
Disneyland raised prices to shorten waits - t23
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-disneyland-wait-times-20170712-htmlstory.html
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skywhopper
I don't go to Disney parks very often but the "expanded ride reservation
system" mentioned in this article has actually gone from good to terrible, and
I think it has contributed to longer waits.

The old Fastpass system required you to go visit a kiosk near the ride itself,
and acquire a ticket for a specific time window later in the day, at which
point you could go in via a shorter priority line. It worked great and was
actually kind of fun.

I understand they would want to get rid of the physical passes the machine
printed out as the machines were probably maintenance nightmares, but they did
more than that. They changed the system entirely to an app, which is fine in
itself, but they eliminated the need to visit the ride area to get the pass,
which is part of what made the system fair. Instead, you can schedule the
passes ahead of time, even for future days, and of course passholders and
people staying at the park get priority, so all the popular rides' Fastpasses
are already gone by the time the typical visitor is even able to attempt to
schedule anything, which means they will just have to wait in the regular long
line because there's no way smooth out the demand across the day anymore,
since all the scheduling happens for a select group ahead of time without
requiring any physical commitment.

In short, they sabotaged themselves, at least from this visitor's POV.
Fastpass was one of my favorite bits of visiting Disney parks, but the new
system is one of my LEAST favorite bits. Ah well.

~~~
hammock
>they eliminated the need to visit the ride area to get the pass, which is
part of what made the system fair

The time spent walking to the ride can be considered part of the time you
spend in line. So they shortened that.

That's something my dad taught me once, by putting popular rides far from each
other in a park, you should realize your "time spent waiting for the ride" is
not just time in the line, but the time it takes for you to get to the line
also.

~~~
Cpoll
I'm not sure if it's a fair comparison. Walking to the line is far more
pleasant than waiting in the line.

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dkonofalski
I always wondered why Disney doesn't open a third park somewhere square in the
middle of the U.S. There's literally no competition with Disney parks as
they're one-of-a-kind and it would both open more space at their other parks
and bring in a huge segment of the population that doesn't go to their parks
simply because of travel costs. Disneyland and Disney World are _always_ busy.
Look at the data. It might be time.

~~~
InTheArena
Disclaimer - Disney annual passholder here.

In terms of where to locate the park, Disney was a big early believer in a
analytical approach. They hired SRI to determine the best location for
Disneyland back in the 1950s. They came up with a amazing amount of
operational and systems research that we use now. The big factors where
climate, access to a huge population base, and multiple access to freeways.

When it came to Disney World, the factor where those, plus the ability to buy
large amount of land before anyone was aware of it, and could drive up prices
with speculation.

Disney has tried a number of different strategies in the past to make parks
more accessible - including the idea of building a Disneyland on a boat, that
would travel the world, and stop in various ports for months, before packing
up and sailing to the next trip.

Most of the demand for Disney growth wise is international, with Brazil
probably next to get a park.

In terms of line waits, there are two things at play - one Disney has realized
that they have been leaving money at the table. Contrary to this article, the
vast majortity of the excess demand is not single day visitors at Disneyland,
but rather season pass holders in California. This is why they have jacked up
the cost for annual passes a ton. I was listening to a podcast recently that
postulated that as much as 45% of the daily visitors to Disneyland might be
annual pass holders. Expect the cost to go way up - it’s getting close to
double the cost of a Disneyland pass compared to a Disney World pass.

The other thing is that Disney is putting massive capital into the parks, to
grow them. They just opened Avatar land in Animal kingdom, but the most
exciting are the new STar Wars Land, Toy Story Land, Epcot overhaul, and
marvel land in California. Disney will be adding a ton of capacity, but they
are trying to raise ticket prices to offset.

~~~
rdslw
Can you explain reason behind annual pass? I've seen it once. Enough for
10yrs, maybe a lifetime.

