News Walt Disney World to resume sales of Annual Passes (New sales resume April 20, 2023)

[tagoofy]

With all of the AP talk, I think the announcement of the new water fountains they will be installing got missed...

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

They are of better quality than you'd find on a hot roller at Wawa, but as to size and quality, they tend to be more of what an ADD Waffle House cook would crank out in a few minutes.

…you leave wawa out of this…

 

[erasure fan1]

With all of the AP talk, I think the announcement of the new water fountains they will be installing got missed...

View attachment 583646

And the best part, it will still be the SeaMonkey swamp water.

 

[wutisgood]

Never had worse service at wawa than in florida. The ones in the northeast are superior.

 

[MrPromey]

I’d say most people here on this forum who b@tched and complained about FP+ are the guilty ones. This is a direct result of that

Got what you wished for!

Not sure how people complaining about FP+ relates in any way at all to my comment which was related to the AP changes.

Maybe you meant to respond to another post I made a little bit after ranting about all the recent stuff, in general...

 

[ImperfectPixie]

Never had worse service at wawa than in florida. The ones in the northeast are superior.

They need to come further NE. We don't have any in MA...closest ones are in NJ.

 

[MickeyCB]

Update if you have an AP renewal certificate -

Does anyone know if the current platinum (with no black out dates), will be the equivalent of the incredi-whatever?
As others have noted in prior posts, as DVC, one of the things I am most aggravated about is not having a "less expensive" no black out dates choice.

 

[MrPromey]

I think the last thing any AP should want is for Park Reservations to be significantly limited and having the parks be under capacity- if they do that, the first bucket they will reduce numbers from would be the AP pass reservations. They would be more than happy to drastically limit the number of AP slots available on any given day in order to ensure that resort guests and day trippers can reserve if they want. They can always add more spots to APs late in the game if the other types aren’t filling in advance.

As is, I don’t think APers will have much problems getting park reservations except for rare special occasions (like Oct 1 this year). But if Disney decided they wanted the parks less crowded, then look out. That said, I think they want them crowded so they can sell more Genie+ and such

My point is, with these price increases, along with everything else, there is no excuse for a 45-60 minute wait to get on the friggin' People Mover with a line stretching past the Tomorrowland stage. There is no reason why Pirates should be using the outdoor area that for decades is where people parked strollers and wheel chairs as overflow queue, etc.

Disney used crowding as an excuse for their variable pricing knowing full well that charging more during winter break wasn't going to suddenly make it possible for parents to pull their kids out of school for a week in the middle of the year to vacation differently.

They knew what they were doing wasn't going to change anything except their levels of profit during the bustiest times of year.

They knew they were behind in all four parks on capacity but decided they could spin plates with FP+ and mask it, all the while, the parks got more and more crowded with people running out of places to go.

One of their solutions to that problem was getting rid of benches

With prices not just going up but skyrocketing this year and with them continuing to cut back what's on offer and with them continuing to require reservations apparently permanently, what's the excuse for not capping capacity?

They're charging like they have a premium product and they're making people book their trip in advance such that nobody can just show up at the gates anymore and expect to get in.

Daily overcrowding should be a thing of the past. If it's not, what are people paying these ever-higher prices for and dealing with all this crap just to get into the parks and even more to get on a ride?

We'll see how they actually manage all of this but if they try to maintain pre-covid crowd levels which were, IMO absolutely miserable, I fail to see how anyone could consider it a premium experience worthy of what Bob seems to think he can get - I don't care how amazing that roller coaster that doesn't belong in Epcot ends up being.

I expect them to continue trying to stack bodies in every corner they can, though. I'm sure there will be huge international campaigns for each of the new attractions they'll be opening in the next few years to make sure they can do that - I just don't see how anyone can excuse them any longer when they do in fact, have an open and reasonable way to control it now with the system they've put in place.

We're paying for it with our wallets and our headaches.* It's time they start to actually deliver.


*I say "we" but I will be sitting this out as long as I can. It's possible that grandma may end up gifting my son an AP and making my protest moot but Disney stopped being fun for me years ago due largely to the above so if I can steer him other places, I will. They used to be SO MUCH better than everything else. Amazing what happens when an industry leader fails to understand the story of the tortoise and the hare.

 

[tagoofy]

Does it involve him being alone and surrounded by enormous piles of money? If so… his dream stinks.

