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Disney alienates 90% of their guests......What is going on?
- Thread starter Jeff4272
- Start date
Weather_Lady
Well-Known Member
FWIW, "Express Pass" at Universal is offered in a couple different versions, and can be purchased as a ticket add-on (at a high cost, around $100/pp/pd) or is given for free to all guests at Universal's 3 premium (deluxe) onsite hotels, which means that for the cost of a $225-$400/night room (depending on hotel and dates), my family of 4 can all enjoy it for our entire length of stay. It covers almost all rides, save 2, I believe.
The rumors about paid Fastpass at WDW suggest something a bit more limited in scale - more of an a la carte design. It has to be: Disney has too many guests and not enough ride capacity to make the scope of its program comparable to Universal's. The only thing we can be sure of is that Disney's paid Fastpass system will be costly.
John park hopper
Well-Known Member
"The rumors about paid Fast pass at WDW suggest something a bit more limited in scale" it may start off on a limited scale but Disney will expand it when they see the revenue it generates -----when did they ever care about to many guests and not enough ride capacity
The point is that in future Deluxe resort guests WILL receive extra benefits. Previously if you stayed in a Disney hotel at any level you got the same benefits - longer time for dinner reservations being just one. The proposed new benefit - extra hours in the parks - will be available to Deluxe guests and guests of some non Disney hotels but not moderate and value resort guests.
When staying at one of the three premier hotels the Express Pass is a huge benefit and the cost of these hotels is a lot cheaper than Deluxe Disney resorts. The rooms themselves are actually better too - even if not themed.FWIW, "Express Pass" at Universal is offered in a couple different versions, and can be purchased as a ticket add-on (at a high cost, around $100/pp/pd) or is given for free to all guests at Universal's 3 premium (deluxe) onsite hotels, which means that for the cost of a $225-$400/night room (depending on hotel and dates), my family of 4 can all enjoy it for our entire length of stay. It covers almost all rides, save 2, I believe.
The rumors about paid Fastpass at WDW suggest something a bit more limited in scale - more of an a la carte design. It has to be: Disney has too many guests and not enough ride capacity to make the scope of its program comparable to Universal's. The only thing we can be sure of is that Disney's paid Fastpass system will be costly.
Poseidon Quest
Well-Known Member
Yes, though I've never used SeaWorld's, I believe the systems are different. Universal's Express system is easily the best I've ever used in a park. It's often ridiculously expensive (I believe I've seen it go up to over $200 a person depending on the day) but it in turn becomes a guest friendly experience on all but the busiest days. Because of the high price point, if you really want to pay the money for significantly shorter waits you can, but because so many people are priced out it limits how many people are actually going through express lanes, which means that stand-by queues move more quickly and consistently. Universal attractions also seem to merge their stand-by and express queues at a 50/50 ratio, whereas Disney lets one stand-by party through for every ten fast pass parties. I'm pretty sure that Disney also releases fast passes in such a way as to artificially inflate their lines, encouraging people not to enter and to shop and dine instead. Universal's Express is done in tiers though. Without researching it, I believe they offer a less expensive option that allows you to go through the express lane once per attraction and a more costly one that is unlimited.
KrzyKtty
Well-Known Member
Well honestly, I might be in the minority here, but I'm okay with that. If I'm spending that much on their deluxe level hotel room, it would be nice to get some additional perks above and beyond the value and moderate resorts besides just the extra 20 ft of space. I like how universal does it. If I'm spending close to $1,000 a night to stay at a theme park view at the poly, I'm perfectly fine with getting extra perks on top of it for that damn price.
BoarderPhreak
Well-Known Member
The rising costs, diminishment of services and restrictions and overall increase in trip planning complexity has our family reconsidering going back to Disney any time soon. We're glad we had a mega-trip in late 2019 but it may be quite a while before we do anything like that again. We've even tried planning some "long weekend" trips over the past six months... Nope.
Weather_Lady
Well-Known Member
Just to point out -- yes, there are two tiers of Express Pass at Universal that can be purchased as a ticket add-on (for one or both parks), with prices varying by date, and the cost is expensive! However, guests can also get Unlimited Express Pass at Universal for "free" simply by staying in one of Universal's premium hotel rooms. We're booked at Hard Rock in a few weeks (standard room at $230/night with a passholder discount, and the annual passes were cheaper than 3-day tickets!), so all four of us will enjoy Unlimited Express Pass for our entire length of stay.
