Some Totally Random Thoughts/Questions
- This topic has 17 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 2 years ago by
.
-
1. Why does Disney not offer an affinity program? You know like at your grocery, you get points for purchases, or spinning a wheel ?!?!?!?
, that could go to discounts or some such, even something like the annual passholder give away gifts.2. Why does Disney not offer any webcams from their properties? I understand that if you did say Main Street USA they may have to suspend the feed for parades and fireworks, is that really that hard, but at the hotels and such, hello! McFly! how many of us would spend hours watching?
3. Why does Disney not stream a feed of the Resort TV channels for the public?
I know, they have soooooo much business
and they are moving away 
from treat the customer/potential customer as a guest to treat them as a commodity why should they offer these things. Still a person can wish!Thoughts, what would YOU like to see Disney do?
I am with you guys…..Loving Disney just upset that they are killing loyalty instead of rewarding it anymore. Prices just keep going up and service is on a steady slide downhill. It is a shame that Disney has drifted so far from what Walt’s original design was to be
Reward loyalty.
28 trips to WDW, 2 Annual Passes, Disney Visa Cardholder, almost 30 years of DVC Membership, and none of it’s good enough for the Walt Disney Company
THIS Not as many trips, no DVC, no AP… but roughly 12 on-property stays, at least 75 a-la-carte days at Disney, 2 rD weekends, etc.
The only reward is DRVC and that really isn’t truly Disney’s rewards, and Disney cut out what few perks they provided in the past.
Yes! We agree as well. The “Magic” definitely has a different feel. The crowds have been ridiculous and seemed to be the worst on our last trip in February. The Genie+ and LL have grossly exaggerated wait times to make it look like you need to purchase them to the first timers or novice Disney World goers. We would love to see the old FP come back. The reservation system in my opinion is unnecessary now and really limiting people from just going on a spur of the moment visit. Also the park hopping jail (thanks @starbee!
) is also unnecessary. These are the main reasons why we decided to allow our APs to expire and don’t plan on renewing. It’s going to be a while till we go back, unfortunately I am watching with great interest to see what happens after all the pent up post-pandemic vacationing ends. Watching from a distance. A far distance. I have no desire to put myself or my family in that situation right now.
Same here. It’s all good and well now with “revenge travel” but I don’t see that continuing to work long term. I myself am an example. In a 6 month period I took 3 Disney trips (3 days, 4 days, then 6 days) because I hadn’t been anywhere in 2 years. But now I’m done, I can’t afford to do that anymore. Who knows when I’ll be back. I played the game for a minute but now I’ve left the table. I have no desire to go back right now because it absolutely isn’t worth the money.
I also think that Genie+ and LL have skewed standby wait times in a much worse way than FP ever did. At least that’s my opinion.
They 100% have because 1) they want to inflate the wait times to make you pay extra and 2) when you have paid they need to make sure they give you the service you paid for. On the FP system it was a bonus, so less pressure to get you that FP if a ride goes down for example. But when people have paid $25 to ride Space Mountain and that line is out the door, they literally hold the standby line until they filter down the LL. It used to be some here, some there, some here, some there, but in February it was literally the standby line stops to accommodate LL. I stood for 30 minutes without moving
they want to make sure those paying customers ride.The crowds have been ridiculous and seemed to be the worst on our last trip in February. The Genie+ and LL have grossly exaggerated wait times to make it look like you need to purchase them to the first timers or novice Disney World goers.
They were horrific when we were there. And your comments are true about Genie+ and LL. When I rode It’s A Small World, I was neck a neck with a guy who purchased Genie+. He got on literally 1 boat ahead of me. I’ll talk more about this in my TR (when I finally write it, hopefully soon!) but we were chatting since we were next to each other the whole time and he said it was a waste of money. Yes park hopping jail!
