BREAKING: Walt Disney World Introduces Date-Based Variable Pricing for Genie+ Service

[set88]

Looks like it’s $20 again today. Random Thursday in October makes this seem like $20 is the new baseline. I wonder what the outer limit will be? I guess we’ll find out on Thanksgiving.

I doubt we'll see $15 again this year because the rest of the year is likely to be crowded every day, but this isn't a random week - it's fall break for many and is a particularly high crowd time. This week has seen the worst crowds at Disney since spring break.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

Nobody knows what the max price of genie will be. They haven’t said. Especially for New Years. Could be $22. Could be $25. Could be $50. Could be $100 or more.

Oh I thought I saw a range of $15-22?

 

[set88]

Oh I thought I saw a range of $15-22?

That's for this month. They may go higher in November/December - I would guess $25 for Thanksgiving/Christmas but we'll have to see.

 

[ML_LovesDisney]

That's for this month. They may go higher in November/December - I would guess $25 for Thanksgiving/Christmas but we'll have to see.

Ugh. Okay, thanks for clarifying. My budget it about to get blown up I see

 

[Ricguz]

ME Cancelled all my ADR next week, even our beloved Sci Fi Dine In. Interesting that every day I look it has times open so I must not be the only one. I only kept our Rose & Crown Fireworks Package and that will be it going forward. No more TS except for a special one like the fireworks package. Food is average the prices are too much. Last trip I wasn't hungry much at lunch (the heat was bad) so I opted to order a side salad ($4) and ice water than grab one of DS chicken fingers and a few fries. I found that we could eat well for $20 total by sharing, and we wasted less time. My food budget went WAY WAY down so now I can get Genie+ if I want. Since TiW is gone we have cut our alcohol budget to almost nil now - just in time since they announced alcoholic drinks are going up too! DS will drink more ice water and less soda. The fact that I am now thinking more about the costs of things, I'll likely spend much less more. Perhaps where they might have messed up - by making the increasing costs of EVERYTHING a forefront story and folks might now be making less impulse buying so they can focus on what is the most important.


I disagree. And a system that was offered to EVERYONE for free is completely fair and an even playing field. It couldn't get more even than that. If someone didn't want to put in the effort, that doesn't mean the system wasn't fair.


I hear you, I was on property for many many years. But the perks were diminishing for me. When I can get a 1-2 bedroom condo or hotel suite for less than a value resort WITH kitchen and laundry (pack less) it is hard. When security checks started, they stepped over the line. I did stay at Sports last month because we were doing a Halloween Party and I wanted the bus back.

But we are long past room breaks and we are park centric. We tend to stay very close to Disney but here is a story. Was at MK with two sons and a friend. One son and I were staying past the Outlet Mall and the other & friend staying at POP Century. We all left park. DS and I rode the ferry, walked to our car, drove out (with delay due to police situation in parking lot), drove to hotel and as I was getting ready for bed DS & friend texted that the bus for POP had just arrived. I for the most part stay no more than 15 minutes parking lot to parking lot. There isn't even a Disney bus ride that short.

The only way for me to keep going as much as I wanted (6x a year) the best place to save money was the hotel.


Given that most park guests are not staying onsite I think this could be PR problem. Traditionally all park guests have been treated fairly equally given they are all paying the same to enter that gate. It's one thing to allow hotel guests to say get it included (like Universal) but to not offer at all to offsite guests is probably not feasible. AND that is lots of money lost. Bottom line ALL OF THESE DECISION is to make Disney more money. It has nothing to do with the guest experience.


Not the thread but I'll say one thing ....
While Disney does not have as many cameras as people think they do there are cameras fairly up close on the guests flying on Soarin'. There is a person that sits there and watches the cameras so if they see an issue they can E-Stop. You wouldn't believe the gross behavior they see.

Nothing equal about Genie+ ....

I did the same thing for my trip in December. I canceled all my ADR except for Rose and Crown (candlelight procession). The food is too expensive, reports are quality is worse than ever and service at times is tough. Now I have CL which is expensive but convenient in our case. If we are at the parks during the day, we will use QS or if we are at the resort YC, use the marketplaces, boardwalk or Hurricane Hanna’s. We decided that the money we have spent on the resort, we will depend on CL and not waste time on TS and be disappointed. Plus in the past when we have used dining plans or TS we find it’s been a waste of money and food. Plus the location of the YC there are plenty of areas to eat if needed.

