Big Announcement????

I think it was because, at least for people here, it was over hyped. I'm disappointed and I'm not even planing a trip this year.

Over hyped and also because most of us thought it was going to be more inclusive for non-Disney fans by being a new year long promotion. All this fuss for 2 weeks? The commercial really glossed over that. :headache:

Doesn't impact us either way because we're already booked with Free dining for our September vacation. I didn't think we'd get anything better than that.
 
1 Day of being open for 24hrs. Anyone wanna guess what cluster.... that will turn out to be?

I was thinking the same thing. We already had our vacation scheduled over this time, and I had planned to be in MK on the 29th. It's a Wednesday, it will be slow that day, we'll get a bunch of stuff in, 8am ressie at CP, so pics of castle with hardly any other people in them. UGH, now what? :confused3
 
I'm just so surprised that the "deal" is only for 2 week's time and that the 24 hour thing is ONE day. I mean ONE day. ???

I wonder what else they have coming. There has to be something! Maybe?:confused3
 
So basically 6am to 6pm for MK? Isn't MK open 8-2 today and HS is open 8-3? So the big announcement is really only an extra 5 hours on 2/29. Excuse me for not feeling overwhelmed by this one.
 

4 hours, not 12.

Although that leads to the question... are they closed March 1? Could you actually be in the park between opening on February 29th through closing on March 1st?

I think it's open 6am-6am and then closed for a few hours probably to clean up before opening on the 1st at...whenever.
 
this was the least exciting BIG announcement I have ever heard in my whole life
 
Idea of park open at night is cute, MK at night is amazing but it is February, so it will be cold at night even in Florida and who will possibly stay for 24 hours. Do not believe this will actually produce phone calls.
 
Maybe the DL folks will think more of this since so many are day guests anyway. But the number of people who can just hop down to WDW for ONE DAY is far smaller. The number who can fly down on small notice and CARE about the park being open 24 hours is even smaller. The number who think the 3/1 promotion is a good deal is smaller YET. Who's going to fly down on short notice for THAT? People who fly down at today's prices usually stay longer to get their money's worth out of the price of their flight. So if you stay for a week, you get ONE day free? That's like a 15% discount.

Did the REALLY tell their phone staff to expect a lot of calls???????????
 
Being a firefighter I'm use to working with flames so, my turnout gear is on and I'm ready. I found this thread from July and I think Disney may be heading down this road when it comes to discounts. I have copied and pasted the original thread the OP's board name has been removed...

Rumor of future discounts
So I heard this second hand, from someone who works within Disney's finance unit. Take with a grain of salt, but it is fairly credible.

It is public knowledge that Disney wants to wean the public off discounts.
Their finance team has apparently been running models of various scenarios but all scenarios involve a dramatic scaling back of discounts.
Within the assumptions they are working with, are that Disney value resorts are already a better value than off-site hotels, even at rack rate, when Disney-provided transportation is factored in.
Supposedly, there has been intense scrutiny of free dining discounts, especially at value hotels -- For a family of 4, who is paying around $95 for a room, why give a $140 "discount" in the form of free dining. Disney executives are supposedly confident that when those prospective guests look at off-site comparisons, they will find that staying onsite at Disney is still econimically attractive.

While Disney knows that their deluxe resorts are priced far above the competition, they are concerned about undercutting themselves--- giving discounts to people who are willing to pay full price. They also see questions about the valuation of American currency, and are finding international guests more attractive for the deluxe resorts. Their models are suggesting that they will only have a small drop off in occupancy without American public discounts, which they can fill up with targeted discounting (PINs, international discounts, military discounts).

They are also looking closely at the "psychology" of the pricing. For example, in the past, they made the 4th+ days of their tickets ultra cheap, to change the psychology of the Disney traveler -- to expect a week long Disney experience, instead of a 2 day experience. They believe they were successful, so they are now raising the ticket prices on those 4+ days.
Similarly, they are worried they may have gone too far in creating expectations of discounts with the public. And they really want to be able to charge full price when they open the Fantasy Land expansion. So, they are considering whether it is worthwhile to go through a bit of short-term pain, to wean the public off discounts. Accept lower occupancy temporarily, with the hope that the public will start booking again, after they realize discounts aren't coming.

Finally, *if* they do offer discounts.... they are examining newly packaged discounts that will not actually cut significantly into revenue, and will continue to change buying habits. The "memory package" was a partial roll-out of this philosophy -- Encouraging people to buy the Photo Books, in the hopes that they will like them and continue to buy them in the future. They have also examined discounts that require purchase of Park Hoppers, Water Park tickets.

Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt.
 
Most of Disney's "big" announcements have been duds lately. Remember last year with the big build up for Castle memories show? Huge build up just to announce they were going to show pictures from the park that day. Don't get me wrong. The Memories show is nice but I don't think it was worth the tremendous hype.
 
