tickets | 14 days from first use?

[AngiTN]

AngiTN,

If that's the case, I'm relieved but it certainly isn't clear as you step through the on-line process of buying a ticket (I confess I did not complete the purchase but did go through it to see the selection process and options).

And the no-refund or upcharge repolicy based on day used does not appear to have changed from the prior approach IIRC.

Thanks for the update.

Bama Ed

It's there but in the fine print. As is the info that you are never out the cost of a ticket, even if you don't use it prior to the expiration date.

 

[MomOTwins]

I didn't realize the "flexibility price" varies from week to week. What I looked at was $53. Regardless, I don't think a charge to "keep the ticket open" only days longer is a reasonable thing to offer. People buy these tickets months in advance, and all too often plans change -- suddenly they're forced to arrive a day later or can stay a day longer. I'm sticking with grasping and punative.

Eh, I can't get on board with that. It seems to be unnecessarily complicated. Just sell tickets.

I mean, this makes a lot of sense to me actually. If they didn't limit the window, there would be so much gamesmanship on the prices given the new flexible pricing. E.g., President's day is crazy busy and a ticket for that weekend is going to be much more expensive than a ticket for the prior weekend in February, but if everyone can use their tickets for 14 days, folks would buy them for the week before.

I feel a little a bad for Disney to be honest. People always complain the crowds are getting out of control, but when Disney uses tiered pricing to distribute crowds a bit more evenly (encourage stays during cheaper slow periods, discourage during peak periods), everyone complains.

 

[ShadeDK]

Thanks. Well if it's not this straw it will for sure be the next one that breaks this camels back!

Disney is already one step ahead of you and has prevented this possibility by banning all straws at the parks. Rest assured, however, that they swear they're doing this for the good of the camel.

This thread is another one that makes me think that the premium on getting an AP is worth it just to avoid having to figure out all the complexities of buying and using a ticket now. I already rue the day when multi-level passes and block-out calendars ruin it for all the APs, too (as it seems already has happened for some of the FL resident APs).

 

[DVC4US]

In all fairness this is not accurate. You can move the day to any day you want, just have to pay more if it's a more expensive day and won't get a refund if it's a less expensive day. But you aren't forced to use it that one day, or loose it.


This new change only benefits 1 group that I know of, those who don't plan a stay longer than the current use periods for a given ticket. Those folks are often finding their ticket price has dropped or didn't increase. So someone who wants a 3 day ticket for a 3 day stay can come out ahead. And package folks are finding it to be a wash since they aren't impacted by the use period at all.

DVC holders who don't have an AP and AP holders who bring non-AP guests with them are really getting hit hard. For any trip that doesn't fit the use period that is.

Definitely true about DVC members and that's why I voiced my complaint to DVC Member Services. I will go to the top if I need too.

I think this is the info at least I was curious about.. it is a copy and paste from the ticket sticky where you must click on another link for updated ticket info...
And I am not a fan as we own DVC and don't go to the parks much.. 2-3 days so this will not work for us either....
hopefully they will come to their senses at some point in the near future...

1-Day Ticket Only the start date selected
2-Day Ticket Any 2 days within 4 days beginning on the start date
3-Day Ticket Any 3 days within 5 days beginning on the start date
4-Day Ticket Any 4 days within 7 days beginning on thestart date
5-Day Ticket Any 5 days within 8 days beginning on the start date
6-Day Ticket Any 6 days within 9 days beginning on the start date
7-Day Ticket Any 7 days within 10 days beginning on the start date
8-Day Ticket Any 8 days within 12 days beginning on the start date
9-Day Ticket Any 9 days within 13 days beginning on the start date
10-Day Ticket Any 10 days within 14 days beginning on the start date

I'm a DVC member too and was very unhappy when this information came out. I sent an email to DVC Member Services voicing my dissatisfaction and I think every DVC member should do the same.

I mean, this makes a lot of sense to me actually. If they didn't limit the window, there would be so much gamesmanship on the prices given the new flexible pricing. E.g., President's day is crazy busy and a ticket for that weekend is going to be much more expensive than a ticket for the prior weekend in February, but if everyone can use their tickets for 14 days, folks would buy them for the week before.

