AP sales…

[Mai Ku Tiki]

I had that pop up too. The other snippet I gleaned is that Chapeks contract is up in Feb 2023. One can hope......

We can all can keep up the pressure. Many CM groups seem equally, if not more unhappy.

 

[corpcomp]

So, those are my thoughts. When will they do it? Probably when they figure out what percentage of passholders attend the parks and when. Pass sales may become seasonal or annual. For my planning, I am going to budget for tickets during the holiday seasons no matter what pass tier I have. Focus on this and you will see where they are going: (1) Limits on the number of annual passes outstanding at any time, (2) Reduced park capacities for safety reasons and (3) Passholders were always meant to be space available guests.

Did not even think they might make APs seasonal. OMG help us all in that case.

 

[Sandisw]

So, those are my thoughts. When will they do it? Probably when they figure out what percentage of passholders attend the parks and when. Pass sales may become seasonal or annual. For my planning, I am going to budget for tickets during the holiday seasons no matter what pass tier I have. Focus on this and you will see where they are going: (1) Limits on the number of annual passes outstanding at any time, (2) Reduced park capacities for safety reasons and (3) Passholders were always meant to be space available guests.

Did not even think they might make APs seasonal. OMG help us all in that case.

Maybe not seasonal but the idea that others have mentioned of having a resort guest AP might work well for DVC owners.

I’d be more than fine with this as an option and it would seem fit a lot of DVC owners needs.

 

[Blondie58]

Parks are still crowded. DVC rooms are booked. We all keep going and paying the price. The WDW organization is making money for shareholders. No urgency to change much of anything.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

But, @Sandisw, there's currently no AP available for purchase. So, forgetting the DVC discount, a DVC owner can't even purchase a regular out-of-state AP. I could see this making a big difference for out-of-state DVC owners who like going to the parks. I don't own DVC since it was never in my budget, but I do have an out-of-state AP that I've kept renewing, and I'm glad I did since the ticket prices are so crazy-expensive now that the also-expensive AP seems like a bargain (of sorts).

THIS!!!!! I am quite tired of the oft quoted, "you signed a contract about perks". DISCOUNTED APs was a perk. APs were available for everyone.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

What their lawyers told them is, Mr. Chapek, when you sell an annual pass with blockout dates, you are telling that person they can come on the days not blocked out. Not every passholder will come on every date that is not blocked out, but maybe 20% of them will. So, you have already sold those dates to 20% of your eligible passholders.

Your post is a really great analysis and I believe hits the issue on its head. This point above is exactly the issue. Too many people (mostly nonlawyers) believe that a company can put anything they want in a contract and that’s that. The law just doesn’t work that way. I really do think the lawsuit has teeth and i think the suspension has something to do with it. The longer the suspension goes on the more I think that.

If AP sales don’t come back after Easter then I do not think they are coming back for a long time…. At least not in their current form anyway.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

I think you are getting close to the reason for suspending the AP sales in Disney World when you said, "Now, the lawsuit in CA regarding the AP there has merit in my book because while it did say it was subject to park availability, it did not say that was based on Disney deciding to offer those spots to others, IMO, that was and is deceptive." I've been looking at the lawsuit and despite the unavailability language, I too think it might have traction.

If we can discover why Disney suspended sales, it might shed some light on when sales will return, if at all, and if there might be changes.

California has a fairly unique business practices law and that is one of the basis of this lawsuit that was filed as a putative class action lawsuit. In this fairly unique business practices law, it allows for multiples in damages and the recovery of attorneys' fees and costs should the Plaintiff prevail. Disney gave notice of removal and it was removed to federal court. I am thinking the judge they drew is probably not considered favorable for Disney by court watchers.

I know when sales of new passes was halted, the media was full of articles saying they did it to control crowds during the busy holiday season. The media made up the reason. No person from Disney, who had authority to speak, ever said that. So, strike that from the analysis.

The first significant event in the applicable timeline was Disney gave about 6 weeks notice that they would restart annual pass sales. They gave notice on about August 4th for sales starting on September 8, 2021. It is not like them to take action without notice. But, when they stopped new sales it was without notice. Something significant happened.

The second significant circumstance was when they started selling new annual passes again on September 8, 2021, it came with some different terms and conditions. The park availability language was not new. Maybe they strengthened the language, but it was not entirely new. But, in the past, when admission was denied to a passholder it was due to reaching park capacity -- as defined by the Fire Marshall, serious storms, like Hurricane Irma. or other significant closure mandated by someone other than Disney's management preferences. Past practices is an important legal concept when interpreting contracts.

