News Disney CEO Bob Chapek reiterates his belief that park reservations are now an essential part of Disney's theme parks business

[Disstevefan1]

Tokyo Disney charging $16 per guest to attend outdoor show, Believe. WDW is not far behind.

Angry, but can't disagree.

 

[Aries1975]

All I know is when dealing with little kids and elderly parents on a Disney trip, DME was very nice. We travel as a tribe. 13 going on our next trip. Finding a car service for 13, plus all of our luggage, in general is a pain. Fortunately, we do not have to deal with car seats anymore.

Since we need to rent vehicles for transport to/from MCO, this trip we are staying at Saratoga (DVC) and going to Universal. We have only left the “bubble” once before when we drove down. It seemed like too much hassle to rent a car for a day or two to check out Universal.

This time everything about Disney is a hassle:
We could only use half our DVC points at booking, so we are only going 5 days instead of our usual 8.
I am not going to attempt virtual queues and lightning lanes with a group of 13. Besides, who wants to get up at dawn on vacation?
We could not get a single dining reservation for dinner, not at the resorts, not even at the Turf Club. I was on the phone at exactly 7am - 60 days out. Cannot do large groups through the website or app.
The larger yacht for fireworks viewing is not back in service yet. Only 10 allowed on a pontoon boat.

I guess Disney does not want my money.

 

[Kingoglow]

Disney set the expectation that if you booked with Disney, you’d be taken care of. Driving in? Park at the hotel for free.
Flying in? Ride the Magical express for free.

Most first time vacationing families don't even know that this used to be a perk. No expectation was set with the general audience unless you were a frequent visitor. The general consensus today is just that it is expensive.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

once in the past 15 years makes you a frequent visitor?

 

[el_super]

Neither is saying it was simply a contract dispute, so they had to terminate their business without pointing out the price of this service is still baked into the cost of a room.

Mears currently charges $32 roundtrip. But Disney obviously had their own agreement with them. It doesn’t really matter how much Mears or Bags Inc. charged Disney, it was a service Disney provided to guests and a service that Disney could have continued to offer.

Yes, but he just learned of their existence so he knows more than anyone how it didn’t really work.

Well if you want to keep your ill-informed hot takes, without actually knowing or understanding what the impacts were. Go for it.

I guess we can just skip ahead to the end result: Disney eliminated the service because fewer people were using it, the costs were going up, and like every other business decision they make, they will be completely justified in doing so because it will have no negative impact on their revenue or attendance.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Well if you want to keep your ill-informed hot takes, without actually knowing or understanding what the impacts were. Go for it.

Everything in the part you quoted is a fact.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Well if you want to keep your ill-informed hot takes, without actually knowing or understanding what the impacts were.

You didn’t know the long known, documented basics of how the service functioned and you actually have the gall to call others ill-informed?

 

[flynnibus]

Most first time vacationing families don't even know that this used to be a perk. No expectation was set with the general audience unless you were a frequent visitor.

You act like this is a lifetime ago... you never noticed how much stale information there is on the web? We're talking about changes that happened just 2 years ago.

 

[el_super]

Everything in the part you quoted is a fact.

No. It is an opinion that they could have continued the service. We don't know what the costs associated with the operation are, whether the contractors had exclusivity agreements setup with the airport/transportation companies and whether the demand would justify the increased costs. There are still so many unknowns here.

And at this point, it really is moot. Disney discontinued the service and their attendance/revenue has been fine. Disney made a judgement call that not enough people were using the service, and that it wouldn't have a negative impact on their results, and by every objective measure they are correct.

 

[el_super]

You didn’t know the long known, documented basics of how the service functioned and you actually have the gall to call others ill-informed?

See above. When you can come back with all the contract information, I will consider it an informed opinion.

 

[flynnibus]

You didn’t know the long known, documented basics of how the service functioned and you actually have the gall to call others ill-informed?

Followed by a complete deterministic statement of fact of what happened internally at the company... for which he claims no association

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Most first time vacationing families don't even know that this used to be a perk.

Magical Express ended less than a year ago. There's lots of articles online from earlier in 2022 about this because people want to know about alternatives, which brings awareness to the prior service.

 

[bcoachable]

Ehh bottom line- Disney Used to be the leader in customer service- they got everyone hooked on their parks with it, and now they slowly pull that service (that cost them money) away, they still make money, cause we can’t forget how good things were, or don’t notice the slippage in the services- and they continue to rake it in…
It is the current model being taught in many business schools today- any business professors out there care to chime in with a better explanation of this analysis???
(Edit for spelling! Can’t have profs reading this and count off for spelling!)

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

It is an opinion that they could have continued the service.

It is a fact. Nothing was stopping them from continuing.

 

[el_super]

It is a fact. Nothing was stopping them from continuing.

No that's an opinion.

 

[MagicHappens1971]

Ehh bottom line- Disney Used to be the leader in customer service- they got everyone hooked on their parks with it, and now they slowly pull that service (that cost them money) away, they still make money, cause we can’t forget how good things were, or don’t notice the slippage in the services- and they continue to rake it in…
It is the current model being taught in many business schools today- any business professors out there care to chime in with a better explanation of this analysis???
(Edit for spelling! Can’t have profs reading this and count off for spelling!)

I don’t think poor customer service is being taught in schools. I am a hospitality management major within in a pretty highly ranked program, and that is not being taught. Maybe in business schools, there is less of an emphasis on service. Anyway… what I really wanted to respond with was, saying they took away DME is poor customer service is not true. Saying that they now charge for resort parking isn’t poor customer service. Poor customer service has also been seen in the parks, but has become more visible to us due to social media, and the labor shortage in the country. Every bunch of apples has a bad one or whatever they say.

 

[flynnibus]

No that's an opinion.

It's a service they opted to pay for themselves all along. They always were themselves deciding if the cost was worth the benefit.

So no matter what the cost is, it's still Disney's decision to stop or not. Same as it was their decision to start in the first place.

 

[bcoachable]

I don’t think poor customer service is being taught in schools. I am a hospitality management major within in a pretty highly ranked program, and that is not being taught. Maybe in business schools, there is less of an emphasis on service. Anyway… what I really wanted to respond with was, saying they took away DME is poor customer service is not true. Saying that they now charge for resort parking isn’t poor customer service. Poor customer service has also been seen in the parks, but has become more visible to us due to social media, and the labor shortage in the country. Every bunch of apples has a bad one or whatever they say.

Yea- I’m not saying it is poor customer service- but it certainly seems to be trending that way, no?
Kind of like when Dial Soap was the biggest bar on the store shelf… and now- it’s just a medium small version of itself, for the same price (10 years down the road)

 

[CAV]

But Mears isn't handling the baggage correct? Who was the team responsible for taking the bags from the normal 'plane to carrousel' process and staging them for distribution to the individual busses? Since a lot of that baggage movement was occurring behind security, I assumed it was airport employees moving the bags around and MCO was charging Disney for the service. Or charging Mears and Mears was charging Disney.

On the flip side, there were people stationed at each resort to handle baggage check-in and boarding questions and I'm also not remembering if those were Disney CMs or contractors from the airport.

I think the name of the company is Bags, Inc.

 

[CAV]

It's a service they opted to pay for themselves all along. They always were themselves deciding if the cost was worth the benefit.

So no matter what the cost is, it's still Disney's decision to stop or not. Same as it was their decision to start in the first place.

Disney didn't pay for. The guest paid for it.