I feel a little a bad for Disney to be honest. People always complain the crowds are getting out of control, but when Disney uses tiered pricing to distribute crowds a bit more evenly (encourage stays during cheaper slow periods, discourage during peak periods), everyone complains.

Not a fan of having to pick my start date but if that's the policy then Disney should stick with it and people won't be able to game the system. If I want my start date to be the Friday of President's weekend but I purchase a ticket starting the previous weekend because it is cheaper then if I try to use it first on the Friday of President's Weekend I would have to pay the up-charge. It should be 14 days from your first day of use just like it use to be.

 

[DVC4US]

What they need to do is offer DVC tickets that are exempt from the use period limits. The word they are doing this for Cruise guests since they'll do Land/Sea/Land. You'll have to purchase from DCL to get it. If they can do something like that for them they should do something like that for DVC.

I totally agree - if they can offer a special ticket to DCL cruisers then they should be able to offer it to DVC members.

 

[AngiTN]

As an AP holder we are bit by this too. When we bring the rest of the family with us. I guess we'll probably do 2 rooms at a Mod instead of a bigger Deluxe room at the Deluxe resort. This way, we can book DD and DGD in 1 room with tickets and DH and I in the other room. Thing is, this will cost Disney money as 2 mods costs less than 1 Deluxe

 

[DVC4US]

As an AP holder we are bit by this too. When we bring the rest of the family with us. I guess we'll probably do 2 rooms at a Mod instead of a bigger Deluxe room at the Deluxe resort. This way, we can book DD and DGD in 1 room with tickets and DH and I in the other room. Thing is, this will cost Disney money as 2 mods costs less than 1 Deluxe

I agree - didn't mean to leave AP holders out. I'm one of those too but we do travel with those who are not and because of the DVC membership sometimes we like to stay longer and just enjoy things outside of the parks and spread out our park days. I told member services the other day when they called me that with all the price increases, planning and hoops you have to jump through sometimes, and what I see as the decrease in value, Disney has already lost us on things like table service restaurants(use to do 1-2 a day, now maybe 2 or 3 a week), parties, dessert parties, and F&W events. My kids are all grown and no grand kids yet so we might eventually take our vacations elsewhere. It is more difficult but I can use my DVC membership at other places. We already did this with DCL - I have done 16 DCL cruises but this Christmas we are trying Royal Caribbean. It was more than half the price for the same cruise.

 

[JohnneeO]

Cost for the "Flexible" option really depends on your dates. I found some as low as $8.50 the other day to add Flexible to a 5-day ticket in April but as much as $72 to add it to January tickets. It's a very broad range; generally the less expensive dates will cost more to add the Flexible option, and the less expensive dates will see a smaller upcharge to add Flexible. It essentially brings that ticket up to 1 set price regardless of the dates.

This is where WDW really missed the mark in introducing and marketing this change. They should've said, "All tickets are still valid for 14 days from first use, and can be used on any day. If you want to score a discount, then here's all you need to do. Pick the first day of use ahead of time, and limit your yourself to less than 14 days."

That way they could be marketing a way for guests to discount tickets, and making it a choice (a choice that most folks probably wouldn't have bothered with anyway). Instead, what we have is another upcharge, and a PR nightmare.

 

[DavidNYC]

I mean, this makes a lot of sense to me actually. If they didn't limit the window, there would be so much gamesmanship on the prices given the new flexible pricing. E.g., President's day is crazy busy and a ticket for that weekend is going to be much more expensive than a ticket for the prior weekend in February, but if everyone can use their tickets for 14 days, folks would buy them for the week before.

I feel a little a bad for Disney to be honest. People always complain the crowds are getting out of control, but when Disney uses tiered pricing to distribute crowds a bit more evenly (encourage stays during cheaper slow periods, discourage during peak periods), everyone complains.

I'm really curious if there are any metrics on this as far as distributing crowds. I, for one, am extremely skeptical that the ticket pricing does anything for crowd control. Hotel rates pretty much take care that already. The ticket pricing, while annoying, really isn't a huge add'l cost when you take into account what the vacation will cost overall and certainly not enough to make people change dates. It's nickel and diming again. And doing it in a way to really make it not just more expensive for the visitor, but more less flexible, more confusing and less forgiving.

Really starting to get ridiculous.

