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!
I really prefer to go in the winter months, and I was waiting for TRON, so MY demand is still pent up! But as for this summer slump…yeah, it’s probably a mix of ALL the reasons you’ve listed. (Also, it occurs to me that MOST of the big franchises at both WDW and Universal Orlando aren’t exactly as fresh as they were 10 years ago, so maybe that’s part of it?) If a few people aren’t going because of politics and culture war stuff, and a few people aren’t going because everything costs more, and a few people aren’t going because their last trip wasn’t so great, and a few people aren’t going because they’re just bored with these big franchises, and a few people aren’t going back until the Epcot Festival of Construction is done and the Dirt Pit is gone…all that might add up to the slowdown we’re seeing now.
We had APs 2017-2018 and actually had bought AP Jan 2020-but opted for money back during closure. Universal OTOH went out of their way to accommodate APs past several years. Both must be slow because I can’t remember last time Uni offered the 3 feee months coming into summer season! We kept our Uni APs as at highest level offered the express after 4 and valet parking (we usually stay offsite). We are out of state so no Florida pricing for us.
Son wants Disney for his graduation next year so we will go for maybe last big trip for quite a while -planning to exchange our (cheap) timeshare into DVC (there’s been a lot of units available at old key west all summer and thru fall!)
Hoping slow May holds next year :).
Disney has really priced themselves out though for average family-we did 2 weeks in Hawaii last year for less than week at Disney (in 1 bedroom comparable accommodations) -and cruises —if you booked durin the practically giving them away incentive year- are also far cheaper!
Disney needs to understand without their legacy of family’s passing on their love of Disney the customer pool WILL dry up-at current prices there’s little incentive to go year after year.
“those two months will be objectively slow and subjectively hot.” That made me laugh!
I was definitely – and pleasantly – surprised at how un-crowded the parks were Juneteenth weekend… of course, as you predicted the crowds picked right up on that Monday. I’m interested to see how things play out for my late August trip.
I think there’s little doubt that more traditional, everyday, or Main Street Americans are informally boycotting Disney. My family is going this summer — because our love of what Walt built (or put in motion) outweighs our disappointment/outrage at current Disney (closing Splash Mountain, banning “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” refusing to say, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys are girls,” etc.) — but the repeated reaction we get from others is expressed surprise that we’re going instead of boycotting. We end up explaining our reasoning and trying to justify our decision.
As for Universal, it’s nowhere near the destination location that WDW is, so it’s hardly surprising that when fewer people go to WDW, it reduces Universal’s attendance as well. WDW is still by far the main draw, Universal the secondary beneficiary. Sure, some people — especially locals — will shift to Universal, somewhat offsetting this wider effect, but comparatively few international or out-of-state travelers will do so.
You might be in a bubble if you think that people, in any meaningful numbers, are boycotting Disney because they stopped playing a specific song or changed a line of dialogue before nighttime spectaculars.
Some of you are over-generalizing based on your own, self-selected circles. Again, all of this stuff could be a contributing factor (in both directions) on the margins, but average Americans are not on the front lines of the culture wars, making vacation destination decisions based on the latest outrage of the day they hear on cable news.
There are people boycotting Disney. It’s not just the Splash Mountain or announcement changes, it’s the inappropriate content for children in their movies and Disney + shows, it’s the leaked Zoom videos, it’s the company’s current political stance and what they had to say about certain Florida bills that the media gaslit everyone about. Tom, if you think these things don’t matter to families, then you are the pixie dusters living in a bubble.
For those who think people can’t be made upset enough to vote with their wallets and that voting with one’s wallet has no real effect, I have two words: “Bud Light!”
People have been boycotting Disney for forever for various things. In the late 90s it was because of the unofficial Gay day and how they never condemned it from happening at Disney and giving same sex benefits. Then they had Ellen on ABC, and she was even a main part of the revised universe of energy. The boycotts have never amounted to anything and that was even an organized boycott on a national level which the Southern Baptists were trying to rally everyone around and not a just large number of people who may find Disney politics unfavorable. They back De Santis in the Disney war but have not yet called for a Boycott that I am aware.
