News Round Up 2020

[rteetz]

News

“I Am With You” Song From “At Home With Olaf” Series Now Available on Most Streaming Services

 

[rteetz]

News

SeaWorld San Diego and Other Area Attractions Meet With County to Discuss Plans to Reopen July 1

 

[rteetz]

News

Leslie Iwerks and Others to Join The Walt Disney Family Museum’s Happily Ever After Hours Series

 

[rteetz]

News

Hasbro Reveals New Packaging, “Star Wars Rebels” Figures for The Black Series Action Figure Line

 

[rteetz]

News

Hulu Shares Trailer for Lin-Manuel Miranda Documentary “We Are Freestyle Love Supreme”

 

[CastAStone]

From what I gathered UK residents could book 2021 trips with dining plans.

I’m pretty sure DVC can add dining whenever.

 

[rafiki]

Disney says they are focusing on those guests with tickets and resort reservations and are not making new reservations or selling tickets and that those with existing tickets will get first chance at park reservations. We have resort reservations (Swan) in November, but hadn’t bought tickets yet. Do you think that means we’ll be left out of the initial opportunity for park reservations? I know nobody knows for sure; just wondering what everyone thinks.

 

[rteetz]

Disney says they are focusing on those guests with tickets and resort reservations and are not making new reservations or selling tickets and that those with existing tickets will get first chance at park reservations. We have resort reservations (Swan) in November, but hadn’t bought tickets yet. Do you think that means we’ll be left out of the initial opportunity for park reservations? I know nobody knows for sure; just wondering what everyone thinks.

I’m going to say yes since that’s not a disney owned property and you don’t have tickets. One thing that is on your side though is time. Things could improve by November and you may be able to buy tickets.

 

[skier_pete]

If this goes well with dining ADRs at only 60 days out I wonder if that might stick around for a while vs going back to 180

I'll point out several years ago they went from 180 to 90 days for ADRS. Maybe 8-10 years ago. I think the problem was things booked up way faster, but not sure why but they kept it less than a year.

This all makes sense though, and I don't mind the shorter window, I don't want them to.stick with that time if TO comes back, don't want both on the same timeline.

pretty certain that they will eliminate hopping temporarily.

I do like that they are going to prioritize on-site for park reservations.

 

[skier_pete]

Just realize I feel really bad for the travel agents who just had all their hard work cancelled with no income. Now they are going to have to rebook.everyone's dining, and imagine having to try and get 100s of park reservations at the same time? Plus all.the.folks that aren't going to rebook. What a tough time to be a Disney travel agent.

 

[Lsdolphin]

Just realize I feel really bad for the travel agents who just had all their hard work cancelled with no income. Now they are going to have to rebook.everyone's dining, and imagine having to try and get 100s of park reservations at the same time? Plus all.the.folks that aren't going to rebook. What a tough time to be a Disney travel agent.

True and they will be dealing with some very upset clients....hopefully everyone will keep this in mind when communicating with their TAs.

 

[Brocktoon]

I'll point out several years ago they went from 180 to 90 days for ADRS. Maybe 8-10 years ago. I think the problem was things booked up way faster, but not sure why but they kept it less than a year.

I was around back in those days. I was happy to see the shift down to 90 day ADRS, but for whatever reason it was a mess ... as you mentioned every ADR seemed to book almost immediately, and there were a ton of complaints. That 'experiment' didn't last too long. There may have been other ways to fix the issues and system cheats, but Disney just shifted the window back to 180 days which probably worked better for their planning/scheduling which is why they never looked at shortening the window again ... til now where they don't have much of a choice.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Just realize I feel really bad for the travel agents who just had all their hard work cancelled with no income. Now they are going to have to rebook.everyone's dining, and imagine having to try and get 100s of park reservations at the same time? Plus all.the.folks that aren't going to rebook. What a tough time to be a Disney travel agent.

I agree and especially for a few days they are going to have to deal with a lot of questions they don't have the answer to

One potential benefit is I think this time is showing the value of using a TA - they can handle all the details of the reschedules and stay on the phone with Dis ey and can share what they learn from one case to apply to the next, etc. I didn't ha e a vacation impacted by this but if I did I think I would be really happy if I had a TA vs being on my own.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I'll point out several years ago they went from 180 to 90 days for ADRS. Maybe 8-10 years ago. I think the problem was things booked up way faster, but not sure why but they kept it less than a year.

This all makes sense though, and I don't mind the shorter window, I don't want them to.stick with that time if TO comes back, don't want both on the same timeline.

pretty certain that they will eliminate hopping temporarily.

I do like that they are going to prioritize on-site for park reservations.

Fair points - guess it is just really hard to balance when the demand has sort of created the monster but it stinks for people that don't know 180 days out their plans or for who having to plan that far out has a negative impact on how they view their vacation

What do you mean "if TO comes back" - did you mean FP? I agree it would suck to have FP and ADR "day" be the same day so if they stick with 60 day ADR then need to shift onsite FP day to 45 or something

 

[skier_pete]

I agree and especially for a few days they are going to have to deal with a lot of questions they don't have the answer to

One potential benefit is I think this time is showing the value of using a TA - they can handle all the details of the reschedules and stay on the phone with Dis ey and can share what they learn from one case to apply to the next, etc. I didn't ha e a vacation impacted by this but if I did I think I would be really happy if I had a TA vs being on my own.

