Prices just hit my threshold :-(

[mickeyluv'r]

I am not saying absolutely everyone knows dining with characters in an option. I do not, however, think that the number of people who know about that as an option is small, nor do I think that those who know about it are limited to those "in the know" about all the ins and outs on disney chat boards.

Seeing as character meals are in all the WDW ads.....

 

[condorthb]

bpadair32 where are you? I actually want to read some more of your comments.

 

[Angel Ariel]

Ultimately, these statements- in a much broader sense- are what this entire thread comes down to IMHO. DW and I do not go to WDW and 'critique' all of the supposed 'shortcomings' listed in this thread. How could someone possibly have a good time if they are going around 'nitpicking' everything they are 'disappointed' with? Why bother to go if that is the mindset? We go to have fun, and enjoy being in the 'bubble' for a couple of weeks. We have no 'expectations' one way or the other- except that the parks will be open with attractions up and running, our room will be clean, and there will be good munchies and a helpful concierge staff at CL. To spend the kind of money needed to enjoy an extended vacation at WDW, and not enjoy every moment of every day, seems counter-intuitive to me. We would go elsewhere if our mindset beforehand was otherwise.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me critiquing Disney about something here and having a great vacation in the parks are not mutually exclusive. I have many views on what Disney is taking away, how they've handled adding frozen to Norway, fp+, etc, and yes, I share them here. This is a place where I know I can talk about Disney without people going all glassy eyed on.me.

That said, we have a fantastic time in the park. I wouldn't still go if we didn't. It is possible to love Disney, to critique Disney, and to still have a great park experience.

 

[robinb]

Disney wants the 10K customers spending $2,000 right along with the few thousand spending $10K.

I have believed for a while that their focus is on the "once in a lifetime" guest verses returning guests. Every year there is a new batch of children at the perfect age to go to WDW with parents who are ready to open up their wallets to make it the best vacation ever.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

So let me get this straight. Some of the posters in this thread claim they don't do any planning or prep before their WDW vacations, but they are posting to a thread buried deep in the Theme Parks and Strategies Section of the Disney Trip Planning forums?

That math doesn't quite add up.

 

[saskdw]

Yes.

My experience is pure anecdote I know, but yes.

Many restaurants at WDW now offer so called seasonal menus. The menu is what they can offer with the budget they are given.

Now part of that is guest preference: hearty meat dishes in winter, chilled soup in summer. Part is availability: produce seasons, fluctuations in the cost of salmon.

Also, the quick serves at WDW have pretty consistent food. The pineapple Dole whip ice cream has been pretty consistent for years as far as I know. (Though they can always adjust portions).

So to be fair, both of those are important. Still, restaurants have flexibility in desserts: fritters vs. almond cake covered with fresh seasonal berries. Fritters are little more than flour, grease and sugar. Flour and sugar are also shelf stable. Berries cost more, might arrive bruised, and spoil in a few days.

Back about 2006, strawberries were easy to find at WDW. Not any more.

Interesting theory.

All of our WDW trips have been Mid-late December. So we have only been during peak season. It would make sense why we have always enjoyed the food and scratched our heads when reading all the complaining about terrible food.

 

[PAcpl]

bpadair32 where are you? I actually want to read some more of your comments.

LOL.....

 

[mickeymom629]

So let me get this straight. Some of the posters in this thread claim they don't do any planning or prep before their WDW vacations, but they are posting to a thread buried deep in the Theme Parks and Strategies Section of the Disney Trip Planning forums?

That math doesn't quite add up.

Every time someone responds, the thread comes to the top.

 

[GreatLakes]

Interesting side conversation on the necessity of ADRs. I agree that you really don't have to make them at 180 days out or at all if you don't want to. For our June trip we had exactly 2 ADRs at all on park days and only one of those was actually in a theme park. Every other day we just did walk up and we managed to have no problem. Sure, sometimes you have to go with a second or third choice or eat at a slightly different time, but we really don't care about any of that.

I hate being tied to ADRs so I don't make them yet I manage to always have a fun trip. I also made a lot of my FP+ selections same day since we changed our mind in the morning about which park we are going to.

I don't find it any harder to wing a day at WDW now then I did during FP- or before any FPs what so ever in the 90's. In fact I do much more planning for my non-park days then I do for my park days.

