Len Testa Interview

[disneysteve]

I agree, I don't think enough people use them. I believe most visitors get the one park a day pass, so they will almost always go to the park with EMH hours to get more bang for their buck even though EMH days are the most crowded for whichever park has them.

Yep. We always very intentionally avoid the EMH park.

 

[KingLlama]

Zig when they zag. That one rule has helped me avoid WDW crowds as much as possible for the past 30 or so years. It’s not foolproof, but it works.

 

[WDW_Ding]

A few years ago, the popular sentiment around Fastpass+ and the MDE app ("Nextgen") was that they didn't want you in line, because if you're in line, you're not spending money. I wonder if they have changed their thinking on that to now believe that what they save on operating costs by cutting capacity outweighs the additional spending people my do if they are not waiting in line.

I doubt they have changed their minds on the whole, but they have probably figured out that 3 FastPasses, plus average stand-by wait times of "X" (15, 20, 25 minutes) result in the sort of behavior they want.

Thanks for sharing. I found The Season Pass episode but where can I find Len's own podcast?

As others have said, it is called The Disney Dish with Jim Hill. Be informed though, it is mostly a podcast about the history of Disney. It isn't really focused on data and/or touring.

 

[limace]

The quick segment was fascinating and I can't wait to listen to the full thing. I'm addicted to the Dis Unplugged but have to admit (shhhh) that The Disney Dish is my absolute favorite Disney podcast-love the inside scoop and find Len's analysis fascinating and refreshing.

And this just reinforces why DL continues to be our favorite resort, though we love WDW as well. The ability to plan and adjust your touring on the fly in response to crowds, to not have to lock in planning months in advance, and the fact that they haven't artificially created crowds at normally slow attractions by the use of FP+ and tiered attractions...all means that DL is a much better fit for how my family likes to visit. (This doesn't mean it's better for YOUR family, of course...my family just hates me bossing them and directing them their entire trip-and even I, who love to plan Disney trips, can't stand trying to think about where I want to eat six months from now).

Anyway, thanks again, Len and Pete and Craig! Please have Len on more often!

 

[DLgal]

I think Len needs to post his people at the entrance gates and count how many people enter the parks. That's the only really accurate way to determine crowd levels. Basing crowd levels on wait times seems problematic because when several rides are down at the same time, waits will be longer without there actually being more people in the park. Maybe Touring Plans needs to call it "Wait time Index" instead of "Crowd Level Index." Maybe there were lower numbers of people exiting rides because there were actually less people in the park that day? Just because a ride CAN put 1500 people through per hour doesn't mean it always WILL. Maybe I misunderstand the science behind this, but the easiest explanation for lowered capacity is simply less people riding per hour. Without having actual guest attendance numbers for every day you are collecting capacity data, the numbers don't mean anything.

Now, if Len had said "On Tuesday, there were 40,000 guests in the Magic Kingdom and we saw an average of "X" guests exit Attractions A, B, C, D, and E per hour using 8 hours of data. On Saturday of that same week, there were ALSO 40,000 guests in the Magic Kingdom and we saw an average of "X+25%" guests exit Attractions A, B, C, D, and E per hour using 8 hours of data." If THIS was the analysis, we'd have a valid reason for this whole discussion.

I'm not a data scientist, this is just my logical, common sense brain talking. I'm probably missing something really obvious, though, I admit that's possible.

 

[WDW_Ding]

I think Len needs to post his people at the entrance gates and count how many people enter the parks. That's the only really accurate way to determine crowd levels. Basing crowd levels on wait times seems problematic because when several rides are down at the same time, waits will be longer without there actually being more people in the park. Maybe Touring Plans needs to call it "Wait time Index" instead of "Crowd Level Index." Maybe there were lower numbers of people exiting rides because there were actually less people in the park that day? Just because a ride CAN put 1500 people through per hour doesn't mean it always WILL. Maybe I misunderstand the science behind this, but the easiest explanation for lowered capacity is simply less people riding per hour. Without having actual guest attendance numbers for every day you are collecting capacity data, the numbers don't mean anything.

