It's interesting to me that so many people seem to think it comes down to pricing. It doesn't really seem that way to me. It seems to me that it comes down to the fact that they thought they were opening up a whole new demographic and it just didn't quite work out that way. Unfortunately for them they tried to prepare for that new demographic by consciously excluding their existing demographic. I mean they literally took a good portion of the people who would normally be there over the summer and expressly told them they weren't allowed to come, then they put the word out to everyone else that it would be crazy bonkers, so much so that you might not even be able to get in to see the good new stuff. And then no one came. I don't see that that has much to do with the pricing. I mean if there's still no one there when we arrive in November I'd be willing to believe there's a problem with the pricing model. But I'm not exactly holding my breath...
I think it's a mixture of everything:
Disney said that their price increases are to control crowds. They also said they were going to restructure the AP program to also help with crowds. People probably thought, "wow if it's going to be insanely packed, why would I drop all of this money to go to Disney??"With the AP structure, I'm sure many AP's didn't want to pay the steep increase and be in ridiculous crowds. I think a few responses back, I mentioned how I almost didn't renew my pass because I didn't want to pay $1399 to be stuck in crowds. But I decided to because I am more of a Disney fan than Star Wars fan, and if I had to stay away from that area, I could.
Some felt the value of their pass wasn't there anymore (i.e. Deluxe and Socal), so then those people let their passes go. I live in LA, and there are quite a few Disney fans and former passholders around. The ones that let their passes go, they mentioned that they would go back in a heart beat if they could afford them since they now see crowds aren't bad.
For those out there who can afford passes or trips, they probably heard of the doom and gloom about the crowds that were supposed to come. They went other places for the summer. So essentially, Disney just lost their business. That would probably explain all of the hotel availability, random flash sales off site locations were having, and easily being able to get things like dining packages only a few weeks or even days before you need them.
I'm not sure how Disney thinks, but I feel like they expected people to drop money, and not look back. But it seems like people really thought about the pricing and what Disney was going to offer them. Just because you may have the money for something, doesn't always mean you will spend it.