News Walt Disney World to resume sales of Annual Passes (New sales resume April 20, 2023)

[MisterPenguin]

Oh, and @DCBaker, maybe you'd want to change the thread title. It's now the opposite.

 

[matt9112]

Tell me the last time any park except for the MK came even close to an organic phase closing.

It doesn't happen does it? Epcots capacity is ludacris. On paper i figure HS is probably the most likely since its the lowest cap however we dont see that either. To me this dosen't come across as crowd control this comes across as we dont want this money we want that money. Look at how many people on these boards buy APs for there regular vacations to save....i see this as a mechanism to try and force those folks to day tickets. Locals are much more price sensitive than a family from upstate new york is. Furthermore the cheapest pass that ONLY a local could even reasonably use is still available.

 

[matt9112]

Must be nice to not worry about hitting phased closings.

Uhhh what? Theres legitimately no reason to artificially cap attendance....covid averages are low enough and if staffing is the issue offer more money god knows they have it.

There is absolutely no valid argument for this behavior from Disney.

 

[matt9112]

If I’m Universal, I’m starting an ad campaign about my lack of a park reservation system, and availability of my APs.

I agree i know the parks sort of have an agreement to not bash each other it seems (outside of twitter quips) but if theres anytime to kick your compitition its when public perception of them is a dumpster fire.

 

[matt9112]

The cost of the pass versus standard tickets doesn't matter. What you need to be looking at per guest spending of each type of ticket holder. @ParentsOf4 any data on this? It's my guess that Disney makes much less money per guest with AP holders, especially if they're locals, than they do with regular guests. So now that you have demand exceeding the self-imposed limited capacity, who would you rather have filling your parks?

Sure but i also feel like disney expects at least some of those locals to just suck it up and buy day tickets. But i dont see that being realistic. More power to them i hope they can fill the parks with and offer a sub par experience to all the canadians and europeans.

Last time i had passes i would go basically every single weekend. Sure im not rich but thats a few hundred most times. All year long. My daily ticket price was like 15 dollars or something? You think im going to pay 100+ to visit? Bob can go **** himself.

 

[matt9112]

They know that for the next month there will unprecedented demand at pre-pandemic levels. They don’t have the workforce to support that level of capacity. After the very negative press from DLR with sold out park reservations, Can you imagine spending $1300+ On a single pass and not being able to use it?

APs are not profitable. They don’t want AP holders in the park. They would rather sell you conventional tickets and make much more off of you.

They could just properly staff the parks.....i mean....its not rocket science...not enough applicants you raise rates and benefits....thats how life works. But they would rather be artificially at capacity and fill what they do have with the most profitable that i agree with.

 

[monothingie]

They could just properly staff the parks.....i mean....its not rocket science...not enough applicants you raise rates and benefits....thats how life works. But they would rather be artificially at capacity and fill what they do have with the most profitable that i agree with.

DLR has said they will be back to prepandemic staffing levels before the end of 2021, yet they are even more heavy handed with the park reservation availability than WDW. Post externally or internally imposed covid restrictions, it has never been about managing capacity to give the guest a better experience, it’s been about fine tuning who is allowed into the parks to maximize revenue.

AP holders are the suckers that will take a beating yet keep on coming back for more.

 

[DVCakaCarlF]

DLR has said they will be back to prepandemic staffing levels before the end of 2021, yet they are even more heavy handed with the park reservation availability than WDW. Post externally or internally imposed covid restrictions, it has never been about managing capacity to give the guest a better experience, it’s been about fine tuning who is allowed into the parks to maximize revenue.

AP holders are the suckers that will take a beating yet keep on coming back for more.

Because the once in a while guest both spends more and expects less, while the forever guest (AP) remembers what once was.

 

[Epcotfan21]

I’m sure this question has been answered somewhere in this thread but I have a question related to renewal of annual passes and purchase of a new one.

My wife and I have our passes expire later next week. Our son turns 3 in the middle of December, so we need to buy him an annual pass. Will I be able to get him one? I thought I read before during covid that when they stopped the sale of new annual passes, they were allowing those that had to renew and purchase a new pass for a child to do that. Is that still the case?

 

[ImperfectPixie]

I’m sure this question has been answered somewhere in this thread but I have a question related to renewal of annual passes and purchase of a new one.

My wife and I have our passes expire later next week. Our son turns 3 in the middle of December, so we need to buy him an annual pass. Will I be able to get him one? I thought I read before during covid that when they stopped the sale of new annual passes, they were allowing those that had to renew and purchase a new pass for a child to do that. Is that still the case?

It sounds like you fall under the exception that was posted this morning. Renewals are still going, new purchases for kids turning 3 are being allowed, too, from what I read.

 

[castlecake2.0]

Uhhh what? Theres legitimately no reason to artificially cap attendance....covid averages are low enough and if staffing is the issue offer more money god knows they have it.

There is absolutely no valid argument for this behavior from Disney.

The argument is they don’t have the staff available to handle their parks being at full capacity. This is not to do with Covid and to do with being able to operate the park.

 

[larryz]

I activated my AP almost 3 months ago and never got any magnets. I had no idea that was a common problem.

I wonder what happens to 3" magnets in a mail sorting machine...

 

[Ayla]

The argument is they don’t have the staff available to handle their parks being at full capacity. This is not to do with Covid and to do with being able to operate the park.