Also, this time, there was something significant; passholders needed to have a park reservation to access the parks. (That may have started earlier upon re-opening after the first big covid surge, but it was really significant when coupled with new annual passes going on sale.) So, to recap, notice of new annual pass sales, and the park reservation system. (The separate pricing of the water parks and photos was just so they didn't bundle and raise the prices even higher. I'm okay with allowing annual passholders to customize their passes by breaking them out in line item pricing. That is not reducing benefits. That is allowing individual choice in line item pricing.)

The impact of park reservations is how they got into trouble. Disney apparently did make statements about managing park experience with reference to crowds. They talked about quality of experience. Remember, they were just coming off of historically low park attendance due to covid restrictions and park attendance caps apparently set by governmental authorities. But, this is Florida and the Governor DeSantis administration removed restrictions of that kind from businesses.

If any of you have ever been to a Disney park when it was closed to further admissions due orders of the Fire Marshall (wall to wall people), I can tell you, it is not just an inconvenience and long lines, it is downright scary. This is when people pick up their children out of the strollers and carry them above their heads. You can't see anywhere. The crowd presses in on you and you cannot move forwards or in any direction. You try to get to the side up against a wall or building. Panic is a real possibility and trampling is a very high risk. Every Disney employee was there trying to move the massive crowd and I could see the fear on their faces. I have been in that more than once in Disneyland and a crowd too big, but not that scary at Disney World. For high risk of litigation purposes, this would be a situation that the highest level of management at any of the Disney parks would do just about anything to prevent. One of the things they have done -- and rightfully so -- is to lower the cap. We should all be very grateful for that. So, interpreting the Disney-speak, when they say they are trying to manage a quality experience, that's why the park capacities have been lowered. Also factor in 2 years of covid lock-downs and the biggest travel surge in history that shows no signs of letting up yet -- and they are so very right to control the capacity in their parks.

When Disney started selling new passes last September, they were using the "bucket" system of allocated spaces. One bucket for tickets, one bucket for resorts and one bucket for all of the types of passholders. Now, Disney has always seen annual passholders as sort of a "space available" guest to fill in the gaps. But, lately, they had new data that indicated the ticket holders or resort guests spent more per individual per park day. Whether we like that characterization or not, it is a fact that motivates Disney top management, who are accountable to shareholders. So, for the first time, Disney tried to keep annual passholders in the space available slots by controlling the allocations in the passholder bucket. What Ms. Neilsen discovered, in California is that her no-blockout annual pass could not get a park reservation when the ticketed and resort guests (the higher spenders) could! Disney had prioritized the highest profit guest over their (space - available) passholder guests. Lower caps on park maximum attendance meant thousands and tens of thousands of few spaces for passholders.

Ms. Nielsen filed a he lawsuit was filed on November 9, 2021. Less than a week later, Disney filed a Notice of Removal to federal court. So, we know Disney's attorneys were into this immediately and considered it serious. Disney then, on November 21, 2021, just five days after removal, gave notice that their Incredi-pass, Sorcerer and Pirate were "unavailable" to new sales, but kept the right of renewal for existing passholders and still allowed the Pixie Dust pass.

By allowing the right of renewal for existing passholders, it limited the pool of possible plaintiffs in the class action suit. They were already there. The lawsuit focuses on the AP blockout dates vs the park reservation system. So, since the new passes were only on sale from September 8, 2021 to November 20, 2021, it shut off adding additional people to the group of people that might have been damaged by their sale of annual passes with various levels of blockout dates. What Disney did was sell passes with defined blockout dates and then due solely to their own authority -- added additional blockout dates by having too few spaces in the passholder bucket. What their lawyers told them is, Mr. Chapek, when you sell an annual pass with blockout dates, you are telling that person they can come on the days not blocked out. Not every passholder will come on every date that is not blocked out, but maybe 20% of them will. So, you have already sold those dates to 20% of your eligible passholders. You cannot therefore sell those spaces again to new ticket buyers or prioritize resort guests. That was what was deceptive; the blockout date availability was being given to ticket holders or resort guests simply because Disney preferred them. It was solely within the control and discretion of Disney and against the express terms of the passholder contract that listed specific blockout dates. In law, the specific governs the general. The unavailability language is a general clause and the calendar of blockout dates per pass type is the specific language. So the blockout dates governs the unavailability language. Otherwise Disney could sell passes and tell us there is no availability until 2025.

One of the things Disney is doing right now with the reservation system is gathering data on how many passholders attend their parks on which days. They will find out if it is 20% or as in California 50% of the crowd consists of passholders.

The reason Disney decided to keep the Pixie Pass is because it blocks out the high attendance days -- every major and minor holiday, spring break and every weekend. It forces those passholders into the "space available" days; as Disney intended passholders to use. (It also may have been a condition of their development permits that they had to provide some kind of park access privilege to Florida residents. That is not an uncommon conditions on high entertainment land use decisions by local government to offset impacts of quality of life for locals. So, that may be why Disney keeps the lower prices passes to locals in both Florida and California.)

