WSJ: Even Disney Is Worried About The High Cost Of A Disney Vacation (gift link)

[el_super]

Bolded is where the disconnect is. Disney is a premium product only when compared to regional parks. When you start comparing it to cruises and luxury European vacations it's not in the same ball park.

That's pretty subjective. I'm sure there are people out there that would rather go to WDW than Europe.

To be clear though, I was referring to the theme park space. They have to raise prices to keep building attractions. The disconnect is expecting regional park prices with Disney quality attractions. Or expecting pricing to stay the same/unchanged, while overall attraction count goes up.

Disney needs to add more lower tier attractions as well as shows to spread out the crowds. If they add about 10 attractions to each park then the parks could support 2019 levels.

Why?
What Incentive is there to ride a lower tier attraction if the cost is the same as riding a higher tier attraction?
What attractions get replaced in a guests day by riding a lower tier attraction? Am I skipping Mine Train to ride Dumbo instead?
Why do they need to be at 2019 levels anyway? The parks were miserable back then. Why go back?

The answer is not to keep raising prices to lower attendance. Eventually you run out of people willing to pay those prices for a premium theme park. The demographic they are after, very few are interested in theme parks

So you are firmly in the camp of, don't raise prices and stop adding new things?
Hope that nostalgia and popcorn buckets drive attendance?
Hope that a reasonable price for a cheeseburger incentivizes higher intent to return?

It's certainly a valid way to run the parks.

 

[Jrb1979]

That's pretty subjective. I'm sure there are people out there that would rather go to WDW than Europe.

To be clear though, I was referring to the theme park space. They have to raise prices to keep building attractions. The disconnect is expecting regional park prices with Disney quality attractions. Or expecting pricing to stay the same/unchanged, while overall attraction count goes up.




Why?
What Incentive is there to ride a lower tier attraction if the cost is the same as riding a higher tier attraction?
What attractions get replaced in a guests day by riding a lower tier attraction? Am I skipping Mine Train to ride Dumbo instead?
Why do they need to be at 2019 levels anyway? The parks were miserable back then. Why go back?




So you are firmly in the camp of, don't raise prices and stop adding new things?
Hope that nostalgia and popcorn buckets drive attendance?
Hope that a reasonable price for a cheeseburger incentivizes higher intent to return?

It's certainly a valid way to run the parks.

I'm saying stop being so aggressive with price increases and bring back more of the all inclusive feeling for guests.

The parks need those lower tier attractions as filler. Rides like Muppets, Dumbo and Country Bears have their space. It's wait rides to fill in between the top tier rides.

 

[Chi84]

When there is more to do/ride in a park, doesn't that increase the value for money paid?

The problem is that people often want to do the same thing.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

The parks need those lower tier attractions as filler. Rides like Muppets, Dumbo and Country Bears have their space. It's wait rides to fill in between the top tier rides.

Not to mention that some people only want to do those types of attractions. Kids love spinners like dumbo, carpets, and tea cups.

Little kids and older adults can enjoy muppets and country bears together.

 

[el_super]

I'm saying stop being so aggressive with price increases and bring back more of the all inclusive feeling for guests.

This is the disconnect. You can't make a service/experience/offering with a limited supply, meet increasing demand without putting some barrier in place (like higher prices or complexity in obtaining it).

It's like offering a front-of-the-line pass to everyone. If you offered it to everyone for free, you wouldn't really have a working font-of-the-line pass would you? You can place up barriers such as booking them months out, only allowing for certain times or certain slots, and having a complex system of invisible tiers... or you can just charge people.

It's true for the individual parts of the park, and also true for the park at a macro level too.

The parks need those lower tier attractions as filler. Rides like Muppets, Dumbo and Country Bears have their space. It's wait rides to fill in between the top tier rides.

Yeah.... calling them filler attractions betrays their nature of being lesser attractions. This is why a lot of them sit empty most of the time, and why their value is really questionable.

You end up with a scenario where Carousel of Progress is half empty, while people are complaining that Space Mountain's line is too long.

 

[flynnibus]

IMO what is hurting them the most is going away from that all inclusive feel they used to have. While Disney was always high priced, once you paid for it, almost everything was included when you got there.

I think that's a distortion...

Disney was never like an all inclusive. Disney always charged and offered paid experiences. The difference was those experiences were generally supplemental - and not detracting from your typical guest experience.

Everyone paid for a meal...
Everyone paid to get into the park...
No one was suffering because someone opt'd to pay for a behind the scenes tour...
No one was suffering because someone opt'd to pay for a nicer meal...
No one was suffering because that family opt'd to buy a light wand while another didn't...
Everyone got in the same lines...

