Thanks for your input! Which perks came back recently? I definitely missed that.
I'll elaborate on my question about low season. Before the pandemic, we saw lower crowds in January and September but that is no longer the case. Why is that? Revenge travel explains a lot of that in the past 2 years, but shouldn't we be seeing the end of that trend? Yet, the parks are continuously packed. I just checked MDE and Peter Pan is at 75, Haunted Mansion is 95, and so on. Staff shortages doesn't explain the crowds. I would love to see the data.
The hotel parking fee is gone.
There is also a change- coming- for AP holders, where they will no longer need a park reservation to enter a park after 2pm. That should be interesting on the day Tron opens which is also Easter week.
A third change in the works is more character greets are coming back.
There's one more I am forgetting at the moment...
I'm not sure it is revenge travel at this point, but rather crowd levels are closer to normal than they were in 2020. (though probably still some.) Travel is now at a level that -on what might have previously been a slower day - WDW just offers shorter park hours. Or they offer fewer shows. On very busy days, WDW even has fireworks twice. MK did that this past NYE. Now they are selling more after hours parties.
Wait times can also be manipulated- somewhat- by adjusting G+ passes. If the wait for Space Mtn gets too short, WDW tosses out a few G+ passes. Instantly 1000 people will go to Tomorrowland. WDW can steer people around the parks quite a bit. They can also control quick serve locations with Mobile order return times.
People who are eating can't ride Dumbo at the same time. Instead of giving everyone the ability to place a noon food order, WDW staggers the times, and that helps to distribute the crowd more evenly.
At what point are people willing to pay for G+? They won't buy it if the attraction lines are all 10 minutes or less. They will buy it if all the attractions are 60plus.
So some people buy G+. The more people who buy G+, the more the standby lines slow down, and the more people buy G+.
Ideally, everyone buys G+.
On top of that, MDE's wait times are often inflated. I personally saw 7DMT posted as 70min when it was really only 15-20minutes. Pirates was also highly inflated. I think the posted wait was 20? and the ride was walk-on. I mean boats left the dock empty. Other posted times were more accurate, so it has become somewhat of a guessing game. Mid-day waits tend to be more accurate, while AM and PM waits are more inflated.