Lightning Pass and more Virtual Queues-How does it all affect you as a DVC Member?

[Chuck S]

A reminder to please stay on topic. This thread may not turn into a mask or COVID procedure discussion.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

As a new DVC owner, paid lightning pass at anything close to $100 to $300 per person per day that is being thrown around is an absolute dealbreaker for me and my family. We would sell out of DVC and not look back. Disney not bringing any kind of fastpass back at all is also a dealbreaker for us. We’d spend our vacation money on non-disney cruises and other resorts. I’m not going to spend $10k on a vacation with no fastpasses to wait on line for hours a day for the sole purpose of subsidizing the Uber-wealthy to be able to skip all the lines. No thanks.

 

[Leight19]

As a new DVC owner, paid lightning pass at anything close to $100 to $300 per person per day that is being thrown around is an absolute dealbreaker for me and my family. We would sell out of DVC and not look back. Disney not bringing any kind of fastpass back at all is also a dealbreaker for us. We’d spend our vacation money on non-disney cruises and other resorts. I’m not going to spend $10k on a vacation with no fastpasses to wait on line for hours a day for the sole purpose of subsidizing the Uber-wealthy to be able to skip all the lines. No thanks.

I have same thought process with different outcome. If they ever nickel and dime me to where I find pricing absurd I’ll continue to travel and do resort only stays where I try to take in as much free without paying anything haha. I own akv so with the savanah I think I should be able to stretch enjoyment worth of my dvc dues lol. I also would seriously consider universal or maybe generic orlando trips staying at akv.

 

[princesscinderella]

When you wear your magic band on site they know how much you are spending and where you are at. If you only use the DVC room and don’t spend on site with a resort only stay they will know. If enough DVC members stay on site but spend their $$ at universal, sea world etc, they will pick up that pattern, maybe not right away but it will become noticeable.

 

[Drew729]

I have same thought process with different outcome. If they ever nickel and dime me to where I find pricing absurd I’ll continue to travel and do resort only stays where I try to take in as much free without paying anything haha. I own akv so with the savanah I think I should be able to stretch enjoyment worth of my dvc dues lol. I also would seriously consider universal or maybe generic orlando trips staying at akv.

Similar situation here. We had planned on a 6 night split stay at BLT/BWV over Labor Day weekend and then we decided that since it’s not quite the 50th yet and there is nothing new really happening since our Jan 2021 trip we would do something new.

We bought the UO annual pass when they were running the 15 month deal, then changed over to an OKW 2 bed for our stay plus booked a 3 nights at Portafino Bay for the express passes at a really nice discounted AP rate.

I have not given up on Disney but have taken a wait and see approach for now. What is evident is that Universal developed an intimate relationship with my bank account this year.

 

[CraigInPA]

We bought the UO annual pass when they were running the 15 month deal, then changed over to an OKW 2 bed for our stay plus booked a 3 nights at Portafino Bay for the express passes at a really nice discounted AP rate.

My wife and I did something similar a couple of years back, except we started at Portofino for 3 nights (with an UO AP pass discount, at Christmas!) and then went to WDW for 6 nights. The highlight of the trip was the FOTL pass that came with staying at Portofino. We were able to do all the rides at each park in under a day, see the Christmas parade (my wife was approached and agreed to be a balloon handler in the parade), and finished one night watching a Manheim Steamroller concert in the park. The low point of UO was the food. We really looked forward to leaving UO and going to WDW for the signature restaurants.

After experiencing the FOTL pass at UO, Fastpass+ is a huge letdown. However, unlike some other posters, I think that a FOTL pass could work at WDW to replace Fastpass+. The thing that worries me is that, instead of it being a feature turned on by staying at a deluxe resort like UO, Disney may choose to have it as an extra cost option.

With the current $100+ pricing for some days in the park, having to pay another $100 to get that FOTL pass is a deal killer. And this isn't unprecedented. They offer, at a price, extra Fastpasses for those staying Concierge level.

