Posted on 07/11/2023 11:21:53 AM PDT by Red Badger
It takes real skill to drive this many customers away.
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Tweet See new Tweets Conversation Old Spook 👻 @maxheadroom470 Disney World in Orlando is suffering - here it is nearly mid-July, schools are out, families are on vacation, and the streets at Disney are just about empty!
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The July 4th weekend was a 10-year-low for the massive company's Disney World amusement park in Orlando, but all the parks have been suffering recently.
More from The Wall Street Journal:
Park visitors in recent weeks have had significantly lower wait times to get on rides, according to data from Touring Plans, a company that tracks wait times at major amusement parks, including Disney World and Disneyland in California. Industry analysts say shorter wait times generally correlate with smaller crowds.
The average posted wait time at the Magic Kingdom park in Florida — which has a special fireworks display on July 4 — was 27 minutes this year for the holiday, down from 31 minutes in 2022 and 47 minutes in 2019, the Touring Plans analysis shows.
"It's something that nobody would have predicted — just unfathomable," says Len Testa, a computer scientist who runs Touring Plans. Testa says wait times rose in the following days.
The Journal offers an assortment of potential reasons for the lull: Cruises and European vacations are back after the pandemic, Disney isn't offering much new, and Disney wants to slim down the crowds for richer guests anyway.
But unlike the journalist class, most of America understands the two primary reasons:
Your wallet is hurting
Disney went woke
Expect the 30-year-old single fanboys keeping Disney afloat to back out once student loan repayment starts back up in September!
I remember those paper tickets! I saved some unused ones in a momento box for a long time. No idea where it is now, or if those are just moth eaten by now.
bttt
You beat me to that one. “Hi there, I’m your Fairy Godmother’s Assistant.” Hmm...wonder what changed?
BTTT!!!
Cancelled my annual pass. There’s a lot like me. Combination of the Mouse getting too greedy (that whole Genie+ thing that replaced FREE fastpasses where people are forced to pay now for the same thing), not keeping up the parks to the same high standard they used to be (both in terms of employees and maintenance), and, of course, all the wokeness. Why would I want to go somewhere where I am constantly reminded of politics if the purpose is to have fun?
They are still getting a lot of first timers tho.
btw, those saying Florida in July... it’s always Hell on Earth in Florida in July. The crowds haven’t stopped. Until this year... hmm...
Aren’t the rich South Americans still sending their teenage kids to WDW in droves? It was something of a rite of passage for them to go to FL and visit the parks. They’d be in groups of 30-50 with a couple of chaperones. We never had “too much issue” with them, but I’ve heard many, many complaints about line-cutting, pushing people out of the way, and overall rudeness. Our last visit was probably 7-ish years ago, and it was NOT cheap. Between their ever-increasing prices, inflation, and bad press, it’s really no wonder the parks are emptying.
Never understood adults who get into that. The rides and other things? Sure. But waiting an hour to hug a teenager in a Winnie the Pooh costume? Very weird...
Brazilian tour groups are the worst.
Disneyland Opening Day, Sunday, July 17, 1955
https://www.designingdisney.com/parks/disneyland-resort/grand-opening-disneyland/
“Southern California was suffering from a record heat wave with temperatures of over a 100 degrees Fahrenheit.”
Current temperature: 87 degrees Fahrenheit
It really is a shame what’s become of the company. Our first trip with our kids, they were maybe 4-7 yrs old, and it really was (sorry to be trite) “magical.” Just all of the costuming, the music, the architecture — yes, it was crowded and hot, but still, it was such a sensory treat! Our first day at the Magic Kingdom, a cast member approached us and asked if we’d like to have a private meeting with Cinderella! (we had 3 little girls in tow, haha). Well, you can just imagine how that went. Good, good memories.
All they really need to do is to stop amending the copyright law every time Mickey Mouse come close to entering the public domain.
The whole world is weird. most sports are weird if you really think about it. grown men getting paid millions to play. Watching people pretend (acting) to be other people is weird.Auto flush toilets..auto sinks..EVs..Trannies..homos...the desire for space aliens to be real..communism .. cable news that really isn’t news...the FBI.. obama .. biden ..harris..The View .. hillary..weird weird .. weird.....
Dammit! I’m suddenly feeling that urge to grab an axe-handle again ...
Waiting for some DeSantis supporter to claim this is the result of his handiwork.
When I grew up in SoCal in the 60s, we had neighbors who worked for Disney studios. Every year they would bring over bags of tickets, some had gate passes. Life was good.
Disney wanted graphic kink sex taught to kids in K- 3rd. Disney sucks.
I suspect these year-to-year comparisons understate the problem Disney has. I once worked for a company that owned a major amusement park. When crowds were lower, they just ran the rides less often so as to keep the wait time pretty constant. I would be surprised if Disney did not do the same thing.
***Life was good.***
Indeed! My older brother was a security guard for WDW, and he loved to treat people if he could. It was his favorite job ever, and he was good at it. He loved children and their exuberance at seeing the characters in costume. He got to escort famous people around, too.
He taught me a lot of things, like how to keep my purse completely zipped up, so that someone in security would have to get permission to open it. Always good advice.
He worked so hard to be a good employee there. They often tried to get rid of the older folks by any means necessary, so they wouldn’t have to pay for their pensions. There are a lot of places that do that, and Disney was no exception. Once he got his 25 years in, he stopped worrying. He got to see Tinkerbell celebrate his retirement soon after he put in his time. His name was finally up in lights! He was a great man, and I miss him.
Disney is not the same as it used to be, and I don’t think they ever will be.
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