Walt Disney World: Non-Theme Park Discussion

[Rob]

There is some news coming out of Walt Disney World that is not really related to any of the four parks that we have existing threads for (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom) or Disney Springs. So I have created this thread! Please use it for any general discussion across Walt Disney World that may not link to just one park or discussion about any of the hotels/resorts/waterparks!

Anyway, Disney have filed for permits that seem to be hinting towarda a gondala style transportation system that would link up Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Art of Animation Resort and Caribbean Beach Resort.

The plans show strucures at various places across the Disney property, as highlighted on the above map, and their shapes are similar to those seen on gondala systems (e.g. L-shaped buildings where there is to be a change in direction).

You can see more on WDWMAGIC.

Interesting stuff. Clearly this would be significantly cheaper than any form of monorail expansion might be. And it would no doubt mean that they can make savings by cutting some bus services.

 

[Matt.GC]

Although this would be cheaper than monorail expansion, surely the good old fashioned fossil fuel powered bus service would be cheaper to run since it's continuation requires virtually no infrastructure investment whatsoever?

 

[Rob]

In the short term yes, but over the longer term when you take into account fuel, drivers, maintenance and bus replacement then a gondala system could well prove cheaper. Plus I suppose it all goes towards being greener and relieving some traffic on the roads.

 

[jon81uk]

traffic is becoming a big issue, they can't easily run more buses at WDW as they just can't get them in and out of the parks quick enough.

 

[Tim]

Only this morning I was looking at a map of Disney World and thinking it would be amazing if they extended the monorail from Epcot's entrance to Disney Springs. Thus connecting both parks to the main shopping area and, if you cross through Epcot, Hollywood studio and the boardwalk too.

Nice to see they are considering better connections.

 

[Rob]

Some news from Screamscape on possible new parking fees for Resort hotels at WDW:

Bad news for future Walt Disney World Resort guests. According to a Screamscape source, Disney is preparing to begin charging a new parking fee at all of their on-site resorts. I don't have the fine details yet, but we suspect that guests staying at the resort will now find some kind of daily parking fee added to their invoice, and anyone just wanting to drop by select resorts to visit, or even just to dine at some of the more popular restaurants, will also be facing these new parking fees.

I'm sure the details were surface very soon, as I'm told that the new fees are expected to be put into play sometime in the next few weeks... probably just in time to take advantage of the Spring Break crowds.

Things like this are what make me laugh to myself when people moan about car parking fees at Towers or other UK theme parks. We actually get a pretty good deal over here!

 

[Maelstrom]

Most of the offsite hotels already charge parking and so does the Universal hotels so doesn’t surprise me that Disney will start charging. It adds up over a 2 week stay plus parking at the parks as well. Then there is the resort charge many off site hotels also charge.

In the past we have always stayed off site with a car. However on our trip later this year it has worked out cheaper to stay on site with no car and in much better resorts than we normally stay in off site - 5 nights at universal and 9 nights at a Disney moderate resort, with free dinning at Disney and $200 gift card. Plus we have no hassle of having to drive or pay parking fees everywhere. The savings of 9 days free food at Disney and savings of no car and parking (car and parking cost would be around £700) made staying on site cheaper.

 

[MakoMania]

When in Orlando I usually stay off site and walk to SeaWorld/Universal and get a taxi for the one day that I can tolerate Disney

 

[jon81uk]

Although this was one of the reasons to pay the high price of staying at Disneyworld in their own hotels, everything was included in the price. As soon as they start adding more costs on top then the Universal hotels or other off-site accommodations start looking a better deal.

 

[TPC]

You've got to remember that with the resort hotel car parks being free, there are some guests who use them, even if they are not staying at the resort, instead of paying at the TTC. This issue was brought up previously so this isn't exactly a huge shock.

