Attendance Tracker

[Mad Dog]

I was given a free ticket by someone while standing alone outside MK and it was surreal being at the nearly empty park. Awesome experience.

That looks like it's the way to go, especially since you can arrive early and ultimately end up with 5 hours, if you come early. That said, I can't see them continuing it. They have to be losing money with all the staffing required, energy costs, etc.

 

[Scott W.]

I used to not see the value of the earlier FP booking window for staying on-site as there were no real hard-to-get attractions. Mine Train, Frozen, Flight of Passage, and the TSL attractions will have changed that so if any of those are a priority, those resort stays will be worth their weight in gold.

Now as for the dining reservations, you can always check within 24 hours as people cancel all the time. I also understand there's some services you can sign up for where you're alerted if a dining res opens up. I've never used it as there's nowhere I'm absolutely dying to eat on Disney property. But I DID try the Brunch at the Top and it was FANTASTIC. Worth every penny.

It's taken 7 weeks but I've finally managed to get a reservation for Brunch at the Top.

The Touring Plans reservation finder is fantastic and far superior to mousedining.com Mouse Dining has the ability to text international numbers which is a huge bonus but it costs $5 a month and only checks about every 2 hours compared to Touring Plan's checks every 20mins or so.

 

[UNIrd]

It's taken 7 weeks but I've finally managed to get a reservation for Brunch at the Top.

The Touring Plans reservation finder is fantastic and far superior to mousedining.com Mouse Dining has the ability to text international numbers which is a huge bonus but it costs $5 a month and only checks about every 2 hours compared to Touring Plan's checks every 20mins or so.

Yes! Show up early to your res so you can hang out and start drinking the unlimited mimosas.

 

[Mad Dog]

I just manually went through Touring Plans WDW & Universal July 'observed' crowd levels. Keeping in mind that 'observed' crowd levels are only indicators of how crowded a park feels and not actual attendance figures, they are still probably the best indicator that is available to us, the general public. These are Touring Plan's 'observed' wait time levels, not posted wait times......It appears July, like June, was very soft for a summer at WDW. The July crowd level breakdowns(Level 1 lowest, Level 10 highest) were .
* Two days at Level 3
* Six days at Level 4
* Six days at Level 5
* Twelve days at Level 6
* Four days at Level 7
* One day at Level 8
Frozen & Soarin seemed to benefit most from TSL opening. Their line waits became reasonable for the first time. AK appeared to level off on their crowd levels from previous months, with levels a point or two lower than they had been experiencing, though they appeared strongest of the four WDW park's crowd levels.

Universal Orlando appeared to rebound from their soft June 2018. Crowd levels were decent.
* One day at Level 5
* One day at Level 6
* Six days at Level 7
* Thirteen days at Level 8
* Ten days at Level 9

 

[Parkscope Joe]

I can confirm that UOR is flat with last year but not hitting the projections for this year. Not sure about Disney’s actuals.

 

[Mad Dog]

Touring Plans today, redid their WDW projections again, lowering them before the opening of Star Wars. Some snippets from their evaluation follows..."The impact of Toy Story Land on attendance has been smaller than expected.....The novelty of Pandora at Animal Kingdom is starting to show some signs of fading. We have seen a reduction in crowd levels at AK in the last few months.....We have reduced (WDW predictions) in August. We have seen light crowds this summer, and we seem to expect to see the same in August.......As soon as Disney sets a specific opening date for Galaxy's Edge, we expect to see a comprehensive ad campaign and premium pricing coinciding with the opening.....This Fall we expect Disney to announce new variable ticket pricing. Just like one day tickets, muti-day tickets will have different prices based on the dates and parks you plan to visit."...............There's a lot to digest in that.

 

[JungleSkip]

Touring Plans today, redid their WDW projections, again lowering them before the opening of Star Wars. Some snippets from their evaluation follows..."The impact of Toy Story Land on attendance has been smaller than expected.....The novelty of Pandora at Animal Kingdom is starting to show some signs of fading. We have seen a reduction in crowd levels at AK in the last few months.....We have reduced (WDW predictions) in August. We have seen light crowds this summer, and we seem to expect to see the same in August.......As soon as Disney sets a specific opening date for Galaxy's Edge, we expect to see a comprehensive ad campaign and premium pricing coinciding with the opening.....This Fall we expect Disney to announce new variable ticket pricing. Just like one day tickets, muti-day tickets will have different prices based on the dates and parks you plan to visit."...............There's a lot to digest in that.

It's to be expected. Avatar isn't Potter, and was never going to sustain the hype like that did or Star Wars will. And no matter what Disney says about Toy Story land, once people really see what the land is, they're not going to jump up and down and tell their friends to go check it out. Same with the F&F response at UOR. It just was never going to boost attendance at a significant level.

