News Disney to launch new Vacation Planning site to help guests with date-based tickets

[Tony the Tigger]

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I love Disney and as a Brit these changes don’t even impact me, but I am getting more and more worried about the amount of communications coming out of WDW that focus on terms like “Vacation Planning” which benefits their business rather than “hey look at this new attraction we’ve built for you, our loyal guests”.

They’re doing that as well, evident from all of the things coming on line within the next few years. Later than they should have, but they are.

 

[Walt d]

As if planning a Disney vacation budget wasn't already complex enough.

Why dose there have to be such a hassle for your tickets, was the normal way making too much sense ? Another Bobby I. Fun way too make no sense He does like change and rebuilding maybe this is rebuilding two .

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Am I right in thinking that they haven't implemented park-specific pricing yet, as they were originally rumored to be thinking about?
Edit: I see from the other thread that indeed, they're also eliminating park-specific pricing.

In addition to the "complication", I suspect this is also a simple money-grab (or revenue-enhancement, as I've called it at work) to enable price increases for high season while maintaining current pricing for low season. @CaptainAmerica, it may seem beyond the pale for Disney to increase prices by 20%, but I suspect they could do that or more for spring break and Christmas week.

Looking at my DVC point chart, I see that those weeks are 70% more expensive that "Adventure Season" (or 60% more expensive than average pricing). Do your point about discounted off-season, Note that "Adventure Season" is about 10% cheaper than average pricing. Magic Season pricing during summer vacation is about 20% higher than average pricing.

Raising ticket prices for spring break and Christmas Day to New Years by 50% *would* be umm, "bold" (or some other word that starts with a "b").

I could see them *not* lowering off-season pricing in the first year, but just having it flat for a couple of years. This would make people who bought tickets before the pricing scheme from experiencing remorse. OTOH, I could also see them lowering off season prices by, say, 5% to be able to say that some prices have gone down while others went up. My bet would be on long-term summer pricing 20% higher than average and off-season pricing 10% lower than the average. All bets are off for Christmas and Spring Break.

Given that this seasonal pricing is anticipated to change the seasonality preference behavior for guests both on and offsite, I wonder if it will mean that the seasonal pricing for DVC and onsite resorts will be lessened? I'm thinking that the seasonal ticket pricing will contribute to more DVCers wanting to visit during off-season, so off-season DVC pricing would adjust to follow that demand.

Of course certain seasons will see huge price increases. The person I was debating suggested that the lowest season would have a 20% increase.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

Because launching an entire service to help people with a different bizarre, confusing service is much easier than making things accessible and easily-understandable right at the start.

Do you struggle to understand that plane tickets have different prices on different dates? No? What's the difference?

 

[Goofnut1980]

Isn’t just making a ticket for use 365 and never expire just easier. Or offer single days, 5 days, 10 days or really good priced AP like the DVC one.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

I expect prices to go up on average. If someone is planning a trip for "some time" in 2019, I think they should buy them now. If someone is going during a low-demand time, yes I'd advise them to wait.

The closest analogy I can think of is how sports teams price their tickets now. 20 years ago, the face value of the ticket was the same whether you were playing your most-hated rival on Saturday night or a mediocre expansion team on Tuesday. When my favorite team went to variable pricing, they had value, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum levels. "Value" tickets went down from what they were before, and maybe even the "bronze", just so they could tell the press that they lowered the prices on some tickets. I'd expect Disney to do the same, even though this will probably be a net price increase based on how many tickets Disney expects to sell; in fact, I'd be shocked if they didn't. The question really is how many dates they are giving that break to.

I come away from this mostly unscathed, but it still sucks. I even come out ahead, since our next trip will be longer than two weeks and now our tickets will be good for the entire length of our trip, and our family can be pretty flexible on dates. I'm sure their next ticket "innovation" will get me, though.

 

[Po'Rich]

My wife is a teacher, and we never go any of those weeks. That is not the only time you can go as a teacher. It is the only time you choose to go. I know the challenges of being a teacher with leave, but we still figure it out. Never been an issue. We know a lot of teachers that are DVC members, and refuse to go those weeks as well (in fact, they seem to go much more often then us, not sure how they do it, but we are happy with how often we go so we have no reason to push it).

