Wdwtoday YouTube Video (now known as “That Thing”) Thread

This link has been posted on chat:

It is long but for all the fans of the original wdwtoday podcast, it was an amazing gift!

I am hoping others will watch so we can talk about:

-Dropping buses off at a closed BLT
-Limiting guests to onsite
-Assigning park days or times

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I often mix them up with that other clickbait operation wdwnt

I will have to check this out!

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I didn’t watch the whole thing. What I saw was interesting. However, I’m of the mindset at this point that everything is definitely speculation and I’m not going to speculate at this point. We will see what happens when the parks open. If there are too many limitations for our trip in October, then I will reschedule. But there are too many what ifs and research on this virus that are still occurring. A lot of people are making assumptions about the summer and fall when things have been changing day to day and week to week. We don’t know what is happening next week, much less in August. I think a lot more information will be coming out in the next several weeks and months that could change a lot of these assumptions.

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You were never a fan of wdwtoday? Years ago I lost track if I became a touring plan member because of wdwtoday, or a fan of wdwtoday because I was a touring plans member.

I love podcasts and I am thankful that Len still does the Disney Dish but I miss the wdwtoday “gang”, with all of their speculations.

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77 minutes is beyond my frail endurance. I tried clicking around but can’t locate any of these topics. Can anyone Scupper™?

Fast forward to Len’s Google Earth view of BLT!

Is this on the Touring Plans YouTube page? I can’t find it for some reason.

Does the link I post not work for you?

As a local do think they are wrong and they will start with local AP holders?

TL;DR: that idea is inoperative.

Drop people off at Bay Lake Tower so security can somehow re-purpose the bus terminal lanes for expanded security? OK, so buses drop people off across a very busy, essential service road, so people have to queue at the crosswalk? Heavily weight the crosswalk signal cycle towards pedestrian traffic, meaning long green times or frequent green signals? Then traffic becomes impossibly backed up on World Drive, which affects the flow of buses into the Bay Lake Tower loop. Absent that a crowd forms on the far side of the crosswalk, waiting to cross.

And leaving the park, having the Contemporary walkway one-way leaving the park accomplishes what? Nominal physical separation from incoming guests? The walkway is about four feet wide, so not much room for physical separation for just departing guests. Plus it has the same crosswalk queue issues as the re-purposed bus lanes for incoming guests. Plus, as buses back up on World Drive because of the crosswalk cycle time, people will queue at the Bay Lake Tower bus pickup area.

If the idea is that TTC screening is a choke point causing crowds (one of the main reasons it’s dumb from a security standpoint, but that’s another topic), then push the tram drop-off back past the Seven Seas Drive underpass and force people to spread out more. But that does nothing to avoid the ongoing queues for trams. So it’s not a viable solution for maintaining physical distancing either.

This is why any “solution” to providing adequate physical distancing, when that is still our only viable defense against community transmission, that doesn’t tightly limit and control park capacity is inoperative. And by “control” I mean assigning specific, reserved, narrow time slots where a limited number of offsite guests can arrive to park, or allow similarly small number of onsite guests to board park transportation. If that number is sufficiently limited then it avoids that repurposed security folderol.

But then here’s the biggest land mine that blows up any of these improbable scenarios: there is a minimum number of guests that need to be in the park each day for Disney to not lose money on park operations, and that limit is very likely higher than the number of guests that could be in the park and maintain safe physical separation.

Any of the money (read labor cost) saving cuts which could reduce the parks’ minimum operating costs have a negative feedback effect that will drop attendance. Only open certain rides and food service? Well who would want to pay full price for a limited park experience? Cut admission prices to increase attendance for a partially open park? It’s going to some spot-on forecasting to find the price that maximizes revenue for a given crowd size.

And who’s going to pay the travel and hotel expenses to come from out-of-state to visit half a park? Locals aren’t much help, both because they’re less profitable guests to begin with, and central Florida is getting crushed by unemployment.

Disney absolutely can’t get this wrong. Because the first time an infected cluster develops at one of the parks, even a small one, it’s lights out. There will be no hand-waving or clap-louder-ing that make that seem acceptable. The stock will go into free fall and there may not be a company left.

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I don’t typically watch podcasts. So I don’t really have an opinion on whether I like them or not.

Imagine the ESPN show “Around the Horn” only with worse production values, a pace set by no fixed time limit, and no editing.

Do the After Hour events lose money? That is an honest question. If they do lose money, why did Disney bring them back? If they do not lose money, is it a model to open with?

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Podcasts are traditionally audio downloads. For me, they replaced my car radio over 10 years ago.

Len was one of the hosts of wdwtoday. About 15 years ago it was one of the first podcasts many of us downloaded. This YouTube video is like “seeing old friends” for me but if you never listened I expect it would not connect for you.

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I don’t see how the attendance limits of After Hours events could allow for safe physical distancing. Plus there are certain fixed costs just to have to park open on a given day, and those are spread across the regular day guests plus the After Hours guests.

I think it depends on the After House attendance? I know some people think that everything can go back as it was but I guess I start from a place of many things needed to change, at least in the beginning. To me, that is where some of Len’s ideas were at least interesting to consider.

I personally think a combination of reduced attendance and virtual queues are at least a starting point. My best references for reduced capacity are after hours and parties. If a day was broken into four 3 hour entry times (with an hour in between) could that be a starting point? I ask because although the hours of an after hours party limits you, the ability to access 10-12 attractions in a short period of time might satisfy some people?

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While that is true for long term, that’s not exactly the hurdle to re-open.

They are losing a certain amount of money each day the parks are closed in costs they continue to incur. That is a given and irrelevant to short term operations restarting.

The models they should be running are the ADDED costs to open the park(s) in various ways and what the resulting revenue would be for each and whether those components in isolation would break even.

Basically, can they re-open the park(s) in a way that allows them to lose less money than they are losing with the parks closed? Breaking even is the ultimate long term goal, but not necessarily the short term one.

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No, I can’t get it to work unfortunately.

What kind of device?

I like the after hours analogy. If you can get lower capacity for a shorter time, but have shorter lines as a result, I think a lot of people would accept that trade-off. (Can I just say I hate that the average Standby line is over an hour for headliner attractions?!)

Alternatively, you could have full day access, maybe charge a little more (or the same, understanding that the market supply / demand curve has shifted) but have to reserve which park you are attending each day, so that Disney can cap attendance to a reasonable number.

No solution is going to be perfect. But when faced with a choice of waiting out a vaccine or attempting some sort of limited operation, there is a point in the next few months where the latter will become acceptable, IMO. Whether that’s in two weeks or three+ months will be up to government officials and Disney to work out.

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