From my understanding the Saturday's sandwiched between parties were busier than Christmas Eve by a fair margin. Christmas Day was busier than those days, but not by all that much.
Not sure it will be worse than the circus that is the RSR fastpass line.So everyone with a phone will be competing at the same time when the fastpasses become availible? That sounds worse.
plus DHS was real slow
Yeah, lot's of different factors for sure. Even Universal wait lines seem a bit shorter this year. One of the most obvious factors may be the "very soft" South American economies, especially Brazil, keeping tourist rates down. And the monetary results of Brexit may be starting to catch up with UK vacations. And all those big price increases, may have finally reached a point (or ceiling) where it actually is affecting vacation decisions. Like you, I doubt it's surge pricing though.MK didn't even hit 30k on a Christmas. I don't think surge pricing affects attendance that much. I think it's many different factors and I'm still thinking about them.
Yeah, lot's of different factors for sure. Even Universal wait lines seem a bit shorter this year. One of the most obvious factors may be the "very soft" South American economies, especially Brazil, keeping tourist rates down. And the monetary results of Brexit may be starting to catch up with UK vacations. And all those big price increases, may have finally reached a point (or ceiling) where it actually is affecting vacation decisions. Like you, I doubt it's surge pricing though.
I don't think it's surge pricing ONLY. And even then I don't think Disney thought a 50% loss in attendance was part of the min/max of pricing.
It can't be just surge pricing. Universal would still be going bonkers. Plus, ticket prices pale in comparison to flight and hotel prices. Not everybody stays on site or avoids Spirit Airlines.
In the next couple weeks, we'll see reports on consumer holiday spending. If spending is down, it probably means that this is do to US economic factors. Otherwise, it'll be easier to blame South America and Brexit.
It can't be just surge pricing. Universal would still be going bonkers. Plus, ticket prices pale in comparison to flight and hotel prices. Not everybody stays on site or avoids Spirit Airlines.
In the next couple weeks, we'll see reports on consumer holiday spending. If spending is down, it probably means that this is do to US economic factors. Otherwise, it'll be easier to blame South America and Brexit.
You are never going to change the fact that kids have off when they do for the longer breaks. A number of people from out of town vacations aren't going at all if they aren't going during those times. I would imagine the blackout dates for locals are definitely an increasing factor along with prices in general and a few down economies.I've noticed over the last few years that guests are starting understand more and more that Christmas is busy. There used to be a fairly large number of people who would think that the parks would be relatively empty on a holiday. Now I think people are trying to avoid the day based on past years and word of mouth. In fact this was really a long term gradual shift that is now somewhat reversing back, there was a point in time the MK would close early for Christmas.
Yeah I definitely agree with that. The point I was making is that some time ago parents who had kids out of school for the holiday thought they were avoiding crowds by going during the holidays. As more and more people picked up on that trend Christmas has become more crowded and in turn people now actually view that as a busy day to try to avoid. I think a good portion of people are now trying to avoid the park on Christmas day. Not necessarily the whole week, but just find something different to do that day. I remember a couple of recent examples where MK was more crowded the day after Christmas. Of course I think it's a combination of a lot of factors and that's just one small piece.You are never going to change the fact that kids have off when they do for the longer breaks. A number of people from out of town vacations aren't going at all if they aren't going during those times. I would imagine the blackout dates for locals are definitely an increasing factor along with prices in general and a few down economies.
Great call on the weird Christmas timing!Appears attendance is going up after Christmas. I think the issues are
1) Weird timing of Christmas and NYE. More people will take off this coming week and early 2017 than travel to WDW for Christmas.
2) AP blackout dates so APs didn't fill in
3) Reduced CM passes and blackout dates. Can't get mom and dad in MK anymore.