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

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Sure, thanks (I guess).
These same people come here for our advice, so we tell them our experience. That is my experience (and the experience of many others) so I will continue to give people that advice.

I'm not even talking about people who have somehow found the DIS. Your comment was nobody is buying for every day or at least no one should. The DIS comprises of a small amount of Disney guests.

When you wake up in the morning you need to know if you're going to buy it or not at WDW. It's often people get 4 or 5 day passes and park hopping not always there. It's often that families are going to each park one time. They may know after their trip if one park was better or not but that is after they experience it.

Just put yourself in other people's shoes. If you didn't have someone telling you this or that would you make the same decision. Maybe for your family (I mean personally your family) saw the list of attractions included in Genie+ for AK and for Epcot and said there's not enough there we'll not get it but another family may make a different decision.

Your opinion (and that of the DIS) is that there's less value in AK and Epcot but they are not rules, they are merely opinions.

 

[leeniewdw]

That is exactly the sort of budgeting trade off that we have been talking about in this thread.

Nobody is out there buying Genie+ for everyday of their trip. Or at least, they shouldn't be, because there is no value in Genie+ in Epcot or AK at all. I mean, I guess you can count the guests that prebooked Genie+ early on... they have it for every day of their trip, at a lower price too. At Epcot and AK, guests can 100% navigate their day with all rides with out Genie+ (you will need the ILL's though). And if you are only going to MK and/or HS... sure, you are getting Genie+ for at least one day at each of those parks (but you don't need to buy it for two MK or two HS days).

I think you have to realize that not everyone goes for a week, or even 4 days. Unless we win the lottery, we'll NEVER return for a full week at WDW. Our trips are 2-3 park days at this point and if we decide to go, we'll get G+ for each day. If we had 7 days and were targeting certain rides on certain days because we were revisiting parks, then sure, I'd probably skip G+ on certain days.

In fact, we're going in 3 weeks for 3 park days and AK and EP are scheduled for the same day. I'm still trying to device my G+/LL/ILL strategy at 7am. (Yes, I did book it for each day, for 6 people, back when I booked the package, but there's no way I'd go only a few days without G+).

 

[SL6827]

How long before its required to be bought for every park day you have if you want it at all?

 

[lugnut33]

How long before its required to be bought for every park day you have if you want it at all?

Great, you just cost everyone a lot of money once Chapek reads your post.

 

[set88]

How long before its required to be bought for every park day you have if you want it at all?

Never.

I can see them adding back the option to add it to a package for every day ahead of time for a discount, though. I'd be kind of surprised if they don't.

I think they're first going to finish working out what the normal price range is going to be, though. They're going to be trying to figure out what price brings them the most profit while leaving guests satisfied with how it works.

The only reason they might not bring back whole package presales is if they're concerned too many people will buy it. It's possible they could cap presales much more than they cap day of sales. That's just speculation, though. They're never going to require Genie+ to be pre-purchased - they will always want the option available for people to spontaneously purchase it.

 

[rastuso]

While they do want most guests to buy G+ and ILL, they don't want the amount of people buying it that are buying it right now. They don't want it to be exclusive like Express Pass is at Universal but they also don't want everyone buying it.

What they want is that sweet spot for guests buying it and getting the same income from it. What they don't want is top attractions selling out as quickly as they do.

Yeah, well, maybe they shouldn’t have stopped building new rides for 20 years.

 

[rastuso]

Agreed! This place is packed! I’m scared to see how MNSSHP is going to look tonight

App right now shows nothing at MK over like 40 minutes except Dwarf Hill at 105.

 

[set88]

App right now shows nothing at MK over like 40 minutes except Dwarf Hill at 105.

Crowd level is a 4/10 for MK today - because it's a party day.

 

[rastuso]

Crowd level is a 4/10 for MK today - because it's a party day.

At Studios, only Rise and Slinky are over an hour, big surprise. Not “packed” in my opinion.

 

[set88]

At Studios, only Rise and Slinky are over an hour, big surprise. Not “packed” in my opinion.

When I looked an hour ago, Alien Swirling Saucers had a 90 minute wait. I guess people somewhat came to their senses - it's down to 50 now.

HS is showing 8/10, AK and EPCOT 10/10. I was hoping to see it be a bit better than last week, but it's not that much better.

 

[snikki]

Check the touring plans times. They are usually way less than Disney’s posted times.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

When I looked an hour ago, Alien Swirling Saucers had a 90 minute wait. I guess people somewhat came to their senses - it's down to 50 now.

When we were there in May a large reason it was high in wait times was not actually the amount of people in line but rather not running both sides. We assumed staffing levels. I know they closed one side down shortly after our trip for maintenance but that was the side that was running the most when we were there so I don't think it was just ride malfunctioning.

But to the point about the people in line one time we entered the line and it said 20mins and there really wasn't that many people in the SB line but then they were only running 1 side...and then a bunch of LL people showed up and so our 20 mins turned into over 50mins.

 

[DisneyFive]

We still see the value with G+ at Epcot. However at AK, I would skip G+ and possibly pay for the $ILL for FOP, even though I have great distain for the $ILL’s.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

When I looked an hour ago, Alien Swirling Saucers had a 90 minute wait. I guess people somewhat came to their senses - it's down to 50 now.

HS is showing 8/10, AK and EPCOT 10/10. I was hoping to see it be a bit better than last week, but it's not that much better.

We were at EPCOT. I’ve seen it worse, but it was definitely up there on my crowded day list.

 

[xdan0920]

A good article from Tom Bricker, on crowds and what Disney really wants.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-doesnt-want-lower-crowds/

 

[mom2rtk]

A good article from Tom Bricker, on crowds and what Disney really wants.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-doesnt-want-lower-crowds/

Anybody who believed Disney really wanted to lower crowds was delusional.

 

[rastuso]

I think they started getting some really bad guest satisfaction numbers, realized they hadn’t built anything for 20 years, and swallowed the bitter pill of billions of investment. Then realized that wasn’t even close to enough. So, they had to adjust crowds and hike prices. Sure they want to get crowds bigger, but I doubt guest satisfaction is going to go up anytime soon,

 

[mom2rtk]

I think they started getting some really bad guest satisfaction numbers, realized they hadn’t built anything for 20 years, and swallowed the bitter pill of billions of investment. Then realized that wasn’t even close to enough. So, they had to adjust crowds and hike prices. Sure they want to get crowds bigger, but I doubt guest satisfaction is going to go up anytime soon,

The problem is that there is one tiny little metric that ranks above guest satisfaction for Disney. And that's the profit numbers. They'll do anything to make guests satisfied as long as the profit numbers stay high. And we're living the results of that.

 

[xdan0920]

Anybody who believed Disney really wanted to lower crowds was delusional.

Exactly, and by extension....

They don't want less people buying G+. That is laughable. They want more people to buy it, at a higher price point.

 

[cakebaker]

A good article from Tom Bricker, on crowds and what Disney really wants.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-doesnt-want-lower-crowds/

It's funny, Pete Werner has the exact opposite opinion. Disney wants fewer guests, higher profit per guest. Less staffing, less wear and tear, higher guest satisfaction. That makes a lot more sense to me and nevermind the fact that there's no doubt that higher prices will cause some people not to come. I share in Pete's delusions. And the fact is, they're all guessing just like we are.