Paid FP options coming soon to WDW?

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

He said he expects that normal operations will resume in July.

Depends on what he is going to consider normal. Pretty soon we're probably gonna have to pay money to download the Disney app on own phones

 

[Aprilshack]

Depends on what he is going to consider normal. Pretty soon we're probably gonna have to pay money to download the Disney app on own phones

Don't go giving him ideas!

 

[Lewisc]

Depends on what he is going to consider normal. Pretty soon we're probably gonna have to pay money to download the Disney app on own phones

Absolutely no cost to download the app. In app purchases is a different question. Maybe just a ticketmaster type of service fee if you want to join a virtual queue

 

[Meglen]

Absolutely no cost to download the app. In app purchases is a different question. Maybe just a ticketmaster type of service fee if you want to join a virtual queue

I could see a 10$ jump the line pass per ride.. like they have for concerts. Thats more pp than the 100$ people are quoting if you wanna do more rides... that would be yikes

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

I fear, my friend, that your hatred has clouded your perception.

The “hatred” was a joke, meant to sound like Palpatine or Yoda or something. Meant as a joke. Sorry it didn’t work.

 

[chewlocca]

Disney is the last major Florida park requiring masks indoors for all as is. CDC is just guidelines of which even Disney has cherry picked from. More than likely when Demings drops his non enforceable pony show of a mask mandate Disney will follow. They meet the threshold to do so so it should be soon and that drop will be for all vaccinated and non.

Masks will be gone and full capacity soon. What comes with FP who knows. APs will be back.

I thought he was doing a press
Conference today. Any idea when the mayor will have it?

 

[OhBother1984]

I thought he was doing a press
Conference today. Any idea when the mayor will have it?

I am not sure I keep looking for info and its hard to find when and if. I would assume sometime this week, but he doesn't seem to keen on dropping the mandate, even though he has zero power to have it anyway.

 

[sparky68]

Absolutely, but you can't begin to compare those things, to doing away with FP+. FP+ was the playing field leveler. Everyone got the same initial benefit regardless of their bank account, where they stayed etc... And while some here disliked it, the majority of the real world loved it and found it made their trip more enjoyable. Now, if they want to keep the free FP+ for everyone and add on the option to buy more FP+ for those of means, absolutely, go to it. As you said, they were already doing that for Club Level guests. But to take it away completely, and now only offer it as an option for those with deep enough wallets, is a really, really bad look.

You understand that the fast pass was never about.making your vacation more enjoyable? It was designed to separate you from more of your money. People standing in lines are not spending money. People waiting for their ride time outside the line are more likely to be buying food or browsing gift shops. Buying trinkets to entertain their children while they wait. Disney exec's never his this from the public. They freely talked about getting people out of lines to spend more money. They also knew the limited fast passes would increase vacation days, increasing overall customer spending.
The same reason Disney hates AP's. People who have AP's are not spending much money in the parks. They hit a few rides, see a parade and leave to eat dinner at home.
I am also amused at the people who have this image of Walt Disney being this benevolent guy who built a park for everyone. He was a business man looking to increase his fortune.

 

[sparky68]

I am not sure I keep looking for info and its hard to find when and if. I would assume sometime this week, but he doesn't seem to keen on dropping the mandate, even though he has zero power to have it anyway.

Disney does not care about mandates. They are looking at liability issues.

 

[OhBother1984]

Disney does not care about mandates. They are looking at liability issues.

They have been following what the mayor does pretty closely, and at this point the liability is not an issue, no way to track it and other parks across the country have been maskless for weeks with crowds and no bad outcomes, its coming very soon, end of june at the latest.

 

[sparky68]

Of course they're shorter. But that doesn't make them pleasant. Or worth me spending my money to be there for.

And while the rest of that stuff will add capacity, the parks are still limiting attendance. So that will go up at the same time they add back the other stuff. No way to know how it will pan out.

I did Disneyland several times before fast pass. It was kinda great, and I was dragging a difficult under 2yo, and a wild 4 yo boy...
The lines were manageable. We went at the introduction of fast pass, and hated it. Totally changed how we did the parks. After 2 tries we were done.

 

[sparky68]

They have been following what the mayor does pretty closely, and at this point the liability is not an issue, no way to track it and other parks across the country have been maskless for weeks with crowds and no bad outcomes, its coming very soon, end of june at the latest.

Disney has a bigger NAME.. no way to track it, but believe that the media will pick up and run with any claims of Disney gave Grandma covid cause they increased capacity, no masks etc. We all know that there is no way to be sure where grandma got covid, but the headline will still read.
Grandma dies from covid after visit to packed Disney park

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Disney has a bigger NAME.. no way to track it, but believe that the media will pick up and run with any claims of Disney gave Grandma covid cause they increased capacity, no masks etc. We all know that there is no way to be sure where grandma got covid, but the headline will still read.
Grandma dies from covid after visit to packed Disney park

Grandma should be vaccinated at this point, taking her own responsibility, as we all do at this point.

Either way, Disney most likely is going to end the mandates within the next few weeks. They don't need to rush at the moment

Lets try and keep the mask debate out of our glorious fast pass thread

 

[sparky68]

Grandma should be vaccinated at this point, taking her own responsibility, as we all do at this point.

Either way, Disney most likely is going to end the mandates within the next few weeks. They don't need to rush at the moment

Lets try and keep the mask debate out of our glorious fast pass thread

Sorry. Wasn't trying to debate the mask or vaccination issue. Just pointing out Disney has an army of lawyers crunching numbers to look at potential media damage to any choice they make.

