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Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge (Disneyland)

Also, to add one more thing: These crowds aren't normal. They're far below normal, which makes it all the more head-scratching. A new blockbuster land opens and less people show up than to when Pixar Pier opened? This is normally the time of year when tourists carry the load at DL... but I think marketing scared them all away and now they're left with a relatively empty park and a bunch of APs that are blocked out.

Building off of that and not directed at you:

It's clear Disney expected thousands and thousands of guests in DCA and DL in May and June. People predicted 10 hour waits for SR, Hogsmeade like lines, and general chaos. Instead very few non-AP guests came. The important thing is these parks are staffed and have hours like a 9 or 10 out of 10, instead they're seeing a 3 out of 10 for crowds. Disney's spending tons of money on staffing that is not needed, running the parks longer than needed, and fewer people means fewer people buying things. One land's sales of lightsabers or plush isn't offsetting the rest of the resort's soft revenue.

The question is 1) is Disney ok with writing this off as a fluke and going full steam ahead 2) or are they panicking and reconsidering future investment. I think we'll have to wait and see what the rest of the year brings. But if there's one thing I do know NOW it's not to assume SWGE is a guaranteed hit, the unshakeable confidence has been rattled, hard.
 
Sorry for misunderstanding. The ride thing is a pretty easy conclusion to come to when you think of how monolithic Disneyland is from a rides perspective and how... small USH is on the same topic.

But again, this shouldn't be about Uni vs. Dis. I like it when we talk beyond surface level (which, essentially a lot of people seem to be insinuating since crowds aren't stretched to Mickey & Friends that this thing is a failure). I like talking about substance over surface. It's fine to argue to me that the substance isn't there or what-not, but the people experiencing the land right now are having A+++ experiences. I think Disney would much rather have that than have to compensate thousands of guests for a poor experience. As someone else said earlier in the thread, this mostly highlights how locals heavy Disneyland is and they've blocked out almost every level of pass (and CMs had been blocked out until they weren't).

I think the major blunders Disneyland made here come down to a few things:
  • Opening DL and WDW separately. Causes confusion among the masses.
  • Opening either SWGE without RotR. Makes the land feel incomplete - because it is.
  • They scared people away. They hyped it up to being so damn crowded, that it seems a lot of people just got scared off.
Yes, DL is a locals heavy park, but i've been over the summer in both 2016 and 2017 and both times, APs were blocked out and it was EXTREMELY busy. These types of crowds just aren't normal and won't continue at Disneyland.


I sort of get not having the droid out, but just like I scratch my head at them not letting people dress up in a Jedi Robe that they just bought from a store in SWGE, I don't get why Sabers can't be out. Makes no sense. Just walk through Hogsmeade or Diagon alley. That's part of what creates the immersion - the guests wandering around in character themselves.

To me I feel like this is a policy that Disney is going to have to seriously rethink.

I agree with not letting people have lightsabers out. No one wants to get whacked in the shins by someone's precious little Jedi. There's also the "in character" reason of how many times in the Star Wars Movies did people have a lightsaber out and it not be for a fight? It would make no sense for people to be waving them around. The droids are obviously a bad idea to let people have out. They'd end up kicked bother accidentally and intentionally and it would turn violent. Robes though, I'm not sure why they wouldn't let people wear them. I can come up with a few fringe reasons, but not enough to outweigh the "they'd sell more" reason to let people wear them. Maybe they didn't want 1000 hardcore fans just living in the land dressed as jedis all the time. Who knows.


As for crowds(and this is more of a general comment that to anyone specific), I'm surprised, but not shocked. They blocked everyone out of a locals park. They have the tourist park opening the same exact thing in a couple months. The main ride isn't open yet. Everyone and their mother has been saying for 3 years how crowded the first few months/years were going to be, scaring people off. And the land has been open for a month now, burning off demand. The overall DL crowd levels being down are more of a result of block outs and fear of crowds. The land not being slammed full is a result of all of it.
 
Sorry, I still don’t buy the “People were afraid of the crowds and didn’t come!” excuse. If that were the case people would stop coming Christmas week and Spring Break
I don’t buy that people just decided to stop coming to DLR right when SWGE opened as being a coincidence and I certainly don’t buy that more people cared about Pixar Pier than a Star Wars Land.
 
I don’t buy that people just decided to stop coming to DLR right when SWGE opened as being a coincidence and I certainly don’t buy that more people cared about Pixar Pier than a Star Wars Land.
The theme park going public has *never* shied away from high crowds, especially for a cool new thing opening. It’s unfathomable
 
Sorry, I still don’t buy the “People were afraid of the crowds and didn’t come!” excuse. If that were the case people would stop coming Christmas week and Spring Break

Our 2019 Christmas trip got moved to 2020 over Star Wars, but ok..
 
I think people putting off trips until the land is complete is a not-inconsiderable factor contributing to the soft crowd levels.

Not opening with ROTR becomes an increasingly bizarre decision as the days pass, and it was already bizarre to begin with.
 
When Cars Land first opened it drew in major crowds. The main difference between the openings of Cars Land and Galaxy's Edge is that Cars actually opened up with its headliner.

I’d agree with this line of thinking if I thought vacationers didn’t think the Falcon was the headliner. Regular Joes aren’t gonna know that Rise is what it is
 
Usually posters here are pretty knowledgeable about theme parks and for the most part are pretty decent predictors of success and/or failure. But no one here, not a single soul, had any inkling that this first 30 days could produce such poor attendance for Disneyland. I'd guess at Disney there also was probably not a single executive that thought this was going to happen to this extent. So many theories, but who knows the true cause. More like the perfect storm. ....Maybe this won't happen to WDW since it's a different animal with a different customer base....but...keep in mind that hotel room availability, at this point in time, is still pretty open for the first few months of when it will be open in Orlando. RotR can't come too soon.....THOUGH, as Jungle Skip says, the GP thought MF was the headliner. It's just us Theme Park fans that surmised RotR is the true headliner. So that might not be the whole issue either, just a piece of the not yet eaten pie.
 
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