Lee
Adventurer
Boom.Austin - Welcome to the forums and what an excellent article. Since you are posting this here, I'm assuming you are at least aware of (or are becoming so) the Disney Parks fan community's feelings over the MM+ project. There are a few items in the article I would like to make reference to that really hit the nail on the head for my personal thoughts on the project.
The story of MM+ ‘round these parts is that Disney Parks was at a crossroads and it is at that junction, MM+ was born. The story goes that the crossroads was very much like what you describe as the key metrics listed above – lines, costs, and frustrations. One path was heavily investing on addressing this head on the way Disney Parks use to resolve issues by reinvesting heavily on what has worked in the past – new attractions and new experiences to ease the burden on the existing infrastructure. The alternative path was to “reinvent the guest experience” using technology to get more value out of the existing infrastructure (e.g. attractions) and lessen the need for more in the future. The key driver was maximizing the ROI on the World as we currently knew it as adding "more" to the table added additional overhead costs, so the "what if" concept was adopted.
“According to multiple sources, certain key metrics, including guests’ "intent to return," were dropping; around half of first-time attendees signaled they likely would not come back because of long lines, high ticket costs, and other park pain points.”
Since the statement above was the initial genesis of the MM+ project, I’d like to take a moment to pick apart the reasons Disney Parks listed as the reasons for guest opting out of their “intent” to return.
Long lines – MM+ and it’s offspring FP+ do not alleviate long lines at rides and attractions. At best, they can “steer” crowds from popular attractions (e.g. long line) to attractions that are less popular (e.g. shorter lines) by giving them a perceived value in a shorter return time. Using practical examples, if Test Track frequently commanded lines in excess of 60 minutes – you could increase guest satisfaction if you could successfully pull some of the people out of line for the popular ride into something that isn’t, like say for example Journey into Imagination with Figment. If the perceived value was high enough for the alternative, like let’s say the option of either riding Test Track 90 minutes from now versus Imagination 10 minutes from now, then you’ve accomplished the goal of making a dent into guest satisfaction by shuffling the deck around. The unfortunate side of this, is that by doing so – the net operational capacity of the park has remained the same. Attractions can only service so many people per hour and MM+ does not bring any new operational capacity to the table. What ultimately makes an attraction popular/or have a long line is the amount of suggestive satisfaction a guest places upon it. If attractions around the resort are less popular, steering more people to attractions that have historically already shown to be low in satisfaction will ultimately drive down a guest’s intent to return no matter how short of a wait/return time they were provided.
High ticket prices – MM+ has not had any agenda to reduce ticket costs and as your article has mentioned, the implementation costs for the project alone have gone beyond expectations. Nothing planned or discussed openly about the NextGen project have directly been associated with lowering costs to a guest’s vacation – unless, the underlying data mining WDW can gather can effectively be used to reduce their costs and they plan on passing the savings along to the consumer. Since this project has begun, it’s safe to say that costs have done nothing more than increase.
Other park pain points – Nebulous at best, other pains could be the troubles in planning or opening a door. It’s probably best to say there has been success at many of the intangibles that MM+ can offer to the guest. The perceived value for this part of the project is high. I’ll come back to the concept of perceived value in a bit.
“Simultaneously, the stunningly fast adoption of social media and smartphones threatened the relevance of the parks.”
The article mentions guest technology as another driver for the birth of MM+; but, the article doesn’t reference any correlation to that being a driver to the metrics Disney gathered on the “intent to return” challenge they were facing. Did their research show that a guests intent to return ultimately hinged on their ability to use their smartphone to make a FP+ reservation? I find it hard to believe that any random survey of guests would list using more technology as an unsolicited response to why they may not consider coming back. Unfortunately, for me, this connection between technology and Disney Park vacation remains to me a nicety and not a necessity.
So, if “intent to return” was the genesis behind the project as it is currently implemented, it’s important to reflect on if it has been a success at addressing the initial drivers for the project - “long lines, high ticket costs, and other park pain points”.
