Resort fees

[jhoannam]

We didn't use the wifi at the resort (too tired to use at the end of the day) and my cell phone data was way faster, so I would opted out. Magic bands aren't necessary but nice, would I pay for it? No. And I would rather rent a car then pay for the buses.

 

[disneysteve]

Just in case anyone thinks this issue is confined to Disney property, in November, we rented a time share through SkyAuction, something we've done many times. This time, however, the resort (Orbit One) had added a resort fee. It was $5/day and then got raised to $8/day. It is still well worth it since we get a 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit for about $50/night which blows Disney out of the water, but it is a change from the past. This is just what is happening in the industry. Disney certainly didn't start it.

 

[patster734]

This is all true, so would we be having this conversation is Disney had just raised the room rates by $15? I'm guessing we wouldn't. People might be grumbling a bit that prices went up but at least all of the "perks" would still be included.


Exactly. The end result is exactly the same but it upsets people much more to have the bill itemized via a resort fee.

Actually, end result could be different. Seasonal discounts probably won't apply to resort fees.

 

[disneysteve]

Actually, end result could be different. Seasonal discounts probably won't apply to resort fees.

True. So if they offer a 20% promo, you'll pay $3 more than you otherwise would have. Not a big deal but it's something.

 

[NuttyDisneyDad]

Seriously whats next?...paying tolls on the Disney buses? I shudder to think lol

 

[disneysteve]

Seriously whats next?...paying tolls on the Disney buses? I shudder to think lol

But the bus tokens will be really cool and have Mickey heads on them.

 

[mcd2745]

But the bus tokens will be really cool and have Mickey heads on them.

More importantly, they can then sell pins and t-shirts with the image of the tokens....and collector sets of "limited-edition" tokens in a fancy case. After all, it's always about the merchandise.

 

[Kimberle]

I guess they want to add the fee so they won't have to pay travel agent's commissions on it. Since it's paid directly to the resort, I don't believe TA's get commissions on any additional fees. $15 x each resort room per night book by a TA is a pretty penny.

Regardless of what they do, a budget is a budget. (for example) If a family has $4000 for a vacation, they would choose a room with a lesser view, go to a Mod or Value, skip the hoppers, do counter service instead of sit down, or lower the number of nights. They will do whatever it takes to stay within their budget.

 

[RZphilly]

I would not pay for Magic Bands or Magical Express. I would absolutely pay for WiFi.

To those who think those things were "free" until now, don't fool yourself. They have always been built into the prices. The only thing a resort fee changes is it now itemizes some of what you are paying for. That makes the price of the hotel room appear artificially low since the room and the amenities are now separate line items on your bill.

Number 1 Disney are not going to lower the price of a room and add on the 15 dollars a day resort fee .... If they are then that's fine. No arguments here . Number 2 I completely understand the point of these items not being "free" but don't charge higher then normal room rates and market all the extras that are included in that high room rate for the privledge to stay on site .
I personally think if they want to put an optional charge on wifi if you care to use it ..... A round trip or one way flat fee for ME is even an option that could be tried . At least it's a small one off fee which would be easier in my opinion for people to swallow . Getting hit up for 15 dollar a day resort fee is steep for a 7 or 14 night trip .

 

[Squggl3]

I usually end up buying a specialty magicband, so a fee for that wouldn't bother me too much (as long as we could opt out) I wouldn't be happy paying for wifi since I don't need it and it doesn't work all that great anyway. I would seriously look into renting a car if they imposed a fee on ME that way I could skip the buses and travel off property a little. I have to say, every hotel I have stayed at in the last 2 years, has NOT charged for parking, wifi, or had any extra charges except the nightly room rate + tax. I'm not saying I would only stay offsite if they imposed these fees, but I would consider it and start shopping around, because if I'm going to rent a car anyway might as well save some money off site. My issue with the fee is that since it is a separate entity instead of just increasing the room rates alittle every year, now they can increase the room rates and the hotel fee. so while right now it may only be $15 next year it could be $17 + whatever they raise the rooms to and on and on it goes..... and after checking around a little adding a $15 per day fee would means I could stay offsite 2 ( or more) days for less money.

