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The Holidays have finally come to an end, the
decorations around the parks are being removed this week, and Disneyland took
its usual Christmastime beating when it comes to the maddening crowds. Yet 2009
is already looking noticeably different for Anaheim than recent years, and there
are some rather surprising changes afoot both backstage and onstage for the
Anaheim parks and hotels.
In this update we'll lay out what some of those
changes may be, and what they may mean for both the visitors and
the Cast Members. Got that scone ready? Is the juice fresh squeezed? Well then,
let's get going... shall we? - Al
The economy is so frightful...
Before we get to the changes ahead, a quick recap of
the extremely busy holiday season just passed is in order. Ever since the late
1990's when Disneyland began adding holiday-specific attractions and
entertainment and ladling on more and more decorations annually throughout the
park, the Christmas season has become busier and busier every year for the
original park. For the first 40 years Disneyland's peak season was always
considered summer, with spring break coming in at a close second. But now it's
November and December that sees the biggest crowds descend on Disneyland,
particularly during the holiday weekends that begin with Veterans Day and the
two weeks around Christmas and New Years.
This year was no exception, although Team Disney
Anaheim (TDA) planners were holding their breath in early November waiting to see if the
big crowds would actually show up after all the depressing financial news this
past fall. While the 2008 numbers were ever so slightly lower than recent years,
and spending in the stores was down a bit more, the crowds were still big enough
to cause Disneyland to suspend ticket sales on multiple days, plead with people
to go to California Adventure (DCA) for the afternoon instead of Disneyland, and use every available
parking space that Anaheim has.
...but inside the
berm's delightful!
The ten days up through Christmas Day were cold and
rainy and attendance was lower than planned. However the day after Christmas
dawned sunny and bright, and the crowds arrived en masse. Disneyland managers,
feverishly responding to Blackberry messages from TDA executives, were forced to
begin their "soft diverts" or "hard diverts" to limit the number of people
allowed in to Disneyland. There are several angles to this game they play each
December that include everything from different messages being displayed on the
electronic reader boards at the parking entrances, to different spiels given by
the Cast Members to arriving visitors at the ticket booths.
From December 26th
through January 2nd the "soft divert" strategy was used most of the
time, where an arriving family isn't greeted by the "Disneyland Is Full" sign at
the parking entrance, but when they get to the ticket booth they are told that
if they want to buy one-day tickets to Disneyland they have to go to DCA until
5:00 P.M. or later before they will be allowed entry into Disneyland. Even
though this is actually a solid discount, giving visitors a free
upgrade to a one-day park hopper ticket, it rarely goes over well with
customers who had visions of Disneyland dancing in their heads.
Busy ticket booths last Sunday.
Regardless, with Disneyland packed to the rafters
every day last week, DCA resumed its usual role of simply being a nicely
appointed waiting area for people who really just want to go to Disneyland. It
does help boost DCA's daily numbers though, and instead of the 12,000 to 15,000
daily attendance DCA should have received, they were getting almost 22,000
people on some days since up to 8,000 of them were really the folks bound for
Disneyland who were waiting to be let in. Disneyland had daily attendance
figures in the 65,000 to 68,000 range this year, not including the 6,000 to
8,000 day visitors who were sent to DCA first, giving DCA the all-important
first turnstile attendance click.
The change from previous years is that the total
number of people in Disneyland at any one time was purposely allowed to float a
bit higher than it would have just a few years ago. This year the magic in-park
number was allowed to get above 49,000 on several occasions before the main
entrance was shut down entirely, where in previous years a number in the 45,000
range was considered the upper limit.
It's important to remember that Disneyland
has added several new attractions back into the mix in recent years, from major
attractions like the Submarines or Buzz Lightyear, to smaller things like Pixie
Hollow and the Castle walkthrough. It all adds up though, and with nothing
closed for refurbishment this December, Disneyland enjoyed an overall park
capacity it hadn't seen since the mid 1990's. Those 49,000 figures were a snug
fit to be sure, but it's at least an additional 4,000 people that don't have to
be forced over to the DCA waiting lounge.
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