Does Disney want to make more money? Absolutely. But those if us who have been around here forever can tell you that even when FP was free, complaints about FP line waits getting longer have been floating around since the internet has started teaching people how to work the systems Disney had in place at the time. In 2 years we will be used to the new normal, just like we were after
DAS 1.0 replaced GAC.
Disney wants to make more money, because that’s what their shareholders demand. And if they can’t get average park goers to attend, have a good time and tell their friends who then go spend money, they won’t make more money. The alternative is they charge an even higher exhorbitant amount to cater to a smaller population of those who need accommodations, and those already pay more in their day to day lives for therapies, equipment and medical care. They need the average Joe to have a good enough experience to keep coming back and convince their friends to as well to be able to grow their revenue.
And I say this as someone who has medical concerns, children with developmental disabilities, and a sibling who can no longer visit Disney because it is not reasonable to expect them to accommodate his intensive needs. I don’t know if myself or my kids will qualify any longer. If we don’t, we will make the best of the trip and then go elsewhere.
Yes, it probably is money based, but maybe not in the way you suspect. If I were to guess and have a bit of a pessimistic outlook:
My guess would be that Disney knows that, per day, people with APs spend a whole lot less than families who travel once a year or less. When they had the free FastPass+ system, Disney probably had the data to know that people with APs knew how to use it best and maximize it to its full potential, and so people with APs were there more often and got to do more things while they were there--all while paying significantly less per day. Whereas people who rarely went to Disney and were dropping $10,000 on a 5 day vacation might not even know how to use FastPass+, might have thought they had to pay for it, or didn't know that they can get more FastPasses using the app or kiosk.
They probably designed
Genie+ with all this in mind. They probably figured APs would be less likely to buy it each time than guests who come every year or less, and so that would stop APs from having such an advantage in lines. Alternatively, some people with APs who are more "well to do" would buy Genie+ each time, and now they're spending more in the parks per day. So, Disney probably saw Genie+ as a win-win to improve the guest experience for people who pay more per day and also make Disney more money and get some APs to spend more money per day.
What happened instead was that DAS use skyrocketed, mostly by APs. We hear that 70-90% of the LLs are filled with people using DAS. And there are so, so many people with APs on here who have said they never got DAS until Genie+ started because they could handle the waits just fine with free FastPass+. Disney must have the data on this for people who have been AP holders for a long time. They must know that the Smith Family traveled to Disney World for 10 years and never needed DAS, but once there was a paid service for LLs, then they got DAS. To Disney, it suggests that many of users might not actually
need DAS but are more convenienced by it, even if they have a medical condition (which, let's be honest, most of us have someone in our family diagnosed with something like diabetes or anxiety or IBS, so most of us qualify in the old DAS system). What's more, people who rarely travel to Disney and don't buy Genie+ are now writing in with lots of complaints about how slow the standby line is moving, and Disney knows this is because the LLs are too long, filled with people using DAS. So, they didn't fix the problem they had before. It's actually created new problems, too, because people who are buying Genie+ aren't getting as many LLs as they would if DAS wasn't being abused and overused. The experience of park guests is being negatively impacted by DAS accommodations, and that's pretty much all Disney has to prove in order to win a lawsuit. They need to crack down on DAS abuse and over-use, and that involves denying a lot of people DAS by narrowing the parameters. They are still handling accommodations, though, by offering other accommodations, such as paid
scooter rentals, noise canceling headphones for purchase, line return options, and more. But they are no longer granting DAS to every medical condition.
So, yes, we're going to hear about lots of people being denied DAS in the next few weeks and months, and there are going to be a lot of upset people. There will also be lawsuits, but I expect Disney will win those.