News on Annual Passes

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[Mrs.AMC]

My first reading of this was the surface reading — Disney fixed it so people can reserve parks for a group regardless of gate admission type ( tickets, resort or passholder). But then I read it again. If they had buckets (pools) what does this do to the buckets? Are we all in one bucket now? Did Disney decide to give up their alleged management tool of manipulating the passholder bucket availability? Is it first come first serve now for all gate admissions types? If so, that is a pretty big change.

If that is the change, it could also signal there might be some movement of the lawsuit and a settlement. In turn, that might lead to the possibility of re-opening new annual pass sales. These things are like tumblers. One change could lead to another.

Since it was all alleged in the first place I guess no one really knows.
And yeah, if it's all booked at once it can only be one pool and if it's one pool I can't see how it can be anything but first come, can it?

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[DL1WDW2]

Wow … Okay I’m awake now
!
This is major news How can anybody sleep?

 

[TLSnell1981]

Please let us know if anything comes of it/if they follow up!

I know that I've had many surveys since this all started and the one thing I've complained about every time, repeatedly is that as an AP holder I had to book separately from the ticketed guests even when we all had the same resort reservation/confirmation. I know many others who have too. So it could be simply a case of Disney listening to complaints from a whole lot of guests. They aren't listening to complaints to do away with the entire thing but the best they can which is to get rid of different pools

It need to go way completely!

 

[fumanchu2488]

A few things after reading through this.

I am relatively new DVC (2019) and my guide went out of his way to make it clear none of the perks were guaranteed.

The buckets made no sense to me. Most anyone traveling from farther away were probably making their park reservations at least 30-45 days out. It does cut back the last minute getaways if you can’t get into a park but that is probably a rarity.

Lastly, as a DVC member I have been thinking what could they do to meet in between. I understand why they don’t want/need to sell APs but there are a lot of people within the DVC world that spend between 10-20 days per year in the parks. Something I thought would be a good compromise would be going back to the old day tickets with a 1 year expiration and offering up to 15 or 20 days. Essentially like a voucher. Make days 10-20 days $45 or $40/ day and keep Christmas blacked out. Also, make it available only to people staying at WDW resort hotels. So not only DVC. The park reservation system already controls when people go to what park so this seems like a good compromise.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Starts tomorrow so it is elevated beyond rumor, but we do not know the details of how it will work. Sandi will get more info when she books a mixed group tomorrow.

No I was referring to the bold below when i was talking about alleged. I know th e reservations are being changed

If they had buckets (pools) what does this do to the buckets? Are we all in one bucket now? Did Disney decide to give up their alleged management tool of manipulating the passholder bucket availability? Is it first come first serve now for all gate admissions types? If so, that is a pretty big change.

If that is the change, it could also signal there might be some movement of the lawsuit and a settlement. In turn, that might lead to the possibility of re-opening new annual pass sales. These things are like tumblers. One change could lead to another.

 

[Ms Bibbidi]

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[Mrs.AMC]

It need to go way completely!

From your keyboard to their ears!
That would be my dream too.

 

[TLSnell1981]

I know that I've had many surveys since this all started and the one thing I've complained about every time, repeatedly is that as an AP holder I had to book separately from the ticketed guests even when we all had the same resort reservation/confirmation. I know many others who have too. So it could be simply a case of Disney listening to complaints from a whole lot of guests. They aren't listening to complaints to do away with the entire thing but the best they can which is to get rid of different pools

It's was also a complaint for me although eliminating the reservation system entirely would alleviate the issues it creates.

***edited to add ***

NOW focus on the very flawed LL, lack of dining availability for "large parties"... at lest you can accommodate the number reserved on site and form a consensus at GS when solving issues. There are other concerns but these rank high when booking for my family Yes by todays standards at Disney we may be considered large but are still accommodated in a villa so yeah as a DVC owner I expect this courtesy well unless you eliminate two and three bedrooms villas.

 

[Liquidice]

I still think there are buckets... it is just a simplified process to book Park Passes.

Disney could simply pull from the ticketholder / resort guest bucket where appropriate (for a particular guest) and the AP bucket where appropriate (for a particular guest) in a big group. They could even make small exceptions for groups - but we won't know for sure how this will work until there is an availability difference.

There are still 2 calendars, a Park Ticket availability and an Annual Pass Availability.