Now, litigation like this can generally take years. The person who said park passes may come back next year may or may not have had official Disney information. I suspect not. They did have the reservation system and the annual passes in existence together only from September 8, 2021 to November 20, 2021, so that is a short time. They reduced their risk that way.

So, why the renewals of current passholders? Because since they had to cap the park capacity numbers (due to the post covid travel surge) and cannot control through their bucket system (the litigation), then the only other way to control is to control the actual number of annual passes sold! Yes. I have seen other bloggers pick up on this. The indicators are out there that the actual number of annual passes are limited. They use the word "unavailable" for Disney World and "sold out" for Disneyland. Disneyland has over a million outstanding APs! They will be sold out for years to reduce that number through attrition. Disney World has fewer, but I suspect that with every angry person who will not renew - another annual pass goes back on the shelf. When they have enough, they will re-open sales again -- for a short time -- until those are gone -- and then they will stop again. Disney does not want to be oversold on annual passes so the best time to cut it off was now. They tried to use the reservation system to close the gates, but it failed. So, now they will close the doors another way.

Another thing that supports my observations and theories is that after the Christmas holiday crowds, there have been some crowded times. During all of those, there was park pass unavailability for ticket holders and resort guests, but not for the annual passholders. That tells me their lawyers have advised Disney in the strongest possible terms that they cannot use the park reservation system to reduce the number of passholders in the parks. Passholders have already bought and paid for that availability. So, that's the good news for passholders. But, trust me, you do not want those parks so crowded they are at Fire Marshall capacity caps ever again!

What about DVC members? You are important to them or they would not have started selling new properties as DVC. They will come up with something for you. I do think, however that they will continue to have some Florida resident access as well. I would have to wade through their original local government permitting docs to be certain and I am not going to get that deep into it.

So, those are my thoughts. When will they do it? Probably when they figure out what percentage of passholders attend the parks and when. Pass sales may become seasonal or annual. For my planning, I am going to budget for tickets during the holiday seasons no matter what pass tier I have. Focus on this and you will see where they are going: (1) Limits on the number of annual passes outstanding at any time, (2) Reduced park capacities for safety reasons and (3) Passholders were always meant to be space available guests.

Excellent critical thinking

 

[Sandisw]

THIS!!!!! I am quite tired of the oft quoted, "you signed a contract about perks". DISCOUNTED APs was a perk. APs were available for everyone.

Of course this is true but most of the comments that geared to perks.. at least mine.. we’re in response to posts about DVC…not DPEP…failing to provide them or that they should be doing more for members or we should be eligible regardless because they used them as part of the sales pitch.

Having said that there is a DVC pass that is no longer available that was a perk so the topic does fall into both areas.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[RoseGold]

Universal guaranteed access to on-site guests in early Covid, when they were really limited. Disney never actually did that, which I always thought was the lawyers. But seems like Universal was also prioritizing on site at the expense of APs. And they didn't get sued? They are trucking on with APs.

 

[RoseGold]

The 14 day UK pass is about $750 each. If I hadn't already booked flights, I'd cancel this year. If they don't bring back APs for next year, we won't be going.

MCO is a major airport. Just because you fly into there doesn't mean you have to stay there. There are lots of North American destinations an easy flight from Orlando that aren't Disney.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[Spaceguy55]

As to the lawsuit, it is not good news for Disney. There is no way they walk out unscathed. It was just very bad management. Even if it does become a jury trial, this federal judge they drew will be a no nonsense judge on this kind of consumer issue.

The bold line sums up what we all know...

 

[CarolynFH]

@Ms Bibbidi, many thanks for laying this out so clearly. When APs didn’t come back in January, I began thinking that the California lawsuit had something to do with it. I agree that APs won’t come back until there’s some sort of resolution and that APs will look very different when they do come back.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

No, the law does not always work that way, especially in what might be an adhesion contract, written entirely by one side who had all the power to dictate terms. This is not a two sided bargained for exchange, is it?

Any ambiguity in those terms will be construed against the drafter. I think there is a great deal of ambiguity in the term unavailable with respect to capacity and who decides.

The suspension of WDW new pass sales was about 11 days after the lawsuit was filed. DLC followed the next day. Coincidence? Not hardly!

Disney executives clearly wanted to keep annual pass sales revenue, yet restrict pass holders from actually accessing the parks by means of limiting the number of admission spots in the passholders’ bucket. Think about the numbers from AP sales — over million outstanding passholders just in California times the average cost of an annual pass. Close to a billion a year or more? Then add in Florida. That is way too tempting for the current Disney admin that is all about maximizing profit following pandemic forced park closure and those losses. I understand how it happened and the idea of reservations as a tool for managing what type of guests and the mix they had was way too tempting. Especially during the unprecedented travel surge. They should have run it by legal first before implementing such drastic changes.