 

[Jadeey]

I guess they want to add the fee so they won't have to pay travel agent's commissions on it. Since it's paid directly to the resort, I don't believe TA's get commissions on any additional fees. $15 x each resort room per night book by a TA is a pretty penny.

Regardless of what they do, a budget is a budget. (for example) If a family has $4000 for a vacation, they would choose a room with a lesser view, go to a Mod or Value, skip the hoppers, do counter service instead of sit down, or lower the number of nights. They will do whatever it takes to stay within their budget.

I don't think Disney have quite grasped your point about the budget, but I think it is exactly right. My family definitely have a vacation budget that we will stick to even with prices going up, it just means we will make some changes to ensure we can still meet our budget. So, in our case and I would guess many others, Disney won't necessarily see a decline in the number of people still staying in the resorts but they also might not see much of an increase in profits because people will just save money elsewhere on the trip. For us it will be dining. We like to do a lot of sit down meals, but that's also the first place we will look to cut costs.

 

[Princess Jes]

I don't think Disney have quite grasped your point about the budget, but I think it is exactly right. My family definitely have a vacation budget that we will stick to even with prices going up, it just means we will make some changes to ensure we can still meet our budget. So, in our case and I would guess many others, Disney won't necessarily see a decline in the number of people still staying in the resorts but they also might not see much of an increase in profits because people will just save money elsewhere on the trip. For us it will be dining. We like to do a lot of sit down meals, but that's also the first place we will look to cut costs.

I mentioned something similar when one of the quarterly results were posted a while back.
They mentioned that guest attendance resort revenue and resort occupancy were up a certain percentage let's say it was 10%, but guest spending was only up like, 7%.
In my world, that means, sure people are still coming in droves, they're paying the increased room and ticket prices, but they're not spending 'as much' in the parks.
If all the other measures are increasing at a very similar rate, but in park spending isn't up as much, it means they're finding the $ they had to fork out in resort and ticket increases by taking it from their food/souvenir budgets, so for the most part, people are probably sticking to a $ spend for their trip rather than just paying extra for the things that increase and keeping their 'fun money' budget the same.

Apparently I was wrong from memory...

 

[*NikkiBell*]

The Swan and Dolphin already charge a per night resort fee which has always been a thorn in my side. I don't believe that you can opt out and can't see that being a possibility if Disney adopts this idea either. I'm still interested to hear how this will affect DVC members who most definitely already pay their fair share of fees.

 

[EricInPA]

Couple things about this survey that caused me to raise an eyebrow:
1. It only mentioned deluxe resorts and the "average" rate example they gave was $350/night.
2. Based on posts around these boards, it seems the survey was targeted at new/infrequent visitors
3. I've seen only one first-hand account (the original screenshot from twitter) and it that only includes the question and not the answers.

That said, I'm not a member of the "Surveys are there for PR" Club.

Using seasonal pricing as an example, it's much easier to believe that people took the seasonal pricing survey and didn't care, than it is that Disney drew up the question just to soften the announcement of seasonal pricing 8 months later (especially since there were multiple surveys asking different guests about different pricing structures).

My opinion on the extras:
We fly down and we do not rent a car. I'll pay for transportation convenience whenever possible, especially if Disney is providing it directly and I don't have to call anyone. So if Magical Express suddenly was extra, I would (begrudgingly) pay it. As for the rest, like multi-day seasonal ticketing, there are so many variables and questions to be asked, that I don't really know how to react to it.

 

[thetallone101]

If they add in resort fees, which we all know this is coming eventually I will more than likely opt out of staying onsite. We rent DVC points but with all the increase in prices it's getting out of hand.

