Knott's Berry Farm to reopen with inexpensive season pass option

From what I have observed, it's more of the latter. They've been champing at the bit to get out for some time out here. Yes, they're P O'd that the Mouse did away with the pass program as it had been. Quite frankly I'm not surprised that Disney pulled the pin on it, as it had gotten out of control some time ago. When either park is near capacity every day, it's not a pleasant experience. We've had a Knotts annual pass for some time. What you learn with that one is don't go on a Saturday. Now that I am retired, that isn't an issue anymore

don't forget that All of the California parks are limited to only Cal residents. While there should be enough demand (look at how fast the Finger of Disney, I mean Touch of Disney sold out), I have to wonder if the lack of out of state visitors, (read:tourists), is factoring into this. There are a ton of Washington and Utah residents who make that trek to Anaheim, and they are blocked from this initial round. If, like me, they've figured out that at a reduced % of theoretical MAX capacity, which is greater than the now reduced PPP for rides, means paying FULL price for a crappy experience. That was certainly the case with our totally free (memberships) day at Magic Mountain two Fridays ago. We knew what to expect, so we gamed it out properly, but I would not have been happy if I'd paid hard cash for it. Now, amp that up to Disney pricing, and I could see how a lot of the AP folks will say hard pass. The former AP crowd are, if nothing else, very park savvy. I suspect that the smarter, non-foaming types, are going to sit back and watch the dust settle first.

5 days after opening to the general public, there appear to be quite a few days with reservations available in May for DL and almost all for DCA. There are very few days in June where there's any shortage of reservations, as well.

I wonder why. Is it the restriction to California residents, or is it that passholders are a more important component to the business than they realize? Cutting it off still seems like a weird choice instead of simply charging more for it.

I wonder if a lot of locals are waiting for the value proposition to increase and/or to see what the protocols look like in addition to not wanting to spend money when "they'll be bringing back AP's soon."

I definitely think that word is out about staffing and actual “capacity” issues. Business and leisure travelers are all suffering from travel that is now open, but without a lot of the things that you really need. Best example is a full airplane dumping you at a large airport where none of the shops or food outlets are open. Or a hotel that’s open but (for various reasons) hasn’t been able to staff housekeeping to match the now 100% open hotel. Long waits for rooms, etc. Pour all of this into a “hey let’s drive from the Bay Area to take the kids to Disneyland at $164/day, where half the food outlets will be closed and only every other row is being used on Pirates” and you can see that people may be saying, no thanks, I’ll wait.

I’m certainly in that boat. My AP got canceled (which I actually understand), and now faced with the current “value proposition” it’s absolutely not worth my money to go to the DLR right now.

Jeff said:

Cutting it off still seems like a weird choice instead of simply charging more for it.

Not really. We’ve beaten the AP topic to death previously, and when compounded by the obvious capacity constraints that were anticipated (and now known) to be mandated by Covid reopening protocols, there’s no way Disney could keep 1MM foaming at the mouth passholes satisfied. This was the perfect opportunity to do a clean cut of the program and restart. Now, with the apparent excess capacity of reservations, maybe they overshot the concerns. However, in the long run this will allow the DLR to reset the program, bring it back at new price points, without zero-interest monthly payment plans, and with a max usage component. Add to this the obvious “we’re keeping the Reservation requirement in place” (so that we have near perfect information on attendance so we can laser focus our bare minimum staffing needs, so as to maximize profit) and you can see where in the long run this is exactly what the “sharp pencil” folks have been dreaming of for years.

I disagree. If they're not filling reservations, they're not running at whatever their target capacity is. There is some magic point where would-be passholders select out because they can't afford it. Find that point, so we can keep up the "hates poor people" meme.

Agreed on the immediate short term, and yes passholders would have filled whatever current reservations are open at the moment. However there aren’t ENOUGH reservations available for the previous 1MM+ passholders, so it’s an immediate imbalance. Long-term yeah they’d find the sweet spot, but there’s no way you could match limited capacity with current oversupply of passholes, and not become a lawsuit magnet. Plus there’s no harm in a slow ramp up, with fewer than max people to help build up the “it was a great uncrowded day, you should go” word of mouth. Plus don’t forget, everyone walking in the gate is paying FULL POP! That is just about the opposite of SFMM’s rollout. Who knows what is the right approach (short term vs. long term). Again, uncharted waters for all park operators and there will be lots of post mortem analyses.

This actually reminds me of the SW:GE (CA) rollout, where the first few months had very limited crowds and did not sell out because of all the VQ madness and reservations. They seem to have hit their stride pretty quickly and it was probably better than way than having long lines and mad crowds for the first few months. In fact, I think I remember some Disney exec. taking a pot shot at Hagrid's saying, "We don't consider 10 hour lines to be a success."