News Disney Park Pass System announced for Walt Disney World theme park reservations

[Jeff4272]

The recession or the realization? I've hoped for the latter for a decade and the problem (people continuing to support Disney's abuse of them by continuing to hand over their credit cards) has only gotten worse.

Realization.........50th Anniversary, free money, low unemployment, pent up travel demand.........thats all coming to an end

WDW will be scrambling to discount their $1,000 per night hotel rooms and incentivizing hotel stays real soon


The federal government has made things easy for the last 10+ years with quantitative easing.......That's over........the free handouts for the pandemic are over...........

Rates are going up, gas is going up, discretionary spending is going down

 

[monothingie]

Realization.........50th Anniversary, free money, low unemployment, pent up travel demand.........thats all coming to an end

WDW will be scrambling to discount their $1,000 per night hotel rooms and incentivizing hotel stays real soon


The federal government has made things easy for the last 10+ years with quantitative easing.......That's over........the free handouts for the pandemic are over...........

Rates are going up, gas is going up, discretionary spending is going down

The people paying $1000 a night for a Disney Hotel Room are not going to be affected by the looming economic implosion.

Disney throughout the Iger and Chapek regimes have been very clear that they don't want poor people in their parks. We'll see how well they did soon enough.

 

[Jeff4272]

The people paying $1000 a night for a Disney Hotel Room are not going to be affected by the looming economic implosion.

Disney throughout the Iger and Chapek regimes have been very clear that they don't want poor people in their parks. We'll see how well they did soon enough.

I pay $1,000 per night and i will not be back

 

[monothingie]

I pay $1,000 per night and i will not be back

You're not coming back for another reason(s). Guest retention is a SERIOUS issue they are confronting. (Can't imagine why...)

 

[Ayla]

Probably the best post I'll read today.

Many have known for years how dysfunctional their technology has been based simply on how poorly it's performed. Hopefully that will change, as you mentioned. The number of reservation systems that have no interaction with each other is honestly no surprise, knowing all the problems we've had over the years getting things to "flow" properly. As an IT person myself, I sincerely hope they get things turned around.

Disney's tech and IT has been terrible for 2+ decades. It won't ever improve.

 

[MagicCarrie]

This IT stuff is intriguing.

Ok, so my husband has worked for a Fortune 50 company for 20 years in IT, Software Development and Management. He has all the skills the Disney recruiters are looking for on every Senior Dev or IT Management level related job posting for Tech. Some were under Parks and some were under other divisions.
He’s happy where he is, but our daughter recently started her CP at WDW and we’re not nailed where we live particularly anymore . So I was like, hey, no harm in applying to Disney, lets just see where it goes.

And….s. Nothing, nada. No response whatsoever. Which is crazy to me. He turns down jobs across the country all the time that he hasn’t even applied for, and Disney can’t even respond.

Dd is so far very happy and we have had great experiences in the Parks lately with CMs, so I hope everything gets sorted before their employees and customers give up on them.

 

[flutas]

Nothing, nada. No response whatsoever. Which is crazy to me. He turns down jobs across the country all the time that he hasn’t even applied for, and Disney can’t even respond.

FWIW: Disney seems to currently be in a VERY weird state for hiring. (either frozen, or on hold for a lot of roles)

I had a friend who had them reach out to him, he interviewed with them through 3+ rounds for a SR SWE position. They called him to congratulate him on getting the job, the phone call ended with "the offer letter will be in your email shortly." Then...nada. 2 weeks went by and he called back and they acted like they had never heard his name before, then (according to him) the exact words out of their mouth were "oh yeah I remember you, well our hiring needs are always changing, keep checking the jobs website."

 

[MagicCarrie]

FWIW: Disney seems to currently be in a VERY weird state for hiring. (either frozen, or on hold for a lot of roles)

I had a friend who had them reach out to him, he interviewed with them through 3+ rounds for a SR SWE position. They called him to congratulate him on getting the job, the phone call ended with "the offer letter will be in your email shortly." Then...nada. 2 weeks went by and he called back and they acted like they had never heard his name before, then (according to him) the exact words out of their mouth were "oh yeah I remember you, well our hiring needs are always changing, keep checking the jobs website."

