Noooo...the end of EMH?

[HopperFan]

I think onsite guests are giving themselves too much credit as to their value to Disney. Disney already has you (meaning onsite guest which any given trip could be me). You are already paying them inflated hotel prices, you may have already committed to eat at all their restaurants with DDP, you may have committed to spend all your money there if you came in on DME .... they truly don't need to give you any big perks. EMH does not make money and with all it's hotels packed Disney would be fiscally smart to eliminate it. Many of the above posts prove that they don't care if one of the most exclusive perks is gone.

Disney absolutely needs the offsite guests, they depend on them financially.
They are the majority of Disney's visitors ...

Ball park:
30,000 Disney rooms x say an average of 3.5 guests each = 105,000. Every one of them go to Magic Kingdom and now it's at around capacity but probably not.

So now they need offsite guests to:
- Fill Epcot
- Fill DHS
- Fill AK
- Fill ADRs at all the Resort Restaurants
- Fill and shop at DTD
- Sign up for all the recreation activities you pay extra for like mini golf, golf courses, carriage rides, boat rentals, DisneyQuest etc.
- Fill Typhoon Lagoon AND Blizzard Beach
- Any extras to bring MK to capacity
- Make up for the missing onsite MK guests who refused to leave their resort pools...

LOTS and LOTS of offsite guests needed, way more than onsite guests to be profitable. Any decisions they make that could further alienate offsite guests could be more harmful aka less FP+ because on or off you pay the same to enter the park.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

I think onsite guests are giving themselves too much credit as to their value to Disney.

You are not wrong in that WDW cannot accommodate enough guests in their resorts to fill their parks, but they do value on site guests far more than off site guests. This is proven out by things like free dining discounts during low resort bookings periods. They are paying to keep those resorts open 24/7/365, and every room left open represents lost $$$.

 

[joedplumber]

I hear you - laundry every day in the villa - it's not that hard - there's no rocks and rivers involved - push a few buttons, fling in a pod (and bleach), move clothes; more buttons. Never go home with dirty clothes. I thought I was the only laundry crazy vacationer,

Nope! DW despises coming home with suitcases of laundry.. The only diffcult part of laundry is folding it I would say.. The rest of the process takes only a few minutes. We always run a load at night when we get back from the parks. Plus we pack so very little since we wash everything.

 

[HopperFan]

You are not wrong in that WDW cannot accommodate enough guests in their resorts to fill their parks, but they do value on site guests far more than off site guests. This is proven out by things like free dining discounts during low resort bookings periods. They are paying to keep those resorts open 24/7/365, and every room left open represents lost $$$.

I guess I wasn't clear on what I meant by value. So many want to think that Disney does all this stuff out of their heart for their love of the guests ... much of the complaints are that onsite is more special and more important to Disney so should get EMH, extra FP+, discounted tickets etc. Disney is a HUGE business that makes decisions based on economics. Free Dining is to fill hotels, using creative advertising to make you feel special, nothing more. And because they are experiencing very high capacity rates, there was no pre-booking for Disney Visa (a huge blow and a perk removed for them) and there were fewer rooms available. Free Dining is not a perk to reward guests staying onsite, it's a discount to fill rooms. A discount that each resort must absorb into their bottom line, costing them profit. My point when all is done and they look at the profit line, offsite guests provide a huge amount of cash.

EMH is a perk of saying onsite that no offsite guest can replicate. It is a true perk. I would hate to see it go given the cost of staying onsite. But I won't be surprised.

 

[daisyx3]

We have only really used EMH lately for MK during spring break ( knowing if we didn't, we'd never get to ride all of our favorites). And we are DVC so there is no point to staying off site for us anyhow. For us the major on-site perk is transportation because we don't rent a car. But taking away the one perk that people really do like to make use of....doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Mikie]

I think onsite guests are giving themselves too much credit as to their value to Disney. Disney already has you (meaning onsite guest which any given trip could be me). You are already paying them inflated hotel prices, you may have already committed to eat at all their restaurants with DDP, you may have committed to spend all your money there if you came in on DME .... they truly don't need to give you any big perks. EMH does not make money and with all it's hotels packed Disney would be fiscally smart to eliminate it. Many of the above posts prove that they don't care if one of the most exclusive perks is gone.

Disney absolutely needs the offsite guests, they depend on them financially.
They are the majority of Disney's visitors ...