 

[scrappinginontario]

Please keep this thread on topic of the price increase of Genie+. Off topic posts will be deleted and warning points may be given.

 

[xdan0920]

It's possible. Most days this summer at Cedar Point it was close to $200 a person per day.

I'm surprised people are so shocked by the price of skip the line passes at most other parks.

Huh? under $200 and $400 are not even close to similar. So yeah, I would be shocked by $400.

 

[snikki]

Six flags premium flash pass for a Saturday in October is $210.

An express pass for universal for the same date is $220.

G+ may be an inferior product but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper.

 

[lovethattink]

Please stay on topic of WDW’s Genie+ changes.

 

[Jrb1979]

Huh? under $200 and $400 are not even close to similar. So yeah, I would be shocked by $400.

You're right they aren't. Universal had some days this summer pushing $300 for Express Pass. It's not out of the realm of possibility. I still am of the belief that Genie+ should be more in line with those prices.

Six flags premium flash pass for a Saturday in October is $210.

An express pass for universal for the same date is $220.

G+ may be an inferior product but it’s a heck of a lot cheaper.

I would say you get what you pay for.

 

[Jrb1979]

Please stay on topic of WDW’s Genie+ changes.

It's hard to discuss price increases with out comparing Genie+ to how other parks do it.

 

[snikki]

You're right they aren't. Universal had some days this summer pushing $300 for Express Pass. It's not out of the realm of possibility. I still am of the belief that Genie+ should be more in line with those prices.

I would say you get what you pay for.

Personally I'm ok with paying $15-22 a day to get 3 G+ selections (if that's all I pull in a day). We always booked our FP+ in our PM park so we rarely, if ever, pulled extra FP+. And with tiered selections we were getting one headliner in two parks (Epcot, DHS) via FP+ each day. We also stayed for 9-10 days so had 27-30 FP+ selections for our trip for "free" so we were good with that. We also barely used OG FP since running all over the park with toddlers wasn't fun for us.

I can see those who utilized FP+ to the max being upset over G+. Paying for way less than they are used to.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Looks like it’s $20 again today. Random Thursday in October makes this seem like $20 is the new baseline. I wonder what the outer limit will be? I guess we’ll find out on Thanksgiving.

This is starting to remind me of EBCI for SWA when it went to variable pricing based on flight length and how many people had purchased it. I forget what amount most people were charged (going off of the dedicated SWA thread) but there seemed to be far fewer at the "starting at" price and much more of the higher price...for some reason I'm thinking back then it was like $20 as well.

 

[leeniewdw]

Comfortable paying and being able to afford are way different things. I'm not wanting to spend $200 per night for All-Stars but I can afford it. I'm not comfortable spending $1,000 a night but I can afford it. When people talk about not being able to afford something and they actually mean that it truly means they can't like they wouldn't be able to pay their utility bill that month or get groceries or other basic needs. But being uncomfortable with the pricing and what that feels like in terms of value is usually what people actually mean when discussing Disney pricing. Been that way for years. They usually talk about what other vacation(s) they'll take instead.

To put it a different way people are too liberal with the phrase, especially on these Boards.

I think the better term is they've "outpriced" me. People have 1000 different variables as to what they are willing to spend based on financial goals, level of savings they are comfortable with, what expenses are (or are not) on the horizon. Some people are willing to pay some of it on a CC balance for some period of time, others would not consider that.

 

[Beer Me]

I priced bringing my son to 6 flags for a day. The skip the line feature raised our cost by over $1,200 for just the three of us. And I think that tier limited us to one time per ride, Genie + is pennies in comparison. Of course it’s not as good a program either. But cost wise, 6 flags way way more expensive.

having said that, I might be willing to pay north if a few hundred a day for a true skip the line, but I don’t see Disney implementing

Personally when I go to another theme park and pay exorbitant prices to skip the line it’s generally one day. And even if we have a good time it feels like a rip off and I’m not exactly itching to go back. A recent Busch gardens visit was $1000 for my family of four and I was not thrilled with the experience and won’t be back anytime soon.

