State of Fast Pass Return (or replacement)

[Launchpad_Mcquack]

Let's just all stop and look at what indicators we have available to us. BooBash was sold out in minutes, the parks are packed full, VIP tours are sold out. Cruise will be booked solid within minutes. Hotels are booked out for the most part.

Now imagine the internal metrics Disney has regarding all this. These guys are looking 5 and 10 years out, they are factoring in rides that haven't even been announced yet in their diagnostic simulations that predict crowd levels. This is me just speculating, but I am pretty sure they are seeing trends of overcapacity at all parks and their only possible control mechanism(which conveniently aligns with their profit margins) is to essentially raise prices everywhere.

Magical Express... gone. Free Parking, gone. Dining Plan that used to be good and is now a rip-off. How much did that save them? AP's getting a major rework and we will be lucky if all they do is raise the price to 2k and spam block out dates all over the place. Fastpass charged per person per ride. The writing is on the wall guys, it's not hard to read the tea leafs on what they are doing.

 

[New Mouse]

The more I think about it, the more I believe WDW is going to try to eliminate standby lines almost completely. All queues for major rides will be virtual. Just a hunch, but it makes sense to me. Why have people actually standing in line? You get your virtual place in line, then just hang out doing whatever until it's your turn.
I think they will probably want a system where you can be a little more spontaneous, so you don't have to book all your rides 60 days in advance. And I don't think they want all rides to be booked solid instantly at 0700. So they'll have to figure that out. But I feel like virtual queues is definitely the direction we are headed.

Virtual queue will not work outside of Magic Kingdom (maybe). There are not enough rides and not enough other things to do to make that work (see volcano bay when crowded)

 

[New Mouse]

The writing is on the wall guys, it's not hard to read the tea leafs on what they are doing.

Pumping the stock short term, setting them up for bankruptcy long term.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Let's just all stop and look at what indicators we have available to us. BooBash was sold out in minutes, the parks are packed full, VIP tours are sold out. Cruise will be booked solid within minutes. Hotels are booked out for the most part.

Now imagine the internal metrics Disney has regarding all this. These guys are looking 5 and 10 years out, they are factoring in rides that haven't even been announced yet in their diagnostic simulations that predict crowd levels. This is me just speculating, but I am pretty sure they are seeing trends of overcapacity at all parks and their only possible control mechanism(which conveniently aligns with their profit margins) is to essentially raise prices everywhere.

Magical Express... gone. Free Parking, gone. how much did that save them? AP's getting a major rework and we will be lucky if all they do is raise the price to 2k and spam block out dates all over the place. Fastpass charged per person per ride. The writing is on the wall guys, it's not hard to read the tea leafs on what they are doing.

Potentially charging per person per ride.

 

[Launchpad_Mcquack]

Pumping the stock short term, setting them up for bankruptcy long term.

Remmy and Tron are coming online, imagine another 3-4 AAA rides within the next 5 years. The Moana area, the projections shows at night, food festivals all year long. The more they add the more the idea that those parks are ever going to be hurting for guests becomes pretty hard to defend.

Like the other poster said, they are going to push us to the brink just enough where we are all going to just accept it because we love and need Disney and those of you who say "I have had enough" there are going to be two upper middle class families to fill your spot. Trust me, I don't like it but it's becoming a reality.

 

[TinkerBelle_325]

Let's just all stop and look at what indicators we have available to us. BooBash was sold out in minutes, the parks are packed full, VIP tours are sold out. Cruise will be booked solid within minutes. Hotels are booked out for the most part.

Now imagine the internal metrics Disney has regarding all this. These guys are looking 5 and 10 years out, they are factoring in rides that haven't even been announced yet in their diagnostic simulations that predict crowd levels. This is me just speculating, but I am pretty sure they are seeing trends of overcapacity at all parks and their only possible control mechanism(which conveniently aligns with their profit margins) is to essentially raise prices everywhere.

Magical Express... gone. Free Parking, gone. Dining Plan that used to be good and is now a rip-off. How much did that save them? AP's getting a major rework and we will be lucky if all they do is raise the price to 2k and spam block out dates all over the place. Fastpass charged per person per ride. The writing is on the wall guys, it's not hard to read the tea leafs on what they are doing.

Hotels are not booked solid and they just added about 5000 rooms to their inventory by confirming the reopening of POR, POFQ and the remaining All Stars.

Magical Express is ending because Mears is introducing a new service from MCO and I would bet that the contract was expiring and Disney wasn’t happy with the renewal terms and walked.

Free parking doesn’t exist in other major tourist destinations like New York City, Las Vegas etc so they were adopting an industry standard.

After Hours Boo Bash pricing is higher than MNSSHP but comparable with previous After Hours events.

Parks certainly aren’t packed. If you look at July 2019 wait times (when FP+ was active) you’ll see very similar wait times to what we’ve seen the past few weeks.

We don’t know what will happen with FastPass, Annual Passes or Cruise bookings. It’s fun to speculate, but unless you have a crystal ball you can’t speak in absolutes about those programs.

 

[Wandering Oaken]

Remmy and Tron are coming online, imagine another 3-4 AAA rides within the next 5 years. The Moana area, the projections shows at night, food festivals all year long. The more they add the more the idea that those parks are ever going to be hurting for guests becomes pretty hard to defend.

Like the other poster said, they are going to push us to the brink just enough where we are all going to just accept it because we love and need Disney and those of you who say "I have had enough" there are going to be two upper middle class families to fill your spot. Trust me, I don't like it but it's becoming a reality.

