’s dig into the data and look at Walt Disney World wait times. As always, all graphs and stats are courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
Let’s start with the monthly numbers for Walt Disney World as a whole (but ignoring July 2023 for now). Your perspective on these numbers might depend upon the narrative you want to believe or advance. (“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Nevertheless, I’m partial to stats!)
If you want to contest the notion that Walt Disney World crowds were in a death spiral and that May was the beginning of the end, June certainly refutes that. The average wait time was up 6 minutes to 37 minutes, for a typical crowd level of 3/10 over the course of the entire month, as opposed to 1/10 in May. Crowds were observably and undeniably higher than in May. Based on what we saw on the ground, I don’t think there’s any debating that.
However, I’m personally more interested in prior-year comparisons. There’s also an undeniable ebb and flow to attendance; not all months are equally busy. So contrasting wait times data with the same month last year is much more meaningful than comparing May to June. Obviously June was going to be busier. It almost always is.
When looking at prior-year numbers, this June was 7 minutes lower on average, dropping from an 8/10 crowd level last June. Even more notably, every single month this year since February has been slower than its counterpart in 2022. January 2023 was the last month that was busier than last year (significantly so, although at least part of that comes down to the timing of New Year’s Eve and winter breaks). Every month since has been slower in 2023 than last year.
Above is a look at weekly wait times at Walt Disney World. The story here is a pretty boring one, which is that crowd levels have mostly been stagnant in the last month. There was a slight drop during the most recent week, which includes this past weekend, but even that isn’t particularly pronounced. After rising out of the doldrums of May, wait times pretty much plateaued in June.
Regardless, the last several weeks have been both objectively low and below-trend as compared with shoulder and summer seasons during the prior two years. Two weeks ago was the “busiest” week of the summer season thus far, and that was a 5/10. That’s not particularly bad for a period when most schools are out of session.
Looking at daily numbers across all of Walt Disney World year-to-date, and it’s more or less the same story as our last couple of crowd reports. There have been several 7/10 days this summer season WDW-wide, and also a handful of days when Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios hit 8/10. No park has had a 9/10 or 10/10 day so far this summer, though.
These higher days have been offset by weekends, which continue to be lower across the board. See the ‘Wonky Weekends at Walt Disney World’ section of our recently updated Best & Worst Days to Do All Parks at Walt Disney World in 2023 for a discussion of this dynamic. Even without reading that post, you should be able to spot the weekends in the above graph (they’re the two lower consecutive bars each week) and draw your own conclusions.
Surprisingly, that trend not only included the first ‘half’ of the Independence Day holiday weekend, but it was heightened! We were slightly unsure of what to expect here–but we definitely did not expect Saturday and Sunday to be so slow. Without a doubt, the higher prices, hotter weather, blockouts, and various other variables pushed people away from the parks.
The end result was that this Saturday was the slowest day since May 17. Now, that may not seem particularly significant–it was only a little over a month ago–but that was the slowest day since early last September. If you don’t think that’s a red flag, I really don’t know what to tell you. Suffice to say, we should not be comparing a summer holiday weekend to the slowest days in the slowest month of the entire year!
For those inclined to hand wave this away, blaming the hot weather or whatever, here’s a look at Universal Orlando’s daily wait time averages. Saturday was 5/10 and Sunday was 6/10. Now, that’s not-so-hot for a holiday weekend, but it’s still better than Walt Disney World, and should be enough to demonstrate that it wasn’t merely a matter of weather.
In general, weekday crowds are about on par between Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando. The big difference now is weekends. (Still, I’m a bit shocked by just how slow WDW was this past weekend. And that was with Disney pulling “levers” at the last-minute, releasing more reservation availability for APs and CMs!)
This is evident in looking at monthly average wait times for Universal Orlando. Looking at prior-year data, it’s a pretty similar story–every month following February has been lower at Universal, too.
As with Walt Disney World, this pattern is pretty much incontrovertible at this point. Universal is also busting out its discount playbook, with an increasing number of resort deals. They also just released a new Annual Pass deal: “Get 3 Months Free on Any Pass” offer. As the name suggests, this offers 15 months for the price of 12 on new APs and renewals on all of Universal Orlando’s 4 tiers of Annual Passes.
(For those visiting in mid to late August or September 2023, we’d highly recommend considering an AP for at least one member of your party. That’s AP Appreciation month, and the hotel discounts are usually insanely good.)
