not a poll but what are your thoughts on ....

[cabihler]

hey everyone... as you can see from my profile, i have been a member here for several years and have made just a few replies and this is my first thread starting.

last month my family and i made our 100th trip to disney since 1978 and as always it was awesome. but just a few observations/thoughts about the Extra Magic Hour and Fastpass programs that i think might make our future trips even more enjoyable and i was wondering about your thoughts as well... and also i do hope that someone from WDW is reading these and might take the ideas to management.

Extra Magic Hours ---- we all love it but i think it is time for a revamp. somehow it seems to me that when you need to get a fastpass during EMH to ride the amazing rides at WDW that something is wrong... just WAY too many people. i remember fondly the days when my daughter and I could ride Space Mountain over and over again, getting off the ride and racing back around running crazy to get back on and doing this not just 2 or 3 times but 12, 13, 14 times straight. last month we were lucky to ride it twice during EMH, once standby with a 20 or 30 or 40 minute wait and once with a fastpass. what is my suggestion/solution???? ---- BRING BACK THE AT COST E-RIDE. you all remember when you had to be a resort guest ONLY and had to pay the additional $10 or $12 per person to stay in the parks after hours. --- yes i am serious. i think the time has come to revert back to having to pay for the evening EMH and also have it set at a fixed absolute max number of wristbands sold. again you must be a resort guest to qualify to be able to purchase. also disney needs to enforce the park close cutoff. last month people were still in queue to ride the likes of space mountain and soaring and race track a full hour AFTER PARK CLOSURE HOURS... these were NOT EMH banded guests but park attendees who were in the queue for rides before the park closed and were still waiting to ride a full hour after the park closed... its time for disney to better manage the park closure queue situation and the EMH throng situation as well. YOUR THOUGHTS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!

FASTPASS SITUATION ------ fastpass was an amazing idea when it started but last month by 1 or 2 in the afternoon Soaring Fastpasses were no longer available for the day. in a way its good to know that so many people are attending the parks even during the down economy but to be sure it is not cheap to take your family to WDW especially if you are staying on property. so i think a revamp of FASTPASS is needed as well ---- make fastpass available ONLY TO RESORT GUESTS. to me fastpass should be a MAJOR benefit of staying on property. we were in line to get our fastpass at Splash Mountain and i was talking to the person in front of me who was part of one of the tour groups, you know the ones with the banners on the pole and all wearing the same tee shirts LOL, and they were NOT staying on property and there was literally more than 60 of them in line to get fastpasses. again, fastpass was and is a great idea but like EMH whenever something becomes not a positive anymore then its time to rethink its policies/practices.

so to summarize.... make EMH a pay for benefit with a max number available ONLY TO resort guests and make FASTPASS also available ONLY TO resort guests.

OKAY 1 final note on a somewhat different issue --- the MAGICAL EXPRESS. last month i stayed 2 additional days after my family left. my flight home was at 6am on Northwest. on my last night there Magic Kingdom was open till 11pm and was a EMH night meaning that i was able to stay in the park till 2am. it was just past 2:30am by the time i got back to the All-Star Movies and my bus to the airport was at 3am. looking ahead weeks before arriving i realized that i would have a 1/2 hour to 3/4 hour wait from the park to the Magical Express so i decided NOT TO pay for an additional nights room for 1/3 to 3/4 of an hour. ------ this threw the Magical Express people into a whirlwind of excitement. it seems that their system was not allowing them to schedule me for a pickup past midnight of the day that i checked out even though the current Disney policy allowed me to have access to the parks via EMH far past the midnight cutoff. it took a very helpful ME operator and 2 of her supervisors more that 30 minutes to override the system and to accommodate me. i was/am very thankful for their help, understanding of what i wanted to do and actually DOING IT for me. some may read this and then say HEY JUST ABOVE HE WAS CALLING FOR..... SO WHAT DOES HE WANT TO DO HAVE IT ALL WAYS FOR HIM???? --- NO i don't just some consistency, rethinking and revamping of the systems. under the CURRENT SYSTEM i qualified for the EMH on my checkout day and that fact allowed me to be in the park past midnight and this fact should not have caused the problem it did/does with the Magical Express....

thank you all for your patience and please now YOUR THOUGHTS/IDEAS and please MS/MR DISNEY LURKER take these thoughts to your management:sohappy:

 

[JWG]

EMH:

I don't know if I agree resort guests should have to pay, it is a perk of being a resort guest. I do remember when you could pay for an extra 3+ hours at night into the parks, but was that for resort guests only? I thought anyone could do that?

