MM+ Why we can't have nice things.

[GrumpyFan]

In other words their hotel operations group is completely incompetent, As Hilton and all the other major hotel companies have been filling rooms day of for decades even before the advent of todays information systems.

Wow, you seem pretty hostile against Disney in general. Not sure what that's about, but giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could be one of many reasons. Could be due to an old system they're using, it could be an operations/hospitality choice to ensure a good experience for guests, or as you said, they could just be incompetent, but somehow I doubt that considering how many guests stay there on an annual basis. Who knows, but to call them incompetent just seems crude.

I should point out also, they allow bookings day of or even within 3 days, you just have to do it via direct contact with a reservations agent.

 

[ford91exploder]

Carry a cell phone in your pocket? You're already being tracked, and the tracking done by our cellphones is by GPS, which is much more accurate.

I am getting my MagicBands in a couple of weeks for a trip in February. I'm not jumping for joy about it, but I'm keeping an open mind...

I am WELL aware of what happens with cellphone tracking, my professional expertise is wireless systems which is why I find what Disney is doing is beyond creepy.

If Disney was OPEN about the tracking and allowed guests to opt out or even give groups of guests a 'Location View' or 'Kid Finder' for their party I'd have a different opinion.

GPS solves the 'three body problem' using precise timing from 3 or more SV's, GPS actually calculates 2 positions for each receiver location - one is in space so that one is thrown away.

 

[ford91exploder]

Wow, you seem pretty hostile against Disney in general. Not sure what that's about, but giving them the benefit of the doubt, it could be one of many reasons. Could be due to an old system they're using, it could be an operations/hospitality choice to ensure a good experience for guests, or as you said, thy could just be incompetent, but somehow I doubt that considering how many guests stay there on an annual basis. Who knows, but to call them incompetent just seems crude.

I should point out also, they allow bookings day of or even within 3 days, you just have to do it via direct contact with a reservations agent.

I don't give Disney the benefit of the doubt any longer.

Not after the experience we had when they were initally rolling out LILO had a 10 Day christmas vacation scheduled with a split between OKW and AKL, When I got there and checked in system only had OKW portion of stay. However the full 10 days of points had been debited from my DVC points. Disney did BUPKIS for me because they had 'no rooms available' Needed to get guide involved to get the 6 days of points back.

And yes I had everything printed out - but the attitude was 'Tough what do you want me to do about it', Me 'Give me the stay I paid for'

Fortunately I was flying SW so at least it did not cost extra to fly back early.

I indeed have had Hilton mess up my reservation, Funny thing though they have either upgraded my room or comped me a stay at another hotel.

 

[WDWDad13]

I don't give Disney the benefit of the doubt any longer.

Not after the experience we had when they were initally rolling out LILO had a 10 Day christmas vacation scheduled with a split between OKW and AKL, When I got there and checked in system only had OKW portion of stay. However the full 10 days of points had been debited from my DVC points. Disney did BUPKIS for me because they had 'no rooms available' Needed to get guide involved to get the 6 days of points back.

And yes I had everything printed out - but the attitude was 'Tough what do you want me to do about it', Me 'Give me the stay I paid for'

Fortunately I was flying SW so at least it did not cost extra to fly back early.

I indeed have had Hilton mess up my reservation, Funny thing though they have either upgraded my room or comped me a stay at another hotel.

Disney will comp your stay most likely. Just write or email them and expect a follow up call

 

[wdisney9000]

When I got there and checked in system only had OKW portion of stay. However the full 10 days of points had been debited from my DVC points. Disney did BUPKIS for me because they had 'no rooms available' Needed to get guide involved to get the 6 days of points back.

And yes I had everything printed out - but the attitude was 'Tough what do you want me to do about it', Me 'Give me the stay I paid for'
.

I will totally back you up on this. We stayed DVC in May at AKL and upon check in they told us our room was flooded and that it was the last DVC room available. Took a few minutes but they switched our room to a standard Disney room with no problem. AKL was very helpful.

