Originally Posted By mstaft Any idea on whether or not Disney has seen any sustained and increased atendance bump due to Mania? Are they pleased with what they've seen? Will this affect future expansion plans? Will I ever stop asking questions?
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Well, attendance is down in general at the Disneyland Resort. For the vast majority fo the time, Toy Story Mania! only uses is regular queue and doesn't need the extended queue structures they built. Has it switched some AP holders to visit DCA more often? Probably... But was the ride that saved DCA, the answer is no, just like some folks thought that ToT would be the savior. But I think that World of Color might actually be a WOW show for the entire family and actually might be the one attraction that actually will make a long term impact on attendance. But of course, we will have to wait and see what happens.
Originally Posted By fkurucz FWIW, this past week DCA has been pretty crowded with long standby lines on the favorites, at least during when we were there. Also, something we noticed: We arrived on Sunday, and the crowds at DL were OK. Mon, Tues and Wednesday were much worse. We skipped Thursday. Today its been better. How odd.
Originally Posted By crazycroc It's a nice time to visit, that's for sure. Less people, easier to navigate the place. My guess is that it will only get nicer. Generally, businesses build during downtimes in the economy, and look what DCA is going to do !
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt From what I've read, attendance is down but guest spending is up. Disney's US theme park business, for the most part, is doing just fine.
Originally Posted By ArchtMig ^^^I think that is attributable to the weak dollar attracting more foreign tourists to the parks than usual. Foreigners, or persons visiting on vacation, tend to spend more than locals making day trips.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt Disney says that one reason guest spending is up is because of increased room rates at its hotels. Demand for its properties (at least in Anaheim) is very high.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan How are the lines at City Hall? I read that the massive confusion created by the advertising of Toy Story Mania would have angry guests demanding refunds when they discovered the attraction was in DCA, not Disneyland. How is that going?
Originally Posted By Jim in Merced CA City Hall is not on trial here! The above is a copyrighted slogan used with permission from Kar2oonMan Productions. "Kar2oonMan -- When Your Goal is Comedy Gold!"
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>How are the lines at City Hall? I read that the massive confusion created by the advertising of Toy Story Mania would have angry guests demanding refunds when they discovered the attraction was in DCA, not Disneyland. How is that going?<< I believe that line keeps getting tangled up in the massive line that still stretches down from the Submarine lagoon. You do, of course, recall the online number crunchers who assured us that the Nemo Submarine line would have to remain four hours long on a daily basis to satisfy demand...
Originally Posted By bean One thing that Midway Mania has done is extend guests stay at the park. This then has help increase guest spending as well.
Originally Posted By bean I also believe Darkbeer is correct in saying that WOC will be a bigger impact on the park since it will extend parks guest stay at DCA and boost attendance a bit. it should also help level of crowds when guests parkhop from Disneyland into DCA during the show. I believe plans are to have WOC at aroudn the same time as Disneylands other major entertainment venues to help with crowd control
Originally Posted By believe >>>I believe plans are to have WOC at aroudn the same time as Disneylands other major entertainment venues to help with crowd control<<<< Disney is in a lose lose situation there. If shows are at the same time, that means they end the same time, which means, people will leave the same time - FROM BOTH PARKS instead of just one. Yikes!
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< How are the lines at City Hall? I read that the massive confusion created by the advertising of Toy Story Mania would have angry guests demanding refunds when they discovered the attraction was in DCA, not Disneyland. How is that going? >>> The reason this is not a problem is because of the very clever marketing campaign for DLR this summer, not because of a lack of brand confusion with respect to DCA. Consider that the marketing campaign has been about the new Toy Story Mania ride, and the special SoCal-only tickets available through local supermarkets, and what an excellent value it provides (3-day park hopper for $99 - compare this to any single-day ticket). Darkbeer has provided us photos of what these tickets look like on the retail display: <a href="http://darkbeer.smugmug.com/gallery/5217231_jgrza#316733082_K5Snw" target="_blank">http://darkbeer.smugmug.com/ga...82_K5Snw</a> Note how the ticket doesn't mention that Toy Story Mania is in DCA, and also note how not only is the Disneyland logo back with the original font, but the resort logo is now also in that font. To the casual guest that doesn't keep track of these things like we do, this is a 3-day ticket to "Disneyland" that's promoting the new Toy Story ride. People responding to the SoCal marketing campaign are very likely to buy this special ticket because of the cost savings. And since the special ticket is available only as a park hopper, the problem is taken care of: guests are not disappointed and lined up at City Hall because their ticket gets them into DCA to see the new Toy Story ride, even if they are not aware of the fact that the ride is not actually in Disneyland until they arrive. It's very clear to me that this was all very carefully engineered from start to finish as a way to cash in on the strong brand recognition of Disneyland, avoid the whole DCA issue and the negative connotation it would have if it was included in the marketing program, drive attendance based on the new Toy Story Mania ride, and not create a bunch of angry guests who felt they were bait and switched. Advance to the next picture on Darkbeer's site and read all of the fine print on the ticket: nowhere on the front or back, even in the fine print, is California Adventure even mentioned! It's only referred to implicitly as "both parks" and "the other park."
Originally Posted By Darkbeer And today, the first day that the Southern California Annual Passholders could return to the parks since late June, what happens to the Toy Story Mania! wait times... they double, the average wait was closer to 60 minutes as compared to 30 minutes in the last 7 weeks.
Originally Posted By poohbear14 Yup! the parks were busy today with the SC APer's and it was a pretty warm day too! The wait looked to be about 60 min and the single rider line was not availabe when I walked by around 3:30.
Originally Posted By ChurroMonster The parks have been busy lately. It's summer. Some people like to try and take pictures that show DCA being empty but they are waiting for rare moments when certain walkways are empty. DCA is busier now than it has ever been and has even become unpleasantly crowded on a daily basis. The wait time for Midway Mania was an hour last week when I was there. The park was doing fine without the cheapest AP's being there.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<The parks have been busy lately. It's summer. Some people like to try and take pictures that show DCA being empty but they are waiting for rare moments when certain walkways are empty. DCA is busier now than it has ever been and has even become unpleasantly crowded on a daily basis. The wait time for Midway Mania was an hour last week when I was there. The park was doing fine without the cheapest AP's being there.>> testify! your experience matches ours exactly. We never saw a line shorter than 60 minutes, not even when it was broken!! Because of this we skipped TSM altogether! Soarin' seemed to always have a 60 minute line as well (thank goodness for fast pass!). Aladdin was packed for the morning show we went to. At times even ToT had long lines.
