Surge Pricing Arrives In Disney's Magic Kingdom Just in Time for Star Wars Opening

HughPickens.com writes: Taking a page from the Uber playbook, Christopher Palmeri writes that Disney's six parks in Orlando, Florida, and Anaheim, California, are raising the cost to visit its theme parks as much as 20 percent during the busiest times of year and lowering them on typically slow days. Previously, the parks charged the same price for a one-day pass any time of year. "The demand for our theme parks continues to grow, particularly during peak periods," the company said. "In addition to expanding our parks, we are adopting seasonal pricing on our one-day ticket to help better spread visitation throughout the year." The move is designed to help manage traffic at the parks, which had record visits in the final three months of 2015. Busy days at Disney's amusement parks cause long lines for customers, and even gate closures. Dynamic pricing is meant to financially incentivize customers to choose less-busy days, spread out attendance, and to make as much money as possible on days when the park is historically expected to be full. It is also likely to boost Disney's total revenue since most visitors will pay more for their tickets.

One reason Disney may expect bigger crowds this year is the upcoming Star Wars theme park expansion which includes a virtual reality ride that allows guests to control the Millennium Falcon in an aerial battle with the First Order. "Star Wars is, for lack of a better word awesome," said Harrison Ford. "I'm so blessed that I had the opportunity to be a part of it. To walk in these iconic locations. And soon, you'll be able to do that as well. Not in a galaxy far, far away, but in a place close to home."

Comments

That's good

[phantomfive]

That's a good thing, it also helps you see what times you can go when it will be less busy.

20% isn't surge pricing

[Overzeetop]

200% would be surge pricing. 20% is just your run of the mill peak period price. I'm a bit surprised they didn't have seasonal pricing already (though, in effect, they do through specials and offers).

Re:20% isn't surge pricing

[rtb61]

Actually the far better language, which is clearly not their intent is discount pricing. You have your main seasonal, peak public holiday and weekend pricing and then everything else is discounted. Surge pricing is jacking up the price without warning, so promising a cheap price and then wham without any extended notice, already trapped there bam the price goes up 1000% take it or leave it. So publicly declared pricing structures announced years in advance (families book holidays well in advance) is seasonal price and whether people choose to attend during peak period or go for the discount is their choice.

Re:20% isn't surge pricing

[Actually, I do RTFA]

so go vist on poor days when its down by 20%

That's cute. You think prices are going up or down by 20%. In reality, the current level is the cheap level, and prices will be going up for the peak times.

This is not surge pricing

[rsborg]

This is seasonal pricing, and as long as it's advertised in advance is very common in various industries.

Surge pricing (a la Uber) is random periods of higher price - it could be normal pricing one minute, then surge the next.

Completely different. This article is Uber-cliqbait.

Re:This is not surge pricing

[NormalVisual]

This is seasonal pricing, and as long as it's advertised in advance is very common in various industries.

It's not quite seasonal pricing. They're talking about raising prices for very specific times throughout the year, for instance having a higher price on Memorial Day weekend vs. pricing for the rest of that week. Conversely, they likely will be lowering prices for the week after Labor Day, as that's historically been Disney World's slowest week of the year.

Re:This is not surge pricing

[dwywit]

Tell that to the people trying get out of Sydney during the cafe siege.

Uber's pricing responds to demand - it may be pre-programmed for known peaks, but it's also flexible enough to respond to conditions - although the surge during the Sydney siege was perhaps immoral, it was just the pricing algorithm doing its job, responding to a random increase in demand.

My deal with Disney

[Ol Olsoc]

I don't go there, and they don't take my money.

Having gone there many years ago - and once was more than enough, Disney's pinnacle achievement was not the rides, the infrastructure or any of the things most people would attribute to them.

Its the fact that they have managed to get a lot of people to spend a lot of money to spend a lot of time waiting in line.

I remember incredible lines to ride on space mountain,and the mostly teenagers who came out of the ride, only to get back in line for another. I figure even at that time, they were paying something like 25-30 dollars per ride.

Re:My deal with Disney

[ArchieBunker]

That averages to one ride per hour, amazing. How long is the average ride, three minutes?

Re:My deal with Disney

[NormalVisual]

Having gone there many years ago - and once was more than enough, Disney's pinnacle achievement was not the rides, the infrastructure or any of the things most people would attribute to them. Its the fact that they have managed to get a lot of people to spend a lot of money to spend a lot of time waiting in line.