We returned in September for a DVC stay at BW and once again, upon check in we got the wrong room type. They told us they could not switch us to an equivalent BW room because the DVC rooms are operated by DVC and they have NO control in the system. This was from the front desk supervisor (or whatever the title is). I explained that AKL had no problem switching rooms for us, to which he replied in a very very snooty tone, "I'll see if they have availability and you can switch there and let them handle it". They didnt care at all about the inconvenience. I got the guide on the phone and told him I wanted to speak with manager of the hotel. He called back and said the manager was at the front desk waiting for me. (Rita was her name). But what do you know, when I got to the front desk it was just a supervisor. I told her I wanted to see the manager and she explained that Rita (manager) was in the back "checking my file". I waited ten minutes while the supervisor spit out random apologies. Rita never came out. Im not sure she was even real.

 

[George]

Just got our magic bands delivered and had to share this with you guys. I didnt think they would print this. lmao.
View attachment 41665

I'd have my head on a swivel during your vacation.

 

[khale1970]

If it makes you DisNerds any happier, while I will be dining at UOR tonight, I will be seeing Saving Mr. Banks after dinner.......in CityWalk!

For those on the outside, the DisNerd/Pixie Dust sniffers vs. the Wand Stoker/Floo Powder addicts battle is fantastic. One of these days, you and JT should have a break dance battle like the kids used to do back in the 80s. We'll get Eddie Van Halen to play a cool guitar riff while you circle each other..you clutching your wand and wearing a robe and round glasses, JT wearing mouse ears and a sweatshirt picturing all the Disney princesses.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

AOA's infrastructure and buildings were well under way in 2001 when construction was halted in a post-9/11 economy. They needed to do something with that facility before it decayed.

As prices at WDW's hotels continued their steady climb throughout the decade and an increasing number of consumers were priced out WDW's higher-end resorts, WDW legitimately had a growing market for guests desperate to stay onsite at less overpriced resorts. (Sorry but I choke on calling AOA a "Value Resort" when I think of AOA's $350/night "suite" consisting of 2 small motel rooms.)

The last 10 years have been mostly about DVC:

- Saratoga Springs Resort (DVC) - opened 2004, 1320 rooms
- Animal Kingdom Villas (DVC) opened 2007, 708 rooms
- Bay Lake Tower (DVC) - opened 2009, 428 rooms
- Art Of Animation - opened 2012, 1984 rooms
- Villas at the Grand Floridian (DVC) - opened 2013, 147 rooms

Next up is the DVC at the Polynesian and rumors of another DVC to follow that.

Occupancy rates for popular DVCs typically are over 95% whereas Disney has been averaging more than 5,100 empty rooms per day at their domestic hotels. It's hard to justify new hotel construction when you have the equivalent of 5 Port Orleans French Quarter sized hotels that are empty.

On another thread, I noted that a Standard View room at the Beach Club this Christmas starts at $660/night and other room categories only go up from there.

People at WDW this week are noting lots of half-full parking lots at the Deluxe Resorts even as the theme park parking lots are bursting.

And they wonder why they have empty rooms.

And they really think being able to book attractions 60 days in advance is going to fill them.

Seems to me corporate has forgotten that WDW is an amusement park built on swampland in central Florida and that their "Deluxe Resorts" are nothing close to 5-star hotels.

Rather than lower hotel prices and build exciting new attractions, we get MyMagic+.

As I've written before, WDW no longer is in the theme park business; it's in the hotel and timeshare business.

As I've written before, WDW no longer is in the theme park business; it's in the hotel and timeshare business. - Yes.

When a guest books a $3300 Disney holiday he is in it for the whole package, theme park + hotel. It shows up at the cash registers as $300 theme park, $3000 hotel. From a spreadsheet WDW would identify that its core business is hotels/timeshares. While one could make the case that the hotels are grotesquely overpriced motel bunkers, merely parasiting off the core business of theme parks. (Imagine All Stars Music fifteen miles to the west of WDW. How much would a room fetch? $35?)

My boy Card Walker has been crucified by history for not building hotels, for failing to see the goose with the golden eggs. But maybe he simply had great long-term vision, and wanted WDW to remain a theme park / EPCOT company. Better to outsource the hotels. Just because WDW serves 100k burgers a day does not mean they need to move into the cattle business. Or car rental business. Or etc.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

Correct. I like the old opening of UoE with the radok blocks and the old finale, both of which are hard to describe well, so all you can do is hope that the person you are talking to will get a good sense of it from @marni1971 's videos.

