Magic Key Program

[theluckyrabbit]

Question on actual card, it will be a physical card, right? I am all for using my electronics for certain things, but do not want to use it for dining or any other type of discounts.

Every location (CS and TS) where we've dined so far this summer in DL, DCA, and DTD has asked for the Legacy Discount Ticket on our phones and won't even accept a physical AP card for dining discounts. (CMs said the card scanners were removed.) Using our phones was the only option given.

 

[bryanb]

It makes me absolutely crazy that I still don’t receive the emails!!!

Not that it matters - I also did not get the email, and I'm a confirmed Legacy Passholder.

In my case, I activated a WDW AP voucher this May, and noticed that all of my passholder-related emails at both parks stopped showing up about a week later. (This is my second round of "stopped getting the emails", after a three-year blank spot in the mid-10s.)

I don't know why I don't get any of the disney legacy emails, but I don't.

I’m so glad others are posting about this. 3+ years ago, I purchased an AP at WDW, and suddenly stopped receiving all promotional emails from The Walt Disney Company, including the parks on both coasts, D23, ShopDisney, home entertainment. I’ve emailed and called many times, as I actually want to hear from them and get AP-related communications. Each time they tell me that I’m opted in, and have tried toggling my subscriptions on and off but I get nothing. They’ve escalated my case but there’s nothing they can do about this IT issue.

I’ll have to buy my next pass with another email address and create a new Disney account, because there seems no hope of getting opted in with the account I’ve had for years and that has all my purchase history and Disney+ subscription!

 

[Wesley815]

Regarding emails.... it seems random which ones I actually get. I did not receive 'get ready for 1pm announcement', but I did receive 'Introducing the Magic Key program' after announcement was made.

Similar to other AP or Disney promos, sometimes I've got them and sometimes not (and yes, same email address for 10+years and check spam folder). It's not impossible to manage millions of guests on an email list, I always get Amazon alerts so they figured it out. Unless Disney is only sending targeted notices based on advertising/PR algorithms.

 

[brightlined]

I’m so glad others are posting about this. 3+ years ago, I purchased an AP at WDW, and suddenly stopped receiving all promotional emails from The Walt Disney Company, including the parks on both coasts, D23, ShopDisney, home entertainment. I’ve emailed and called many times, as I actually want to hear from them and get AP-related communications. Each time they tell me that I’m opted in, and have tried toggling my subscriptions on and off but I get nothing. They’ve escalated my case but there’s nothing they can do about this IT issue.

The first time I had this happen (2014-ish), it was so bad that I stopped receiving all (automated) Disney physical mail, too. I had to email D23 every quarter to get them to manually mail me a copy of the magazine. Around 2016-ish, I found the global opt-out/opt-in on The Walt Disney Company website, and did a hard toggle on it (completely unsubscribing, saving, then completely re-subscribing - I might have even waited a day between), and suddenly, I started getting emails and mailings again.

(If I'm not mistaken, I think that whole mess started when I tried unsubscribing from Disney Baby or something oddball like that, seeing as how I had no infants at the time and they were sending out an infuriating amount of email.)

I went back to the corporate website earlier this week and did a similar hard toggle on both Disneyland and WDW. (I also resubscribed to ShopDisney, which I don't remember unsubscribing to, but it's possible.) Whatever I did seemed to work (maybe) - I ended up getting the Remy's Ratatouille Adventure AP preview email and the global Magic Key announcement email. (I'll have to wait for the next LP email to see if that one's fixed - if there even is another LP email.)

I think the email stuff was screwed up years ago because their old mailing list system wasn't designed to handle self-subscribed mailing lists separately, and I still wonder if there might be some glitches related to that. (I wondered if resubbing to ShopDisney might have been the thing that actually broke the clog - assuming the clog is actually broken.)

Obviously, that's not really helpful - but maybe try unsubbing from one, leaving it for a day or two (or a week), and then resubbing. (ShopDisney sent me a "thanks for resubscribing" email, which at least signalled that something was working.)

 

[twodogs]

Yeah this worries us.

This is how the they do it at WDW right now, different buckets for APs, resort guest, and tickets.

 

[JWelch62]

This is how the they do it at WDW right now, different buckets for APs, resort guest, and tickets.

