If yall want WDW to change you need to start voting with your wallets. Stop going to the resort, tell your friends and families to visit universal or Disneyland instead ...
I became a theme park passholder this year for the first time in my life -- for the Busch/SeaWorld parks. I've been going to Disney parks and staying at Disney resorts for decades, and have visited every Disney park in the world, so never in a million years would I have imagined that I'd become a passholder for another company before I ever had an annual pass for Disney... but it happened.
With the cost of WDW annual passes continuing to rise even as the parks stagnate, the relative value-for-cost of a WDW pass has only continued a long but steady decline.
Although Busch/SeaWorld recently raised the price of their two-year platinum pass from $440 to $500 (if purchased at SeaWorld Orlando or Busch Gardens Tampa Bay -- it's substantially less expensive if purchased at one of their other parks), in retrospect that's still a bargain considering what you get: for $250 a year, you can visit any of ten theme parks or water parks in the country, plus have free preferred parking (at SWO, this is literally the first couple of rows away from the entrance), preferred seating at shows, free guest passes, roller coaster re-ride privileges, discounts on food and purchases, etc.
In contrast -- for my upcoming trip to WDW, $250 barely gets me a 2-day parkhopper -- obviously without free parking or discounts of any kind. And if I want to see the special holiday stuff at the MK, that's an additional (and substantial) upcharge.
Not that long ago, I would have gladly paid 10 times as much to visit a WDW park as I would have to visit SWO or even Busch Gardens Williamsburg, with their relatively limited number of quality offerings -- but things have changed dramatically. I look at all the amazing holiday stuff that many of the Busch/SeaWorld parks include now as part of the price of admission, like Halloween at BGW or SWO's Christmas celebration (the main reason I'm visiting Orlando for the second time in less than three months), and it's clear that these parks have pulled neck-and-neck -- and even surpassed WDW -- in many of the ways that are important to me, and to my wallet.
Add in the fact that SWO is continuing to impress, with their upcoming Antarctica attraction (utilizing technology similar to that of TDL's Pooh, which Disney for some reason has never brought stateside), and it's not even close.
That's not to say I no longer have any interest in Disney parks... I loved Cars Land and the new DCA when I visited this fall, and I'm eagerly anticipating a return visit to HKDL and TDR next year. When the new Ratatouille attraction opens at DSP or when SDL premieres in a few years, I'll be there. But I probably won't be back at WDW for a long time after this trip... even if I'm in town visiting a bunch of penguins just down the road.