Now, if Len had said "On Tuesday, there were 40,000 guests in the Magic Kingdom and we saw an average of "X" guests exit Attractions A, B, C, D, and E per hour using 8 hours of data. On Saturday of that same week, there were ALSO 40,000 guests in the Magic Kingdom and we saw an average of "X+25%" guests exit Attractions A, B, C, D, and E per hour using 8 hours of data." If THIS was the analysis, we'd have a valid reason for this whole discussion.

I'm not a data scientist, this is just my logical, common sense brain talking. I'm probably missing something really obvious, though, I admit that's possible.

If you look at the TP site, they have a break down of how long you can expect to wait for certain rides when the crowd calendar is at a certain level.

For example, here is this, from TP:

What Do The Crowd Levels Feel Like In The Parks?
You can get a good sense of how the parks will feel to you based on our wait times pages. For example, a 70-minute average wait at Space Mountain is a '7' on our scale. If a 70-minute average wait seems reasonable to you, you should feel comfortable at a '7' or '8' day. If it makes you shudder in anguish then stick to the '5's or lower.

If you have dates planned, click on the "view park wait times" on the Crowd Calendar day page you're viewing, or by navigating to it from a park's wait times page (see Magic Kingdom's Wait Times page for reference). You'll be able to see predicted wait times for every attraction for every hour of the day.

If you haven't set your dates yet, or just want to see what the wait times look like in aggregate, visit the pages below to see tables of wait times like the example for Space Mountain below. Use them to get a sense of how crowded each attraction will be:

https://imgur.com/a/duynX

 

[DLgal]

If you look at the TP site, they have a break down of how long you can expect to wait for certain rides when the crowd calendar is at a certain level.

For example, here is this, from TP:

Yeah, I get that. But, like, what if you just go to the park and don't ride anything? Admittedly, I do this kind of a lot at Disneyland. I get a feeling for crowds in the park just walking around. A better gauge of crowd levels is : how long are the lines for the bathrooms, for the snack carts, for the QS restaurants, for the monorail, for the buses, etc? I can figure out how crowded it is without riding a single ride. It seems like TP only measures attraction wait times and translates that into a crowd level, which seems like it leaves out a lot of other metrics.

 

[Spencer Wright]

There are several reasons why a company would do that. One being costs and maintenance. Len did go into it a bit in the interview.

While this is certainly oversimplifying the issue, it's like going into any retail store anymore and seeing a few registers open during the busiest time of the week. (Think of a Wal-Mart or Target which might have 30-40 registers and 3 people on them on a Saturday afternoon)

It seems Disney may be doing this to a lesser degree, and making the parks much less efficient than they have been in the past.

 

[WDW_Ding]

It seems like TP only measures attraction wait times and translates that into a crowd level

That's what people really care about though.

In other words, if people know wait times and general crowd levels, the other things take care of themselves.

 

[disneysteve]

It seems like TP only measures attraction wait times and translates that into a crowd level, which seems like it leaves out a lot of other metrics.

That's what people really care about though.

I don't think that's true at all. Personally, we care very little about wait times. I'm far more concerned with how crowded the park is overall. We want to be able to stroll around and enjoy being there, not be pushing and shoving our way through a sea of people just to get from point A to point B. We will leave the park when it's like that and go do something else.

Also, as discussed on the show, Disney can manipulate wait times and ride capacity. They can't manipulate how many people are physically in the park unless they close the gate.

 

[Iowamomof4]

I don't think that's true at all. Personally, we care very little about wait times. I'm far more concerned with how crowded the park is overall. We want to be able to stroll around and enjoy being there, not be pushing and shoving our way through a sea of people just to get from point A to point B. We will leave the park when it's like that and go do something else.

Also, as discussed on the show, Disney can manipulate wait times and ride capacity. They can't manipulate how many people are physically in the park unless they close the gate.

Yes!!

