Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "Do you ever remember Disney giving 3 days free at WDW. It happened - buy 4 days, get 3 days free. And that was two years ago. Last year it was buy 5, get 2 days free. Then last fall and this fall "Free Dining"." Yes. I recall all of the above. But those offers were for different reasons, but all related to one fact -- WDW overbuilt hotel rooms by the thousands. The past few years have been great for WDW's parks, but it's hard to fill 30,000-plus rooms at the price points WDW offers. The second example of free dining in mid-Aug. and Sept. has to do with the fact they are the slowest time of the year, coupled with the very active hurricane seasons the past few years that have guests shying away from visiting then. It's not because they are struggling at the gates of their FOUR parks like TDA is with one of its TWO. Both of the above examples were never done before. They were done to fill rooms. Same reason why for the first time in its history WDW is putting rooms (which are distressed inventory) at the All Star Sports and Music resorts on Priceline.com for $36 a night in the next two months. Not nearly the same as Anaheim. "DL has always discounted, so has WDW. Some discounts better than others." Disney has never begged the public to come into a theme park for free, which is what the 2-for-1 offer is all about no matter how others try and spin it. "Speaking of Epcot Center too ... Back then it was Florida with 2 parks vs. California with 1. Florida would win out for multi day visits. Even when DCA was added, it is still Florida with 4 parks vs. California with 2 parks. So Florida still wins for multi day visits." That's not my point. You're right about that. What I am saying is WDW didn't have to offer people free admission to get them to try out EPCOT Center when it opened as a second gate. OLC didn't have to offer people free admission to try out Tokyo DisneySea to get bodies in the park when it opened as a second gate. Now, can you say the same about DCA? What's next? 'Come to DCA and we'll pay your next car payment'?
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney Forgot to mention that WDW is also starting MIckey's Not So Scary Halloween Parties in mid-September to help pump up the slow season numbers. Same with starting the Food and Wine Festival in Sept. for the first time ever. It's all about filling rooms. TDA could fill its rooms at all three resorts if DCA didn't exist.
Originally Posted By kmovies But isn't DL being given away for free the 4th and 5th day when they had 5 day tickets for the price of 3. Oh yes, you'll spin that to say NO. But 2 days for the price of 1 day is YES. Spin all you want. Better yet, go to Universal. 364 free days when you buy 1 day. While WDW's are to fill hotel rooms, it also helps fill the parks. But spin as you may. Your yarn makes great sweaters.
Originally Posted By kmovies OLC may not give DS for "free" as you put it, but they do force you to stay there or leave. Buy a 2 day ticket - you can't park hop. So, while you do go to Disney Sea, you don't have the chance to park back to DL. So in a way, the pricing structure does beef up Disney Sea's numbers (since first click pretty much gives each park one count on two day tickets) where many people may have chosen to spend 1 1/2 days at DL and 1/2 day at DS.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer ^ But that was also the original plan for DCA. Very few people were going to be able to ParkHop, basically just 2-park AP holders, and guests of the three Disney owned Hotels. All other tickets, including all multi-day tickets were supposed to be a day at EITHER Disneyland or DCA. But very few folks were deciding to go to DCA under this system, so they started to convert more folks to being allowed to Park Hop, starting with the Good Neighbor Hotels, then all multi-day tickets sold at the Main Entry Windows. Then they returned the AP program that was suspended before DCA opened. Then that fall, when the vast majority of AP holders would have to renew, Disney saw that a large amount of 2-park holders were not going to renew, and go back to a Disneyland only AP. But the surveys also saw that folks weren't willing to pay more for the AP's. So Disney decided to eliminate the Disneyland only AP, and only offer 2-park AP's, but the prices were dropped to the old Disneyland only AP prices, basically giving AP holders the park for free. This was when DCA saw its first spike in attendance, as many Disneyland only AP holders now could check out DCA at no additional cost. Tokyo Disney Seas also has been getting 12 million a year, over twice the amount of folks visiting DCA, with a LOT less discounting and AP holders.
Originally Posted By RoadTrip <<Tokyo Disney Seas also has been getting 12 million a year, over twice the amount of folks visiting DCA>> Wow!! Now there's a shocker. Development Cost of TDS: $3 Billion Development Cost of DCA (Includes Downtown Disney, new parking structure and Grand Californian Hotel): $1.4 Billion. What would you expect??