I prefer to keep control of my own stuff - so for me I prefer not to leave things to a TA - but I am rather OCD. I agree that for many people with Disney it is much smarter to use a TA and let them deal with all this. But that doesn't change the fact TAs are doing a lot of extra work and not getting benefit from it. They only get paid when you go on your trip. Cancelling and rebooking does not get them extra money. Disney focused travel agents are going to be hit really, really hard by this. (And that includes the ones sponsoring this site.)

Fair points - guess it is just really hard to balance when the demand has sort of created the monster but it stinks for people that don't know 180 days out their plans or for who having to plan that far out has a negative impact on how they view their vacation

What do you mean "if TO comes back" - did you mean FP? I agree it would suck to have FP and ADR "day" be the same day so if they stick with 60 day ADR then need to shift onsite FP day to 45 or something

Yeah - my kindle is hinkey sometimes and autocorrects things at times and not others. That was suppose to be FP - it likes to correct FP to TO.

This whole situation is going to be interesting because the answer to the question that nobody is asking and also that nobody knows is "How Many people will actually be wanting to go to Disney versus how many people will be allowed in the parks?"

To me Disney is doing the reservation thing for one main reason - so they know how to staff the parks each day. Let's say they limit MK to 20,000 people per day. But if they staff for 20,000 people and only GET 10,000 people, they are going to lose money that day. But if they know only 10,000 people are coming, they can staff accordingly. Or if they fill up completely they know how to staff for that. But if there is more demand than supply it will be tough. Imagine you book airfare and everything and then you go to reserve your parks and you can't get into MK the whole week? Gonna be a strange, strange year.

 

[mickeyfanachey1999]

Disney says they are focusing on those guests with tickets and resort reservations and are not making new reservations or selling tickets and that those with existing tickets will get first chance at park reservations. We have resort reservations (Swan) in November, but hadn’t bought tickets yet. Do you think that means we’ll be left out of the initial opportunity for park reservations? I know nobody knows for sure; just wondering what everyone thinks.

I have DVC room reservations for September and October but hadn't bought tickets yet. I called WDW yesterday and was told that regardless of that fact they couldn't sell me tickets.

 

[Brocktoon]

To me Disney is doing the reservation thing for one main reason - so they know how to staff the parks each day. Let's say they limit MK to 20,000 people per day. But if they staff for 20,000 people and only GET 10,000 people, they are going to lose money that day. But if they know only 10,000 people are coming, they can staff accordingly. Or if they fill up completely they know how to staff for that. But if there is more demand than supply it will be tough. Imagine you book airfare and everything and then you go to reserve your parks and you can't get into MK the whole week? Gonna be a strange, strange year.

From an official Disney news release perspective, I'm really watching what they'll announce and implement from the IT side and into the MDE app. In my opinion, all the guest data mining/MDE/FP+ has caused Disney to practically run on auto-pilot making staffing and scheduling based on whatever their telemetry spits out. Granted that is why they dumped all the $$$ into MDE in the 1st place so I can't fault them. But what the heck are they going to do now? I'm not sure they really know how to go a different way after relying so much on controlling guest behavior several months in advance.

And we all know how reliable the IT systems were on the current 'well tested' system ... I really feel bad for the grief the CMs are gonna take on the phone and in person Personally I'm glad I cancelled my November trip a while back. For this year I plan on watching, learning and adapting which is what most of us Dis nuts always do

 

[TheMaxRebo]

So I received the e-mail saying I will be one of the first to have access to the new system

I guess I qualified as I have a reservation (though it isn't until Sept 29th, 2021 (so almost 1.5 years away) and I have a not yet activated annual pass connected to my account

Obviously not near booking dining or anything but will be interesting to check out the new system what active

 

[dina444444]

So I received the e-mail saying I will be one of the first to have access to the new system

I guess I qualified as I have a reservation (though it isn't until Sept 29th, 2021 (so almost 1.5 years away) and I have a not yet activated annual pass connected to my account

Obviously not near booking dining or anything but will be interesting to check out the new system what active

No email yet here and I have both cash and dvc reservations for mid November.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

I prefer to keep control of my own stuff - so for me I prefer not to leave things to a TA - but I am rather OCD. I agree that for many people with Disney it is much smarter to use a TA and let them deal with all this. But that doesn't change the fact TAs are doing a lot of extra work and not getting benefit from it. They only get paid when you go on your trip. Cancelling and rebooking does not get them extra money. Disney focused travel agents are going to be hit really, really hard by this. (And that includes the ones sponsoring this site.)

I do to - though we did use a TA for our upcoming trip as I do fine they help with changing discounts on rooms and checking different options and stuff. I still do all my ADR's and FPs, etc myslef

Also figure they might appreciate the new piece of business now (even if just deposit at this point)

My comment was more for the long term - but in the shirt term it will really suck for them