I live in a very conservative part of the US many of whom were part of the big Disney boycott in the late 90s. Interestingly enough they are not as big on boycotting Disney right now for whatever reason. Are they against some of the messages and non binary characters. Absolutely, but they have not called for a flat out boycott yet which I find interesting.
Ultimately, I do not have enough demographic info to discern if there is a boycott that is taking place that could move the needle. The fact that Florida is busier than ever (just spent a week at Perdido Key and I have never seen it that busy, EVER), but Disney is not is interesting though, but it’s hard to draw a conclusion based on just that fact alone as there are so many factors one of which is just the insane price and the exhaustion of pent up demand. Some travel agents say it has effected bookings, and some say it hasn’t mattered. The TAs that I’ve talked to that have said it has changed booking patterns a little tend to skew toward the northeast sector of the US.
If anything is affecting Disney, it’s their movies. They’ve essentially now had nine, (I think) relative turkeys in a row. The parks are, or were, the goose that laid the golden egg, They are Disney’s rock, but even rocks can be eroded over time and Disney isn’t helping prevent that. There is an earnings call in August. That will be very interesting.
As a person who obsesses over wait times just before going on trips, I find this topic super interesting. I’m looking at HS today (July 4) having super low wait times and am getting excited for our trip down there next week. I don’t know what it causing this slow down at WDW, but it might interest some people that this idea of cancelling/ boycotting certain companies and ideas has even caught hold up here in usually boring Canada. My school board recently celebrated the beginning of Pride Month and about 40% of the students at my elementary school were kept home by their parents that day as a protest. Nothing like this has ever happened before. Nothing. Usually we just wear rainbow shirts on June 1 and nobody gives it a second thought. It still blows me away that this happened. On one hand I have friends who won’t go to Florida because of DeSantis but what I see happening is a move to ultra conservative ideologies and I can’t help but think these two things together are partly affecting the bottom line with Disney in general. As always, Tom, I thank you for the thoughtful blog posts.
I don’t mean to speak for Tom, but I think the point he is making is that for every person boycotting Disney on political/moral grounds, there is another choosing Disney as a destination to make the opposite statement. And that both groups are at the margins, having little overall effect on crowd numbers.
Sorry, but because one is more vocal than the other I think you are overestimating one side and underestimating the other. Just looking at raw numbers supports this. It isn’t a one-to-one correspondence.
I appreciate all of you that are not going to Disney for whatever reason, helping to reduce the crowds for my personal benefit.
Thank you!
Agreed! Even though Florida itself is enjoying boom tourism, WDW is having issues. Oh and whomever, while you’re staying away from Disney, please don’t visit the Keys either. BTW, citing theme park attendance and streaming problems, Disney’s stock was recently downgraded to Sectorweight by Keybanc. Wait until they see the results of the Indy 5 box office.
lol BUD LIGHT – How do I know you are too online without telling me you are too online?!
Disney’s slowdown is a reflection of the economy, lack of international travel, reduced pent up demand, and numerous misses at the box office. When people are unsure about the economy – they cut travel. International travel has not yet returned to previous levels. People who wanted to go to Disney when they couldn’t have now gone and realized how much more expensive it has gotten. Bad PR about bad movies = less attendance in the parks.
I would say 90% of people do not know/care about the history of Splash Mountain. Honestly I didn’t even know about Ladies/Gentleman/Boys/Girls change until this post. Politics and culture wars are not that impactful when compared to economics. There is less demand, full stop.
You have yoyr opinion. I have mine.
I believe it does equal out to a net zero for politics in this regard, and the numbers support that. Most families don’t care one way or another and will continue with their trips, so there’s still a baseline draw. However, we’re seeing a dip in attendance at both DisneyWorld and Universal because it’s dangerous for (pretty much any) minorities to go to Florida. Universal Florida is seeing slightly less impact because the people who are pro-Florida are more likely to chose it over Disney. And, making up for that, Disneyland in CA is getting increased attendance because they’re welcoming to all.
I’m a lucky minority who is able to go to Florida because I can’t be obviously targeted by my appearance, and as such I’m perfectly content if people who don’t support family values, inclusion, and equality are boycotting Disney. It definitely has made for a safer and happier place for me and my friends, knowing that anyone who is making a stand against our right to peaceably exist is choosing to stay away of their own volition. But…it still seems to me about a net zero across Disney as a whole, based on the above.