Originally Posted By woody Roadtrip: There are still people arguing that DCA financial objectives are being met with the amount of money spent in comparison to DisneySeas. I think the difference is the DisneySeas revenue per admission click is substantially higher based on quality attendance.... which means people are staying longer, spending more, and actually paying for admission. Of course, TDL's attendance went down from 17 million to 13 million based on TDS' cannibalization of business. This is probably bad, but I think it might be good because guest satisfaction should be better with smaller crowds. In the end, DS is better than DCA in many ways, yet you don't hear that admission from Disney.
Originally Posted By SuperDry <<< OLC may not give DS for "free" as you put it, but they do force you to stay there or leave. Buy a 2 day ticket - you can't park hop. So, while you do go to Disney Sea, you don't have the chance to park back to DL. >>> You're mis-representing the facts. Although it's true that you can't park-hop with a 2-day TDR ticket, the guest chooses which park to go to for each day. It's perfectly acceptable (and I'm sure done all the time) to buy a 2-day ticket with both days at TDL. The only reason that a full day is spent at TDS on a 2-day ticket is because the guest chose to have that day's ticket valid at TDS. Compare this to the DLR 2fer offer. What do you think would happen if the guest could choose which park to visit on each of the two days?
Originally Posted By SuperDry BTW, I think Darkbeer's post #65 is an excellent history of the various ticketing models offered during the first year, and how they indicate that demand was substantially different than anticipated, and how little pricing power they had for DCA.
Originally Posted By kmovies Yes, you can use your two day ticket at Tokyo for both parks or one day at each park. I would assume the vast majority use it for one day at each park. They may like to be able to park hop for one or both days. While some people would use both days for Disneyland, if available, I would venture that a lot would use one day at each park - especially if you had been to DL before and haven't experienced DCA yet. The bump in year 2 at DCA was also, likely due to 12 months vs. 10.75 months. Discounts, yes, but simply being open year round was likely a bigger reason.
Originally Posted By leemac <<TDA could fill its rooms at all three resorts if DCA didn't exist.>> I don't necessarily agree with that. The Grand has a higher occupancy rate and significantly higher spend rate than either of the other hotels. It is also discounted significantly less. Occupancy as a whole has gone up at the Resort. That doesn't necessarily mean it is all being driven by DCA (conventions are big business for GC) but it is a big plus. People get too focused on DCA and don't look at the Resort as a whole which has benefited from the second gate whatever some people will claim. One of the most positive feedback messages from GC guests is direct access to the park. That makes a difference to every single guest.
Originally Posted By leemac And I know I've mentioned it before but don't underestimate how many discounted OLC tickets are sold at TDR. It is very substantial. It certainly isn't a 2fer but people that pay full price for a day at either park are in the minority. Also you would probably be surprised at how big the AP base is for both parks.
Originally Posted By kmovies Plus all the evening only tickets sold by OLC, and seperate admission for New Year's Eve.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer >>The bump in year 2 at DCA was also, likely due to 12 months vs. 10.75 months. Discounts, yes, but simply being open year round was likely a bigger reason.<< The bump??? In 2002, attendance dropped to 4.7 million from 5 million. <a href="http://www.scottware.com.au/theme/feature/crowds.htm" target="_blank">http://www.scottware.com.au/th eme/feature/crowds.htm</a> And as I understand it, the 5 million in 2001 included all the guests who entered during the previews days that started in early January, so you have 12 months for each year. >>While some people would use both days for Disneyland, if available, I would venture that a lot would use one day at each park - especially if you had been to DL before and haven't experienced DCA yet.<< And as I said earlier, when you go back to the 2 day, single park ticket promotion. Heck, let me quote myself from a post I wrote in January, 2003. >>Lets see, the last SoCal offer for the fall/winter of 2002 was the same basic ticket, but at $54, which was $9 more than a Disneyland only ticket. For some reason, they have decided that they had to lower the price. Could it be that they had conversations like this at the Ticket Windows???? The CM says, well, for just $9 more, you can get a two day ticket that allows you to attend DCA on another day. "No thanks, I just drove down for the day, and want to take my kids to Disneyland." And lets look at the past history, which park has offered free kids tickets the last two summers??? And what happened about 14 months ago??? They restructured the AP program, where the eliminated the Disneyland only AP's, and converted the Two-Park AP's to basically the old Disneyland only price. Once again, implying that DCA is a free add on. And lets look at the attendance from 2002... Disneyland, 12,700,000 up 3% And DCA, 4,700,000 down 6% So DL has 8 million more guests that DCA last year, even though Disney offered the Summer concert series, special events like the ABC preview weekend, and the 4 week long Soap Opera weekends to help draw more locals to DCA, and all it has done is help keep the loss at 6%, and not double digits. But I think that Disney's actions speak the loudest, a month ago, the same ticket was $9 more than a one day ticket, now they offer the same ticket at the same price as a one day. Looks like the locals were not interested in paying the extra amount, so Disney is now offering the second day for FREE. Heck, last year Disney offered special SoCal two-day ParkHoppers and a two-day non-park hopper, both of which you could use as two days at Disneyland, and were not required to visit DCA, unless you wanted to. So, why did Disney change the rules this fall to REQUIRE the ticket to be used as one day in each park... to get people to go to DCA, since DL's attendance is up, and DCA's attendance is still poor.<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer ^And looking back at the 2003 attendance, when the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" was offered both from January 6th thru May 13th, and then again from August 1st thru late November 24th, attendance went up from 4.7 million, to 5.3 million.
