Some more Spirited information as MyMagic+ moves (limps?) forward using information I've been provided and extrapolating a bit, but just a bit.
MyMagic+, or the guest side of NEXT GEN, is clearly intended to create a tiered system of product access and delivery many here have already raised. From everything I have heard it will be sweeping and, as @
ParentsOf4 has posted on, it will introduce a layered WDW experience with a base price from which TWDC is determined to build.
(The base, of course, being your admission.)
For Burbank, it has to work as proposed because all of the revenue raising elements rest in converting and integrating something far more akin to a pay-as-you-go system closely tethered to a 'because our metrics tell us you can' model. This is what TWDC was sold on.
Repeatedly, I have heard the word 'pairing' used to align a credit card to MyMagic+. As I reported here (and Nick Franklin's team later confirmed), Disney will be phasing in this technology for all visitors. Annuals will have it, resort guests will have it, and day guests will have it. Whether by room keys, chiptix or bracelets.
This is in your future ... this IS your future, if you are planning a visit to WDW.
Why is pairing an issue? I've been told it has to do with the difference between simple linking or attaching a method of payment to the technology and this model, or perhaps more accurately described as a scheme, Disney has invested in. After all, we are used to giving a credit card to be 'on account' when we check in at WDW and all over when staying at hotels/resorts where it is likely you will be signing for items at various POS locations on the property of the hotel or resort. Pairing, however, I've been schooled, in the context of NEXT GEN, is different.
Disney wants to create distinct financial profiles of each guest to go along with that guest's specific behavior in the parks/on Disney property. Simply put, they want to know what your daughter is spending your money on and where and when (and why?), and they want to know the what, when and how of her grandmother's spending too. Now, TWDC can separate grandma's spending habits with great certainty from granddaughter's.
You will be 'asked' to 'pair' a credit card with that admission media of yours, no matter the type. No card offered, you can align that pass with a MyMagic+ account -- AKA a Disney gift card designed much like a preloaded credit card. Say no ... just go ahead ... and MyMagic+ is closed to you and your party. Along with it, well ... so much of the theme park experience you were used to that NEXT GEN has reengineered in a poorly thought out incredibly pricey plan of reinventing the whole experience of visiting WDW (wouldn't cutting edge immersive well-maintained attractions and amazing shows, parades and pyro have done the trick?)
The bottom line here, your access and experience will be tied directly to money spent or projected to be spent AFTER you have already bought-in to the park/resort/WDW vacation. Many folks have speculated that if you pay to stay at the Grand Floridian, you will likely get more FastPasses or better ones. Except, it won't stop there. And, for each guest staying with you at the Grand Floridian, the product experienced will be different based on data points and profiling.
To those who have made the argument that if a guest pays for such an accommodation, he/she should receive the best Disney has to offer ... well, maybe the Grand Floridian should simply do what other properties of its caliber or at its price points do -- deliver that product for everyone. As for extending this stay to mean that guest should be treated better or have an enhanced experience in the parks, that is what will happen should MyMagic+ be fully integrated.
It's not what should happen, and no one here should argue that it is. This allows Disney to provide a diminished product at all levels while charging even more for less.
Think about it this way, when you go to a restaurant or movie, you expect (rightfully) the same experience every other guest of that restaurant or movie theater is paying for. Disney as envisioned by NEXT GEN will provide each guest with a different one, some will get a decidedly 'less than' experience. Regardless of the amount that person has spent for a MAGICal WDW vacation.
This dynamic element is what to watch. It is key to whether Disney can successfully implement the all-important revenue raising elements of NEXT GEN. The ones a certain Spirit told you about last year.
Once more, I simply can't see how this is going to be anything but a nightmare for guests and CMs and lead to some very ugly incidents ... Pay to play, right? Oh, what, you thought you already were? No, what has always been (yes, even with FP) a largely level playing field will tilt dramatically now in favor of the biggest spenders ...
(And, no, that doesn't necessarily mean those who have spent lots in the past because Disney wasn't able to track that spending as it can now ... what if you visit 42 days a year, but stay with Aunt Martha in Clermont? What if you have been visiting since 1977, but paying/staying under a different name since a divorce? The what-ifs are endless, almost like the privacy issues, and Disney can't take the chance of giving you top tier service. Someone who never visited until 2006 and stays, plays, dines and shops all with Disney at deluxe resorts? That's someone who's gonna be lavished with top tier status ... but more to come on that front ...)