Guest satisfaction is what it really comes down to. They’ve been testing the waters since 2014 and really dug in 2020-23 with disastrous results. We were at Epcot on Thursday and I hadn’t seen it that lite since 2021. I even mentioned to my hubby while there how empty it seemed. We rode rides several times over and over. We were at MK the Tuesday before and we had Tom Sawyer Island all to ourselves and we weren’t bobbing-and-weaving between the crowds. Walk-up table service was a breeze and lines were mostly under actual 25 minutes, though signs usually said 45 minutes.
Love the “dearly departed” dig and “still in” warning. Shape up or ship out, get with the original Disney program.
“We were at Epcot on Thursday and I hadn’t seen it that lite since 2021.”
I noticed the same thing on visits to EPCOT last month. This was even true at the festival booths, which is probably a big reason why Walt Disney World reduced the length of Food & Wine Festival. These events can only be so long before locals and diehards lose interest, and I think they’ve exceeded that with both F&GF and F&WF.
Wishful thinking, but it’d be nice if both of those festivals were shortened in 2024 and a new summertime event debuted.
I think a lot of families are going on cruises again instead of going to theme parks. Also the first two AP tiers block out every major holiday. I think they overestimated demand for certain holidays. I wonder if they’ll start having AP bonus days like they did years ago for say Labor Day weekend.
Cruises are another one that, per industry stats, are definitely booming in 2023. My guess is that’s another instance of delayed pent-up demand, as the cruise industry wasn’t truly back to normal until last summer.
It seems like cruises were slow to rebound, and introduced aggressive pricing to entice demand. We’re trying our first Disney cruise because the price was very reasonable. Especially compared to say doing the same number of nights at Pop Century…I know it’s not apples to apples but when you look at what a cruise includes vs. what is “included” with a trip to the parks. Hard to justify the parks right now.
Cruises certainly are back. I think a big factor is when cruises finally dropped the “you must be vaccinated to get on our ship.” Most of my family and extended family is vaccinated, but one family isn’t, and they were supposed to go on a Disney cruise last Thanksgiving. They postponed it to this Thanksgiving, and now the vaccine isn’t a requirement.
“But I’d also expect most weeks and all months to be done year-over-year.”
done => down
Attraction wait time is not an accurate measure of attendance for many reasons. Consider, for example, the fact that certain attractions (e.g., Jungle Cruise) can add attraction vehicles to meet increased demand. Doing this, however, usually also means increasing staff numbers. This is particularly true on attractions which require a cast member on each ride vehicle (think Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom).
On any given day, an attraction may not be running at full capacity. For example, staff shortages will result in decreased capacity and increased wait times. Issues with the functioning of the attraction will also negatively impact ride capacity and increase wait times.
Certain staff may be more adept at getting as many people as possible onto an attraction, whereas others may have a more laissez-faire attitude towards achieving maximum capacity. I am thinking specifically here about instances where I have seen cast members assertively searching for single riders and other specific group sizes in order to fill every seat, contrasted with other instances where I have seen unfilled seats on the same attraction, in spite of the fact that there were people waiting in line. While not filling one seat on an attraction will not have a large impact, consistently leaving seats empty will definitely increase wait times.
Weather also affects wait times. Certain attractions do not operate when it is raining. Others–particularly indoor attractions–may see increased crowds and higher wait times during inclement or very hot weather. Still other attractions can see their wait times plummet during a downpour, as some guests abandon the outside portion of attractions’ queues and seek shelter from the rain. In general, the parks tend to grind to a halt during rainstorms, with everyone scattering in search of a dry place to wait out the storm. Note, however, that wait times during a particularly rainy/cold/hot day do not reveal how many people were in the parks that day.
Granted, Disney does not release park attendance numbers, making it difficult to determine the number of people who were in the parks on any given day. However, I think that it is equally important to note that Disney does not release many of the details related to its attractions, such as staffing levels and ride performance issues which result in longer wait times.