Ultimately, it becomes a matter of perception and that is always a game, that when played against the Mouse, the house will be holding all the cards. The perceived value of MM+ is what the project ultimately comes down to. My guess is that when surveyed at the end of their stay, guests will likely come away with thinking that their MagicBand was their life preserver and a key driver of why they enjoyed their vacation so much. Unfortunately, that guest may not have known at what cost (financial and otherwise) that Band cost them.
What did we all give up to become married to the wristband?
For starters, we gave up on addressing the first named complaint on a guests intent to return – long lines.
The costs for the MM+ project have meant that for the last several years, the WDW parks have gotten very little budget in terms of adding new capacity. Fantasyland came online; but, beyond that – it’s been more or less a shuffling of the deck with some attractions coming online, some going off and some getting “plussed”. What has happened has certainly not kept of natively with the increases in attendance the Resort has seen. The Resort isn’t treading water with capacity, it’s actively sinking. With the majority of all attractions now with FP+, it’s rare to find any attraction with a minimal wait. Also apparent is the increase in guest volume in the streets throughout the parks. With more FP+ times available, fewer people are waiting in standby and those people increase the impression of “long lines” at every facility or just general congestion. Now, before some claim that capacity will come in the form of Toy Story Midway Mania and Soarin’s new found capacity – a word of caution: adding increased to those attractions alone will not fix the issues with the overall resort. The parks that those attractions are in need to keep people satisfied for the entire day and not heading for the Magic Kingdom when they are done with their respective bill of attractions. There is nothing wrong with steering crowds around; but, steering them to attractions that didn’t pull a line before is just foolish. If operational expenses are so crucial in Orlando (we can’t have more than X number of attractions online at a time in a park), then budget should be placed on pruning away the unpopular and replacing it with something that is.
Other costs that can be associated with MM+ are also related to the decrease in “Show” quality throughout the resort. Attractions don’t get the necessary maintenance due to budget or due to the need for FP+ times needing to be kept in the system. Staffing has been reduced along with entertainment options. Inside word is again, these are due to budget overruns from the MM+ project.
Non-tangible costs for guests are also apparent. The loss of the spontaneous event is one of the greatest losses. So much of what happens at WDW these days occurs like clockwork. Guests have to micromanage their time to get from one preplanned event to the next that the chance encounter with “random” Disney magic has less opportunity to occur. No longer can you afford to stop and watch a street performer (assuming they weren’t part of the budget cuts) as you rush to your next FP+. Much like Hook from Peter Pan, the Croc is chasing ever after us with MM+. Tick tock, tick tock.
So, from this Disney Parks fan – while I can appreciate everything that MM+ can do currently and can theoretically do in the future, I can’t abide by what it has cost to give us so little. The Resort is in far worse shape today than it was when the project began.
I would’ve much rather seen the resort at the crossroad ante up on what was tried and true and working all along – continue to offer exciting and new experiences with world class service and attention to detail. Had the WDW done something similar to what Disneyland Resort did when it was at its crossroads of deciding what to do when it was faced with how to keep Disneyland park from getting overrun. They decided that California Adventure wasn’t pulling enough of its weight and needed to keep guests captive their all day in lieu of crossing the Esplanade to the original magic kingdom. They gave it a budget worthy of the quoted MM+ rollout and it has been successful for the last several years at pulling its weight. Had WDW done something similar… who knows what we’d be talking about now? The future at WDW bring Pandora and Star Wars land. Let’s hope those offerings bring enough to the table to offset the increases in attendance they will natively bring or else we may end up back where we started.
I would argue that California Adventure’s Fun Wheel Challenge comes as close as possible to marrying the “smartphone relevance threat” to the Disney Parks experience as anything does at WDW.
Home run.
) new lands in Disney's Hollywood Studios. That's why Disney does not plan to role out full versions of MyMagic+ at its other resorts.