Tickets: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/a...kets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets

AP: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/blockout-dates/disney-incredi-pass/ (note this link says it is for blockout, but it also will show park pass availability - for example it has a symbol for only some parks available, which indicates a park's park passes are sold out).

Also - I still have a separate link for booking park passes for APs saying at a Resort. If it were all 1 bucket now, it shouldn't matter right? The system would be able to pull from the correct bucket and if you're staying at a resort, it should be able to figure it out and not decrement from your park pass limit as an AP.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

I still think there are buckets... it is just a simplified process to book Park Passes.

Disney could simply pull from the ticketholder / resort guest bucket where appropriate (for a particular guest) and the AP bucket where appropriate (for a particular guest) in a big group. They could even make small exceptions for groups - but we won't know for sure how this will work until there is an availability difference.

There are still 2 calendars, a Park Ticket availability and an Annual Pass Availability.

Tickets: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/a...kets,resort,passholder&defaultSegment=tickets

AP: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/passes/blockout-dates/disney-incredi-pass/ (note this link says it is for blockout, but it also will show park pass availability - for example it has a symbol for only some parks available, which indicates a park's park passes are sold out).

Also - I still have a separate link for booking park passes for APs saying at a Resort. If it were all 1 bucket now, it shouldn't matter right? The system would be able to pull from the correct bucket and if you're staying at a resort, it should be able to figure it out and not decrement from your park pass limit as an AP.

I'm going to guess, since we are all doing nothing but guessing, that their system has no way to see the AP has a resort stay unless the AP holder selects the option to book reservations with a resort stay first. We are know that MDE has serious connecting data base flaws and this is just one in a long list

 

[Liquidice]

Case in point to support my view that there are still buckets:

Today, 8/23/22 - Hollywood Studios is not available for Ticket and Resort Guests, but it is available for AP guests.
Tomorrow, 8/24/22 - Magic Kingdom is not available for Ticket and Resort Guests, but it is available for AP guests.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Case in point to support my view that there are still buckets:

Today, 8/23/22 - Hollywood Studios is not available for Ticket and Resort Guests, but it is available for AP guests.
Tomorrow, 8/24/22 - Magic Kingdom is not available for Ticket and Resort Guests, but it is available for AP guests.

The question I have is it available for AP resort guests? That's what I ran in to. As an AP resort guest I had different booking than Ticket Resort guest. It sounded like that was changing but you are saying above it is booking exactly as it always was

In other words, there is no change?

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Is it not like this?
I guess there's an off site pool and an on site pool, from what this looks like, but other than that, AP and Tickets are grouped together
AP/Ticket on site
AP/Ticket off site
Is that not how it's working?
All my park reservations are done right now so I don't have any to play around with. I guess though, our stay in March is far enough out I'm not at risk to cancel some and play around with them to see how it works. That's a mix of ticket and AP

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Saw this note in the article


Yeah, that's uh, not quite right. Right about no actions part
They made a mess of migrating our stay at the end of September.
These are both DH and I, it was 1 reservation on 9/26 at Epcot, with both of us together under 1 confirmation #
Somehow, after their migration we have 2 each, the one with us together under 1 confirmation # and the one showing us individually under different confirmation #
It's like this for each day of our trip
I don't dare go in and cancel anything for fear they figure out they duplicated something and cancel it. Just safe to say, their system did not migrate without flaws, as to be expected.
I'm not even sure how it did this

 

[Liquidice]

Is it not like this?
I guess there's an off site pool and an on site pool, from what this looks like, but other than that, AP and Tickets are grouped together
AP/Ticket on site
AP/Ticket off site
Is that not how it's working?
All my park reservations are done right now so I don't have any to play around with. I guess though, our stay in March is far enough out I'm not at risk to cancel some and play around with them to see how it works. That's a mix of ticket and AP
View attachment 696455

It is just the interface though that is making it easier to book the park passes. Behind the scenes I believe the buckets are still the same - especially because APs can currently book HS today and MK tomorrow while ticket holders and resort guests cannot.

So even though to you on the front end, it looks like it is just 1 option for ticket holders and APs (while AP resort guests is a different option) on the back end there are still different buckets.

Think of it like if there is 1 line to wait in to buy from 2 different stores with a single cashier, but when you get there the cashier knows when you ask for a certain item, she gives the money to Store A, while with another item it is store B. Does that make sense?

