News Early Theme Park Entry and Extended Evening Hours coming for resort guests

[aliceismad]

Universal already does this for their resort guests. You can get into the front gates, and then they have a rope where you can't go any further unless you scan your resort card. Totally manageable.

Universal gives an hour, though.

I'm a little scared for Disney's future. Lately it's been all bad, bad, bad, with very little improvements coming.

Does Universal handle this well? I mean, people are posting here that even before people who weren't onsite still got onto rides during EMH due to CMs who didn't check/care.

On our last trip, after the Star Wars show, we wandered through Toy Story Land before realizing that it was a special paid party time and we should probably get out. I assumed they would check us if we tried to ride Slinky and of course did not, but I didn't test that theory.

 

[jeanericuser001]

This doesn't surprise me. They have been cutting corners in select areas to give hotel guests a bonus and everyone else the shaft. Honestly the only theme park which seems to give the passholders any good benefits is busch gardens/seaworld. Even once corona is over they may still cut corners for a while as this is the perfect time to squeeze extra just to see how much people are willing to pay extra even if the perks are minimal.

 

[Goofnut1980]

Question... how do you enforce this. It's 30 mins prior to opening. Which means a day guest will have to wait and crowd an area that is supposed to stay over 6feet apart.

Also with the rise to 40% for entry into the parks, you have pulled even more away and there isn't even any entertainment. 40% is pretty normal amount of people in a park. As some mention MK holds 90,000 people.. So we are talking between 35-40,000 people a day in that park. How does that not constitute any entertainment. Seems like someone is just getting a little greedy! lol

 

[aliceismad]

This doesn't surprise me. They have been cutting corners in select areas to give hotel guests a bonus and everyone else the shaft. Honestly the only theme park which seems to give the passholders any good benefits is busch gardens/seaworld. Even once corona is over they may still cut corners for a while as this is the perfect time to squeeze extra just to see how much people are willing to pay extra even if the perks are minimal.

I think that's true of a lot of businesses. If people are willing to settle for a certain standard during covid, they may be reluctant to reintroduce things that cost money. Also I've heard of businesses that cut staff "due to covid" but really they're never intending to hire those people back.

 

[Goofnut1980]

Does Universal handle this well? I mean, people are posting here that even before people who weren't onsite still got onto rides during EMH due to CMs who didn't check/care.

On our last trip, after the Star Wars show, we wandered through Toy Story Land before realizing that it was a special paid party time and we should probably get out. I assumed they would check us if we tried to ride Slinky and of course did not, but I didn't test that theory.

Your first line says it all. You can't tell me some CMs aren't salty about hours being cut and friends losing jobs. Will they really care if they let someone in 20 mins before official opening?

September and December we were in the parks WELL before the official start time. You could be in MK by 8:15am with a 9am opening. Not to mention no finger print scanner, so it is even less time for the system to have to think. Just, tap and go. It all cracks me up!

 

[Markiewong]

This doesn't look like a big thing on paper, but look at Tokyo Disney how big of a change 15 min early entry is. By the time I was at the fastpass machine for Toy Story I had a fastpass for well into the afternoon. I imagine Disney will be having a seperate line for resort guest, similarily to how Paris and Tokyo only have early entry/magic hours in the morning.

Staying offsite will mean that you will always queue behind all the onsite guests on Flight of Passage.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Wow no more late nights in the Magic Kingdom. This and DME leaving, what's the perk on staying on site?

WDW can't help themselves. A guess on my part, but one I'm will to bet on... there will be upsells to those not staying at Disney resorts for early entrance. There will be upsells to everyone for extra evening hours.

Me and my BFF are not morning people; we never used early morning hours. So, more than likely, we'll buy into any extra evening hours. I find it's worth the price to be in the parks without crowds and in the cool of the evening.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Staying offsite will mean that you will always queue behind all the onsite guests on Flight of Passage.

Unless FP+ is back and you grab a FP for it in the morning.

Or they start selling FP slots.

Or they offer an upsell to guests not at their own resorts to enter early with the resort guests.

 

[marni1971]

Imagine that.

 

[mdcpr]

This doesn't surprise me. They have been cutting corners in select areas to give hotel guests a bonus and everyone else the shaft. Honestly the only theme park which seems to give the passholders any good benefits is busch gardens/seaworld. Even once corona is over they may still cut corners for a while as this is the perfect time to squeeze extra just to see how much people are willing to pay extra even if the perks are minimal.

What exactly is the hotel guests bonus? No bands (we loved them!), No DME, no luggage magically appearing in my room, and now limited magic hours.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Question... how do you enforce this. It's 30 mins prior to opening. Which means a day guest will have to wait and crowd an area that is supposed to stay over 6feet apart.

Same way that people with early restaurant ADR get into the park: There will be a few tapstiles open for resort guests only.

 

[Markiewong]

Unless FP+ is back and you grab a FP for it in the morning.

Or they start selling FP slots.

Or they offer an upsell to guests not at their own resorts to enter early with the resort guests.