As we’ve also discussed repeatedly, there’s a growing disconnect between Genie+ prices and crowd levels. This started after Easter and the gap has only grown since. A lot of the advocates of per-park pricing for Genie+ are conveniently ignoring this trend.
I will say that I find it amusing that Walt Disney World opted to debut per-park Genie+ on a $27 day…only to drop that to $25 the very next day. Why not just wait a day and give proponents of the system a superior talking point? It’d still be a price increase in disguise, but at least the disguise would’ve been a bit better!
Speaking of which, Genie+ is back up to $29 as of today (July 3, 2023). Today’s wait time data is not included in the above reports, but the smart bet is on crowd levels being much higher. For one thing, Genie+ pricing indicates that’s what Walt Disney World is anticipating. For another, every single Monday has been busier than every Saturday and Sunday for the last couple of months. So it’s hardly a bold prediction given the circumstances.
The only question is whether the second ‘half’ of the holiday weekend can be the first day(s) of summer to break 9/10 on the crowd calendar. My guess is no. But I wouldn’t be surprised if MK and/or DHS get 7/10 days. That’s still quite the rebound after this weekend.
Magic Kingdom is now completely unavailable for the Fourth of July, so it’ll be interesting to see what “sold out” looks like in Summer 2023. I’d be willing to bet that the capacity cap is relatively low due to Park Hopping for the fireworks. That means modest crowd levels–as measured by wait times–but significantly higher ‘feels like’ crowds as a result of congestion on Main Street and elsewhere around the park.
Turning to commentary, the first month of this summer season is further proof that pent-up demand is done at Walt Disney World. Rather than steadily increasing, wait times have more or less stagnated. Then there was the surprise decline over the weekend, which might’ve been foreseeable to the extent that Saturdays and Sundays have been slower than Mondays and Tuesdays…but it shouldn’t have been this bad over a long holiday weekend.
Without a doubt, there will be busy weeks and months again later this year. It’s safe to predict that October through December will see a spike, with days and weeks that are 10/10 crowd levels. So again, Walt Disney World is hardly experiencing a death spiral, five alarm fire, or anything of that sort.
But I’d also expect most weeks and all months to be down year-over-year. That’s more meaningful than comparing May to June or September to October, etc. That’s been the case thus far this year at Walt Disney World after January, and also at Universal Orlando after February. Basically, there is a slowdown, but it’s more like a normalization to 2018-2019 numbers–perhaps a tad worse than those. (Comparing is difficult due to shorter hours, still-missing entertainment, added attractions, etc.)
As for the cause, frankly, I think it’s impossible to pinpoint just one. It’s true that the Walt Disney Company’s reputation has taken a big hit in the last two-plus years, and this could be a contributing factor. It’s also the case that guest satisfaction, consumer-unfriendly practices, and everything else that Walt Disney World has done to alienate fans and casual visitors could be coming back to bite them.
However, it’s difficult to reconcile all of this with Universal Orlando’s wait times data. If anything, it would stand to reason that Universal would be the main beneficiary of Walt Disney World’s own-goals. We’ve heard from countless disillusioned Disney (former) fans who have indicated they were taking their business to Universal. That’s not really evident in the numbers, though.
One possibility is that Universal is seeing an exhaustion of pent-up demand among locals, but not to the same degree among tourists–and that the opposite is true at Walt Disney World. This would make sense. UOR really tried to cater to locals post-reopening, whereas Walt Disney World didn’t even sell APs. Now, locals are able to buy Annual Passes at WDW; many could be doing that and taking a year off from Universal as a result. (Like everything else, this doesn’t fully explain what’s happening–but there is no single explanation that neatly does.)
You might also notice that above statement about pent-up demand being exhausted have an asterisk of “…at least at Walt Disney World.” That’s because TSA traveler statistics, Orlando International Airport data, and statements from airline CEOs all strongly suggest that travel is proving resilient, and Americans continue to spend on vacations.
Anecdotally, we spent a couple of days at the beach in Southern California this weekend. Despite the weather being bad–overcast skies and cold temperatures–everywhere was absolutely slammed. We were at the beach relatively regularly in the second half of the month, and our perception is that this year is busier than last year despite largely worse weather for the month of June.