Another problem of an "extra cost option" is that it is disproportionate. The number of people who would pay $200 a day to get a ticket with the FOTL feature is significantly limited. The infrastructure to support two lines is built into the park today, for stand-by and Fastpass. In the old Fastpass system, you'd have (wild guess) 75-85% capacity taken up by Fastpass. How much would be taken by a FOTL offering where people pay $200 a day? 1%? 5%? There WILL be a backlash against Disney if they have a FOTL feature for 1% of guests!

On the other hand, by staying at one of the "deluxe" hotels (and by extension, DVC properties), having FOTL as part of their stay access means at least 20% of guests would be using the FOTL pass line. It also means the hotel side can subsidize the theme park division by means of a soft transfer of a specific amount per guest per day for the FOTL feature, so it's not "free".

 

[Lorana]

The newly released prices for the Boo Bash are not giving me confidence that Disney isn’t still just trying to see how much money they can squeeze out of people on top of the other costs. It’s only 3 hours long and costs $129-$199, compared to MNSSHP prices of $79-$129 in 2019.

Maybe this is really going to be something special - limited attendance to reduce lines, lots of special character interactions - but that is a huge price increase for what seems at the surface to be less than MNSSHP was before. I know for one I’d love if the special events were not so crowded (when we first started going ages ago that was one motivation for buying - low low crowds - but in the last several years, the parties have been just as crowded), but the costs for all the extras for the things we enjoy just keep going up and up such that it’s just not feasible to keep doing it. That may be their intention - price people out as a way to reduce crowds and make events special - but it’s really lost the spirit of what Disney is about. It certainly has been encouraging us to do resort only stays, and with the demise of Magical Express and thus the need to rent a car, I imagine we’ll do more exploring outside of Disney World (which we used to do before ME. The convenience - and cost savings - of ME meant that we stopped renting, and thus stayed on Disney property.)

 

[Lumee23]

From my perspective Disney has always had premium pricing (at least in the last 10 years since we have been going as a family) compared to other theme parks, hotels, cruises, etc. As I have been not so patiently biding my time to afford DVC, I have seen a notable decrease in what you get for your money both with regards to DVC and Disney theme parks. Despite that, we bought anyway this week so I guess we are going into it with our eyes wide open.

In theory I am okay with premium offerings for those with money to blow provided it doesn't noticeably impact the regular customer. I don't really know enough about FP+ impacts on standby lines and what changes Lightening Pass would do to have a real opinion about it. I like the idea of FP+ and have made it work to my advantage in the past. I will see when we go in July if we miss it but I will say planning our trip has been a lot easier this time around with less moving pieces.

It seems like Universal makes the skip the line pass work on a smaller scale and I generally like the idea of it being a Deluxe perk or at least a deeply discounted Deluxe perk but I am not sure if those numbers are feasible with the larger scale. I think straight up eliminating fast pass and introducing a $100-$300/per person/per day upcharge without any deep discounts/inclusions for on site guests would bring out the pitchforks. If they are able to make a Lightening Pass system work in tandem with pre-covid FP+ then I guess it wouldn't really be any different than the VIP tours they offer now. Overall, DVC and Disney hotels in general need more perks for staying on site to justify the prices that are being charged (imo). Right now there is a lot of pent up demand, which is filling hotel rooms and people seem to be more forgiving of low staffing due to Covid complications but can Disney sustain at these prices and justify the lower quality of customer service due to low staffing as we creep back to normal? I don't think so..? But I have been surprised before.

I do think there is a happy medium where Disney can make more money while still giving guests an experience that they feel is worth the added cost. When we first went to Disney as a family my husband was grumbling about how expensive it was before we went. Then the first night as we walked back after the fireworks he mentioned how despite the higher cost he felt he was getting his monies worth because "Disney really knows how to do things right." For me it really hit after we took our daughter to the BBB. It wasn't just the actual makeover. For the rest of the day, cast members and characters would bow to my daughter and say "Hello Princess." She is 10 now and that has stuck with me over the years. It's those little details that I always felt made Disney special and worth the "Disney tax".