Wait times and park attendance do not move in sync, nor is one an accurate predictor of the other. Just because there are fewer people in the park, for example, does not mean that wait times will be lower. I was in the Magic Kingdom recently and found the park to be noticeably emptier than on other occasions when I have attended earlier this year. However, upon strolling over to Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, I was more than a little surprised to see the wait time was 135 minutes. In addition to the numerous factors–other than park attendance–which influence wait times, staffing levels and ride capacity are undoubtedly adjusted by management regularly in an effort to balance a positive guest experience (low wait times) and maximum profitability (having the right number of staff working on any given day to meet anticipated crowd levels but not so many that the company’s bottom line is negatively affected).
You make incredibly strong points. I don’t disagree with any of them, however, the problem for Tom, or anyone trying to make sense out of what’s happening, is he can only work with the stats he has. I think Disney’s recent, more generous than usual, discounts, support his take on things.
You’re right about the variables you mentioned. Others that you did not mention include operating hours, atmospheric entertainment, meet & greets, festival booths, shows, stores, dining, nighttime spectaculars, breakdowns, and more. There’s a lot that still isn’t 100% as compared to 2019. All of that means that trying to deduce attendance from wait times would be a terrible idea.
But that’s not what we’re doing. This is using wait times as a proxy for crowd levels, and most of this is either consistent enough day-to-day or negligible in the grand scheme of things to paint a rough picture of crowds. It’s not perfect, but nothing is going to be.
We the people may not have the power of the press, but we still retain the power of the purse. I think many of us are choosing to express our disappointment with Disney for any or all of the reasons you have laid out above or that others have expressed in the comments. Personally, I have come to the conclusion that this is the best (maybe only) way to get Disney’s attention. Hopefully, everyone will keep up the pressure on them by utilizing their great power of the purse.
Absolutely. voting with your wallet is especially powerful when paired with guest satisfaction surveys or contacting Guest Communications. Otherwise, Disney will draw their own conclusions about why people are not returning, and from what I understand, they often try to paint the picture most convenient to their own internal narratives.
By contrast, Walt Disney World is absolutely listening to (reasonable) feedback right now with the intention of making more changes that help improve guest satisfaction scores. Your voice is probably more “meaningful” now than it was any point in the last 5 years, and definitely more than in 2020-2022.
“(That free Figment magnet was purely out of corporate kindness–but it did kill two birds with one stone!)”
Uh, Tom…the correct phrase should be “kill two Hitler babies with one stone”. It’s something my wife and I always say since we actually like innocent birds and feel it would be wrong to kill one with a stone. We have no such sentiment about Adolf Hitler as a baby though. ; )
Curious to see what it is like late this month into next when we’ll be there. We were there around the same time, a bit later, last year, and it felt slammed though I think it was only a 6/10. January this year felt busy too.
With the pent up demand gone – I honestly think that the “ regulars” are feeling like the magic is gone and basically ripped off. I hope they can get back to taking care of their guests- I’m somewhat understanding because of covid but definitely feeling taken advantage of after the last 3 trips.
Will you have another post discussing the Universal AP appreciation month hotel discounts that you mentioned with the 3 extra months AP offer that they currently have? We’ve been thinking about taking more Universal trips and this seems like it might be as good a time as any to do that.
Possibly once details are announced. For now, here’s a rundown of what it was like a couple years ago and what we booked during the month: https://www.disneytouristblog.com/our-big-plans-for-universals-passholder-days/
Expect higher prices this year, but same idea.
Your theories on why Disney and other theme parks are relatively quiet and other vacation destinations are extra busy concurs with what I have been hearing from individuals. I am a hairstylist, and what I lack in data, I make up for in talking to people (people who choose to afford fancy hair) all day, every day. Last year (2022) and up until this spring break time, so many of my clients were “finally” taking that postponed or overdue trip that they’d been planning since pre- or early 2020. This summer, the same type of people are all going to Europe or the beach or out west.
Maybe if they’d gone to WDW in 2020, they might possibly be planning another same-type trip again this year, but since everyone “just” did that, there’s no need to do it again so soon. It’s so interesting reading what you have to say about it, it’s very validating.
Gorgeous picture of the people mover, up there. Thank you.