To me this makes a lot of sense. Resort guests should have a distinct bucket since you really want to ensure that folks in the hotels can get reservations. And I think the order of precedence is correct, too. Yes, as a former AP holder I would prefer to be able to reserve at 120 days, but Disney wants to sell tickets. In reality I don't think that the 30 day delta would result in MagicKey holders being locked out, even in the peak months. But I guess we will see.

 

[dina444444]

This is how the they do it at WDW right now, different buckets for APs, resort guest, and tickets.

It’s actually only two buckets, resort guests and regular ticket holders share a bucket and then APs are on their own.

The bug exception with that APs at wdw is if they stay on site are able to hold as many reservation days for their on site stays in addition to the AP three at a time allotment.

 

[gelatoni fan]

Hong Kong has different buckets for each pass tier, tickets, and CMs with CMs being the most restrictive bucket. Back when platinum pass reservations opened up 9 days in advance and gold pass reservations opened up 8 days in advance, there were cases where gold passes could get reservations but platinum passes could not. But only one person in a group needs to be in a bucket to make a reservation for a party up to the maximum group size allowed by the government (currently 4).

At any rate, I prefer shorter reservation windows. With long reservation windows, you could be blocked out for long periods of time because your pass simply doesn't have enough reservations to cover all the dates in a 90 day period. Right now, I have a 3 day trip planned where I only have one available reservation left due to the other reservations being tied up in another trip. If the day before I depart on the 3 day trip there are no reservations left for the last 2 days, I'm cancelling the whole trip.

On another note, I don't think people staying at hotels should be subject to reservation buckets at all. They should get guaranteed admission into both parks like they do it in Tokyo although due to COVID, this guaranteed admission is only for tickets purchased at the hotel they are staying at.

 

[Twinkbelle]

I wonder if the guarantee (if offered) of park availablity will be extended to good neighbour hotels. If you're travelling a long way to come to the parks, you might not have the budget to be able to stay in a disney hotel but instead choose one nearby for a more reasonable cost. That is what I did when I went in 2019. Coming from the UK and putting a few days in Disneyland into a bigger trip travelling around seeing other parts of California. I was sorely tempted to upgrade to the cheapest AP and try and make it back within 12 months, then regretted not doing that afterwards. Turns out because of covid I wouldn't have made it back regardless.

 

[AndrewC]

I kinda wonder if on the back end it’s set up so hotel guests will ALWAYS be able to get a reservation and get into the parks. It makes no sense why someone would spend $3,500 at the DLH for five or six days and NOT be able to visit the parks. People would cancel and Disney would be out a lot more money than just the cost of single day tickets.

However, if Disney advertised guaranteed park access with a hotel booking, you would have people that booked the hotel and just cancel the moment normal ticket booking windows or AP booking windows open up, or maybe even their personal booking window if they already have a reservation before their dates. This would essentially use the resort rooms as a placeholder to wait and see if normal (much cheaper over all) reservations could be had. I doubt Disney would want that.

Could kinda be like the Halloween party tickets. I don’t see it prominently being advertised anywhere that if you stay onsite you have the chance to buy Halloween party tickets to sold out nights just by visiting the front desk in the morning. When I did that it looked like pretty much anyone in line in the morning was a sure thing getting in. I would be curious if someone swinging by at 10am or something still was able to buy one instead of being lined up right when they went on sale (I think 7am).

Disney knows exactly the capacity of their hotels and could easily remove that amount of tickets from the general daily bucket. If they don’t sell them they can be added back to day of sales. For a Halloween party or other “limited capacity” event they could easily increase the capacity by the number of guests trying to buy tickets.

Assuming every single room at all three resorts are filled with 4 guests that would be a potential ~9,000 people. That’s just over 10% of (estimated) Disneyland capacity and closer to ~6% when factoring in both parks. There would be no reason they couldn’t hold that amount of tickets on the most busy capacity filling days. Also, that’s if every guest checked in on the same day. One would assume on checkin you would at least then reserve all your park days (like if you were just informed by the front desk about the park reservations or asked if you have tickets yet.) That would be astronomically rare and is probably more like 25-50% max turn over on any single day. Further, most guests already have tickets so Disney probably would only have to hold maybe 25% of max capacity in tickets (2,000 to 3,000) and be absolutely fine.

