Cutbacks - Objectively and by the numbers

[DaveO]

I have a trip planned for Dec 1st - 7th. I had written down the hours pre 9/11 to plan my itinerary. After adding the hours up and comparing them to what is on the Disney site now the hours were cut only 15%. Not including EE they were reduced by 10%. Most of this variance is due to Future World only being open 10 - 7.

This does not sound like a big deal to me especially if attendance and occupancy rates are down to 50% - 75%.

MK still has extened hours on Saturday w/ fireworks on the weekend.

Also most of the rumorred closings did not happen:

There is still Fantasmic - Everyday.
There is still ToD - Everyday
This is still ALL parades - Everyday.
There is still Spectromagic
There is still Illuminations every day.

Some secondary shows have had the schedules reduced but none have been eliminated.

They have closed only 1 section of a hotel out of at least 13 resorts (I am sure I missed one).

I guess with all of 'the sky is falling' language out there I wanted to look at this objectively. And with all the Disney Stinks threads I wanted to put the facts on the table. We also always see threads about closings but there is almost never a post when it never happens.

The plus side it looks like attendance and the hours are trending back up to pre 9/11 levels.

I am still going 12/1 10% of my waking / touring hours is barely 80 minutes. That is not going to make or break my vacation or diminish the magic. Especially if I do not have to wait in line the other 600 minutes !!

Dave O - 1 yo Tyler's first tip 12/1

 

[YoHo]

Good Way of looking at it DaveO.

I can understand people taking it so personally, but in and of itself, these cuts mean little. Maybe a restructuring of vacation plans

 

[Eeyore2U]

DaveO,

Thanks for putting in easy to understand terms. I think to those with the sky is falling mentality it won't matter. For some reason there is this "all about us" mentality. We were there in October and are going back in February and nothing stopped/will us stop from having a good time.

 

[Peter Pirate]

You and I have been agreeing on this type of issue for over a year...You need to post more often, my friend!

It is very good indeed, to see in writing the things that, in fact, have not closed yet were rumored and bandied about ad nauseum...Good show, Dave!

 

[YoHo]

Well, Despite Cheers from the threepers for "getting" me, I'm not snagged yet, BUT I have to play Devil's advocate. Earlier in the Year, Disney cut hours, now they've cut hours again. If they both are factored in, what's the true percentage? 25%?

 

[Eeyore2U]

To compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges the hours should be compared to last years hours or previously posted for December. Isn't that what DaveO said?

 

[JeffJewell]

I have a trip planned for Dec 1st - 7th. I had written down the hours pre 9/11 to plan my itinerary. After adding the hours up and comparing them to what is on the Disney site now the hours were cut only 15%.

...from where are you getting your "new" hours? The official Disney site, as of about forty seconds ago, anyway, says that the hours for December are not yet established.

Jeff

 

[All Aboard]

Here are last years numbers from the first week of Dec (Sat - Fri, analogous to this year's Dec 1-7). We'll keep this here until the December hours are announced.

Sat = MK 9-10, St 9-8, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Sun = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Mon = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Tue = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Wed = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Thu = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9
Fri = MK 9-7, St 9-7, AK 8-5, FW 9-9, WS 11-9

Treating FW & WS seperately, that's a total of 361 operating hours for the week. When Dec comes out, we can compare the new totals to these numbers.

If mid-November hours are an indication, somewhere around 310 hours is the likely total for this year. That would be about a 15% reduction (not including EE).

 

[gary]

Maybe the cutbacks at WDW haven't hurt yet, but at Disneyland, Fantasmic is gone until at least next spring. That hurts, and it may be coming to WDW if things don't turn around.

 

[JeffJewell]

Here are the hours for December 1-7 as they were posted on the official Disney website pre-9-11:

1: MK: 9-9 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
2: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
3: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
4: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
5: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
6: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
7: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5

Jeff

 

[pamk]

A few dates we know for sure -

December 1 - Mk closing at 6:00 (reason not known yet) but PS's have been changed so I believe it.
December 5 - MGM closing at 4:00 for a press event.

 

[LuvTigger]

Fantasmic at Disneyland was scheduled for "refurbishment" prior to Sept. 11. I don't think that has anything to do with cutbacks due to recent events. Although lines were short, I was actually surprised how many people were at Disneyland in October (2nd week).

 

[JeffJewell]

In the name of easy access, here are first the old posted hours and the new posted hours:
1: MK: 9-9 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
2: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
3: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
4: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
5: MK: 9-7 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
6: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
7: MK: 9-6 FW: 9-9:30 WS: 11-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 8-5
362 "park hours"

1: MK: 9-8 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
2: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
3: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
4: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
5: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-4 AK: 9-5
6: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
7: MK: 9-6 FW: 10-7 WS: 12-9:30 DS: 9-7 AK: 9-5
317.5 "park hours"

from Greg...

last years numbers... Treating FW & WS seperately, that's a total of 361 operating hours for the week. When Dec comes out, we can compare the new totals to these numbers. If mid-November hours are an indication, somewhere around 310 hours is the likely total for this year. That would be about a 15% reduction (not including EE).

