Are bookings down?

Was that for the year or the quarter? I know it was up for the year but the quarter would be what's in question.

Current quarter. "So far this quarter, domestic resort reservations are pacing up 3% compared to prior year, while booked rates are up 4%."

and "Attendance at our domestic parks was up 4% and per capita spending was up 9% on higher admissions, food and beverage and merchandise spending."

Transcript of Nov 8th call: https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/q4-fy18-earnings-transcript.pdf
 
Current quarter. "So far this quarter, domestic resort reservations are pacing up 3% compared to prior year, while booked rates are up 4%."

and "Attendance at our domestic parks was up 4% and per capita spending was up 9% on higher admissions, food and beverage and merchandise spending."

Transcript of Nov 8th call: https://www.thewaltdisneycompany.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/q4-fy18-earnings-transcript.pdf
Even with that WDW was concerned about power than projected attendance during late summer and early fall. That is why cuts were made. Some were held back as attendance started to rise again but budget cuts were driven in areas that saw a drop. Epcot in particular has seen issues as of late which is why they’ve been pushing different events and putting things like the passholder magents there.
 
A smart business will make targeted sales, cost cuts, etc. to react on the fly and maintain profitability. Whether those adjustments are successful or not shows in the results. This to me says they've been successful:

Per room spending at our domestic hotels was up 8% and occupancy was up one percentage point to 85%.

Sure they do play/stay/dine and other sales to get bodies in rooms, but the result is, it worked. Increased occupancy (slightly) AND $/room (a bit more).
 


Recession’s already started. If you know where (economically vulnerable areas), in which industries (especially manufacturing parts suppliers in auto dependant areas), and which indicators to look for it’s easy to spot. It’ll take another year for people to start using the term “recession”, but it’s already started.
I doubt a translation is necessary.
8EDDB649-ADA1-4E3B-8EB2-FC139A0699CB.jpeg
 
There are indicators all over the economy that a recession is on the horizon. I am in real estate and construction in NYC. Construction has not taken a hit yet, but we are seeing the signs in the RE market. Interest rates on the rise, properties over priced and staying on the market for A LOT longer. Stock Market beginning to act a lot like the tech industry during the time of the tech bubble. Sometime next year around June/July you will start hearing the word recession. How bad it gets is anyone's guess. I expected the last one in 2008, but I never believed it would have been the cliff jump it ended up being.
 


There are indicators all over the economy that a recession is on the horizon. I am in real estate and construction in NYC. Construction has not taken a hit yet, but we are seeing the signs in the RE market. Interest rates on the rise, properties over priced and staying on the market for A LOT longer. Stock Market beginning to act a lot like the tech industry during the time of the tech bubble. Sometime next year around June/July you will start hearing the word recession. How bad it gets is anyone's guess. I expected the last one in 2008, but I never believed it would have been the cliff jump it ended up being.
There's also the ongoing trade war with China and anxiety over Brexit that's going to contribute to that.
 
I doubt a translation is necessary.
View attachment 367008

I just got an alert on phone with this info.

Holy cow. That is horrible.

I am no expert on the economy, so I can't comment on if a recession is coming, but did you read more about the GM cuts? It's part of the company's planned overhaul - changing technology to zero emissions and electronic cars, streamlining the process/technology of building cars and the plants being closed made mostly sedans, which GM isn't going to make anymore because the public doesn't buy them anymore.

Obviously, that extra information is of no comfort to those losing their jobs.
 
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I am no expert on the economy, so I can't comment on if a recession is coming, but did you read more about the GM cuts? It's part of the company's planned overhaul - changing technology to zero emissions and electronic cars, streamlining the process/technology of building cars and the plants being closed made mostly sedans, which GM isn't going to make anymore because the public doesn't buy them anymore.

Obviously, that extra information is of no comfort to those losing their jobs.

I did, but I find it bizarre that they’ve decided to go alternative energy & cut the Volt???

The steel tarrifs cost GM over 1billion since implemented & sales on those models have been lagging. However, no talk on shifting new model production to OH, MI or Ontario.

They’ll make up the lost tarrif cost by either installing or expanding sites in Mexico. It’s all symptomatic and self-feeding.
 
Does anyone think that free dining will start as early as the week of 8/11/19 to entice people to DW instead of them holding on to their money and going after Galaxy's Edge opens? We have vacationed at Disney World the last 2 Summers and would like to go again in 2019. However, taking a couple more people bumps up the cost quite a bit and the only way I see for that to happen would be with free dining. We don't go into debt for vacations so we need a little free dining help from Disney this year. :tongue:
 
There are indicators all over the economy that a recession is on the horizon. I am in real estate and construction in NYC. Construction has not taken a hit yet, but we are seeing the signs in the RE market. Interest rates on the rise, properties over priced and staying on the market for A LOT longer. Stock Market beginning to act a lot like the tech industry during the time of the tech bubble. Sometime next year around June/July you will start hearing the word recession. How bad it gets is anyone's guess. I expected the last one in 2008, but I never believed it would have been the cliff jump it ended up being.