Even during event nights (Halloween party etc) if Disney lowered the capacity to 75% of average estimated (approximately ~27,000 daily is estimated for DCA) that would be 20k total tickets. Holding 10% to 15% for resort guests would be no problem… and let be honest, it’s probably more like overselling a sold out party by 10% to 15% max which in the grand scheme of things would never really be felt in the park with the added attractions like photo ops, treat trails, etc. An extra 2k people wouldn’t suddenly take a 10 min wait time and make it 30 min, etc.

This would all be worst case. Realistically Disney probably has 50 to 100 guests at each hotel trying to get party tickets morning of, and not all are buying for 4+ people. During a normal but busy day (around Christmas etc) it’s probably 10% of people checking in that don’t have park tickets/reservations and maybe is an extra 1,000 to 1,500 guests Disney would need to let into the parks.

Number so small Disney wouldn’t think twice about. On the flip side, it keeps guests that are likely spending thousands of dollars happy. They also probably don’t have a issue with selling rooms so they don’t feel the need to try and draw more room sales with an advertised guaranteed park reservation.

Would be very curious if anyone has checked into a hotel and could NOT get a park ticket, to either park. Also would be curious about if anyone was turned away when trying to buy Halloween tickets and how late in the day you waiting to ask the front desk…

 

[twodogs]

I know WDW is a different beast, but currently Christmas Day and NYE are fully booked at MK for Hotel guests and Theme Park ticket holders, but are available to book for APs. So at least there, a hotel reservation does NOT guarantee park entry to any park on any day.

I think DLR will do the same, especially on holidays. As @WonkaKid mentioned to me, they may not really be using reservations to limit attendance numbers but rather to staff as closely to attendance as possible. So no overstaffing on a day when less people than expected show up. No understaffing (hopefully) either. I don’t think they want to limit attendance (other than limit it from being an obscene amount that drives people away; the pre-COVID crowds were many times obscene to me but didn’t drive many people away); they want to maximize profit for each day‘s crowd size by keeping staffing from being too much ( a big part of their overhead).

 

[AndrewC]

I know WDW is a different beast, but currently Christmas Day and NYE are fully booked at MK for Hotel guests and Theme Park ticket holders, but are available to book for APs. So at least there, a hotel reservation does NOT guarantee park entry to any park on any day.

I think DLR will do the same, especially on holidays. As @WonkaKid mentioned to me, they may not really be using reservations to limit attendance numbers but rather to staff as closely to attendance as possible. So no overstaffing on a day when less people than expected show up. No understaffing (hopefully) either. I don’t think they want to limit attendance (other than limit it from being an obscene amount that drives people away; the pre-COVID crowds were many times obscene to me but didn’t drive many people away); they want to maximize profit for each day‘s crowd size by keeping staffing from being too much ( a big part of their overhead).

Having more accurate attendance forecasts can also help fuel dynamic single day pricing… if that comes into play…

 

[twodogs]

As a former Flex Pass holder (and Texas resident) the 90 booking window is not great for us. We have to buy plane tickets, take time off work and get hotels. I don’t want to do all of that, only to find out we can’t get park reservations. While many flights are able to be changed these days, they still hold your money as a credit, so it is not ideal to just book flights and hope you get park reservations. Because we always stay onsite, maybe it will be ok if hotel guests get guaranteed park reservations but I honestly doubt they will that generous.

 

[AndrewC]

I know WDW is a different beast, but currently Christmas Day and NYE are fully booked at MK for Hotel guests and Theme Park ticket holders, but are available to book for APs. So at least there, a hotel reservation does NOT guarantee park entry to any park on any day.

I think DLR will do the same, especially on holidays. As @WonkaKid mentioned to me, they may not really be using reservations to limit attendance numbers but rather to staff as closely to attendance as possible. So no overstaffing on a day when less people than expected show up. No understaffing (hopefully) either. I don’t think they want to limit attendance (other than limit it from being an obscene amount that drives people away; the pre-COVID crowds were many times obscene to me but didn’t drive many people away); they want to maximize profit for each day‘s crowd size by keeping staffing from being too much ( a big part of their overhead).

Is there at least one park that has availability those days? I could see hotel guests not getting into the park they want, but not getting into ANY park still seems insane. How pissed off would you be spending $350 to $800 a night and NOT being able to visit any of the parks one day?

 

[twodogs]

Is there at least one park that has availability those days? I could see hotel guests not getting into the park they want, but not getting into ANY park still seems insane. How pissed off would you be spending $350 to $800 a night and NOT being able to visit any of the parks one day?