 

[d96j97]

I feel a little a bad for Disney to be honest. People always complain the crowds are getting out of control, but when Disney uses tiered pricing to distribute crowds a bit more evenly (encourage stays during cheaper slow periods, discourage during peak periods), everyone complains.

Wait, what???? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Disney but I certainly do NOT feel bad for them. I do not think the pricing of the tiered tickets will have any affect on the crowds. As another person mentioned, the price if the resort rooms pretty much already takes care of that. As someone who has visited Disney numerous times, the changes that are made each year are never positive ones in my opinion. I could make a HUGE list of things that "used" to be much better.

 

[Patrick N]

This is the only thing about the recent changes that I don't get. I understand raising the ticket price, introducing date based pricing, adding a parking fee at the resorts and increasing it at the parks. All of those things increases revenue. But what in the world is the point of reducing the use by time from 14 days to the new limited amount of days? For the life of me, I can't figure out how that one item helps Disney at all. I usually buy a 2 day ticket, but I usually stay for 7 days. What does Disney gain from making me use my 2 days within 4 instead of within 7?

 

[AngiTN]

This is the only thing about the recent changes that I don't get. I understand raising the ticket price, introducing date based pricing, adding a parking fee at the resorts and increasing it at the parks. All of those things increases revenue. But what in the world is the point of reducing the use by time from 14 days to the new limited amount of days? For the life of me, I can't figure out how that one item helps Disney at all. I usually buy a 2 day ticket, but I usually stay for 7 days. What does Disney gain from making me use my 2 days within 4 instead of within 7?

They don't gain anything aside from you have to pay more to use it over 7 days. I've given my theory. It's a way to hide a larger price increase. Not so much that it benefits Disney in any way other than more money. On the surface, they haven't raised prices much, if any. A comparison for fewer days with shorter stays shows some ticket prices went down. It's only when you realize the use period may be something you have to make a concern do you realize you're hit with a higher price increase after all.

 

[AngiTN]

Wait, what???? I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Disney but I certainly do NOT feel bad for them. I do not think the pricing of the tiered tickets will have any affect on the crowds. As another person mentioned, the price if the resort rooms pretty much already takes care of that. As someone who has visited Disney numerous times, the changes that are made each year are never positive ones in my opinion. I could make a HUGE list of things that "used" to be much better.

I get what PP was saying. Not so much that they feel bad for Disney as much as they see where they can't win for losing these days. There are posts after posts about how it's too crowded. They raise prices in an effort to reduce crowds, this goes over like a lead balloon. If they were to attempt to put a cap on the number of guests in a park each day and that would be even less popular. But they don't stop hearing complaints about crowds. What can they do to please both those who say it's too crowded and those who hate the price increases? And shareholders. Can't leave them out

 

[AngiTN]

And no, I do not think the ticket price changes will have any significant impact on crowds. Will some look at the cheaper day and change their plans? Sure. Enough to put any marked difference on the numbers that are in the park on a given day? No. Too many are locked in to their days, due to school, work plans, etc. There just aren't enough that can chase the cheaper day

 

[lambdabeta]

This is the only thing about the recent changes that I don't get. I understand raising the ticket price, introducing date based pricing, adding a parking fee at the resorts and increasing it at the parks. All of those things increases revenue. But what in the world is the point of reducing the use by time from 14 days to the new limited amount of days? For the life of me, I can't figure out how that one item helps Disney at all. I usually buy a 2 day ticket, but I usually stay for 7 days. What does Disney gain from making me use my 2 days within 4 instead of within 7?

Well it can do several things. It can make you buy more days if you don't want to use your tickets in the 4 day window or you would have to buy two 1 day tickets and go those exact dates or purchase the flexible package which adds to your ticket price or you would have to buy a package so you can use your tickets for 7 days. Anyway they look at it Disney wins. If you price out a package and a RO plus park tickets through Disney the old way the package always seemed a few dollars more. I never understood that but it was only a couple of dollars so it didn't matter much. This new system is making people purchase packages and Disney decides how much the tickets are for the package based on the dates you are going. So you more than likely will pay more. My DH and I did a spread sheet comparing the new pricing system with the old for the same dates and every time the new ones were more expensive. Even when we picked the cheaper dates. There was only a select few circumstances where the guest would come out ahead. In the long run this is really just another way to raise ticket prices but make you think they are not doing that. Because as PP have said it is not going to have much impact on spreading out crowds. When Disney talks about lowering or spreading out crowds that is just marketing speak for we are raising prices but we need an excuse the public will buy.

