Episode 33 - We Crank Because We Care

[MstngDrvnDsnyLvr]

Uh, no. My beef with him is that he's got talent beyond imagination, yet he plays the game like a soft, spoiled, whiny little girl.

Exactly!!!!!

[diz_girl]

I was just listening to the Podcast again. When Eisner was mentioned, it made me remember that he was the person who green-lit Schoolhouse Rock. So all of you Gen Xers who fondly remember Schoolhouse Rock, you can thank Eisner for brining it to ABC. You can also get it on the Prime. I'd recommend the 30th anniversary edition, which is what I have at home. MY DS4 loves Conjunction Junction.

[tinkman]

First off, I apologize for the long post. Wait, apologizing is a weakness. Oh well.
I've listened to this podcast at least 5 times. NextGen: The ability to schedule a ride ahead of time will not increase flow-through of any ride. There are only a couple ways to increase flow through. 1) Speed up the ride (reduce cycle time). 2) Increase capacity of ride vehicles.
Look at Splash Mountain. Bear with me on the actual numbers though I think this is close. A boat is launched every 30 secs. Boat capacity is 8 people. That's 120 boats per hour times 8 people or 960 people per hour. The only way to increase the number of people per hour is to speed up the ride, in other words, launch a boat every 25 secs. Now, keep in mind that there is a limit....they have to maintain a minimum distance and spacing. Reduce the boat launch time from 30 to 25 secs and your hourly rate goes from 960 to 1152 people per hour. Also, adding more boats to the ride will not increase through-put. Typically, ride controllers start out the day with a reduced number of ride vehicles then as the crowds grow, they will add more vehicles to get to the maximum output. There are only so many ride vehicles that can be added. All numbers that I talk about is assuming a full ride.
Next, they could change the capacity of the boats. Say from 8 to 10. Of course this would change how often they can launch since the boats would be longer...but let's leave this variable out for now. By going from 8 people to 10 people per boat, you go from 960 to 1200 people per hour.
Providing that there is always 8 people waiting for a boat and they launch one every 30 seconds it won't matter if those people "scheduled" their time or just walked in.
Take a look at another type of ride….continuous running rides. The Haunted Mansion is a perfect example. Other than stops for loading issues (i.e. someone from a wheelchair) or mechanical issues, this ride does not stop to load people. Never actually put a stopwatch on this, but I would guess that the Doombuggys move on about a 5 sec cycle. With 2 people per Doombuggy, that would be about 1440 people per hour. Other than revamping the ride to accept more people per Doombuggy or speeding up the ride even more, there is no way to get more people per hour through it.
I must believe that Disney is more interested in “park throughput”, that is, guests coming in the gates. NextGen could have a very negative effect on the guest experience but better for Disney, in the short term.
NextGen may actually increase park attendance by giving people a false sense of “not having to wait for ride” concept. So, as a guest prior to my trip, I get online and plan out all the rides and attractions I want to see, get an assigned time, then when I arrive, just start jumping in line, thinking that since I have a “time” I won’t have to wait. However, thousands of other people have done the same thing! People will be behind me and in front of me. Now, the parks have higher attendance filled with people who think they won’t have to wait for a ride. There are already many guests who do not understand the FastPass concept. We see so many people struggle with this on every trip. Now, imagine the first time guests who show up and see that standby wait time is even longer because of NextGen that they didn’t know about or understand when they were planning their first trip.
I completely agree with the opinions in the podcast. Don’t keep spending money on mythological systems that artificially gives guests a sense of “not waiting for anything”. Spend the money on new attractions and rides, expanding the parks making them more guest friendly and dispersing crowds. Toy Story Mania and Soarin’ should tell Disney what guests want. TSM: A ball on a string pulled as fast as you can until you get carpel tunnel and Soarin’: Sitting on a swing in front of a huge movie screen.