Originally Posted By FerretAfros Which end has the CM? The Frontierland side? I would assume that’s because it’s right next to the Big Thunder exit, where thousands of guests per hour will be coming. By making that path a dead end, they need to ensure that guests keep moving to keep the area clear (and that stupid fruit stand next to the Twain dock does nothing to help situations like these) I’ve personally seen CMs posted at the walled-off entrances to Pirates, Indiana Jones (complete with bugs and small animals in cages), Jungle Cruise, Big Thunder, Space Mountain, and the Matterhorn. I also think there were a lot of CMs milling around in DCA when they had all those walls up all over the park during its redo. Sure it may not happen with every single refurbishment, but it’s not unheard of
Originally Posted By Bellella If they're expecting us to buy more multi-day tickets, they can just forget it. Many of us can't afford to stay in one of their "reasonable" hotels for even one night, let alone buy these amazingly priced tickets. And we should buy them for what? For a California Adventure that's lost a lot of its entertainment value over the past year? Not to mention spending more time at D-land when there's really no point? On nights when they don't have the fireworks, swing dancing which is only on Saturdays, and Fantasmic which is closed till God knows when, there's only Paint the Night, and that doesn't exactly take up the whole evening. It appears as though we're stuck either paying out the nose to have a full experience on crowded days, or we're taking a tiny little discount and losing a lot of time and attractions. Oh, and the park will not be open past 8pm on "value" days but will be more crowded with people who don't want to pay the higher prices. So that solves nothing.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I am wondering if there is a phase two in this dynamic pricing structure that will impact AP holders somehow. I can't think of a simple way to do this, but Disney has much smarter folks than me working on the problem. Could that happen?
Originally Posted By FerretAfros >>I can't think of a simple way to do this, but Disney has much smarter folks than me working on the problem.<< The most obvious way to deal with APs would be to take away the monthly payment option. When Disney introduced that, the AP population ballooned from a few hundred thousand APers to nearly one million. Take that away, particularly in conjunction with the price hikes in the last few years, and I suspect that would do a lot to thin the herd Another option would be to limit the number of times an AP can get you into the park. Say it would be good for 10 (or 15 or 20 or whatever) visits, but also be subject to the existing blackout dates (which, in a way, sort of already implement these restrictions on APs) >>There's only cm at the gate in Fantasyland.<< Very strange. And it's not just a CM from one of the nearby merchandise carts? Maybe the operations team in Fantasyland was able to get an extra position to staff it, but Frontierland wasn't as lucky. I have no idea...
Originally Posted By doombuggy They even sometimes have a board with pins on it to trade. But I haven't seen that for the past few days.Like I said it goes back to its very odd that they have someone standing guard at the gate Sometimes there's two of them.Maybe Just maybe It's easier to have someone there explaining how to cut through the castle to get to Frontierland Then trying to explain it on a sign which they do already have.All I can think of is the scene from Willy Wonka where they walk into the room and they all bunch in at the end of the corridor People just piling up at the gate not knowing where to go or how to turn around Lol
Originally Posted By Mr X ***Oh, and the park will not be open past 8pm on "value" days but will be more crowded with people who don't want to pay the higher prices. So that solves nothing.*** Sure it does. It solves DisneyCo's ever-pressing 'How do we rake more cash out of these marks?' dilemma just fine.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>Sure it does. It solves DisneyCo's ever-pressing 'How do we rake more cash out of these marks?' dilemma just fine.<< Aaaaand we have a winner. It cracks me up that people think this is somehow designed to reduce crowding on busy days. As if an extra $5 or $20 on top of $100 will shoo people away. This is designed to make Disney more money on days when they know more people will go to the parks. People go on busy days because that's when they can go. That's why, by definition, it's busy. Disney knows this, so they charge more because they know people will pay.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance "Aaaaand we have a winner. It cracks me up that people think this is somehow designed to reduce crowding on busy days. As if an extra $5 or $20 on top of $100 will shoo people away. This is designed to make Disney more money on days when they know more people will go to the parks. People go on busy days because that's when they can go. That's why, by definition, it's busy. Disney knows this, so they charge more because they know people will pay." Then why not just do a general increase of prices across the board? If they aren't at least making some attempt to encourage people to come at less busier times, then why did they reduce prices of tickets during the less busy times? (By the way, the percentage of the days of the year in which the prices went down makes up about 30% of the total days in a year.) For a family of four to visit one day in January would now cost $380. For that same family to visit in July would be $480. That's a hundred bucks. And if you're fairly local but only go about once a year, why not go on a weekend in January as opposed to a weekend in July? Sure, this probably won't have much of an effect on the people who come from out of state and already have to travel to get there. And since they tend to visit for multiple days, usually only go when school is out. I don't think this was intended to influence those guests at all though. I think this dynamic pricing was designed to effect their non AP local visitors. Who only come once or twice a year and don't stay multiple days. They can come any weekend or day that their kids have school off. And saving a hundred bucks certainly could be an influencing factor.
Originally Posted By Yookeroo I think Disney would love to reduce the crowds and keep the same revenue. More profit. I think they're trying to inch that way. But if it fails to reduce crowds while increasing revenue, they're happy with that too.