I'm sure both companies were hoping for small bumps thanks to the new attractions, but they both know their big guns are coming next year, and should make up for lackluster or nonexistent increases this year.

 

[SeventyOne]

Frozen & Soarin seemed to benefit most from TSL opening.

A glass half-full way of saying even with half the park shuttered around it, TSL cannibalized EPCOT guests. I imagine the restaurants at Disney Springs--so close to DHS--are also cutting into EPCOT's numbers.

 

[Mad Dog]

A glass half-full way of saying even with half the park shuttered around it, TSL cannibalized EPCOT guests. I imagine the restaurants at Disney Springs--so close to DHS--are also cutting into EPCOT's numbers.

Good points. Sounds reasonable. :thumbsup:

 

[Parkscope Joe]

A glass half-full way of saying even with half the park shuttered around it, TSL cannibalized EPCOT guests. I imagine the restaurants at Disney Springs--so close to DHS--are also cutting into EPCOT's numbers.

Oh boy can’t wait for the 3% increase in attendance next year! /s

 

[JungleSkip]

A glass half-full way of saying even with half the park shuttered around it, TSL cannibalized EPCOT guests. I imagine the restaurants at Disney Springs--so close to DHS--are also cutting into EPCOT's numbers.

I'm going down to WDW/UOR for my bachelor party in February, and we can't bring ourselves to go to EPCOT for the day. Sure, there's drinking around the world, but there are better bars at DAK and actual rides to ride there. Plus we'd rather splurge on a meal at Homecoming than any of the Epcot restaurants. Guardians and Rat can't open fast enough at Epcot.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I'm going down to WDW/UOR for my bachelor party in February, and we can't bring ourselves to go to EPCOT for the day. Sure, there's drinking around the world, but there are better bars at DAK and actual rides to ride there. Plus we'd rather splurge on a meal at Homecoming than any of the Epcot restaurants. Guardians and Rat can't open fast enough at Epcot.

Yeah, and once Epcot's Future World becomes a construction zone... that park will be miserable to walk thru.

 

[bob albert]

I'm going down to WDW/UOR for my bachelor party in February, and we can't bring ourselves to go to EPCOT for the day. Sure, there's drinking around the world, but there are better bars at DAK and actual rides to ride there. Plus we'd rather splurge on a meal at Homecoming than any of the Epcot restaurants. Guardians and Rat can't open fast enough at Epcot.

The bars at DAK are terrible. Nothing to see there folks. Definitely keep crowding those overpriced epcot booths!

 

[JungleSkip]

The bars at DAK are terrible. Nothing to see there folks. Definitely keep crowding those overpriced epcot booths!

I've broken the secret pact!

 

[Mad Dog]

Cedar Fair just announced that attendance was down 2% throughout the company park chain, for the first six months of this year. Revenue was also down 1%. Cedar Fair suffered a $7 million dollar operating loss for the six month period.

 

[bob albert]

Economy bound to take a dive at some point....

 

[sparky]

Economy bound to take a dive at some point....

I do think this attendance drop is not all related to people putting off till Star Wars opens. If attendance was flat I would figure that was it. Attendance dropping tells me something scary about the coming economy. People are being a little bit more reserved in non essential spending. Fear about taxes, trade wars driving prices up, and just general economy jitters are getting worse.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Cedar Fair just announced that attendance was down 2% throughout the company park chain, for the first six months of this year. Revenue was also down 1%. Cedar Fair suffered a $7 million dollar operating loss for the six month period.

Conversely Six Flags is reporting increases in attendance and per cap spending.

 

[Disneyhead]

Conversely Six Flags is reporting increases in attendance and per cap spending.

Six Flags being up with Disney/Uni. down makes sense. When destination resorts are down, regionals go up. That makes CF's numbers particularly interesting. They should have benefited from the national trend, but they didn't. Curious.

 

[Mad Dog]

I do think this attendance drop is not all related to people putting off till Star Wars opens. If attendance was flat I would figure that was it. Attendance dropping tells me something scary about the coming economy. People are being a little bit more reserved in non essential spending. Fear about taxes, trade wars driving prices up, and just general economy jitters are getting worse.

Might be part of it. Wage increases are still flat to low. Gas prices are up 23% in the past year. Inflation in June jumped at the largest rate in 4 years. And then, there's the constant large price increases for admission, food, hotels etc.....They might all be hitting a wall..............Touring Plans today said broader than usual WDW hotel discounts for the Fall are indicating a soft Fall anticipated. TP adjusted their WDW crowd levels downward for the next quarter......Yes, some may be holding off for GESWL too. But I wonder , if WDW does introduce variable multi day ticket prices, will that turn off some in the general public. This next year will be interesting to follow..............And I also wonder how many repeat visitors were turned off by WDW's staffing line cuts back in Jan, & Feb. that caused daily level 8,9 & 10 crowds just to save operating costs. Long lines turn tourists off more than just about anything else.