 

[Jadeey]

I mentioned something similar when one of the quarterly results were posted a while back.
They mentioned that guest attendance resort revenue and resort occupancy were up a certain percentage let's say it was 10%, but guest spending was only up like, 7%.
In my world, that means, sure people are still coming in droves, they're paying the increased room and ticket prices, but they're not spending 'as much' in the parks.
If all the other measures are increasing at a very similar rate, but in park spending isn't up as much, it means they're finding the $ they had to fork out in resort and ticket increases by taking it from their food/souvenir budgets, so for the most part, people are probably sticking to a $ spend for their trip rather than just paying extra for the things that increase and keeping their 'fun money' budget the same.

Apparently I was wrong from memory...

I didn't see it when you originally posted, but I think you are exactly right. It makes total sense for people to still stick to their budget by making cuts elsewhere.

I don't know about everyone else, but I often have a pretty generous food budget and a 'daily spending allowance' that I use for souvenirs. Both of those could be reduced to give me the extra $15 a day for the resort fee while still fitting into the same budget.

 

[Princess Jes]

I didn't see it when you originally posted, but I think you are exactly right. It makes total sense for people to still stick to their budget by making cuts elsewhere.

I don't know about everyone else, but I often have a pretty generous food budget and a 'daily spending allowance' that I use for souvenirs. Both of those could be reduced to give me the extra $15 a day for the resort fee while still fitting into the same budget.

The same goes in the retail world for me, we have a measure called "comps" or "comparable stores"
Basically, it's a measure of "what group of stores were open for the same period last year, and how much did they grow on last year"
So, essentially, we always want stores to increase on last year, but how much can matter.
We might say "our budget is a 5% comp (for example)" but they actual used at only 3%.
Sure, it's growth in LY, but in order to hit a bottom line number and to cover the expenses to run the business, we needed a 5%.
Most people would say "but you've increased on last year, it means people are spending more" but there are other factors at play. Maybe womenswear grew 5% but their accessories only lifted 2%, so there could be an issue in accessories.
Growth is good of course, but there's always a bigger story to tell.

 

[disneysteve]

The same goes in the retail world for me, we have a measure called "comps" or "comparable stores"

Slightly different issue but this brought to mind another Disney topic.

Years ago, there used to be a lot of really unique shopping experiences at Disney, both in the parks and in the hotels. I strongly suspect that many of these locations didn't bring in a ton of money but they enhanced the guest experience with novel offerings that couldn't be found anywhere else. The theory was to look at the overall retail operation of the park as a whole so if one store did great and another did not so well but was a guest favorite, that was okay. At some point, from what I've heard, they started focusing on each store standing on its own. That's when we started to lose those unique places that weren't really pulling their own weight. The Liberty Square silver shop went away. The boutiques on Main Street disappeared and the Emporium expanded to swallow them all. Stuff like that. So that square footage is surely generating more income now but the guest experience has been homogenized and diluted.

 

[cxcelica]

Basically it would come down to a $15.00 a night increase in the hotel price. Disney is just doing it in a clever way for them so that

1. I assume they can still advertise a lower price per night and roll the resort fee in with the taxes etc when you get the final total.
2. I assume they will exclude this "fee" from the discounted amount when they offer those percentage off promos

Some one also posted above that it might not be commissionable for a travel agent. Not sure if that is accurate or not, but would definitely be another benefit.

I don't see it as something they would offer you the ability to opt-out of. But if they did, the disney vacation has become complicated enough, I dont think I'm going to start calculating the price of getting a taxi vs DME, magic band, wi-fi vs. my own data plan and finding out if it would be worth the nightly fee?

 

[SorcererHeidi]

The Swan and Dolphin already charge a per night resort fee which has always been a thorn in my side. I don't believe that you can opt out and can't see that being a possibility if Disney adopts this idea either. I'm still interested to hear how this will affect DVC members who most definitely already pay their fair share of fees.

Nikki - I posted above that I stayed at the Swan a long time ago (probably at east 15 years or so), and tried to opt out of the fee (told them fine - don't deliver the paper, I won't drink the bottles of water, use the internet, or make local calls) and they would not let me. Sorry, but especially way back then, when it was not as prevalent as it is now, it ticked me off.