Disney tracks dollars spent per guest in hotels and increased revenue for admissions and experiences in their annual report every year. Year over year it has gone up around 5% - 7% (looking at 2019 and not 2020 obviously). Disney knows who their guests are, how much they spend, how often they come and how to maximize that profit. To me, what this says is Disney knows that the biggest bang for their buck is the once in a lifetime to once a year guests. Like it or not, this AP system, with blackout dates, reservation requirements and higher costs (not to mention the fine print that they could sell out) is going to continue to cater to the once a year guest and not the 15+ day per year guest. You can get the same bottom dollar if you had twice as many people at half the cost or twice as much cost with half the people. They are definitely moving to lower people at higher costs and probably have a reason for it.
They also know exactly their demand and this pandemic probably gives them a very long runway to get this accepted since vacationing is so stacked up and demand for travel is high. Look at the parks now with essentially no international guests. Think of all those people that over the next 12 - 18 months will want to make their Disney trip, not to mention the rest of America (like me) who has been pushing their trip for months. Disney probably isn't interested in having locals and
DVC members come and visit the park 20 days per year where all they are realizing is AP income and maybe some merch and food. They want a family of four coming for the 7 to 10 day trip, spending $8,000 on hotels and tickets, buying $800 worth of
Genie+, spending $1,000 on food and $500 on merchandise. Unfortunately for us, DVC is kind of getting left in the dust of all of this with no real acknowledgement of our unique value.
That being said, the AP system, Genie+, attraction selections, increased food costs all point to Disney maximizing return on guests. For me, this does make me rethink about adding points. I would love to do 10 - 15 days per year over 2 trips to make an AP 'worth it', but at this point the vacation is just too expensive, even with DVC. For me, I would rather add a smaller contract so I can spend my 7 or 8 days with my family in a 1 BR every year or every other year and buy the Genie+, some attraction selections, car service to and from airport, Ubers around property, etc... In the future, I may add more points to accommodate different seasons or 2 BR units, but I really have no interest in trying to stretch points to longer stays because the price of everything outside of DVC is going to keep going up.
