Magic Key Renewals

[longtimedisneylurker]

Wow…. So it’s the 17th and still crickets?

Honestly not surprised.

 

[GoofyGoofyGoofy]

Yes and no. I did some digging and there was not a named, separate "parking fee", but parking was considered included in the extra resort fee that was paid per day (looks like it was $13/day in 2009 according to old Disboards threads?). Appears this specifically covered WiFi and parking. From later threads it looks like the resort fee was dropped, wifi made free, and a named parking fee added in 2011 ($15).

So in 2009, you paid that resort fee intended to cover parking whether you parked a car or not.

Thank you for this. Now, we pay a 17% resort and tax, as well as 35, daily to park.

 

[kristensideaoffun]

Thank you for this. Now, we pay a 17% resort and tax, as well as 35, daily to park.

The 17% “resort fee” is a tax that goes straight to the city of Anaheim regardless of whether staying onsite or off. It’s different from what you used to pay as a resort fee.

 

[Malcon10t]

Thank you for this. Now, we pay a 17% resort and tax, as well as 35, daily to park.

In 2006, you still paid the occupancy tax, plus an additional fee which included parking for 2 cars and a newspaper (USA Today). They dropped the resort fee that went to Disney but you still have to pay the occupancy tax (15%) and tourism improvement district tax (2%) that goes to the city of Anaheim. All hotels charge this inside Anaheim.

If you head to Fullerton for a room, it is 10% I believe, and Santa Ana is 13%, and Cypress is 11%.

 

[DizneyMommy]

The first set should be eligible for renewal today per their own information.
Not a month from now.

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't announce anything until like a month before the renewals start. I'm not expecting them to announce something 40 days before the first set of Magic Keys get renewed.

 

[brightlined]

The first set should be eligible for renewal today per their own information.
Not a month from now.

I assume this has been spotted already, but the "Renewing a Magic Key Pass" section in the app that mentioned "Passes are eligible for renewal 40 days prior to their expiration date" is now blank:

 

[zzzzk]

The first set should be eligible for renewal today per their own information.
Not a month from now.

Unfortunately, a woman is suing Disney for having no reservations available, sometimes, even when the park was not at capacity, for her highest-level passes. A childish temper tantrum if you ask me. Disney had to balance passport reservations with ticket reservations. Even zoo's are doing this. I could be wrong, but I think she is ruing it for all of us. So now families may not be able to go while she has her selfish lawsuit. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[10SE]

Unfortunately, a woman is suing Disney for having no reservations available, sometimes, even when the park was not at capacity, for her highest-level passes. A childish temper tantrum if you ask me. Disney had to balance passport reservations with ticket reservations. Even zoo's are doing this. I could be wrong, but I think she is ruing it for all of us. So now families may not be able to go while she has her selfish lawsuit. I hope I'm wrong.

I’m pretty sure your right. With a pending lawsuit, management will need to very careful with whatever they do next. It’s in their best interest to get people to renew without a gap.

 

[whiteness]

Disney had to balance passport reservations with ticket reservations.

Hard ticketed events require people to purchase tickets for specific dates. Disney should consider doing that for day tickets. When people purchase a ticket, they will be guaranteed entry for their dates of choice as long as they are available. If you are booking a hotel stay and transportation for specific dates, book the tickets at the same time.

When passholders' window opens up, they get to reserve entry from the same bucket. I don't agree that passholders should be prevented from getting into the parks if the parks are below capacity.

 

[DisneylandFan22]

“The court finds that plaintiff has adequately pled facts supporting how a reasonable consumer may be deceived by the advertisement, which states ‘no blockout dates.’” the judge wrote in his ruling. “Plaintiff argues that ordinary consumers generally understand blockout dates to be ‘dates when tickets, credits, passes or rewards cannot be used.’”

You can think it’s a temper tantrum but whether it is valid or not will be decided through the courts unless Disney settles first (which I am guessing they will). Either way it does not stop them from communicating to current key holders and providing information in a timely manner when the expectation is the renewal window is 40 days before expiration.

 

[zzzzk]

Hard ticketed events require people to purchase tickets for specific dates. Disney should consider doing that for day tickets. When people purchase a ticket, they will be guaranteed entry for their dates of choice as long as they are available. If you are booking a hotel stay and transportation for specific dates, book the tickets at the same time.

When passholders' window opens up, they get to reserve entry from the same bucket. I don't agree that passholders should be prevented from getting into the parks if the parks are below capacity.

Sorry, but I don't agree. If they adopted your system, then most of the time all of the reservations would be used up by passholders. Ticketholders would rarely be able to get in unless they booked way in advance. Or they would have to limit the number of passholders to a MUCH smaller number. The system needs to be fair and available to both passholders and ticketed holders. Just my opinion.

 

[dieumeye]

Sorry, but I don't agree. If they adopted your system, then most of the time all of the reservations would be used up by passholders. Ticketholders would rarely be able to get in unless they booked way in advance. Or they would have to limit the number of passholders to a MUCH smaller number. The system needs to be fair and available to both passholders and ticketed holders. Just my opinion.

