WDiW to spend 15 million dollars on Disney Transportation

[CarnotaurDad]

raidermatt, that looks correct. DVC members can officially pool hop everywhere except AKL and SAB. Others cannot pool hop anywhere. But, the only place they enforce, is AKL and SAB.

 

[DisneyKidds]

Hi raidermatt, yes, it does. SAB and AKL are the only two that disallow pool hopping.

I believe you are wrong on this. DVC members can pool hop anywhere but SAB and AKL. I don't believe anybody else has pool hopping priviledges. Pool hopping is clearly laid out in DVC rules and regs. If you can find where it is stated that it applies to all resort guests I be very surprised.

 

[DisneyKidds]

Oops....see you guys already addressed this one.

 

[Another Voice]

I don't understand the uproar over trying to limit pool hopping.

At the beginning, the idea was that even though a guest was staying at the Contemporary or the Poly hotels - they were a guest of the WDW Resort. As a result, they were entitled to use of all of the facilities of the resort.

That changed when, in an effort to drive up the revenue, the management emphasis was shift from WDW's bottom line to the bottom line of each and every hotel. Suddenly a guest going from the Caribbean Beach resort and using the pool at the Poly was cutting that manager's year end bonus by driving up the Poly's expenses.

Things were made worse when Mrs. Eisner thought it would be a wonderful idea to add a fresh water spring (with fish) to a new hotel. Not only were the pools between hotels no longer "equal", but now one directly competed with a gated attraction. Oh, the revenue loss!

And then Disney decided it couldn't afford to keep thier water clean and closed all the beaches and River Country - meaning many more people heading to the pools.

 

[DancingBear]

So it all comes back to Frontierland popcorn spills and brain-eating amoeba!

 

[YoHo]

Wheels within wheels.

 

[Aintdisablast]

I do believe that on the back of that pass there's a time restriction based on first use since you're required to exchange old media you would get credit towards a new pass which did include transportation, so you're question is actually covered.

As for your other post,

I happen to have a very good friend that regularly stays at the Values for their price then uses the Poly pool. Does it all the time. Called me from there over Thanksgiving in fact. I guess we all have Mr. Straw man as a friend whether they're locals using a pool, riding a bus, or DVC members, or the miserly/poor/undesirables.

The rumblings out of Disney are that the Values don't hold poor people. They hold the same people that used to pay for the moderates who just want to spend less money. These people have no problems ponying up for a night out.

Actually, I'm looking at my Park Hopper Plus cards and there is no expiration date on them. Some legalize, I'm required to sign the cards and be prepared to show proper ID. No date anywhere, not even when issued.

Nowhere on the PHP or my PAP and PAP description booklet does it say anything about transportation.

I find it difficult to believe that a PHP with a day left on it - which I never intend to use ( speaking hypothetically ) will serve as my pass to ride Disney buses,boats and monorail to wherever they go, whenever I want, until the day I die.

As for the demographics of who is actually staying at the Values, all I can say for sure is that they are very popular with families who are in WDW for an event or activity that is being held at WWoS. It also makes sense that people who only care about a bed and a shower, regardless of their income level will stay there. I should have given it a little more thought before my earlier post.

But I still believe that pool hopping is not that popular amongst on-property guests.

As for ending pool hopping for resort guests do to poor planning..... not sure I buy that. If Disney had built a dozen more "Poly's" instead of the mods and values, it is inevitable that one resort pool would someday be deemed "the best".... we do that sort of thing all the time on boards like this - best ride, best restaurant, best resort,etc - and overcrowding would be the result. It's human nature. WDW grew from being a cozy destination sitting in the middle of nowhere into a major city with a gazzillion outside resort guests storming its perimeter.

Same for the transportation system.

 

[YoHo]

But best among equals is different from best among unequals.

In other words, if all the pools were nearly the same, then there would be significantly less poolhopping to the best of the best, because it's less worth it.

 

[Aintdisablast]

As for abuse of individual pool complexes, that greatly contributes to the situation at SAB, and the WL to a lesser extent. I'm glad they control SAB with the wristbands, and they should do the same at the WL. You don't know how many people we've chatted with at the WL pools who weren't staying at the resort. The primary abusers there are the folks who can hop a pleasant boat ride and stroll right into the pools.

They really need to take the old River Country and convert it into a decent pool complex for Ft. Wilderness.