We were just in the UK and Ireland. It was slammed with fellow Americans (we were there for a family reunion with UK family). I’m seeing A LOT of friends going to Europe rather than staying in the US, and these folks would usually be doing a summer Disney trip. Instead, lots of people in France, Italy, the UK, et cetera.
Tom, I respectfully think the political situation in Florida is having more of an effect than you are giving it credit for (while still being less of a factor than a lot of people commenting claim). It is a step above “I don’t like the governor” at this point; organizations like the NAACP have issued warnings against visiting the state and that is not something that is common. I agree that people’s political leanings color how they are reading the numbers, and there are plenty of other factors contributing to the slowdown. Politics isn’t the main factor but I think ruling it out as a contributing factor is a bit shortsighted
It certainly could be a contributing factor.
I said this in one of the earlier comments, but my perspective is that political polarization probably nets out for the state as a whole (e.g. it’s drawing as many “free” state fans as it’s alienating). With that said, I do think there’s a possibility that Walt Disney World is disproportionately negatively impacted by this, since the people Florida would be drawing are also those most likely to be anti-Disney.
All of this is definitely complicated. My theories could be incorrectly weighted, incomplete, or flatly wrong.
I agree with Jared W. While I understand your point about the net effect being neutral for those who base their vacation decisions on where they stand on cultural/social issues, I think the Disney v. Desantis controversy does impact people who would otherwise be indifferent, just because it is a volatile situation that adds uncertainty to a vacation that requires a lot of planning. You do not want to get to Disney and find that rides or the monorail are experiencing prolonged shutdown due to new state-mandated engineering inspections (or whatever else Desantis cooks up). We have all seen how plans can be upended overnight due to a public crisis. It is better to choose a destination where there is little room for disappointment, especially when traveling with children.
On a tangential note, we visited Disney during a busy spring break week in 2023. We were shocked at how many rides were malfunctioning. Not just the ones that weren’t operating at all, but the ones that were running with a range of technical glitches that completely distorted the guest experience. Audio that was absent, out of sync, or skipping like an old CD, repeated ride stoppages and slowdowns, animatronics so broken they were like something out of a horror film. If I were a first-time visitor to Disney, who had no idea what the rides were supposed to be like, I would think Disney was incredibly low-budget and shoddily maintained. My guess is that any family who made a first-time visit post-pandemic is not in a big hurry to return.
Tom, having decades of experience in the field, doing and directing high-level troubleshooting for the power, petroleum, refining and various manufacturing industries, in general, I can say with confidence that when money is tight the first in-house department to show this is maintenance. Maintenance is, so to speak, the canary in the coal mine of financial problems. Disney has, for almost 18 months, been suffering what, in my opinion, are quantifiably more ride and equipment breakdowns than usual. Now they are furloughing people in such far-reaching posessions as ESPN and National Geographic. They’ve obviously gone past the maximum park maintenance cut stage, raised prices about all they can, cut a multitude of guest perks and now they’re into peripheral personnel reduction. This does not bode well for the future in general, and again in my opinion, these actions have trancended recouping COVID losses as a logic for them. Disney directed cinema is losing gobs of cash because they’ve lost sight of this simple fact: Please the audience by giving them what THEY want, not what you THINK they should want, and you’ll make money!! I’ve also learned that, apparently, some top Disney/Lucas execs have been called back from vacation to what is characterized as an “Emergency Meeting” on July 5th. I wonder what the topic(s) is / are going to be? Disney’s recent movie losses are reported, again by people with decades of financial experience, to be huge. The theme parks have only so much elasticity with regard to holding up Disney Financials. In my opinion they’ve gone well beyond that point. There is a Tom Cruise movie coming out in about a week. This is going to further cut into contemporaneous audiences for Jones 5. Is a monetary loss for Jones 5 ultimately on the horizon? But getting back to ride problems, at this point I’m happy that Florida will start having inspection oversight on Disney ride maintenance because Disney is apparently not devoting enough resources to it and it shows!
Tom,
As always, you cover lots of ground in your analysis. Thank you.
