I haven't had the time to download Thrill-Data's report for this year, but last year I did a very similar analysis and showed an uptick in wait-times for this time period. Just from my personal weekly visits to the park these past two months, it's definitely not a quiet season at all.
lol... I don't know how much analysis needs to be done when ThrillData pretty much has done it.
Either way, I'm not disagreeing that it's "not dead" or that it's "Not a Quiet Season" - but it's still the Slow season. The wait times and trends show that. The ticket prices show that. Hell, why do you think we have events going on now? lol You think Disney chose FARTs to happen in January-Feb to break attendance records?
I hear what you're saying and some of these are assumptions, but the park hours may not have been posted correctly when the vacation was booked. Also, the discounts being applied I don't think correlate with what is the reduced capacity. The hotels have been long out of whack so I'm not going to consider that in any of this for simplicity sake. I am also not factoring in random downtime or anything like that. Also before going into the numbers stuff
Yea - that's a big assumption, with an example that I don't believe has ever happened? lol
I want to talk about the only 4 rides being impacted. My son rides 4 rides at the Studios in order: ET, MiB, Villain-Con, Fallon. His 2 favorite rides are closed until late opening. A 1-day ticket for today 02/29/2024 is $199, that same ticket in July is $209. The highest ticket price I see is December at $234. So for $10 less I can come now in the slow season vs the busy season with a decent savings vs the absurd don't wanna be here season. If we boil it down to strict numbers. If I said during the slow season they are open 8 hours a day and during the busy season they are open 12 hours a day. A family is spending $24.88 per hour vs $17.41-$19.50, making it more expensive hourly to be here now. (FYI if it is only 10 hours that would still be a lower hourly rate).
I understand the need to be cost effective, but my point remains that you cannot both charge people for time and steal time from them. It makes the problems worse and makes it look like a gotcha tactic/money grab... which I can't totally argue it isn't.
In your case - you chose a 2-park, 1-day ticket - so you're math also doesn't add up because it doesn't take the value of the ability to hop between 2 parks within operating hours. Furthermore, in your example, the more likely scenario is someone who is on vacation and getting a longer-length ticket - which costs considerably less. But for the sake of the argument, the more apt comparison would be a 1-day, 1-park... (admittedly, it's hard to really do these comparisons because every scenario is going to be different but at least this is a baseline)
So if we use USF's 1-day for today vs Thursday, 3/28's $169 (the most expensive coming up)
$144 for 10 hours = $14.40 per hour
$169 for 12 hours = $14.08 per hour
So for 2 fewer park hours - a difference of 0.32 cents p/h...
The problem though, is we aren't paying for the hour. You're paying for entry. The same way a movie ticket is $15, no matter a 90-minute film or a 3-hour film.
Theme parks used to operate under the one price for all, and switched to In-Demand pricing to try to "lure and encourage" guests to come in the slower season. Even if it's $25 cheaper, it's still cheaper. The trade-off is you're paying $25 less to go during a less crowded time, and in this case, there are some seasonal closures. The trade-off for paying more is more park hours to make up for the crowds you're going to deal with. And that $25 in savings becomes bigger when you start paying for 4-5 tickets.