Meh I’ll just push off a vacation I was going to do at WDW next year (that was going to include a split with Deluxe stay for part of it) until 2023 or whenever I get around to it. My home park is Disneyland Anaheim and it’s a better value tbh.
Next year I’ll go on my long-delayed vacation to Washington DC/NoVa and have enough money left over to do a second long-delayed vacation to New Mexico. I’m sure WDW has enough whales waiting in the wings they don’t give a shit about my change in vacation plans. Oh well.
Respect your opinion, but everyone operates differently. I’d feel more personal stress and damage by NOT airing grievances or voicing my opinions, even if I know it won’t change anything.
Something else to keep in mind…I’ve seen statistical analysis of the early park entry days in the past at WDW, and they found that because they limited it to only a certain park per day they did it, it drove MORE people into those parks, which then drove up wait times across the board, which seemed to negate much of the advantage. To get around this problem, the advice was to use early entry in one park, but then hop to another. Trouble with that is many off site guests would avoid the park with early entry.
In the end, they found the extra magic hours ended up not really being much of (or any) benefit at all, other than a perceived one.
I think the new early park access across all four parks will actually be a BETTER benefit across the board for on-site guests.
And while people may lament the loss of evening extra magic hours…the fact is, the evening hours were relatively few and far between, so such an advantage was further attracting enough extra people that it ended up being a wash.
With the new way, EVERY on site guests gets that extra 30 minutes (probably worth two rides) before off site guests come in…AND there is no need to plan/schedule your park day choices around this. EVERY day you can get that extra 2 rides (or whatever) in…and the number of people there for the early access will be reduced (divided by four parks) instead of that same number of people getting that early access in the SAME park.
FWIW, we are a family of night owls (even when the kids were toddlers) and would heavily leverage evening EMH, usually for at least 2/3 of our trip each visit.
To be honest, it was one of the biggest problems I had w/ UOR when we visited. Everything closed down far too early for how we enjoy a theme park…even after rope dropping that morning we wanted more evening time in the park.
I’m not a Disney history buff, but I think the question is loaded bc it relies on absolutes that rarely exist in real life.
I think a CEO that is too much one or the other is bad for the company. The best combinations are when you have multiple executives that have different strengths and are willing to put ego aside to work as a team.
Mistakes have been made in both sides of that equation - policies that gave too much to guests and set unsustainable expectations, and policies that treat guests like ATM machines.
This logic (good logic) reminds me of what happened with Ford Motor Company years ago. While Alex Trotman was CEO, he was completely transforming how the company was doing business. It was viewed as being revolutionary and saving the future of Ford. His Ford 2000 initiative was a perceived boon to the company.
BUT, shortly before all those new programs he had put into place were meant to deliver on their goals, he retired, and left Jack Nasser in his place as the new CEO. Jack lasted 2 years. Why? Because the company started performing badly under his leadership. Only…the company was performing badly because of what Alex Trotman had already put into place years early and came to maturity under Jack. Jack paid the price for Alex’s “innovations”. Alex left seemingly beloved, and Jack was the bad guy.
When I hear all the hatred toward Chapek…I can’t help but wonder if he deserves as much of the blame as he is getting. (He might…but he might be inheriting a direction that Iger had laid out before hand?)
This is a great point, I highly doubt he cooked this all up in the past 16 months. It seems that changes like these for a company as big as Disney would take years to formulate and enact. He likely just happened to be there during the “ideal” time to roll out all of the changes.
Most of the stuff that guests love and mourn the loss of were instituted by Eisner, who drove the company to financial disaster and was fired for it. Iger was put into the position to clean up Eisners mess. But he took it too far in the other direction, and Chapek was his protege, so I’d guess their policies align to a degree.
I actually really like D’Amaro, and I hope we get to see a Disney with him as the CEO one day bc he seems a lot more balanced.
Oh, I’m sure Chapek is stuck with some garbage that was in place before he was promoted but he’s not a parks guy. He’s not a creative. He started out as a consumer products guy (hence the obsession with IP everywhere, I think). He’s just focused on making the most money ASAP with the Disney brand however that may be. And I think that has led to some bad/weird/shortsighted decisions. We’ll see, though.
I think Disney works best when you have a couple of people in leadership that can combine creativity/customer focus with financial acumen. They also seem to have lost a lot of the old timey institutional knowledge that’s so valuable to a company like Disney.
I don’t hate Chapek like some people on the Disney boards do but he is disappointing. He’s just like any other boring blah executive out there. Compare him to like Ken Potrock talking about DLR. Night and day. And you can tell Ken actually likes the park and KNOWS what it’s about.
Truth is, I know next to nothing about either…but I will say, D’Amaro makes a far better face of Disney than Chapek, I think, simply because he seems like a guy who cares about Disney and the experience. Chapek comes across kind of stuffy…like he needs someone else to be his front man. That may be fine for making decisions…but D’Amaro definitely is the guy I’d rather bump into in the parks if I had the choice…like you could just talk to him, telling him what I like and don’t like, and he’d be all cool about it.
Perhaps none of that is actually the case…but just my perception.
I understand what WDW is doing and think it was inevitable. For off-site guests who have been rope dropping for many years, this is a HUGE downer. Having said that, I’m glad the Early Entry is for guests at any WDW resort. That’s exactly what Universal has been doing, although it is not always both parks. I would still be surprised if that 30 minutes is not increased to at least 45 minutes.
I’m just thankful that we went in March and were able to enter early. (We stay off-site) The first day we walked to HS and were in very early, but the second day we drove and were still able to be in the TOT queue at 8:30. Those days are gone!
The kicker is going to be, will off-site guests have decent access to FPP or whatever ride reservation system is coming back. In 2018 we rope dropped FOP because there were no FPP. So what happens now? If I can’t get a VQ (or FPP) or RD the headliner, I’m SH$T out of luck. Change is difficult, especially when it affects you negatively. Hopefully people can figure out how to make the most of this new normal.
I’ve never stayed on-site, I just can’t see spending that $ for a tiny room. In March, we stayed at a resort in a 1,400 sq. ft. condo. 3 bedrooms, 3 full, baths, full kitchen for $200/night including tax.
I can see maybe staying on-site in the future for a couple days, especially if off-site folks are having a rough time getting done what they want to in a day.
Why would you ever book a moderate or value vs offsite? No more Magical Express…No more free Magic Bands…No more Free resort parking…no more EMH…Transportation stinks by sharing buses (other than skyliner resorts which prices will 100% go up)…No more advanced FP booking when new FP system gets introduced…only benefit is 30 minute sin the morning which to be honest really stinks
I don’t disagree. We’ve always stayed off site until last year. Only reason we stayed on site in Pop in August was because, due to Covid, we were afraid that Disney might limited park entrance to on-site guests only or some such thing, and we’d be stuck with a house rental unable to go to Disney! But we certainly didn’t choose on-site for the benefits!
never mind that this hurts AP holders…They can no longer rope drop…so Disney just angered about 3/4 of their guests, all AP’s, moderate and value guests…
