Walt Disney World has added a number of extra ‘Good-to-Go’ Days in Winter 2024, providing a robust sign that the corporate is forecasting an attendance slowdown (albeit temporary!) within the coming weeks. This takes a take a look at the newest take a look at the park reservation calendar and discusses what that might imply for crowd ranges for the remainder of this month and February.
As background, Walt Disney World launched “good-to-go days” for Annual Passholders and Forged Members earlier this month. On these “good-to-go days,” Annual Passholders and Forged Members could go to theme parks without having a park reservation. Though the corporate is looking them good-to-go days in AP and CM communications, they’re listed as “reservations not required” days on the precise calendar.
Good-to-go days take the place of bonus reservations, and like bonus reservations, are added periodically and could also be launched days or perhaps weeks prematurely. If an Annual Passholder has an upcoming park reservation that turns into a good-to-go day, the reservation shall be eliminated and not rely towards their most reservation maintain, however they’ll nonetheless have the ability to view their earlier reservation within the My Plans part in My Disney Expertise.
There was a little bit of a backlash and disappointment when Walt Disney World launched the primary batch of good-to-go days and it solely included 6 dates over the course of two months. These dates have been January 16, 18, 23-24, 28; February 1, 2024. Many Annual Passholders had a “why trouble?” response, and felt that Walt Disney World had (once more) overpromised and undelivered.
For our half, we predicted quite a lot of good-to-go dates for Annual Passholders…ultimately. Our expectation was that Walt Disney World would begin slowly and scale up, including a handful of winter low season dates on January 11, 2024 and seeing how that goes. If the parks will not be inundated and overwhelmed by reservationless APs (and so they gained’t be), they’ll add increasingly good-to-go dates to the calendar.
We’d be prepared to wager that by the point late April 2024 rolls round, at the very least half the dates in early summer time shall be good-to-go for Annual Passholders. It wouldn’t be in the least stunning if each single day is good-to-go for Animal Kingdom and EPCOT, and reservations are solely obligatory for Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios. By late summer time/early fall, it wouldn’t be stunning if between 75% and all dates are good-to-go for all parks.
In the course of the second half of the 12 months, it’ll in all probability be simpler to record the dates that aren’t good-to-go fairly than those which are. For that, our preliminary prediction could be that reservations shall be required for under (roughly) the ‘worst’ dates in our record of the 10 Finest and 10 Worst Weeks to Go to Walt Disney World in 2024 & 2025.
These have been our predictions again previous to the discharge of the primary good-to-go days earlier this month, and we basically stand by all of that. Admittedly, what we did not count on was the elevated crowd ranges that we’ve encountered in mid-to-late January 2024 (see Winter (Nonetheless) Is Not Off-Season at Disney World).
That’s why this newest batch of good-to-go days is barely stunned, and could possibly be a constructive signal. To that time, right here’s a take a look at the newly-added good-to-go days:
It ought to in all probability go with out saying, however Walt Disney World goes so as to add good-to-go days when their inner projections recommend that there shall be extra capability–that means decrease attendance. Disney makes use of quite a lot of knowledge for this, from date-based ticket gross sales to resort reservations. I might additionally assume they share with third events–MCO quantity projections, Mears reservations, third celebration lodge bookings, and so forth. (Even when this isn’t shared, Disney actually has the sources to reverse-engineer it.)
That is an imperfect science, and Disney will get it incorrect now and again–and is typically gradual to appropriate issues or entice individuals to go to at occasions which are much less busy. For instance, we first famous that Saturdays and Sundays have been turning into the least busy days of the week final 12 months round this time. That pattern actually solidified by March and was patently apparent after Easter.
And but, Walt Disney World stored blocking out weekends on subsequent resident ticket offers and retained elevated resort costs for Friday and Saturday nights with the discharge of 2024 charges (resort pricing arguably wasn’t a mistake given that almost all of friends come from off-site and there’s a rising disconnect between resort occupancy and attendance).
