YOUR ultimate Disney announcement

[mickeysgal]

Ok, so Disney's announcement yesterday was ehh, a little bit underwhelming. So I would like ask what would your ultimate Disney announcement be?

What was the announcement??

I would love to announce the reopening of the Adventurer's Club.

 

[kimmar067]

"...you're MOVING to WDW...here are the keys to the Castle...."

 

[kimmar067]

The first time I saw Monsters Inc. I said that the scene where they're on the door going after boo's door would make an AMAZING ride. That'd be great.....

...OMG, I thought the EXACT SAME THING!

 

[kimmar067]

Bring back unique food and quiet restaurants!!!

Never going to happen but one can dream.

...what a stupid idea - I think I'll ignore it....



































.

[...now, if you had said, "Add bacon to every menu item.", I'd have said, "NOW you're thinking!".... ]

 

[Go Saints!]

1. I would love to see a fastpass option like the park hopper option on ticket purchases. You can pay a price to have a fastpass to anyride at any park everyday of your trip.

2. I would also like to see a character meal with Phineas and Ferb and the Toy Story Characters.

3. I too, would like to see where you can double dip on promotions.

4. A promotion like the buy 4 get 3 free, but on everything. Not just rooms. 3 nights in the room, 3 free days of Park tickets, and 3 free days of meals.

Just me dreaming.

 

[Brier Rose]

I wish they would bring back the Jolly Holiday's Dinner show, or serve breakfast again at the Garden Grill.

At the very least, like everyone else said, bring back the quality and unique items the restaurants used to have!

I think some sort of rewards for frequent visitors would be nice. Some fastpasses, merchandise GC, room discount..SOMETHING to reward loyalty.

 

[SandrA9810]

Get rid of all the nemo stuff. I'm sick of nemo... not every park needs to have an attraction after it. Cute but getting old fast. Same thing with stitch, at least he's falling by the wayside.
Stitch is a cute character and all, so leave him as a character. Bring back the original Alien Encounters that scared the bejeberzers out of me.
They should've done the original plan for the little mermaid at the living seas, and open back up the windows to the tank. What's the point of going through a tunnel under the tank if you can't even see it??
Isn't the monster's inc ride the one they created in Tokyo?? I never heard anything about it coming to Orlando.
Bring back Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and the original Journey into Imagination, plus Dreamfinder.
Come up with something new for the 3D theater at the Imagination Pavilion.
Bring back Tarzan Rocks
Create the "mystical" side to DAK. The park doesn't offer enough.
Seeing a new country at WS would be great.
Bring the Animators back to the Studios where they belong. And get rid of all the Disney Channel stuff...

I would love to see the Pirate and Princess parties again. The night-tastic fireworks is no where near the awesomeness of the original show. Watch it on youtube. How awesome is it to see Captain Hook and King Triton fighting for the castle with "bombs" exploding every where??

Finish POP Century the way it was supposed to be.
Bring back the old All Star Cafe... Now that was some really good food.
Get rid of Golden Oaks. Stupid to be selling land like that, they've already sold off Celebration. Walt purchased the land to used for creativity and expansion. Not multi million dollar fancy crappy homes.
Get rid of all these 3rd party vendors inside the parks. It's nice to have sponsors, but leave the work to Cast Members.
Stop building so many DVC properties, some moderates or values would be a good choice too.

ok... stepping off the box. There's too many things Disney could've done better.

 

[kristilew]

There is no free lunch. In order to get 'free' dining, you have to pay horrendously high rack rates for the resort. In some limited circumstances and families, it may work out better to pay the rack rate and get the dining. In order to get more people interested in and wanting the 'free' dining, Disney raises the price horrendously in the restaurants, so as to drive more people to not want to pay for meals. More people take the bait and so as to maximize the profits, Disney lowers the quality and choices of what is available in the restaurants since so many people go for 'free'. And with the large number of people doing the 'free' dining, it requires everybody to be scrambling at 180 to secure DR's for every restaurant on site. For those not on the 'free' plan, it makes it tough to get a TS meal, without doing the 180. And if you do go to a TS, you are met with a very limited menu of low quality food.