I'm sure Disney will be taking note of that model in structuring its new Fastpass offering, and as almost everyone has already surmised, will try and sweeten the deal for those staying in deluxe hotels, just as it did for the evening extra hours that will start in October. How "sweet" that deal turns out to be, however, is something about which I'm very skeptical. Universal gives its shorter-lines perk "free" (bundled into the room cost) to all guests in its three top-tier hotels. I have a feeling Disney may only offer the "opportunity to purchase more/earlier" Fastpass opportunities to those staying deluxe, rather than giving them more Fastpasses for "free" -- sort of like they used to do for Club Level guests, who were offered the "special opportunity" to purchase extra Fastpasses at a cost of $50 per person, per day, on top of their already sky-high room rate, with a minimum 3-night stay. It's all just a guessing game at present, though, so who knows? I think the only reason any of us are engaging in this kind of rank speculation is that there's been little real news to talk about lately.
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Wendy Pleakley
Well-Known Member
If Disney wanted to reduce attendance at Evening Magic Hours (a good idea to make them valuable and avoid the attendance imbalance they create), they could borrow a page out of Disneyland's playbook.
Every 5-day ticket includes ONE early entry. Why not do the same here? Stay at a value resort? Get one EMH if you buy a five-day ticket. Two EMH for moderate, Three EMH for deluxe. Or something like that.
The "cheap" WDW resorts aren't cheap, and people still want an incentive to stay. There are ways to give extra to deluxe resorts without alienating your other guests.
Every 5-day ticket includes ONE early entry. Why not do the same here? Stay at a value resort? Get one EMH if you buy a five-day ticket. Two EMH for moderate, Three EMH for deluxe. Or something like that.
The "cheap" WDW resorts aren't cheap, and people still want an incentive to stay. There are ways to give extra to deluxe resorts without alienating your other guests.
Model3 McQueen
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Disney can cut costs, raise prices, and if people keep going because Disney is the only way guests will get their kicks.. then so be it. The hotels clearly aren't suffering.
All the more reason to add a 3rd park somewhere in the states, to help alleviate some of this demand, anger and disappointment. Chapek would rather add Pixar characters to your Deluxe hotel rooms.
All the more reason to add a 3rd park somewhere in the states, to help alleviate some of this demand, anger and disappointment. Chapek would rather add Pixar characters to your Deluxe hotel rooms.
Club Cooloholic
Well-Known Member
I have stayed at Royal Pacific, and the rooms are not better than WDW deluxe
aliceismad
Well-Known Member
Regarding this from the OP "5) transportation is mostly busses which are very inefficient"
Is there a change in transportation vs. past years? The Skyliner has been added. The monorail will start running again. I've never had a problem with Disney busses or found them terribly inefficient. Inconvenient at certain times when everyone wants to go to or from the resort, but no big deal on vacation. If I want to go somewhere in a hurry, I plan for that.
Is there a change in transportation vs. past years? The Skyliner has been added. The monorail will start running again. I've never had a problem with Disney busses or found them terribly inefficient. Inconvenient at certain times when everyone wants to go to or from the resort, but no big deal on vacation. If I want to go somewhere in a hurry, I plan for that.
I was referring to a lot of the value and moderate resorts having shared buses and a ton of internal stops.......the value and moderate that are on the skyliner obviously benefit from that, but the prices of those hotels has gone up over 2x the rate of the others.........
The WDW buses are the worst form of transportation at the resorts/parks and they are inefficient
aliceismad
Well-Known Member
I mean, what else would you propose for transport? Or just more busses?
I'd argue that the boats are the most inefficient transport, but there's no planned change for those as far as I know. Sometimes the inefficient boats are a nice diversion though.
ETA: My comment was partially just to make sure there wasn't some reduction in on-site transport that I had missed.
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Kingoglow
Well-Known Member
You are looking at this all wrong.
They are trying to incentivize you to stay at the Deluxe hotels with this perk; not the other way around. Price is the motivating factor to stay at a lower-tier hotel. That being said, just stay off-site.
Then who will book the value and mioderates if everyone books deluxe?
Kingoglow
Well-Known Member
Families incentivized by price.
Rob562
Well-Known Member
With no real perks, I think you can get better and cheaper offsite........