 

[MrInfinity]

Just had to add, even though I said I wouldn't because it is too ridiculous to respond to. I just don't understand why you have to focus in on my statements, because after all they are MY statements. I guess you must feel the need to comment on EVERYTHING. Don't understand all the attention but oh well!!!
Thanks for the laughs, as this is ridiculous

I'm not focusing on you. You're the one who said it's an internet forum so we should discuss that's what we're here for right? You made a point that you think people must plan or else come home not having had a good trip complaining of crowds and lack of doing anything cool. I made a counter point that I think people go to Disney World all the time doing way less planning than you or I do, and they almost always have a great time and post tons of great experiences on facebook, and their kids rave about how fun it was. If you don't want to discuss, you don't have to. If you want to, I'm game. Whatever.

 

[hopemax]

In the not so distant past Disney was a company in trouble. The board wanted to split off the different parts of the company including the theme parks. Enter the team of Eisner and Wells who were charged with keeping the company together. Eisner watched the numbers and Wells brought creativity and a customer focus. They built new things and made service a focus of the company. The company had tremendous growth in this time while bringing people back to the parks and rebuilding the brand.

Since this time people have been riding on these accomplishment and have started to believe that the name was what made the company and lost focus on what turned the company around.

This is kind of a misrepresentation/simplification of what happened. Disney was not so much in trouble (aside from the squabbling and the inability of the two families to work together) as they were sitting on piles of gold and doing nothing with it. Disney was an extremely valuable commodity, which is why they were so susceptible to corporate raiders. Many people think it was "Walt & Roy O. ideas" that had failed vs fighting=nothing. The old guard of Card Walker types were so paralyzed with "what would Walt do," that they forgot to actually do "what Walt would do." [note: WWWD is not a bad strategy, if you actually do it...fighting over what it means, resulting in nothing is something Walt would have NEVER done]. Walt was highly adaptable proven by being on the leading edges of use of sound/color in films, that whole animation thing, and going over the banker's heads to this emerging market of television to fund and market Disneyland. He bet big on progress, and it served him well. Walt never would have let what happened, happen, and I would have hoped that as financially creative as Roy O was he would have recognized the dangers of the shifting sands of the 80's corporate world.

But Eisner/Wells actually did some of the things that Ron Miller wanted to do. History has warped the narrative to some extent with certain parties wanting to paint others as more inept than they were, and their role was more savior that it might have been. Everyone with any interest in this stuff should read John Taylor's book Storming the Magic Kingdom. It was published in 1987, so by being closer to the events of the early 80s, I think you get a more accurate version, then from some of the books that have come later. I need to reread it, it's been awhile. It's interesting that you do mention Eisner as numbers and Wells as creative...many people believe it was the other way around, and Eisner certainly seemed to envision himself as the creative one. Personally, I think it was mostly Wells...and Eisner was simply lucky that Wells did not want to be CEO. And we got to see that after Wells passing and Eisner suffered his own paralysis and crisis of confidence.

But the rest of your post is spot on, as I've posted before I believe it was the investments Wells & Eisner made in WDW, that is driving THIS current wave of growth, as the kids who witnessed that now have kids of their own, and have been waiting for that day all their life. More that, than the decisions made within TDO over the last 20 years. Do those "Eisner kids" like what WDW has turned into, and their children? Too soon to tell, I think. If we're only up to the "Eisner kids" as parents, we haven't even gotten to the kids who went for the first time under Judson Green's "every time we open something, we have to close something," philosophy, or Paul Pressler's "if we do only critical maintenance, the numbers look way better, what else can we cut" philosophy. Choices the current crop of managers, seems to have doubled down on. But then again, I doubt the current crop expects to be there when the "chickens come home to roost."

 

[lugnut33]

I am intrigued by some of the positions that seem to be asserted here. One being that a WDW trip is only fun/successful if I (or my kids) can do everything they want, without waiting in lines, and do so multiple times in whatever number of days I scheduled for my trip. I agree with some of the PPs who understand that not every family planning a WDW trip will know about FP+ and ADRs, or even that you can eat with Cinderella. As with any social circle, the more you interact within that circle, the more you believe that it represents the social reality of most people. People on these discussion boards are generally WDW experienced. But I think the percentage of WDW guests that are characteristic of the people on these boards is often over-estimated. I would guess that there are a lot of people who, at least on their first trips, simply book a room, travel and tickets and head down without much other research. And I think that you can still get value for your money in doing so. If your mentality is that I/or my children must have everything, do everything and should not be inconvenienced in the process, then you will likely receive less value for your money. But that is a tall order at a popular place with a limited number of rides/attractions.

I wonder what would happen, and how people would feel if WDW simply did away with ADRs and FP+? Just leveled the playing field and made everything first come, first served.

But Disney would never do that because they need to differentiate the guests to help sell the resorts.

If Disney fanactics like the people on these boards were not common, then Disney would have no reason to build DVC.

