Believe Key Sold Out

[Matthew D.]

And I’m sure it will suddenly become available once again after this holiday madness concludes and the next price increase is announced….

 

[gottalovepluto]

Well DLR is leaving more options than WDW did. Yesterday WDW had all APs except the lowest FL resident only ones paused for the rest of the year. At least DLR is leaving an AP door open for out of staters.

 

[StormyCA]

Depending on the number of Believes (and Dreams) out there, who knows when they'll release more. It may be months, and when they do those keys will likely come with a hefty price increase or may not be the same criteria passes they were before. It wouldn't surprise me if no new Believes or Dreams are offered until Fall 2022, when this current batch starts to expire and they start getting the numbers on (increased price) renewals. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they did away with the Believe completely and just offered the two lower tier passes and the Dream (with a new price tag of $2000+).

I don't think Disney realized just how many people would pony up $1000- $1500 for 'all/almost all access'. They also didn't foresee the number of 'just in case' reservations those people would book using all their slots as placeholders as opposed to make reservations only with firm plans to attend a particular day. If they had stuck to 'actual' reservations this would not have happened. Dreamers and Believers were their own worst enemy in this (IMHO).

 

[kelmac284]

Depending on the number of Believes (and Dreams) out there, who knows when they'll release more. It may be months, and when they do those keys will likely come with a hefty price increase or may not be the same criteria passes they were before. It wouldn't surprise me if no new Believes or Dreams are offered until Fall 2022, when this current batch starts to expire and they start getting the numbers on (increased price) renewals. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they did away with the Believe completely and just offered the two lower tier passes and the Dream (with a new price tag of $2000+).

I don't think Disney realized just how many people would pony up $1000- $1500 for 'all/almost all access'. They also didn't foresee the number of 'just in case' reservations those people would book using all their slots as placeholders as opposed to make reservations only with firm plans to attend a particular day. If they had stuck to 'actual' reservations this would not have happened. Dreamers and Believers were their own worst enemy in this (IMHO).

or you could be like me who bought the believe and haven't even used it. We live in NOR CAL and our first trip is in Feb. Now I am stressing about having to get up to secure reservations on a pass I ALREADY paid almost 1000 bucks for. I have airfare and hotel booked because of course I can't wait till the last minute and now I have to worry about if I will get my dates. And this is 90 days in advance! I think there will be a lot of people who don't renew. There are 3 in my family who have them and we won't be renewing cuz it is not worth it if you can never get a reservation!

 

[mich311e]

I'm so bummed. We are going over Christmas and were going to upgrade on our last day.

We live in Phoenix so some Saturdays would be helpful. Maybe we'll get Enchant keys, if not sold out by Christmas.

 

[avalon451]

DD moved to LA in June, so I ponied up. I’m doing a lot of 2-3 day solos ending on Fridays, then spending Sat-Sun with them. So far I’ve done September, and booked early December and late January. From Seattle, the airfare is cheap. So I’m happy to be getting use out of mine. It takes some nerve to purchase “Savers” non refundable airfares a couple months in advance, though.

 

[Dobermanns]

or you could be like me who bought the believe and haven't even used it. We live in NOR CAL and our first trip is in Feb. Now I am stressing about having to get up to secure reservations on a pass I ALREADY paid almost 1000 bucks for. I have airfare and hotel booked because of course I can't wait till the last minute and now I have to worry about if I will get my dates. And this is 90 days in advance! I think there will be a lot of people who don't renew. There are 3 in my family who have them and we won't be renewing cuz it is not worth it if you can never get a reservation!

Is your trip after Feb 22? The reservation calendar is currently open through 2/22.

 

[kelmac284]

Is your trip after Feb 22? The reservation calendar is currently open through 2/22.

yes but the day we need doesn't open till tomorrow. I'm hoping it will be fine but that is president's week so I do worry esp about that weekend

 

[Dobermanns]

yes but the day we need doesn't open till tomorrow. I'm hoping it will be fine but that is president's week so I do worry esp about that weekend

Good luck tomorrow!

 

[StormyCA]

or you could be like me who bought the believe and haven't even used it. We live in NOR CAL and our first trip is in Feb. Now I am stressing about having to get up to secure reservations on a pass I ALREADY paid almost 1000 bucks for. I have airfare and hotel booked because of course I can't wait till the last minute and now I have to worry about if I will get my dates. And this is 90 days in advance! I think there will be a lot of people who don't renew. There are 3 in my family who have them and we won't be renewing cuz it is not worth it if you can never get a reservation!

I'm in NorCal too. But my visits are no longer frequent enough to justify a pass of any kind.

You can thank your (local) fellow MKeys for your situation. You're using the pass as it was intended to be used. Reserving only for days you KNOW you'll be there. People close enough to 'drop in' are the ones (IMO) that are 'hoarding' reservations in advance 'just in case' they may want to go. As always, the innocent suffer for what the 'guilty' do.

I did the 'hold your breath and hope' when we booked for WDW last Spring, although their availability calendar is open MUCH farther out than DL's is. But I get it. I normally book longer trips minimum 6 months in advance. Maybe I'll have to rethink that if the reservations are only available 90 days out.

 

[TsWade2]

I'm very upset about this, but I'll have to make a sabbatical leave of absence before I make a scene.

 

[DonMacGregor]

And I’m sure it will suddenly become available once again after this holiday madness concludes and the next price increase is announced….

I think it will be awhile after the Holidays. You already have a large number of Dream and Believe Key holders who bought recently, but are having difficulty getting dates (unless they are super local and grab ressies as soon as they pop up and don't require any planning), so there will be a "backlog" of AP holders streaming to get their dates locked in. I think the reservation system will be swamped until mid-January at the earliest.

