coffeefan
Active Member
A private tour is more expensive and has negligible impact on the experience of others. Disney can make a special gold fairy dust premier pass more expensive if they want to go the unlimited route.
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Lightning Lane Premier Pass
- Thread starter GhostHost1000
- Start date
jaklgreen
Well-Known Member
I would prefer that. The whole, pay extra to only ride something once does not sit well with me. That is why I don't like Genie+.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
How low would the price for this need to be to sit well with you?
I ask because I can just about guarantee what they'd charge would be more than that unless you consider the current VIP tours to be within your relative reach.
Splash4eva
Well-Known Member
Are people that stupid? Honestly. Serious question. People actually book vacations not knowing roughly what its gonna cost?!?
ConfettiCupcake
Well-Known Member
Are people that stupid? YES lol. Maybe stupid is too harsh, but financially illiterate and/or irresponsible? Absolutely.
I think it’s likely there’s a higher than you’d hope number of people who return home from vacation with a shocking credit card bill because they weren’t really paying attention to how much their spending was adding up.
Splash4eva
Well-Known Member
If thats the case Stupid is being polite lol
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
The compassion and empathy you're displaying for your fellow human beings here is truly breathtaking and not at all out of touch with the world we live in.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
By stupid, you mean they weren't quite aware of all the additional costs they'd encounter?
Sure.
There are a ton of people that don't spend obsessive amounts of time on a fan site that reports every single price increase and every single change to everything across property on a daily basis.
There are a ton of people that aren't well traveled and a trip to WDW is or at least used to be targeted at folks like that because it was one-stop and once you paid for the travel, room, and tickets, your biggest expenses were covered.
Heck, half the original premise of Epcot was giving people an experience they wouldn't otherwise get seeing other parts of the world in real-life.
Look up what percentage of US citizens don't have a current passport.
Food and beverages have always been higher than "normal" but in the last several years, they've really decoupled from regular inflation* and in the case of quick-service, the quality is also considerably less than the stuff many are used to finding at home at those much cheaper prices.
And remember, Disney used to be the place to go where you didn't have to know everything before arrival. People that only went once when they were little and are taking their own kids 20-30 years later or who have never been before, don't automatically know you should devote weeks or months for planning the on-property aspects of this kind of trip.
After all, if someone wanted to do that, they'd probably go somewhere other than a theme park, right?
People budget for things, sure. If tickets and hotel are taken care of, I imagine that many think the main costs are out of the way until they show up and see the price of food in park and then what a hassle it is to leave to find something more reasonable so they pay it - not nesassarially something they're going to need to start selling their grandma's fillings to cover but more than they'd initially budgeted for.
Then they see the up-charges for things they didn't think they needed but now they find themselves having paid thousands of dollars for this family trip their kid has been dreaming about for a year or more so yeah, they're going to buy into some of these things they either didn't know about or didn't feel like they'd need when trying to figure out how they could afford this experience Disney has sold as a "cultural right of passage" for their children like it was for them at that age.
They're, doing what they can as people who aren't seasoned Disney commandos to have a good family trip.
You really have trouble picturing this scenario?
With an AP, I witnessed it fairly regularly with conversations around me for food or just while waiting for a ride and that was before things got the way they are now.
If any of that shocks you, it may blow your mind to find out people even still show up, look at the screens to figure out what they're getting and buy tickets right there at the gates after asking the cast member questions about the options through the little hole in the plexiglass window.
If that's your idea of polite, I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with you in real life.
*not saying Disney is alone, here. At my local hockey arena, a $2 bottle of coke is $8 but for a game a couple of hours long, someone can go without drinking anything if the sticker shock is so bad - you're not quite as captive.
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JMcMahonEsq
Well-Known Member
Plenty of people really like it. Because for many people they don’t want to pay for crap they don’t want simply because it’s buried in a single cost fee. If all the services are just rolled into the one fee, by default you’re charging for everything in that fee. I, and many others, want to pay for exactly what we want, and not cover costs for other crap we aren’t using.