It’s difficult to reconcile all of that with the falling year-over-year crowds at Walt Disney World. This is probably worthy of its own post, but our guess would be that consumers are continuing to travel but becoming more cost-conscious. It’s likely that a lot of people used their surplus savings for ‘big budget vacations’ last year, which meant theme parks.
This year, travel demand has remained resilient, but many of those with more money are looking internationally where they benefit from a strong dollar, and those on tighter budgets are looking to beaches, U.S. National Parks, and other cheaper destinations. (There are more wrinkles to this that are beyond the scope of this post; Airbnb average rates are down, travel to most West Coast cities is up, etc.)
That’s all just spitballing with no supporting (non-anecdotal) evidence, but I don’t know how else you explain the drops at both Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando with the increases for travel as a whole. Tourists are certainly still visiting those destinations, but probably for fewer days on average, while spending less and also doing more in Central Florida (or along the coasts) that costs less.
Turning to forward-looking crowd forecast, it’s safe to predict that this week will be busier than July 1 and 2. Really nowhere to go but up from those numbers, so that much is obvious. The question is how high crowd levels go (our guess is 5/10 to 6/10 for Monday through Friday), and what the next few weeks look like.
In a normal year, crowd levels would peak in mid-July and decline steadily after that. However, Walt Disney World hasn’t experienced a “normal” summer in several years–since 2018. Last year, the second week of June ended up being the peak, which was due to rising oil/gas prices.
Before that, the resumption of normalcy followed by the COVID-comeback threw a monkey wrench into late summer crowds. Then there was the closure in 2020 and the pre-Star Wars slump in 2019. Almost all of those variables, with the possible exception of gas prices and the broader economy, will be nonfactors in Summer 2023 at Walt Disney World.
Given how many years it’s been since Walt Disney World has had an average summer, predicting the peak on the 2023 Walt Disney World crowd calendar for this summer is honestly more of a guessing game than anything else. When closely analyzing wait time data for the last few weeks, one could conclude that the peak already happened–on June 22, to be precise.
I’m going to go against the grain and predict that the peak has not yet occurred. Instead, that it’ll happen next week, but with crowd levels still only in 6/10 range. My thought process with that is that this year has been largely normal, with a return to 2018 trends. Additionally, it takes a while for discounts and other incentives to become evident in increased attendance, so those 4-park tickets and all of the big resort deals are only now starting to be felt.
With that said, a peak of 6/10 or so for the summer season is still below average and indicative of a slowdown at Walt Disney World. From there, crowd levels will gradually decline in late July and into early August before schools go back into session. What happens in the off-season is anyone’s guess. Early fall is always some degree of slow, but it’s possible all of the discounts could buoy bookings and numbers enough that wait times aren’t down (or at least aren’t down significantly) year-over-year. Regardless, those two months will be objectively slow and subjectively hot. They always are.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Thoughts on crowds in June 2023 or the first half of the Independence Day holiday weekend? Predictions on crowds for July, remainder of summer season, or August and September? If you’ve visited last month (or especially this past weekend), 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 report? 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!
We are in our late 60’s – we don’t ride the attractions – we just like to wander around, eat and shop, enjoy the shows. With that said we can not and will not spend money for the outrageous ticket prices. There is no benefit for being old at Disney and they are missing the boat because tho retired, we would take the grandkids but not if we have to pay those prices too.
Do you feel Universal will discount the 1-day pass this fall?
I agree, it would be great if Disney would offer discounts for the seniors. Disney should also make planning easier, it’s way too complicated and stressful. Disney should add more park branches and shade for seniors. Disney Springs is the worst! With saying that, the last time I was in Disney with all my family was July 2021. There was not many seniors, maybe 10-15% off the total park numbers. The most disturbing thing I witness was young people teens to 30 year old failing to give up a seat on the bus or a spot on a bench for a senior or a pregnant women. Years ago the bus drivers would reward people if they seen an act of kindness/respect and hand out a fast pass for being kind. So in all , I hope everyone will use some manners and give seats to seniors because we will all be there in time!
We went 6/26-6/29 and hit all 4 parks. It was crowded, but definitely not Spring Break/Christmas crowded (which is when we usually go). We were able to get everything done that we wanted and then some. I think there are a number of factors that play into this, which you hit on above. Heat, pricing, people over-traveling after the pandemic, inflation in general causing people to do cheaper trips, etc. We are a family of 6 and have a timeshare from my in-laws, so we just have tickets, food and gas to cover. It was easily still a $6000 trip when all is said and done. Could have cut that in half by just going to a beach for 4 days and renting a really nice VRBO/AirBNB. So I think that is probably what a lot of trending towards.