 

[BSmithington]

Disney wants the 10K customers spending $2,000 right along with the few thousand spending $10K.

Do they though? Lower paying guests use the same infrastructure and typically don't add to the margin.

Think of it this way you own a small cafe with 10 tables. At dinner time a family of four comes in and occupies one of your tables. They only order water, share an appetizer (send it back 6 times, demand a nut free version and spend the next hour doing a review on Yelp). While you are busy dealing with this family, the other table who ordered a nice bottle of wine, some apps and separate entrees are annoyed that their service is lacking. So the high paying guest decides not to come back.

Now you could staff up and add additional cost or you could change to a prix fixe menu and stop the first family from coming. Now the big spenders can use your limited resources, you earn incremental revenue and they have an enjoyable time and will be back.

 

[lugnut33]

As an update, one of my DVC contracts has sold in 1 day. LOL

 

[mom2rtk]

Do they though? Lower paying guests use the same infrastructure and typically don't add to the margin.

Think of it this way you own a small cafe with 10 tables. At dinner time a family of four comes in and occupies one of your tables. They only order water, share an appetizer (send it back 6 times, demand a nut free version and spend the next hour doing a review on Yelp). While you are busy dealing with this family, the other table who ordered a nice bottle of wine, some apps and separate entrees are annoyed that their service is lacking. So the high paying guest decides not to come back.

Now you could staff up and add additional cost or you could change to a prix fixe menu and stop the first family from coming. Now the big spenders can use your limited resources, you earn incremental revenue and they have an enjoyable time and will be back.

Once again, if the parks were at capacity more than a handful of days each year, I'd agree with you. But they aren't.

And as long as Disney continues to operate value resorts (with quite substantial fixed costs) they are going to want guests from the entire economic spectrum.

 

[bpadair32]

As an update, one of my DVC contracts has sold in 1 day. LOL

Yeah people are clearly fleeing in droves...

 

[dlavender]

Do they though? Lower paying guests use the same infrastructure and typically don't add to the margin.

Think of it this way you own a small cafe with 10 tables. At dinner time a family of four comes in and occupies one of your tables. They only order water, share an appetizer (send it back 6 times, demand a nut free version and spend the next hour doing a review on Yelp). While you are busy dealing with this family, the other table who ordered a nice bottle of wine, some apps and separate entrees are annoyed that their service is lacking. So the high paying guest decides not to come back.

Now you could staff up and add additional cost or you could change to a prix fixe menu and stop the first family from coming. Now the big spenders can use your limited resources, you earn incremental revenue and they have an enjoyable time and will be back.

#1 Disney is not a small cafe.
#2 Why wouldn't every business just serve a high end, niche clientele, then? Because in most cases, its a very hard strategy to implement and sustain. I'm sure Disney would love to fill the MK with 100000k people everyday at $5000/day tickets. If it was that easy, why don't they just do it?

Think of it this way:

You own the world's largest cafe, with 10000 seats. 1000 seats are filled with big spenders, feeling entitled to have all of the waiter's time to themselves, demanding that their steak is never cooked right, however, you notice your restaurant is empty....why are you wasting space? You either move to a smaller space, or entice others to fill the empty seats.

 

[Happy_2_B]

As an update, one of my DVC contracts has sold in 1 day. LOL

As other PP's have said- myself included- there will always be people lined up behind us to take our places should we choose to change the manner in which we vacation. Congrats on the quick sale.

 

[BSmithington]

Once again, if the parks were at capacity more than a handful of days each year, I'd agree with you. But they aren't.

And as long as Disney continues to operate value resorts (with quite substantial fixed costs) they are going to want guests from the entire economic spectrum.

I think it's clear they don't want the park at capacity. Capacity causes service issues and keeps the good paying guests away.

If they were honest they would probably say that we would like to weed out the guests that historically tap our infrastructure and do not contribute to incremental revenue.

We would like to focus on a higher end consumer that spends more and restore our high level of service.

Regarding the value resorts, let's be honest they are a piece of crap. And I'm shocked people actually stay in them.

 

[momof2n2]

Sorry if someone beat me to it; ten pages is a lot to catch up with. NCL is also not a luxurious vacation - they have some of the cheapest fares around and one of my main sticking points has been you can go a lot of better places for a lot less than Disney charges, exotic islands included (especially if you aren't paying the resort prices to stay on them). Cruising one of the easiest/cheapest ways to do it (and I'm a big fan of them too for that reason!).

While I agree it isn't luxury-luxury, it is a lot more delightful (NCL or others) on a lot of levels. IMO and experience, cruising offers a lot of ROI.