I’ve been pondering the latest updates from Disney. Everyone’s dining reservations are cancelled, there will be no fast passes and there will be no EMH.
So, why stay onsite exactly? There is still the airport transportation. But, considering the extra cost of hotels, it would be cheaper to rent a limo and stay onsite. There will be the in-park transport, but they aren’t doubling the number of buses and they are halving the capacity of each.
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What if they say only onsite guests can visit?
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That would be a reason. Although they also talked about making reservations for each park for each day. So, if you have a reservation, they’ll let you in. But they did say that some people could make reservations before other people.
Actually, they might be doing just that by offering the staggered opening times of the parks. They can shift the buses around to have twice as many during the busiest times.
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Disney isn’t selling admission tickets anymore, per the Orlando Sentinel.
If you don’t already have an onsite hotel reservation, you probably won’t be able to reserve a space in a park. If you are staying offsite, you may not even be able to get in.
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This would not surprise me one iota.
To me, they seem to have been wanting to move to a high-end all inclusive resort for quite some time now. The pandemic may have given them an opportunity & motive to accelerate those plans.
Social distancing makes their old model completely untenable. The only way to make money with fewer people is to get a lot more money out of each one. And the way to do that is make all guests stay on-site and spend money only on Disney.
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For the moment, that looks like the benefit. I’m an AP holder and had a trip planned where we were staying off-site. WDW had no idea about these plans until the FPP reservations are made.
We switched to an on-site reservation on Monday now and looks like we in the queue.
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Interesting loophole - Undercover Tourist is still selling tickets and rooms at WDW as of this morning.
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I think this is the last time I am going to mention it (I’ve posted the link multiple times), on Wednesday after the reopening was announced, Bob Chapek stated on an interview on Bloomberg that they were implementing an entirely new reservation system that would require switching “millions” of existing one over.
The old system of ADRs, Room Reservations, and FPP is probably heading to the scrap heap of history. The only thing currently working is DVC member reservations, but that is an entirely different system with property ownership involved so state and local regulations come into play. That’s why it is not included in the shakeup.
I know that. Your comment makes me think you’re tired of explaining things to people.
What I said is a bit different from what they said, and I’m entitled to say it, it is my own personal speculation, after all.
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What queue? Have you seen a system that they will use for park admissions?
No, but they have already said those with resort reservations will get priority.
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Why would you? We rent a car at the airport. I like the freedom to drive to the parks and not rely on anyone else.
We get double or triple square footage (3 bedrooms, 2+ baths) at an off-site resort, plus half the price.
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Because you might not get into the parks at all otherwise.
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Oh I’m not in that much of a hurry to go. How long do you think it will last?
I understand you had planned going this spring. You made the right move in order to go this year. (I know you’re an off site guy too)
Think I’ll be good for March 2021 off site?
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My crystal ball seems to be out of order!
I wish I had a feeling…but one can hope!
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We know that the previous set of incentives for staying onsite is not in place anymore.
We don’t know enough about how the new system is going to look like nor uf they will use this opportunity to make permanent changes or everything is temporary.
They might come up with a new set of incentives for staying onsite (for instance, priority for choosing which park to reserve for a day, or an earlier arrival window). Maybe incentives aren’t needed for now (if the population who is visiting restricted WDW correlates with people who would stay onsite anyway).
I am very curious to see what Disney will do. They are amazingly good at pricing - they manage to get as many people as possible there while getting each individual to pay as much as possible.
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From all the emails I’ve received as a DVC mbr & PH and holding current reservations… Ppl w/ reservations will have early access to park reservation system, then PH, then all others. Someone correct me if I misunderstood. If I’m correct, staying on-site would give you the best access for park reservations. I think WDW would have more problems if ppl on-site couldn’t get a park reservation. I think locals w/ PH that pop in on a whim will be most disappointed. Here’s an excerpt from my email, from WDW, concerning my resort reservation:
However, because you have valid Theme Park admission, you will have access to the Theme Park reservation system before new tickets are sold to other Guests . There’s nothing you need to do at this time. We’ll be contacting you soon with details on this new system.
I have an AP that’s expired but in limbo so I still had PH email and I have reservations, and I think you are spot on for the most part. The only thing I’d say differently is that I think off-site guests are going to be the most disappointed, bc I doubt many if any at all will get a reservation. They’re on the hook for air bnbs hotels that maybe can’t be cancelled, and they won’t even get into the park.
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Re: whether changes will be permanent, there really is no way to know. They are being asked to comply with a ton of restrictions that completely change their business model. Compare to restaurants that only have indoor dining being told that they can only serve people outdoors, for example. Or stores that aren’t allowed to have anyone inside the store but can do curbside pickup, but didn’t have a strong online presence before. I just got an email from a museum that is reopening only their outside portion, and they say they are not offering any bathrooms because those are inside their building. It’s out in the middle of nowhere so I don’t see how this will work. This is a big no go for me, but I see what they are doing: they are desperate for customers but probably found the restrictions on what they would have to change to open the restrooms untenable. I’m positive that they will eventually reopen the inside building, and at that time I would consider it a decent enough experience to go there. Any sort of long term planning for WDW right now is, as Elsa said, “into the unknown.”
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