Having worked there, I found the REAL pinnacle achievement is running payroll for 60,000 employees each week and not screwing it up. EPCOT actually stands for "Every Paycheck Comes On Thursday". ;-)

Re:My deal with Disney

[NormalVisual]

It varies. For Disney World, the shortest attraction is Goofy's Barnstormer in the Magic Kingdom at 1:03, and the longest is Ellen's Energy Adventure in Epcot, at 45:00.

"It's a Small World" clocks in at 10:30. I mention this last one to help fine-tune the dosage for whatever medication you need to remain unconscious.

Re:My deal with Disney

[schnell]

They've really done a good job at pricing the locals out of the park over the last 15 years [...] It's probably because we didn't spend all our money on food and merch; we were just taking up space as far as they're concerned.

Yes, yes you were. Why on Earth would you even think that Disney cares about pricing out the locals? Maybe Disney Land was, but I know for a fact that Disney World wasn't built to cater to locals. If these parks had been built for locals, there would be a Disney (Land/World) in every large city. Disney World in particular was built to cater to idiots like me and my two young girls who couldn't wait to take a six hour plane ride and wait for hours just to get into Jedi Camp. If Disney had the foresight to have built some Frozen-themed ride back when I last visited, my girls would never have left the park without a court order and an armed security detail. They built that park for the legions of fools with small children like me who will come from all over the planet in order to spend money like $20 bills cause dysentery.

Welcome to Disneyland, the pinnacle of American capitalism.

If you mean Disney (Land/World) succeeds admirably at vacuuming money out of the wallets of people who are willingly spending it there, then yeah. Hell, after I got back from dropping piles of cash at Disney World, I realized their level of genius at making money and bought stock in DIS. (The share price has taken some dings lately with cable cord cutting hurting ESPN, their real cash cow, but I have still made money on it and consider it a long term investment.)

If that's a way of complaining about not being priced for locals to visit often, then refer to my previous statement about the park not being intended for you in the first place...

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

[Dcnjoe60]

Disney says they are doing this to control busy times at the park. That is pure BS. Disney is doing this, not because of supply and demand, but to gouge even more profits. Why are summer and holiday visits the most popular? That's a no brainer - it's because people are off work or out of school. Changing the pricing won't change that reality.

If Disney was truly concerned with limiting overcrowding, a very simple solution would be limit the number of tickets sold. Once the park is sold out for the day, it is sold out. Works at stadiums, works on Broadway, works just about everywhere. But then, that solution won't increase the profits like a 20% price increase will.

I wonder if Disney will pass those extra fees on to the employees who have to work on those overly crowded days? After all, they are the ones who have to deal with the problem first hand.

Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire!

[hawaiian717]

If Disney was truly concerned with limiting overcrowding, a very simple solution would be limit the number of tickets sold. Once the park is sold out for the day, it is sold out.

They do. But the number of people it actually takes to reach the point of "sold out" when they stop letting people in the park is quite high. They usually don't stop ticket sales, because there's one other park (in California) and three other parks (in Florida) that guests can usually still go to. They simply stop letting people in the park.

The other difference is that, unlike a sports event or concert, the number of people in the park fluctuates throughout the day. All the people will be there for a specific event, they know exactly how many seats are in the venue, and everyone will arrive before the event and leave after. But a theme park is open all day with lots of different things to do. People will arrive at different times, leave at different times, some will leave and come back, some will go to another theme park. So even if Disney does stop letting people into a park because of overcrowding, it's usually just for a couple of hours until enough people have left that they can start letting people in.

Re:Liar, liar, pants on fire!

[JBMcB]

Supply and demand only works in a free market. Are you taking the position that there is adequate competition to Disney?

Amusement parks are "substitutable goods". You don't have to go to Disney World for vacation. You can go to the beach, or a museum, or a water park, or a national park. There are tons of options.

Disney spends, and has spent, *boatloads* of money on Disney World. People have shown they are willing to pay premium prices for a premium experience, so Disney get to charge premium prices. That doesn't mean you can't go anywhere else for vacation.

Star Wars *spoilers*

[Anonymous Coward]

I am glad to see Harrison Ford has recovered enough to be giving statements. The injury he took in the movie looked pretty severe.

I guess he may be back for the next movie after all.

Re:Star Wars *spoilers*

[Krishnoid]

I think he came back from the dead. He wouldn't be the first carpenter impaled on a cross to do so. Here's hoping he's back for the sequel!

Unhappy balance sheet

[sdinfoserv]

I guess the projected cost savings from firing their IT staff and replacing them with low paid H1B's isn't enough for the corporate greed masters.

Re:Harrison Ford

[edittard]

Pray we do not change it further.