For those particular days, only MK is Sold out. For the week of Thanksgiving, hotel guests show not reservations available many days at MK, some days at both MK and DHS. No day during the week of Thanksgiving has full 4 park availability for hotel guests. With limitations on park hopping similar to DLR, your starting park can really matter (as well as trying to get ROTR BGs and trying to avoid possible capacity closure that would possibly not allow park hopping into MK, for example, on Christmas Day or something similar, if it was not your starting park).

 

[twodogs]

For those that want to see the calendars for WDW reservations;
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/a...,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets

 

[AndrewC]

For those particular days, only MK is Sold out. For the week of Thanksgiving, hotel guests show not reservations available many days at MK, some days at both MK and DHS. No day during the week of Thanksgiving has full 4 park availability for hotel guests. With limitations on park hopping similar to DLR, your starting park can really matter (as well as trying to get ROTR BGs and trying to avoid possible capacity closure that would possibly not allow park hopping into MK, for example, on Christmas Day or something similar, if it was not your starting park).

And I can totally see Disney not being able to provide the ideal or desired experience during the busiest periods, but simply getting you into a park. DCA only wouldn’t be ideal for many, but if one or two days had to be that I would still consider it Disney providing a park experience for their hotel guests.

It’s the idea of sitting around your $400/night hotel room over Christmas with zero park access and probably not a huge desire to use the pools as an insane thought and a huge issue on Disney’s part. I can’t imagine that would happen… and if anyone has a YouTube channel or extra money to burn… go try it out!

Book DLH or something over Christmas and don’t get a park reservation. Then day of go visit the front desk at 8am or so and without saying you’re with a publication of some sort or influencer, explain you didn’t realize you needed a reservation and see if they’ll get you into at least one park. I’ll be shocked if they don’t…

 

[silvertyu]

What do we think is the likely scenario based on the previous annual pass experience: if I buy a 3-5 day multi pass and start day 1 a week prior to 8/25, then on the last day of my use of the pass, do I have to go to the physical ticket booth to upgrade the pass to the Magic Key Program? And if so, do both my spouse and I need to be present?

 

[SeaDis]

I kinda wonder if on the back end it’s set up so hotel guests will ALWAYS be able to get a reservation and get into the parks.

 

[bryanb]

The first time I had this happen (2014-ish), it was so bad that I stopped receiving all (automated) Disney physical mail, too. I had to email D23 every quarter to get them to manually mail me a copy of the magazine. Around 2016-ish, I found the global opt-out/opt-in on The Walt Disney Company website, and did a hard toggle on it (completely unsubscribing, saving, then completely re-subscribing - I might have even waited a day between), and suddenly, I started getting emails and mailings again.

(If I'm not mistaken, I think that whole mess started when I tried unsubscribing from Disney Baby or something oddball like that, seeing as how I had no infants at the time and they were sending out an infuriating amount of email.)

I went back to the corporate website earlier this week and did a similar hard toggle on both Disneyland and WDW. (I also resubscribed to ShopDisney, which I don't remember unsubscribing to, but it's possible.) Whatever I did seemed to work (maybe) - I ended up getting the Remy's Ratatouille Adventure AP preview email and the global Magic Key announcement email. (I'll have to wait for the next LP email to see if that one's fixed - if there even is another LP email.)

I think the email stuff was screwed up years ago because their old mailing list system wasn't designed to handle self-subscribed mailing lists separately, and I still wonder if there might be some glitches related to that. (I wondered if resubbing to ShopDisney might have been the thing that actually broke the clog - assuming the clog is actually broken.)

Obviously, that's not really helpful - but maybe try unsubbing from one, leaving it for a day or two (or a week), and then resubbing. (ShopDisney sent me a "thanks for resubscribing" email, which at least signalled that something was working.)

Thanks for sharing your experience! I’m going to try the hard toggle again. Last time, they told me to do the toggle off and on, and then don’t log into my account for 90 days in order to make sure nothing overwrote the settings. Sadly, that didn’t work. I did the toggle again and hadn’t logged in for 6 months, and still no emails. In my case, I have unsubscribed from stuff in the past, but this error happened when I bought an AP at WDW which nuked everything.

I’ve had this account since I was a CM, and it has a ton of purchase history in it. Maybe it will work eventually… though I don’t want to buy an AP with it if I’m never going to get promo emails. Imagine that, a company I actually want spam from won’t send it to me!