Tell Me Something I Don’t Know | Guest Satisfaction Scores Since Before Pandemic

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Bob Chapek [Disney CEO] took some time to discuss guest satisfaction at Disney Parks around the world. During the interview he said that “guest satisfaction scores since we’ve reopened across the world have shown that, indeed, our guests are even more satisfied than they were prior to the pandemic” and the first things that came to mind was . . . . . . .

Well. . . . DUH!

See, it might seem like a million years ago at the moment, but I remember my visit to Walt Disney World only a few short months before the onset of the pandemic. I remember the overcrowding, the 30 minute wait to use the restroom and inability to ride almost anything; all the while without the park ever reaching capacity. It was a Walt Disney World experience unlike any I’ve ever had before and one I quite frankly never want to have again.

Of course, this all changed when the parks reopened in July of 2020 after an extended closure due to Covid-19. With considerations for the health and safety of Guests and Cast Members a top priority, Disney needed to make some changes to how they operated. This included instituting a mask policy, eliminating stage shows, modifying experiences, accommodating for social distancing and limiting capacity. There were also a number of other policies, procedures and/or rules put in place at Walt Disney World. For example, Guests were asked to only eat and drink when stationary and away from other people. We could probably have a long winded conversation about all of the health and safety protocols I mentioned above, and more, that Disney put into place when they reopened. However, that’s not why we’re here today. We’re talking about Guest satisfaction, which I think can be solely attributed to one thing in particular; park capacity.

Currently, the theme parks at Walt Disney World Resort are operating at 35% capacity. As we discussed earlier this week, this is being managed by a Theme Park Pass Reservation System. [If you’re curious about the Theme Park Pass Reservation System, you can learn how it works by clicking HERE.] In a nutshell, what this means is that if parks hit capacity today, Walt Disney World would still be welcoming somewhere around 20% less guests than on an average day prior to the onset of the pandemic. Again, that’s assuming that the parks actually reach max capacity. At a park like Magic Kingdom, that means a maximum of around 35,000 Guests rather than 100,000*.

When put into practice, this doesn’t only mean that Guests have the ability to socially distance at the parks. It' also means that there are shorter wait times, less crowded restaurants and ultimately the ability to do more during their Disney day. . . even without FastPass+ and Extra Magic Hours.

[As a side note, I think that this limited capacity is one of the reasons that Walt Disney World can get away with taking away FastPass+ and Extra Magic Hours. Though there have been grumbles from disappointed Guests, once you actually track wait times and take a look into the parks, eliminating these things is easier to swallow. We’ll talk more about this later though, because it’s a topic all its own.]

Personally, this ability to enjoy a meal without literally sitting back to back with the person seated behind you and wait in a standby line without having to eat up half of your day at the park is a big part of what I think has Guests feeling more satisfied. Not only that, but there have also been lots of reports that encounters with Cast Members have been more pleasant. Again, this makes sense! Less guests to herd means more time to have those magical experiences that those of us who visited the parks in decades past enjoyed so much. In fact, I think that this gets to the heart of why Guests are more satisfied now than they were pre-pandemic; they’re experiencing the parks the way they used to be. Of course, this raises an important question that I’m sure the folks at Disney have been asking themselves since this whole thing started: what is Walt Disney World going to look like once this whole thing is over?

Now, I’m not going to dive into this at the moment. Though I do have lots of speculations and opinions, they’ll stay securely in my back pocket for now. What I will say is that Disney is going to have a hard time keeping those satisfaction numbers up if they make the decision to revert back to pre-pandemic numbers. I mean, we can pretend that we want things to be back to normal, but I think that many of us have a different opinion of what an acceptable normal is now as opposed to before this whole thing started.

Personally, I’ll be very interested in seeing the way this plays out in the next couple of years. I’m curious to know what you think though! Are you surprised to find that Guest satisfaction in the parks is up compared to pre-pandemic? Do you think that Disney will go back to 100% capacity once Covid-19 is no longer a threat or do you think that the limited capacity here to stay? Share your thoughts with us in a comment down below!

*This is an estimated capacity of the Magic Kingdom based on a number of different resources that we’ve looked into. Unfortunately, Walt Disney World has not been forthcoming in terms of actual capacity numbers at their theme parks.