 

[Tksolomom]

This is the only thing about the recent changes that I don't get. I understand raising the ticket price, introducing date based pricing, adding a parking fee at the resorts and increasing it at the parks. All of those things increases revenue. But what in the world is the point of reducing the use by time from 14 days to the new limited amount of days? For the life of me, I can't figure out how that one item helps Disney at all. I usually buy a 2 day ticket, but I usually stay for 7 days. What does Disney gain from making me use my 2 days within 4 instead of within 7?

It would prevent people from picking a cheaper day at the beginning of the trip and then using them at the end of a trip. For example, if you were going Dec 20 to 27 where the 20th is cheaper, but planning on using the tickets on the 24 and 25 which is more expensive. They are trying to stop people from buying cheaper tickets when plannin* on using them for long weekends and holidays.

 

[lroger01]

I think the date-based tickets are more for the off site day guest. If I'm only visiting 1 day then the value days will look appealing. So many of the parks crowds aren't staying at a Disney resort.

Maybe in the futur Disney wants to decrease crowds by severely limiting the number of day guests. They can't do that though until they have enough resort rooms and.good neighbor hotels to fill the gap.

 

[10CJ]

This is the only thing about the recent changes that I don't get. I understand raising the ticket price, introducing date based pricing, adding a parking fee at the resorts and increasing it at the parks. All of those things increases revenue. But what in the world is the point of reducing the use by time from 14 days to the new limited amount of days? For the life of me, I can't figure out how that one item helps Disney at all. I usually buy a 2 day ticket, but I usually stay for 7 days. What does Disney gain from making me use my 2 days within 4 instead of within 7?

In addition to the things PPs have mentioned, the limited range should give them a better idea of park crowds on any given day. I think this helps them determine how many people to staff in the parks.

 

[chelseabun76]

I can see how frustrating it would be for those who are used to purchasing tickets to use at various times. For me, it doesn't really change a lot other than price. If I pick a date to take my trip, I am locked in on that date because of my work schedule so I wouldn't be able to move things around if I wanted to, and my tickets are for that trip and that trip only because I only go every 4 years or so. Although, this might be my last trip for a very long time....

 

[bumbershoot]

It just keeps getting worse.

You also can't activate a package ticket before the date of check-in.

Yikes.

This new change only benefits 1 group that I know of, those who don't plan a stay longer than the current use periods for a given ticket.

Florida must not like this. Disney came in and turned the area into a vacation Mecca. There are many many things to do there.

What Disney is saying is “if you want to go off and visit legoland, a gator farm, and Universal, better do it quick or your ticket won’t be good when you come back from those things.”

Which will discourage some to NOT do those things. Which isn’t great for the other Florida attractions.

I’ve always hated going back to Disney after being at Universal anyway, so I guess I’ll just plan on that. No “just in case” Disney plans.

I had the same reaction then I started to break it down and realized this is their way of "reducing package sizing" instead of a big price increase. Like the way most ice cream companies just quietly made their half gallon containers less than half a gallon, instead of increasing the price of the half gallon.

Which was a greedy and avaricious and rotten thing to do. And it’s lying, as well, because many people don’t even notice the difference in ice cream containers. How can one trust such a company?

I feel a little a bad for Disney to be honest. People always complain the crowds are getting out of control, but when Disney uses tiered pricing to distribute crowds a bit more evenly (encourage stays during cheaper slow periods, discourage during peak periods), everyone complains.

It’s not going to do anything to crowds. You might be priced out, but maybe I won’t. (No more husband, and a son whose dance schedule is insane and the ex can have visitation and do a staycation with son while I’m gone, so I don’t have to multiply by three anymore, woo!). I might be priced out, but someone else won’t be. They just replace one body with another.

This thread is another one that makes me think that the premium on getting an AP is worth it

And in a year they’ll freak out that there are too many APs and introduce MORE tiers for that.

Don’t believe me? Ask the long time Disneyland goers. Like me.

In addition to the things PPs have mentioned, the limited range should give them a better idea of park crowds on any given day. I think this helps them determine how many people to staff in the parks.

One would think that their decades of business info would tell them that.

This new confusion on their part is brought about by their own actions.