Being a firefighter I'm use to working with flames so, my turnout gear is on and I'm ready. I found this thread from July and I think Disney may be heading down this road when it comes to discounts. I have copied and pasted the original thread the OP's board name has been removed...

Rumor of future discounts
So I heard this second hand, from someone who works within Disney's finance unit. Take with a grain of salt, but it is fairly credible.

It is public knowledge that Disney wants to wean the public off discounts.
Their finance team has apparently been running models of various scenarios but all scenarios involve a dramatic scaling back of discounts.
Within the assumptions they are working with, are that Disney value resorts are already a better value than off-site hotels, even at rack rate, when Disney-provided transportation is factored in.
Supposedly, there has been intense scrutiny of free dining discounts, especially at value hotels -- For a family of 4, who is paying around $95 for a room, why give a $140 "discount" in the form of free dining. Disney executives are supposedly confident that when those prospective guests look at off-site comparisons, they will find that staying onsite at Disney is still econimically attractive.

While Disney knows that their deluxe resorts are priced far above the competition, they are concerned about undercutting themselves--- giving discounts to people who are willing to pay full price. They also see questions about the valuation of American currency, and are finding international guests more attractive for the deluxe resorts. Their models are suggesting that they will only have a small drop off in occupancy without American public discounts, which they can fill up with targeted discounting (PINs, international discounts, military discounts).

They are also looking closely at the "psychology" of the pricing. For example, in the past, they made the 4th+ days of their tickets ultra cheap, to change the psychology of the Disney traveler -- to expect a week long Disney experience, instead of a 2 day experience. They believe they were successful, so they are now raising the ticket prices on those 4+ days.
Similarly, they are worried they may have gone too far in creating expectations of discounts with the public. And they really want to be able to charge full price when they open the Fantasy Land expansion. So, they are considering whether it is worthwhile to go through a bit of short-term pain, to wean the public off discounts. Accept lower occupancy temporarily, with the hope that the public will start booking again, after they realize discounts aren't coming.

Finally, *if* they do offer discounts.... they are examining newly packaged discounts that will not actually cut significantly into revenue, and will continue to change buying habits. The "memory package" was a partial roll-out of this philosophy -- Encouraging people to buy the Photo Books, in the hopes that they will like them and continue to buy them in the future. They have also examined discounts that require purchase of Park Hoppers, Water Park tickets.

Anyway, take all this with a grain of salt.

This is consistent with everything we've heard over the past year or so. I totally expected them to start curtailing discounts and am concerned we might not see ANY discount for the time I'd like to visit in early December again.

But to come out and play the dumbed down limited discount with SUCH flourish and hype does indeed seem..... shall we say......... ill-advised.

Hold on to your hats people. This is the start of the "new Disney". Fantasyland expansion opening is approaching and the discounts are going away. It will be interesting to see how it plays out for them. It only works if people play along.

I'm pretty sure there will be people in the MK that day. Probably a LOT of people. But only the Disney bean counters will know for sure if it actually generated enough more bookings or revenue over last year to offset their additional costs.

I think more importantly, only Disney will know whether a 3/1 deal moves people the way a 4/3 deal used to.
 
I mentioned this a different thread but I think it might be worth mentioning again. You can read more about the promotion over at the Disney blog and leave comments to let Disney know what you really think about this promotion.

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2012/01/leap-year-2012-brings-one-more-disney-day-to-disney-parks/

Oddly, there don't seem to be ANY comments on the blog currently (as of 8:11am Jan 1). I wonder if they've all been SO negative they've been removed? Or maybe they just are waiting for approval.


ETA...nevermind. Looks like there's little in the way of comments on any of the blog posts.
 
I agree that was a big let down.

I understand (ok I'm not an economist but ykwim) Disney will cut discounts as the economy recovers. But if they are going back to pre economic melt down pricing with few discounts they need to return to their old standards. Disney has gone down hill in the last few years. I would not pay mint for the current Disney standards (food, etc).

Like it or not they are competing with Universal and right now Universal is winning our vacation dollars. UN charges mint for their on site properties and the properties/standards are up to the challenge. Until Disney can say the same they need to rethink premium pricing for buffet offerings.
 
The two week period that they picked is low attendance (I know because my vacation ends on Feb. 28 and the crowds are minimal for the last couple of days). They are looking to jack attendance then, not to give loyal customers who are going to go anyway during a busy period a break. While I love WDW, it is number one about the business and the bottom line to the Disney company.
 
So using this FANTASTIC deal....;) I would save a whooping $100.... which means compared to the free dining offered during this same period... it will cost me $700. HMMM..... now to decide which code to use.... :confused3
 


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