 

[disneysteve]

While this is certainly oversimplifying the issue, it's like going into any retail store anymore and seeing a few registers open during the busiest time of the week. (Think of a Wal-Mart or Target which might have 30-40 registers and 3 people on them on a Saturday afternoon)

It seems Disney may be doing this to a lesser degree, and making the parks much less efficient than they have been in the past.

Exactly. The parks are way less efficient. We've been there at times recently that didn't seem excessively crowded and found the service at quick serve locations, for example, to be awful. Last trip, we waited nearly 30 minutes for our food at Pecos Bill's. That tells me the kitchen is way understaffed because there were plenty of open registers taking orders. The delay was on the back end actually filling those orders. I ended up getting a manager involved and ultimately getting our entire meal for free. That just isn't something that happened years ago.

 

[ckelly14]

I love the scientific approach to this. Great interview Len.

However, isn't a "crowd calendar" a misnomer? Shouldn't it be a "wait time calendar"?

Waits on attractions is a major impact of the crowds, but not the only way crowds affects your day. Bottlenecks in the park, waits for food, looking for a fireworks spot, etc.

Based on the changes made to normalize the "crowd calendar", aren't we seeing an overestimate of the actual crowds compared to historical controls?

 

[DisneyKingpin]

Follow the money.

 

[Stacy's a freak]

Like many on this thread, I am also interested in knowing the numbers of people in the park. We were just there for President's week (I know, we're dumb but stuck with a school schedule) and it was less than fun because of the hordes of people. Sure, the wait times mattered to us and they were long, which we expected, but my dumb self didn't really think about the crowded-ness of the walkways. It made it so hard to be leisurely and to wander and see the details, which I love to do! And I think my step-kids and husband who were basically first-timers didn't understand why I love it so much because we were dodging people instead of enjoying the theming. This makes me sad. I don't have the answers but I just wanted to put this out there.

 

[KellyHonos]

I listened to the 5 minutes clip shown during yesterday's podcast. I have to applaud Len for his scientific approach in analyzing the crowd at WDW. Nevertheless, his crowd calendar is no use to me as my family and I can only go during the summer time. We don't want to pull our kids out of school and we don't like to travel in the winter time. We know the weather will be hot and there will be crowds in the park. With that expectation, we will enjoy our trip and make the best of it no matter what.

That's the approach I take too. I go with my little sister who is 12, and missing school for her is not an option. We're stuck with traveling during crowded times. It just comes with the territory. We went in summer of 2016 and while the heat was pretty annoying, the crowds weren't all that bad, in my opinion. If you use fast passes and make dining reservations, wait times shouldn't be that unbearable.

 

[disneysteve]

And I think my step-kids and husband who were basically first-timers didn't understand why I love it so much because we were dodging people instead of enjoying the theming. This makes me sad.

Exactly. Disney doesn't seem to care but crowds have a huge effect on guests' experience and impressions. We will keep going back but I can totally understand how a first-timer could go and be so turned off by the crowds that they never return. That's a problem that will catch up with Disney eventually.

 

[SorcererHeidi]

Exactly. Disney doesn't seem to care but crowds have a huge effect on guests' experience and impressions. We will keep going back but I can totally understand how a first-timer could go and be so turned off by the crowds that they never return. That's a problem that will catch up with Disney eventually.

Not even just a first timer. I used t go every year, or every other year. Haven't been in 5 years now, and cost and crowds are both part of the reason why. I found myself asking a few times in the last few years of my last visits "How come I'm paying more and more, getting less and less, and getting more and more frustrated while here?" And what am I even DOING here?". This made/makes me very sad, since it used to be my ultimate Happy Place.

Tipping point? Sorry, Disney, you made me hit mine, awhile ago. Sadly.

 

[msk]

I have used touring plans for several years. I love making plans, requesting rooms and then doing my own thing when needed. This past trip, (Feb), we loved timing our wait times and sending in that info. The math and science behind the crowd calendar was very interesting. I really enjoyed the podcast. Thanks!!!

 

[disneyworldsk]

Can someone explain then why for example photos on social media in jan. and feb. for example showed the parks so packed people were just stopped in walkways not moving? I don't understand that part. please explain.