What is WDW thinking by charging for a second DDE card

[kathleena]

If Disney indeed did start up the new fee because of abuse, then what irritates me most about it is that they continue to allow the blatant and rampant abuse of the meal plan vouchers paid for as child, being used as adults - but yet clamp down on the DDE card? It is well known that once meal plan dinners are on your room key, there is no telling the difference if you paid for adult or child, so people use them as adult and pay cash for the child meal. Don't know if it's been fixed yet, but last I knew it was still a glitch.

RE: DDE - I'm one of those women who did not change my name upon marriage. DH plays golf and we are often separated during the day, so I was happy for him to have the card to use during those times. No way will I pay the extra to have a card for him.

 

[bicker]

Kathleena: Some folks have posted rationalizations/justifications for why Disney is unconcerned about that abuse, though -- that it actually is a subtle way they can provide additional incentive for certain folks to patronize restaurants (when they otherwise would have stuck with counter-service exclusively). I don't like the explanations, but they do have some merit.

 

[crisi]

Kathleena: Some folks have posted rationalizations/justifications for why Disney is unconcerned about that abuse, though -- that it actually is a subtle way they can provide additional incentive for certain folks to patronize restaurants (when they otherwise would have stuck with counter-service exclusively). I don't like the explanations, but they do have some merit.

My guess is that Disney didn't recreate the systems behind the DDE, they used the existing Silver/Gold/Platinum Plan system. Since those plans have never been highly used and were pretty expensive plans anyway, they weren't concerned about the abuse - possibly never even bothered to measure it.

With the DDP, the plan is less expensive and is being used by more budget concious folk, who will work the (non-technological) system to get the best value.

Now Disney has painted themselves in a corner. The system upgrade to seperate the credits could be quite expensive, the "abuse" is hard to measure, the DDP wildly popular at its price point. Pull the DDP or increase its price to compensate for the "misuse" (what they functionally did with the DDE - which is a very manual system), and guests would be unhappy. So you need to get an estimate of the amount the "abuse" is costing you, and compare that against the cost to upgrade the system. My guess is that this indeed will change, but that Disney has been working other issues right now and this isn't a high priority for them, because, while there is ROI on the system change, there is BETTER ROI on other IT efforts, and they have an integration (Disney/Pixar) to do right now, that eats IT resources.