Did a bit of research. The following quote is typical of recent statistics provided by Florida Tourism for 2023. Apparently, Disney’s fall-off isn’t due to lagging tourism. “Florida’s tourism is booming as new numbers show that between January and March 2023, Florida saw a record 37.9 million visitors, the largest volume of visitors ever recorded in a single quarter. May 23, 2023”
Walt Disney World was still doing pretty well in January through March. Although numbers started lagging a bit before spring break, the current drop really started post-Easter and bottomed out in May. Still, I would expect Florida’s tourism numbers for the most recent quarter to outperform WDW and UOR given that MCO is still going strong.
For what it’s worth, Visit California is also reporting record numbers. I don’t know why people insist on seeing their personal politics reflected in everything, but there’s no reason to believe tourism to either state is being negatively impacted to a material degree by their respective governors.
This reminds me of that strange period right after Galaxy’s Edge opened where crowds were mysteriously low across the board at a time everyone had anticipated otherwise. I still haven’t figured that one out either lol
I know I’m oversimplifying but I just think WDW is just so much more expensive then pre-Covid. Tickets are so expensive and now they tack on Genie+ and LL costs. A typical week of tickets alone is $2000-3000 for a family of 4 (kids over 3) depending on time of year. I love WDW and will continue to go but probably every 4-5 years instead of every 1-2 years.
This is undeniably true. The really BIG increases happened in 2021-2022 with the change to Genie+ and elimination of Disney’s Magical Express, coupled with very few discounts and price increases on top of that.
Obviously, the lack of free FastPass and DME are still very much issues that mean higher prices, but on a positive note, discounts are back. The end result is lower effective prices (for the most part) relative to last year, but still MUCH higher than 2018-2019.
It’ll be interesting to see what else changes between now and 2024, and what pricing ends up being like relative to this year and 2019.
Discounts are back IF you are buying a vacation. I may have missed it Tom, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I see very little love for DVC in any of this
I’m curious how much deferred maintenance and ride breakdowns could be skewing the numbers higher than actual attendance would indicate?
I don’t think maintenance or breakdowns are any worse in 2023 than they were last year. (Not minimizing them–they were bad last year, too.)
If anything, it’s probably a bit skewed in the opposite direction as more meet & greets, entertainment, and other capacity-adds have come back online.
We are going again this year in December. Annual passport prices were pretty good at the resorts. I was amazed at how easy it was to book right up until Christmas. The most expensive thing for us was air fare. I was there in March and it didn’t seem too crowded. We don’t use Genie. We were at Disneyland in Feb.- it snowed on us but we had fun. We are going there again in August. Won’t go anywhere else in Fla. until they get rid of Desantis.
I went to Animal Kingdom for the day Saturday. Arrived at noon and basically just planned on doing the safari, having lunch and heading home out of fear of the heat (I live 2 hours away, but had no other plans and annual passes, so why not?).
We walked on to literally every ride we wanted except Flight of the Avatar, which we waited less than 10 minutes for, the 45 min wait on the stand proving wildly inaccurate, and Kilimanjaro, which my kids are too scared to go on. The Safari, Navi River, Kali River were all zero wait.
We also had lunner at Tusker House at 4:30pm and were one of 5 seated tables. We saw each character at least 3 times.
This, after last going to Epcot 4 weeks ago, and having no wait on any ride there except Ratatouille, which was around 45 mins, and relatively minor lines at MK for everything except Peter Pan. It reminds me of going just after the Covid reopening.
Something is definitely going on, and while it’s great as a visitor, I am a little worried about what it might mean longer term.
Oh, and I should contrast that with the 3 weeks I just spent in Europe (I’m not independently wealthy, I work for a London based company & had to visit clients around the continent – Holland, France, and Switzerland) where everything was absolutely packed everywhere. To your point in the article, revenge travel isn’t over, it just seems like it is at Disney.
Alicia, while I’m sure well-meaning, your comment is very flippant and ignores the realities of living in Florida. There are tons of people of color and LGBTQ people living in Florida, going about their lives and not living in fear. Many of them are the hotel staff/emergency personnel/hospital workers you mentioned in your comment who could deny help to your nephew in this hypothetical scenario. (Even for those who aren’t, it’s still an unbelievably unlikely scenario.) Many of them are the small business owners you brushed off as if they all voted for DeSantis. It’s hyperbolic and disingenuous to act like Florida is on par with a fundamentalist Middle Eastern nation and that everyone living there is an evil monolith.
