There are many rumors flying about today on the subject of major changes in the works for Walt Disney World Annual Passholders.
Some of these rumors are extremely disturbing and disheartening to me as a Passholder and as a frequent visitor (15 times since 1990) to the WDW resort, and I would like to address some of these rumors, as well as some of the current Passholder policies and trends of the past few years.
1) Buying an Annual Passport
Current procedures for obtaining and renewing a WDW Annual Passport (AP) or Premium Annual Passport (PAP) seem reasonable and flexible. Buying an AP from Disney's EarPort store at Orlando International Airport, one of the other local locations, or at Guest Relations and ticket windows at the WDW theme parks is simple and quick, as is exchanging a voucher from an on-line or telephone AP purchase.
However, the AP cards themselves are somewhat flimsy, cheap, and sub-standard; just up the road at Universal Studios, an AP is not only half the cost, but comes with substantially better dining and merchandise discounts than a WDW AP, and the card itself is a hard-laminated ID card with the Passholders picture on it. That's value! WDW could certainly learn a thing or two from their immediate competition at Universal Studios Florida.
2) Discounts
WDW Passholders have historically been granted discounts on merchandise, dining, and tours. But these discounts have shrunken repeatedly over the years until they are now a pale shadow of their former selves, and are far inferior to the 15% dining and 20% merchandise discounts granted to Universal Studios Passholders, not to mention the extremely limited number of locations where these WDW discounts can be used.
Match your competition! Give WDW Passholders a 20% discount on all merchandise bought at any gift shop in the theme parks or resorts (excluding carts, excluding periodicals, excluding non-WDW sundries in the resort gift shops), and spread the dining discounts to include both table and counter service venues throughout the property (excluding smaller drink and snack carts). And allow PAP Passholders these discounts at venues inside DisneyQuest and the water parks. Give Passholders these discounts and watch your revenues soar as they buy, buy, buy those discounted items!
3) Room discounts
WDW Passholders wait with baited breath all year long to see their WDW room discounts released. But those discounts change from year to year, season to season, and day to day, as WDW uses Passholders like seat fillers at the Oscars to boost low bookings, then conveniently forgets about them when the bookings increase. Passholders are, by definition, WDW's most loyal, most dependable, and most profitable repeat customers, and loyal, repeat customers are the backbone of any successful business. Instead of taking us for granted and only throwing us bones in the form of room discounts in time of sub-par bookings, WDW should be elevating Passholders to exalted, privileged status among WDW Guests.
Passholder room discounts should be stabilized and standardized to reflect a flat, across the board discount of 35% off the rack rate, and availability should be standardized at 15% of all standard room categories and 10% of all preferred room categories at all WDW resorts. Packages should also be discounted by 35%, across the board. Cancellation policies, also, should be better than those available to the general public from the Walt Disney Travel Company, and should match those currently available to room-only bookings.
RUMOR: Passholders will be forced to only book on-line or through a
travel agent
This is absolutely terrible, since not all Passholders book through travel agents or have internet access.
RUMOR: Passholder deposits will become non-refundable
This is a travesty! The word "non-refundable" is typically used only by cheap, sleazy, second-rate, or outright fraudulent travel peddlers interested only in bilking and wringing out every cent from their victims while giving little or nothing to them in return. Disney has always been above such sheer greed tactics in the past, but apparently the winds of change sometimes bring foul odors with them.
RUMOR: Passholders will only be allowed to book one room at a time
So if my family is large enough to need two rooms, I can only get my Passholder discount on one of them? Again, that's a tactic of sheer greed, designed to wring every last penny out of Passholders. Tactics like these will simply drive me out of WDW and into off-site non-Disney hotels.
RUMOR: Current, activated APs will be required for all Passholder room bookings - vouchers will no longer be sufficient
So if I buy an AP on-line or by phone in advance of my trip, but can't activate it until I arrive, then I can't book a room at the AP rate? Seeing as how an AP voucher is completely non-refundable under any circumstances, having one should entitle a person to book a room with the AP rate, so long as they can show the activated AP at check-in or immediately after.
And while on the subject, it should be possible to exchange a voucher for an AP at any of the resorts, so that those with AP rates can show their valid APs at check-in, as required, instead of being forced to go to one of the theme parks or Downtown Disney before going to the resort. This is an especially acute issue for those who fly into Orlando from the west coast and don't arrive until late in the evening when the parks and Downtown Disney are closed.
RUMOR: Passholder-discounted rooms will require booking no less than 120 days in advance
So if I decide to take a trip on only 30-days notice, I can't get my Passholder discount? That's dumb; having an Annual Pass makes it possible for Passholders to go to WDW more often, sometimes on short notice, which is good for WDW because it means more profits coming into their coffers. But if I have to pay rack rate for a trip unless I book more than 120 days out, I may just stay off-site, or even stay home. And if I don't take those extra trips during the year, then why do I even need the AP in the first place?
4) Conclusion
Give more, give better, and give consistent discounts to the very best customers you have, or you risk alienating them and potentially losing them top your competition.
If the above rumors about AP booking policies do indeed come to fruition, I will not only let my AP lapse without renewing, but I may take a couple of years off from my yearly WDW vacations to visit places like Las Vegas and New Orleans instead. I love WDW and I love my yearly trips there, but if WDW can't treat their very best, most loyal, most dependable customers (Passholders) better than their direct competition (Universal Studios), then I will have little or no incentive to spend my hard-earned vacation dollars at WDW instead of someplace else where I can get far more value for them.
Live the Magic!
