In my Orange County Register column this week, I write about the relatively small crowd fans encountered at the Disneyland Resort over the Fourth of July weekend, which Theme Park Insider reader Rob McCullough also brought up for discussion here on the site. Visitors to Orlando also seemed to missing the truly overwhelming crowd levels that we've see in those parks in the past.
Is that what you've seen on your visits to Disney or Universal? We'd love to hear from fans visiting other parks, too. How are the crowds this summer, compared with summers past?
Theme park attendance reflects an almost countless number of variables. The British pound crashing after the Brexit vote has led many would-be visitors from the UK to cancel or scale back their vacation plans to Orlando. Meanwhile, the ongoing mess in Brazil has hurt visitation from that country. Those are two of the Orlando parks' biggest foreign markets, so the loss of a significant number of visitors from them will show in shorter lines at Walt Disney World and Universal Orlando.
Back here in Southern California, Disneyland's annual pass price increase might be leading many former Premium annual passholders to downgrade or drop their passes entirely, holding down attendance levels on holidays and summer weekends. And the new variable pricing plans for one-day tickets at Disney and Universal might be dissuading day visitors from coming on previously busy holidays, as well.
Meanwhile, the industry is competitive as ever, with VR coasters at the Six Flags parks, massive improvements at Universal Studios Hollywood, Knott's celebrating a big anniversary, and big new coasters at SeaWorld, Cedar Point, and Dollywood.
So here are the questions: Is attendance really flat or down this summer at the top parks? If so, does that reflect a general downward trend for theme parks, or are fans just spreading their visits around more evenly, with increases at smaller parks? Or... is attendance still going up, but simply flattening from day to day at the top parks, with previously peak days down but previously slow days busier?
How have your plans for visiting theme parks changed this year? And what are you seeing when you visit the parks?
Read Robert's Column:
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I heard A LOT of chatter in the parks, the town, and even back home before we left (Oklahoma) about the shooting tragedy that had happened, so I would guess that was part of the reason people stayed away. But other than the rides and locales that get busy no matter what (Hogsmeade/Snow White coaster were both busy) it was very sparsely crowded for the first day of Summer.
I will say that this year the cost of the places is starting to really get out of hand, and we are a married couple without kids. $17 for a spray mister at SeaWorld, $14 for two Butterbeers in cups not in mugs, and $30 to eat a burger and fries in Future World is borderline crazy and starting to creep into not really worth the money - Not sure how the families of four will be able to keep up the pilgrimages...
Last year I did visit Japan and got to see the Tokyo Disney Resort. It is priced much more reasonably than the US parks as well as providing a much better experience.
I visited Knott's last year as well and I must say they have stepped their game WAY up and are offering a value much greater than Disneyland.
Because of the week Pound I will be visiting the UK for the first time in 18 years. I am very excited to visit Blackpool Pleasure Beach!
-Prices are up but disposable income is down
-Parks are offering strong incentives to visit during less crowded times
-Problems internationally are likely contributing to fewer foreign visitors this year
-There have been a lot of attractions announced, but many are not open yet and infrequent visitors are likely delaying trips
-With the number of recent high-profile tragedies, there is probably less desire to travel to popular tourist destinations for fear of something going terribly wrong for real
My hunch is that overall visitors for the year will still be an increase over last year at most major theme parks, but this summer is likely to be one of the slowest in recent memory. That does not mean that the parks will be empty, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if attractions that routinely average 60 minute waits instead average 30 minute queues.
First off, we spent our first few days in London. The day we left London for Paris was the day that the UK voted to get out of the EU. So the local news was ablaze with the big vote, and once in a while there would be sign or a sticker on someone's home or business about what people should choose, kinda like how here in the States people have signs and stickers saying what candidate you should vote for. The people who wanted to stay in warned that losing that immediate connection with all those other European countries would deal a huge blow to the economy. The young voters especially were concerned about how that would affect them for the rest of their lives. Obviously I'm not a British citizen, and my understanding of economics is very basic, so I can't say for sure if I think pulling out of the EU is negatively affecting the UK's economy or not, let alone if it'll discourage any of them from visiting Orlando. But according to what I saw, we shouldn't be surprised if that's what ends up happening.
And I do think the terrorist attack might have something to do with it, too. (on a side note: that literally happened on my birthday. Ninety minutes from my own home. Yup.) There was a huge Gay Pride flag in front of England's American Embassy, reminding any and all passerby's of that tragic event. But I do think that people will work up the courage to visit Orlando again if that's why they're not visiting. Remember that huge terrorist attack that happened in Paris? The French certainly do. Not only did they have security checks at all the important landmarks, but they had soldiers patrolling the streets in full uniform and with fully-loaded machine guns. But even so, Paris was still alive with tourism. It could actually get pretty crowded sometimes. Now, Paris's terrorist attacks were quite a few months ago, while Orlando's was not even a month ago. So in time people will start coming back.
This year, the holiday was on a Monday. For people visiting from out of town, Monday was likely their travel day to return home. People reported that Sunday (July 3) was considerably more crowded than Monday (July 4) this year.
Disney has been slow to open new attractions in the last 10 years and let things stagnate at WDW for too long, but now, with several new things announced and some just starting to open (Frozen), many people from far away are just delaying their visit. I am in the UK and we probably would have visited in 2015/16 had there been significant new stuff at Disney in the last few years, but instead I am just thinking, lets wait until Avatar is open at least.
From a UK perspective, I don't think the pound value has much to do with it, as someone said, people plan well ahead so it wouldn't affect this summer. Whilst a lot of fuss and maybe overstatement has been made about the 'crashing' pound it is actually only a fraction lower than it fell to in 2009 and then it didn't seem to affect trips to Florida from the UK, and there was little or no talk about it doing so. So whilst I am sure the devalued pound wont help, I don't think it will make a lot of difference (unless it continues to fall of course)
Star Wars, Avatar, and Pixar have a long while to go before they open, Frozen and King Kong don't appear to be "must see" attractions, and a full theme park vacation for my family will cost in excess of five thousand dollars - if I cut corners. That's too much, without enough new to see.
Disney must replace Bob Iger with a CEO who understands that Disney's financial success depends upon the goodwill of its fan base.
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