Lack of crowds and Disney's response

I don't understand why people here seem to think that allowing people to enter the park for free will help Disneyland?
Everyone here doesn’t. The currently blocked out Passholders on the boards will swear to Kingdom Come if they got unblocked it will stem the bleeding. Just like us non-passholders will swear a Spring-level ticket discount and broader hotel discounts will stem the bleeding. As with everything you just need to evaluate the source :)
 
I was on expedia and it didn't change my dates right, but the Motel 6 for this weekend was $80 a night. In summer.
 




Many people are staying away until both rides are open. Disney is getting too expensive to go for just one ride in GE.
We booked for a week in August only because it’s when my daughter can get time off work. If we get in GE fine. But I’m not going with high expectations.
We book a hotel on Harbour, and our hotel room has dropped by $300 since we booked for a 6 night stay.
 
After the news today that RotR is opening at WDW first and won't be open til Jan 2020 in Disneyland....I am no longer concerned about crowds in Sept haha

Where did you hear this? Could you link, if you have the source? I’d like to read more...what a bummer. :(
 
As I think about it, I don't really think they should have built Star Wars Land at DL. I think a lot of people consider the WDW version to be the "real" one and will travel to go to that. Disneyland serves the locals, wand when they are blocked out, crowds are going to drop. I think it would have been better to just build the Millennium Falcon ride for DL, put it in Tomorrowland (maybe even in lieu of Star Tours) and call it a day. DL would have been better served with something different occupying that space.

But, look, Disney will be okay. This has happened before (ahem...California Adventure). They'll make adjustments and figure it out. All will be well.

Yeah, no, I don't agree with this at all. I'm super glad they built GE at both U.S. properties. As much as people want to say that DLR is a locals parks, and it absolutely is compared to *WDW*, there are plenty of tourists who pour in to DLR as well and also love it. The lot of people considering GE "real" at WDW are delusional.
 
Never mind! Just saw the post on the main board...

I did not want to jump on the 'Disney Dropped The Ball" bandwagon.....but man, this does not seem great for them haha.

Since Sept is my first time ever to Disneyland it doesn't bother me too much because even though I was excited for it, SWGE was never going to be my focus.
 
Yeah, no, I don't agree with this at all. I'm super glad they built GE at both U.S. properties. As much as people want to say that DLR is a locals parks, and it absolutely is compared to *WDW*, there are plenty of tourists who pour in to DLR as well and also love it. The lot of people considering GE "real" at WDW are delusional.

Considering Disney poured all their resources into opening RotR at WDW first I am inclined to think that Disney at least believes this to a degree. I don't like the terminology 'real' but I would say that WDW is viewed as more of vacation resort than DLR.
 
You had me until Star Tours. Star Tours must stay. Galaxy’s Edge will be fine in HS, but Epcot is a park that really could use something new. I’m not sure how it fits in where it’s located in DL, I guess I will see in September. I do like Tomorrow Land.

As a fan, my gut reaction was that SWGE didn't fit at Disneyland. But then again, I'm a biased riverrat who was a bit precious about how it would cut through the artificial wilderness along the railroad, Columbia, and Mark Twain routes. But I didn't give the Imagineers enough credit. They built a proper transition between both Critter Country and Frontierland (just as they did with Avatar), so that it's almost like a cross dissolve in a movie when you move from one scene to the next. It was superbly done.

Also, to disagree respectfully with some previous posts, I would not say that the SWGE at WDW is the "real" one of the two. At least not more than the idea that Disneyland is the "real" Magic Kingdom and that the others are adaptions. Both lands were built at the same scale, detail, and level, and DHS just has the expensive hotel attached to it that I probably wouldn't spend the money to experience anyway.
 
WHY would they not lower prices or offer discounts on hotels? I understand that they would like to get $450 a night at Paradise Pier, but if they can’t have it, wouldn’t $250 be better than $0? Help me out business people, I don’t understand!
There’s not a chance in the world I’d pay $450 for Paradise Pier! $250 I’d think about it. The pricing for DL hotels are crazy. I’ve stayed at Grand Floridian in WDW on a good discount for $250!
At DL I just stay offsite in a walkable hotel closer to the parks than Paradise.