That is why I do not like the 'free' dining. It works well for Disney, full resorts with guests paying high rack rates and filling up the restaurants eating low quality meals of a limited nature.

And then, one more item. With the driving of guests having to do the 180 for DR's, some restaurants fill up immediately (Le Cellier good example) and guests think there is something super special about a place. It becomes a self fulfilling thing, the venue becomes 'elite', even though it is worse than it use to be. Disney sees an opportunity, raises the prices even higher, for those paying out of pocket, and makes it a 2 TS credit item for those on the plan.

People newer to Disney would not fully understand as they have not experienced before 'free'.

Exactly. Free dining has ruined eating at the World for us.

I wonder if those who "love" free dining have ever done the math of buying an annual pass and using that to get a discount on the resort room plus a Tables in Wonderland card, which gets a discount on all your food, then compare that to the package price that includes "free" dining.

 

[Acklander]

Cheaper deluxe hotel rates!

Can I ask something, though? For those of you who said "no more free dining," why so? We LOVE the dining plan, and obviously even more when it's free! Why do people not like it?

Because before free dining each of the restaurants were unique and had a varied menu. Now that they have free dining (and the dining plan) they've cut many things out of the menu to control costs, so now it's boring and not such a great quality. I'd prefer to pay more and get decent food, so instead I eat off property instead of at the parks.

 

[VeganCupcake]

Here are the links for those who were asking what Disney's actual announcements were....

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/09/disney-guests-become-stars-of-tv-ads-castle-show-as-walt-disney-world-and-disneyland-let-the-memories-begin/comment-page-2/#comments

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/09/watch-live-webcast-of-disney-parks-special-announcement/

 

[Colleen27]

Exactly. Free dining has ruined eating at the World for us.

I wonder if those who "love" free dining have ever done the math of buying an annual pass and using that to get a discount on the resort room plus a Tables in Wonderland card, which gets a discount on all your food, then compare that to the package price that includes "free" dining.

We have and it just doesn't compare. We've done just about every permutation of the dining plan as it currently exists - free dining, paid DDP with a different room discount, paid DxDDP with a different room discount, free dining upgraded to DxDDP. For every trip I run all sorts of numbers and spreadsheet calculations, and AP/TiW is never cost effective. The TiW is about the same dining savings as the DxDDP (better than the basic DDP as it currently exists - the last time we used the basic plan was back when it included tips/tax) but to get it we have to spend close to $300 between the AP upgrade and the card fee to get that discount.

From my numbers, the bottom line is that a TiW card doesn't make sense if you have to buy a full-priced AP that you don't really need to get it. If we had two trips planned for one year or if we were FL residents or DVC owners, it would be the better option. Since we're just once-a-year Disney guests, the extra cost of the AP more than negates the savings from the TiW card. And that's with deluxe-dining habits and very little CS; for those who enjoy the basic dining plan, the TiW benefit would be even less because it doesn't apply to most CS meals.

 

[goodeats]

WDW dining was at it's best back when they had an all-inclusive plan called the World Adventure Vacations, a.k.a. "Gold Key" plans. The dining wasn't free, just "pre-paid." If you knew how to use it you could come out ahead and if you didn't you could lose money. It was more for convenience than anything else. You could eat at any WDW TS restaurant, and select anything from the menu (appetizer, main course, dessert, non-alcolholic beverages and tip). It even included dinner shows. It also included a lot of other things like boat rentals. But, again, you paid for it, it wasn't free and anytime you came out ahead it was like a bonus for spending a lot of money.

In 2002, when I'm sure there were tons of discounts available due to 9/11, my sister and I stayed at the Wilderness Lodge on the Discovery Magic Plan. I think it was the precursor to the Silver Plan. We had two 'wishes' per day that we could use for meals, tours, recreation. It was awesome and so flexible! I'm sure we way overpaid though! Gratuity was included and so were lots of extras. Like at Artist Point we could add surf to your turf!

 

[BonnieA]

A senior citizen discount would be nice.

Way back when, maybe 15-20 years ago, there was a senior disney club. My father joined. They sent him a disney tote bag and some coupons for free parking. There might have been other discounts too.

 

[Kennywife]

How about a promotion for the repeat guests? Those of us who return yearly or more than once a year? Like a "thank you" to people like us instead of throwing everything at those who will come one time and not come back for years.