Sounds like they aren’t terribly organized. He just sent over a couple more applications, so we’ll see if he gets any hits on those. I hope your friend hadn’t put a house on the market or made any permanent arrangements, that’s crazy. Note to self.

 

[monothingie]

FWIW: Disney seems to currently be in a VERY weird state for hiring. (either frozen, or on hold for a lot of roles)

Their only concern are positions that directly affect revenue.

 

[MagicCarrie]

Their only concern are positions that directly affect revenue.

I mean, as a customer trying to use their website, I can absolutely say with certainty that their IT situation is effecting their revenue somewhat. It has more bugs than Louisiana in July .

We know their park reservation system is being hacked, b/c my husband could hack it (he got >< close out of curiosity when we were down there and booked a short resort stay while sailing on DCL, only to realize the parks were full…the wifi on DCL was completely unusable, obv he didn’t actually do it b/c they were smart enough to put in their robots.txt that it is not legal to do so). If it’s that easy to hack their sites, they definitely are going to end up with major issues if they don’t address it at some point. The backend systems aren’t getting any younger and they need to look the future and getting the right people in place who have a skill set taking old systems and migrating them to new ones.

 

[celluloid]

The people paying $1000 a night for a Disney Hotel Room are not going to be affected by the looming economic implosion.

Disney throughout the Iger and Chapek regimes have been very clear that they don't want poor people in their parks. We'll see how well they did soon enough.

That is true it is more cut throat, but that is not the only audience disney plays to. Plenty of moderate and value rooms are nowhere near the deluxe family budget of a thousand a night.

Not saying the doom will happen, but Disney wants everyone who will spend the money on what they are selling.

 

[bcoachable]

Thought-

This IT stuff is intriguing.

Ok, so my husband has worked for a Fortune 50 company for 20 years in IT, Software Development and Management. He has all the skills the Disney recruiters are looking for on every Senior Dev or IT Management level related job posting for Tech. Some were under Parks and some were under other divisions.
He’s happy where he is, but our daughter recently started her CP at WDW and we’re not nailed where we live particularly anymore . So I was like, hey, no harm in applying to Disney, lets just see where it goes.

And….s. Nothing, nada. No response whatsoever. Which is crazy to me. He turns down jobs across the country all the time that he hasn’t even applied for, and Disney can’t even respond.

Dd is so far very happy and we have had great experiences in the Parks lately with CMs, so I hope everything gets sorted before their employees and customers give up on them.

when a company let’s so many people Go (due to a pandemic), when they need to rehire those positions, no one knows what to hire (or what They are doing..)

 

[Disney Glimpses]

Just adding a reminder here to everyone to make their Park Pass reservations ASAP if you are not an AP.

APs will always be the last to go by design; and they often ensure a wide buffer here regarding this. They have legally stuck themselves between a rock and a hard place and resort guests/day ticket guests are the ones being punished for it.

 

[DisneyCane]

It's quite clear they would much prefer to do away with ALL APs. They started the process last year, with the new passes, of pushing people away from APs. The massive price hikes and removal of included perks like photo pass started to thin the heard. I can expect the price hikes this year will be equally off putting.

But you sort of see where they're going with this. Notice there are no Summer AP deals yet. I mean it's clear that the temporary suspension of AP sales isn't temporary anymore. The next logical step will the paring down of perks (discounts) you get with your AP. Time to wait and see where this goes as they continue to cull the herd.

If the discounts didn't lead to passholders spending more on average, they wouldn't still exist. The discounts aren't a "perk" as much as they are a way to get passholders to make purchases that they wouldn't make without it.

The only exception is free parking but that perk is to make the passes palatable to locals. If Disney eliminated free parking but Universal still offered it with their passes, very few locals would purchase any kind of Disney annual pass at all and might stop going to WDW all together.

 

[DisneyCane]

I can see them going to one level of AP only.

