I found the Disney Blog on this.....ugh is all I can say!
Bait & switch sounds about right. They shouldn't have announced anything until they knew what they were doing. I'm sorry, but this is not a "Thank you to our passholders"......this is a thank you for our LOCAL passholders. (they're also including Club 33 patrons) Winning the AP lottery for a date that doesn't fall in my trip is not a
Yay for me!
I'm also guessing if I were to be on the very few fortunate ones, I imagine I wouldn't be able to take my whole family with me. If I recall from the CP info from WDW, this is a great way to share the holiday season with your family while listening to the story of Christmas being retold. Not offering a dining package where all my kids could be with me sucks. (not sure we could have afforded it, but then it would have been my option to skip it). We can't do the SRO thing with the twins, so we won't be attending and it makes me really sad. This was the one BIG thing I was sorry we would miss not going to WDW and then when they announced it would run for 20 nights, I thought........good, I'll still be able to go. Oh well.........just another sign that Disney is headed down the road of catering to their wealthier visitors. Walt created Club 33 to cater to the elite few and the park was for families to share together.......the way they're going......Disneyland will soon become an elite only park. I'm sure Walt is shaking his head!
Stepping off my soapbox and done ranting about this subject!!!
Time to look forward to the things we WILL get to do!!
I'm still going to enter the CP lotto. I only want one seat - one measly seat! Fifty percent of the reason I renewed my AP was for this Candlelight Processional, and now I probably won't be able to see it.
This isn't even a thank you to the local AP holders, the way they have it set up. A
lot of local AP people are going to be excluded from seeing this event because only a few people can really be chosen for the seats.
They will, I'm sure, allow everyone to enter for more than one night or time slot - so
you'd be able to enter for any CP that was happening during your December trip. They wouldn't pick a random night for you that wasn't during your trip - you'd pick one or two or three dates that you wanted and would then hope to win
one of them. That's how they've done the previous lotteries - we pick the date/time we want for whatever the event is, and then we wait to see if we have won it. So you pick the date you want but you may not get chosen.
The thing is that Disney may put a restriction on the lottery such as you can only include up to 4 or 5 guests, and each of those guests has to have an AP too. Some such thing. So you would not be able to include your whole family.
I wouldn't mind standing for the CP - it wouldn't be any worse than standing for WoC or fireworks - and I expected that Disney would make the AP holders stand because I thought they would sell dining packages and give the seats to the package people.
My issue with standing is that it won't be 'organized standing' - in other words, there won't be a designated, reserved spot for AP people to stand in one place and watch the show. Instead it will be a free-for-all, with everyone jockeying for viewing spots, which is not what I was hoping for. The AP people and the general public would be fighting for the same viewing spots - so that's not a thank you to AP holders in any way!
What Disney should have done was clearly state, "There will be X number of dining packages, X number of Ultimate packages and X number of seats available to Club 33 members and/or AP holders. After those are sold or reserved, there will be no more available. There will also be a reserved viewing area for AP holders to stand and watch the Ceremony. The first 500 (or whatever number) AP people to sign up will get a spot in the reserved viewing area."
If they had set it up that way - and made it clear that there was a definite limit and cap on how many people could sit, stand, etc., then only the people who were really, really serious about attending the CP would have tried to get in right away, and everyone else would be out of luck. The way it is set up now, too many people who
really, really want to attend will not even be able to have a chance at seats or proper viewing.
Ah well, what can we do... Some lucky people will get chosen for the coveted seats at the CP. Others will skip the event entirely. Others will crowd into Town Square and on Main Street to watch it from afar and cause a major traffic jam! Fun fun fun!