Magic Key Renewals?

[chadwpalm]

My friend, just because you don't see value in spending money at DLR doesn't mean others can't. Everyone has a right to spend their money how they want. And as long as the person is getting enjoyment out of going that is priceless. So whether its $400 or 67 gallons of gas, who really cares as long as they have a good time.

Fair enough, but if we are going to accept this premise, then we need to accept what goes along with this premise. If a large mass of park-goers are going to find value in Disneyland while quality is declining, then we also have to accept that Disney is going to continue to maintain lower standards because people will still come anyway. We (well, not us here on the boards, but society as a whole) are the problem.

I'm not a fan of that paradigm. Disney should strive to keep their standards top-notch regardless of whether people will still come or not. Sadly, current management doesn't see it that way.

Our society as a whole has decided that money is more important than quality. There used to be a time when you can go to Sears, buy an appliance, and it will last you 20 years. Companies took pride in producing quality products. Now, everything is cheaply built with substandard parts or somehow time-bombed to fail at a certain point so you are forced to spend more money buying it again. And we do. And the slope gets steeper. And now as we face mass inflation, quality will decrease more as businesses strive to keep their bottom line in the positive.

 

[Sailor310]

The question is: If we all boycott DL for their bad quality, will they improve things or just cut back more to save money because no one is coming?

 

[Disney Irish]

I get what you are saying. It's people's money. They can go into debt and support whatever company they want. Live and let live. But sometimes success leads to a product's destruction.

Nothing will ever change and prices will continue to climb and quality/showmanship will decline. The more people are willing to pay for a product, the worst the product becomes. I want to see a better Disneyland were it leads the industry with service, quality and showmanship. The problem is Disneyland's biggest enemy is it's own success. It makes me crazy watching it implode. It is sad how people ruin good things.

And that is your opinion, and the opinion of many others. However its not a universal opinion held by the public, if it was DLR and every other Disney Park would be a ghost town. It wouldn't matter if every member of this board stops going, there are still millions of others that aren't on a Disney fan boards that are going to Disney Parks around the world and having fun daily.

 

[mickEblu]

Fair enough, but if we are going to accept this premise, then we need to accept what goes along with this premise. If a large mass of park-goers are going to find value in Disneyland while quality is declining, then we also have to accept that Disney is going to continue to maintain lower standards because people will still come anyway. We (well, not us here on the boards, but society as a whole) are the problem.

I'm not a fan of that paradigm. Disney should strive to keep their standards top-notch regardless of whether people will still come or not. Sadly, current management doesn't see it that way.

Our society as a whole has decided that money is more important than quality. There used to be a time when you can go to Sears, buy an appliance, and it will last you 20 years. Companies took pride in producing quality products. Now, everything is cheaply built with substandard parts or somehow time-bombed to fail at a certain point so you are forced to spend more money buying it again. And we do. And the slope gets steeper. And now as we face mass inflation, quality will decrease more as businesses strive to keep their bottom line in the positive.

I put the majority of blame on the corporations. For example if everyone is making cheap Washing machines that they know will break down in 6-8 years what choice do we have but to buy another one? Build our own? Hand Wash? Keep spending money to repair it?

 

[Disney Irish]

Fair enough, but if we are going to accept this premise, then we need to accept what goes along with this premise. If a large mass of park-goers are going to find value in Disneyland while quality is declining, then we also have to accept that Disney is going to continue to maintain lower standards because people will still come anyway. We (well, not us here on the boards, but society as a whole) are the problem.

I'm not a fan of that paradigm. Disney should strive to keep their standards top-notch regardless of whether people will still come or not. Sadly, current management doesn't see it that way.

Our society as a whole has decided that money is more important than quality. There used to be a time when you can go to Sears, buy an appliance, and it will last you 20 years. Companies took pride in producing quality products. Now, everything is cheaply built with substandard parts or somehow time-bombed to fail at a certain point so you are forced to spend more money buying it again. And we do. And the slope gets steeper. And now as we face mass inflation, quality will decrease more as businesses strive to keep their bottom line in the positive.