I sometimes think that memories fill in the blanks of many attraction videos. (And sometimes painting in some blanks with some very imaginary memories too...)

Without that mnemonic aid/cheating, videos look a bit bland. I notice there is a large difference in my appreciation of ride-throughs of rides that I kno and those I don't. The latter always feel bland and empty. Videos don't do theme park rides justice. Especially thrill rides, and rides involving large, immersive sets.

Do people who watch Horizons videos but who never rode it realise that there is a double Imax in the middle, with the ride vehicle suspended thirty feet in the air? Move over Soarin'.

 

[englanddg]

I sometimes think that memories fill in the blanks of many attraction videos. (And sometimes painting in some blanks with some very imaginary memories too...)

Without that mnemonic aid/cheating, videos look a bit bland. I notice there is a large difference in my appreciation of ride-throughs of rides that I kno and those I don't. The latter always feel bland and empty. Videos don't do theme park rides justice. Especially thrill rides, and rides involving large, immersive sets.

Do people who watch Horizons videos but who never rode it realise that there is a double Imax in the middle, with the ride vehicle suspended thirty feet in the air? Move over Soarin'.

Nor will they realize how cool the simple choice of your ending was, and how much it made you want to ride it again, and even though it was a projection with wind machines (when they worked), it gave you such a thrill since the rest of the ride was so relaxing. To go from presentation to "race through choose your own adventure" was so novel, and gave the ride immense re-rideability. First, you wanted to ride it again to catch more details in the first part of the show, second, you wanted to see what it was like to go back through the desert, since you chose space for your first "trip back".

It was a glorious ride...video will never do it justice.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I completely agree but note that WDW used to consistently have much higher occupancy rates.

Over the decades as WDW room prices increased at about double the rate of inflation, a growing segment has been priced out of them. It wasn't that long ago that a Garden Wing room at the Contemporary was the equivalent of about $200/night in today's prices. At that price, you can imagine that filling the room wasn't too difficult.

What has particularly hurt Deluxe Resort occupancy rates is DVC. In the last 10 years, WDW has more than doubled the number of DVC rooms. Until 2000, it was only OKW (761 rooms) and BWV (532 rooms). Today there are more than 4300 DVC rooms at WDW with more on the way.

Back in the old days, hotel discounts at WDW were the exceptions. Now, WDW offers discounts for most of the year.

From a business perspective, a room is like a commodity with a limited shelf life. Effectively, an unoccupied room is pure waste and represents a tremendous lost profit opportunity.

Hotel occupancy greatly contributes to the important "per guest spending" metric. It should surprise no one that corporate views improving hotel occupancy rates as vitally important at a resort with over 28,000 rooms.

Current management philosophy dictates both high volume and high margins. Anything less is viewed as lazy management. Disney wants high hotel prices and high occupancy rates.

Hotel discounts are a tool to spread crowds out over the year. Semi-permanent discounts are a sign of WDW and its hotels' succes, not of their failure. WDW and hotles are nowadays filled to capacity at peak periods, TWDC can afford to spread out the crowds over the year. Here your other mechanism besides discounts comes into play - price increases. In effect, WDW has doubled the peak period price, to the point where it still fills to completion at peak periods, and then discounts the other months of the year from that vastly increased price to retain the demand it lost with the price increase.


Four rooms of $100. There is annual demand for eight of them.
Sell them in summer until such a price as you can sell all four, say $200.
Discount them for as little as you can to retain entire demand, say one for $175 in winter, two for $150 in spring and one for $125 in autumn.
You have increases prices by 100%, and sold the rooms at discounts for 75% of the year. But that is owing to succesful strategy. In the example as well as in real WDW life the price increases and semi-permanent discounts are accompanied by huge increases in profits.

 

[The Empress Lilly]

I'll field this one since I'm one of the regulars who posted on the other thread my observations of Epcot resort parking lots being unusually uncrowded on Christmas afternoon.