 

[AndrewC]

We'll see how long Disneyland stay "the popular" place to go. They still don't have a demand problem, they have a supply problem. It'll be interesting to see how much renewals will be, hopefully not a huge price increase for those that "voted with our money" right out of the gate with Disney. Honestly there can't really be that many that have sold, like I highly doubt they sold 100,000 Dream keys or whatever. Would really be interesting to know the mix of single day tickets, multi-day tickets (means likely traveling from out of state), and pass holders during a busy day. I suspect pass holders are probably like 10% or less of day to day attendance most days, holidays and local school breaks maybe the numbers shift a lot, but I doubt the park is filled every day with pass holders.

 

[IsleofDisney]

I'm in NorCal too. But my visits are no longer frequent enough to justify a pass of any kind.

You can thank your (local) fellow MKeys for your situation. You're using the pass as it was intended to be used. Reserving only for days you KNOW you'll be there. People close enough to 'drop in' are the ones (IMO) that are 'hoarding' reservations in advance 'just in case' they may want to go. As always, the innocent suffer for what the 'guilty' do.

I did the 'hold your breath and hope' when we booked for WDW last Spring, although their availability calendar is open MUCH farther out than DL's is. But I get it. I normally book longer trips minimum 6 months in advance. Maybe I'll have to rethink that if the reservations are only available 90 days out.

Maybe Disney management should just offer super cheap tickets for us locals, when we want to 'drop in'. That may solve us locals from 'hoarding' reservations, leaving only non-locals the option to reserve dates. Also, they can offer us locals a cheaper after 5pm parking rate so we can 'drop in' on a weekday evening without forking over a full $30 for a couple hours. They can call the ticket type SoCal Guilty Resident 'Just in Case' tickets.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I still wonder if Disney actually underestimated demand or if they're playing some kind of game here. Hong Kong Disneyland had it's all time highest springtime local attendance this year despite only being open for 5 days rather than 7 days a week. Occupancy in the Disneyland hotels in Hong Kong are at all time highs. Lack of international travel drives up demand for local entertainment. If Disney overlooked this, then are they less competent than we all expected?

The same thing is happening in the US. Puerto Rico tourism is doing well and Las Vegas occupancies are almost at pre-pandemic levels despite no big conventions. If people cannot travel internationally, they're traveling domestically and due to the lower costs of doing so, traveling more often. That makes annual passes to anywhere particularly attractive. Many people who normally would not go to Disneyland often are now going to Disneyland often because there's nowhere else to go. One of my cousins fall into this camp of Magic Keyholders. Once international travel is less of a pain, he'll probably travel around Europe rather than keep a Magic Key.

Disney should also have the numbers from Hong Kong and know how people book more reservations than they actually use so that shouldn't be a surprise. Disney is playing around with reservation availability in Anaheim to treat Magic Keys as second class citizens. It's a business decision to have reservation availability for other buckets but not Magic Keys. Magic Keys aren't "sold out" in any traditional sense like when a store physically runs out of product. They are "sold out" whenever Disney decides that they don't want to sell them anymore because Disney never made any promises on the number that will be sold.

I'm starting to feel like Disney upper management has gotten very bad at demand management. They missed the mark when estimating demand for Galaxy's Edge opening so they had to sell discounted tickets. Now there's this.

 

[Geemo]

Disney controls the strings of the puppet.

I had considered upgrading to a magic key on my January visit but have now decided not too.

Will begin making a list of other vacation destinations.

 

[Dory92130]

Passholders is money in the bank. Disney makes a killing on this and the whole reason the tiers were largely unchanged when released even after large surveys for many variations went out is because attendance was lagging in August and Disney pulled the passholder lever....hard.

Some even say that they panicked and could have priced the Dream key much higher. With hindsight 20/20 clearly should have.

For those who are shaming passholders from 'hoarding' reservations -- that's on Disney. If you're given 4 or 6 slots and allowed to cancel by midnight prior; you're entitled to that. That's on Disney, not the passholders behavior to the system setup.

All lessons learned and Disney is adjusting as it can to balance demand and availability. It's already sold a huge amount of passes and simply starting to siphon slots from regular sales.

We know that they still have some capacity as witnessed by the yesterday's reopening slots for passholders (which quickly got gobbled up over a few hours). So it's not all doom/gloom for nonpassholders.

And the clear path forward to get a park reservation? Disney hotel onsite stay -- wide open day reservations.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Disney controls the strings of the puppet.

I had considered upgrading to a magic key on my January visit but have now decided not too.

Will begin making a list of other vacation destinations.

As Disneyland gets more expensive, many other vacation destinations have gotten cheaper. Flights to Hawaii have been the cheapest I've ever seen them and while the rental car situation did experience some hiccups, especially in Honolulu, that has mostly ended. Kauai and big island are particularly cheap right now. Hotel prices in some cities that used to get a lot of business travel have also come down so cities like San Francisco are more reasonably priced for weekdays than pre-COVID. Places like San Diego and New Orleans have also come down in price a bit.

 

[MillauFr]

Maybe Disney management should just offer super cheap tickets for us locals, when we want to 'drop in'. That may solve us locals from 'hoarding' reservations, leaving only non-locals the option to reserve dates. Also, they can offer us locals a cheaper after 5pm parking rate so we can 'drop in' on a weekday evening without forking over a full $30 for a couple hours. They can call the ticket type SoCal Guilty Resident 'Just in Case' tickets.

Funny. Very funny. Maybe they can even include free dining at Club 33

 

[kelmac284]

Good luck tomorrow!

thanks I set my alarm and I got it. I am going that W thru sat. I am most worried about that sat but hoping if I get up right at 6 I will be ok