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "But isn't DL being given away for free the 4th and 5th day when they had 5 day tickets for the price of 3. Oh yes, you'll spin that to say NO. But 2 days for the price of 1 day is YES." I don't spin anything. I just write my opinions based upon what I know and have been told and/or observed. I am not one of those DCA haters, but I'm no apologist either. I am not familiar with the 5 days for the price of 3 offer you mentioned. But I would assume it's for both parks? "Spin all you want. Better yet, go to Universal. 364 free days when you buy 1 day." I already have my Universal APs. For both Hollywood and Orlando, thanks. "While WDW's are to fill hotel rooms, it also helps fill the parks. But spin as you may. Your yarn makes great sweaters." Glad I could amuse you. You know what amuses me? People who still want to defend DCA to the point of absurdity when even Bob Iger admits publically that the place is a challenge. Who's spinning here. I've watched this 2-fer offer the past few years, and how Disney has basically had to force people to use the tix for DCA yet some people still want to spin away. My mistake. DCA has been a critical, creative and, most definitely, financial success. And Disney has resorted to unheard of methods to get bodies into the park. Yeah, sure and it's snowing this afternoon here in Florida, so let me get back to spinning you a nice sweater to wear on those cold, empty fall days at DCA!
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "And Disney has resorted to unheard of methods to get bodies into the park." That should read: And Disney has NOT resorted to unheard of methods to get bodies into the park. We need an EDIT !!!!
Originally Posted By LuvDatDisney "I don't necessarily agree with that. The Grand has a higher occupancy rate and significantly higher spend rate than either of the other hotels. It is also discounted significantly less." Of course it does. It's the only true Disney hotel at DLR. The others are older properties that could be anywhere that Disney bought and has tried to make more Disney-like, with mixed results. People want to stay there. To say they want to stay there because it's adjacent to DCA is a stretch. "Occupancy as a whole has gone up at the Resort. That doesn't necessarily mean it is all being driven by DCA (conventions are big business for GC) but it is a big plus. People get too focused on DCA and don't look at the Resort as a whole which has benefited from the second gate whatever some people will claim." Of course the hotels are busier because DCA exists. But they also are busier because DD exists. But, most of all, they are busier because people want to be close to DL! "One of the most positive feedback messages from GC guests is direct access to the park. That makes a difference to every single guest." C'mon, Lee, let's be realistic. I doubt that every guest gives a damn they have a (very semi) private entrance to DCA. If it were that important why would Disney have closed the PP Hotel's entrance? Could it be that no one cared and they didn't want to put 1-2 $7 an hour CMs at it? Disney survey results are so skewed as to be meaningless. Guests were probably asked something like 'Does having a private entrance to DCA make your visit less magical than you expected, as magical as you expected or more magical then you expected?' They never ask the important questions. "And I know I've mentioned it before but don't underestimate how many discounted OLC tickets are sold at TDR. It is very substantial. It certainly isn't a 2fer but people that pay full price for a day at either park are in the minority." I don't have access to those numbers anymore than you do. But I feel very safe in saying that OLC does FAR less discounting than either DL or WDW does. "Also you would probably be surprised at how big the AP base is for both parks." No. I'm aware they have a large AP base. But I don't think you can get APs for $99 in Tokyo either.