As we approach the holiday season, it will be easier to see if we have a mixed group of AP + ticket holders where the ticket holders can book a park pass but an AP can't.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

It is just the interface though that is making it easier to book the park passes. Behind the scenes I believe the buckets are still the same - especially because APs can currently book HS today and MK tomorrow while ticket holders and resort guests cannot.

So even though to you on the front end, it looks like it is just 1 option for ticket holders and APs (while AP resort guests is a different option) on the back end there are still different buckets.

Think of it like if there is 1 line to wait in to buy from 2 different stores with a single cashier, but when you get there the cashier knows when you ask for a certain item, she gives the money to Store A, while with another item it is store B. Does that make sense?

I played around with it more. I cancelled the reservations for my March trip that is a mixture of ticket and AP in one resort reservation and tested different ways to book the reservations.
It's more than just an interface but yes, there are still buckets.
It's fewer buckets than there were before, that much I'm positive about.
If you try to book a mixture of AP and Tickets w/Resort stay but don't go through the Hotel Guest option you get this message. You can't even click through to complete the transaction and book passes.


If you click on the Hotel Guest option, you can book both your AP and Ticket guests together. Before you could not book at the same time and you positively got different availability. I had problems with it where I couldn't book the same parks for my mixed party trip. There were 2 different buckets for AP guests and Ticket guests with resort stay. They now book from the same bucket. There's no way they can book together at the same transaction and use 2 different buckets. You can't get the same park options and be using different buckets. What would happen in that case if there was a case like I've encountered where there was different availability? If you book together it has to be the same availability bucket, make sense?

If you have no resort stay you do have different buckets than those with a resort stay. No way for me to test if tickets and AP without resort stay get to pick from 1 bucket or 2 different ones since I only have tickets with Resort stay for 1 person. No tickets without resort stay to test with.

 

[Liquidice]

I played around with it more. I cancelled the reservations for my March trip that is a mixture of ticket and AP in one resort reservation and tested different ways to book the reservations.
It's more than just an interface but yes, there are still buckets.
It's fewer buckets than there were before, that much I'm positive about.
If you try to book a mixture of AP and Tickets w/Resort stay but don't go through the Hotel Guest option you get this message. You can't even click through to complete the transaction and book passes.
View attachment 696470

If you click on the Hotel Guest option, you can book both your AP and Ticket guests together. Before you could not book at the same time and you positively got different availability. I had problems with it where I couldn't book the same parks for my mixed party trip. There were 2 different buckets for AP guests and Ticket guests with resort stay. They now book from the same bucket. There's no way they can book together at the same transaction and use 2 different buckets. You can't get the same park options and be using different buckets. What would happen in that case if there was a case like I've encountered where there was different availability? If you book together it has to be the same availability bucket, make sense?

If you have no resort stay you do have different buckets than those with a resort stay. No way for me to test if tickets and AP without resort stay get to pick from 1 bucket or 2 different ones since I only have tickets with Resort stay for 1 person. No tickets without resort stay to test with.

Interesting - so you're saying there are 3 buckets now?

1. Ticket Holders
2. Annual Pass Holders
3. Resort guests

Where before there were 4 buckets?

1. Ticket Holders
2. Annual Pass Holders
3. Ticket holders staying at a Resort
4. Annual Pass Holders staying at a Resort

I wonder if Disney is allowing APs to pull from the ticket bucket if they have ticketed guests in their travel party.

Again this will become more obvious during the holiday season if a group of only APs can't book a Park Pass while a group of AP+Tickets can.

 

[Mrs.AMC]

Interesting - so you're saying there are 3 buckets now?

1. Ticket Holders
2. Annual Pass Holders
3. Resort guests

Where before there were 4 buckets?

1. Ticket Holders
2. Annual Pass Holders
3. Ticket holders staying at a Resort
4. Annual Pass Holders staying at a Resort

Of some combination yes.
I am 100% positive that 3 and 4 are correct on the resort stay option. I've had 2 different trips where I had change around our plans because my traveling party with tickets could not book the same park as me, an AP holder with resort stay could. The park was unavailable to them but available to me on several different days. Both of us were using the Resort stay choice to book, with us all staying in the same resort reservation, same reservation number and all.
The rest I can't say as I've never booked without a resort stay so I've never tested the availability personally. Not with tickets or with an AP.