Walt Disney World announces new annual pass program

The good news is they won’t be letting me and my silly alcohol poisoning in anyway.

It always cracks me up whenever I see or hear the “But Walt wouldn’t like it” thing. What the hell do they know? He was gone by 1966, and most of those people weren’t even born. Disneyland wasn’t even a decade old and much of his EPCOT/Florida projects were still sketches on napkins. In the meantime so much has come and gone in the industry in general. Even Walt would have changed his mind by now.

Has Abigail chimed in yet?

All of the recent documentaries they've had on Disney+ have routinely featured Walt's various points about having things evolve over time. The "superfans" never seem to get that. I think Disney's overall goal as a company to emphasize storytelling and not half-ass it has been extremely evident for most of the last 15 years. The movies are mostly hits, the theme park and cruise expansions have mostly been great... I guess sports and network TV haven't been that great.

Disney has a supply and demand problem though, and that's why pricing keeps going up. It's really naive to frame it as an issue of greed. I despise going to Magic Kingdom most of the time, because it's just too crowded. It sounds like Disneyland in recent years has been completely unmanageable (and it makes you wonder why people kept going).

That is the thing - why do people keep going?

Is it the same people that keep coming or do they go once and say never again because it is not an enjoyable experience? If it is the latter, that means there are enough newbies to keep taking the place of the dissatisfied customer.

Or is there enough people that just view the experience as being Disney and they put up with it?

> “But Walt wouldn’t like it”

I usually suggest that those people read Neal Gabler's excellent biography. Good ol' Uncle Walt who just wanted a nice place for everyone to have fun was an act--and one he was good at playing.

I imagine it's the latter. I mean, look at all of those miserable assholes we're referencing. They sure don't sway from something they allegedly hate. They've all been threatening to bail on Disney for at least the two decades I've been watching the industry. Attendance isn't going down (pandemic notwithstanding).

20 years of posting here and we're finally at a point where we can go a full day into a discussion about a Florida park price increase and not hear, "There's a point where people will stop going!" Nobody knows where that line is and how to avoid crossing it like Disney, etc.

There is some inherent denial among theme park patrons that a park can only be two of the following: Good, cheap, uncrowded. Somehow the bloggers seem to think Disney should be all three.

I've been to Disneyland and WDW during pretty busy times (spring break, week before Xmas, mid-summer) and it's never been catastrophic. With decent planning, it's usually totally fine. I'm sure for the local AP's, most of the time you go for the sake of being there and maybe get on something with a short line if it's available. I used to go to SFoT that way and just wander and not really care if I rode anything. I think those are the kind of visits Disney wants to completely eliminate. They tend to crowd the park, inflate lines, and really don't generate revenue or even value for the guest. In fact, in some ways, making Disney park visits a "Meh, why not?" kind of occasion may devalue the park in the area surrounding the park.

And I suspect they also contribute to a lot of entitlement and bad behavior as well, but maybe that's a different subject.

I don't really know how this ties into anything else I said in this post, but I'm kind of amazed at how many AP bumper stickers I see around the Bay Area (a 6 hour drive). Maybe it's because I work on Sundays, but I couldn't see making that trip more than twice a year and that's about the break even point.

Your first thought skirts on a belief I've always had: The average parkgoer, particularly to Disney, on a vacation goes expecting it to be crowded and expensive (relatively). Most people don't book that big Disney trip thinking "I'm going to go in January when it might not be as crowded and everything will be cheaper." They go in peak season when the kids are out of school and most people go on vacation. And they know that going in.

Jeff said:

Disney has a supply and demand problem though, and that's why pricing keeps going up. It's really naive to frame it as an issue of greed. I despise going to Magic Kingdom most of the time, because it's just too crowded. It sounds like Disneyland in recent years has been completely unmanageable (and it makes you wonder why people kept going).

H

interesting. This makes me wonder if Disney should build an identical ‘Magic Kingdom’ park and place it on property somewhere. Load balance the crowds.

hmmmm

The relative uniqueness is part of what makes it valuable (in the context of domestic audiences, I realize there are clones of various attractions on every continent). Expanding the capacity of the existing parks is what eases the crowding. Epcot is going to be a case study in this. We saw the Soarin' expansion reduce wait times there, having festivals essentially year-round has given more people to do (and spend on), and Ratatouille and Guardians will take more people off the midways. Then all of the ambiguous new stuff in the middle will occupy people.

ApolloAndy said:

There is some inherent denial among theme park patrons that a park can only be two of the following: Good, cheap, uncrowded. Somehow the bloggers seem to think Disney should be all three.

It could be if you were willing to ration tickets by some means other than price. But there is no incentive for Disney to do that, of course (and it would just lead to a thriving secondary market).

....where tickets would no longer be cheap.

I suppose park reservations are exactly an attempt to ration tickets. Do they increase all three of: cheap, good, uncrowded?

I mean at some point if Disney is leaving money on the table, it's not as good as it could be and if they want to maintain profits, they're going to increase prices. But perhaps park reservations really are a win-win?

I think what they definitely do is help control and prioritize ticket mix. The tool differentiates between resort guest, non-resort guest and passholder. The weird thing is that it previously favored passholders, but that's because I think there are so many fewer than there used to be. Right now though, if any group wants to go any day in September, it's open. Then October 1, MK is booked, new fireworks and 50th anniversary start, and passholders are blocked entirely. Epcot is booked the first weekend of October, presumably for Harmonious and Ratatouille.

I have to agree on the "too darn crowded" thing.

Personally I'm very excited by the paid fast passes. I'm not at all averse to paying a few hundred dollars for a day at Disney if it means that I do all the attractions that I want to without spending 90% of it waiting in line.

I am officially fed up with hardcore Disney fans proclaiming the sky is falling because of paid FastPass. It feels like all the nonsense we went through 20 years ago when Six Flags and Cedar Fair did it, except now it's full of entitlement (or maybe more entitlement?). Disney is obviously not going to collapse because of this and the general public is going to accept it and move on with life like they have in every other instance of this ever.

I'm in the wait-and-see crowd, but honestly, as a passholder, the typical 4-hour trip is about riding two or three things and moving on, and I have no reason to believe that we can't keep doing that. If anything, they've probably figured out a way to get more cash from me, because if I drop $15 on a Mickey pretzel and a margarita, I won't hesitate to do it now and then for more rides.

ApolloAndy said:

I am officially fed up with hardcore Disney fans proclaiming the sky is falling because of paid FastPass. It feels like all the nonsense we went through 20 years ago when Six Flags and Cedar Fair did it, except now it's full of entitlement (or maybe more entitlement?)

I've always said that many of the Disney fans can make the most hardcore and also the most entitled coaster enthusiasts (or insert any nerd hobby here) seem downright normal and make their entitlement downright pleasant.

It’s actually getting kind of absurd on one of the FB groups I read. Like, this is literally better than most upcharge attractions and most VQ systems at other parks which have been going on for 20 years and Maxpass at DL which has been going on for 5.

It’s so funny that ride tickets bring out all the nostalgia, but this is EXACTLY the same thing, but even better.