The real issue is that, we may have set this up to be an even worse cliff than we saw in 2008 (potentially). Any good economist would say when the economy is doing as well as it is (in both Canada and the US) you should actually raise taxes, decrease government spending, try to repay some of your national debt, and create room to increase economic stimulus when the economy starts to lag.

Recent tax cuts have massively increased the government deficit, Canada continues to borrow significantly despite a red hot economy and we too are giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. In both cases this has taken a hot economy and super heated it, inflated profits, stock market values, consumer confidence, etc. So instead of have an economic fall from 100 feet up, we've taken another 50 foot climb so to speak.

On top of that the governments in both countries are in VERY weak positions to respond to a recession. Normally you would borrow and spend, cut taxes, lower interest rates (though this is done by arms length agencies). With the US already having cut taxes significantly there really isn't anywhere to go with that, and with the Deficit already ballooning to over $1 Trillion dollars a year, if the US were to attempt to borrow its way out of a recession, well, you'd be looking at just insane levels of deficit spending ($1 Trillion is already pretty insane) and this would have negative economic impacts as well.

Its looking like it could be pretty damn rough.
 
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Does anyone think that free dining will start as early as the week of 8/11/19 to entice people to DW instead of them holding on to their money and going after Galaxy's Edge opens? We have vacationed at Disney World the last 2 Summers and would like to go again in 2019. However, taking a couple more people bumps up the cost quite a bit and the only way I see for that to happen would be with free dining. We don't go into debt for vacations so we need a little free dining help from Disney this year. :tongue:

It's quite possible. The free dining bounceback for next summer includes all of July and August.
 
The real issue is that, we may have set this up to be an even worse cliff than we saw in 2008 (potentially). Any good economist would say when the economy is doing as well as it is (in both Canada and the US) you should actually raise taxes, decrease government spending, try to repay some of your national debt, and create room to increase economic stimulus when the economy starts to lag.

Recent tax cuts have massively increased the government deficit, Canada continues to borrow significantly despite a red hot economy and we too is giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. In both cases this has taken a hot economy and super heated it, inflated profits, stock market values, consumer confidence, etc. So instead of have an economic fall from 100 feet up, we've taken another 50 foot climb so to speak.

On top of that the governments in both countries are in VERY weak positions to respond to a recession. Normally you would borrow and spend, cut taxes, lower interest rates (though this is done by arms length agencies). With the US already having cut taxes significantly there really isn't anywhere to go with that, and with the Deficit already ballooning to over $1 Trillion dollars a year, if the US were to attempt to borrow its way out of a recession, well, you'd be looking at just insane levels of deficit spending ($1 Trillion is already pretty insane) and this would have negative economic impacts as well.

Its looking like it could be pretty damn rough.

I have to say this all worries me. Currently it's rumored DHs work contract will done June 2020. In the middle of a hard recession is not a great time to have to find a new job.
 
I thought PINs had become a thing of the past. But now we are seeing a lot of people getting them again - but not me, of course. I'm sure bookings will have to be a little soft ahead of Galaxy's Edge opening as people wait for it.
I know what you mean...I never receive PINS either. I think it might be due to the fact that Disney knows that all they have to do is send me an email with a silhouette of Mouse Ears, and I am all, "Honey - we are going to Disney!"
 
The real issue is that, we may have set this up to be an even worse cliff than we saw in 2008 (potentially). Any good economist would say when the economy is doing as well as it is (in both Canada and the US) you should actually raise taxes, decrease government spending, try to repay some of your national debt, and create room to increase economic stimulus when the economy starts to lag.

Recent tax cuts have massively increased the government deficit, Canada continues to borrow significantly despite a red hot economy and we too are giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy. In both cases this has taken a hot economy and super heated it, inflated profits, stock market values, consumer confidence, etc. So instead of have an economic fall from 100 feet up, we've taken another 50 foot climb so to speak.

On top of that the governments in both countries are in VERY weak positions to respond to a recession. Normally you would borrow and spend, cut taxes, lower interest rates (though this is done by arms length agencies). With the US already having cut taxes significantly there really isn't anywhere to go with that, and with the Deficit already ballooning to over $1 Trillion dollars a year, if the US were to attempt to borrow its way out of a recession, well, you'd be looking at just insane levels of deficit spending ($1 Trillion is already pretty insane) and this would have negative economic impacts as well.

Its looking like it could be pretty damn rough.

Interestingly enough, I saw this just today:

https://globalnews.ca/news/4724606/alberta-home-builders-cut-jobs/

Now, I know they "say" it's not due to economic factors, but how can it not be? Granted, I don't pretend to understand economics to any great degree (maybe not even a small degree lol), but to me this would be indicative of our own potebtial downturn as well?
 

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