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Disneyland Resort (DL, DLR, DCA) Discussion Thread

p. 393 - Pixar Place Hotel transformation will be completed on January 30th, 2024!

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The fact that DCA is the 13th busiest park doesn't prove its success. Obviously different parks have different expectations.

What, then, is the criteria for success?

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Disneyland has twice the annual attendance as DCA.

DCA isn't competing against Disneyland, though. If that 2:1 figure is because everyone who was going to get a 2-day ticket to Disneyland is now getting a 3-day ticket and spending the additional day at DCA, I'd think they would be pretty happy about that.

 

Obviously I don't have granular data like that, but I think it's safe to say that no one is going to DCA and not to Disneyland. So the expectation should be that DCA will have a fraction of the attendance Disneyland does. The way to get that closer to parity is by pushing Park Hopper and Maxpass and thereby encouraging people to treat the two parks more like a single park.

They're not competing against each other of course. But some people do actually do what you've said and go to DCA and not Disneyland, but the number isn't too large because of the difference in quality and fame of the two parks. I've had a number of people come visit me out here that want to go to Disney for a day but are not spending $200 on a park hopper so they choose one park. Most have chosen Disneyland but there was one group who wanted to do DCA, and that was only because they were running a promotion.

 

From what I have been told (don't know if it is true), Disney only counts the first click of the day for accounting/reporting purposes. So anyone with a park hopper ticket/AP who enters Disneyland first, but still goes to DCA, will only get counted for Disneyland. I would guess that the majority of tickets are park hoppers or multi-day tickets (1 park/day) so the majority of their guests visit both parks.

 

DCA is definitely not struggling anymore.

That makes zero sense from an accounting or capacity planning point of view. The number you would get from measuring attendance like that would be pretty close to useless. But who knows.

 

What, then, is the criteria for success?

You would measure it up against other parks in the company, or at least parks with similar expenditures. The operating expenses at Disney parks are sky high compared to a local Six Flags. You can't just say since they are getting more people than another park that they are doing better financially. I think that's pretty fair to say, right?

 

I mean DCA had lower attendance than Hollywood Studios in 2017 for example, which is the most recent year with attendance info. With Toy Story Land in 2018 and Star Wars Land this year that gap is going to widen even more. The next lowest park among the US Disney parks is EPCOT, which has Ratatouille and GotG coming. DCA will be the lowest attended US Disney Park for the foreseeable future, and that's hard to explain because it's 100 yards from the second most popular park in the world. They can't be happy with that gap.

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That makes zero sense from an accounting or capacity planning point of view. The number you would get from measuring attendance like that would be pretty close to useless. But who knows.

 

No, it makes perfect sense. Keeping track of how many guests are in your park at a given time and how you account for them on a financial basis are two totally different things. It would be a monumental task to split the cost of an annual pass/park hopper ticket on a balance sheet if you did it by individual clicks.

 

DCA will be the lowest attended US Disney Park for the foreseeable future, and that's hard to explain because it's 100 yards from the second most popular park in the world. They can't be happy with that gap.

 

They are laughing at this statement all the way to the bank. The whole point of DCA was to keep people on Disney property longer. They can't charge $1,400 for a Signature Plus AP without DCA. They're not selling 5 day tickets without DCA. They're not filling 3 hotels at insane prices without DCA.

 

DCA was a failure prior to carsland, because it rightfully had a poor reputation and was value engineered from its intended design. It's not an accident attendance jumped by 1.5 million when Carsland opened and has been growing ever since. People now actually want to go there, which means Disney can keep a captive audience longer than before.

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Disneyland has twice the annual attendance as DCA.

DCA isn't competing against Disneyland, though. If that 2:1 figure is because everyone who was going to get a 2-day ticket to Disneyland is now getting a 3-day ticket and spending the additional day at DCA, I'd think they would be pretty happy about that.

 

Obviously I don't have granular data like that, but I think it's safe to say that no one is going to DCA and not to Disneyland. So the expectation should be that DCA will have a fraction of the attendance Disneyland does. The way to get that closer to parity is by pushing Park Hopper and Maxpass and thereby encouraging people to treat the two parks more like a single park.

They're not competing against each other of course. But some people do actually do what you've said and go to DCA and not Disneyland, but the number isn't too large because of the difference in quality and fame of the two parks. I've had a number of people come visit me out here that want to go to Disney for a day but are not spending $200 on a park hopper so they choose one park. Most have chosen Disneyland but there was one group who wanted to do DCA, and that was only because they were running a promotion.

Oh man, anecdotal evidence? Wow, if I had known you were gonna bring the big guns....

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Oh man, anecdotal evidence? Wow, if I had known you were gonna bring the big guns....

 

When you say something like "I don't have any data but I doubt anyone is only going to DCA..." what the hell are you expecting someone to come back with except for anecdotal evidence haha.

 

They are laughing at this statement all the way to the bank. The whole point of DCA was to keep people on Disney property longer. They can't charge $1,400 for a Signature Plus AP without DCA. They're not selling 5 day tickets without DCA. They're not filling 3 hotels at insane prices without DCA.

