Yep. I've said for a long time that Disney doesn't give a flip about Guest Satisfaction, as long as they can replace each fed-up Disney loyalist, with a rube or newby who will blindly pay whatever they're asked.
I think Bob cares about "customer satisfaction" in the way that your local grocery store does. Meaning, you go in, buy your milk and bread, stand in line to check out, and leave and don't think much more about it.
With a grocery store:
- it needs to be clean
- you'll tolerate a bit of a line, even if it's annoying at the time
- workers need to be pleasant
- As long as the prices are reasonable, you'll come back.
When you get home you're not thinking, "Wow! That was the best trip to the grocery store EVER!" You're thinking, "Ok.. Time to put away the groceries," and that's about where the experience ends. Next week, you'll repeat it. You basically feel you've been given a fair amount of groceries in exchange for a fair amount of cash and you're OK with it.
Bob sees this the same way for you visiting WDW:
- You travel down and experience the parks and resort
- You hand over a bunch of cash
- You leave happy that you and your family visited WDW
You're just "visiting his store". The problem is that you handed over a wad of cash and you'll likely feel a bit cheated in that you paid more than you thought it was worth. You'll tell others. You may or may not go back depending on your nostalgia level.
I think that last part is what Bob is missing. It's not a grocery store he's running - it's a show. He's treating it like a grocery store, however. Right now it's a "winning formula" because Disney fans are a bit over the top. They complain about the money being asked and then pay for it, anyway. Some will even defend it or welcome the new costs.
I think, long term, Bob's successor is going to have to manage the problem of, "America's Nostalgia Reserves For Disney Are At An All Time Low!" Bob, however, will be seen as some kind of wizard when his "fame" is really based upon those who came before him (thinking more Eisner than Bob #1 here).
Regarding transportation:
To me it seems clear that WDW will not get rid of buses. I don't think there's any chance of that.
I think, given time, you'll be paying to ride the buses and, to your shock, you won't get the nice "subsidized" cost like a major metropolitan area will give you. You'll get what the bean-counters have come up with that it costs to run the busses, with you on it, and make a tidy profit. They'll do what they can to make them run as efficiently as possible but you will be paying to ride the buses. You're already paying to park in the resort lots for staying there. This is just the next logical step.