Current AP benefits are: free parking, 20% mech discount, 10% discount on some restaurants, park-hopper tickets, discounts on spas, sports and recreation activities, discounts on events and tours, special event ticket discounts, rental car discounts, special AP only events, special AP only room discounts.

There is a lot of value in that list but not everyone will use all of it. Let's say that none of these benefits change.

Do away with 'locals only' AP's, and all the other separate levels of access (Pixie, Sorcerer, and Pirate). Price an AP at at $1,800, no blackouts for anyone. You need around 15 visits to break even (avg $120 per visit). Locals have monthly payments at $150. Locals can still go more, with no blackouts to derive even more value.

I think this is the opposite of the goal. They don't want somebody getting an expensive pass and then going to the parks frequently to make it a good deal. They want passholders to go less often.

I would think the more likely system would be some kind of points based system where you purchase a certain number of points and those points are then spent for each day you wish to go. It would eliminate the unlimited admissions and cap the number of visits for each passholder.

A local who visits for a few hours several times a week to ride a few headliners is the worst customer from Disney's perspective because that visit pattern will lead to very little profitable food and beverage or merchandise purchases.

 

[Disney Glimpses]

I think this is the opposite of the goal. They don't want somebody getting an expensive pass and then going to the parks frequently to make it a good deal. They want passholders to go less often.

I would think the more likely system would be some kind of points based system where you purchase a certain number of points and those points are then spent for each day you wish to go. It would eliminate the unlimited admissions and cap the number of visits for each passholder.

A local who visits for a few hours several times a week to ride a few headliners is the worst customer from Disney's perspective because that visit pattern will lead to very little profitable food and beverage or merchandise purchases.

 

[SingleRider]

If the discounts didn't lead to passholders spending more on average, they wouldn't still exist. The discounts aren't a "perk" as much as they are a way to get passholders to make purchases that they wouldn't make without it.

The only exception is free parking but that perk is to make the passes palatable to locals. If Disney eliminated free parking but Universal still offered it with their passes, very few locals would purchase any kind of Disney annual pass at all and might stop going to WDW all together.

A lot of locals would know how to park for free anyway, such as parking at Disney Springs and taking a bus to CR and walking to MK. Or taking a bus from DS to Beach Club and walking to Epcot.

 

[bhg469]

A lot of locals would know how to park for free anyway, such as parking at Disney Springs and taking a bus to CR and walking to MK. Or taking a bus from DS to Beach Club and walking to Epcot.

I park at boardwalk very often to go to Epcot but it's after 4:30. It doesn't really count for me because I do have an AP but frankly like to avoid the construction in the front of Epcot. We just always use the abracadabar excuse... Which is sometimes the truth.

 

[DisneyCane]

A lot of locals would know how to park for free anyway, such as parking at Disney Springs and taking a bus to CR and walking to MK. Or taking a bus from DS to Beach Club and walking to Epcot.

Kind of a pita, especially for only a couple of hours. If somebody was really cheap they could park at cvs on 192 and walk 2 miles to animal kingdom.

 

[CntrlFlPete]

I think this is the opposite of the goal. They don't want somebody getting an expensive pass and then going to the parks frequently to make it a good deal. They want passholders to go less often.

I would think the more likely system would be some kind of points based system where you purchase a certain number of points and those points are then spent for each day you wish to go. It would eliminate the unlimited admissions and cap the number of visits for each passholder.

A local who visits for a few hours several times a week to ride a few headliners is the worst customer from Disney's perspective because that visit pattern will lead to very little profitable food and beverage or merchandise purchases.

that's a rather silly view. Once I get an AP, I have given Disney a set amount of funds, for them to get more from me, they need me to visit -- each visit gets them more profit from my family. We often go for a few hours (and we really do not ride a lot of rides on each visit). Anyway, those few hours always tend to include a meal.

I believe the number of AP's that are 'unprofitable' are a very small group of AP's in comparison to the number of AP holders.

I bet Disney could get a better feel for the types of passholders by simply offering an option of parking OR memory maker -- AP's that always stay onsite would choose differently that folks that do not, it would make more people happy (I would think) -- anyway, Disney has a lot of AP folks and it is naive to think that few spend money at the parks.