Originally Posted By 9oldmen >>For a family of four to visit one day in January would now cost $380. For that same family to visit in July would be $480. That's a hundred bucks. And if you're fairly local but only go about once a year, why not go on a weekend in January as opposed to a weekend in July?<< Just so you know, the ONLY days when the prices are reduced (from what they were before the change) are Mondays through Thursdays during off peak times. A family of four is always going to pay at least $420 for a day if they go on a weekend.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>A family of four is always going to pay at least $420 for a day if they go on a weekend.<< And again, that's when they can go—weekends and school holidays. I'm not wealthy so I'm not trying to sneeze at an extra $100 like it's nothing. It's a big deal to a lot of people. But if you're already resigned to forking over $300+ on a family trip to Disneyland for the day (and food and souvenirs), then you're not likely to be dissuaded by the extra costs, IMO.
Originally Posted By CuriousConstance I don't think anyone would be dissuaded if the absolute only time they could visit was a peak day. However, I think it might be enough of an incentive to locals to choose a value day over a peak day since lots of schools have random in service days throughout the year. I guess it's not so much as reducing crowds overall, just evening them out more. Thereby making peak times, when lots of out of towners are in the parks a little less miserable.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip I agree 100% with CC. Her argument is similar to the one I made in #161, and I think it hits the nail on the head.
Originally Posted By berol It should affect the lighter days more than the busy days. If it takes a crowd of 50k and makes it 45k, that's kinda negligible. Boosting a 20k crowd to 25k is much more noticeable.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I don't know for sure whether the profit was directly affected, but I suspect that the folks running WDW weren't happy about having to do their refurbishment of POTC last summer<< I was there last August and I was pretty unhappy about that! It was my first Disney trip in 7 years, and I won't be going back anytime soon.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I will believe that Disney wants to reduce crowd size once the monthly payment plan is eliminated, eliminate the SoCal price break, etc. Unless Disney accountanteers determine that APers are a drain on resources and not buying food and merch, I don't think those changes will happen. I'm sure the popular concept is that APers don't spend money at the parks, and I'm sure a small percentage do not, but looking at FB friends' visits, they buy meals and limited edition merchandise BIG time.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>I will believe that Disney wants to reduce crowd size once the monthly payment plan is eliminated, eliminate the SoCal price break, etc.<< Exactly. Disney has several very straightforward options to reduce crowds in the parks if it really wanted to or felt like crowding was affecting its profit margins. Those options range from eliminating monthly payments for APs, significantly raising AP prices, limiting the number of APs sold per year, providing only one AP choice (instead of three tiers) with significant limitations on when it can be used, increasing costs of park hopper and single-day tickets significantly, and of course the obvious, physically restricting how many people can enter the parks per day by capping attendance at a lower number than in the past. I'm not arguing that Disney should or would want to do any of these things. I'm just saying it's easy to get wrapped up in a single change and try and do mental gymnastics to read into it things that may not be there. So far I see no evidence whatsoever that Disney feels its bottom line is negatively affected by the crowds. Quite the opposite, actually. Dynamic pricing is frequently used to maximize profits for a popular commodity with finite availability. So by way of example, on Broadway the last few years, shows like Hamilton and the Book of Mormon have used dynamic pricing as a way to make even more money given that all shows are selling out. Rather than just sell every ticket for, say, $100, they can sell tickets at peak demand times for $300-500 a pop. Those prices have *nothing* to do with reducing crowds, since the goal is still to sell out each show. But it's designed to see what the limit is for what people are willing to pay so they can make the most money. That sounds much closer to what Disney is doing, not some roundabout attempt to reduce crowds.
Originally Posted By Rider 1 >>Dynamic pricing is frequently used to maximize profits for a popular commodity with finite availability.<< I believe it also serves to reduce the footprint of visitors with less spending power or those on tighter budgets. I would guess that If higher spenders are more comfortable in the park, due to less crowding, there would be more desire to spend the higher price in the parks for food, drinks and souvenirs. Those visitors on a tghter budget would tend to leave the park for cheaper food or bring their own into the park for picnic. I've been on both sides of the budget with the family. When I was Ok with money, there was little question about spending all in the park. When money was tight on visits, it was across the road to McD's, Denny's or IHOP for cheaper food (and more filling portions!) then returning with cheaper bottles of water for line waiting. I believe that Dynamic pricing was brought in for one purpose only - to maximise cash in the Disney till at the end of every day. And... I believe we'll see price changing, or peak/off-peak day changes over time to identify the optimum matrix to maximise Disney profit for their fiscal year.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan I have partial season tickets to my local MLB team. They instituted the dynamic pricing model last year. They earmark games at three different levels. The most inexpensive are day games and teams that aren't huge draws. The more popular a matchup, or on fireworks nights, the price goes to middle level or highest. It resulted in a slight price increase for our tickets vs. a few years ago, but it was a nominal amount. It was a gentle way to increase prices at a time when the team itself is in "rebuilding" mode. (And we're in the cheapest seats anyway, so even if we splurged for the most expensive games, it wouldn't have been a deal breaker.) I'm sure that's what Disney is going for. And I would guess that when Star Wars land opens, it will be preceded by a price increase, and another one shortly thereafter. Because they can.