What changed was not about paid or not.. What changed was -what- they monetized and the monetization of convenience

Want those nice seats for the show? Well now we reserved those for who bought more...
Don't like the lines? Well you can buy your way out of them.. and make others experience worse for doing so
Want that character interaction? Well you can buy this meal experience with fixed absurd pricing..
Want that parking space? Well you can pay for PREMIUM parking now!
Just want to drive your car? Oh we've decided you have to pay for parks and hotels separate now... because we can
Don't like the crowds? Well how about you pay for this limited park hours experience...

They literally started charging people to buy their way out of pain... pain that previously would have been something the company would have strived to minimize through the quality of their product/service.

Now, its more like "sure, we can do better.. but you gotta pay for that fix"

That's what rubs existing customers so badly

 

[Agent H]

This is the disconnect. You can't make a service/experience/offering with a limited supply, meet increasing demand without putting some barrier in place (like higher prices or complexity in obtaining it).

It's like offering a front-of-the-line pass to everyone. If you offered it to everyone for free, you wouldn't really have a working font-of-the-line pass would you? You can place up barriers such as booking them months out, only allowing for certain times or certain slots, and having a complex system of invisible tiers... or you can just charge people.

It's true for the individual parts of the park, and also true for the park at a macro level too.




Yeah.... calling them filler attractions betrays their nature of being lesser attractions. This is why a lot of them sit empty most of the time, and why their value is really questionable.

You end up with a scenario where Carousel of Progress is half empty, while people are complaining that Space Mountain's line is too longer.

Is it wrong that carousel of progress is empty though? Not everyone wants to do that stuff but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be built.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I think that's a distortion...

Disney was never like an all inclusive. Disney always charged and offered paid experiences. The difference was those experiences were generally supplemental - and not detracting from your typical guest experience.

Everyone paid for a meal...
Everyone paid to get into the park...
No one was suffering because someone opt'd to pay for a behind the scenes tour...
No one was suffering because someone opt'd to pay for a nicer meal...
No one was suffering because that family opt'd to buy a light wand while another didn't...
Everyone got in the same lines...

What changed was not about paid or not.. What changed was -what- they monetized and the monetization of convenience

Want those nice seats for the show? Well now we reserved those for who bought more...
Don't like the lines? Well you can buy your way out of them.. and make others experience worse for doing so
Want that character interaction? Well you can buy this meal experience with fixed absurd pricing..
Want that parking space? Well you can pay for PREMIUM parking now!
Just want to drive your car? Oh we've decided you have to pay for parks and hotels separate now... because we can
Don't like the crowds? Well how about you pay for this limited park hours experience...

They literally started charging people to buy their way out of pain... pain that previously would have been something the company would have strived to minimize through the quality of their product/service.

Now, its more like "sure, we can do better.. but you gotta pay for that fix"

That's what rubs existing customers so badly

while definitely not "all inclusive" you did get more for your $ in the past

used to get transport from the hotel and they took care of your bags - that was something that made the experience seem elevated and worth a premium
got included magic bands
got included line skipping (yes, everyone had it so wasn't as valuable, but still something included)
had longer hours and evening extra hours at one park every night that everyone who stayed on property had access too

now you don't have any of that or it costs more and your base line price has gone up - so it does create the "less for more" feeling and I think increases the hurdle for some to be willing to spend the $ especially if in a position where it is a major sacrifice for you to do so

 

[flynnibus]

now you don't have any of that or it costs more and your base line price has gone up

Like I said.. they've monetized convenience

You don't NEED magical express...
You don't NEED Fastpass...
You don't NEED a magic band...
You don't NEED EMH...

But we all want those things because they improved the experience and Disney has turned around and made them pay to play or simply said you can buy it elsewhere.

Instead of doing better - they've held out their hand and said "you gotta pay to play"

 

[MickeyLuv'r]

Another aspect of the discussion that hasn't quite been covered is the change in service, but much of it is hard to debate here because it was always a soft thing.

But WDW used to have more things like the Tom Sawyer Island paintbrushes, surprise room upgrades, giving you some kind of freebie if there was any kind of service problem, or just giving you some kind of extra just to make your day special. Those kinds of surprise treats are not nearly as frequent as they once were.

 

[flynnibus]

But WDW used to have more things like the Tom Sawyer Island paintbrushes, surprise room upgrades, giving you some kind of freebie if there was any kind of service problem, or just giving you some kind of extra just to make your day special. Those kinds of surprise treats are not nearly as frequent as they once were.

Internet ruins a lot of those things

1 - They are less suprises when everyone reads about them everywhere and its viral everywhere
2 - When they are less suprises, they become 'expectations' and bad customers abuse staff and the perk itself
3 - Common knowledge means abuse impacts scale - it expands from annoyance to 'disruptive'

TLDR - everything painful about a perk becomes worse when the Internet talks about it. And it usually leads to reduction in service as a result.