I can’t legitimately speak to Universal’s situation as we’ve only been there once and, with the exception of the Harry Potter area, we weren’t impressed. As for Disney, I think that the smaller than expected attendance is attributable to a number of factors, the major ones being: 1) Disney, in an effort to manipulate park attendance / participation to their satisfaction has made park and attraction participation too controlled and restrictive and preplanning-intensive for what many people can enjoy. 2) In an attempt to please the Twitterverse, Disney has philosophically abandoned that of its core and majority audience and they are either staying away or going less. 3) Disney has become monetized to an unacceptable degree. BTW, speaking of money, being die-hard Indy fans, we went to see the latest Indiana Jones movie. Kathleen Kennedy has hit the trifecta. She has now almost single-handedly managed to destroy three iconic Disney franchises and their heroes. This movie is a victim of a poorly conceived plot, especially to segue Indy out. It’s also badly written and poorly acted, especially by Phenelope Bridge-Too-Far. Save your money. Almost everyone else did. There were about 20 people in the entire theater.
I’ve been checking the virtual queues all weekend to get ready for our upcoming trip. It’s 3:50 at Disney World and they still have virtual queue open for Tron and Guardians and it was like this all weekend. I checked after 5pm yesterday and they were still available. I’m kicking myself for purposely not booking our trip close to the week of the 4th! This is our make up trip from 2020 and we are very excited and I for one am hoping that crowds stay like this through our trip. Also, for people trying to blame the slowdown on Disney speaking up on issues, the opposite could also be true. We don’t want to spend a dime in Florida, but support Disney. We were torn on continuing with our vacation there, but we cut out everything besides Disney that we were going to do.
“We don’t want to spend a dime in Florida, but support Disney. We were torn on continuing with our vacation there, but we cut out everything besides Disney that we were going to do.”
Personally, I wouldn’t stop visiting any state due solely to the decisions of politicians in those locations. I would also be mindful of who my spending decisions actually do and do not hurt, and careful to avoid inflicting unintended damage on small businesses.
That’s doubly true with Florida, where the individual responsible for legislation will not bear any of the consequences–he will be gone, one way or the other. (There are some countries we won’t visit, but there’s a huge distinction there, both in degree and state control of business.)
To each their own on all of that, though. You could always visit Disneyland in the future!
Tom, with deep respect, it’s all very well and good politics shouldn’t be a factor in making a vacation choice, but when your family member’s very personhood is under government-sanctioned attack – it’s too much of a risk.
Interesting how comments declaring they won’t let politics interfere with their personal fun do not appear to be from people belonging to the communities being targeted…. But perhaps ask those whose history is not allowed to be taught in AP history, or who can be legally refused medical attention (in May DeSantis signed legislation giving permission for doctors to deny treatment to anyone under “moral objection”), or who find the practice of kidnapping Latine immigrants and dropping them off in other states with zero resources to be abhorrent.
It is just too precarious for us to vacation in Florida. What if my proudly out nephew has a life-threatening emergency but the hotel staff/emergency personnel/hospital workers refuse treatment because they are morally opposed to the LGBTQ+ community? This isn’t being self-centered; this is being highly responsible to my family’s needs and welfare.
Florida voters voted for DeSantis and gave him a supermajority in the legislature. They will proudly tell you this is the worldview for which they voted. Actions have consequences. If small business owners find themselves affected as a result, perhaps small business owners should talk to their representatives and make choices at the ballot box more aligned with their business’s needs in the future. Florida is still (nominally) a democracy; this is not (yet) a geopolitical entity where citizens have no political power and therefore a travel boycott would have unintended negative economic consequences on everyday residents.
I agree that politics are not the sole or even a key contributing factor to the attendance trends (that has to be the pricing – yearly ticket and resort increases are to be expected, but I’m shocked at the YoY jumps in things like the Eat to the Beat dining packages and Ferrytale Cruise). However, politics are still a factor in the back of people’s minds and some of us don’t have the luxury/privilege of just merely having to hold our nose – some of us have to make active decisions about whether the risk is worth it. As I alluded to earlier, we had a nine day vacation at WDW planned that we cancelled (and we told the cast member why). Instead, we upgraded our hotel, restaurants, and experiences to spend less days but approximately the same amount of money at DLR. And in doing so, we no doubt made the former Disney CFO happy, as we spent less time in the parks but increased our spend. Maybe the decrease in admissions is exactly what Disney wants, since they did say they wanted fewer guests but more high quality (i.e. profitable) spend per guest!