Anna

 

[GeorgeG]

There are some perks for frequent visitors, like free parking for people with APs as well as some discounts. Florida residents get a discount on APs and can get discounts on some dining (becoming more and more limited, though) and merchandise at Downtown Disney. There used to be discounts for Disney stockholders, but too many people were buying just one share and ruined that.

 

[lucynme]

How about a promotion for the repeat guests? Those of us who return yearly or more than once a year? Like a "thank you" to people like us instead of throwing everything at those who will come one time and not come back for years.

Anna

Agree 100%!!! What about us? The ones who chose faithfully to drop a HUGE chunk of $$ fo bring our families here yearly...How about throwing us a "bone"!?!?

 

[Shutterbug]

The return of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and....
the return of Alien Encounter

 

[Liberty Belle]

Longer AK park hours.
Another country or two in WS.
Refillable mugs are good in parks.
More magic being given out and pixie dust thrown (free ice cream cone, free fast pass, free mickey balloon in room with kids under 10, etc).


Sorry, we love free dining. It's the only way we're able to go this year (and we haven't been able to go since 2005).

 

[klacey1]

Exactly. Free dining has ruined eating at the World for us.
I wonder if those who "love" free dining have ever done the math of buying an annual pass and using that to get a discount on the resort room plus a Tables in Wonderland card, which gets a discount on all your food, then compare that to the package price that includes "free" dining.

Excuse me, I don't "love" free dining. I love it. It works wonderfully for us. We live in NY and go to the World once a year. We absolutely would not save with TiW or AP's. Plus, we enjoy CS, which, as another poster stated, TiW usually doesn't cover. Plus, we don't really go for appetizers or alcohol (where TiW would cover that the DDP wouldn't.
When I drop thousands on vacation, yes, I do math to figure out the best option for us would be.

We have and it just doesn't compare. We've done just about every permutation of the dining plan as it currently exists - free dining, paid DDP with a different room discount, paid DxDDP with a different room discount, free dining upgraded to DxDDP. For every trip I run all sorts of numbers and spreadsheet calculations, and AP/TiW is never cost effective. The TiW is about the same dining savings as the DxDDP (better than the basic DDP as it currently exists - the last time we used the basic plan was back when it included tips/tax) but to get it we have to spend close to $300 between the AP upgrade and the card fee to get that discount.

From my numbers, the bottom line is that a TiW card doesn't make sense if you have to buy a full-priced AP that you don't really need to get it. If we had two trips planned for one year or if we were FL residents or DVC owners, it would be the better option. Since we're just once-a-year Disney guests, the extra cost of the AP more than negates the savings from the TiW card. And that's with deluxe-dining habits and very little CS; for those who enjoy the basic dining plan, the TiW benefit would be even less because it doesn't apply to most CS meals.

This is the way we go! I don't understand why some people get judgmental at those who enjoy the dining plan. I can definitely understand why people DON'T like it--which is totally fine. We, however, do. We love having everything paid (or not!) upfront and having to spend very little once we get to WDW. To each their own!!

Actually, one of my WDW "dreams" is coming true-- a BATB themed restaurant! I've always thought the parks were missing Belle!

 

[Scurvy]

If they won't get rid of the dining plans, I wish they would at least restructure the menus and have a section of things available on the dining plan and another section that is out-of-pocket only. I'd be happy to pay for more expensive ingredients and more unique dishes if they'd give me the opportunity to - I hate the way they've dumbed down the menus lately. Between the decline in restaurant quality and the closure of the Adventurers Club I spend much more time offsite lately, and I'd love to spend more time on Disney property. The best meal we had on our last trip (in July) was at Mythos in Universal's Islands of Adventure. Our best meals always used to be at WDW and I blame that changing on the dining plan.

I also wish they would have evening extra magic hours at more than one park at a time. Now that there are so many rooms on premises, we find the evening extra magic hours to be almost worthless to us. The waits are still terrible, except at the Magic Kingdom extra magic hours that last really late, and even then you have to stay until closing for the crowds to really die down. I really miss E-Nights. I'd pay for those if they still offered them; the crowds were much more manageable then.