 

DCA was a failure prior to carsland, because it rightfully had a poor reputation and was value engineered from its intended design. It's not an accident attendance jumped by 1.5 million when Carsland opened and has been growing ever since. People now actually want to go there, which means Disney can keep a captive audience longer than before.

 

That's a really good point in terms of multi day tickets, hotels, and increased AP prices. And Carsland was a huge success no denying that. But nothing else has been. The Little Mermaid and Paradise Pier particularly, but even GotG. Attendance has not been growing every year since Carsland that just isn't true. It has been completely stagnant for 3 years now from 2015-2017, and there's no good reason to believe 2018 was better when the only changes made was turning the entire Paradise Pier and Bugsland into a construction site.

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Attendance has not been growing every year since Carsland that just isn't true. It has been completely stagnant for 3 years now from 2015-2017, and there's no good reason to believe 2018 was better when the only changes made was turning the entire Paradise Pier and Bugsland into a construction site.

To be fair, Disneyland's attendance was effectively stagnant during that period as well. Still a lot higher than Disney California Adventure, because duh, but both parks had gains for 2015, declines for 2016, and gains for 2017. But even then, 2016 was a decline year for every Disney park except Shanghai Disneyland, and the top 25 parks worldwide as a collective unit, by just over 1 percent.

 

Disney California Adventure will never be at the level of Disneyland in terms of first-park-visited-during-the-day attendance but it doesn't need to be. While there are certainly some remnants of the "cheap and cheerful" old days still around (Hollywood Land comes to mind), the park still looks great and will likely still continue to be successful.

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Oh man, anecdotal evidence? Wow, if I had known you were gonna bring the big guns....

 

When you say something like "I don't have any data but I doubt anyone is only going to DCA..." what the hell are you expecting someone to come back with except for anecdotal evidence haha.

What are you talking about? Disney publishes data, we know the statistical trends. They're one of a very few companies who do publish this.

 

What we don't have are granular data; i.e. the Jones family went to DCA on Monday, but the Smith family went to DL. They have that stuff because you scan your ticket or annual pass; they just don't publish it for obvious reasons.

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Obviously I don't have granular data like that, but I think it's safe to say that no one is going to DCA and not to Disneyland.

As you said they don't provide this data, so all I'm saying is anecdotal evidence is all there is for me to go off of. And in my case that evidence would prove your assumption isn't safe to say. Don't think that's completely ridiculous of me.

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If you’re planning on braving the long lines anticipated for the opening of Disneyland’s Star Wars ride, the theme park has a few solutions to make the experience more enjoyable instead of just saying, “May the force be with you.”

 

When Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run opens at the new Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge land May 31, guests who struggle to hold their bladder in line can ask for a bathroom pass, which will allow them to use the restroom and not lose their spot, alleviating the need for Jedi-worthy self control.

 

Disneyland Resort will also provide entertainment both in-person and through their mobile app to make guests’ experience in line more pleasant. This may be done through character performances, trivia conducted by a cast member or games that are accessible on mobile phones — all of which will be themed to the ever-popular film series. Snacks and drinks will also be available for purchase while guests are waiting.

 

Details have not yet been released about how the bathroom pass process will work, and Disney officials tell PEOPLE that this initiative is actually not a new one, as the park works to accommodate guests who need to hop out of line for any reason all year round.

Source

 

Is this an old policy? For some reason, I thought that hopping out of the line for any reason at Disney was frowned upon and you had to go before getting in line so as not to disrupt other guests. I've seen bathroom passes in Korea but I've seen guests hop out with the kids for the bathroom at the very start of the line and come back 25-40 minutes later at the end with a whole bunch of snacks.

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From what I understand, this IS a new policy. They're currently offering it on Avatar Flight of Passage. A guest can ask the cast member at the "pulse" point in the caves area for the pass (which is a lanyard with a plastic card), then the guest goes out to use the restroom and waits at the merge point for their party (EDIT: after re-entering through the FastPass Plus entrance).

 

If you've ridden Avatar Flight of Passage lately you'll notice a gaggle of people that hang out near the exit doors before the link chambers. I'm pretty sure those are people who have returned with their passes. Time will tell if people start taking advantage of it (in a bad way), but someone will probably figure it out sooner or later.

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Time will tell if people start taking advantage of it (in a bad way)...

 

Eventually you leave 1 person in line, and a family of 6 will "come back from the bathroom" 45 mins later after riding the Matterhorn. Leave it to people in California to take advantage of a system that's designed to make *everyone's* experience (most especially those 1 time visitors) more enjoyable, and they'll exploit it. I don't know why some people think they're "better" than everyone else waiting their turn in line, and why it's so hard to just play by the rules.

 

I do however think it is great that Disnelyland is attempting to make this policy available. I don't think they should, because it just opens up a can of worms, but I gotta hand it to them for trying.

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They should do what Europa Park did with Wodan Timburcoaster and install toilets halfway through the line.

 

The Cyclone at Six Flags New England (back when it was Riverside,anyways) had these. They were, to understate it to a vast extent, unpleasant; to the point that they were so foul that most people just either waited or left the line, and they were eventually removed. Now granted a Disney level of service means an in-queue bathroom wouldn't be neglected to that degree but I can't imagine the effort it would take to implement; think of how much restructuring not just the queue would need but you'd have to worry about pipes, cast member access, all that.

