"Park attendance is down"... but is it?

[keishashadow]

Is my app lying, or are people just trying to make it sound like Disney is dying for political reasons when they say the parks are empty?

They haven’t been “empty” in any of my visits this year, Feb, May & July.

Yes, several tour groups were back,along with conventioneers wearing matching tshirts. Brazilian ones chock full of exuberant teens. surprised to recognize one large group aboard on our cruise afterwards. Lucky us.

attendance seems down (including over 4th of July this year, as mentioned above). I’m thinking the extreme heat may have scared off many guests. Its was as brutal as we’ve every encountered on our summer trips there.

Almost rethinking next 4th of July. naw… It’s like giving birth, you forget abut ‘the pain’ as soon as it’s over

however, did find lower body count doesn’t translate to quicker wait times. Found it odd to often find even non Etix ride with very long wait times over multiple trips, mostly during prime time hours

i do suspect Genie & LL have made the actual wait times for attractions tend to skew Long, especially when a popular ride goes down.

 

[J-Dog]

I always find it hilarious that the media takes something that is a very-short-term trend or fad, and sensationalizes it like crazy.

WDW has had lower attendance - that apparently isn't even unanimous that is actually happening at all - for less than a month out of 50 years, and suddenly it's the end of everything?

"OMG! Disney was slow for 2 weeks! They're going out of business for sure!"

 

[jflatto]

however, did find lower body count doesn’t translate to quicker wait times. Found it odd to often find even non Etix ride with very long wait times over multiple trips, mostly during prime time hours

i do suspect Genie & LL have made the actual wait times for attractions tend to skew Long, especially when a popular ride goes down.

I also suspect that when it is less crowded, Disney closes some queues, cuts down staffing, closes portions of a ride (think Toy Story Mania with multiple loading areas) to "compensate" and thus a number of rides still have wait times even though there are less people at the parks.

 

[Jaydee51]

I've been in the parks for four weeks cumulatively since June (mostly weekdays) and the parks are not empty. They are however, less crowded when it's 105 Degrees outside at 1pm in the afternoon, which makes sense. It's hot out there folks and park habits are adjusting to the heat. There are a lot more people opting to go the parks later in the day. As a family, we have always spent more time at the resorts during the day (pool, community center, resort hopping) and I refuse to go to the the parks during peak sun hours (absolutely refuse). This change in behavior has translated into huge evening crowds for fireworks and subsequent delays getting back to resort hotels or parked cars (unless you are walking distance), which makes strategic planning key for summer stays (e.g. BCV /BWV stays = evenings in Epcot, VGF/BLT Stays = evenings in Magic Kingdom).

 

[paults]

empty parks just means Disney wants you to think that so you will book and head down.

 

[New Mouse]

Soarin was a walk on starting last year (at least, thats what it was for us). Even when the wait would say 20min, we were able to get right on. I don't think its super popular anymore. Guardians and Tron, on the other hand.....

Soarin was the last time Disney tried to increase capacity without having to build/pay for a new attraction. They built a third theater right around the time they were implementing soarin around the world. This was a cheaper way to combat some of the fp+ capacity challenges rather than putting the r&d and construction $ into a new ride. It's been short waits pretty much since then....and soarin around the world also pales in comparison due to the desire to create it on the cheap using mostly cgi.

 

[Genie+]

Soarin was the last time Disney tried to increase capacity without having to build/pay for a new attraction. They built a third theater right around the time they were implementing soarin around the world. This was a cheaper way to combat some of the fp+ capacity challenges rather than putting the r&d and construction $ into a new ride. It's been short waits pretty much since then....and soarin around the world also pales in comparison due to the desire to create it on the cheap using mostly cgi.

They did that with TS Midway Mania too. Remember when that was the hottest ticket in HS?

 

[TiggerBouncy]

"The parks have never been so empty" is a click-bait headline. The parks were slower than usual over the 4th of July weekend, but that's not necessarily an on-going trend. Parks can be slower than usual and and still be very crowded.

Media has now decided it's time to crap on Disney because of the Iger/DeSantis feud and the less than spectacular results at the box office, and the comments Iger made about the strike. Sure there have been plenty of mistakes, but the narrative has shifted to garner clicks.

That's why I asked the question. The media is well known for picking up on a small thing and making it big - especially when there is not enough news to comment on, or when they want to turn something into a point. So I was asking people who have been there recently who would know (i.e. this group instead of the "I have been to Disney once in my life and it seemed less crowded") based on actual experience is attendance really as low as the media makes it sound? Based on the dollars that Disney is posting from the parks, I have suspected that there is not a trend of the WDW bleeding attendance.