 

[Maelstrom]

Over night parking fees at the Resorts has now been official announced and starts for new bookings from 21st March (so if already booked you are ok) . However according to a UK travel agent this wont effect any UK bookings in 2018 and 2019 and UK guest will only be charged from 2020. That is along as you book through WDTC-UK (UK official Disney site and most UK travel agents) which is a separate operating company from booking in the US. If a UK guest and book through the US site you would get charged.

The charges are-

Value: $13 nightly

Moderate: $19 nightly

Deluxe: $24 nightly

Those visiting a resort or have a dinning reservation wont get charged. DVC members also wont get charged.

What Disney actually want is for you not to arrive in a car but to get the free magical express transport from the airport and then use all of the free onsite transport, resulting in guests less likely to leave the resort and spending all of their cash on property.

 

[Ian]

Well bumping an old thread, but given this doesn’t relate to a single park this is the best place for it.

Earlier this week Disney opened the new Skyliner transportation system, and I must say it’s off to a great start...



Full article
https://wdwnt.com/2019/10/breaking-...he-disney-skyliner-at-riviera-resort-station/

It looks like several gondolas have managed to collide in the Riviera Resort station. Various photos and videos show broken Perspex on the floor where they hit each other. The whole Epcot leg of the system was shut down and full evacuations taking place with assistance of emergency services using fire engines.



Guests were trapped on the system for a couple of hours it seems, and Disney broadcast over the Skyliner radio system to advise guests to open the emergency kits. However, a couple of unverified reports suggest that some of emergency kits were actually incomplete.

Suffice to say there has been plenty of coverage on local news and social media. Fortunately nobody has been reported to have been injured, and it’s probably a good job it happened in the evening rather than the baking midday sun. From what I can gather from watching a local news report it seems that eventually the system was restarted to bring guests down to a station, rather than evacing every gondola, but photos and videos confirm that there were evacs taking place.

Not exactly great PR for Disney and the Skyliner!

A quick search on Twitter or Instagram will bring up plenty more photos and videos if you search for “Skyliner accident”, for anyone who’s interested.

 

[RicketyCricket]

Probably gonna be down for a very long time whilst they work out what went wrong.

This thing was testing for about 6 months wasn't it?

 

[Matt N]

This thing was testing for about 6 months wasn't it?

The Skyliner was testing when I was there in April, so it's certainly been testing for at least 5 months! It looked quite good when it was going round, so it's a great shame to hear that it's having problems!

As this thread has been bumped, I also thought that it might be a good opportunity to bring up something to do with WDW as a whole resort. Recently, I saw on Theme Park Worldwide's Facebook page that Disney are now operating staggered closure times at Animal Kingdom, with Africa now closing at 4pm and Pandora now closing at 8pm. I know it's only a minor thing, but I personally think it could be a sign of wider financial problems around WDW, as they weren't doing this when I was there in April. I'd be intrigued to know; why do you guys think that WDW seems to be suffering from low attendance and financial problems at present? I've heard a wide array of reasons across the internet; some think that Disney is trying to recoup money due to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge apparently underperforming at both Hollywood Studios and Disneyland, whereas others are saying that Orlando in general is unseasonably quiet. I'm not entirely sure myself, but I must admit that it's very peculiar to see lines for Smuggler's Run not getting above 30-40 minutes when Hagrid's at Universal is still regularly pulling waits in excess of 2 hours...

 

[RicketyCricket]

The Skyliner was testing when I was there in April, so it's certainly been testing for at least 5 months! It looked quite good when it was going round, so it's a great shame to hear that it's having problems!