After my next trip those two upper middle class families can have my spot. Part of me really wishes they had not even bothered buying Star Wars and building that land. Because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be going this time. I would be more than happy to spend that same amount of money and take a vacation to Hawaii.

 

[Dis Dragon]

Magical Express is ending because Mears is introducing a new service from MCO and I would bet that the contract was expiring and Disney wasn’t happy with the renewal terms and walked.

There was a junket from Mears that they were willing to work something out with Disney, but Disney wasn't interested... now who knows if that's true or not - but why would Mears walk away from a sure thing? They were funneled business, in the new model some people will still use Mears but they will lose a lot of volume because of that contract ending.

It sounded (at least to me) that the new Mears program is something they had to cook up to accommodate the ME people that still want the bus.

 

[New Mouse]

After my next trip those two upper middle class families can have my spot. Part of me really wishes they had not even bothered buying Star Wars and building that land. Because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be going this time. I would be more than happy to spend that same amount of money and take a vacation to Hawaii.

You honestly arent missing much beyond ROTR

 

[cakebaker]

After my next trip those two upper middle class families can have my spot. Part of me really wishes they had not even bothered buying Star Wars and building that land. Because if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be going this time. I would be more than happy to spend that same amount of money and take a vacation to Hawaii.

And I wish they hadn’t brought back HEA. It is absolutely the only reason we booked. If I’d known then what I know now, even a chance to see a show I love more than any other they’ve even done for what may be the last time, wouldn’t have gotten me back.

I won’t say we’ll never be back because I hold out hope they’ll get back to what they were instead of taking advantage of the pandemic to slash and burn. I’m not holding my breath.

 

[sssteele]

A simple solution. You hand a ten dollar bill to the CM at the FP entrance. A temporary solution until IT gets it right.

Most people today want nothing to do with cash.

 

[finedice]

You honestly arent missing much beyond ROTR

Agreed - the theming is pretty cool, but they could have done more with attractions and certainly worked harder to live up to the hype of an "immersive experience".

 

[Launchpad_Mcquack]

Hotels are not booked solid and they just added about 5000 rooms to their inventory by confirming the reopening of POR, POFQ and the remaining All Stars.

Magical Express is ending because Mears is introducing a new service from MCO and I would bet that the contract was expiring and Disney wasn’t happy with the renewal terms and walked.

Free parking doesn’t exist in other major tourist destinations like New York City, Las Vegas etc so they were adopting an industry standard.

After Hours Boo Bash pricing is higher than MNSSHP but comparable with previous After Hours events.

Parks certainly aren’t packed. If you look at July 2019 wait times (when FP+ was active) you’ll see very similar wait times to what we’ve seen the past few weeks.

We don’t know what will happen with FastPass, Annual Passes or Cruise bookings. It’s fun to speculate, but unless you have a crystal ball you can’t speak in absolutes about those programs.

1. Yes, I am sure it was too rich for Disney to handle. And if that's the truth why not Disney do it themselves, we are talking about buses. Either way, my point is valid, it's done and Disney saves a ton of money and passes the transportation costs onto the consumers. Not exactly the behavior you would expect from a company afraid of losing business.
2. "an industry standard" you are comparing a one of kind major theme park to a casino to rationalize the sudden change?
3. It's not just that the price is higher, which I am glad you pointed out, it's that it was sold out in minutes. The point being they could easily charge even more likely and still sell out.
4. Admittedly I haven't personally been to the parks since opening. But the popular youtuber 'Corey Meets World' has and goes live each and every Thursday. Just 3 days ago I watched as he could barely walk in a straight line and someone who is an expert like him, who goes weekly, who lives 10 minutes from the park described it as "insane" and he "had never seen that many people" You are more than welcome to check that out for yourself to corroborate.
5. It's true we do not know what will happen with those programs, which is why we are participating in a discussion forum marked "Rumors and News" and not "announcements"

 

[Mle8308]

When and why did they stop doing this? We've noticed over the last couple years that we never got handed one of those cards on a lanyard any more. We also noticed last year that whatever the posted wait time was you knocked 25% off and it was very close. Why would they not want to be as accurate as possible? I would think adding a "buffer" to the estimate would cause more grumbling.

They may be doing it now. My most recent trip was in December and didn’t notice if they were handing out the cards, they probably were. I’ll look again next month. Wait times can be inflated for a few reasons. One is psychological, people like to feel they waited less. Better to wait less time than more. Another is to discourage people from getting into a line, especially at Park close.

 

[Illinois76]

Pumping the stock short term, setting them up for bankruptcy long term.

This is just a ridiculous statement. Going to age beyond badly.

 

[kc51570]

When and why did they stop doing this? We've noticed over the last couple years that we never got handed one of those cards on a lanyard any more. We also noticed last year that whatever the posted wait time was you knocked 25% off and it was very close. Why would they not want to be as accurate as possible? I would think adding a "buffer" to the estimate would cause more grumbling.

I am guessing they can track individuals via magic band now or whoever has bluetooth turned on in their phone with the app running.

 

[andyman8]

Pumping the stock short term, setting them up for bankruptcy long term.

How does adding a new revenue stream (paid FP) at all set them up for bankruptcy?

 

[DL1WDW2]

.

 

[New Mouse]

How does adding a new revenue stream (paid FP) at all set them up for bankruptcy?

Alienating customers costs you life long dollars.

 

[andyman8]

Alienating customers costs you life long dollars.

70% of WDW guests are what Disney considers to be first-time Guests. It’s not about lifelong Guests. That’s been their business model for a while.