This hasn’t been the most sizzling of summers for Central Florida’s theme parks. Rising costs, searing heat and the shifting of post-pandemic travel to international locations and cruise ships are putting a damper on attendance, experts say.
Those same experts don’t think Disney’s culture war battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis is a major player, pointing to a nationwide slump.
The attractions industry “is flatter than a pancake,” said Dennis Speigel, CEO of International Theme Park Services Inc.
“Six to eight weeks ago, I started seeing this softening haze move in,” Speigel said. “It’s spending and [higher] reaction pricing at all the parks, not just Disney.”
Orlando’s theme parks do not release attendance figures, but reports of “empty” attractions spreading on social media are subjective and can lack context.
“It’s less crowded than it was in 2021, for sure, and probably less than it was in 2022,” said AJ Wolfe, who runs the unofficial Disney Food Blog. Her staff members are in Orlando parks daily.
“But at the same time … it’s still July in Disney World. It’s still going to be packed,” she said. “Even if there’s 10,000 fewer bodies in there, there’s still 70,000 bodies.”
The companies have rolled out enticements that could draw more visitors. Disney is planning the return of the Disney Dining Plan. Universal Orlando has an annual pass offer that tacks an extra three months onto a year’s worth of visits. SeaWorld Orlando has had short-term buy-one, get-one-free admission deals.
Disney executive outlook
The soft summer hasn’t surprised company leadership at Disney. At a shareholders meeting in May, then-CFO Christine McCarthy said the second half of the fiscal year would have an “unfavorable comparison against the prior year’s incredibly successful 50th anniversary celebration at Walt Disney World.”
McCarthy, who recently resigned, did note improvements with Disney’s international parks and cruise line.
“People are starting to cruise again when it cratered in 2020,” Wolfe said. “So, you’re almost seeing that revenge travel on cruising now that you saw in the parks in 2021.”
And Walt Disney Co. CEO Robert Iger acknowledged a dip during a recent interview with CNBC’s David Faber.
“Florida opened up early during COVID and created huge demand and didn’t have competition because there were a number of other places, states that were not open yet,” Iger said. “Florida was the only thing, the only game in town. There’s a lot more competition today.”
He also pointed to a statewide decrease in hotel-tax revenue, and that competitors were offering discounts.
“There are some near-term issues in Florida that I don’t think had anything to do with politics,” Iger said.
DeSantis has criticized the company, Iger and previous CEO Bob Chapek in the wake of the so-called “don’t say gay” bill signed into law by the governor that limits instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in public schools.
After Chapek complained about the law, the governor and Legislature established the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District to replace the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which Disney had controlled for decades.
Control of the district is now the subject of lawsuits filed by the state and Disney.
During his presidential campaign, DeSantis has labeled Walt Disney Co. as “woke.”
Line time
Touring Plans, a vacation-planning site, monitors wait times for park attractions, which owner Len Testa said is a strong indicator of overall attendance.
“It’s definitely down, 2023 versus 2022,” Testa said. They use the theme parks’ official apps for data and have employees at the parks who spot-check wait times.
“In addition to that, we have hundreds of families in the parks every day, and through our app, they tell us how long they’re actually waiting in line,” he said.
A Touring Plans report indicating sparse attendance on July 4 drew international media attention, sometimes with a political angle.
“They’re all, like, repeating this narrative about fighting Ron DeSantis is a bad idea,” Testa said. “But if you look at Universal, Universal also did not do well. I don’t think the governor is going to claim lower attendance at Universal is a benefit of fighting Disney. That would not be politically savvy.”
Inhospitable weather, including a threat of thunderstorms that could dampen fireworks shows, was a factor for July 4 attendance, Testa said. Crowds bounced back the next day and data showed similarly slow results in California parks, where, people presumably “are less inclined to listen to Florida’s governor,” he said.
Another sign of attendance drop was that Orange County’s tax revenue stemming from hotel rooms and other short-term lodging was down 6.7% for May. It was the second consecutive month of decline after 14 months of increases.
“We think that that is roughly in line with the theme-park attendance drop,” Testa said. “If you told me that theme-park attendance is down between Disney and Universal between 15% and 25%, I would 100% believe that because that’s what we’re seeing internally.”
Testa cautioned against comparing Disney World conditions in 2023 with pre-pandemic 2019.
Among the changes: The resort instituted a mandatory theme-park reservation system and has used a variable-pricing model to spread attendance more evenly throughout the year. It also introduced the Genie+ planning service for which visitors pay for quicker access to attractions via a system of shortcuts called Lightning Lanes.
“Disney only cares about revenue; they don’t care about how many people are in the parks,” Testa said.
In the parks
Aaron Delay, a first-time Disney World visitor from Seattle, said he was startled by the crowd waiting for Magic Kingdom to open one morning earlier this month.
“We Lightning Laned everything, and that turned out alright for us,” he said. “It has a learning curve to it, but once you figure it out, I think it was probably worth it.”
Ben Davis, a visitor from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was making his sixth Disney World trip and wore a T-shirt that read “Eat, sleep, theme park, repeat.” He waited in 90-minute lines at Magic Kingdom and Disney’s Animal Kingdom but only five minutes at Epcot’s Living With the Land, he said.
“I thought it might be a little bit busier, just being summer and all,” Davis said. “I can see where the heat keeps some people away.”
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Coming up
Last year’s theme-park attendance was strong in Central Florida, said Jakob Wahl, president of Orlando-based International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
“Florida was booming, and that was great, and we saw it in the parks. … 2023 is maybe not as strong as 2022, but we still hear it is a good season,” Wahl said.
He pointed to some park additions, including SeaWorld Orlando’s Pipeline roller coaster, which debuted in May, and the upcoming Villain-Con Minion Blast at Universal Studios and Journey of Water, Inspired by Moana at Epcot.
“Those are all kind of massive investments, massive new attractions, which create a lot of attention from people. What we sometimes see is that people wait for the opening of new attractions to actually go to the parks,” he said. “We actually are expecting a strong second term in the season and looking forward to actually experiencing all those attractions.”
Escape from daily life is key to the success of theme parks, he said.
“They want to have a fun day out without concerns of economy, politics, whatever it is, you go out to have a fun day with your friends, with your family and you forget about what keeps you awake at night,” he said. “I think no one can take that away from our industry. Our industry is stronger than politics.”
But doldrums could continue for a while, Testa said.
“We’re kind of in a lull right now until Epic Universe opens,” he said. Universal Orlando’s third theme park is scheduled to debut in 2025.
“It could be that people went in 2022. … The really big theme park fans know to come back in late 2024, early 2025,” Testa said.
Speigel thought the slowdown could also be a post-post-COVID economic reaction.
“People will say, ‘Hey, we spent enough for a couple of years. Let’s pull back,’” he said.
The big picture doesn’t concern Wolfe of the Disney Food Blog.
“I’m not worried about Disney not bringing in an audience. I think they will continue to succeed,” she said. “They’ve been through a lot worse than this. This is nothing.”