 

[Holly’sMom]

With all the rumors floating around of increased pricing, and maybe even less availability of "E Ticket" rides with the advent of virtual queues, I'm not interested in the rumors so much as how this particular audience views the continued advent of the seemingly endless propagation of providing less and less for more and more money at WDW.

My wife and I were just discussing this, and as always is the case, a natural question came up. When will the "rich peoples' " money run out, and will it be too late for Disney to recover and punt when it does? Maybe it will never run out, and they finally have enough statistical data to support that theory. But then again, maybe they're wrong.

See? I think DVC is more representative of the population at large than one may think at first glance. I consider us middle to upper-middle income America. I know for a fact that they are quickly approaching pricing us out of the "price of admission," and I use that term as a sum of all the parts. It is getting ridiculously expensive for a family of 3 adults to vacation repeatedly at WDW several times a year, and if we only go once every year or two, APs and even DVC (for us) no longer makes financial sense. I'm certain that we wouldn't even go multiple times per year if it weren't for DVC, but with all the necessary add-ons, even with DVC, that is starting to pinch the billfold. There was just a year-long GLOBAL pandemic, for Christ's sake. Do these people not know that it affected everybody else also?

This is not intended to become a complaints thread. Quite the contrary. I simply want to know if we, as loyal DVC members, are the only ones feeling more and more squeezed out with almost each and every passing month. Is it just us?

Actually, this is why we haven’t bought DVC yet. We are concerned about being locked in with Disney if they do price people out of the market. I know it hasn’t happened yet, but they do keep taking things away while raising prices.

 

[Grumpy Mouse]

...provided it doesn't noticeably impact the regular customer.

But it WILL impact the regular customer. They have to take things away from you in order to sell them to the premium customer. You got some free FastPasses before - now you'll get none. You'll likely get a very small break on the pricing as a (blue card) DVC member - like the $10 discount you can get on Boo Hoo Bash tickets.

 

[Nabas]

If WDW offers a FOTL (Front of the Line) pass and doesn’t make it part of the deluxe hotel experience, the comparisons and advertising opportunities for/to USO will be immediate and obvious.

If they offer it to deluxe, DVD is going to have to negotiate to include it as part of the DVC experience and that sounds like a separately expensed “perk” aka a blue card special.

And that would explain some of the pieces currently being moved: 150 pt minimum with no currently obvious perk justification, hints of FPs type return for 4th of July but 60 day window is already history, etc.

Disney has about 10,400 Deluxe Resort & separately bookable DVC rooms, with 4 theme parks.

Universal has about 2400 Deluxe Resort rooms, with 2 theme parks.

Universal's Express Unlimited offers unlimited ride access.

You would think that, if they wanted to, Disney could offer some form of Lightning Pass to its Deluxe/DVC Resort Guests.

But then why convert 200 rooms at the Grand Floridian to DVC? You'd think they could fill those rooms with some form of Lightning Pass built into the price of the room.

Perhaps Disney is thinking about a DVC price hike?

Or Disney has no plans to offer Lightning Pass to DVC members and needs to convert rooms to reduce the number of Deluxe Resort rooms?

Or perhaps Disney simply wants the cash from selling nearly 2 million points at VGF2, regardless of what happens with Lightning Pass?

I don't think Lightning Pass to Deluxe/DVC is likely to happen, but it does make for interesting speculation.

 

[Nabas]

I spend less and less time in the parks and love the resorts. Rides have become secondary for us. Even my adult kids have come so much that they have a more relaxed attitude toward the trips.

You sound like us! The kids are grown but they occasionally tag along for a trip.

We do perhaps 3 rides a day now.