This past week you could just about walk onto soarin every time we tried, it felt weird. Maybe it’s just not so popular anymore? Felt odd to just walk right on at 2:00 in the afternoon or later.

That's not really that surprising. It's been a few years that I have been able to more or less walk onto Soarin' (to me <20 minutes is "walk on"). The only difficult rides in EPCOT are Remy, GotG, FEA (which I do not get), and TT2.0 which I also find interesting.

Thank you everyone for your first hand replies. We have been away from home for too long. It's been almost an entire year (had to cancel Feb trip....).

 

[Stargazer65]

FEA (which I do not get),

IKR... to that end I tell newbies going to EPCOT that FEA is the most incredible hidden gem of a ride ever, and even if the wait is over 2 hours it's well worth it. This helps shorten waiting times elsewhere for the good rides and restaurants.

You're welcome.

 

[Epcot Forever Forever]

IKR... to that end I tell newbies going to EPCOT that FEA is the most incredible hidden gem of a ride ever, and even if the wait is over 2 hours it's well worth it. This helps shorten waiting times elsewhere for the good rides and restaurants.

You're welcome.

Frozen is a perfectly fine dark ride. If the wait time was similar to the Little Mermaid ride at MK we’d go on it every time.

I waited an hour for it exactly once. During Covid when the line went through the entire china pavilion outdoor area. In the SUN. Posted at 35 minutes, touring plans guessed 25, actual ~1 hour. Would not suggest.

 

[Cybertruck]

Magic Kingdom was very light yesterday. We finished everything on our list early. We walked on all rides (10 minutes or less is my definition of walk on) even Peter Pan was only 5 minutes late morning. The one notable exception was Winnie the Pooh took 25 minutes. We did not go on Space Mountain or TRON (virtual queue).

 

[disneyseniors]

They haven’t been “empty” in any of my visits this year, Feb, May & July.

Yes, several tour groups were back,along with conventioneers wearing matching tshirts. Brazilian ones chock full of exuberant teens. surprised to recognize one large group aboard on our cruise afterwards. Lucky us.

attendance seems down (including over 4th of July this year, as mentioned above). I’m thinking the extreme heat may have scared off many guests. Its was as brutal as we’ve every encountered on our summer trips there.

Almost rethinking next 4th of July. naw… It’s like giving birth, you forget abut ‘the pain’ as soon as it’s over

however, did find lower body count doesn’t translate to quicker wait times. Found it odd to often find even non Etix ride with very long wait times over multiple trips, mostly during prime time hours

i do suspect Genie & LL have made the actual wait times for attractions tend to skew Long, especially when a popular ride goes down.

Disney has been cutting back on CM's for years when the attendance is down. We used to go when there really was a slow time, and wondered why the wait times were so high. Then we noticed, for example, that only one side of a ride was running,instead of keeping all sides running. It's been going on since 2018 or longer, that I can recall. Maybe it's more noticeable now?

 

[Smugpugmug]

I know this may not directly correlate with park crowds but it is WAY easier to get same day ADRs nowadays. You can get pretty much any reservation you want at the last minute. I've seen the big ones such as Cinderella's Royal Table and Space 220 pop up as well. People may be opting not to spend the money on sit down dining places and doing quick service or dining off site instead.

I also noticed a lot of walk up availability the last time I was at Disney Springs and that was a saturday afternoon.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Frozen is a perfectly fine dark ride. If the wait time was similar to the Little Mermaid ride at MK we’d go on it every time.

I waited an hour for it exactly once. During Covid when the line went through the entire china pavilion outdoor area. In the SUN. Posted at 35 minutes, touring plans guessed 25, actual ~1 hour. Would not suggest.

Yeah, to be clear, I have nothing wrong with FEA. I rode it dozens of times when it was Maelstrom. I only rode it twice I think as FEA. It's just not worth a 2 hour wait for me. But if I were to talk by it and the wait was 20 minutes or less, I would likely hop on.

 

[zavandor]

Tom Briker at disneytouristblog does a goodwait times recap every month or so, with data taken from Thrilldata. Wait times are down when compared to last year, there is no doubt about that. But that doesn't mean the parks are empty. I think the average decrease is in the region of 10-15 minutes. 7DMT wait might be (fake numbers just for an example) 105 instead of 120, but 105 is still too much for what it is. However, if you save 10 minutes at every ride all day long, it's easily a couple of hours less spent in line, it's a huge difference for your feet.