Originally Posted By Darkbeer And let's see the current Marcie Spin from April 25th.... <a href="http://www.mouseinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?p=538542#post538542" target="_blank">http://www.mouseinfo.com/forum s/showthread.php?p=538542#post538542</a> >>I know some on other sites get their information from "shop talk" with fellow leads at Starbucks. I get my information from internal documentation that captures the real numbers and percentages. Let me set the record straight about this past weekend and the impact that the 2fer offer has had on DCA over the last weekend. It is true that DCA saw a very healthy day on Saturday. In fact, DCA did exceed 30k, but was under 35k and was up 19% over plan that day. Whereas DL was down 1% that day. However DCA has had bigger days with reaching total attendances of 38k before, so Saturday was not the biggest day in attendance by far. On Sunday, DCA was up only 2% and DL was up a whopping 17%. Yeah, I can see how the 2fer is dramatically impacting DCA more so than DL in the final weekend and how all those people waited until the last minute to go to DCA over DL. Both parks seem to be evenly getting a boost in the final days leading up to the end of the 2fer promotion. And yes, expect this upcoming weekend and the subsequent weeks and weekends to see slower days at DCA, and DL for that matter, as we end spring break this week and go into the transitionary period before the end of the school year. That is a typical pattern every year in May, so there should be no surprises to anyone. And by the way, DCA on Monday didn't show any dramatic increases in attendance against plan. However, DL did spike up again on Monday, but nothing like it did on Sunday. Just some food for thought.<< First off, what is plan, as I understand it, it is the number that Disney Management expects the park's attendance to be that day, and plans its staffing levels based on those numbers. They do go back and look at past history, plus looks at current hotel occupancy rates, etc. And what do we know... A. It was the last weekend for the current 2fer offer. B. Sunday, Disney stopped selling tickets to DCA, and placed all the warning signs out. C. On both Saturday and Sunday, Park Management were walking up and down the lines of folks waiting to get into DCA with the 2fer, and offering them the chance to use the ticket at Disneyland instead. (Multiple people on the boards reported that). D. The SoCal AP was blocked out from April 8th, thru Saturday, April 22nd. E. The Deluxe AP was blocked out on Saturday, April 22nd. So these are all facts of public knowledge. So let's use the above facts to Marcie's Spin... Let's start with the planning numbers, Disney Management knows that the last weekend of the 2fer in the past has brought major crowds to DCA. Also, Sunday would be busier than Saturday due to the removal of the blockout dates for the AP's, and Monsters, Inc. is still a draw for AP holders to go to DCA. So what number would I plan for Sunday at DCA. A number near capacity. And guess what, they did, and they were right. The park either reached capacity or was very close to it (based on Disney stopping ticket sells, and restricting entrance at the turnstiles). So using Marcie's numbers, let's say capacity is between 35,000 and 38,000. Let's say that the plan number was 35,000, 2% above plan is 700, so about 36,000 total, or when they shut the gates. And for Saturday, Disney planned for 28,000 at DCA, that would put the attendance at 33,200 if it was 19% over plan, matching Marcie's comments. Still a very busy park, and since a lot less AP holders could attend, 28,000 makes sense as Saturday number compared to Sunday. Now Disneyland has been seeing large crowds lately, so who knows what the plan numbers are there, I presume high, and they almost got the number on Saturday, based more on multi-day ParkHoppers and the last bit of Easter Break folks, since most AP holders couldn't get in. Now, what happened on Sunday, Disneyland attendance went up 17% above plan, and I presume that was once again a high number, probably over 50,000, if not more. 17% of 50,000 is 8,500, so maybe the park got an extra 10,000 or so. But why did Disneyland get that 10,000, well, first DCA couldn't get much higher than 2% over plan, since the plan was basically capacity. How many folks had a 2fer ticket and was planning to go to DCA, but took up Disney's offer to enter Disneyland instead, either voluntarily in the morning, or having no choice when DCA gates were restricted. Then you have all the AP holders showing up, and saw the large crowds of folks trying to get into DCA... I presume many folks decided to avoid the crowds and head to Disneyland instead. So a lot of the Disneyland attendance above plan was folks planning to go to DCA, except the park was basically full due to the 2fer offer. And then see how "she" closes, she basically sets up folks to not expect large crowds after Thursday.. wonder why, maybe the end of the "Pay for Disneyland, get DCA for FREE!" promotion. But it always seems that Marcie says not to beleive what you see or what others have to say, wheather it makes sense or not..... And of course, what is a Marcie post without a dig, looks like she didn't like what Westsider posted here in regards to her numbers.... So Westsider, trade you a cup of coffee for a beer
Originally Posted By berol Sounds like DCA could have gone over 40k on Sunday. =8-O I wish they'd do like the tix where they're good for 2 weeks after the buy date and the only hard deadline is for sales. There wouldn't be a crush, just a petering out.