Regardless, even if Florida were a political utopia, there is no way I’d be at WDW or UO this weekend – not with that heat advisory.
Hmmm. According to Is It Packed?, Disneyland is experiencing its usual crowds.
That suggests that the issue isn’t Disney.
It’s DeSantis.
I know my family is not the only one who cancelled trips to Florida. We prefer to vacation where everyone is welcome and treated equitably, and where our Constitutional rights are respected.
Disneyland definitely is not experiencing its usual crowds, but it’s also not down as much as Walt Disney World YoY. Even without Fantasmic, DLR hasn’t felt as busy as last summer–especially early in the morning when tourists should be arriving in full force. Disney itself (via D’Amaro) attributes this to delayed pent-up demand. I don’t have any reason to doubt that assessment.
Some families have probably cancelled trips because of politics. But I’d also hazard a guess that some have booked trips due to politics. That cuts both ways, for and against FL and CA, for and against WDW. To each their own, but I just don’t think that is having the outsized impact that a lot of people might like to think it is.
(To this specific point, I saw a ton more people than normal celebrating Pride Month at Walt Disney World. It felt very much like a show of support/solidarity for the company, and that was in Florida.)
That’s funny… because people are moving here by the caravan.
We visited for the first time since Fall 2020 this past week, and were pleasantly surprised (shocked) at the low wait times and sparse crowds at Animal Kingdom and EPCOT. How often do you run into a princess character experience who’s practically begging you to come in because she’s all alone? But two days later, Hollywood Studios was INSANELY busy with wonkily-wrong wait times as compared to the app, ride turntables breaking down, and generally waiting in lines akin to standing on the surface of the sun. Guess we should have looked at the best days of the week to visit DHS!
If multiple rides were broken down, the days of week recommendations wouldn’t have done much good. DHS can become a nightmare when multiple rides break–doesn’t matter what crowd levels would be otherwise!
I agree that the Disney political “clash” with DeSantis is having a large effect. Anecdotally, I know so many families that don’t go anymore due to Disney “politics”. And multiply that by families all across the country. Also, we have family who went to Disneyland for the first time. They ended up in the line for Rise of the Resistance 3 separate times, and never got to ride! They wasted about 3 hours of their day! They went home and of course…tell all their friends how frustrating it was. The significant ride downtime really upsets people and reverberates more than I think Disney realizes. And yes, you can go to Europe for the same amount of you are flying, staying moderate/deluxe, eating Table service a lot and buying Genie and ILL each day for several people. I am budgeting $500 just for Genie and ILL for this trip! Crazy.
I don’t like the political climate to Governor in California either. But if I wanted to vacation there I’m going to be adult enough to go and do what I want instead pretending my not going makes anyone care. If people are so self absorbed not to come to Florida for vacation because they are made at the Governor…. their loss! .
Verv nicely put! I don’t agree with California’s politics, but about a month ago I was in Sacramento for a one week emergency refurbishment of a manufacturing facility. Before that, although I don’t agree with Governor Whitmer’s policies, I was in Michigan, keeping a major power plant on line. Next week I’m headed to an Engineering seminar in Illinois, but I don’t agree with Pritzker at all. I don’t like Disney’s politics, but I’m not going to let that stop our family from visiting WDW or our place in the Keys several times a year as long as we still want to do so. Nobody’s attitude, beliefs or politics will cause me to lie, keep me from making my living or stop me from enjoying myself with my family.
We were booked to go this week and when the realization hit that it was the 4th of July week I changed it to the last week in July. Looking at wait times I hope that wasn’t a mistake! Logically I never considered it wouldn’t be crazy this week.