P.S. I do understand hobbies ;)

~~~
wccrawford
My wife and I, and her family, have been Walt Disney World (Florida)
passholders for years. My dad was a passholder for years until he moved
another 45 minutes away from Disney.

It's a little expensive, but there's always something fun to do. Most of us go
to re-ride some of our favorite rides. My dad went to just walk around and get
exercise and look at things.

Epcot center also has a ton of live entertainment including live bands and
performers. They also have events with foods from around the world, flower or
butterfly festivals, and more.

For what it's worth, my impression of Disneyland (California and Tokyo) wasn't
nearly as good. They were fun, but they didn't have enough stuff to keep me
coming back. But then, I don't live there, so maybe there's more to it. Those
parks did have one thing that I wish Florida had: They change some of the
rides once in a while to match another theme, such as Nightmare Before
Christmas on the Haunted Mansion or "Hyperspace Mountain" (Star Wars) on Space
Mountain.

I have to say... You're the only person I've ever heard say they went to
Disney once and have no interest in going back.

~~~
jshelly
You can add me to the list of people never wanting to go back.

I was fairly excited to take my kids to Disney as I had never been there
myself as a kid for unknown reasons. And while I had good time, once is
certainly enough. I'd rather travel and see different places as opposed to
going the same place year after year.

~~~
logfromblammo
I think I have had my fill of Magic Kingdom in Orlando. Last time I was there,
I hated just about every minute of it. Every square inch of the park seemed to
have been redesigned to suck more money out of my pockets rather than to
ensure I was having an enjoyable experience.

Every last one of the rides seemed dated and lame, even if they had been
recently renovated. Wait. Scratch that. The _Finding Nemo_ one was okay. And
that was back when they were using Fastpass instead of this wristband/app
system they apparently have now.

I'll actually be in Orlando again a week from now, and we didn't even consider
planning anything Disney. The entertainment value divided by the total daily
cost of visiting a park is simply too low now. It isn't just the high ticket
prices. They unabashedly overcharge for meals and food, and the nearby
lodgings nickel and dime you on everything. And the _time cost_ for everything
is ridiculous.

The only reason it is so popular is that Disney cross-promotes _everything_ in
its media empire. If you let your kids watch enough Disney Channel on
television, they will eventually want to visit a Disney theme park or cruise
ship.

~~~
wccrawford
FWIW, they're still doing fastpass... It's just that the bands are another way
to get a fastpass, as is the smartphone app. You can still just get one the
old way, though.

I can't argue about the nickel-and-diming, though. It's getting ridiculous.

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k2enemy
If the strategy of avoiding long lines captures your interest, you'll probably
enjoy the El Farol Bar problem
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Farol_Bar_problem))
and more general minority games.

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Aloha
Former Disneyland CM (Cast Member) here.

Burgeoning wait times, and park overcrowding is (in my opinion) largely a
result of Annual Pass sales. The AP's come out, clog up the park and make it
less hospitable to non-AP guests.

~~~
nf05papsjfVbc
"clog up" seems a bit strong given that they actually paid for the entrance
and are just using a service they paid for.

~~~
Aloha
Yes, they did - but...

They don't buy (lots of) stuff - AP's often will drop by for half a day and
eat off property, but yet will still plop down in a restaurant and take up
table space. They also don't purchase much merch either.

They travel inefficiently - AP's often will come to meet up with friends, and
like most southern californians, they don't usually carpool - to the point
that in 2015, Disney almost stopped selling parking with the AP because of
capacity reasons.

So I think clog up is accurate here. AP's in general use the park in very
different ways then the people who are vacationing at the park - Disney has
made it clear that its primary market is the vacationer - but they cant drop
the AP system without alienating a bunch of folks.

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ikeyany
> _During the first month after it opened, the new Guardians attraction had an
> average wait time of 93 minutes, with the maximum wait time climbing to five
> hours, according to the data._

Words escape me.

~~~
dave5104
One thing I didn't see mentioned in the article are demographics for visitors.
Disneyland has always had a very local crowd, which is why they do things
differently from Walt Disney World in Florida. By "local crowd", I mean you
get a lot more people with season passes who go just for dinner in the park
and then leave. Waiting up to 5 hours for the Guardians attraction would be a
novelty to them since they've literally done everything else in the park many
times over.

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Fjolsvith
Back in '92, right after my discharge from the Air Force, I went to work for a
copier company, who sent me to LA for training on how to repair copiers. It
happened to be during the week of the LA Riots!

My instructors told us to take the day off and they stayed home to protect
their homes. I hopped the bus to Disneyland.

There were no lines there that day. I rode Space Mountain about 12 times!