Ball park:
30,000 Disney rooms x say an average of 3.5 guests each = 105,000. Every one of them go to Magic Kingdom and now it's at around capacity but probably not.

So now they need offsite guests to:
- Fill Epcot
- Fill DHS
- Fill AK
- Fill ADRs at all the Resort Restaurants
- Fill and shop at DTD
- Sign up for all the recreation activities you pay extra for like mini golf, golf courses, carriage rides, boat rentals, DisneyQuest etc.
- Fill Typhoon Lagoon AND Blizzard Beach
- Any extras to bring MK to capacity
- Make up for the missing onsite MK guests who refused to leave their resort pools...

LOTS and LOTS of offsite guests needed, way more than onsite guests to be profitable. Any decisions they make that could further alienate offsite guests could be more harmful aka less FP+ because on or off you pay the same to enter the park.

You're spot on about the need for offsite guests in addition to onsite guests, but I think you argue against yourself about onsite guests and the need to give them perks. You say they are "already locked in" to all the very Disney spending (food, inflated hotel, spending money) BUT why are they "locked in"? Because they (we) were wooed by perks! #1 being location and the rest are enjoyed to varying degrees by everyone, but they certainly do advertise - and need to, on my opinion - DME, free parking, EMH, earlier FP booking, magic bands, etc.

if there were fewer items on the perks list, surely more people would wonder what justifies Disney,s inflated resort prices and choose not to pay them. It takes but one conversation or a quick search to hear about Universal's front-of-the-line pass for Disney on-siters to wonder what goodies they're getting for their money.

ETA I see you have a subsequent post with additional clarification and I'm not far off from your analysis. I do think that even the dining plan can be seen as a perk, even when not free. Obviously there's much debate about its usefulness, but it's *exclusive*! ONLY resort guests can use it! Not a marketing strategy that sways me, but many people love exclusivity. It's limited, therefore it's special, therefore I must have it!!

 

[disneydentist]

Personally, if we go with the theory that half of the guests on any given day are staying onsite, I would be happy as an onsite guest to get six 60-day fastpasses while offsite guests are limited to SDFP. This would certainly add incentive for people to stay at Disney resorts.

 

[MrInfinity]

You are not wrong in that WDW cannot accommodate enough guests in their resorts to fill their parks, but they do value on site guests far more than off site guests. This is proven out by things like free dining discounts during low resort bookings periods. They are paying to keep those resorts open 24/7/365, and every room left open represents lost $$$.

Of course. There is no comparison in terms of value to Disney World in general. (keep in mind, I've been both an onsite and offsite guest many times) The onsite guest might pay $300/nt to stay, $200/day to feed their family of 5, and $50 in misc expenses like drinks or nick nacks. Plus their $200 or whatever it works out to for that day of their tickets. Compare to the offsite family which is paying the same price for the tickets ($200?). But spending the other $550 elsewhere. I'd guess a single onsite guest is over 10x more profitable to WDW than an offsite guest.

It's not just Disney. It's everywhere. Think of Best Buy. Would Best Buy want to sell 100 loss-leader TV specials, on which it makes $1 each, or would it rather have that one customer that they upsell and get them the higher margin of $300 one time? Loss leader's are not there to make money. Loss leaders are there to get bodies to the area in hopes of selling them something else. In the case of a resort, the rides / park is that loss leader -- high overhead, high cost to operate, but they bring the bodies to the region. An offsite guest will come and only purchase access to the rides/parks. I imagine Disney about breaks even or even loses money on these guests, because they consume as much value in rides, ride maintenance, overhead, etc than their daily admission pays for. (Just like the Best Buy Black Friday TV special -- unless they can upsell you, or at least sell you a cable or mounting bracket w it, they won't make money on this deal) It is Disney's job to try to sell something else... whether it be a snack, souvenir, or the holy grail -- the resort stay -- in which ppl immerse themselves in Disney, making all their daily life purchases that amount to some major profit.

Think about it. Ask Disney -- Where should I stay? They will never recommend an offsite hotel. If the profitability was equal from the two paths, they would have no reason to tell you to stay onsite. But it's not even in the same ballpark, they will try everything to get you into any Disney resort. They want you to stay there so they get your soda, food, and other random purchase dollars.

 

[JimmyV]

EMH is a perk of saying onsite that no offsite guest can replicate. It is a true perk. I would hate to see it go given the cost of staying onsite. But I won't be surprised.