As this thread has been bumped, I also thought that it might be a good opportunity to bring up something to do with WDW as a whole resort. Recently, I saw on Theme Park Worldwide's Facebook page that Disney are now operating staggered closure times at Animal Kingdom, with Africa now closing at 4pm and Pandora now closing at 8pm. I know it's only a minor thing, but I personally think it could be a sign of wider financial problems around WDW, as they weren't doing this when I was there in April. I'd be intrigued to know; why do you guys think that WDW seems to be suffering from low attendance and financial problems at present? I've heard a wide array of reasons across the internet; some think that Disney is trying to recoup money due to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge apparently underperforming at both Hollywood Studios and Disneyland, whereas others are saying that Orlando in general is unseasonably quiet. I'm not entirely sure myself, but I must admit that it's very peculiar to see lines for Smuggler's Run not getting above 30-40 minutes when Hagrid's at Universal is still regularly pulling waits in excess of 2 hours...

I'm not sure of the capacities, but I'd bet that the Star Wars attractions are possibly the highest capacity rides in the world. If Flight Of Passage was in Galaxy's Edge, I'd imagine we would be seeing consistent 3 hour plus lines.

With the cutbacks, who knows. Maybe they always planned on doing this, regardless of how Galaxy's Edge performed because of the sheer cost of construction and marketing.

 

[Matt N]

I'm not sure of the capacities, but I'd bet that the Star Wars attractions are possibly the highest capacity rides in the world. If Flight Of Passage was in Galaxy's Edge, I'd imagine we would be seeing consistent 3 hour plus lines.

With the cutbacks, who knows. Maybe they always planned on doing this, regardless of how Galaxy's Edge performed because of the sheer cost of construction and marketing.

Hagrid's certainly isn't low throughput either, however; I've heard rumblings of over 2,000 riders per hour as its theoretical!

I suppose you do raise a good point for the second point, however, as $1bn per land is not a small amount of money to recoup...

 

[AT86]

I saw on Theme Park Worldwide's Facebook page that Disney are now operating staggered closure times at Animal Kingdom, with Africa now closing at 4pm and Pandora now closing at 8pm. I know it's only a minor thing, but I personally think it could be a sign of wider financial problems around WDW, as they weren't doing this when I was there in April. I'd be intrigued to know; why do you guys think that WDW seems to be suffering from low attendance and financial problems at present? I've heard a wide array of reasons across the internet; some think that Disney is trying to recoup money due to Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge apparently underperforming at both Hollywood Studios and Disneyland, whereas others are saying that Orlando in general is unseasonably quiet. I'm not entirely sure myself, but I must admit that it's very peculiar to see lines for Smuggler's Run not getting above 30-40 minutes when Hagrid's at Universal is still regularly pulling waits in excess of 2 hours.

I thought it was established that the staggered closing was related to a private event in the park as opposed to an ongoing policy of closing rides early? Still not the best customer experience but better than constant early closes.

Even if the above is the case there is still clearly cost cutting being implemented at the Disney parks in the US, and it is hard to conclude that this isn’t linked to the guest numbers (specifically the lack of guests) for Galaxy’s Edge. In WDW and DL entertainment is being scaled back and rides are running on ‘seasonal operation’.

There seemed to be a massive hype for GE that just didn’t materialise in the form of guest numbers, it seems to be a combination of only having one ride ready to open at launch, increased prices and the scare stories of huge attendance putting people off.

In the recent Disney results call Disneyland Paris was actually called out as the highlight of the parks for revenue and profits...how things have changed!

 

[Matt N]

Ah right; a private event makes far more sense and is definitely a very good reason for these closures. Thanks for the clarification @AT86!

 

[venny]

I wonder whether the perpetual price increases have finally started to impact attendance? It’s now $14 for a beer in Galaxy’s Edge and $6 for a Mickey ice cream.

There has to be a point where people just decide to go elsewhere, no matter how many vloggers you ply with free stuff to promote your product. It’s not happened so far, but maybe this is it.

 

[Croftybaby]

I think it's a mix of the price thing and the faff you have to go through just to have a half decent day out.

I'm heading out in 7 weeks time and at the moment it's just constant research about what restaurants we want to eat in and on what night. what rides we want to do on what days to grab fastpass, it just seems like a total ball ache and then on top of that they want to charge you $100 each to get in? I can see how that may put off people who live in the states.