the reservations bother me because what if the weather turns and you want to switch up your plans? Or take a last minute trip? I don’t see the point in the reservations other than to help them save money by knowing how many people they’re going to get. “Oh we have 20,000 people planning to visit Magic Kingdom today, I guess we should run more than 1 monorail”… “Only 10,000 people visiting Animal Kingdom today? Let’s tell Jane, Joe and John they don’t need to come in for their shift at Kali River Rapids today”. But park hopping jail is what angers me the most. I see absolutely no rhyme or reason to why that’s a thingI agree so much with just about everything you all have said! I’ve been a DVC member (with 4 contracts) and an AP holder since 2008, with 10+ trips in the years before. This was the first year in all that time when I’ve considered not renewing my AP. I did renew in the end, but not renewing was never even a consideration for me before. In my opinion, the three things that need to go ASAP are Genie+, park reservations, and Bob Chapek. I know Disney has always been about the money (I get it, they’re a business), but since Chapek took over, it feels like it has become so blatantly obvious and they don’t care who knows it. I guess ignorance is bliss, but I much preferred it when their money grabs weren’t so out in the open.
Genie+ is an absolute disaster. My sister and I used it for the first time last November and it was terrible. Too hard to navigate and on really busy and crowded days (which is every day now), we couldn’t get more than a couple rides that it would have actually been good for. We were in Epcot the Monday after Thanksgiving and the crowds were significantly less than earlier in our trip. We still paid for Genie+ that day before getting to the park because we felt like we had to, but it was a total waste of money because wait times were much lower and it just wasn’t needed. The whole system is just a mess. I absolutely despise the park reservation system. It takes away every bit of the spontaneity that was left out of a Disney vacation. I miss the days when I could wake up and say “Where do you want to go today?” Booking a reservation for MK 6 months before the trip doesn’t mean that I’ll want to go to MK that day when I’m actually there, but now there’s no choice. And not being able to park hop until 2:00 is for the birds. So much planning and rigidity is not what I want in a vacation. We have a trip booked in May, but it very well could be our last one for a while, which makes me really sad. I agree with everything Chloe says!
After going to WDW for 50 years and following Disney for near that long hopefully the pendulum will swing back. For you kids in the audience just look at the movies from 1970 to 1990 to see a true low point in Disney entertainment!
Seems like Disney is operating from a position of lack or insecurity. In my mind they need to be leaning into delivering over the top magic as they have done in the past, but they are not and I feel that this is Bob Chapek’s cross to bear, he was over parks prior to being CEO. Under him, rightly or wrongly, it seems like lots of stuff has been handled ham fistedly. That being said, how long can he last considering Disney stock prices, at one point up in the $190 a share range 
, as I write this at $131.42, down over $4. I don’t think he grasps that exceptional customer service and products across ALL divisions is what differentiates the company and drives their stock price in a crowded market, not just what can we cut here and there to boost profit. It’s what Disney’s customers expect. Did I just sound like an adult there?!?!?!? Well, as a stock holder I want to see the price go up and better yet give a great dividend, but not at the cost of loosing the company we have come to love.Steve, et all, I agree the Genie+/LL is confusing, now they have 3 queues to manage?
I think this might be why it is skewing things as Disney does not have an idea of how to work it. Why not just make Fastpass a “paid” option, steeply discount it or make it free it for guests staying onsite and just build on that. Isn’t that what they are doing for Magicbands, and that seems to work, at least in my book. The reservation system is annoying also, I understand the concept/idea/premise, but still as you say laprana, it takes the spontaneity out of it. as far as the park hopping goes, I think it would be less of a deal if it was at say noon, so you could go to park A to catch an attraction or two then to park B to eat lunch.I guess for me all will be revealed this fall when we go to celebrate my 50th anniversary of going to WDW. And I won’t even get started in this thread about driving thru miles and miles and miles of orange groves to get to WDW.
I sooooo wish there was a loyalty program!! while not DVC, since 1995 (minus a few years and then covid) we had been annual passholders for half of them (can’t even think about that anymore) and almost every year been lucky enough to go at least twice. Now I can’t see myself going once this year
I am sure we will try and squeeze something in, but I almost would not do park passes and just enjoy Spring and resorts for eating and then trying to visit some FL friends. I am really afraid of the crowds and can’t be standing in line all day. sign, guess I will just keep my fingers crossed it does drop in a few years.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.