Disney has been struggling for years with the dilemma of providing on-site guests with a truly valuable and unreplicatable experience that at the same time ramps up operational costs in terms of salary and other overhead such as electricity and park maintenance. For years now, the urge to give guests a heightened experience prevailed. I guess this could be finally crashing down to earth.

 

[MrInfinity]

I think they are going to replace EMH with "Bonus FP+s" for resort Guests(Blah)-JMHO.

As a resort guest, I would be okay with this. I never stay for late EMH's anyways, and morning ones only benefit us one or two days. Instead a free FP+ on every day of our stay would be far more valuable.

 

[JennaDeeDooDah]

You know, something that Disney could do that would both increase the incentive to stay onsite and would also help them redistribute the crowds would be to offer more fastpasses to certain resort guests at certain parks on certain days. Let me explain.

Group one: Contemporary, Polynesian, Port Orleans Riverside & FQ, Pop Century
Group two: Grand Floridian, Wilderness Lodge, Coronado Springs, Art of Animation
Group three: Boardwalk, AKL, All Star Movies, All Star Music
Group four: Yacht and Beach, Caribbean Beach, All Star Sports

On Monday, Group one would have more fast passes at MK, Group 2 at Epcot, Group 3 at DHS, and Group 4 at AK. On Tuesday, Group 1 would have more fast passes at Epcot, Group 2 at DHS, Group 3 at Ak, and Group 4 at MK. So on and so fourth. People like having more than 3 fast passes so the incentive would be high. It would also disperse their onsite guests more evenly (you would need to put them in groups evenly and I don't have the numbers to do that) and give Disney a very good idea of who would be in which parks on what days. You can do this by allowing them to book extra FP+ or, my recommendation would be, give them a card or something - possibly load it on the magic band - that has, say 5 fast passes, that are eligible at any of the attractions. A person wants to use all 5 on Space Mountain, they can. They want to use them all first thing in the morning, more power to them. If they want to split it up and use one every 2 hours, they can. I think the guests would be more content because they would have more fast passes and not be scheduling as much of their day unless they really wanted to and Disney would be happy because they would have the guests more or less locked into a park the same way they are locked in with FP+ now. EMHs are no longer needed so they aren't staffing those hours and guests still have a major incentive to stay on property.

 

[Ninja Mom]

Disney has been struggling for years with the dilemma of providing on-site guests with a truly valuable and unreplicatable experience that at the same time ramps up operational costs in terms of salary and other overhead such as electricity and park maintenance. For years now, the urge to give guests a heightened experience prevailed. I guess this could be finally crashing down to earth.

I agree that the culture of the "Disney plus-ing it experience" is over. If you think about what is happening and not what is being said you can see (and experience for yourself) the quality eroding from the experience. I think Disney is driven purely by profits as opposed to in the past where there was a sense of obligation to really provide the guest with the ultimate experience.

Cramming MORE people in the parks during fewer operating hours is the dream of the park profiteers running Disney now. All else is secondary to profits. The Disney that we have come to know and love (and expect) is dying for sure.

~NM

 

[W.E.D.]

There's a lot more to Disney resorts than magic hours...enjoy the econo-lodge.

See. This is why we can't have nice things. The first statement is true. The second part is merely a slam.

 

[MrInfinity]

It's hard to imagine that this could be anything close to an even trade. For those who say: "I'd prefer the extra FP+", consider that the extra FP+ can only be mined from the lot of unused FPs. And as we know, for the most popular attraction, that is a small to non-existent set. There are three possibilities here. 1.) They could allow you to book your 4th FP once you arrive in the park, or perhaps a week in advance, at which point your "extra" FP will be for secondary attractions; or 2.) They could allow you to book your 4th FP at the 60 day mark, but limit you to Tier 2 attractions; or 3.) They could allow you to book your 4th FP at the 60 day mark and allow you to book a second Tier 1 attraction. This third option seems like the best for guests, but only the first people to the trough will get that coveted headliner FP+. Supply is limited, which is why Tiers exist in the first place. If they allow the most diligent "super users" to book all the Tier 1 attractions at midnight on the 60th day out, what will be left for the people who don't join the virtual queue at the earliest possible moment? And what will be left for people who do not get to book 60 days out? EMH allowed every person staying on site to get to Epcot early and ride the two major headliners with little to no wait. The extra FP will allow only a small subset of on site guests to get a FP for both major headliners. Now, I suppose that people here will rejoice in the fact that they will absolutely beat the system by being early bookers. But is that really the best solution to all of this. It just makes one's vacation planning that much more Machiavellian.