I completely agree with the above by the way since my post was entirely anecdotal. As to how regular I am, all I can say is that I'm at one resort or another in the neighborhood of 50 times per year - the vast majority being the Epcot resorts.

I'm completely accustomed to seeing the A-frame signs at these hotels saying that parking is for Registered Guests only. None of those signs were out on 12/25.

It's completely true that many guests are flying in and don't have a car but it's also true that most Orlando visitors drive. According to Visit Orlando 49% of visitors in 2010 came by plane. By 2012 that had fallen to 42%. That's in spite of the fact that Orlando total tourism set records in each of the past three years.

My conclusion (not suggesting this for anyone but me) is that occupancy at BW, YC & BC must be well below 100% during the busiest period of the year. We go every Christmas Day (free cookies don't ya know) and the small number of cars and low level of activity isn't something we'd seen before.

Cool observations, thanks. There are many explanations. For example:

Americans rent cars. Europeans and South Americans far less so. (British dislike driving on the right side of the road, also Europeans in general simply do not have a car culture and don;t rent cars on Euripean vacations).
A shift from American to South American/European visitors can explain emptier parking lots at the same occupancy.

American (and European) middle class families are being priced out. This is offset by the wider web WDW can cast in a globalising world. One result would be emptier parking lots.

 

[Pumbas Nakasak]

Cool observations, thanks. There are many explanations. For example:

Americans rent cars. Europeans and South Americans far less so. (British dislike driving on the right side of the road, also Europeans in general simply do not have a car culture and don;t rent cars on Euripean vacations).

How do you account for cars being included in the price of trips if we dont use cars? I dont know a single person who doesn't rent and statistically id say the vast majority of Brits wont consider Disneys over priced hotels so will be staying off site probably in a villa and will need a car.
Id say the raeson there may be fewer brits is more to do with the cost of Air fair taxes than any other single factor (50% + the cost of a flight is now tax) thanks t the tree huggers in the coalition and lying self serving government.

 

[marni1971]

Cool observations, thanks. There are many explanations. For example:

Americans rent cars. Europeans and South Americans far less so. (British dislike driving on the right side of the road, also Europeans in general simply do not have a car culture and don;t rent cars on Euripean vacations).

Err... Not quite.

Of the few dozen Europeans I know who visit Florida, just one couple can afford on property. And all rent a car.

Straw pole I know but even so.

 

[Longhairbear]

Err... Not quite.

Of the few dozen Europeans I know who visit Florida, just one couple can afford on property. And all rent a car.

Straw pole I know but even so.

We are DVC, joining in 2003 (from California), annual, and sometimes bi annual guests since 2003, and have never rented a car. Next trip we will. Prior to 2003 we were annual guests since 1996, staying in a different on property resort, from value, to deluxe on each trip. We haven't been back to WDW in 3 years. We're using our DVC points in California, and on the California Coast Wonder cruise instead.(Easily the best vacation we ever had.)
We have no plans to to go to WDW next fall, as we will bank, and borrow for DLR trips during the next 12 months. That makes 4 years not going to WDW. So, at year 5, we do plan to rent a car, and stay at one of the DVC Villas. Poly, or GF, as they will be new to us. Perhaps we will just do the cheap points route, and stay at OKW. We will rent a car for the first time ever, and that is to see Universal, and other FLA attractions. I haven't been to NASA since I was a child. My husband has never seen it.
We'll use our DVC as a place to sleep, and cook. With a car we can side step WeGoShop, and Garden Grocer, and find exactly the fresh produce, and meats we need for dinners. Did I mention that we are both accomplished cooks with no need for going to overpriced restaurants? (And a big reason why we bought our DVC in the first place, back in 2003, for the kitchen.)
As to going to the parks at WDW, that's still up in the air. We may go for nostalgia's sake.
Other than planning, and getting dates for staying at our DVC villas (at either 11, or 7 months out...depending on which resort we want to book at, home base, or other.), not to mention airfare, ...planning our FastPasses, dining options, parades, etc. is just too much. That's not a vacation, nor relaxing... that's the opposite.
Won't happen, just refuse to even go that route.