Now this is a larger conversation to be had than just Disney Parks or even Disney itself, as its not unique to either of them. Its a societal thing as you alluded to. So until society decides that chasing the all mighty dollar is no longer the drive of existence none of this is going to change how companies do business. As such companies will always try to drive costs down and revenue up, even at the cost of quality. Its been that way since money started changing hands, and isn't changing any time soon.

Going back to Disney, we all wish they would go back to a certain kind of standard they were known for from the Parks in the 50s-late 80s but that costs. So its easy to say they should do something, but we're not the ones making the decisions on Billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand of employees. It was easier to maintain quality and standards when you're a smaller company with only one movie studio and one theme park. Disney is far too large and far to spread out in terms of costs to maintain that same quality. I can only guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if in order to get back to that same quality for the Parks from the 50s-late 80s would require them to barely break even. It would be interesting to see a cost breakdown of operations from the 50s-late 80s and then adjust it based on inflation and see how much it would cost in today's dollars across all the different parks. I think the number would shock a lot of people.

 

[Phroobar]

Now this is a larger conversation to be had than just Disney Parks or even Disney itself, as its not unique to either of them. Its a societal thing as you alluded to. So until society decides that chasing the all mighty dollar is no longer the drive of existence none of this is going to change how companies do business. As such companies will always try to drive costs down and revenue up, even at the cost of quality. Its been that way since money started changing hands, and isn't changing any time soon.

Going back to Disney, we all wish they would go back to a certain kind of standard they were known for from the Parks in the 50s-late 80s but that costs. So its easy to say they should do something, but we're not the ones making the decisions on Billions of dollars and hundreds of thousand of employees. It was easier to maintain quality and standards when you're a smaller company with only one movie studio and one theme park. Disney is far too large and far to spread out in terms of costs to maintain that same quality. I can only guess, but I wouldn't be surprised if in order to get back to that same quality for the Parks from the 50s-late 80s would require them to barely break even. It would be interesting to see a cost breakdown of operations from the 50s-late 80s and then adjust it based on inflation and see how much it would cost in today's dollars across all the different parks. I think the number would shock a lot of people.

Well said @Disney Irish .

History shows that the parks were the only things keeping Disney afloat back then. The corporation was in deep financial trouble. They were fighting off hostile takeovers. On the other hand, Disney parks were cheap, not always packed but making money. They were definitely underpriced. I think going back to the way things were run would ultimately cost the corporation less and make them more money in the long term. The problem is corporate involvement and short term profits makes that almost impossible.

It is similar to the decline of Pixar. Pixar used to make quality films and Disney promised to stay hands off. Sadly that is no longer the case. Pixar now costs more to make for a substandard product because of outside corporate involvement. They used to be event movies. Now they are pay per view streaming Disney+ fodder.

 

[Th3 DUd3]

…..soooo anyone renewing besides me?


Thought I would break up the super long messages

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

…..soooo anyone renewing besides me?


Thought I would break up the super long messages

We aren’t but we are several hours away so it’s harder to make the math work. 10 years ago the break even point for the no blackout pass was about 3 weekends, now it’s closer to 7.

For locals who can go often (or go midweek on a cheaper pass) the value is still there but for us out of towners (who primarily visit on weekends) the price is hard to justify.

As for renewals I’m convinced Disney doesn’t know what they are doing yet, if they were confidant renewals were coming without major changes they’d be hurrying so people could make reservations.

 

[Sailor310]

I'm pretty sure I'll get the cheapest pass...depending on the price and options.
I was looking over Touring Plans the last few months. It seems Sunday is often the lightest and Monday, Tues, or Wed the heaviest. If there were a cheap way to get Sundays...

 

[freebird72]

Has anyone noticed the Magic Key reservations are booked up the last half of August for all pass types? It is so strange. Local schools are back in session in the last half of August. I can't find a local event/convention that might be driving it. Is this a rush to get a visit in before Magic Keys expire?

 

[mickEblu]

Has anyone noticed the Magic Key reservations are booked up the last half of August for all pass types? It is so strange. Local schools are back in session in the last half of August. I can't find a local event/convention that might be driving it. Is this a rush to get a visit in before Magic Keys expire?

Lower tier passes that are blacked out all summer and are not unblocked until mid/ late August snatched up those dates as soon as they could. I’d imagine they’ll release more reservations when they begin to allow renewals

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Has anyone noticed the Magic Key reservations are booked up the last half of August for all pass types? It is so strange. Local schools are back in session in the last half of August. I can't find a local event/convention that might be driving it. Is this a rush to get a visit in before Magic Keys expire?