...some pretty handy prognostication, my brother (in keeping with the theme of this thread, Greg was about 98% correct).

By my arcane math, the hours were cut ~12%. If you count EE as "park hours," that figure becomes ~15%.

Interestingly (it's interesting to me, anyway), the numbers actually look better if you cook them the way I've suggested is more important; by comparing the length of the longest day you can spend in the parks. With the old hours, you could have an 8:00am - 9:30pm day in the parks every day (7:30am - 9:30pm, with EE), with the new hours, it's a 9:00am-9:30pm day, a 7% reduction (11%, with EE).

In my opinion, the most significant number is the 11%. Early risers (I've reached that point in my life, already), we'd just as soon get in the park first thing then take a resort break before going out to another park in the evening. Suppose we subtract two and half "park hours" in the middle of each day to account for such breaks (which I believe are fairly common), and the impact of the cuts increase to 16% of your "park day."

Jeff

PS: And if you happen to eat a meal or two between 9:00am and 9:30pm, that can take, say, another two hours out of your day. Now the cuts represent closer to 20% of your actual "park hours."

This is how we find ourselves situated for December, with these cuts. A party of eight spanning four generations and including an ECV pilot, getting to, through, and away from meals is fairly time consuming (it doesn't help that we like places like the Coral Reef and the Brown Derby). We also have a two year old with us, making a mid-day break an imperative, not a luxury. Even though the posted park hours run from 9:00am to 9:30pm, twelve and half hours, we can only spend about half that in the parks. When Disney cut the park hours and EE, I lost an hour and a half out of the eight hours that had been actually available to me to spend in a park; a cut of at least 19%.

 

[Lesley]

Thanks Jeff....
What this thread points out to me rather bluntly is the fact that some people are effected by these cuts and others aren't. Those us us with small children seem to be the most dissappointed, as we generally need to take a break during the day and often take advantage of ee to help offset that time.

I'm not thrilled about the cutbacks and will be even less so if I find myself waiting in a lot of lines (just to note, during the millenium celebration we managed 2 trips where we didn't wait longer than 15 minutes for anything...and these were in semi-busy times in August and November....because we took advantage of ee, enights, and fastpass) I was also told that bookings are "back to normal" at least for Thanksgiving and Christmas....hmmmm....

I'm sure we'll really enjoy our trip...sleeping late for a change, and perhaps my 23mo will have to sleep in the stroller during the day (or the sling or whatever). We'll manage. But that doesn't mean we haven't been effected.

 

[JeffJewell]

...while checking how the new hours affect our December itinerary, I realized that the earlier showing of Fantasmic! forces us to have our Mama Melrose dinner earlier on the same day concerning which Disney has already called to tell us that the delayed opening of FutureWorld made them move our Coral Reef lunch PS later. It's just not worth it for us to spend that much for those two meals, which would now be less than three hours removed from each other.

Disney has put us in the position of choosing what we don't get to do: see Fantasmic or go to one of our favorite restaurants.

This may not seem like a huge deal, and perhaps it isn't, really: I could rearrange other nights in my schedule to allow us to see Fantasmic. What's to whine about, I'm still alive and Disney's still open.

But consider that, if I _do_ choose to see Fantasmic, it's going to mean missing either lunch at Coral Reef or (as the plan now stands) dinner at either Jiko or the Flying Fish. It's very likely that the change in hours and show times is going to cost Disney the value of one pricey meal (for a good sized party filled with ex-restaurant people who'll tip insanely if you give them half a reason to); not because I'm spiteful, just because the shorter day means there are fewer options for moving things around, and things must be dropped from the schedule.

Jeff

 

[dcedwards]

I think the cutbacks do affect some more than others. Our resort was completely closed, not just sections. That eliminates over 1000 rooms. Since we have stayed there for the past 9 years and had my son all "prepped" for the alligators, it was an inconvenience and terrible disappointment when we had to be switched to another resort.

And, I'm not so sure I'm as upset about the cutbacks as I am about "how" Disney has treated loyal customers during the cutbacks, especially with the closing of our resort. I found it interesting that those who were moved from the value resort - Pop Century - were treated better and Disney was much more accomodating than those who were moved from the "moderate" resort. We were basically told switch to another moderate, pay more or cancel. Many who were moved from Pop Century were even offered AKL.

I just wish Disney would make the decision, inform their CRO so they would have the correct information and have a plan in place before the general public finds out about it. Most of us on the DIS board knew about the PO-FQ closing before the CROs. They were still telling people it wasn't going to close and some of us had already been moved. That is bad.

But, despite all this...we still choose to go to DW and spend our money. It will be magical -- despite the cutbacks. Leaving in 6 days.