DisneyCane
Well-Known Member
The reason the Spirit Airlines model works for flights is that, when you take a flight, not everybody has the same needs. The basic need is to get from point A to point B. If that's all you care about you can just pay the base fare. If you need to bring something that won't fit under the seat with you then you pay for that in addition but somebody who doesn't can only pay the base fare. If you care about where you sit then you pay for an assigned seat, etc.
To me, the difference between that and WDW with LL is that when you pay for additional things on Spirit Airlines it doesn't negatively effect the experience of the people who just pay the base fare. They get what they paid for and you get what you paid for. With LL, it can't not increase wait times for people in the standby line. Therefore, the add-on that one person pays for has a detrimental effect on the enjoyment of the people paying the "base fare" and makes them get less than they paid for.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
Even if it means that you're giving them the opportunity to charge you more for those individual things?
I mean, they unbundled FP+ from park admission, then raised the price of admission and have raised the price of the up-charged replacement multiple times. Do you think the alternative, had they not done that would have been to just raise base ticket prices by the % that would have all been together?
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
I think most people would prefer paying one price, knowing more things are included, then feel pressured after buying an expensive park ticket to then be hard sold LL or whatever else.
This is actually exactly why we won’t buy Premier Pass often (if at all). If (like TDR) they let us pay $25-50/ride for Comsic Rewind as many times as we wanted, we’d probably drop at least $100, maybe as much as $200/person/day to ride it 4 times in a day, at least twice a trip. But most of Epcot’s ride skips are of no value to us. So at $200, we’re being forced to pay to ride Soarin/Frozen/Remy (none of which we think is worth more than $5-10) and a bunch of other rides that rarely have more than 15m waits if you know what you’re doing.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
I agree but by separating LL out from the base ticket, they were able to enact double-digit percentage price increases for people to keep what their ticket used to give them without making it obvious.
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Splash4eva
Well-Known Member
What imThe compassion and empathy you're displaying for your fellow human beings here is truly breathtaking and not at all out of touch with the world we live in.
Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
By stupid, you mean they weren't quite aware of all the additional costs they'd encounter?
Sure.
There are a ton of people that don't spend obsessive amounts of time on a fan site that reports every single price increase and every single change to everything across property on a daily basis.
There are a ton of people that aren't well traveled and a trip to WDW is or at least used to be targeted at folks like that because it was one-stop and once you paid for the travel, room, and tickets, your biggest expenses were covered.
Heck, half the original premise of Epcot was giving people an experience they wouldn't otherwise get seeing other parts of the world in real-life.
Look up what percentage of US citizens don't have a current passport.
Food and beverages have always been higher than "normal" but in the last several years, they've really decoupled from regular inflation* and in the case of quick-service, the quality is also considerably less than the stuff many are used to finding at home at those much cheaper prices.
And remember, Disney used to be the place to go where you didn't have to know everything before arrival. People that only went once when they were little and are taking their own kids 20-30 years later or who have never been before, don't automatically know you should devote weeks or months for planning the on-property aspects of this kind of trip.
After all, if someone wanted to do that, they'd probably go somewhere other than a theme park, right?
People budget for things, sure. If tickets and hotel are taken care of, I imagine that many think the main costs are out of the way until they show up and see the price of food in park and then what a hassle it is to leave to find something more reasonable so they pay it - not nesassarially something they're going to need to start selling their grandma's fillings to cover but more than they'd initially budgeted for.
Then they see the up-charges for things they didn't think they needed but now they find themselves having paid thousands of dollars for this family trip their kid has been dreaming about for a year or more so yeah, they're going to buy into some of these things they either didn't know about or didn't feel like they'd need when trying to figure out how they could afford this experience Disney has sold as a "cultural right of passage" for their children like it was for them at that age.
They're, doing what they can as people who aren't seasoned Disney commandos to have a good family trip.
You really have trouble picturing this scenario?
With an AP, I witnessed it fairly regularly with conversations around me for food or just while waiting for a ride and that was before things got the way they are now.
If any of that shocks you, it may blow your mind to find out people even still show up, look at the screens to figure out what they're getting and buy tickets right there at the gates after asking the cast member questions about the options through the little hole in the plexiglass window.
If that's your idea of polite, I feel sorry for anyone who has to deal with you in real life.