 

[0FF TO NEVERLAND]

Sorry. Wasn't trying to debate the mask or vaccination issue. Just pointing out Disney has an army of lawyers crunching numbers to look at potential media damage to any choice they make.

lol oh I know, I agree with you. I am sure they are also figuring out how to get all our money this summer and beyond

 

[OhBother1984]

Sorry. Wasn't trying to debate the mask or vaccination issue. Just pointing out Disney has an army of lawyers crunching numbers to look at potential media damage to any choice they make.

And they know at this point its a non issue. Brace for it its coming soon whether you think it should or not.

 

[mshanson3121]

You understand that the fast pass was never about.making your vacation more enjoyable? It was designed to separate you from more of your money. People standing in lines are not spending money. People waiting for their ride time outside the line are more likely to be buying food or browsing gift shops. Buying trinkets to entertain their children while they wait. Disney exec's never his this from the public. They freely talked about getting people out of lines to spend more money. They also knew the limited fast passes would increase vacation days, increasing overall customer spending.
The same reason Disney hates AP's. People who have AP's are not spending much money in the parks. They hit a few rides, see a parade and leave to eat dinner at home.
I am also amused at the people who have this image of Walt Disney being this benevolent guy who built a park for everyone. He was a business man looking to increase his fortune.

You understand that whether that was their intention or not is irrelevant, right? Because the reality is for most it made their trip more enjoyable.

As far as Walt - Walt was absolutely about the guest first, at least far more so than current management who cares about the stockholders first. He spared no expense in the parks to make guests happy. That's well known, because at times it got him in trouble. And the fact remains he did create the parks for everyone - not just the upper class. Funny how he was able to rake in lots of dough, whilst still considering the guests as a primary concern.

 

[StaceyHSD]

The next Orange County Covid briefing is scheduled for tomorrow.

 

[whiporee]

You understand that the fast pass was never about.making your vacation more enjoyable? It was designed to separate you from more of your money. People standing in lines are not spending money. People waiting for their ride time outside the line are more likely to be buying food or browsing gift shops. Buying trinkets to entertain their children while they wait. Disney exec's never his this from the public. They freely talked about getting people out of lines to spend more money. They also knew the limited fast passes would increase vacation days, increasing overall customer spending.
The same reason Disney hates AP's. People who have AP's are not spending much money in the parks. They hit a few rides, see a parade and leave to eat dinner at home.
I am also amused at the people who have this image of Walt Disney being this benevolent guy who built a park for everyone. He was a business man looking to increase his fortune.

I disagree with both your statement and your sentiment pretty strongly. Fast Passes were instigated to make the parks more enjoyable for people. As crowds increased, they knew they had a line problem. They at first tried the old one, and then went to the new one. I don't think they've made any effort to monetize them at all.

If they were really as intent on gouging as your claiming, why not have people walking along the lines selling drinks or snacks? Why let food and drinks in the parks at all -- many regional parks don't allow outside stuff in. Why offer free ice water at the QSes?

They could charge a lot more than they do and get away with it. Why offer Park Hoppers -- there's no deliberate payoff for that at all? Or they could just triple the room prices and make the park exclusive for resort guests. There's a lot they could do to just gouge people if they really wanted to. They've never come close to establishing what the tipping point is. I'm sure there's a number out there, but I think WDW has been pretty conservative in pushing those limits.

I'm not saying they are immune to it, or that they haven't done some things that seem to be purely for revenue generation. But as an overall organization, i think they are much less aggressive about that stuff at the parks than most companies in their position.

 

[Liquidice]

Just some random thoughts... If we think about Lightning Pass as more of a FP+ replacement vs. an Unlimited allotment like I was talking about previously...

Consider that buying 3 Extra FastPasses per day for Club Level members was $50 per person per day with a minimum of 3 days (so $150 per person per trip) and you can estimate how much Disney values a Fastpass at (Roughly $17 per Fastpass) - Those were 2019 prices, so lets round it up to $20 per Lightning Pass.

What if they did a paid tiered system ... Something like:

1. $60 per person per day, 3 Lightning Passes (Free for Value Resort guests, and guests staying in hotels with Disney Perks like Disney Springs area hotels, Swan/Dolphin, etc)
2. $100 per person per day, 6 Lightning Passes (Free for Moderate Resort guests)
3. $150 per person per day, 10 Lightning Passes (Free for Deluxe Resort guests)
4. $200 per person per day, 15 Lightning Passes (Free to Club level guests, or maybe only available to them and you can't pay for it)
5. $300 per person per day, Unlimited Lightning Passes (Free to Club 33 members) <-- Maybe this won't be a thing at all except for Club 33 Members

Maybe for Annual Passes (or whatever replaces it if AP goes away) you pay a certain amount up front to get some number of Lightning Passes each day.

When you're in the park, you can buy more Lightning passes day of for $20 each (assuming there is availability) - or they could have demand based pricing, so if there are not enough people in the Lightning Pass line for Dumbo, they can draw people there by offering the Lightning Pass for cheap. But if the line is really long, discourage people from buying a Lightning Pass for a ride by raising the price.

They could have a limited amount of Lightning Passes per ride and have timed entry like FastPass+

For everyone else, virtual queue is a free option, after the line gets to be a certain length (lets say ~60 mins) - then you can join a virtual queue and are given a Boarding Group with an estimated amount of time until your BG is called - this is the way Indiana Jones Adventure is working at Disneyland right now.

Just throwing out ideas - most probably wrong or crazy!