Universal is a bit different because of the premium hotel perks so with 4 people in a room it’s pretty economical. I could see this changing as they grow so enjoy it while you can.

If Disney implemented a true pay to skip the line pass it would have to cost a fortune to keep demand low enough. If you’re a family of four it would add thousands per day. Since most people take multi-day trips to multiple parks it seems unrealistic.

 

[MomOTwins]

I do have to give Disney some credit for giving us some notice before they took away the “length of ticket” feature. At least they gave a week or so to add it on to tickets at the old price. Which I did for my Nov trip. Because this was obvious.

However, I think it is very unlikely this will have any positive impact at all on LL availability in the short term. These days with all you have to spend and plan in advance, people are committed on the day of and know if they are buying G+ or not. Who is going to travel on extremely expensive plane tickets, stay at a $400-$800 a night disney hotel, wake up at 6am on their reserved HS day with no ability to change to another day during their trip because park reservations are sold out at HS, and then say “whattttt? An extra $7 per person? I guess we won’t be riding slinky dog after all.” At most this may reduce G+ usage by local APs who have more flexibility on dates but they too have to dea with park reservations, and are a shrinking population any thanks to no new AP sales and price hikes.

That said where it could come back to bite them is in the long term, when people remember how frustrating the experience of waking up each morning to mystery prices and mystery rides, on top of all the other price hikes and skimpflation. I am cutting back for sure—we used to go three times a year, exclusively at Disney, now our next trip is scheduled for 15 months after the previous one (which was a split stay with Disney and Universal). When the economy turns south they are going to wish they left us (formerly) loyal repeat guests with nothing but happy memories—the kind I used to have on Disney trips—rather than this sour taste in my mouth.

 

[Jrb1979]

Personally when I go to another theme park and pay exorbitant prices to skip the line it’s generally one day. And even if we have a good time it feels like a rip off and I’m not exactly itching to go back. A recent Busch gardens visit was $1000 for my family of four and I was not thrilled with the experience and won’t be back anytime soon.

Universal is a bit different because of the premium hotel perks so with 4 people in a room it’s pretty economical. I could see this changing as they grow so enjoy it while you can.

If Disney implemented a true pay to skip the line pass it would have to cost a fortune to keep demand low enough. If you’re a family of four it would add thousands per day. Since most people take multi-day trips to multiple parks it really seems unrealistic.

Yes it's expensive but at most other parks your average guest doesn't buy it that often. They wouldn't have to make it cost a fortune. Limit sales like every other park. Only let 25% of guests buy it each dy

 

[Beer Me]

Yes it's expensive but at most other parks your average guest doesn't buy it that often. They wouldn't have to make it cost a fortune. Limit sales like every other park. Only let 25% of guests buy it each dy

So then it would become another competitive item to buy - wake up at 6am on a certain day and hope they don’t sell out.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I think the better term is they've "outpriced" me. People have 1000 different variables as to what they are willing to spend based on financial goals, level of savings they are comfortable with, what expenses are (or are not) on the horizon. Some people are willing to pay some of it on a CC balance for some period of time, others would not consider that.

I think there's different phrases that people can use for their own situations and I can't discount that. For you it may be outpriced for someone else it may be something different. Even saying outpriced doesn't fit what I read from a lot of people. People are more than willing to spend the money in these recent years (going back before the pandemic and presently speaking) but are seeing a reduction in what the Disney product is. One of the definitions of priced out is being unable to afford something as it has become more and more expensive (I think of the stupid high housing market as a big example).

My personal comment was just that I think the "can't afford" is said too liberally. Observationally more or less people talk about being able to afford but the actual meat of the comments are more about the value for the price charged has shifted. Enough people say in their comments "I'd be willing to pay if I got XYZ" (usually talking about what perks/magic Disney used to provide).

My crux of my response to the PP was just that comfortable paying and able to afford are not inherently the same. They are absolutely though as you've touched on a personal variable.

 

[Jrb1979]

So then it would become another competitive item to buy - wake up at 6am on a certain day and hope they don’t sell out.

The disconnect in all of this is the thinking you need Genie+ or a skip the line pass to enjoy the parks. It's the reason other parks charge so much. It's not meant for everyone to have.