They wound up offering park admission spots/reservations to ticketed guests that they had already sold to passholders. They did not have room for all the gate admissions they were selling. That started to become glaringly clear as the holiday buckets for passholders emptied too soon. They seriously underestimated passholder usage. So they started blocking passholders on busy days in addition to the contracted blockout dates. When the lawsuit was filed and this came to light, their attorneys shut them down. Their website says DLC passes are sold out. It says WDW passes are currently unavailable. There is a difference.

There is no official word from Disney executives that this is temporary, will change soon or will even that new pass sales resume in 2022. Nobody with authority has said any of that. If they are waiting for the conclusion of the litigation it will most probably not be in 2022 or probably even in 2023. But they might acquire new data that tells them how many annual passes they can have outstanding and have a good balance of guests between higher profit ticketed guests and lower profit per day passholders. Right now, from the DVC and passholder perspective this is our only hope that this study will bring good news.

As to the lawsuit, it is not good news for Disney. There is no way they walk out unscathed. It was just very bad management. Even if it does become a jury trial, this federal judge they drew will be a no nonsense judge on this kind of consumer issue.

It does not matter that this was filed in California regarding Magic Key passes. The class action broadens the case and the allegations are rooted in fraud and deception, which are also torts in Florida and the federal system.

It really is a case of them getting burned by greed too. If they hadn’t created different classes of park buckets, this wouldn’t be an issue. Once they realized that the APs were forcing out day guest availability they could still have just stopped selling them to handle the problem, but they wouldn’t be stuck with this lawsuit. But Disney didnt’ want that, they didn’t want to give up the upfront AP sale revenue stream and they got burned as a result. It was just mismanagement all around.

I also agree that the fact that AP’s in Disney World now have significantly **more** availability then day tickets is evidence that they have temporarily overcorrected for this problem with existing AP’s to try to stem the damage.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[AnnaKristoff2013]

You make a good point though, RoseGold. Universal and Disney were both apparently prioritizing on-site guests when capacity was even more limited.

Maybe, but Disney took it to an entirely different level. It was more egregious. I didn’t hear stories of there being just entire months of no availability to Universal passholders the way there was for Disneyland AP’s. Universal in California may eventually have gotten dinged too though, but if memory serves me correctly they abandoned the park reservation system fairly quickly.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[sethschroeder]

Those do clearly say these are incidental and not guaranteed. So, no one buys without being given the information in plain sight and not buried deep in terms and conditions.

Again and we have went over this if they remove something they are to replace it.

They haven't removed it because it's temporarily not available but if that changes you would expect a replacement.

Disney doesn't reserve the right to cancel items of its choosing, it states they reserve the right to replace a benefit if it becomes unavailable.

So they have leeway because of it being temporary but if APs are gone forever they need to replace them and remove it from the Membership Extra paperwork. It then takes 3 years for the requirement to renew the benefits to be removed since you are for sure granted access for 3 years before they can stop renewing the benefits program (not specific items but membership extras in general)

I am not sure why you keep saying they can just remove things when that is not in the paperwork and not how someone would read it either.

 

[Sandisw]

Again and we have went over this if they remove something they are to replace it.

They haven't removed it because it's temporarily not available but if that changes you would expect a replacement.

Disney doesn't reserve the right to cancel items of its choosing, it states they reserve the right to replace a benefit if it becomes unavailable.

So they have leeway because of it being temporary but if APs are gone forever they need to replace them and remove it from the Membership Extra paperwork. It then takes 3 years for the requirement to renew the benefits to be removed since you are for sure granted access for 3 years before they can stop renewing the benefits program (not specific items but membership extras in general)

I am not sure why you keep saying they can just remove things when that is not in the paperwork and not how someone would read it either.

Things have been removed and an alternative not given. Case in point…valet parking.

But there is no language you can point to that they guarantee any specific benefit of any kind as part of the program and unless it fails a legal challenge, IMO, what is included as part of the program is subject to change or elimination.

I posted the language from the website that explains it as well. Not sure why you think that we must be given some level of ticket option as part of DVC if DPEP no longer sells APs when no such language exists. The words may replace does not mean the same thing as must replace.

I do think that DVD willalways try to have something of value in there as it does aid in sales and I think that if APs never come back they very well may add a ticket discount..not because they have to but because it’s purpose is to enhance the product they are trying to sell.

Let’s not detail the thread again regarding perks because this is about AP sales in general and how owners will be adjusting if they can’t get them.