The lawsuit isn't about whether they can or should do it one way or the other. It's about how they misled buyers regarding how the Dream Key would actually work. If fairness is the goal, then part of being fair is Disney being straightforward and clear about what you are actually buying when you buy a pass. And that's what is at issue in the lawsuit.

 

[Kender]

I assume this has been spotted already, but the "Renewing a Magic Key Pass" section in the app that mentioned "Passes are eligible for renewal 40 days prior to their expiration date" is now blank:

View attachment 685713

Yeah, that got scrubbed months ago.

 

[whiteness]

Sorry, but I don't agree. If they adopted your system, then most of the time all of the reservations would be used up by passholders. Ticketholders would rarely be able to get in unless they booked way in advance. Or they would have to limit the number of passholders to a MUCH smaller number. The system needs to be fair and available to both passholders and ticketed holders. Just my opinion.

OK, they could limit the number of passholders, limit the number of reservations they can hold at one time, reduce their advance window, or limit the total number of visits they can have per month or per annum. All of these things would be more honest and transparent than putting passholders in a separate bucket and non-transparently manipulating the number of passes allocated to passholders versus other guests.

But Disney chooses not to do any of those things. Maybe they like selling more annual passes than the parks can actually accommodate? Maybe they don't want to be open and transparent about how passholder's visits might be limited, because it might reduce sales of passes at their current price point?

Personally, I think that, if Disney said we could visit say (just picking some arbitrary numbers out of thin air) 20 times per year or 5 times per month, most people would still be willing to buy an annual pass. If they limited the number of passes sold so that there would still be enough extra capacity to accomodate resort guests and other ticket purchasers, they would still make enough money to keep the lights on.

This "problem" is not caused by Disney's customers. Not by the passholders or other guests. It's caused by Disney. They need to stop blaming us, and start being open and honest about what they are willing and able to sell us, how much and at what price, and let us decide if we want to buy it or not. Full information, full transparency.

Guests are supposed to be friends welcomed into your home, not adversaries that you need to hide information from and pit against each other for limited resources. Imagine if your neighbor invited the whole neighborhood over for Thanksgiving, then when you all arrived, told you that there was only enough seats for half of you? Whose fault is that? Your fault for accepting the invitation, or your neighbor for clearly overselling his capacity to entertain everyone?

So, should he have made two buckets: one for the people on the north side of the block and another for the south side? How about either invite fewer people, or buy another table and another turkey.

My goodness, haven't we been having these same discussions just forever? And people invariably seem to blame the passholders for actually expecting to be able to use the passes they were sold. Disney just needs to make it clear what the limits are in advance, sell passes with those limits at a price people are OK with, and that's that. Don't sell them passes without any stated limits, and then cry that you need to protect yourself against those terrible passholders that actually take you up on it.

 

[dieumeye]

OK, they could limit the number of passholders, limit the number of reservations they can hold at one time, reduce their advance window, or limit the total number of visits they can have per month or per annum. All of these things would be more honest and transparent than putting passholders in a separate bucket and non-transparently manipulating the number of passes allocated to passholders versus other guests.

But Disney chooses not to do any of those things. Maybe they like selling more annual passes than the parks can actually accommodate? Maybe they don't want to be open and transparent about how passholder's visits might be limited, because it might reduce sales of passes at their current price point?

Personally, I think that, if Disney said we could visit say (just picking some arbitrary numbers out of thin air) 20 times per year or 5 times per month, most people would still be willing to buy an annual pass. If they limited the number of passes sold so that there would still be enough extra capacity to accomodate resort guests and other ticket purchasers, they would still make enough money to keep the lights on.

This "problem" is not caused by Disney's customers. Not by the passholders or other guests. It's caused by Disney. They need to stop blaming us, and start being open and honest about what they are willing and able to sell us, how much and at what price, and let us decide if we want to buy it or not. Full information, full transparency.

Guests are supposed to be friends welcomed into your home, not adversaries that you need to hide information from and pit against each other for limited resources. Imagine if your neighbor invited the whole neighborhood over for Thanksgiving, then when you all arrived, told you that there was only enough seats for half of you? Whose fault is that? Your fault for accepting the invitation, or your neighbor for clearly overselling his capacity to entertain everyone?

So, should he have made two buckets: one for the people on the north side of the block and another for the south side? How about either invite fewer people, or buy another table and another turkey.

My goodness, haven't we been having these same discussions just forever? And people invariably seem to blame the passholders for actually expecting to be able to use the passes they were sold. Disney just needs to make it clear what the limits are in advance, sell passes with those limits at a price people are OK with, and that's that. Don't sell them passes without any stated limits, and then cry that you need to protect yourself against those terrible passholders that actually take you up on it.

This is exactly what I have never liked about the current Key/Reservation setup.

What did I buy? What am I actually getting? How would I ever know if my Key is getting a “fair” allotment of reservations?

Moving forward, if they keep a similar system, they should show how many reservations are still available for each date. June 13: 1529 Key reservations available, etc. And then it ticks down as they are reserved. That way we’d be able to see how many reservations they are allocating to that pass, and book accordingly. But they will never be that transparent.

