Magic bands for admittance, dining, and shopping, but NOT rides...would you buy?

[Disstevefan1]

Inspired by a thread in the Dining Forum regarding whether you need park admission to dine at a park restaurant (you do, obviously), I got to thinking. What if Disney had a special Magic Band that would grant admission to the park and allow you to shop & dine (and enjoy the ambiance) but would not allow you onto any ride or into any show. Would people be willing to buy them? Disney could price them differently than regular park tickets, obviously. The older I get the more I wish there was such a thing. I'd have just as much fun relaxing with a funnel cake by the World Showacase Lagoon as I would riding Mission: Space.

This sounds like Disney Springs...

 

[SirWillow]

Absolutely no possible way it would work. Way to easy to get around. Get in the park, then simply remove the magic band and not put it back on. Put it in a locker or something and ride everything standby. Remember not every guest has a magic band. A very large percentage of them don't because they stay off property. Your only solution to that would to be require everyone to wear a magic band, and then it would have to be a new updated magic band with their current tickets on it...

Oh, and you're forgetting the entertainment, which is also part of the ticket charge. Castle shows, atmosphere entertainers, bands, parades, night time shows, fireworks, etc.

 

[JusticeDisney]

Absolutely no possible way it would work. Way to easy to get around. Get in the park, then simply remove the magic band and not put it back on. Put it in a locker or something and ride everything standby. Remember not every guest has a magic band. A very large percentage of them don't because they stay off property. Your only solution to that would to be require everyone to wear a magic band, and then it would have to be a new updated magic band with their current tickets on it...

Oh, and you're forgetting the entertainment, which is also part of the ticket charge. Castle shows, atmosphere entertainers, bands, parades, night time shows, fireworks, etc.

Putting readers (like the ones they have at FP+ entrances) at all standby entrances would address your main concern. Of course, there would probably still be other problems that we are not anticipating.

 

[SirWillow]

Putting readers (like the ones they have at FP+ entrances) at all standby entrances would address your main concern. Of course, there would probably still be other problems that we are not anticipating.

Like how are you going to block them out of shows, castle shows, street entertainment, parades, fireworks, etc that they haven't "paid" for.

 

[DisneyJoe]

Putting readers (like the ones they have at FP+ entrances) at all standby entrances would address your main concern. Of course, there would probably still be other problems that we are not anticipating.

yes, but this introduces a "stop point" as well as the need for a CM (labor cost) to be at that point to handle any issues. The lines sometimes are backed up due to FP+ scanner issues, this introduces another point of slow down instead of streamlining things.

 

[JusticeDisney]

Like how are you going to block them out of shows, castle shows, street entertainment, parades, fireworks, etc that they haven't "paid" for.

I don’t think that really matters. Standing in the street and watching public shows is different from riding the attractions, at least IMO.

 

[JusticeDisney]

yes, but this introduces a "stop point" as well as the need for a CM (labor cost) to be at that point to handle any issues. The lines sometimes are backed up due to FP+ scanner issues, this introduces another point of slow down instead of streamlining things.

All good points. As with everything else with Disney, I guess it would just depend on whether it made financial sense to them to do it.

 

[JIMINYCR]

We have friends who basically do thay anyway. Theyve been to WDW so many times that the rides are no longer as appealing as they once were. They night jump on one or two if any the day they go to the parks. Of course they get excited about the new attractions and do those multiple times after theyve opened. They are in their retirement years and they enjoy just strolling the parks, taking in the atmosphere, dining out and enjoy not having the lines to manage. It works for them. Maybe I'd find it more appealing after I've reached that point in my life but certainly wouldnt be my way of visiting the parks now.

 

[networkpro]

Honest quick answer: Would not buy.

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

There isn't enough dining capacity at present.

Back in the early years, WDW had ride tickets. If WDW wanted to do something similar today, in theory, they could. And within that concept, they could have a no-rides option. (Mind, I'm not saying they should or would.) I think, especially at Epcot, it wouldn't be all very hard, especially if the no-rides option was limited to just the WS half of the park.

In my mind, the ride logistics are actually the easier part. The harder part, is the parks' limited dining capacity, especially MK. (Though crowding in the hub during fireworks is also an issue.)

If they offered it, I might consider it for like one day of our stay, but only if WDW added some compelling dining options. At present, if I just want to eat, the hotels offer slightly better dining options, but that's not saying very much.

 

[aliceismad]

Seems like one of the amusement parks I've been to had this. Grandma who didn't ride could buy a lesser ticket, like an "observer" ticket. I don't think it'd work at Disney. Too many people would try to find the loopholes and game the system.

 

[mm121]

A realistic option would be a nighttime ticket to Epcot which required an ADR. All guests on the ADR could get into Epcot after 4pm for $25 each with the ability to go on rides but without the ability to use Fastpass. If you enter the park but do not use the ADR you get charged for a full day ticket. Then to keep people from gaming the system either have prix fixe menu or require a minimum price spent per person.