I think they may need to expan EMH to be more than one park per night to help spread the crowds. I get it, that's a cost with no revenue stream so it won't happen. But that's the better guest friendly solution.

FASTPASS:

I think a tweak is needed. I partially agree, make it for resort guests only and then make it available to non-resort guests for a fee. Advanced purchase cheaper than day-of at the park. I know that a big reason people stay off-site is cost and this make it even more prohibitive (I've stayed off-site), in that respect. However, the reality of our society is that there are perks for various things and tiers of service. With the All-Star and Pop resorts, on-site has also become more economical.

MAGICAL EXPRESS:

Is not perfect. We had a flight out at 7:00am on NWA on our last trip as well. But with an 11 mos. old had no interest in a 4:00am pick-up. We chose to stay at the airport hotel. We couldn't use Magical Express the previous day because they wouldn't let us board prior to midnight the day of our flight. We were hoping to use it the day before our flight just to get to the airport hotel.

 

[cabihler]

reply

thanks for your input.... to reply to your question about regarding the pay EMH yea it was called back then E-Rides Nights and was only available at a cost to resort guests (you had to show a valid resort room key). funny thing was i recall back then that so many people remarked about how expensive it was and when WDW announced the shift to the new Extra Magic Hour format that was FREE it really was/seemed like a bargain benefit AND IT WAS... except through expansion of rooms on property it has really gotten out of hand.

i like your idea about having multiple EMH a night but i agree with your comment about revenue stream. BTW, i also noticed this past trip that there were parties of people some of whom had room keys and some did not all got EMH bracelets. HOW???? well the CMs checked the room keys fro validations but not the IDs of the guests and i saw that after they got their bracelets that some of the party left the area and gave their keys to others obviously not staying at the resorts and they went up and got their bracelets too.

your experience with your baby and not wanting to get up at 4am with the baby is one i have heard from a bunch of people previously. its not disney's fault nor is there much that they can do to resolve that; with that said it is a real problem for parents like yourselves with young children... no easy solution to that. OH YEAH and another BTW... i too do not like the 3 hour before flight time boarding of the Magic Express AND YET this last trip on my return to the airport the bus i was on did breakdown. fortunately it was immediately off of the 417 and another bus was luckily coming towards us and we only lost less than 10 minutes... so yep i hate the 3 hour jag too but disney does have this planned pretty well if something goes wrong.

 

[Eyorefan]

Okay, so... here are my thoughts.

EMH-- I believe that Disney does have paid E-Ride nights for MK... they are called "parties" now. Honestly, back in the day there were fewer hotel rooms so fewer guests and there for, less crowed E-Ride nights. I really don't think a $10 charge would do anything to reduce the crowds.

I have only ever been to one EMH night, and that was on our most recent trip, and it was only because we wanted to ride HM at night. While I wouldn't say the park was empty, it wasn't crowded either. Like anything I think it probably has a lot to do with what time of year it is.

FP- I don't really think that FP should be limited to resort guests only (although if they did that I wouldn't complain). I do think there should be more restrictions on large tour groups though. I mean, its one thing if you have a large group that is going to be split up for most of the day, but when you have a group of 30-60 people that sticks together for the whole trip, it throughs things off, weither it is FP or stand-by. I really think that Disney needs to do more to control these groups in general.

ME- We have never used it so I can't really comment. When we are in Disney we want to spend as much time at the resorts as possible so we pay the extra money to have a town car take us from and to the airport. Waiting for the ME when we arrive in Orlando, and having to leave the resort 3 hours before our flight just doesn't seem magical to us.

 

[Wilt Dasney]

last month people were still in queue to ride the likes of space mountain and soaring and race track a full hour AFTER PARK CLOSURE HOURS... these were NOT EMH banded guests but park attendees who were in the queue for rides before the park closed and were still waiting to ride a full hour after the park closed...

If you're right about these people having been in line before park close, then it sounds like this is just the system working as it's intended to. In my attraction days, it was a given that anyone in line before the park closed (even one minute prior) would be allowed to ride.

Of course, an hour-long line at the end of the day seems unusual, so maybe there's something else in play here? People circling back around and getting back in line after park close, maybe?

