Category — a. When to Go to Walt Disney World

DISNEY WORLD AND TROPICAL STORM ISAAC

We’ve entered the peak of the hurricane season, and Tropical Storm Isaac is currently expected to turn into a (mild) hurricane over the next day or so, but is no longer expected to much threaten Central Florida or Orlando. [Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD CROWDS AND FREE DINING

Pretty much every time Disney World announces a free dining deal (like this one), I get a  bunch of comments like this:

“Dave–with free dining now announced for my week, should I move my dates to avoid the crowds it draws?”–Perplexed

My short answer is always something like “No, don’t change.  It’s mathematically impossible for free dining to much change park crowds.”

For the longer answer–and why the short answer is true–keep reading!

FREE DINING CAN PACK THE DISNEY WORLD HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS, BUT NOT THE PARKS

Here’s the basics:

• The vast majority of people in the parks are NOT staying in a Walt Disney World hotel
• Free dining only affects the number of people staying in Disney World hotels
• Some people who take advantage of free dining arrival dates would have been in Walt Disney World hotels then anyway, so don’t incrementally add to park crowds
• Some people are simply pulled into Disney World hotels from off-site hotels by free dining, so have no incremental impact on park crowds
• Some people would not have gone during one of the eligible arrival dates at all except for free dining

Only this last group has an incremental impact on park crowds, and it is so small that it can’t affect park crowding much.

Here’s why:  including all the Art of Animation rooms, there’s about 27,200 Walt Disney World hotel rooms (excluding the Campsites at Fort Wilderness, which are never eligible for free dining).

The last bucket–people who would not have come but for free dining–is going to book at most 20% of these rooms, or about 5500 rooms.

At 3 people per room, that’s about 16,000 incremental people.

Divided across 4 theme parks, two water parks, off-days, Universal and SeaWorld, etc., the incremental effect on any given park is de minimis.

For example, on a slow day (and basically free dining is only offered during the slow periods–that’s why they offer it…), the Magic Kingdom will have 20,000-25,000 people in it; adding another 5,000 or even 10,000 people will have only a trivial impact on park crowding, as this will still put the crowd level well below the point where the park lines start going crazy.

Free dining does make the park crowds higher than they would be on the same exact dates without free dining, but not enough to change the nature of the parks or their lines.

It does crowd the hotels–that’s the point–and crowd the restaurants–that’s the tool.

But in general, you should view the presence of free dining during your week as an indicator that it’s a pretty low crowd week to attend!

(This is the second page of this article on prices and value at Walt Disney World in 2013. For the first page, see this.)

DISNEY WORLD 2013 HOTEL PRICE INCREASES AND EXTRA MAGIC HOUR CUTBACKS

Prices for Disney World’s resort hotels have also gone up in 2013—but, relatively speaking, when the additional value these hotels will offer is factored in, only a teeny bit compared to the massive 2013 dining plan and ticket price increases.

Moreover, I think that the timing of the January cutbacks in Extra Magic Hours—evening Extra Magic Hours, traditionally 3 hours, are shifting to 2—is less of a takeaway than it is a signal of when NextGen will kick in…and that NextGen will add value to being a Disney World hotel guest much more than the loss of an hour of evening EMH will take away value.

(Note that Disney has already tested, this summer, the effect of reducing operating and Extra Magic Hours—more on this widely unnoticed test below.)

The combined effect is that Disney World resort hotels, all in, and even with the EMH cutbacks, should be a much better value in 2013 than in 2012.

We should get a further hint about this soon.

The Disney Park blog used an unusual word for the Fantasyland expansion— it mentioned “previews.” I may be mis-remembering, but in the past, visiting a ride before official opening has been called a “soft-open,” and has not been advertised as a “preview,”, much less communicated with a date.

But for new Fantasyland, things are different—the official open has been set for 12/6, and previews are to begin 11/19.

I suspect Disney is using this language of “previews” so that it can schedule these previews using NextGen technology and processes, as a first step towards testing the whole NextGen system.

Moreover, I expect booked Disney World resort hotel guests to be among the first to be offered a chance to book these previews…

DISNEY WORLD 2013 HOTEL PRICE INCREASES [Read more →]

“…We’re certainly on the trajectory to get back to our…pre-downturn trajectory on pricing…As we open DCA…we’ve announced [strong] price increases there…I think you’ll see a similar thing in Florida as we open the new product.”

– Jay Rasulo, CFO, the Walt Disney Company, at the Nomura U.S. Media, Cable & Telecomm Summit, May 30 2012.

PRICES AND VALUE AT WALT DISNEY WORLD IN 2013

There’s been a lot of reaction, some of it sensible, to Disney World’s 2013 price increases, especially when coupled with the recent announcement that evening Extra Magic Hours would be cut back from 3 hours to 2 hours beginning in January 2013.

For first time visitors, these price increases don’t matter much. The high absolute cost of going to Disney World matters a lot to them; the fact that it is more expensive in 2013 than 2012 is interesting, but largely irrelevant.

But for returning visitors, price increases matter a lot, as they may affect willingness to buy some items—e.g. the Dining Plan—or force some of them to delay their next visit. [Read more →]

I’ve recently published the final revision of the weeks of 2013 ranked in order of how good they are for a family on their first visit to Walt Disney World who may never return.

This page explains how they are built.

HOW THE WEEK RANKINGS ARE BUILT

Basically, I chunk up the weeks of the year based on certain criteria, and then sort within each chunk based first on crowds, and then, within the same crowd level, prices.

“WEEKS TO AVOID” AT WALT DISNEY WORLD [Read more →]

V2 OF 2013 WEEKS TO VISIT WALT DISNEY WORLD RANKED IN ORDER IS OUT

The updated Disney World 2013 week ranking is now out, and (barring typos and logical lacunae) should now be stable through 2013.

The update incorporates final Disney World 2013 price seasons and crowd forecasts.

Only 3 weeks changed their ranking by more than a couple of places from the draft version, and only two more than 5 places. [Read more →]