 

Big agree with Steve, I'm glad they're at least trying something. Sometimes you just have to have a go (oh no, a pun) at an idea to see if it'll work.

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Time will tell if people start taking advantage of it (in a bad way)...

 

Eventually you leave 1 person in line, and a family of 6 will "come back from the bathroom" 45 mins later after riding the Matterhorn. Leave it to people in California to take advantage of a system that's designed to make *everyone's* experience (most especially those 1 time visitors) more enjoyable, and they'll exploit it. I don't know why some people think they're "better" than everyone else waiting their turn in line, and why it's so hard to just play by the rules.

 

I do however think it is great that Disnelyland is attempting to make this policy available. I don't think they should, because it just opens up a can of worms, but I gotta hand it to them for trying.

 

There's your answer. There's a few of them in every area, but SoCal is jam packed with me first @$$holes. If following the rules requires even the slightest bit of effort, the rules are ignored. That attitude does not stop at Disneyland's entrance gates.

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That's a really good point in terms of multi day tickets, hotels, and increased AP prices. And Carsland was a huge success no denying that. But nothing else has been. The Little Mermaid and Paradise Pier particularly, but even GotG. Attendance has not been growing every year since Carsland that just isn't true. It has been completely stagnant for 3 years now from 2015-2017, and there's no good reason to believe 2018 was better when the only changes made was turning the entire Paradise Pier and Bugsland into a construction site.

 

Sorry, I stand corrected. From 2015-2016, attendance was slightly down by 88,000. It then rebounded by 279,000 from 2016-2017. The 2018 TEA report isn't out yet to see how last year was. So I suppose you can call it stagnant since the gains have been relatively minor over the last 3 years. However, the only thing that matters is revenue for the entire resort. As I said, as long as they keep selling multi-day tickets, hotel packages, ever increasing prices on AP passes, food/merch...the park is very much a success post carsland.

 

It was never intended to stand on its own, but initially failed from being so "value engineered" to the point people didn't want to spend an entire extra day or two at the resort. They were in and out in a few hours, but that is clearly no longer the case.

 

I don't think you understand that not everything is intended to drive major attendance gains. Adding capacity and length of stay in the resort=more revenue from the real profit driving parts of the resort (hotel, food, retail).

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They should do what Europa Park did with Wodan Timburcoaster and install toilets halfway through the line.

 

The Cyclone at Six Flags New England (back when it was Riverside,anyways) had these. They were, to understate it to a vast extent, unpleasant; to the point that they were so foul that most people just either waited or left the line, and they were eventually removed. Now granted a Disney level of service means an in-queue bathroom wouldn't be neglected to that degree but I can't imagine the effort it would take to implement; think of how much restructuring not just the queue would need but you'd have to worry about pipes, cast member access, all that.

 

Big agree with Steve, I'm glad they're at least trying something. Sometimes you just have to have a go (oh no, a pun) at an idea to see if it'll work.

 

Of course that's something Europa would do! I'm horrified what those restrooms must have looked like at SFNE/Riverside.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It has just been announced that Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway will open at Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland Park in 2022!

 

https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2019/04/mickey-minnies-runaway-railway-to-roll-into-disneyland-park/

 

mbhgyu7898-768x430.jpg.e15fc1de3c97cffe0aea638eb66a68cd.jpg

We have an exciting announcement to share! Disneyland park guests will be able to step into a cartoon world and join Mickey and his friends on Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, coming to Mickey’s Toontown in 2022!

 

This first major Mickey-themed ride-through attraction at Disneyland park will put you inside the wacky and unpredictable world of a Mickey Mouse cartoon short where anything can happen! Once you step into the cartoon world of Mickey and Minnie, you’ll board a train with Goofy as the engineer. Then, one magical moment after the next leads you to a zany, out-of-control adventure filled with surprising twists and turns.

 

With an original story and lovable theme song, Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway uses state-of-the-art technologies and dazzling visual effects to transform the cartoon world into an incredible and immersive multi-dimensional experience.

 

Earlier today, Disneyland Resort President Josh D’Amaro shared a fun photo of him getting a sneak peek of the plans!

 

Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway is also planned to open at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World Resort in spring 2020.

 

Stay tuned to the Disney Parks Blog for updates on this exciting addition to Mickey’s Toontown, including special details that promise to make this amazing attraction unique for Disneyland park guests.

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hmmm. . . . does this mean Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin is on it's way out, to reuse the building?

 

(I don't recall much space to put a *new construction* attraction like this in the ToonTown area).. . .

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hmmm. . . . does this mean Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin is on it's way out, to reuse the building?

 

(I don't recall much space to put an attraction like this in the ToonTown area).. . .

 

Negative. It's taking up backstage space.

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hmmm. . . . does this mean Roger Rabbit's CarToon Spin is on it's way out, to reuse the building?

 

(I don't recall much space to put an attraction like this in the ToonTown area).. . .

 

Negative. It's taking up backstage space.

 

 

that's GREAT news, thanks!

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