 

[doctornick]

While I get that, it would be nice if the new names had some sense of hierarchy. For example, just make them all Pirate themed and do something like scallawag, crewman, captain, admiral (these are just off the top of my head; someone could surely do better). These names they chose are completely irrelevant to the value of each pass which makes them more confusing.

Thought about a little more, how about this from cheapest to most expensive:

Citizen Pass
Hero pass
Superhero Pass
Incredi-Pass

Would it really have been so tough to do some cutesy names that also indicated the pass level?

 

[MrPromey]

Pretty sure they should have made the highest level pass the one they called "Pixie Dust".

Actually, now that I think about it, maybe they should have called it Pixie Crystals... or maybe just crack. That's the more addictive version, right?

 

[pdude81]

Riviera and any future new DVC resorts built.

Not true for next conversion. They'll have to spend some money and build another DVC resort for us to know what the future holds. DL Hotel is a guaranteed sellout and they are diddling around.

 

[IHeartGlaciers]

Update if you have an AP renewal certificate -

I wonder what happens with blackout dates. My sister's renewal got processed as a renewal certificate last month. We have a trip planned for Thanksgiving week, which is a blackout time for the new equivalent to the DVC Gold pass.

 

[Jrb1979]

I’d say most people here on this forum who b@tched and complained about FP+ are the guilty ones. This is a direct result of that

Got what you wished for!

Yep that would be me. I hated FP+ and I love Genie+.

 

[marni1971]

I’d say most people here on this forum who b@tched and complained about FP+ are the guilty ones. This is a direct result of that

Got what you wished for!

Hardly.

 

[Indy_UK]

Don’t fall for that crowd control nonsense

…wait and see how they “reduce crowds”

The parties have achieved that though already by moving them to after hours events and skyrocketing the price to make up the shortfall of much lower crowds and by being able to reduce costs on cast members

 

[matt9112]

Others were already offering it and when they finally started, the APs exploded.

Tons of people who couldn't come up with a couple thousand dollars to AP their family suddenly had access.

As a long-time AP holder, I certainly noticed the difference. They used to do more special stuff for us and then when this happened, everything was always full. They started doing the crappy first-come-first-serve by email offerings like once every other year and I always got my email announcement with special link a few days after it was already full.



Yes, if they were really looking to limit APs, they'd go back to not doing the payment plan in FL but this way, they can have all those extra people continuing to pay monthly where the price hike is spread out and stings less in a low-wage state.

This isn't meant to limit - it's meant to make it easier for some people who really can't afford to go, to keep paying - kind of like a rent-to-buy store's business model.

I would consider it more like a cell phone credit plan. Since those are super common and have no interest. Rent to own places charge high intrest rates. Disney charges none. The effective price is the same. So i could buy everything except the incredi pass with a single pay stub (if theres some OT i could snag the incredi) but why would i want to? I have bills and other obligations. As a Florida resident its just convenience. I dont need to come up with a big chunk.

However i agree if they killed if the take rate would plummet. Clearly they want some level of passholders.

 

[matt9112]

I think it’s cute that some folks suggested that Genie+ might be included with APs. Disney would be dumb to do so and honestly would **** off all of us “regular” guests - APs already get discounted entry and are often able to go more regularly than most guests; giving them front of the line access on top of that seems horribly to the one in a lifetime or infrequent guest selling out thousands of dollars for their few days in the parks trying to do as much as possible.

If APs got some sort of Genie+ benefit included, I feel like they have to give resort guests it as well. And that would erode the entire point of charging extra.

Wait is there some nefarious thing going on here? Where some of us live in central Florida lol. Loke being able to go often is some evil act.
I dont think anyone expected anything free but the option to add genie+ for say 199 per pass maybe?

 

[matt9112]

Only for Riviera. If you buy resale there you can only use them there. For resale at any other resort, you can use them anywhere except Rivera.

Isn't there some kind of story with Rivera? About that? I dont own dvc but i have seen little tid bits where alot of people aren't fans of Rivera.

 

[matt9112]

I kinda think people are sleeping on the Pirate pass. Sure there’s more blackouts, but unless you typically visit during holidays and spring break, there’s lots of flexibility.

You mean....times of year people dont have to work? Lol
The pirate to me shifted from blocking out big chunks (like summer with old silver) to blocking out alot of smaller chunks everywhere. I cant visit during the week often so for me disney was a weekend affair and theres alot of weekends blocked out on the pirate pass. Not even just holiday weekends but weekends during busy times of year period.