Any one of these would be okay, but the first is not likely.
1) In the park? No they wont make you come to the park when you've done everything else online.
2) 60-day but limit to Tier-2? Okay, that's not bad. MK and AK it's a genuine 4th, and at HS and EC I could always use an extra Tier-2.
3) 60-day any? Well of course this is the best. There would be the supply, since the Tier-1 rides are being expanded. At DHS we'll have Star Wars which will provide some major Tier-1 competition for TSMM and RR. The capacity will be there. I say 3) is most likely of the bunch.

 

[HopperFan]

You're spot on about the need for offsite guests in addition to onsite guests, but I think you argue against yourself about onsite guests and the need to give them perks. You say they are "already locked in" to all the very Disney spending (food, inflated hotel, spending money) BUT why are they "locked in"? Because they (we) were wooed by perks! #1 being location and the rest are enjoyed to varying degrees by everyone, but they certainly do advertise - and need to, on my opinion - DME, free parking, EMH, earlier FP booking, magic bands, etc.

if there were fewer items on the perks list, surely more people would wonder what justifies Disney,s inflated resort prices and choose not to pay them. It takes but one conversation or a quick search to hear about Universal's front-of-the-line pass for Disney on-siters to wonder what goodies they're getting for their money.

But I don't see the few Disney perks as big as many others do and maybe that is because they have never done Disney any other way. Most those perks are not exclusive to Disney guests in reality. I do both onsite and offsite, now at 5-6 weeks a year. I've been going since Disney opened. I see and appreciate both sides. I think Disney "perks" are becoming less an incentive as the hotel rates keep climbing at a high rate and amenities don't change or get dropped. What I do see is the EMH as the biggest perk to staying onsite. It's like being handed a whole pile of FP+.

These are the Disney Perks per Disney:
- 60 Day FP+ YES I will say that is a nice perk to have for guest. Have I found it necessary. No. 7DMT, A&E and TSMM are the only three "selling" out. A&E has a limited market but then I've gotten FP+ for it one week out over holiday weekend and numerous times day of. 7DMT also picked up week out and day of. TSMM seems to be harder to snag but arrive early or stay late or skip it (I think it's underwhelming). But at 30 days we still are able to book all we want and change around. Nice, yes, mandatory for successful trip, no.
- Extended Theme Park Hours YES YES YES Huge perk and the most valuable one there is. No offsite guest can replicate experience. It is being handed a pile of FP+.
- Complimentary Transportation and Parking. YES Buses if you fly in and don't want to rent a car. Otherwise I can easily get to parks and back to my hotel probably faster than onsite guests. In March from arrival at DHS bus stop to my room at POP (practically walkable) almost 1.5 hours. Had I just driven it would have been maybe 15 minutes. Parking fee nothing compared to rooms savings.
- Complimentary MagicBands. NO. You can use your ticket, you can use old MagicBands or you can buy some that might not break the budget given your hotel savings. Not necessary.
- Complimentary Airport Service YES if you are not going to rent a car. I always say if you won't have a car, stay onsite out of necessity.
- Access to Disney Dining Plan. NO. I can book all the same restaurants and they will scan my credit card just like they scan a MagicBand. I've done the math and it's not a savings dollar wise. Many lose money on it. While it is convenient it is more restricted in what I order so not a plus for me.
- ADRS at 180+10. NO. There are a couple harder to get such as BOG dinner, but I've booked if four times at around the 60 day mark, I've gotten Wishes Dessert Party and multiple times of Dining with Imagineer - all at fairly last minute. Now if Disney has guests only dining like they did for BOG lunch for awhile then yes that is a perk.

While they don't list location it is what many talk about. Maybe a better term would be bubble. In terms of location I truly can be back at any number of resorts driving from the parking lots faster than many will get to their Disney rooms via bus. What I will have to do is leave the bubble unless at DTD or WBC.

 

[tinka-belle]

We use at least 2 if not all 3 late EMH every time we visit, which are multiple weeks during the year. Getting to that age where we are no longer rope drop people but we do like to close down the parks at night. It's a major factor for us staying onsite, extra FP+ would not be an equivalent replacement for us.

 

[JimmyV]

I'd guess a single onsite guest is over 10x more profitable to WDW than an offsite guest.

While the on-site guest is more profitable, it isn't nearly a 10-to-1 ratio. Consider the following common example comparing two families of 4 staying for 5 days.

