Three Possible Side Effects of Ticket Price Change

DANAM;2459399 wrote: If this was the Saturday before Memorial Day after Wishes we must have been at the same place thinking the same thing. Disney really needs to do something about the crowd situation. I really thought we were going to have a bad situation on our hand. I even told both my children if something happens and you get pushed don't wait up just meet at Space Mountain. My son is prone to panic attacks in crowds and I told my husband, if he starts to panic we are in big trouble. I was struck by one woman with a stroller 3 times. I could stop or scoot to the side. The crowd was all together. Not a good situation.

I agree something has to be done but I dont know if this is what they need. Maybe hire a better Event Coordinator. Someone who specializes in crowd control and how to get guest from A to B safely because I definitely didn't feel safe that night.

Yep, that was the day. Despite being Disney veterans, my family made a series of bad decisions where we were chasing short wait times (which didn't exist) and a last-minute parade and Wishes viewing, all on opposites sides of Main Street. Finally I put my foot down and said we are going to hunker down somewhere close to the Tomorrowland bypass exit to watch what we could, but when we got there the bypass (which was open earlier in the day) was now closed!

It would have been bad enough if the story ended there, but Main Street was nothing compared to the bus stop. The third bus canopy was at a complete standstill, we stood 15 minutes behind a mass of people 650 feet long and 40+ feet wide, and not a soul moved 12 inches in 15 minutes. I have never seen such a mess in my life, and I really lack an explanation as to what was going on, because the other two bus canopies were moving people along at a steady pace. My only guess is that it appeared that there was now a TTC bus stop on row 3 and all of these people were waiting to catch a bus to the TTC and were completely blocking my access to the Pop bus stop, which was further down than the TTC bus stop.

We were standing right at the split between bus row 2 and row 3, so we backed out of row 3 and I decided we were going to take the first Deluxe bus we walked past out of this mess and then catch a cab back to Pop, which ended up taking us to Yacht Club (we even got to sit on the bus it was so empty) and then on to Pop via a cab. I would not be surprised if there may still be people standing in that line 13 days later waiting on rations to be delivered by Nation Guardsmen.

Exiting a packed Magic Kingdom has become scarier that riding ToT, they should probably start checking children's height before allowing them on Main Street after 8:30pm, or maybe we could get a FP+ to get preferred exiting? To me, the MK has expanded capacity for the area beyond Main Street by many multiples over the years, but Main Street remains the same 60 feet wide it was in 1971 and it simply cannot safely clear the park anymore.

John;2458323 wrote:

Its already incredibly complicated for the average person - this would only compound things.

Stop the madness.

I totally agree! People often ask me for help in planning their Disney vacation for a first trip, but just the dining reservations and telling people how they have to keep trying 6 months out, etc. to get the restaurants they want along with trying to explain FP+ and how you have to plan so much ahead even for your rides gives me an eye roll headache! The magic is rapidly leaving "The World" :(

joonyer;2459057 wrote:
What to do? First, you increase the price on weekends to $15.00 per meal resulting in $1,500 on those days. Yeah, you'll chase some customers away because of the higher price, but because of the high demand on weekends, you can still sell out on those days. Result: $3,000 revenue on weekends.

Then, on weekdays, you reduce the price to $8.50 per meal.

Sure, this example is an oversimplification...

Of course, the Disney way would not involve any price decrease. Disney would increase the weekday price also, just not as much as the weekend goes up.

Pretty soon you'll need a PHd from MIT to plan your Disney vacation. Who would have thought differential equations and theoretical physics would come in handy when I want to plan my trip to WDW.

texas211;2459551 wrote: Pretty soon you'll need a PHd from MIT to plan your Disney vacation. Who would have thought differential equations and theoretical physics would come in handy when I want to plan my trip to WDW.

That the ride you booked your fastpass + for would theoretically be working? :P

They already have seasonal pricing for the hotels. Why should park passes be any different? Several theme parks have been doing this for years. I don't like it, but I can understand why they think this would be a good thing to try. Remember the old ticket books? That was another form of tiered pricing, the most popular attractions cost more. Since they changed decades ago to "pay-one-price for everything" admission, this is a way for them to go back to a tiered pricing theme. It's not much different than paying one rate for a resort hotel in January and having to pay a lot more for the same hotel during Christmas/New Years holiday periods.

Seasonal pricing is one thing, varying prices from one day to the next is going to be an administrative nightmare for both guests and the company.

What about a highly discounted ticket to get into the parks, which then allows you to buy access to particular attractions on a sliding scale based on two factors: the quality of the ride (A, B, C, D, E) and the popularity of the attraction on that day (how busy it is)? You can still pay the insane $100+ for the one-size-fits-all ticket, but allow people to get in for less that may only want to ride 2 or 3 things and are willing to pay for them separately. If they really want to play this game, let's take it all the way to this end. Give people a REAL set of choices, by only paying for what they actually use.

IF they want to charge more, I'd rather they use a Universal system, and have Fastpass for pay.

I certainly don't want to be there w/ a Ticket booklet mentality. People trying to make more decisions on the fly in the park. People can't handle that.

texas211;2459598 wrote:
I certainly don't want to be there w/ a Ticket booklet mentality. People trying to make more decisions on the fly in the park. People can't handle that.

I don't really see that as a preferred option, nor is this Gold/Silver/Bronze day thing a good option either. If that is the game Disney wants to play, though, then there a lot of things they should address. They will have already broken a relatively simple system by banding each day in different categories. If they want to make this complicated, let's offer real choices. With about 46 days a year where MK has limited hours due to hard-ticket events, they are already making out like bandits by charging the same price on those days. They are practically double-dipping once a week all year.

BrerGnat;2459224 wrote: Honestly, since I have never bought a one day ticket, this won't bother me. Ticket prices go up every year anyway, so that's nothing new either. It's just part of going there. It's expensive and always has been. My parents went in 1973 and back then, it was considered expensive too.

Agree with you. One of my fondest memories is taking a week long vacation with my mom when I was 10 years old to Disneyland. There was some program through her work at the time in the pharmacy industry that gave some kind of Discount if you went to DL.

But it was still expensive for her [especially as a single parent] and it was a rare treat! As an adult, I really see now what she sacrificed to do it. But to this day, I'm 44, those memories are as fresh and fun as they were the day we arrived. It's one of the best times I remember with just my mom and I :cloud9:

And yes there were things then that even irritated her about DL

, but she made if fun for me and I would have never ever known that. "It was worth every penny, and every irritation to see you smile and see the magic", she told me.