Unfortunately guest satisfaction isn't as high a concern.
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News Walt Disney World to resume sales of Annual Passes (New sales resume April 20, 2023)
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
If they did this, that would be the final straw that would break the camels back for a lot of AP’s. They aren’t going to pay $25 (or some discounted rate) to park every time they go or have to jump through more hoops to park somewhere free and take an hour to use their transportation to get there.
Disney better start treading lightly. We have yet another variant of Covid more contagious than the last and if, and that’s a big if, I heard correctly vaccines are only about 60% effective against it thus far. If it gets here and we wind up under some sort of lockdown again, it’s Florida resident APs that will save their . That’s the ones they seem hell bent on running as many off of as possible.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
TikibirdLand
Well-Known Member
Wish you were right. But, the crowds keep coming. Until they see a dip in attendance, they won't learn anything. I'd be curious to know the make-up of attendance; are they majority AP or "full-price" guests? Seems it's the latter...
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
Aren’t they seeing that already?
TikibirdLand
Well-Known Member
that's why I'm asking for some attendance stats. Based on the crowds and wait times, I think they're getting all the people in the parks as they can possibly support (maybe even more). I think they've got to see attendance shrinkage as they saw after 9/11 or The Great Recession before they notice the problem.
While I don’t know for sure, I know there are a ton of AP’s. Having lived in Tampa for 13 years it had gotten to the point about every 3rd or 4th car there it seemed had a Disney annual pass magnet or 17 on their car.
And that’s what I’m saying. When there is a down turn, another lockdown, whatever and they need the local AP’s to buoy their business. Their practices these last couple of years and future decisions could have created less loyal return customers and they don’t come back to save them again.
I am an AP. It was a long hard decision to renew in September after they announced their new passes. We ultimately did and were able to do so on the old platinum system one last time. But we went back and forth. Between no tram, reservation nonsense, park hopper limitations, and no tables in wonderland, we really considered Universal. We decided on Disney for 4 main reasons:
1.) All of us wanted to go for the 50th
2.) Because the pandemic hit out of nowhere, we never…and by we never, I mean we never prepared our 5 year old…to say goodbye and understand we will not be coming back for a long, long time because we won’t have the passes to do so. We are doing that this time.
3.) Universals down payment is steep for 4 people.
4.) Our 5 year old is several food allergies. Since we have moved to Jacksonville we are no longer an hour away, can go for a few hours in the morning, and hit Chik Fil A on 27 on the way home for lunch which is one of the only restaurants he can eat anything at. We were now going to have to eat at the parks. Disney is really, really, really good about dealing with food allergies. I read up on Universals when we were trying to make a decision and their website was vague on the subject, and other places I was able to look up info on kept saying things like “they are getting better but they are not Disney.”
So, for one more year we renewed. But their decisions really are showing their true colors to us. They don’t seem to care about us, so we will take our business elsewhere or just save the $ altogether.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
I’m a couple states north and AP magnets, including the seasonal festival magnets were extremely common around here too. Would be rare that I would go a day and not see one.
No business man with any sense would turn down “mailbox money” like that.
Locals get still far and away the cheapest access at 400 for the cheap season pass. Of all the people that got screwed locals got screwed the least. They can also drop prices on a dime to get locals in. Locals just may not be as used to getting bent over a table like out of state people have in the last decade.
CntrlFlPete
Well-Known Member
so my household has three magnet-less AP holders. I got a card in the mail yesterday addressed to 'Florida Resident' from Disney Destinations.
The card was to tell me what a great time it is to become a FL RES AP holder; how I need to see everything they have going on for the 50th -- sure, it quotes Pixie Dust prices -- sure, it mentions pass sales may be halted at any time -- sure, they point you to a WEB site (where you will see only Pixie Dust passes) -- Anyhow, they do seem to be pushing passes even though many around here seem to feel they do not want to sell passes --
The card was to tell me what a great time it is to become a FL RES AP holder; how I need to see everything they have going on for the 50th -- sure, it quotes Pixie Dust prices -- sure, it mentions pass sales may be halted at any time -- sure, they point you to a WEB site (where you will see only Pixie Dust passes) -- Anyhow, they do seem to be pushing passes even though many around here seem to feel they do not want to sell passes --
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
They want to sell resident summer and weekday passes. Okay if that is when you want to go I guess
At this time they think they can provide access for those dates, for the other passes they knew they were selling admission to something that they could not provide and would get a class action suit brought against them. All the disclaimers in the world won't cover so they "paused" selling all other classes of passes
matt9112
Well-Known Member
Im not going back for this reason...granted i agree the 400 dollar pass shouldn't exsist. The epcot after 4 pass was also a joke. However the silver,gold,platinum made sense. I had silver and your right i visited for 30 bucks a day on average. But now you get 0 and all that food and merch? None of that either. I tried to keep going to the springs sometimes but that got old.
Universal gets all of my dollar now.
matt9112
Well-Known Member
Who are all these people with no jobs that can go? When i had my silver pass it was essentially just weekend visit for us. The exact time disney doesn't want me visiting.
Another satisfied customer of Chapek and D’Amaro World.
donsullivan
Premium Member
The weekday only passes have always been targeted at retirees who aren’t constrained to weekends, as well as families working in the industry who don’t have traditional M-F work weeks.
JoeCamel
Well-Known Member
Retirees that bring their kids and grandkids when they visit. Locals on weekdays will drop in after work
I’m self employed. With a little planning, I can go whenever I want.
Twirlnhurl
Well-Known Member
Perhaps Disney realized that APs rarely make park reservations early enough to impact staffing? I would be very surprised if there is a difference in the averae number of park pass reservations held by bottom-tier passholder and top-tier passholders.
If the concern is that passholders are screwing up Disney's ability to schedule labor with lower margins, perhaps they will change the passholder program so that higher-tiered passes will allow same-week reservations, while lower-tiered passes will require reservations more than three weeks out.
Personally, I see park pass reservations as a massive subsidy to Sea World and Universal. But what do I know?
If the concern is that passholders are screwing up Disney's ability to schedule labor with lower margins, perhaps they will change the passholder program so that higher-tiered passes will allow same-week reservations, while lower-tiered passes will require reservations more than three weeks out.
Personally, I see park pass reservations as a massive subsidy to Sea World and Universal. But what do I know?
DVCakaCarlF
Well-Known Member
They, like most industries, are literally testing the market by seeing how high they can raise prices before they start to loose customers. By not selling the APs, they are, indirectly, raising the perceived value of holders, as compared to those who don’t. When they do start selling passes again, the call lines will be unbearable, and, most likely, higher priced…new year, new you type .
That tells me that the decision to suspend sales was sudden, as Disney's ad agencies had already sent out the direct mail pieces.