Don't assume that all teachers have it the same. Where I work, I don't get vacation time. I get "non-contract" time when school is not in session. The only way to go at another time would be to take sick leave. Of course, after 3 days, I need to have a doctor's note. Since my spring break never aligns with my kids', my time to go consists of 1 week at the end of May, two weeks at the beginning of August, and Christmas. That's it.

 

[sndral]

Two thoughts:

Yay, another Disney web site that probably won’t work right most of the time. Plenty of new pages for Stitch to eat.

Just once I would like a WDW trip w/out a tech glitch, we go once a year and there’s always something - currently canceled ADRs that keep popping back up and no way to customize MBs.

It feels like we are mere steps away from tiered pricing not only based on seasons or individual days but attractions. Want to ride those E tickets? Cough up some extra cash to unlock all the magic! It's a great way to save for those that just want to take it a little slower at Walt Disney World Resort!

Well, Disney started with tiered pricing via ticket books, some families could afford one per person, others more.

 

[Rich Brownn]

Do you struggle to understand that plane tickets have different prices on different dates? No? What's the difference?

Sometimes by the hour. And sometimes on the same plane depending when and where you book it. Thats why people use on line services to book flights to compare rates. Let's see if Disney's new "service" will say 'But if you book 3 days later you can save X%"

 

[gljvd]

I have an unactivated annual pass. Will it still be alright to activate it in june ?

 

[SteamboatJoe]

Two thoughts:
Just once I would like a WDW trip w/out a tech glitch, we go once a year and there’s always something - currently canceled ADRs that keep popping back up and no way to customize MBs.

Well, Disney started with tiered pricing via ticket books, some families could afford one per person, others more.

What is old is new again.

 

[SteamboatJoe]

View attachment 316137

Touché.

 

[TXRob]

Teachers....... The only time we can go is during summer, spring break, or Christmas break. Luckily for me, we have AP's, since my mom lives an hour away. Still sucks when two nights at POR are $600 with AP discount. So no matter how you look at it, teachers are screwed. And don't even get me started on the crowd levels when we can go......

Listen teachers are a much needed profession, but no one had a gun to your head and forced you to be a teacher. Keep in mind most people don’t have summers off!! You act like it’s a burden to have 3 months off. Geeze

 

[Lensman]

I thought I'd clear up some things that I think are misconceptions if you hadn't read the fine print.

This is the only problem I really have with this. I get the date-based pricing. But we are DVC and since we drive in from NJ when we go, we have to take one longer stay(10-12 days) rather than a few shorter stays. Some members get a 4 day ticket and others get a 2 day... now planning is going to be a much bigger headache to schedule what parks we all go to together when. Also we usually spread park visits out over at least 10 days... which we will not be able to do. This may just make us chose elsewhere to use our points and not buy any park tickets at all. Been visiting less and less because of crap like this over the last 5 years or so.

The fine print mentions that if your ticket is purchased in conjunction with a WDW resort stay, your days would be valid for the entire duration of your stay. I am thinking this will go for DVC stays as well. Here's the quote from the FAQ. I'm not sure where the quoted FAQ is from. I think this might force you to buy your tickets directly through member services rather than through a discounter, though.

• When will tickets purchased as part of a Walt Disney Travel Company package expire?

Date-based tickets purchased as part of a Walt Disney Travel Company room and ticket package will have one of the following valid use periods (whichever is longer): (i) the same valid use period described above, OR (ii) a valid use period beginning on the package resort arrival date and ending on the package resort check-out date. See above for the explanation of valid use period and how valid use period is not the same as ticket duration.

For example, a Guest who purchases a Walt Disney Travel Company package with a 3-Day base ticket and a resort length of stay of 6 nights with an arrival date of Nov. 1; ticket is valid any 3 days from Nov, 1 – Nov. 7.

What if we stay at the resort for 10 or more days, but only want to go to the parks for 4 days... I do not need an AP for that.