Yhea but the only way to get a FP+ for FOP is if you are staying onsite for atleast 3 nights or more. As an offsite guest this is only making matters worse to get on FOP without waiting for 2.5 hours.

 

[Tom P.]

I wonder how much (if any) of this comes from a belief that only people with small children would ever go to Disney. We know Iger didn't really understand the parks or why people visit them -- I doubt Chapek does either. If only people with small children are there, they will be up early anyways so of course this is a benefit.

I have small children and have been going to Disney with them since some of them were infants. Never once we have we been there at rope drop. You couldn't pay me enough to get up that early on vacation. Many times we have been there with them for evening extra magic hours. This new "perk" is worthless for us.

 

[lentesta]

Sure, so would I... by avoiding those parks since they tended to be the busiest.

(yes, sometimes would use EMH but only if we had park hoppers so we could hope to or away from the park using pretty much only the EMH time.)

As an aside, this will make things very interesting for Touring Plans and the like to determine park business and crowd calendars. The EMH seemed to drive a bunch of that because of how they added to guests' behaviors. Any thoughts @lentesta ?

The crowd effect should be minimal because it'll be every park every day. There'll usually be no reason to pick one park over another just for that reason.

For the last month or so we've been prepping the crowd models and the Lines app to support pre-official opening activity. That'll roll out over the next few days.

 

[UNCgolf]

I have small children and have been going to Disney with them since some of them were infants. Never once we have we been there at rope drop. You couldn't pay me enough to get up that early on vacation. Many times we have been there with them for evening extra magic hours. This new "perk" is worthless for us.

It's worthless for me too for the same reason. And I completely agree that not everyone with small children is up that early.

I was just wondering how much of that is in the Disney corporate mindset. They don't seem to understand their guests at all.

 

[Flynnwriter]

Thank you Bob Chapek.

 

[MisterPenguin]

What exactly is the hotel guests bonus? No bands (we loved them!), No DME, no luggage magically appearing in my room, and now limited magic hours.

Before the pandemic, Disney had been engaged in the practice of *discouraging* attendance, especially at MK. They'd rather have fewer (or the same number of) guests that pay more than try to pack in more people into an already-crowded park. What business wouldn't? But WDW has the extra incentive to follow this path as a means of crowd control.

Why offer free perks when people will still come and pay the same price (or more) without those perks? WDW isn't trying to drive up numbers in attendance.

Everyone wants more for less, understandably so. But when an item (a WDW vacation) is in high demand such that WDW couldn't possible accommodate the huge numbers that would show up if everything was inexpensive, then increases in prices (and decreases in services) will continue as a form of crowd control.

Otherwise, the only tool left for crowd control is keeping the reservation system forever. And dealing with angry guests that are locked out of reservations because the parks reached a sensible capacity.

"Honey, we can't go to Disney for Christmas. The parks' reservations are booked for the next three years!!"​

 

[aliceismad]

The crowd effect should be minimal because it'll be every park every day. There'll usually be no reason to pick one park over another just for that reason.

For the last month or so we've been prepping the crowd models and the Lines app to support pre-official opening activity. That'll roll out over the next few days.

Is there evidence that this might cause the crowds to even out a bit amongst the Parks?

 

[MisterPenguin]

What exactly is the hotel guests bonus? No bands (we loved them!), No DME, no luggage magically appearing in my room, and now limited magic hours.

This is the answer for anyone not wanting to pay premium and extra charges for a WDW vacation: Stay off site. Huge numbers do anyway.

People with more... disposable... income will pay to enjoy being in the bubble, which is more of a feeling than an advantage (except with regard to transportation, but, if you're staying off site, then you have a car for at-will transportation).

 

[UNCgolf]

Before the pandemic, Disney had been engaged in the practice of *discouraging* attendance, especially at MK. They'd rather have fewer (or the same number of) guests that pay more than try to pack in more people into an already-crowded park. What business wouldn't? But WDW has the extra incentive to follow this path as a means of crowd control.

Why offer free perks when people will still come and pay the same price (or more) without those perks? WDW isn't trying to drive up numbers in attendance.

Everyone wants more for less, understandably so. But when an item (a WDW vacation) is in high demand such that WDW couldn't possible accommodate the huge numbers that would show up if everything was inexpensive, then increases in prices (and decreases in services) will continue as a form of crowd control.

Otherwise, the only tool left for crowd control is keeping the reservation system forever. And dealing with angry guests that are locked out of reservations because the parks reached a sensible capacity.

"Honey, we can't go to Disney for Christmas. The parks' reservations are booked for the next three years!!"​

I'm fine with increasing prices as a form of crowd control. I'd rather pay an extra $300 for my ticket and get severely reduced crowd levels than the reverse.

But as you said, they're not only increasing prices, but cutting/decreasing almost everything else along with it. That's where I have a serious problem. When the whole experience is lesser than it was 20 years ago, but the cost is much higher, it's hard to justify going at all.

While that operates as crowd control too, it will eventually reach a point where it's unsustainable.