Hotel: =$160 per night on site versus $0. (Remember that the vast majority of Disney rooms do not rent out for $300 per night, and taxes and fees are not revenue for Disney. They go to "the man", not "the mouse").

Park Passes: (5 Day Non-Hopper with 3 "Disney Adults" and one "Disney Child" = $1,240 for both on site and off site.

Breakfast: On site family mixes in some sit-down meals with some quick service meals = average of $50 per day, or $250. Off site family eats exclusively off site, (an assumption that may not be true, and if not, shaves the difference down further still) = $0.

Lunch: Both on site and off site eat on property and mix in some sit down meals with quick service = average of $70 per day, or $350.

Dinner: On site family eats all 5 dinners on site at an average cost of $140 per meal = $700. Off site eats 3 dinners on property at the same daily average = $420.

Mousellaneous: Both families buy Mickey Bars, popcorn, Mouse Ears, T-Shirts in similar volume, but we will give the advantage to the on-site guests for no apparent reason. (Maybe they buy resort-themed shirts or shot glasses). On-site = $40 per day, or $200. Off site = $25 per day, or $125.

Grand totals:
On-site = $800 hotel + $1,240 passes + $250 Breakfast + $350 Lunch + $700 Dinner + $200 Mousellaneous =$3540. (Or $885 per person)

In order to hit the 10-to-1 ratio, the off-site family would have to spend $354, or $88 per person. That won't even get you in the parks. Instead, their expenses would be: $0 Hotel + $1,240 passes + $0 Breakfast + $350 Lunch + $420 Dinner + $125 Mousellaneous = $2,135. (Or $533 per person).

So over the course of 5 days, the on-site guest is worth $350 more per person. Or $70 per day. It is significant, but not ginormous.

 

[jtowntoflorida]

You know, something that Disney could do that would both increase the incentive to stay onsite and would also help them redistribute the crowds would be to offer more fastpasses to certain resort guests at certain parks on certain days. Let me explain.

Group one: Contemporary, Polynesian, Port Orleans Riverside & FQ, Pop Century
Group two: Grand Floridian, Wilderness Lodge, Coronado Springs, Art of Animation
Group three: Boardwalk, AKL, All Star Movies, All Star Music
Group four: Yacht and Beach, Caribbean Beach, All Star Sports

On Monday, Group one would have more fast passes at MK, Group 2 at Epcot, Group 3 at DHS, and Group 4 at AK. On Tuesday, Group 1 would have more fast passes at Epcot, Group 2 at DHS, Group 3 at Ak, and Group 4 at MK. So on and so fourth. People like having more than 3 fast passes so the incentive would be high. It would also disperse their onsite guests more evenly (you would need to put them in groups evenly and I don't have the numbers to do that) and give Disney a very good idea of who would be in which parks on what days. You can do this by allowing them to book extra FP+ or, my recommendation would be, give them a card or something - possibly load it on the magic band - that has, say 5 fast passes, that are eligible at any of the attractions. A person wants to use all 5 on Space Mountain, they can. They want to use them all first thing in the morning, more power to them. If they want to split it up and use one every 2 hours, they can. I think the guests would be more content because they would have more fast passes and not be scheduling as much of their day unless they really wanted to and Disney would be happy because they would have the guests more or less locked into a park the same way they are locked in with FP+ now. EMHs are no longer needed so they aren't staffing those hours and guests still have a major incentive to stay on property.

But I wonder if they really want attendance disbursed throughout the 4 parks, every day of the year. I always thought that part of EMH was so that they could increase staffing at the busy park, but then decrease staffing at the others. But maybe I'm off on that thinking. Of course, it could be to the point where they need to do something to decrease the crowding at the MK and using FP+ might be it. BUT they'd have to get rid of the tiers at DHS and Epcot for this to work. Who cares if you get a 4th FP+ to use at Nemo, ya know?

 

[porschegrl]

We use at least 2 if not all 3 late EMH every time we visit, which are multiple weeks during the year. Getting to that age where we are no longer rope drop people but we do like to close down the parks at night. It's a major factor for us staying onsite, extra FP+ would not be an equivalent replacement for us.

Same here.

 

[W.E.D.]

I'll miss them if they go away. I'm an early riser, and my wife likes to sleep in. I'll go hit an a.m. EMH park while she sleeps. I can get a lot of attractions in during the first couple of hours.