There was a thread on this subject, called "Desperate, desperate Universal" that got shut down because it got heated. Thank God that won't happen here! :ROFLOL:
I'll make the same point here I made there, though some people beat me to it.
Disney offers up an incredible promotion, like free dining or free Waters Parks and More option on a MYW pass, and we hail them as saviors and can't kiss their butt fast enough.
Universal offers an incredible promotion, and they MUST be desperate.
In my nonjudgmental, uninformed opinion, WDW is, indeed, making it difficult for anyone else in the Orlando theme park biz to make money. Between the MYW ticket structure, free Magical Express, dining plans, WDW makes it enticing to never leave the resort complex. They created MGM studios to directly compete with Universal, they created Pleasure Island to directly compete with Church Street, they created TL & BB to directly compete with Wet n' Wild. So yeah, Uni had to do something to get people willign to leave Disney's hallowed ground. But scoff all you want, that doesn't mean Uni is desperate. Bear with me.
Uni's prior deals used to be along the lines of "Buy 2 days, get 3 more free." Because they know that a lot of people going to Orlando mainly for WDW aren't going to spend more than 2 days in Uni anyway. But now that the MYW ticket structure makes WDW guests adopt a mindset of "the more I stay at WDW, the more afforable, per-day, my trip really is," Uni's new promotion basically makes going to Uni/IOA comparable to MYW options. You pay this much more for water parks & pelasure Island. This much for dining. This much for "no expiration." Aaaand now you can pay an extra 80 bucks and get park hopping at 2 entirely different theme parks up the road. It now becomes another option for WDW guests, as part of an overall vacation package, instead of a detour or side-trip. And if Uni indeed DOES have some new attractions in store, like The SImpsons & Harry Potter, it behooves them to get even more people in the parks, where they are susceptible for any advance hype for those attractions they put together. I remember going to Uni the year before IOA opened, and they had an interactive exhibit hyping IOA that made it look incredibly bad-______. Doing the same now, when potentially many more people will see it, will make it more enticing for people to return when those attractions are open.
Otherwise, WDW guests who go to Uni probably won't change their routines anymore than they did. They'll go one day, maybe 2, even though they have a whole week at their disposal. MAYBE, if WDW parks are incredibly crowded, they'll use their UNI pass as an extra option to beat the crowds. At this point, tt then becomes an issue of volume, volume, volume. Will enough WDW guests pony up that dough to compensate for all the locals or non-Disney-lovin' tourists who would've paid more for THEIR tickets? Once there, will the money they spend on meals and clothes and their photo packages also help compensate the money lost on less ticket revenue?
And lest we forget, as much as I hate that their Express Passes are now strictly for Uni hotel guests and people who pay for it as an option, getting in so inexpensivly might make people willing to choose to pay for the express passes in advance, which would also compensate for the loss of ticket revene. Pay-per-use only was not an option for Uni before. If you're a WDW guest who ONLY wants to spend one day at UO/IOA, you might be willing to fork over that extra dough, too, insure you hit everything with no waits so you can get back to (y)our beloved WDW. And depending on the season, if you go twice and get Express Pass both times, guess what? You're paying about as much as you would've paid on Uni's OLD promotion! You just get a couple of extra days on your pass! Which you probably won't use anyway, because of you WDW MYW pass! Six of one, half dozen of the other! Suddenly, what seems like a desperate bid to get something, ANYTHING away from WDW becomes a little more savvy, AND an eye towards short term profits (via more people eating and buying stuff) and LONG-term profits (by hyping upcoming attractions that will inspire people to return).
But, like I said, I'm pretty dumb. They're probably just desperate, like all you guys think. Really, I don't know why they keep the place open.