As to your suggestions: I don't care what they do with the EMH admission/pricing structure, but I'm completely against charging for FastPasses, for reasons I've outlined in other posts.

Disney's kept it free this long while everybody else (Universal/Six Flags) has put in paid versions of the same idea, so hopefully there's some strong feeling up the Disney food chain that corresponds with mine on this one.

 

[agent86]

---- make fastpass available ONLY TO RESORT GUESTS. to me fastpass should be a MAJOR benefit of staying on property.

I agree 100%. It's one thing to make a trip to Orlando, visit Disney, and hardly get to ride anything because the lines are moving too slowly. It's another thing entirely to go the extra and stay on property, only to have that same experience. Universal has this benefit, and I've stayed on property at Universal specifically to take advantage of that. It's awesome and I wish Disney would do it. I realize Disney has a lot more hotels, but what they could do is arrange it so that depending on which property you're staying at, each day of the week you have a particular park that you can go to and have front of line access.

 

[sarabi]

As a resort guest, I don't want to pay an extra fee for EMH. As someone who understands non resort guests are usually staying off property due to monetary issues, I don't think they should be penalized by not having fastpasses available to them. I really have no interest in seeing 3 hour long lines even if I am not the one in them.
I would love to see "controlled" EMH. A few parks are open for EMH on any given night. The park that's available for EMH for you is based on your resort. Perhaps POR, Carribean, AKL, etc have EMH at MK tonight, and GF, Coronado, Pop, etc, have EMH at EPCOT tonight. That should make transportation quite the breeze too.

 

[Fun2BFree]

The problem is that the average guest has become more savvy with EMH and FP and more people are maximizing their usage of them and hence reducing their usefulness. Personally, I would keep Morning EMHs and reintroduce E-Ride Nights, as well as making (as the OP said) FPs resort guest-only benefits. This will end up reducing waits for everyone, as without FP the regular line will move faster, and the resort guests get a truly-reduced line.

 

[Disneybird]

I'm one of those people that didn't mind paying the extra $10 for the E-Ride Nights. And would do it again, if the #of admissions were limited like they were back then.

As for fastpass, I know I'm in the minority here, but I don't like it. I use it only because it's quicker than waiting in the standby line, but if they did away with fastpass, I for one would not complain.

 

[cabihler]

great responses and ideas

had not thought about it beforehand but since mentioned i really like the idea of the EMH at different parks determined by resort. not sure if disney will go for it since it would require them to schedule more thus cost more but its a good idea...

i must confess that i agree totally with Disneybird about fastpasses. i also really do not like them but yes i do use them in order to get on more rides.... in truth i like the standby queues and would have no complaints at all about them if they were not SO LONGGGGGG.... let me explain... take Tower of Terror -- i LOVE walking the grounds in the queue everytime the smells, the mist just looking at all of the grounds and the hotel and i usually always see something i never saw before and of course walking into the lobby (sort of wish the change the queue line so i could wander through more of the lobby that is roped off currently) and another example is RnRC in that i love to read all of the concert signs (memories of groups and yes some concerts that I DID go to way back LOL)....

so yes i do not mind walking in the queue lines and i find that i miss ALL OF THAT in doing the fastpasses, sort of taking the highways past all of these amazing sites... AHHHHHHH but here is the rub waiting 2 hours or close to it in those queue lines are NOT FUN so if disney could somehow sprinking some fairy dust and solve the TOO LONG queue problem then i would be one to usually forego the fastpass all together.

and yes i too am with Disneybird that i would welcome paying for the E-Rides once again... perhaps combine the best of both ideas in that instead of limiting the number of tickets sold for E-Rides instead have them scheduled at the various parks on different nights based on your resort... this way disney gets a revenue stream from it and it also maintains crowd control... and WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE YOUR GROUP STAYING AT DIFFERENT RESORTS??? so you and your kids are at the CBR and your sister-in-law and brood are at the All-Star Movies thus you cannot fo to the same parkas for E-Rides... well maybe allow a fixed number of PREMIUM costed so you can attend together...

----------- great thoughts from everyone keep them coming

 

[Ravenclaw87]

I also do not think that fastpasses should cost money. I mean, then you'd have to consider people who have AP's--- they pay up to $500 for their yearly tickets; are you going to tell them they can't have fastpasses either? Disney can get very expensive, and I just don't think it would be right to have people pay if they're not staying on property.