Theme Parks & Shopping Districts Reopening General Thread

[Rideguy70]

I think phased closings are the worst. If anything, do phased openings. Because most people, if they find a ride they wanted to go on closed, will say "Let's come back to it later." There's still an opportunity to ride it.

But closing early? There's no other opportunity. You missed it, period. No chance for redemption, and you feel cheated. Being told there was a sign out front informing you of an early closure does no good if you were saving the ride for later in the day and never saw the sign until it was too late.

I speak from experience; this has happened to me twice (not at a Universal park, though), and I'm still upset about those missed ride opportunities to this day--and they happened when I was a kid, lol.

 

[HandsomePete]

Have they ever experimented with phased attraction closings in the later parts of the day? Like closing three attractions at 4pm and then three more at 5 etc.? Would that even work?

It works but not nearly as much as just lopping off an hour because you’re still paying turnstiles, Guest Services, etc.

It also works better on the front end just based on guest flow... Kumba never opens with the park because it takes at least an hour for people to get back to it, but if you close early everyone has already distributed across the park.

Universal going to something like 9-5 and 11-7 would be an interesting experiment. Provides more value for a park-hopper ticket as well at a point people may opt out of that thinking they won’t have time to get value out of it.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I’ll start by saying I agree with you - this is a time when businesses should be experimenting with things and not sticking to all the assumptions they made in the past. Closing at 5 just cuts traffic to Citywalk in the dinner period, so think about running a 9-5 schedule in one park and 10-6 in the other.

But when you have to save money, cutting park hours is the easiest thing to do.



In their defense, pretty much all revenue management has gone out the window and they’re just guessing blindly at how to price.

No no Im get why hours need to be cut...I'm saying why be open when people are working? Like instead of being open at 10 AM open at noon and close 7-8.
Once again not as familiar with how AP crowd works there but at least here if say in October Universal opened and closed at 8 PM, I'd be able to go on a Tuesday but if its closed by 5....I wont. Feel like lots of AP's have 9-5 jobs and now that we work at home might even be closer to the parks to just get off and drive to the parks to enjoy them after work

 

[HandsomePete]

The answer to why not noon is because you can’t expect out of town visitors to sit around their hotel until 11:30 to head over to a park.

It’s important to keep APs happy, but it’s also a balance.

 

[Frank Drackman]

The answer to why not noon is because you can’t expect out of town visitors to sit around their hotel until 11:30 to head over to a park.

It’s important to keep APs happy, but it’s also a balance.

put another way, should UoR cater to a local audience or a visiting one? I just put this out there as it sounds like a real tough call/balancing act on finding a place that works in today's world?

 

[JungleSkip]

put another way, should UoR cater to a local audience or a visiting one? I just put this out there as it sounds like a real tough call/balancing act on finding a place that works in today's world?

Right now they should be prioritizing locals, because there are no visitors

 

[traveller]

cutting hours wont help with local guests. if anything they should have passholder
night, like 6-10 . passholders can bring one guest for free. and lower the onsite rates to off season. Royal Pacific aph rate for a std $274. considering the situation thats pretty high.

 

[Legacy]

No no Im get why hours need to be cut...I'm saying why be open when people are working? Like instead of being open at 10 AM open at noon and close 7-8.
Once again not as familiar with how AP crowd works there but at least here if say in October Universal opened and closed at 8 PM, I'd be able to go on a Tuesday but if its closed by 5....I wont. Feel like lots of AP's have 9-5 jobs and now that we work at home might even be closer to the parks to just get off and drive to the parks to enjoy them after work

I think it’s a limitation of traditional working hours and Orlando sprawl.

Let’s say you get off work at 4:30. The way Orlando traffic is at rush hour, it’ll take 45 minutes (at least) to go home and change clothes. Then it’s another 45 minutes (at least) to get to the parks. That doesn’t get you on property until 6pm at the earliest. And you still haven’t gotten dinner, yet. If you eat dinner, you’re not able to get into the park until 6:30 or 7pm at the earliest.

All of that is after working an 8 hour day.

When I lived in Orlando, I never went to the parks after work unless I was leaving work early (or going straight there to work). Traffic made doing so horrendously exhausting.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I think it’s a limitation of traditional working hours and Orlando sprawl.

Let’s say you get off work at 4:30. The way Orlando traffic is at rush hour, it’ll take 45 minutes (at least) to go home and change clothes. Then it’s another 45 minutes (at least) to get to the parks. That doesn’t get you on property until 6pm at the earliest. And you still haven’t gotten dinner, yet. If you eat dinner, you’re not able to get into the park until 6:30 or 7pm at the earliest.

All of that is after working an 8 hour day.

