This made me laugh. The only good thing to come out of this bad news.
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The problem that Disney is having right now is an issue of customer service versus profit. Their marketing has done such a great job that there almost isn't a slow time anymore. When demand increases, companies naturally raise their prices. With the increased crowd levels, providing that magical service becomes more of a challenge and requires additional labor to provide.Recently, Disney has actually been experiencing a slight downturn in attendance at the parks, yet they are still raising prices - including this new resort parking fee.
What I think is actually going on is that Disney is trying to raise prices to help control crowding and still balance out a per cap ($'s spent per person entering the park). Per cap is a way that a lot of retail and especially amusement entities measure 'success'. If they can keep the per cap at the same rate, or even find ways to get a higher per cap with less crowds then it becomes a win-win situation. Less crowds means fewer employees which means a huge reduction in payroll overhead. Less crowds means less wear and tear on the attractions/facilities - translate less maintenance overhead. This all boils down to profitability for them. If they can reduce crowds by 2%, get an increased per cap to cover the difference, and save 5% in overhead, they will do it in a heartbeat! It's just smart business.
I'm not saying I like the parking fees because I actually hate it. I wonder what that is going to do to the ability to 'resort hop' for people looking to just take in the sights. Are they going to charge them a $13-20 fee just to park at the resorts to look around? (I thought that the parking fee would be an attempt to stop people from parking at the resorts to avoid paying for parking at the parks....but people staying at the resorts already park for free at the parks)
As a Disney purist, I hate the increased prices. As a business owner, I understand the strategy.
.....I think you may be over-analyzing the situation and their motives for this maneuver. Which ...is of course ....your prerogative. I too own a business (my wife owns two) ....and as such, particularly in today's short memory world, you are, as we engineers put it, "Only as good as your last screw-up"! (I cleaned that up a little to be more PG rated). It's almost as if you'd tell Taco Bell to make their food a bit less appealing so that they would reduce their lunch time peak demand and thus need one less counter person.
.....at POP last August we had the most un-magical stay due to miserable housekeeping, deteriorated room conditions, malfunctioning air-conditioning that took 3 days to remedy, and truncated pool hours due to staff reduction of life-guards. This was a trip in which we had 7 family members come along with us. Four of those persons were WDW first-timers ....to whom we had always preached about the wonderful WDW experiences we had in our previous 11 trips. I almost felt embarrassed as the problems occurred ...and felt compelled to apologize to those persons, in particular the first-timers for the lack of expected services / amenities.
.....this is nothing less than a blatant money-grab, fostered by an attitude of "We can do what we want, and get away with it because of our brand name".
.....their customer service industry smarts have been sorely lacking for a while, and it's likely that this move is going to leave a mark. I for one, certainly don't want to be driving 1150 miles to WDW, paying gas and tolls on the way, which is still more affordable than flying for us ....and then be told that there is a parking fee.
.....what's next, a $5 charge per item to have goods you bought in one of the parks brought back to your resort?
Well, i think a WDW experience is like drugs. They know everyone is addicted, and going to keep coming. So service and price. Not a big problem when they know people will come. They have the numbers and research. I bet a couple of hundred more a trip, won't keep most people from coming. Plus, they want to encourage you to be dependent on their transportation and be a captive audience.
House wins.
It's like a very popular restaurant with great food that turns away diners every day just because they can only serve so many people per day. Let's say they charge an average of $20 per meal, but at the end of the day there's still hundreds of potential customers that couldn't get in because every table was full all day. If they can raise their price to $30 per meal and and the restaurant still fills every table everyday, why wouldn't they? Sure, the customers who were used to paying only $20 may complain and stop coming, but the new customers who couldn't get a table before will gladly step up and pay $30 for a seat at a table. That's where Disney thinks it is anyway. They may be right, and if so, they can just raise prices until the demand stabilizes. But if demand continues to increase, they have no reason to not raise their prices.
Nothing but a blatant money grab. Resort prices have been way out of line for perceived value (at least for me) for a long time. We haven't been since 2004 and will probably never go back.
Folks, this is good old supply and demand. Everyone on here is complaining about it but none of us will stop coming. Why? Because they have the best product out there and we'd all rather be here than anywhere else. I travel about 20 weeks a year for business, and a large number of hotels are now charging parking fees and "resort fees". Why? Because people keep staying there.
We are also in a situation where the economy is booming, most people have jobs and money to spend. This will only increase Disney's bottom line. I'm not happy about it, but its not going to keep me home or stop me from enjoying my life either.
I have to disagree with this. I'm a travel nurse, so I travel all over the country. I can't think of any hotels I've had to pay for parking.
As far as complaining but not stopping, I used to go to Disney World every year. It has been about 3 years, since I was there last. We have a couple of trips planned for this year, but that is just because my daughter was going to get married there. Our next trip won't be until 2021, and it will probably only be me and my oldest DS to see the Star Wars stuff. He is a huge Star Wars fan. Beyond those two trips, I don't really have any plans to go back. Sure, nostalgia is a big pull. I have had a lot of fun trips throughout the years, but it just isn't the same any more. It wasn't one thing such as "oh, they started charging parking fees, so I'm not going." It has been a collection of small things like that piling on top of each other - sending me through a non-themed backstage area when a parade was going on, when I could just as easily have browsed through the shops on my way; cast members telling me I should just rent a wheelchair when I worked so hard to get out of one; the ridiculous fastpass system Disney World has now; not taking cash at AKL; getting rid of the Adventurer's Club and turning Disney Springs into a giant mall ; etc
Sure, Disney is fun, but there is a whole big world out there that is fun.
Don't forget: Resort Parking fees mean fewer guests wiill bring cars.
And if you don't have a car, it's a bigger hassle to somehow visit the Boy Wizard who lives down the road.
It's a money grab PLUS a strategy to keep people from visiting Universal.
Days Inn doesn't :)
I've stayed at many. And many charge. Now not the Hampton Inns, Holiday Inns, Courtyards so much. But any hotel w/ a parking garage, usually does. Hawaii, New York, etc. Named hotels, and most high end hotels seem to (at least the ones i've stayed at) such as Gaylord, Waldorf. Vegas does, depending on the resort. Just one more way to gouge.
But if they are going to start with 20 at Disney, I wish they'd leave me my lil bottles of soap.
Gaylord and Marriott are two places I've had to pay to park (east and west coast), and they didn't even have garages.
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this is to help cover the costs for all the new road construction, and perhaps the new garages at Disney Springs. I never understood how those were free parking. I've paid (many times) to park in a garage just to go to a movie or eat at a restaurant.
Nice to see them putting that tax decrease to good use. :confused:
Well Folks, they have to find the money for: from Seeking Alpha
While Walt Disney (DIS +0.5%) won't put a total value on its compensation package for CEO Bob Iger -- now sticking around through 2021 to see the company's streaming initiatives through to completion -- an analysis shows he stands to get up to $423M over four years and possibly become the 12th-highest paid U.S. CEO in the past 10 years.
Seriously, we made the decision not to renew our FL Resident AP for the first time in ten years. After reading this, DH said it’s been a while since we went to the other parks. To many ticketed events now, along with the FP+ problem for day trippers, you have to pay extra for what used to be simple things like watching the fireworks from a great spot. We used to drive over once a month and stay overnight. Not anymore. Not going to pay for the privilege to park our car in the FL sun. Nope!