Let me add my POV and why I think Genie+ is awesome. Unlike many here, I don’t have a Disneyfied existence. Going to WDW is just “another” destination for me and not an every-other-month event. We bought an AP once a few years ago but stopped because there is no way we will use it enough.
I’m like most “horror stories” you read about here about the coworker who just got his family in the car and drove the WDW. Believe it or not, most people who go to WDW do not obsess with spreadsheets six months before their travel date and do not pre-schedule their bathroom breaks. And guess what? we still have a terrific time!
For “normies” like me the added expense is a one-off, a splurge, a Disney-tax. We normies do not think about it as “Disney is taking away our entitlements!” but more like “oh boy, Disney is as expensive as it always has been…oh well”.
On the other hand, Genie+ allows for the serendipitous vacation experience that I’m used to when I visit other places. “What will I ride? oh look Genie+ is sending me to HM with no wait, win!”. “An extra $10 to ride SM now? sure, why not we are on vacation”
bUt It WaS bEttEr bEfoRe, wHaT Is WRonG wiTH YoU?
Maybe, but I wouldn’t know. My once-every-five/ten years doesn’t give me or my family a reference point. All that we know is that we have a good time full of rides and low waits.
How do I know this? Despite living in Florida, my son and daughter still ask to go back to DLR which we visited 4-5 years ago when MaxPass was introduced. They treasure that DLR visit more than all the uber-schedulized WDW visits.
One thing Disney does really really well is differential pricing, the art of selling multiple versions of it’s products to fit in a lot of different budgets. If all you can afford is park tickets, they will sell you, if you have a once-in-a-lifetime dream budget, they will offer add ons to capture all that money. Most companies have to chose a price that maximizes profits (price * number of people willing to pay), but Disney can get away with having a million different hidden prices (dessert parties, after hours, different hotel levels, parade packages, vip tours were all forms of offering experiences at many different price points for a wide range of budgets). G+ is going to be one more tool on their belt for this
Again…that is why I said, “At least not directly so”.
Charging money explicitly is directly benefiting. Deciding to reduce capacity and saving a LITTLE (very little) money that way is INDIRECT. But pales in comparison.
One can always go bigger and boycott WDW altogether, but even with that, someone else will always be there to take their place. It would take a lot to influence Disney’s actions.
I think they’re smart and have every right to capitalize on whatever people are willing to pay for all these gimmicks, but as a consumer with a set budget I’m willing/able to use for luxury items like Disney, this is not working for me. I’m being priced out and am willing to find a new hobby to replace Disney if I have to.
Up to this point Disney has been able to increase prices, cut hours and change rules without seeing a significant drop on demand, and they will probably continue doing so while that’s the case. The pandemic makes it really hard to see if new changes will have any impact.
It does in some ways because they don’t have to have as many CMs to run the attraction. So they save money. But like I said, it shows there is a precedence for manipulating capacity.
Yep. Boycotts don’t generally work for this reason. I should point out that in my original point, I did say, “I really wish…” In other words, I don’t see it working. Just WISH we could.
My wife said the only really way to let Disney know (aside from contacting them directly) is voting on their YouTube announcements. Turns out the Genie announcement has seen an unprecented percentage of thumbs down. I also added my thumbs down. Will it be enough for Disney to change course? Probably not.
This is something I find particularly annoying. How much more expensive can it be to run both trains? It makes a gigantic difference for travellers going off-season (literally doubles the number of times an average guess will experience SM or BTMRR), it’s hard to believe savings are actually worth it for them.
How do you consider it indirect? It has the exact same effect on the net profit.
If I sell 1 ticket for $100 & 1 Genie+ for $15 and my fixed costs are $50 and another $30 in CM overhead, I made $35 on that guest. If I shutdown half a ride to halve my $30 CM overhead so I only pay CM’s $15 and just sell that $100 ticket, I still made $35. It is exactly the same - it is just a different method to get there.
Honestly if the profits from Genie+ and LL$ mean that the park is fully staffed more often and rides are getting better maintenance (and thus less down time) it may very well be a better experience for all guests than their current system of artificially slowing things down to cut costs…Big IF though…
I’m all in for an affordable, paid FastPass system that looks like the old system where I did not have to plan months in advance. I also really like the idea of being able to pay to get on ROTR if I don’t get a BG in the 5 seconds they are available at 7am. We generally go once a year. I don’t like crowds and I don’t like to wait in line. I’m exactly who this service is for. I really hope it’s running when we get there on October 9.
If you don’t like it, don’t pay for it. It should affect standby the lines less than the old FP+ system.
Disney is keeping park reservations for the foreseeable future, so I can see there still being times where attractions are run at lower capacity. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of those reservations?
Because, the reduction only goes so far. Let’s say (for sake of discussion) that they can eliminate 1 employee for a 10 hour shift, and they pay them $20/hour. Then at MOST the change can benefit Disney is $200/day. But with controlling paid LL, they can DIRECTLY benefit for each additional LL they sell. If each LL costs $20, they just sell 10 of them, and they have met the MAX saved by reducing staff by one. After that, each additional LL they sell is additional direct revenue. The only limitation is demand and any kind of self-imposition in number they sell.
Reading Becky’s blog post about what Crowd Levels make G+ “worth it” made me really think about the monetization of time. People had no complaints about money grabs when Disney offered rhe MK and HS morning hour, which was way more than G+. Becky’s blog uses 1 hour of time savings as the “break even” for G+ so there an equivalency in the benefit offered by these 2 add ons, after a CL6. And G+ is cheaper. I like cheaper!
However, unlike G+ the paid morning hour did not impact anyone else’s experience. Their “walk on” 7DMT did not make my stand by longer. I think where Disney is running into problems is that your differentiated experience is now impacting my “standard” experience.
And they used to give this away for free. (I always paid at DLR…)
But LL$ additions only go so far as well. They can’t sell more than the 1700 ROTR passes an hour either (and that presumes they ever think it will run smoothly at max capacity). So that’s a limited resource as well - very much akin to the CMs they can cut. Given there at least were 70K cast members at WDW there are a lot of deductions they can make on that end to cut expenses. Remember they layed off 32K workers for Covid. That’s a lot of G+ & LL$ sales…
If it makes you feel better, I’ll change my semantics. My point remains unchanged. We are arguing over a different view as to what is considered direct versus indirect.