When you checked into VWL a couple weeks ago, remember that resort map they put in your packet ? If you still have it, take a close look at it. It includes WL,VWL and FW. It describes all the resort ammenities as if guests at all three resorts are welcome to use them with no limitations. It's the same map they give out at FW also.

I honestly haven't looked that hard at the other paperwork we got, but I don't recall anything stating FW was off limits to us or us to them.

What I'm saying is that I'm not convinced FW guests are doing anything wrong.

But I absolutely agree that they deserve a pool at least the equal of WL.

 

[Aintdisablast]

But best among equals is different from best among unequals.

In other words, if all the pools were nearly the same, then there would be significantly less poolhopping to the best of the best, because it's less worth it.

Maybe, maybe not. I just know that when people hear something is "the best" and they have the opportunity to try it for free, paying guests at the best aren't going to be happy.

As for pools, with the exception of the Value resorts, all the resorts have pretty darn good pools. Truth be told I think Dixie and Coronado's beat CR and GF easily and give Poly a run for the money ( Poly doesn't have a single hot tub ).

If Disney is truely guilty of poor planning it was by building SAB, a resort pool far superior to all the others.

 

[YoHo]

Did Poly lose it's hot tub in the remodel?

 

[Aintdisablast]

Did Poly lose it's hot tub in the remodel?

Yep. Gone.

I asked a life guard if he knew why and he gave some answer about they were trying to keep the area pure to location.... you wouldn't have a tub near a volcano. He didn't have a reply when I asked how many volcanos serve rum runners.

 

[DancingBear]

...if all the pools were nearly the same, then there would be significantly less poolhopping to the best of the best, because it's less worth it.

But why shouldn't their be some variety among the resorts?

 

[YoHo]

Does variety = some suck and some are great? Can't they all be great and still have variety?

 

[Another Voice]

I asked a life guard if he knew why and he gave some answer about they were trying to keep the area pure to location....

You see, never talk to hourly cast members. They never have the right answer. Now if you had talked to manager, you would have heard all about the guest surveys that showed guests didn't like the hot tub and wanted it to be removed.

Don't you know that everything Disney does is just to please its guests?

 

[majortom]

The only problem is that any monorail expansion would cost at least 60 times that amount.

You are suggesting that it would cost $700 million to expand the monorails? Based on what? It is typically suggested that monorails cost $1 million per mile of track. I can not even imagine them laying 20 miles of new track to cover all that would be useful.

/carmi

 

[peter11435]

You are suggesting that it would cost $700 million to expand the monorails? Based on what? It is typically suggested that monorails cost $1 million per mile of track. I can not even imagine them laying 20 miles of new track to cover all that would be useful.

/carmi

To expand the monorail to all of the WDW parks they would need much more than 20 miles of track. The current monorail system as it is has nearly 15 miles of track.

As for the cost of monorail expansion. The 1 million per mile number is decades old. The new monorail system in Las Vegas cost about $87 million per mile.

 

[YoHo]

First of all, the number is a little more then half what the lightrailnow.org estimates the Vegas monorail cost per mile at.
Secondly, those numbers that everyone likes to pull out are for publicly funded projects on public land where demolitions may be needed and condemnation costs included. Lawyer fees, all sort sof managment fees that Disney as the government simply will never have. So comparing to numbers of public transportation is just useless.


Of course, the million bucks a mile is probably low too, but not on the order 87-160 times to low.

 

[peter11435]

First of all, the number is a little more then half what the lightrailnow.org estimates the Vegas monorail cost per mile at.
Secondly, those numbers that everyone likes to pull out are for publicly funded projects on public land where demolitions may be needed and condemnation costs included. Lawyer fees, all sort sof managment fees that Disney as the government simply will never have. So comparing to numbers of public transportation is just useless.


Of course, the million bucks a mile is probably low too, but not on the order 87-160 times to low.

Lightrailnow.org estimates the cost of the Vegas system at $166.7 million. But that number includes all of the junk you mention such demolitions, condemnation, lawyer fees, and management costs. If you do your research you will find that the estimated costs of actually constructing the system was around $87 million per mile. Although it is speculated that if done properly it could have been done for around $50 million per mile.

 

[DancingBear]

The Monorail Society promotes monorails, and the cheapest cost given on its website for an actual operating system is $15 million/mile (and most figures are much higher).

http://www.monorails.org/tMspages/HowMuch.html

While WDW would not have land acquisition costs and similar items, there are undoubtedly cost issues involved in planting the pillars in the Florida muck (see, e.g., Fort Wilderness Railroad).