Probably charge a flat rate for a meal upfront that way if someone did skip the meal Disney would still get paid for it.

That would be easier than holding a deposit if people didn't eat.

 

[Jonathan Dalecki]

It's been fun reading all of your feedback to this thought. A lot of times my wife and I fly in a day early for a cruise, and we'll spend the night at a WDW resort, to get the magic started right away, and we've always wished we could go to a favorite restaurant at Epcot but without having to buy a ticket for the whole park, so we usually end up eating at a resort restaurant (which is by no means bad!) And, as I mentioned at first, the older we get the more our best WDW moments are the meals and the atmosphere...the rides are still a blast, but they are more and more secondary.

 

[gobstoper27]

I'd be concerned with people in the same group swapping bands if someone didn't have access to attractions

 

[larryz]

Absolutely no possible way it would work. Way to easy to get around. Get in the park, then simply remove the magic band and not put it back on. Put it in a locker or something and ride everything standby. Remember not every guest has a magic band. A very large percentage of them don't because they stay off property. Your only solution to that would to be require everyone to wear a magic band, and then it would have to be a new updated magic band with their current tickets on it...

Oh, and you're forgetting the entertainment, which is also part of the ticket charge. Castle shows, atmosphere entertainers, bands, parades, night time shows, fireworks, etc.

So the way to fix it is to give everyone a magic band, then charge them (a) $50 to enter the park, and (b) $10 for every ride and attraction. Everyone would clock in at each ride and attraction via a Mickey head, and the system would charge their credit card or cash deposit. The upside is that everyone would be able to charge anything they buy to their magic band and just let the charges accumulate, with the final bill automatically levied at midnight of the day they visited.

 

[nicb88]

They did and I have used it. Don't know if they still do or not. What guest services did for me was I asked to enter MK to purchase a particular model bus for a nephew who had been collecting them for years. It was the bus with the date on it. It was sold out just about everywhere but a place at MK had it.
What they did was allow me in for one hour to go buy that particular item. They sold me a one day ticket with the stipulation I had to be back in one hour or less and they would refund the ticket. More than an hour, no refund. Worked fine for my needs, my nephew got his yearly souvenir that I forgot to buy the day before and my ticket price was refunded.
I don't know if this was standard policy, or a goodwill gesture.
And this was many years ago.
Something like this:

View attachment 367206

I’m more than certain this used to be a policy for shopping - I’m not sure about dining. Like you say you bought a ticket and it was refunded within a certain time.

I’ve not heard of it in years, however!

 

[danyoung56]

Have you considered an annual pass? That way you could come into Epcot, enjoy a nice dinner, and not have to waste a day's ticket. It's pretty easy to design a visit schedule that will make an AP at least an even break, if not actually save you some money. Visit one year in late April, for instance, and then the next year in early April on the same AP. And if you take advantage of AP rates at the hotels, the savings are even greater.

 

[Hockey89]

Seems like one of the amusement parks I've been to had this. Grandma who didn't ride could buy a lesser ticket, like an "observer" ticket. I don't think it'd work at Disney. Too many people would try to find the loopholes and game the system.

There is zero question about that.... It would never work and too many slime balls out there...

 

[Trackmaster]

As I posted, Busch Gardens used to, I have no idea w WDW.

I mean hey, I like people throwing out ideas like this on here. There are ways it would make sense, but I think for something like Epcot, for someone to go in free/reduced price and still be able to enjoy the park (minus rides) while others paid full price to do the same, doesn’t seem like it would fly. Luckily for people who want to dine at WDW without an AP/ticket there are plenty of options at the resorts and DS. I’m not sure I’d want to pay for parking at a park just to dine there (I know high end restaurants use valet, but that’s still a bit more value than theme park parking)

I think that in reality, there already are shopping passes. They're called APs. You buy an AP for very little money, and you go to the park whenever you want, and can shop, dine, loiter, ride, drink or watch shows all day.

Even if you're a tourist, you just buy the multi-day hopper, and you can hop on in and hop on out for no extra charge. The park's not going to let you go into the park for free, clog up the midways, and slow down the paying customers.

 

[DisneyJill]

i think this is an interesting idea but one that would likely never come to fruition for the reasons people are mentioning + they essentially have this already in disney springs + if people are already paying what they are asking to get into the park and potentially do exactly what you are suggesting, why charge them less to do it with more red tape? simply, "if it ain't broke (and it's already profitable), why fix it?"

that said, i would love to see an "after 4pm" (or whatever time) ticket. many times staying at the beach club it would be nice to walk into epcot and have dinner and stroll WS. there used to be (or maybe still is?) this option for people attending conventions at wdw.