*not saying Disney is alone, here. At my local hockey arena, a $2 bottle of coke is $8 but for a game a couple of hours long, someone can go without drinking anything if the sticker shock is so bad - you're not quite as captive.
Saying is this. Anyone goes on ANY vacation without a rough idea and where money can be an issue is stupid and irresponsible. I just went to BahaMar in Bahamas. Yes i did some research ahead so i had an idea what extras would cost. Same with my recent trips to Aruba and Grand Cayman. Im sorry anyone goes on a trip where money is either tight or gonna go into debt for and doesnt do researchetc yes im sorry they are stupid and irresponsible.
KrzyKtty
Well-Known Member
Honestly, I might seriously consider it for our trip next time, for the simple reality that it would make touring the whole park sooo much easier. No touring Plan. No running back and forth all over the park. Do one area, then move onto the next in a logical pattern. I won't have to look at my phone all day trying to see what LL I can score next. That is what I love about the Express Pass. Universal was a breath of fresh air after years at Disney; it was just so easy in comparison. It is worth it to me for my piece of mind. I love my Disney Trips, I really do. However, I would enjoy them so much more if they weren't so mentally exhausting trying to plan every little thing.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
Just went to BahMar, recent trips to Aruba and Grand Cayman - and how often do you visit WDW?
Do you not realize how different your life/travel experience is from the majority of people in America?
I mean, I'm not asking you to sympathise with them or feel sorry for them. Go ahead - look down on everyone who's not as well off as you and as well traveled as you and without as much experience to know what needs to be considered or looked out for as you.
But the degree you're expressing shock at their existence and calling them all stupid is... well, it's certainly a look.
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MrPromey
Well-Known Member
But do you understand that if they offered that deal to you for what might be currently the most popular attraction in the park, they'd have to offer it to everyone else, too?
Do you think the attraction has the capacity to handle that when there are already people who can't get boarding groups to ride it at all?
Not suggesting that this is your fault, though and I'm sure there are PLENTY of people who agree with you.
Maybe Disney could have spent some of that money they wasted on what became of the spine and put it towards one of the projects they decided to cancel instead that might have added more worth-while attraction capacity to the park and you would feel a little different.
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Maybe we are speaking across each other? Yes, I absolutely think most days Disney has capacity to offer as much Cosmic Rewind as people want at $50/person/ride, it’s currently sometimes selling out around $25/ride, correct? Of course, it will come at a cost to other people who are willing to wait 2+ hours but not pay $50/person to ride.
I’m not saying that is what Disney should have done here, but isn’t that different than LLSP or what it does elsewhere.
I do agree with you that Disney should have built new rides instead of giving a (not especially attractive) face lift to future world. More people would pay $200/day if it included more a couple more new rides that are a lot of fun. We might even buy it sometimes after TT comes back.
Laketravis
Well-Known Member
Today I got notice USO's Epic Universe will be opening May 22, 2025 with tickets and packages on sale beginning next week on 10/22.
From the announcement website (emphasis mine):
"This changes everything. Now with four amazing theme parks, spectacular themed hotels and more, Universal Orlando Resort offers an entire week's worth of awesome in one complete vacation destination."
It will be interesting to see how the many changes at WDW will be received in light of USO's goal to be the sole destination.
From the announcement website (emphasis mine):
"This changes everything. Now with four amazing theme parks, spectacular themed hotels and more, Universal Orlando Resort offers an entire week's worth of awesome in one complete vacation destination."
It will be interesting to see how the many changes at WDW will be received in light of USO's goal to be the sole destination.
MrPromey
Well-Known Member
I misunderstood you. I thought you were talking about paying $25-$50 per person for unlimited rides of it - not per ride.
That's a whole other interesting take but nobody's waiting 2+ hours to ride that right now. There is no standby option to raw-dog a line through however long to get in it like has been the case with FOP since opening.. You either get a boarding group to come back in 1-8 (or however many) hours or you don't get picked. As far as I'm aware, those always run out... or you pay the $25 or so bucks if the LL hasn't already sold out.
So yeah, I guess charging people $50 to ride it each time, all they want is doable but I'm not sure even Disney wants that kind of PR hit when this was not announced as effectively being an exclusively pay-to-play-only attraction which is what such an option would effectively turn it into.