 

[ford91exploder]

Disney will comp your stay most likely. Just write or email them and expect a follow up call

Suggest that you re-read my posting, I needed to get my guide involved to even recoup the points for the days i did not have a room as they dropped the AKV side of split. BUT charged my account for the full 10 days of the split.

I would have been happy even if they needed to send me to another resort other than the one I chose. Instead I got lots of attitude from the CM's with the notable exception of the manager at OKW who did his best to fix but he ran into the same customer (non)service walls that I did it seems that the resort managers actually have very little authority these days to actually make binding decisions.

I did write a letter praising Manager's efforts, Along with a few letters complaining about ruined vacation to which i received pro-forma letters blaming unspecified 'IT Issues' for my troubles but not even a sincere I'm sorry

This was during initial LILO rollout and I was there for the the first day of it a couple of years back and since then I have had nothing but contempt for Disney's IT related efforts.

It seems that Disney does not understand the concept of using a staging environment for testing and they run trivial unit tests instead of running a full copy of the production environment and feeding a month or so's of transactions through both systems and checking to see whether production and new environment generate the same results.

In most well run IT organizations the staging environment is usually ALSO the DR environment and generally runs the previous day's production data so in the event of needing the DR to become production you roll forward the databases with the transaction logs and update DNS to place system in production.

 

[WDWDad13]

Suggest that you re-read my posting, I needed to get my guide involved to even recoup the points for the days i did not have a room as they dropped the AKV side of split. BUT charged my account for the full 10 days of the split.

I would have been happy even if they needed to send me to another resort other than the one I chose. Instead I got lots of attitude from the CM's with the notable exception of the manager at OKW who did his best to fix but he ran into the same customer (non)service walls that I did it seems that the resort managers actually have very little authority these days to actually make binding decisions.

I did write a letter praising Manager's efforts, Along with a few letters complaining about ruined vacation to which i received pro-forma letters blaming unspecified 'IT Issues' for my troubles but not even a sincere I'm sorry

This was during initial LILO rollout and I was there for the the first day of it a couple of years back and since then I have had nothing but contempt for Disney's IT related efforts.

It seems that Disney does not understand the concept of using a staging environment for testing and they run trivial unit tests instead of running a full copy of the production environment and feeding a month or so's of transactions through both systems and checking to see whether production and new environment generate the same results.

In most well run IT organizations the staging environment is usually ALSO the DR environment and generally runs the previous day's production data so in the event of needing the DR to become production you roll forward the databases with the transaction logs and update DNS to place system in production.

Don't get your guide involved (but glad you got the points back). Email them from online and explain the situation.

 

[ford91exploder]

Don't get your guide involved (but glad you got the points back). Email them from online and explain the situation.

This was 2-3 years ago, I just brought it up to explain why I don't accept Disney's excuses for their miserable performance from IT systems upgrades NGE included.

The LILO rollout was a disaster it ruined a LOT of vacations including mine, There were other people attempting to check in only to be told they did not have a reservation etc. and it seems with NGE there were no lessons learned from LILO rollout.

I really feel bad for the CM's who are getting the blowback from these upgrades as they have to deal with hordes of unhappy customers which must be a truly miserable job.

My biggest problem with Disney these days is they have lost focus on providing the best customer experience possible. The only division of Disney which seems to be maintaining the traditional standards is DCL. Disney can only ride on it's laurels for so long.

I am truly amazed at how the CM's are trying to make magic for people while the odds are stacked against them by TWDC.

 

[Burnt Toast]

stop looking at Expedia lol --- book with a TA.

No... just no. Book with Disney directly.

... but especially stop booking with Expedia. They are the worst.

 

[Burnt Toast]

If I have a 6 story hotel, and close 3 floors, that means I don't need to pay cleaners to clean those bedrooms on the 3 floors and less maintenance, etc.

Plus it looks good for stockholders to see a 93% occupancy rate than a 44% occupancy rate!

Funny thing is... when rooms are put out like that, it doesn't affect the occupancy % at all. Empty room is still an empty room. They are still in the inventory that can be sold if need be, they just fill out the rest of the hotel first before using the rooms that have been temporarily mothballed from what I've been told.