...maybe ...maybe not?
...I say that for a few reasons. Disney (in some circles) says that this has been in the works for a few years. Some circles in Disney ...and some outside also say that it's been a accelerated due to the investigative report that exposed the blatant problems.
....okay ...so it's been in the works for a few years ...I'll give 'em that one. But, so has the MagicBand, FP+ and My Magic+, My Disney Experience app's and system....etc. All of which reportedly carry a $1 Billion dollar price tag.
....as much as they want to make guests happy ...they also want to make Wall Street and the shareholders happy. That was made evident in the transcript of the Walt Disney Co. corporate earnings conference call transcript in which CFO Jay Rasulo makes a statement as follows:
Disney CFO Jay Rasulo:
"We have known for a really long time that getting our visitors to Walt Disney World to make decisions about where they spend their time before they leave home is a powerful driver of visits per guest. When they get into the Orlando market and their time isn’t yet planned, they can be subject to everything you see down there, which is a lot of in-city marketing for all the many products that people have put there to basically bleed off the feed that we fundamentally motivate. So if we can get people to plan their vacation before they leave home, we know that we get more time with them. We get a bigger share of their wallet. So that’s one thing for you guys to think about.
And the second thing is, what happens to purchases when they become much more convenient and you don’t spend time queuing up for a transaction, queuing up to get in the park and you actually have more time to enjoy the entertainment and subsequently spend more money doing things other than standing in line which, of course, you can’t spend any money while you’re doing that".
....it's clear that the whole system that they devised is about 'people management' ....to have people as a captive audience ...and not always standing on lines so that they can open their wallets during the time between attractions.
....if the new DAS / GAC or whatever they call it breaks down ....doesn't work as planned ....they lost a $1 billion investment, because the system as a "whole" will not work as envisioned ....and that can never be allowed to happen. Believe me ...if the DAS system is actually rolled out and operated as planned ...and someone that holds that DAS pass needs to wait between entrance times to attractions ....do you think that Disney doesn't hope that they too will spend during that lull? I think that it's an integral part of their plans. They care not one bit how able bodied a 'guest' is if there is a dollar in their pocket that they can have end up in their coffers. The excerpt from the transcript seems to verify that. I feel that they are going to make this system work ...come he!! or high water.