DVC and DLR???

[bdmphs]

Sent this to Disney this morning...

I have been a DVC owner since 2003 and a visitor of Disney Parks since 1978. My family and I spend 3 to 4 weeks a year at a Disney Property and my 8 year old son has already been on 27 Disney Vacations. I have always explained to people that the cost of the vacations goes down with the amount of times you travel and that DVC pays for itself. We are frequent annual pass holders in both coasts and have found the ability to catch a cheap flight to the park for the weekend a major bonus to annual passes. The recent increase in prices at Disneyland has brought one of my complaints about DVC to a new level. The current discount for AP at WDW is approx. 20%. This seems fair and has never alarmed me. The DLR discount was around 6% but I always felt that since the passes were less it was not as big a deal. With the increase it is down to 4%. It seems that those members who want to use there points at DLR are being treated unfairly. On top of that we are not able to do the monthly plan which would make it more affordable. While I understand that Disney needs to make money, I don't understand why the discounts can't keep up in with the increases percentage wise. I would offer the following suggestions
1) Make the Discounts offered to DVC members a percentage of pass cost instead of a dollar figure. This would allow you to raise prices and not raise them a high percentage on DVC owners.

2) Allow all DVC owners the monthly annual pass payment plan at either or both parks as part of there monthly dues payment plan.

Thank you for taking the time to read these comments.


Any thoughts?

 

[nunzia]

I do wish that we had a better discount on the AP..maybe at some point they will give us a better one..or..they may just take it away, here and in Florida, since the discount is not part of our membership, but a perk they decided to offer. Discounts and perks are great, but they are not the reason I own DVC.

 

[taaren]

Because the VGC is so much smaller I don't think that DVC-ers are a crowd that DLR needs to please and cater to as much as WDW needs to. This is why the discount isn't as significant, and isn't likely to be very significant anytime in the near future (unless Iger changes his mind and builds another DL DVC or two).

There are DVC-ers that will go to WDW for a non-park vacation and just eat in restaurants at the resorts, go to the pools, and have a great time and never spend money in the parks. I can't imagine a vacation where I went to the Grand Californian and didn't go into DLR. So they know they have me, unfortunately.


I do wish they would increase the discount, or at the very least offer some non-expiring tickets or vouchers. I'd stock up, they'd be happy because they have my money now, I'd feel like I was "saving" even though with inflation its hard to tell whether or not that was actually the case.

I also wish they'd implement the biometric scanners to stop the people who sell off multiple day hoppers to several people, since that would mean they could sell longer park tickets and non-expiring options like WDW, and I think that would be a win-win situation for the DisneyParks division as well as make their customer base happier, and more likely to spend more money on both tickets and the extras.

I also wish they would see the Premier Passport at a discount, and offer it to be purchased either through member services or online at either the DVC site or at the Disney site. To me more people would get it then, and they would increase their revenue.


Btw, completely agree with the monthly installment plan for DVC-ers to buy APs. While a monthly installment plan doesn't make sense for them for the general population, a DVC-er for many reasons would be unlikely to empty his debit account to avoid paying for an AP, since its fairly obvious they're planning on coming back to the parks.

 

[ValpoCory]

I wouldn't expect Disney to give any financial breaks to current DVC owners. They've already made their sale.

That being said, the DLR ticket prices that happened today are rather large. Then again, with such an inelastic demand, I'm surprised they don't do this level of price increase every year.

 

[ACDSNY]

I wish NorCal residents would be treated the same as SoCal. If they really want to control the crowds they need to increase the SoCal APs and special ticket offers.

 

[cmwade77]

I am also hoping that DVC members will get a better discount on passes, my suggestion is to send an email to DVC, Disneyland and Disney World.

We live in So. Cal., so for us, the monthly payment plan works great. We have indeed stayed at GCH (where we own) and never went into the parks, heck we didn't spend any money on property that stay as we brought our own food from home and cooked and ate it there. Parking was free, we even did our laundry for free (we were staying there, so why not use the benefits?) Why didn't we go into the parks? Well, in that case, there was no reason to do so, as we have passes and were really just enjoying the room and all the resort had to offer, such as the pool, etc.

For this year, we got in before the price increase, but in all honesty, we will probably go back to every other year now and we will probably stay at GCH without ever going into the parks when we do so, just to get our Disney fix on our non-pass years.

A larger DVC discount would indeed change our plans there, especially if they started discounting the Premier pass as a result.