When I lived in Orlando, I never went to the parks after work unless I was leaving work early (or going straight there to work). Traffic made doing so horrendously exhausting.

Fair, LA can get bad too. But even with Traffic I went to Horror nights after a like 1 and a half drive after work....but I'm young.

I'm just saying for the now when like someone else said you don't have too many people coming from out of the city...make the hours work so locals can get if if they want.
Anyway just an idea i wanted to throw out there because I know if parks do come back later hours I think would work best to get me in

 

[Teebin]

Right now they should be prioritizing locals, because there are no visitors

It is tragic how Florida has ruined it’s own tourism economy, turning itself into a national pariah.

 

[Jerroddragon]

It is tragic how Florida has ruined it’s own tourism economy, turning itself into a national pariah.

I do want to point out that with the population it was bound to happened, even in CA where we did it right for months we still had cases rise later.

Unless we had a very oppressive government pretty much all bigger states and big cities were going to get a rise in cases. Like I said before science has been political wayyyyy before this and Americains loveeee freedom, you really can't stop having outbreaks without laws that could piss off many Karens.

 

[Legacy]

Fair, LA can get bad too. But even with Traffic I went to Horror nights after a like 1 and a half drive after work....but I'm young.

I'm just saying for the now when like someone else said you don't have too many people coming from out of the city...make the hours work so locals can get if if they want.
Anyway just an idea i wanted to throw out there because I know if parks do come back later hours I think would work best to get me in

Problem is most of the people in Central Florida (especially Orlando) work in the service industry. They’re working when the parks are open because they’re working the parks.

 

[JoeCamel]

It is tragic how Florida has ruined it’s own tourism economy, turning itself into a national pariah.

Delete this if too far off the beam please:
I told a friend at the beginning of this that I thought DeSantis was making the right moves and saying the right things much to my surprise. He was til he jumped on the open up bandwagon and it has been downhill from there .
Nuf said and moving on but it could have been so much better.....

 

[Parkscope Joe]

FWIW Universal hit capacity at USF today. Seems like weekends are popular and week days are rough.

 

[Alicia]

FWIW Universal hit capacity at USF today. Seems like weekends are popular and week days are rough.

Almost like everyone visiting the parks is a local and we’re only off work on weekends.

Without out of towners on vacations weekdays just aren’t as busy.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Almost like everyone visiting the parks is a local and we’re only off work on weekends.

Without out of towners on vacations weekdays just aren’t as busy.

Honestly this is great info for USH, hopefully they can find a way to get the hours to work for locals (survey's or testing on opening more near night time on weekdays)

With Halloween and Christmas coming up as well if they can open here my suggestion is focusing on more night time hours to get people to come to the parks. Have more special dessert items, maybe try some new drinks for people to try after a long hard day.

Or have the park open 9-5 and then at 7 reopen with a special themed event, 80 nights, 90's nights, Halloween/Christmas, Back to the Future, Simpsons, Harry Potter, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Fast and the Furios...etc.

Call me Universal I'll work for front of the line passes

 

[Nick]

Disneyland Begins Canceling Hotel Reservations Through August 8th

Walt Disney World news, photos, and reviews! We provide you with daily news from the Walt Disney World theme parks and beyond

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[Frank Drackman]

Almost like everyone visiting the parks is a local and we’re only off work on weekends.

Without out of towners on vacations weekdays just aren’t as busy.

FWIW Universal hit capacity at USF today. Seems like weekends are popular and week days are rough.

I mean, this is what I've been getting at. In my eyes, UoR's best bet is locals. I would assume though that most going are AP holders who can go out and spend very little but need something to do on the weekends.

WDW is in a different boat all together as they own their hotels plus thier obligation they have to DVC owners for use of the property they rented for a week for 50 years. WDW has the land to create a true bubble/safe zone (they have experience business models where employees live in a bubble (think cruise ships).

To me, it seems the political answer was to pass down everything to the local level and let everyone try something. I think Central FL has turned to the Disney's and the Comcast to say sort of we support you efforts let get something up and running so we can figure out what the new norm is.

End of the day, mask and social distancing are our best bet for some time to come.

 

[Mad Dog]

I can see end of August & September being really low weekday crowds.

 

[Nick]

Disney cracking down on the mask down loophole for drinking and eating that people took advantage of.

All guests who eat or drink now must be “stationary”. I assume this means they want people seated or at least stopping to drink rather than using it as an excuse to have their mask down all day.

Disney Clarifies That Guests Must Be Stationary and Maintain Physical Distancing When Eating and Drinking at Theme Parks

Walt Disney World news, photos, and reviews! We provide you with daily news from the Walt Disney World theme parks and beyond

blogmickey.com