In any case, that is one in every of a number of examples of Disney being reactionary to shifting attendance patterns or just lacking them. So one thing like that could possibly be occurring right here, too. I believe it’s not, and that the following couple of weeks are going to see a little bit of a slowdown from the reasonable to excessive crowd ranges noticed at Walt Disney World for a lot of the year-to-date.
That’s excellent news for vacationers who deliberate to go to throughout one in every of our 10 favourite weeks of the 12 months: January 28 to February 3, 2024. Or those that learn the commentary to that entry, which additionally indicated that the primary full week of February must also be within the “dialog” when debating which of those nice dates to decide on.
We expect the following couple of weeks to be higher than the previous few, but in addition must admit that they’ll nonetheless in all probability be barely worse than anticipated when making that record of dates. As mentioned in the latest crowd report, our expectation was that pent-up demand would proceed to exhaust itself pretty constantly with final 12 months’s pattern line, that means one other year-over-year drop (particularly for winter, since revenge journey didn’t actually begin to burn off till after Easter). That has not occurred so far, and possibly gained’t this winter to the diploma forecast.
Nonetheless, we’ve heard from some anxious readers questioning in the event that they’ve picked dates that may now be dangerous. Walt Disney World’s new launch of those as good-to-go days sends a robust sign that the interior forecast is decrease–in order that must be reassuring.
Truthfully, even within the absence of this, we’d stand by the advice of late January or early February 2024 as a good time to go to Walt Disney World. Our record of finest weeks is each quantitative and qualitative, that means it’s not simply on the premise of crowds. Whereas these weeks must be fairly favorable on steadiness, they’re additionally beneficial for excellent climate, EPCOT’s Pageant of the Arts, good park hours (no party-shortened days), and simply an total nice time to expertise the parks.
As we’ve mentioned earlier than, anybody singularly centered on crowd ranges ought to merely go to from mid-August by means of mid to late September. If the record have been totally data-driven, like 5 of one of the best weeks could be incorrect that timeframe. These weeks are constantly the slowest of the 12 months, and the “best” to forecast as a result of (in contrast to different stretches) that has by no means actually modified.
However anybody who visits then may be disabused of the notion that crowds are the one factor that issues after their first day of triple-digit ‘looks like’ temperatures lasting till 9pm. (When you’re on the fence about this tradeoff, see Is It Nonetheless Value Visiting In the course of the Early Fall Offseason at Walt Disney World? for a better dialogue of climate vs. crowds.)
Suffice to say, now continues to be a subjectively nice time to go to Walt Disney World. If there are new tendencies which are going to lead to elevated crowd ranges in 2024 as in comparison with 2023, they’re in all probability not going to be confined to the months of January or February anyway. Expectations may have to be adjusted upwards for a lot of the 12 months, that means that the winter wait occasions may find yourself being ‘good’ relative to the weeks and months to return. Or what we’re seeing now could possibly be a blip, with extra good-to-go days signaling an finish to that very quickly.
No matter all that, don’t count on any good-to-go days within the second half of February 2024. This newest batch might be the final till early March (or maybe the previous few days of Feb). As soon as Mardi Gras, Presidents’ Day, and Princess Half Marathon Weekend roll round, crowds will choose up fairly considerably. (See Keep away from Ski Week Crowds at Disney for extra–or just confer with the ‘worst’ aspect of that 10 finest & worst weeks record.)
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you concentrate on Walt Disney World including ‘good-to-go’ days for Annual Passholders in late January and early February 2024? Assume because of this, internally, the corporate is forecasting decrease attendance for these weeks? Are you trying ahead to having fun with the nicer climate, higher park hours, EPCOT Pageant of the Arts, and (hopefully!) low-to-moderate crowd ranges at Walt Disney World in Winter 2024? Any questions we might help you reply? Listening to your suggestions–even while you disagree with us–is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas under within the feedback!