~~~
justforFranz
This comment seems a bit white to me. Just guessing.

~~~
Fjolsvith
What do you mean by 'a bit white'?

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Simulacra
It looks like by the article raising ticket prices did not reduce the number
of people into the park. I think they should have just capped the number of
people in the park at one time, in addition to the increased ticket prices. I
feel like Disney is a melting pot. It's affordable at some time interval for
just about every family. If the prices keep going up it could risk being less
of that melting pot, and more of just the pot with more money.

~~~
Klathmon
They already do limit the number of people in the park, it just only tends to
get hit a handful of times a year.

And for good reason IMO. I don't know about you, but if I planned a vacation
and then wasn't allowed in the park during that time I'd be pissed, even more
if the reason was so that those who did get in could have less wait times and
I couldn't even get into the park to experience it.

~~~
eof
It would be pretty straight forward to buy tickets in advance for a specific
day.

~~~
Klathmon
But now you are just making it so only people that plan it many many months
out can get in.

And it comes with it's own slew of problems. Like you'd need to either have
hourly booking, or you'd need to assume when people are going to be going for
the day, and you could still just end up with an empty park at some times, and
crazy long lines at others.

Combined with the fact that "park hopping" is really common, especially when
you don't have a huge amount of days in a vacation there (or don't want to
blow a whole day on one of the smaller parks).

I'm not convinced it's as straightforward as you'd think.

Their solution of the "fast pass" system they have in florida is I think the
best of both worlds. You can "schedule" time for a ride months out, but they
still let as many people as they safely can in the park.

------
kalleboo
In Tokyo they just built a second park right next to the first one
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_DisneySea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_DisneySea)

~~~
fjdlwlv
Disney world has several parks

~~~
kalleboo
I wonder if it's like roads - build more of them and you just get more
visitors, not less congestion.

~~~
toast0
It doesn't seem surprising to me that if there is demand, but supply is
capacity limited, it's hard to determine the full extent of the demand, and
that when more capacity becomes available, the demand may exceed that as well.

If you build more lanes where the roads are generally uncongested, you won't
see much 'induced demand', because the there wasn't much demand for travel
that was waiting for less congestion.

If you build more lanes where the roads are generally congested, you will see
the amount of time the roads are congested decrease when construction is done.
However, most additional lanes are built in areas where there is strong
population growth, leading to increased demand overtime anyway. For example,
in southern california there was a project to add another lane to the I-405;
when completed, the average duration of heavy congestion (rush hour) was
reduced by several hours; but it's reasonable to expect that over time the
congestion will increase again, just as it was before construction.

It's reasonable to expect the same to happen for theme parks. There are a lot
of capacity constraints preventing people from attending a Disney park, and
you see that in the high attendance. It's probably difficult to predict how
many additional parks you could build and still have good attendance, but
building one at a time seems reasonable; being a bit hard to get in isn't
terrible for Disney's brand perception.

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amelius
If only customers were so forgiving if their webpage didn't load within 500
milliseconds.

~~~
petervandijck
If only our webpages were as awesome as Disneyland :)

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paulpauper
IF this were Uber Disney ..they would do surge pricing, and although the media
would get mad but at least the lines would be shorter for those willing to pay

~~~
bobbygoodlatte
Disney does offer a VIP service. It's $400-600 an hour though. I'm not certain
what the maximum group size is, I think 6-8:
[https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/vip-tour-
serv...](https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/vip-tour-services/)

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mrbonner
I'd like to take my little girl there but after hearing wait time I am kind of
withdraw to the idea. Does someone have any tip to visiting DL to minimize the
suffering for us adults (i.e time of year, what ride/fun things are worth the
wait, etc..)

