But that would only affect certain rides, would it not? Something like Peter Pan or Winnie the Pooh don’t have a second track or something they can shut down like Space Mountain does. How would they effectively cut capacity except on those attractions with multiple tracks?
There are a couple of ways to reduce capacity on “Omnimover” and other continuous loading attractions:
- Slowing down the speed of the attraction. This has the benefit of putting less stress on the equipment, lowering operating costs.
- Not loading every car. Loading each car requires more CMs to make sure that everyone boards safely
Yeah. True, to a point. I suppose it is possible to have fewer employees even in those with a single track that necessitates them taking longer to load/unload and so can’t necessarily hit every ride.
But this isn’t knew. Disney has been doing this for ages. Even back in the days before Fast Passes even existed, if crowds were lower, they would reduce capacity. I very clearly remember going to Space Mountain and they were only running one side, for example.
That’s why I’m thinking maybe they reduced capacity and the crowds were bigger than they expected… Or maybe this has something to do with the union contract negotiations?
Yes, this is true. But I think that they are doing this to a greater degree than ever before.
This is what I think too.
The good thing about knowing capacity and wait times is that we can compare to last year’s wait times. If we see that wait times are up 25% for example, then we can probably rule out that attendance is up 25% (because an increase of that size is virtually impossible). If we can also show that rides aren’t running at capacity, then we have something.
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I think we’ve seen the end to any slow times. i went in Oct and it was smoked and have watched it been about 100% over traditional capacity. With TL opening this year, SW next year, and the celebration coming, along with tiered pricing and the economy, especially the economy kicking butt, the days of short waits are going to be over for years…IMHO
and the economy. people can afford it, now
We noticed lots of empty ride vehicles on things like Spaceship Earth and the Peoplemover. People were trying to get out of the rain and they were letting 5 empty vehicles go by on SE. Kind of annoying as it doesn’t seem like a very hard ride to load/unload.
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