My two-cents (in no particular order):
1.) As many of us predicted, the changes from FastPass to Genie created pre-planning angst amongst some of Disney’s most loyal fans. Like many who elected themselves unofficial ambassadors to promote a Disney vacation to friends & family, the change to Genie (and resulting loss of brand loyalty from the other reasons – i.e. loss of Magical Express, etc.) has made the sale of vacationing to Disney World more difficult. But that does not explain Universal…..
2.) In today’s news is Bob Iger saying that prices were increased too aggressively. Being too expensive has generally been in the news….but that would not necessarily correlate with Universal experiencing lower numbers too. Frankly, with the success of the Mario Bros. movie, I would have thought Universal would have benefitted.
3.) Foreign travel was simply more difficult in both 2021 & 2022, so some families have pent up demand (after they took the family to Disney in 2021 & 2022) for foreign travel. This would impact the so-called money crowd that has, at the margins, typically avoided Disney in the summer months (Deluxe Resort pricing had shown this summer effect prior to Covid). This correlates to Universal having a slower summer too.
4.) Politics. On the one hand, the folks who are upset by Disney’s politics could very well have decided to stay away. On the other hand, there are folks who are upset from the changes in state politics, and they might have ventured to different states (which correlates to increased demand in CA). I’m inclined to focus on this reason because it explains downturns at both Universal & Disney.
Final analysis: All of the above.
“Frankly, with the success of the Mario Bros. movie, I would have thought Universal would have benefitted.”
Universal Studios Hollywood is DEFINITELY benefitting from this.
I think there are two other factors to be considered.
My wife and I are 2 of 1 million people that moved to Florida since Covid. In our new development started during Covid, about 20% of the residents are Disney people who used to travel from a distance for their days at the park. They can now, on a moment’s notice, go for a part of or a whole day on a regular basis. Let’s say that is 100k-200k more people who can skew the statistics based on factors like weather.
Second, when Disney started selling only the Pixie Dust Pass for Florida residents, which is for weekdays only and no holidays, they shifted locals from weekends to weekdays, adding another factor to the equation, makimg weekends less crowded than during the week.
We went to Disney June 26 – 30 with our son and his family, including 3 children, and found the parks busy, but not extremely crowded. We had to maneuver our day with the help of lightning lanes and genie +, and managed to do everything we wanted. It was not as crowded as earlier in the year, and a much more pleasant experience.
Excellent points. Walt Disney World definitely “oversold” the Pixie Dust Pass in comparison to the others–I wonder if there will be an effort to rebalance the distribution of local passholders, or if WDW assumes people will upgrade when their time comes. (Maybe that’s already happening?)
I was going to say the same thing. Since they block out AP holders from weekends, the weekends have been a lot less crowded. It also makes sense that if less people are coming to Disney, then less people are going to Universal (since a lot of people add on a few days for Universal. I also think those who would consider a Universal trip (w/o Disney) may be waiting until the new Nintendo park opens.
I think the peak has already hit. My reasons are (as a DVC member) there are still DVC resorts with open availability for the weekend of July 8th and 9th. Also note that Flower and Garden will end July 5th and Food & Wine is starting later this year on July 27 – no event to bring them to let say Epcot (including locals hitting the food booths.) And DVC is holding a Moonlight Magic night – which I feel always hit during slower weeks of attendance. I hope I’m right because we are scheduled to arrive next weekend through the 15th.
Very good points.
As soon as I saw today’s wait times, my thought was that I’m going to be wrong–summer crowds have probably already peaked. Granted, it’s just one day–and when there are still a lot of blockouts–but I expected a big rebound, and that did not happen.
I think your commentary is, as per usual, spot on. Pent up “Disney” demand has subsided, however I definitely think the combination of price increases or simply now having to pay for things that used to be free, combined with the miserable weather has made even the biggest fans rethink how they spend their summer vacation. We spent ours at Aulani. My husband has made it clear that he has no desire to return to Florida in the summer. I also enjoy going during my favorite seasons (Christmas) and Festivals (Arts), so no need for a summer trip for us.
We went to Disney for four days in April. We are going to Italy for a week+ later this month and the trip is cheaper than the Disney trip. Just to even things up, we used and will use points for the flights for each trip.