They'd have people available tomorrow if they truly wanted them.

Disney doesn't want to pay any more CM's...so as we've all seen over the last year, the customer experience suffers.

 

[sWANNISAX]

I rarely post here, but this proved to be my last straw.

I recognize that it’s our fault for not making the purchase earlier, but as DVC members going down in two weeks, we feel pretty slighted by this news out of nowhere. Three of our party have AP’s, three don’t and were going to order them this week.

So, what does this mean for Disney? Well, we’re scaling back our time in the park and spending our money elsewhere. I realize six of us make no difference in the grand scheme of Disney money, but we refuse to pay for a six day ticket and then subsequent annual passes for our two trips next year. So they’ve likely lost our money and we'll be purchasing a Sea World Fun Pass that grants us access to that park until December 2022 for $85. We'll then be visiting Legoland in the spring and maybe Kennedy Space Center in the fall with a re-visit to Sea World, spending less time at Disney although not fully cutting the cord yet.

I say this only to note that Disney will indeed lose out on $$$ from us. If we weren’t DVC, we would not be making these trips and honestly, we’re looking into exploring other DVC options now beyond the parks. (And the fact that the passes are still not an option for DVC members to purchase is just awful…another ding to the ownership “privileges.”). I can envision DVC trips with ventures out to Universal in the future rather than going to Disney.

Disney just feels "dirty" to me anymore -- open up annual passes last month only to shut them down again unannounced is nothing but a pure money grab on their part. And yes, I guess they'll win a bit -- we're not denying a 2 and 4-year old a chance to see the castle for the first time so they'll get the "bigger money" of a single day ticket from some of us, but we are denying them the chance to see it multiple times. And we're not eating sit down meals and we're not purchasing many souvenirs. It's not quite as "cutting the cord" as much as some on here, but just as Disney is declining by degrees, I'm pulling back by my personal degrees.

I'm incredibly irritated by this latest news, but it's just a drop in the bucket of the awfulness that is Disney in the past ten months or so. I'm angry...but I think I'm saddened more than anything else.

The same thing has happened to my family this week. We bought disney gift cards at BJs on sale for them to buy their APs. I just have to renew mine. They didn't buy the passes as soon as we got home and now they can't. It really sucks. They were planning to go in April but now they will likely cancel when we reach the 30 day mark for DVC reservation cancellations if they do not go back on sale. This past summer I was the only one with an AP and they bought day tickets. It totally changed the way we did the parks and not in a good way. It's totally soured several of them to a place we have loved as a family. While in some ways the new park pass nonsense is easier than 3 fast passes 60 days out they just feel like this is all too much work for vacation with all the new rules, charges, and nonsense. I hope they reopen the AP program after the holidays. It seems ridiculous to roll the new thing out for a little over two months just to shut it all down again.

 

[castlecake2.0]

They'd have people available tomorrow if they truly wanted them.

Disney doesn't want to pay any more CM's...so as we've all seen over the last year, the customer experience suffers.

That’s not really true. Have you looked at careers site? They’re hiring for almost every role. And even if they were fully staffed, just because the park can fit 80,000 people in it doesn’t mean they want that many people every day.

 

[Oddysey]

The message is clear. They do not want me and my family to come to WDW when it is most convenient for us to go. They only want us at WDW when it is most convenient (profitable) for them. This is one of many reasons we no longer present them with the inconvenience. It’s a relationship that has long been out of balance.

 

[matt9112]

The argument is they don’t have the staff available to handle their parks being at full capacity. This is not to do with Covid and to do with being able to operate the park.

Did you read the second half of what i posted? Offer more pay and or benefits....thats how it works...when labor pool is small you need to fight harder to retain and acquire talent. So basically yes disney dosen't want to potentially pay and or put effort into getting there parks to operate at capacity.

So....money full stop.

 

[matt9112]

DLR has said they will be back to prepandemic staffing levels before the end of 2021, yet they are even more heavy handed with the park reservation availability than WDW. Post externally or internally imposed covid restrictions, it has never been about managing capacity to give the guest a better experience, it’s been about fine tuning who is allowed into the parks to maximize revenue.

AP holders are the suckers that will take a beating yet keep on coming back for more.

Sadly many will. Im down the street already. I used to really miss the parks and even miss the merch etc but as time goes on that has dissipated. There is no amount of pixie dust that can rectify the damage disney has done to my view of the brand.

 

[dreday3]

Did you read the second half of what i posted? Offer more pay and or benefits....thats how it works...when labor pool is small you need to fight harder to retain and acquire talent. So basically yes disney dosen't want to potentially pay and or put effort into getting there parks to operate at capacity.

So....money full stop.

It's not that easy anymore.

Our hospital is having a heck of a time hiring people for even non-clinical positions. The pay and benefits are excellent, but now the problem is people in the non-clinical positions want to be fully remote. We are hybrid, people don't want it. (we just had a meeting about this yesterday - timely! )

It's tough out there for hiring, everywhere.

 

[bcoachable]

The cost of the pass versus standard tickets doesn't matter. What you need to be looking at per guest spending of each type of ticket holder. @ParentsOf4 any data on this? It's my guess that Disney makes much less money per guest with AP holders, especially if they're locals, than they do with regular guests. So now that you have demand exceeding the self-imposed limited capacity, who would you rather have filling your parks?

Exactly