 

[Agent H]

Internet ruins a lot of those things

1 - They are less suprises when everyone reads about them everywhere and its viral everywhere
2 - When they are less suprises, they become 'expectations' and bad customers abuse staff and the perk itself
3 - Common knowledge means abuse impacts scale - it expands from annoyance to 'disruptive'

TLDR - everything painful about a perk becomes worse when the Internet talks about it. And it usually leads to reduction in service as a result.

Sad but true

 

[James Alucobond]

Internet ruins a lot of those things

1 - They are less suprises when everyone reads about them everywhere and its viral everywhere
2 - When they are less suprises, they become 'expectations' and bad customers abuse staff and the perk itself
3 - Common knowledge means abuse impacts scale - it expands from annoyance to 'disruptive'

TLDR - everything painful about a perk becomes worse when the Internet talks about it. And it usually leads to reduction in service as a result.

Also, I have still gotten surprise compensation even within the last three years whenever I've encountered issues, some of those issues being things that I actually thought were very minor. It very much still happens. Sometimes I wonder if in some cases, people massively exaggerate the level of inconvenience they have faced, particularly when it comes to hotel issues beyond basic crowding.

 

[el_super]

Is it wrong that carousel of progress is empty though? Not everyone wants to do that stuff but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be built.

It's not great if you're Disney and you want to maximize utilization and efficiency. Also makes it harder to justify spending money on building another filler attraction with limited appeal.

 

[flynnibus]

Also, I have still gotten surprise compensation even within the last three years whenever I've encountered issues, some of those issues being things that I actually thought were very minor. It very much still happens. Sometimes I wonder if in some cases, people massively exaggerate the level of inconvenience they have faced, particularly when it comes to hotel issues beyond basic crowding.

oh yeah, people hear about compensation and then again, it becomes 'expectations'... and then selfish ones will lie to get their cut. The internet just amplifies all these things because of availability of information/awareness of something.

See for instance people wanting refunds at town hall over some show or weather issue, etc.

 

[UNCgolf]

It's not great if you're Disney and you want to maximize utilization and efficiency. Also makes it harder to justify spending money on building another filler attraction with limited appeal.

Parks need that kind of excess slack capacity, though. It's not good if every single attraction has a 45-60 minute wait for a variety of reasons.

Disney's problem is that their costs have ballooned so much that they spend what used to be E ticket money to build a C ticket, and that is hard to justify from a budgeting standpoint. If it's going to cost that much to build a smaller attraction that won't be a draw, may as well go ahead and build a major one instead.

 

[Laketravis]

When guests are getting slapped in the face all day and night with ridiculous prices for everything from snacks to character meals to beverages and beyond, it's a constant awareness of excessive expense and a forced exercise in mental math.

I've said this before and I'll say it again - I think the required response is simple: WDW needs some loss leaders to recreate the perception of value. In the parks and at the resorts. They've had it before in the form of FP, DME, free Magic Bands, etc.

It honestly doesn't take much to help someone who just spent $300 a night on a room think they got a good deal, or spent $400 to get into the park but "only" paid $30 per person for a character meal. Or $2.50 for a pretzel or popcorn AND a drink.

WDW doesn't even have to lose any money on this - simply select some high margin items with minimal sales volume and promote the hell out of them at a much reduced cost. For every item or service that is perceived to be expensive, counter with items or services that scream value. It's a powerful psychological effect.

 

[DisneyHead123]

Also, I have still gotten surprise compensation even within the last three years whenever I've encountered issues, some of those issues being things that I actually thought were very minor. It very much still happens. Sometimes I wonder if in some cases, people massively exaggerate the level of inconvenience they have faced, particularly when it comes to hotel issues beyond basic crowding.

I feel like you’re a little more likely to get some pixie dust if you’re staying at a deluxe resort, although that’s based on very limited anecdotal experience.

Also, CMs are human. Maybe you just have a friendly face and are a likable person!

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Another aspect of the discussion that hasn't quite been covered is the change in service, but much of it is hard to debate here because it was always a soft thing.

But WDW used to have more things like the Tom Sawyer Island paintbrushes, surprise room upgrades, giving you some kind of freebie if there was any kind of service problem, or just giving you some kind of extra just to make your day special. Those kinds of surprise treats are not nearly as frequent as they once were.

Definitely a hard thing to quantity or now and everyone's experience is different. We were just there last week and had some great interactions and got a little pixie dust from one CM so it definitely still happens.

Also probably a situation where things get spread around online and then some people "demand" pixie dust and they have to back off in some cases and things get ruined due to how some guests act - but I still think WDW has overall excellent customer service

 

[MisterPenguin]

Pell Mel?

No thanks, doctor wants me to cut back to just one pack a day.