Every year Disney World has a higher attendance than the year prior. The only exception to this is 2020 due to COVID. Anyone who has been to Disney in the past few years can notice the crowds are bigger, the lines are longer, yet the prices keep going up. Disney is having a supply and demand crisis. Because of this, Disney World will require an online Disney exam in order to buy park tickets.
The average wait times for rides at Disney World continue to increase over the years. With each new year, comes slightly higher average wait times. This clearly has a negative impact on the guest experience and there’s also a business tradeoff Disney is considering. We will tackle the guest experience first.
Overall guest satisfaction at Disney World is down significantly. As we reported here, Bob Chapek’s approval rating was at 0% with guests. That problem is solved. However, the in-park experience is suffering. Disney is not opening enough new attractions to meet the demand and tickets sold. This is driving up wait times and making guests extremely unhappy. Also, Disney still has their park reservation system to control crowds, which guests are not happy with. This takes away guests’ autonomy to parkhop as they desire. Luckily Disney is pulling back on that slightly.
From a business standpoint, Disney has a tradeoff. The more people in the park, the longer the wait times. When guests are waiting in lines, they aren’t spending money in stores. It’s true that the more people in the park, the more they make on admission. However, more time in line is less time shopping and buying food. There is an imbalance between these two and right now, Disney isn’t making the optimal amount of money due to crowd levels. This is displayed in the bell curve graph above. Disney wants to be at the apex, which is the optimal profit.
Why is Disney Adding an Exam to Buy Park Tickets?
Disney is unable to increase capacity in their parks with new rides. As we reported here, Tron Lightcycle isn’t opening until 2024. They are struggling to implement new rides. There are two levers that can be pulled to get the market into equilibrium when it comes to supply and demand. Increase supply or decrease demand. For Disney, they can’t increase supply enough, so instead, they need to decrease supply and this is where the Disney exams come in.
Disney needs to throttle the number of people entering their parks in order to maximize profit potential and reach market equilibrium. They attempted this with the park reservation system, however, that was not totally effective. Disney also knows they can’t turn guests away at the entrance. They need a longer-term play and they are going at it with a bold new approach to crowd management.
Starting now, Disney will require anyone who wants to buy Disney World park tickets online to pass an exam all about Disney. This new Disney quiz won’t be as simple as Disney Buzzfeed Quizzes, and it will not be as hard as an SAT all about Disney. Instead, it will be an intermediate Disney trivia quiz online. According to official reports, the Disney Trivia exam will require knowledge about characters, parks, and Disney history.
When do I Take my Disney Trivia Exam?
When someone adds Disney tickets to their cart on Disney’s website, they will be redirected to an online Disney quiz. The quiz will lock down your browser and track eye movement to ensure you aren’t cheating. Disney will then ask you 20 questions. The required score to pass the test and buy your park tickets will be 50% or higher. The good news is if you don’t pass the Disney tickets exam, you are allowed to retake it as many times as you would like. However, each time you take it, the questions will be different.
A score of 50% or higher isn’t a terrible score to achieve but is frustrating a lot of guests already. We reached out to many lifetime Disney guests for their opinion on this new Disney exam and we saw mixed reactions. Some understand where Disney is coming from and others think that is a terrible way to operate and will turn people away from buying Disney tickets.
Disney thinks that adding this quiz will help drive the crowd levels down. It will only allow those who are big enough Disney fans to get a score of 50% or higher to buy tickets. This works for Disney in a few ways. First off, those that pass are bigger Disney fans, thus more likely to spend more money. Also, it will turn away those who aren’t big Disney fans, thus lowering the supply side of the equation, which is their goal.
This is an extremely controversial way to control Disney crowd levels, which are at an all-time high right now. What do you think of Disney’s new exams for buying park tickets? Let us know in the comments below!
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