They probably don't want people to think that they are desperate for more guests to stay at the hotels. I remember a few weeks ago someone posted threads about some offsite hotels having flash deals. They most likely saw that DL made their prices super high, and so did they, but then their bookings were too low, so they offered deals.
Our offsite hotel a block from the gates has had 2 price drops already for our Aug dates! Yay!
One of the reasons we did not renew our deluxe APs was the days blocked into Disneyland were doubled! It went from 51 days blocked to over 102! I do not like the separate park blocked nonsense when you fork over the money for an AP (especially when you are out of state and have to give all of it right then and there!) Bonehead mistake, Disney. Give deluxe back days, lower the cost of the rooms, bring back the deals of when you purchase a certain amount, get XX for XX. Oh, and make sure you have special AP treats too. (A pin and an edible). Your AP holders are your bread and butter. Make sure you have Disneyland instead of Disney Parks on everything. Believe me, that will help the undecided to crack open the wallets. Spend the pennies so we will spend our dollars.
Disney doesn’t care for AP holders. For years we had WDW APs. We live in the Pacific NW and went 2x a year for 10-14 days per trip. It used to be that a 10 day stay + good AP room discount paid for an AP. Now with massive ticket increases, and room rates going skyhigh while AP discounts lower, we stopped getting AP, and cut our trips to once a year. Now with ticket and room increases, no WDW trips this year.
Went to Universal instead, stayed Deluxe for the price of a WDW moderate and got AP. Going back in Sept. To get our Disney fix going to DL in August staying offsite.
I don't understand why people here seem to think that allowing people to enter the park for free will help Disneyland?

That's what letting in passholders that have already paid for a pass that excluded these dates would be. Disney would be giving out free tickets. They've already offered a deal to get in for $99. I might see that going down, but not all the way to free. What would that benefit Disney? And the hotels would still sit empty.

I got an email offering 20% off the Disneyland hotel and Grand Californian. Just use my Disney Visa. Only problem is that the cheapest room, with a view of the dumpster, is $729 a night......
20% sheesh. $700 a night is crazy. And they think 20% is a great discount worth emailing about :sad2: It’s a nice hotel, reminds me of WDW Wilderness Lodge. But there’s no way it’s a $700+/night hotel. For that price ( with Universal AP Discount) you can get a 1 bdrm Villa Suite at Universals Portofino Bay, their flagship deluxe hotel.
 
Yeah, no, I don't agree with this at all. I'm super glad they built GE at both U.S. properties. As much as people want to say that DLR is a locals parks, and it absolutely is compared to *WDW*, there are plenty of tourists who pour in to DLR as well and also love it. The lot of people considering GE "real" at WDW are delusional.

Hi, everyone. To clarify, I didn't say that I think the WDW one is the "real"one, but that many people do. Many people take the generic term "Disney" (as in "I'm going to Disney") to always mean WDW. Granted I'm closer to the East Coast, but more people go to WDW than DLR in general, so it is the perception.
 
Hi, everyone. To clarify, I didn't say that I think the WDW one is the "real"one, but that many people do. Many people take the generic term "Disney" (as in "I'm going to Disney") to always mean WDW. Granted I'm closer to the East Coast, but more people go to WDW than DLR in general, so it is the perception.

and as much as I dont like it, the same assumptions are over here in Europe. So many of the general public, people who dont follow Disney social media or bloggers or YouTubers or who dont hang out on Disney websites always assume I am going to Florida when I talk about visiting Disneyland. A huge amount of people over here dont realise Disneyland exists or that it was the first park. There is a huge amount of promo for the Florida parks but I never see any for California.
 
I'm kicking myself for going to Universal this summer! I spoke with a CM manager today and he mentioned that DL was indeed surprised at the lack of crowds. He said that WDW is now prepping for the same.

I think with the zoo DL has been the last 5 years, everyone expected it to be awful and just make way for the Star Wars fans to take over. There's no way anyone could've anticipated such a paltry response this summer.
 
Yeah.

I’m sad for the CMs, but I’m also bummed about what this all means for the parks going forward. They aren’t empty anymore (even though crowds are still very reasonable - spent 12 hours there yesterday, can confirm). Anyway, the unfortunate thing is that all of these reactionary budget cuts and cancellations are going to hit visitors going forward, when there ARE crowds. So at some point, there will be crowds AND less staff, and less entertainment, and less available in general... probably shorter hours and stuff not running at capacity and all of that...

June was a delight. But I think we’re all going to be paying for it on future visits. And for people like me who are there all the time, meh, we roll with it. But I always feel for the tourist crowd who unwittingly show up at a bad time, and I fear that time is coming.

I agree with your whole post but especially the bold part. I'll be there no matter what. Disney would have to close down half the rides and stop showing WoC and fireworks to make me even think about giving up my Sig AP. It still sucks though thinking about certain things we love doing at the parks might not be there some day in the not too distant future because of cut backs like these.
 

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