One quote in that article at the end is with regard to people shifting their spending from the Disney theme parks to Disney cruising.Again, the story is that attendance is down from last year and lowest since 2019 (not counting Covid) NOT that the parks are empty, but this is the first article that I've seen mention that Universal is dealing with the same thing. So, it's not go woke go broke Disney or due to pricing. Like I said above, it's probably more due to revenge travel cooling down and nobody wants to bake to death in Florida in the summer. Also currently looking at a 115 minute wait for RnR coaster, 95 for Slinky Dog and 7DMT, 85 for Space mountain, 80 for Toy Story Mania and Runaway Railway, 75 for Rise, Peter pan, and Smuggler's run, etc. So lower attendance definitely doesn't mean the park looks or feels empty.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/business ... index.html
I'll admit, we did that this year. We are doing a two day stop at the parks before the cruise, but we are shifting from our usual 7 day Disney extravaganza we typically do. 1) It is getting more difficult to pull the kids out of school during the school year to go at different times outside of summer which we have typically done to avoid the heat and the rush 2) the cruise is more relaxing, and again, as the kids are getting older, we still enjoy the disney experience, w/o having to wait in line and sweat our balls off