To be fair, after the initial weeks of poor availability, it hasn’t been difficult for me to book the dates I want. But that doesn’t mean the system is transparent enough. There is room for improvement.

 

[PirateBrigade]

This is a company that expects its customers to make reservations to enter the parks when there is no entertainment schedule or operating hours information out yet. I would not be surprised if they don't even get info out by those mid-July dates.

You've never been to a convention have you? You buy tickets months before you know anything else besides location and dates. SDCC for example sells tickets in Nov, for a convention in July. D23 is similar, as are all these events.

Nothing negative about it, I just find it funny this mode of operation is surprising and negative to some. At least Disney schedules are somewhat predictable.

For some reason, this reminds me of music festivals. BottleRock (Napa) sells their VIP packages (and they sell out), way before the festival lineup is announced. To be fair, I think people go to eat and drink, and the music is secondary. I'm not one of those people!

Yep. FlexPass was a huge win since I went six or seven times refunded like 60% of the pass cost because they shut down.

This last year, not so great.

I calculated my FlexPass cost per day, and it ended up being < $28 per visit after that refund. I will miss visiting the 'Land for such a low per day cost.

Unfortunately, a woman is suing Disney for having no reservations available, sometimes, even when the park was not at capacity, for her highest-level passes. A childish temper tantrum if you ask me. Disney had to balance passport reservations with ticket reservations. Even zoo's are doing this. I could be wrong, but I think she is ruing it for all of us. So now families may not be able to go while she has her selfish lawsuit. I hope I'm wrong.

Why unfortunately? Her case is justified, Disney failed to properly articulate the concepts of "no blockout dates" vis-a-vis "subject to reservation availability" on its top line marketing materials. That's just a blatant failure of Disney to contain the liability. That case will settle, federal court isn't as friendly a venue as OC superior court.

 

[V12]

Unfortunately, a woman is suing Disney for having no reservations available, sometimes, even when the park was not at capacity, for her highest-level passes. A childish temper tantrum if you ask me. Disney had to balance passport reservations with ticket reservations. Even zoo's are doing this. I could be wrong, but I think she is ruing it for all of us. So now families may not be able to go while she has her selfish lawsuit. I hope I'm wrong.

I’ve wondered about this too

 

[gelatoni fan]

For some reason, this reminds me of music festivals. BottleRock (Napa) sells their VIP packages (and they sell out), way before the festival lineup is announced. To be fair, I think people go to eat and drink, and the music is secondary. I'm not one of those people!



I calculated my FlexPass cost per day, and it ended up being < $28 per visit after that refund. I will miss visiting the 'Land for such a low per day cost.



Why unfortunately? Her case is justified, Disney failed to properly articulate the concepts of "no blockout dates" vis-a-vis "subject to reservation availability" on its top line marketing materials. That's just a blatant failure of Disney to contain the liability. That case will settle, federal court isn't as friendly a venue as OC superior court.

I think my flex pass came out to the same amount because I bought it during the last weekend of Lunar New Year and did 2 days of Food & Wine. If I recall correctly, that's 5 visits with the down payment and one month of payment. It was ironically cheaper than the 2 day ticket that my family bought for Food & Wine.

I completely agree that the case is justified. A lot of people were not expecting Disney to artificially lower the reservation capacity for passholders based on the language in the terms & conditions. While unlikely, I also hope that someone will raise a class action on the welcome packages that were never delivered. If Disney can't produce documentation that a specific Keyholder's package was actually sent out, they can't prove they didn't just take people's money without sending goods that were supposed to be included with Magic Keys.

At this point, I really don't know what to attribute to incompetence and what to attribute to Disney being intentionally misleading but either way, I don't think this is an ethical way to run a business.

 

[Kender]

if you check my recent post from yesterday they accidentally released a Disneyland exclusive magic band+ at the world of Disney store at downtown Disney. They are rumored to be in stock at Disneyland just not for sale after that accidental release. But someone in the comments said the bands suddenly being in back stock at the stores could mean they have something to do with the new pass system they are waiting to announce

It was also pointed out by several commenters that no proof exists it was actually accidentally released at DLR (no pictures of it in store and no purchase receipt) and that most of the available information points to that particular item being stolen. I would not use a potentially stolen item as an indicator for anticipated Key information.

 

[Kender]

My apologies, I saw the replies but I didn’t think it would actually be stolen. But of course they could be right. I just hope they announce something about the bands soon because it’s taking them forever. But at least that points to them having some in back stock. I wonder why they even have any in back stock because 2 people on Facebook confirmed they had snagged one from world of Disney at downtown Disney. Unless Disney is going to announce something soon. Maybe the bands have something to do with the magic key renewals and new pass system since Disney hasn’t announced anything yet

But again: no one has posted proof they actually bought one. As in receipt proof. You have to take what you've read with a large helping of salt.

Can't even confirm any MB+ are being stored on site honestly. There is just no proof they were ever at DLR.

Hopefully we will hear soon about Keys and renewals (since that's what this thread is about), but I really do not think anything regarding MB+ has any bearing on that announcement. And agreed it would be nice to hear something about MB+, but Key information is a little more important to me right now