Yet every single day is available for both parks on the normal ticket calendar, just reinforces that we’re making the right decision by NOT renewing our keys. I thought Disney would try to make the calendar more enticing with renewals coming up but apparently it’s maintaining the status quo, keys only go when Disney wants them to go, even with a significant portion of the keys waiting for renewal and not able to make reservations the dates are sold out, just Disney maintaining control of who goes when.

We’d rather pay day rates and go when we want rather than save some money and only be able to go when Disney wants us to go, if that means going a couple times a year rather than a couple times a month we’ll survive. It’ll also save us a small fortune we can spend on vacations elsewhere.

We love Disney but we hate the keys program, it’s just not worth it to us anymore.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Yeah - those are both the last dates available for the initial keyholders until/unless they can renew AND the first dates available for the lower level keys after the summer blockout. So everyone grabbed them as either their last days left or first days back.

 

[shambolicdefending]

We’d rather pay day rates and go when we want rather than save some money and only be able to go when Disney wants us to go, if that means going a couple times a year rather than a couple times a month we’ll survive.

This is exactly what Disney wants - you visit less often, but pay more when you do. Revenue-per-visit goes up, operating costs go down.

 

[Stevek]

I've come to the realization that it really makes no sense for me to renew. We went enough for it to pay for itself but quite honestly, I can't remember a visit that I truly enjoyed. Yeah, there were moments, but it really is such a chore and after 50 years of visits...I've finally hit the Disneyland wall. I'm sure I'll be back one day but it's really not worth the time and effort anymore.

 

[Stevek]

Yet every single day is available for both parks on the normal ticket calendar, just reinforces that we’re making the right decision by NOT renewing our keys. I thought Disney would try to make the calendar more enticing with renewals coming up but apparently it’s maintaining the status quo, keys only go when Disney wants them to go, even with a significant portion of the keys waiting for renewal and not able to make reservations the dates are sold out, just Disney maintaining control of who goes when.

Or is Disney holding back even more, trying to make it even less enticing to renew?

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

I have a friend who’s been fighting long Covid since December who finally made it back to DL this week, her first trip in 8 months… her first couple texts where photos of them on rides, MSEP, fireworks, excited emojis, etc… today is their third day and she said they’re hanging out at the hotel and ready to leave (a day early), it’s not the same, and they won’t be renewing their keys.

It’s pretty bad when someone who’s been home bound for the better part of a year is ready to go home early because the changes have “ruined the parks”.

On the plus side it looks like we’ll have travel buddies while visiting new places instead of frequently going to Disney parks next year.

 

[Californian Elitist]

I never bought a Magic Key and ended my AP in 2019. I haven’t regretted it since. I have no desire to go a bunch of times every year anymore, so a pass doesn’t make sense. When I decide to return, I’ll just pay for a one day pass and absolutely no Genie+.

Disneyland isn’t going away, so that’s the good news. Its great that some people are experiencing the plethora of other things to do on this planet.

 

[truecoat]

I never bought a Magic Key and ended my AP in 2019. I haven’t regretted it since. I have no desire to go a bunch of times every year anymore, so a pass doesn’t make sense. When I decide to return, I’ll just pay for a one day pass and absolutely no Genie+.

Disneyland isn’t going away, so that’s the good news. Its great that some people are experiencing the plethora of other things to do on this planet.

Did working at Disneyland take away some of the specialness so to speak?

 

[Californian Elitist]

Did working at Disneyland take away some of the specialness so to speak?

Absolutely. It’s never been the same, but it was still fun. I can still have a great time at DL. I’m just not a fan of all the changes that have been made.

The biggest reason I no longer visit the parks as much as I used to is lack of interest. Ever since I started traveling internationally in 2017, I’ve grown way more interested in general travel. I let my AP go in 2019 and used that money for my Italy/Germany trip that same year. That trip was way better than going to Disneyland.

While I’m prioritizing travel over Disneyland (hoping to get to Montreal next year for my birthday), I haven’t completely given DL up. I’m thinking of going during the Christmas season this year.