Sure doesn't look like a significant bump just watching line times throughout the entire resort, including AK (of course line times are not necessarily true attendance figures, but they are indicators of how crowded the parks feel). This is certainly no Cars Land draw at this point in time. They were talking about this on TouringPlans the other day. TP said that the two largest Travel Agencies that booked Disney vacations, said there was no demand for going on vacation to see Pandora. That speaks volumes.
WDW Resort has seen no increase because of Pandora. As a matter of fact, resort attendance is soft-ish. Not as bad as last summer, but not over crowded like 2015.
They probably shouldn't have debuted Happily Ever After if they wanted to divert the night crowd. Shows like that probably attract more Disneyphiles than new attractions do. Probably should have held off for a year or two or three.
DAK and DHS have the same problem. People rope drop them with a plan to stay through the "night spectacular" only to find themselves at 3pm scratching their heads trying to figure out what else there is to do to entertain themselves for the next 5 hours until it gets dark.
You know that is a management move to get the cleanup done and not pay any more than necessary to do it so close them early?
I think the bigger issue they have right now is that the fireworks show is the only nighttime event now that the parade is gone.
They debuted this one now because they have a 50th anniversary show planned for MK. MK did jump the queue, so to speak though. Illuminations was supposed to receive an update before MK got it's new show, now it seems like that may not happen until 2019.
