CJR
Well-Known Member
After the Mickey ride opens up? We'll see, I guess.
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News Disney to launch new Vacation Planning site to help guests with date-based tickets
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
After the Mickey ride opens up? We'll see, I guess.
SteamboatJoe
Well-Known Member
That makes sense but the cynic in me knows this will eventually lead to more seasonal closures and reductions in services and offerings. At that point the "value" for the consumer will be lost. People will learn that only going certain times will yield the full experience so the busy times get busier. This will justify further costs increases during those times which are the only option for those limited by school calendars.
GhostHost1000
Premium Member
seriously... can Disney make trip planning or budgeting anymore difficult?
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
This is designed to prevent exactly that kind of thing. It's much cheaper to have 100 employees all the time than it is to constantly flex up and down between 90 and 110. The goal isn't simply to monitor the seasonality, it's to limit the seasonality as much as possible. Chop the peaks off of the mountains with surge pricing and fill in the valleys with discounts.
It works on me. I'd love to escape New England in March when it's 40 degrees and the snow is turning to slush and mud, but on-property spring break prices keep me away and I end up visiting in late August when it's hot as the Sahara desert but the prices are much more affordable, both in terms of rack rates and available discounts. Disney wants that effect to spread out from its resort guests and be felt by its off-site visitors as well.
mikejs78
Premium Member
Which, is just how it was when I was a child in the 80s...
SteamboatJoe
Well-Known Member
And that makes sense but I am just not sure I trust them to not be tempted by the possibility of further cuts.
FullSailDan
Well-Known Member
Disneyworld vacation booking steps:
1. Find the hotel you want to stay at and see if those dates are available in the room size and category you want.
2. Check for ticket prices on the days you are thinking about attending, make sure to look for the cheapest days of month
3. Find an airline, boat, bus, train, covered wagon to get you there, check pricing against budget, and aligning hotel, ticket, and airfare costs.
4. Check work, school, activities, social calendar for clearance.
5. Book. Congratulations, you're halfway there!
Part two:
1. At 6months spam the website every morning for dining reservations. Heaven forbid you can't get breakfast at your hotel in the morning!
2. Wait for park hours to be posted and pray that your dining reservations align with your park hours.
3. Alter your park plan and dining reservations based on park hours.
4. Spam the website again for fastpasses so that you dont spend your vacation standing in line for 7DMT or FoP.
5. take a xanax, cancel the whole thing, and go sip frozen margaritas on a beach in Mexico for a third of the cost and way less stress.
In all seriousness, it's overwhelming, and its gotten out of control. There's massive potential for people to develop FOMO and then be beyond stressed during the trip to make sure all their hard planning work is achieved. I remember going to Disneyland before fastpasses, just go, no need to reserve, no need to plan, have fun. You can still do this at WDW, but it severely screws over the family of four who saved for 5 years to go.
1. Find the hotel you want to stay at and see if those dates are available in the room size and category you want.
2. Check for ticket prices on the days you are thinking about attending, make sure to look for the cheapest days of month
3. Find an airline, boat, bus, train, covered wagon to get you there, check pricing against budget, and aligning hotel, ticket, and airfare costs.
4. Check work, school, activities, social calendar for clearance.
5. Book. Congratulations, you're halfway there!
Part two:
1. At 6months spam the website every morning for dining reservations. Heaven forbid you can't get breakfast at your hotel in the morning!
2. Wait for park hours to be posted and pray that your dining reservations align with your park hours.
3. Alter your park plan and dining reservations based on park hours.
4. Spam the website again for fastpasses so that you dont spend your vacation standing in line for 7DMT or FoP.
5. take a xanax, cancel the whole thing, and go sip frozen margaritas on a beach in Mexico for a third of the cost and way less stress.
In all seriousness, it's overwhelming, and its gotten out of control. There's massive potential for people to develop FOMO and then be beyond stressed during the trip to make sure all their hard planning work is achieved. I remember going to Disneyland before fastpasses, just go, no need to reserve, no need to plan, have fun. You can still do this at WDW, but it severely screws over the family of four who saved for 5 years to go.
Horizons '83
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Touring Plans will have a field day with this... next years crowd calendar just got a lot more complicated to predict.
LSLS
Well-Known Member
It’s the new way of preventing overcrowding.
Put off as many potential visitors as possible.
Seriously, I got lost in the FAQs. Gotta admit, I'm shocked they even put the "Why did you shorten the window" question on there, though they really don't answer that.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Literally none of those things are unique to a Walt Disney World vacation. You need to do them for any vacation.
#2 is a tremendous problem. I don't mind Disney having their guests plan ahead, but they need to do us the courtesy of planning ahead themselves, at least as far as 180 days.
Horizons '83
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I'm not one that curses much, but this decision by Disney has made my decision to flip from going to Disney to Uni in February. I'm so tired of being waterboarded with complex nature of planning a trip to WDW. With Uni, I picked my dates for the package, got 2 free days when you buy 2, got my included Unlimited Express passes and now all I have to do is wait until February.It’s the new way of preventing overcrowding.
Put off as many potential visitors as possible.
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It’s the new way of preventing overcrowding.
Put off as many potential visitors as possible.
Not that Disney hasn't been doing that for a while already...
msteel
Well-Known Member
I am US based and on our last trip we were in town for 14 days with 7 day park passes from a discounter. I had planned to add days but after I bought them Disney added the expiration date on unused passes. Because of that change, adding day 8 would have cost about the same as a one day ticket, so we bailed.
The trip was fun but for us it was expensive even though we went on the cheap and our ticket and lodging costs were under $35/person/day. I am seriously not sure whether we will ever go back to WDW. For some reason I still come here and read the forums though, so maybe someday we'll go again.
CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
Disney's problem isn't what they're doing, it's how they're packaging it. Universal giving you "two free days when you buy two" is... wait for it... date-specific pricing! They just package it as a "discount."
Universal: Visit during this slow time and you can buy two $100 tickets, get two $100 tickets for free.
Disney: Visit during this slow time, and you can buy four tickets for $50 each.
You: Man Disney makes things way too complicated!
People who can do math: Uh, it's exactly the same thing.
Notice I said "practically nobody," not "literally nobody." Guests like you (domestic visitors who go for two full weeks) are extremely rare.
Horizons '83
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
Agreed , they do all the math in the background. I see a package price for 4 days with hotel, seasonal pricing tickets for $1,500. I think its reasonable, I pay a $100 deposit and I move on with my life. I personally don't care to get in the weeds anymore. Just give me the total and l'll decide if it's reasonable and to purchase it or not.
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CaptainAmerica
Premium Member
I'm pretty sure that's how Disney's will look and feel for people booking a package. I think the only people who will notice this change are the people who stay off site and the only thing they're buying from Disney are the tickets.