~~~
sosuke
Get the speed pass band thingy. Totally worth it and it pretty much kills the
wait times. At least it was that way when I had gone.

~~~
dave5104
The Disney MagicBands? Those are only available in Walt Disney World in
Florida, not Disneyland in Anaheim.

Anaheim only has paper FastPasses, which are the same concept, but a little
more difficult to manage since you need to run around the park getting them.
MaxPass for $10 extra per person per day is coming soon, however, and will let
you book FastPasses via their app, but it's a shame it's an additional cost.

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neonhomer
Growing up somewhat near Cedar Point I'm actually surprised at Disneyland's
wait times aren't longer.

These are from 2013, but wait times at Cedar Point are much worse!
[http://www.fodors.com/community/united-states/cedar-point-
wa...](http://www.fodors.com/community/united-states/cedar-point-wait-
times.cfm#comment-8222807)

~~~
lentesta
The total ride capacity of Disneyland is staggering. I'm not sure what Cedar
Point's is, but I'd be surprised if it exceeded Disneyland's.

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fourmii
Do they do staggered ticket pricing based on what attractions are accessible?
Last time my family was passing through LA, I looked into taking my 3 and 7
year olds. We could only see the one ticket price. Thought it was just too
expensive considering the younger kid wouldn't have been able to nor would
have wanted to ride most of the attractions. It would have been nice to bring
them just to poke around...

~~~
dave5104
Kids 2 and under go in for free, but that's about it.

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justforFranz
They probably need to create a phone app that tracks guests, and then offer a
discount for people to install it on their phones. It might be the best way to
divide the customer base into various profiles that could later serve for
computer simulations & models for when different events happen: ticket price
changes, rides opened & closed, etc.

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tyrw
"passholders and people staying at the park get priority"

They didn't trade a faster system for a slower system, they started price
descriminating to further maximize their profits. You just happen to be in the
group that gets a slower experience.

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grafporno
> Average wait times at the Disneyland Resort have been on the rise over the
> past few years, despite efforts by the park to ease crowding by raising
> ticket prices on peak demand days

They raised prices because there was more demand, so they could make more
money.

~~~
fjdlwlv
Yes and no. They haven't maxed capacity, they get paid if people wait in line
in the park. Selling fewer paak day tickets at higher prices is better
experience for customers.

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hanapbuhay
When going, I try to remind myself that Disney parks are not designed to be
seen in one day.

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lionhearted
Does anyone know if Disney publishes any of their operations materials or
data, a la Toyota? I didn't find any on a quick search; it'd be fascinating to
dig into materials on how they do planning, capacity, traffic flows, etc.

~~~
lentesta
They publish almost nothing publicly. Certainly nothing useful that I'm aware
of.

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burntrelish1273
Or do like Burning Man, Yosemite, Hamilton, etc... schedule sale of limited
tickets well in advance. This has the added benefit of not taxing lower-income
people and makes the experience much more scarce and something to look forward
to.

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dsun179
Clickbait-title but actually great content. Never seen this before.

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ww520
They have already capped the people going into the park. People with single-
day passes can be turned away at the gate if the park is full. Two-day or
multi-day pass got priority.

~~~
habosa
Link? I can't believe if you have a one-day trip you can really get turned
away at the gate.

~~~
wccrawford
[http://www.disneydining.com/happens-disney-park-closed-
due-r...](http://www.disneydining.com/happens-disney-park-closed-due-reaching-
capacity/)

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BigChiefSmokem
Disney, instead of using fancy "wait in line" tech just stop shoving so many
people into the park. Problem solved.

~~~
kin
This could definitely work if they changed how their annual passes worked.
Right now, pass holders can come in whenever there is not a black out date,
but Disney needs to first implement a system where days have to be booked in
advance. Otherwise, first come first serve would unfairly block those
traveling from out of town.

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leejoramo
Please bring back the E-Ticket

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dmh2000
sounds like basic economics

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fiatjaf
Please, what are the results? There's too much useless text behind that
clickbait headline.

~~~
nmstoker
How can you tell it's useless if you didn't read it?!