See the quoted example above.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Listen teachers are a much needed profession, but no one had a gun to your head and forced you to be a teacher. Keep in mind most people don’t have summers off!! You act like it’s a burden to have 3 months off. Geeze

That's a bit harsh. And in actuality, they don't have summers off in the sense of a paid vacation, those are months of unemployment. It only seems like a paid vacation because teachers get contracts that spread their pay over the year instead of getting paid hourly.

And having the summers off is one of the dumbest things in the world. Students backslide with so much time away from school and teachers can't work and get paid for a full years work (many take a summer job to make up for that).

Yes, I'm sure some teachers and families like the summer vacation/unemployment, but it's a stupid way to run the elementary school system.

 

[Lensman]

Just to make teachers feel less bad (I hope), my totally speculative seasonal pricing had summer only 20% more expensive than average pricing and only 10% more than shoulder pricing. And the theory being that, like the limited season annual passes, the pricing would serve to reduce park congestion during the summer.

20% is not an insignificant amount of money, though.

I wonder if Disney intends to have lower prices for weekdays vs weekends? Obviously this would only be good for a 3 day or shorter ticket.

 

[MisterPenguin]

A website to help plan a vacation!? This is too complicated!!!

Didchya just notice that? You've never seen people post spreadsheets and on Reddit to figure everything out? Not news. And all this information was already on MDE, you just had to dig through the menus to find it. So, Disney is offering a 'wizard' to help newbies and it's being derided?


Surge/in-demand pricing.

Disney isn't copying what others are doing, Disney perfected this 20 years ago with their Broadway shows. Many tiered-pricing depending on where your seat is and when you want to go? Disney perfected that with Broadway tickets and it's pretty much the standard practice now. Disney also raises prices as inventory starts to get sold out... like airlines do. At least they haven't done that with the theme parks or resorts... yet.


Pricing and Time-frame

The whole purpose of the new pricing schema is to reward people who come at off-peak times and to discourage overcrowding at peak. They already did that with the (now defunct) surge pricing for a one-day ticket, and different levels of passes with differing blackout dates, and seasonal pricing on resorts. And we knew it was coming to all the parks for quite a while now. Hopefully, the off-peak tickets are a really good discount.

And as far as limiting the use of the tickets within a time frame (e.g., seven days to use your 4 days worth of tickets)... that's the whole point. To limit the time frame of usage. That's why they're cheaper ($100 cheaper per person) than any-time tickets.

 

[MrHappy]

Can't wait to see the prices on Oct 16. We know the site will crash, so whoever makes it through, please post screenshots.
At least the overly complicated layer of tying a day to a park as @lentesta had first heard isn't part of this.

 

[nickys]

This is the only problem I really have with this. I get the date-based pricing. But we are DVC and since we drive in from NJ when we go, we have to take one longer stay(10-12 days) rather than a few shorter stays. Some members get a 4 day ticket and others get a 2 day... now planning is going to be a much bigger headache to schedule what parks we all go to together when. Also we usually spread park visits out over at least 10 days... which we will not be able to do. This may just make us chose elsewhere to use our points and not buy any park tickets at all. Been visiting less and less because of crap like this over the last 5 years or so.

What if we stay at the resort for 10 or more days, but only want to go to the parks for 4 days... I do not need an AP for that.

I thought I'd clear up some things that I think are misconceptions if you hadn't read the fine print.


The fine print mentions that if your ticket is purchased in conjunction with a WDW resort stay, your days would be valid for the entire duration of your stay. I am thinking this will go for DVC stays as well. Here's the quote from the FAQ. I'm not sure where the quoted FAQ is from. I think this might force you to buy your tickets directly through member services rather than through a discounter, though.



See the quoted example above.

I hope you’re right. I was coming on to say much the same thing, and then noticed the “package” wording. But given they currently have a “ticketless package”, I would hope they will essentially offer the same terms to those who book an onsite stay, regardless of whether it includes tickets etc.

It’s something DVC members could be asking Member Services about now.