Did Disney learn their lesson with the Villains event last year?

[maddiebee]

So I had some changes happen to my flights and am now going to be able to make it to the Villains Unleashed party! It sounds awesome but I am still worried about how crazy it will be after the nightmares I heard about last year.
Because it's a hard ticket event, do you think the amount of people there will be more reasonable? We will be staying at the Beach Club, so I'm not worried about getting stuck in traffic but I am worried about how packed the park will be!

 

[mmafan]

yup.....hard tickets=limits

 

[agavegirl1]

Yes, I believe they have. The event is now a separately charged, hard ticket event and CMs have been blacked out. That should change the crowding issues. As for parking and traffic? That remains to be seen.

 

[HopperFan]

Went last year to the nightmare (Disney was so not prepared - we were and arrived early in day) and now very excited to go this year to a ticketed event!!!

 

[chapie1968]

We are going to be down there and I am kind of glad that they are having this. I'm hoping it draws people away from the MK for our last day there.

 

[Disney Dad 88]

I certainly hope so too. Limit on tickets should help. They have to spread the characters out around the park to avoid the jamming them all together like the Friday the 13 th event. What a mess that was! Have our tickets and looking forward to the night.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I just finished a survey for Harambe nights.

I'm guessing they do listen as I had heard some complaints about the lack of kid food like Mac and Cheese so I had prepared my DD's but there is was!

 

[ArwenMarie]

Yeah, they learned there is a lot of money to be made by hard ticketing that event!

But seriously, I do think they learned and something like that won't happen again now that it is ticketed.

 

[TwoMisfits]

Wouldn't it be nice, though, instead of a Hard Ticket event (especially at DHS, which needs stuff to do), they would make this a bi-weekly park day event for the Fall (late Aug-Oct), especially on non-EMH days (say Sun/Thurs) when it's normally hard to fill DHS? How nice (and not that expensive for Disney) would it be to have Villain Days at DHS where all your favorites heroes have been replaced by villains? Wouldn't increase their costs (since you just swap the hero CMs for the villains and hero events for villain events), would bring in lots of people on down days, and would give people something for their DHS money...

The reason last year's event was a mess was b/c they did it once...it wouldn't be that way with regularity...

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Making it a hard ticket event will limit attendance to those who purchased tickets. So yes, they did learn from the last event that attendance must be limited.

 

[minnie mum]

Wouldn't it be nice, though, instead of a Hard Ticket event (especially at DHS, which needs stuff to do), they would make this a bi-weekly park day event for the Fall (late Aug-Oct), especially on non-EMH days (say Sun/Thurs) when it's normally hard to fill DHS? How nice (and not that expensive for Disney) would it be to have Villain Days at DHS where all your favorites heroes have been replaced by villains? Wouldn't increase their costs (since you just swap the hero CMs for the villains and hero events for villain events), would bring in lots of people on down days, and would give people something for their DHS money...

The reason last year's event was a mess was b/c they did it once...it wouldn't be that way with regularity...

But, but, but... you're asking Disney to do something that wouldn't make them a ton of money!!!! Your way, Disney gets its regular park admission, with possibly increased attendance. Their way, they get regular park admission PLUS a ridiculous cash haul from the hard tickets. It's Disney's field of dreams: make something a hard ticket event and they will come.

 

[monorailrabbit]

Last year was such a terrible nightmare that I actually cried. We had cancelled our first ever Christmas trip to be there for this and it was a mess! We were there at rope drop and it was choatic from the getgo. None of the CM's could or would tell me where to find merchandise, the crowds were absolutely out of control and we ended up missing out on a bunch of merchandise and characters because of wrong or lacking information. We finally went to guest services because I was so upset and the manager said he apologized, but the event was out of controll because they hadn't anticipated the crowd level. He gave us free park hoppers to Epcot for the rest of the evening. We missed all the merchandise and the characters. I was so dissapointed. The only saving grace was that I got to see Maleficent at the MNSSHP. (And I was dressed up as Fauna so I got a really great interaction) So dissapointed last year, really hope people this year have a great time!

 

[TwoMisfits]

But, but, but... you're asking Disney to do something that wouldn't make them a ton of money!!!! Your way, Disney gets its regular park admission, with possibly increased attendance. Their way, they get regular park admission PLUS a ridiculous cash haul from the hard tickets. It's Disney's field of dreams: make something a hard ticket event and they will come.

I know - it's getting easier and easier to just avoid buying regular tickets (since you get so little for them) and pick up a party or two for your trip and hit Universal, Sea World, and the other Orlando attractions (and my offsite resort for one's "regular" vacation...it's also getting cheaper to do (with ticket prices skyrocketing) and who wants to get up and get to a park at 7-8am rushing around with 1000s of people in the midday heat, when you can sleep in, have a leisurely brunch, go to a resort pool til 2-3pm, and then head over to a park and spend loads of time til midnight-1am with special attractions. Wait, I'm talking myself into this for my next trip...Disney better watch their "everything's an extra event" strategy b/c more and more people may start seeing the wisdom of this plan (and lots of money will be flowing away from them, since nowhere in the plan would I (or likely others) be spending money at Disney except at the extra event)...