Magic Key Renewals?

[el_super]

Which feels kind of odd, massive discounts for locals but not many discounts to entice non locals to stay longer. Their words indicate they want more tourists but their actions indicate they still prefer locals.

I don't think these two ideas are incongruent really. The last three day ticket (which I guess wasn't just so cal) was really part of an effort to convince locals that they didn't need to have an annual pass. Selling 3 days instead of 10+ helps preserve capacity and helps them manage crowds a little better.

On the other end of the spectrum, if the Grand is still selling out at $700 a night, their ability to attract more tourists may not result in any direct revenue increase. They're already hitting the capacity for tourists they can house.

If what the execs have been saying for the last few years (both Iger and Chapek) really do signal a change in direction for the parks as a whole, it would make sense over the next few years that services and infrastructure that were directly tied to the rampaging AP crowds would start to be dialed back, so that additional capacity for higher spending guests can be added. This could be as simple as removing parking lots for more hotel rooms/villas.

You can't start removing parking lots until the AP crowds are controlled though.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

Purely anecdotally, I don't know any local keyholders who would want or use multi-day tickets to visit the parks. They (and I) want to go weekly/biweekly/monthly to experience all the constantly changing things at the park year round. Not three days in a two week or even two month span and then done.

The only useful alternative for such visitors is a pass that caps the number of visits total for a year - i.e. a 12-visit, 24-visit, 50-visit/year pass. I'd be fine with that alternative and don't know why they didn't do that with the Key program to distinguish it from the AP program anyway.

 

[jrayfarm]

Purely anecdotally, I don't know any local keyholders who would want or use multi-day tickets to visit the parks. They (and I) want to go weekly/biweekly/monthly to experience all the constantly changing things at the park year round. Not three days in a two week or even two month span and then done.

The only useful alternative for such visitors is a pass that caps the number of visits total for a year - i.e. a 12-visit, 24-visit, 50-visit/year pass. I'd be fine with that alternative and don't know why they didn't do that with the Key program to distinguish it from the AP program anyway.

This is exactly what I thought they were going to do last year, and hope they’ll consider this year instead. Then, the visit days can be dumped into the regular reservation pool with no blackouts.

 

[el_super]

This is exactly what I thought they were going to do last year, and hope they’ll consider this year instead. Then, the visit days can be dumped into the regular reservation pool with no blackouts.

They would still need to have blockouts. Even if you cap the number of visits, you can't have every AP holder visiting on July 4th or any other particularly busy holiday/weekend.

I think with the multi-day discounts hitting around $80 a day, it seems obvious that the AP figures need to come up to about that same number, so that each visit is around $80. Figuring every other week or once a week that puts the expected cost of an AP around $800-1400 dollars. The previously available cheapest AP was $399.

I don't see any issues with the current system staying (other than what was brought up during that lawsuit), but they will need to significantly raise prices on them to keep them under control.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

The only useful alternative for such visitors is a pass that caps the number of visits total for a year - i.e. a 12-visit, 24-visit, 50-visit/year pass. I'd be fine with that alternative and don't know why they didn't do that with the Key program to distinguish it from the AP program anyway.

I’ve also thought this was a good solution for a while. Something like a 10 ticket pass for $600, 20 ticket pass for $1100, 30 ticket pass for $1500… still gives a good price for those that go a lot but people would be less likely to go hundreds of times a year if they were paying for each day.

At this point I’d settle for them just getting rid of the 14 day expiration on tickets. 5 day tickets are pretty reasonable at $75 a day, if they were good for 3 months we’d just buy those and use them over a few months. Having to buy 2 day tickets every few months is ridiculously expensive at $125 a day.

 

[shambolicdefending]

This is exactly what I thought they were going to do last year, and hope they’ll consider this year instead. Then, the visit days can be dumped into the regular reservation pool with no blackouts.

There's a good argument to be made for a capped visit system, but I can't see a scenario where there aren't any blackouts.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

I'd be totally fine with a simple global blockout of all holidays for all passes. You want to go on Halloween or Christmas or New Year's? Pay the day rate. Otherwise, you have up to "x" many visits in the year usable as best fits into the guests' schedules.

 

[shambolicdefending]

That's probably what I'd probably do if I were czar of Disneyland.

Have a universal blockout calendar. It would have about 200 open days. Weekends and June-August dates would be more scarce, but there would be some. You'd have a few different purchase tiers, with the effective discount off the normal day ticket price increasing the higher you got.

10-days-per-year, 15% effective discount
15 days, 20%
20 days, 25%
30 days, 35%

30 visits per year would probably be my cap. And it's use it or lose it. No refunds or rollovers if you don't get all of your visits in.

I think this system would also disincentivize the "drop-in" visits that Disneyland isn't a huge fan of. If you have a hard ceiling on the number of times you can use your pass, you're much less likely to show up at 7PM and leave at 10PM without spending much money on food, etc.

 

[Sailor310]

I just chatted with DL central. Still no word on magic key renewals. I think it's inexcusable for DL to not give any word whatsoever this close to expiration. Surely, they have a new plan set up, even with some contingency for losing the lawsuit. If they're not going to have any annual pass program, they know that, too.

 

[mickEblu]

I just chatted with DL central. Still no word on magic key renewals. I think it's inexcusable for DL to not give any word whatsoever this close to expiration. Surely, they have a new plan set up, even with some contingency for losing the lawsuit. If they're not going to have any annual pass program, they know that, too.

Where did I see someone throw out August 1st? Was that here?

 

[Sailor310]

Where did I see someone throw out August 1st? Was that here?

I don't think it was here. Come to think of it, I did have a friend who had heard "two weeks" Sunday.

 

[shambolicdefending]

Inside 30 days, now and still not a peep.

This subject isn't getting enough attention. Something unprecedented must be going on behind the scenes for Disney to be proactively preventing people from giving them more money.

 

[Newtwo]

Inside 30 days, now and still not a peep.

This subject isn't getting enough attention. Something unprecedented must be going on behind the scenes for Disney to be proactively preventing people from giving them more money.

Or sheer incompetence.

 

[freebird72]

I noticed they added more MK reservations to all key levels for the last half of August.

 

[shambolicdefending]

Or sheer incompetence.

You can accuse Disney of being incompetent at many things, but figuring out how to separate people from their money is not one of them.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

Inside 30 days, now and still not a peep.

This subject isn't getting enough attention. Something unprecedented must be going on behind the scenes for Disney to be proactively preventing people from giving them more money.

This is shocking, there’s hundreds of millions of dollars in play here so whatever is delaying this must be serious. The only thing I can think of is they are worried they’re going to lose the lawsuit and pay more in damages than they’ll earn by offering renewals.

We’ve been APs for a decade but have decided not to renew so I’m torn on this, we have a ton of AP friends that love their Keys so I want renewals to happen for their sake but we’ll now be paying for day tickets so I’m also hoping they’ll reduce the size of the Key program so the parks are less busy when we do go.

 

[Californian Elitist]

You can accuse Disney of being incompetent at many things, but figuring out how to separate people from their money is not one of them.

Yep. Disney is not incompetent here. They know EXACTLY what they’re doing.

 

[Phroobar]

Maybe Disney has figured out that they don't need the AP backfill? The parks are packed with one day ticket customers.

 

[aaronml]

I suspect that the ongoing lawsuit is related to the delays. It’s possible that they are waiting for a judgement (or something else) to happen with that case before they announce their renewal plans.

 

[mickEblu]

I’m still going with they re announcing something in August. Whether it’s the future AP program, an ultra lawyered Magic Key program or some stop gap measure.