As someone who hasn’t been to the parks since 2017 (a 2020 trip was cancelled) I’m wondering if the huge price increases and mind numbingly complicated planning isn’t starting to have an impact. It’s probably way more complicated than that, but I’m betting those things are at least part of the problem. I have a trip planned for this coming Christmas season, and the more I read about how things have changed, the more complicated it gets – and expensive. When I reserved my package at the end of 2022, Genie+ was under $20.00. That was bad enough. Now with surge pricing I can only imagine what it will cost on Christmas day. And that’s just one example. On the plus side, I did get a Pop Century discount so that helps offset some of the outrageous pricing. Park reservations, dining reservations, ride reservations – it’s sucked the spontaneity out of it. I’ll see after this upcoming trip whether I’ll be back.
“I’m wondering if the huge price increases and mind numbingly complicated planning isn’t starting to have an impact.”
They definitely are having or will have an impact, the question is one of degree.
My guess is that it’s a fairly big impact–that would explain why Walt Disney World has started to roll back some of those changes already, and will further do so in 2024.
Curious if there is talk of fall ticket deals. The current promo ends September 28. With the current slow down, any hopes of that deal being extended into October?
It’s certainly possible, but a fall ticket deal would be pretty unprecedented. I can’t think of any time one has been offered during normal operations in the last decade or longer. If there is one, I’d expect aggressive blockouts around school breaks.
We go to Disney multiple times a year along with other international trips. We have the luxury of having free room and board right outside the parks (my parents retired to Orlando and live off Apopka-Vineland right before Sandlak) so it’s a cheap easy vacation for us. That being said, I totally understand that Disney is crazy expensive for most, and I have been harping to my friends for year that a week at Disney is just as if not more expensive than going to Europe and definitely more expensive than South America. This year nearly everyone I know went to Europe this summer. It’s actually been bizarre as in I have never had so many friends families go to Europe at the same time. After years and years of telling them, they all finally realized that Europe is just and expensive as Disney, and with the favorable dollar decided to finally go for it. The handful that aren’t doing Europe are going to a bunch of NP’s. Disney isn’t in trouble, but once people realize that Disney is just getting crazy priced they are not always just gonna default to a Disney vacation. It does not take too long to disrupt people’s habits, esp after 3 years of disruption due to Covid.
This comment hits home. Went to Europe for spring break, and just got back from a trip to Arches NP and Canyonlands! Visiting National parks is an awesome vacation because you can see truly amazing things that just blow your mind and it’s nature! And they charge you $30 for a 7 day pass. We found a lovely Airbnb for around $350 a night, but you can camp for super cheap. It can be a very affordable vacation that can make amazing memories and my husband’s uncle spent about 20 mins telling us which hikes to do. That’s it! No weeks and months of planning! And also, some of these national parks have HUGE traction on social media like Disney.
“This year nearly everyone I know went to Europe this summer. It’s actually been bizarre as in I have never had so many friends families go to Europe at the same time.”
We also know a lot of people who have gone or are visiting Europe or Asia this year.
Delayed pent-up demand (international travel resumed later) coupled with the strong dollar is giving a strong boost to those destinations outside the US.
Maurine,
Lol. That’s so funny. We inverted. We went to Arches, Canyonlands, Mesa Verde and Monument Valley for spring break. We are not doing Europe this summer, but a couple smaller things, and then heading to Peru for Machu Piccu. Last Disney trip was Nov 2022 for us which is quite a while for us as we typically go every couple months.
There have been several articles all summer about how Europe is BOOMING and packed with Americans. I wonder if the families who can afford $15k vacations have decided after 3 years of domestic it is time to hit the road.
Thanks, as always, for your thoughtful commentary. I wanted to add one additional factor that might explain some of the perceived Disney “burn out.” You mentioned this:
“It’s likely that a lot of people used their surplus savings for ‘big budget vacations’ last year, which meant theme parks.”
A LOT of people (including my family) had bought non-refundable park tickets dated for March 13, 2020 and later, and had no choice but to use them or lose them. For us, we felt comfortable traveling to Disney in March 2022, with tickets that had been largely paid for in 2019. Depending on travelers’ personal comfort, many other people might have not cashed in their original 2020 ticket value until 2022. By 2023, most of that belated travel is done. With no cash sunk into Disney (or Universal) tickets, people are free to book vacations at destinations where they feel they get a better value for their dollar (including, as you pointed out, international destinations).
To be honest, I think many people are Disney’ed out. They own the Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar, and Muppet franchises. Every time I turn around there is the Disney logo. People are at the point where they want something a little different. It’s Disney media exhaustion and we are seeing that in the parks and around its properties.
We are at Epcot right now (July 3rd) and the park feels empty. Like, shockingly so.