For us, it's a few hours at the parks and the rest of the time relaxing on the balcony, hanging poolside, having a meal, or spending time at Disney Springs.

 

[Nabas]

On the earnings call they were discussing increasing per customer spend by creating a “loyalty program” a lot of people interpreted this to be related to redesign of the AP but I was thinking about it more in terms of an overall experience redesign incorporating some of what pp have mentioned in this post. More perks for people spending more or with larger spending/visit history. I envision a system that is like the cruise lines (not exactly what DCL does as they ranked by number of cruises while other lines gave credit for the number of days sailed and added “extra credit” for suite sails).

Since WDW still have Annual Pass, my (wrong?) assumption was that the “loyalty program” was more targeted at DLR, which used to be dominated by Annual Pass Holders.

Just an assumption though.

I'm trying to imagine how a loyalty program at WDW would work, where most Guests go only once every few years.

 

[Leight19]

Disney has about 10,400 Deluxe Resort & separately bookable DVC rooms, with 4 theme parks.

Universal has about 2400 Deluxe Resort rooms, with 2 theme parks.

Universal's Express Unlimited offers unlimited ride access.

You would think that, if they wanted to, Disney could offer some form of Lightning Pass to its Deluxe/DVC Resort Guests.

But then why convert 200 rooms at the Grand Floridian to DVC? You'd think they could fill those rooms with some form of Lightning Pass built into the price of the room.

Perhaps Disney is thinking about a DVC price hike?

Or Disney has no plans to offer Lightning Pass to DVC members and needs to convert rooms to reduce the number of Deluxe Resort rooms?

Or perhaps Disney simply wants the cash from selling nearly 2 million points at VGF2, regardless of what happens with Lightning Pass?

I don't think Lightning Pass to Deluxe/DVC is likely to happen, but it does make for interesting speculation.

What Ive wondered is whether Disney could offer this as paid option but give it for “free” to dvc rooms. I put free in quotations because only way I think this would happen is if they charge dvc for the benefit but have it built into cost as dues. This would be guaranteed revenue for Disney and would be viewed as benefit for dvc members even though we are paying for it (similar to magic express and theme park transport in general).

 

[Telcogirl]

Is MCO short staffed, too? They were always one of the fastest airports for the luggage carousels, especially compared to Las Vegas and San Antonio.

In the times that I have been to Orlando and not used ME, I have always waited a very long time for my luggage.

 

[Chuck S]

What Ive wondered is whether Disney could offer this as paid option but give it for “free” to dvc rooms. I put free in quotations because only way I think this would happen is if they charge dvc for the benefit but have it built into cost as dues. This would be guaranteed revenue for Disney and would be viewed as benefit for dvc members even though we are paying for it (similar to magic express and theme park transport in general).

Magical Express, and on site transportation is provided free to all park guests by including it in the cost of their room reservation, in other words, there is no way for a regular cash guest to "opt out" of those particular services. If it is a separate paid service, like the dining plan, it can not be included in dues. DVD marketing would need to pay for it in order to give it free to members, or the individuals members would need to do it as an add on.

 

[Leight19]

Magical Express, and on site transportation is provided free to all park guests by including it in the cost of their room reservation, in other words, there is no way for a regular cash guest to "opt out" of those particular services. If it is a separate paid service, like the dining plan, it can not be included in dues. DVD marketing would need to pay for it in order to give it free to members, or the individuals members would need to do it as an add on.

This could make since but I’m not exactly sure how works because parking is an opt in option but is included as part of dues. I also think if this would be included for dvc it would be included for all deluxe accommodations built within the price so I think it could still hold. The one main reason I don’t think it would work is if Disney expects to get $100 to $300 per person per day there’s no way to build that into price of rooms or to include within dues.

 

[Chuck S]

This could make since but I’m not exactly sure how works because parking is an opt in option but is included as part of dues. I also think if this would be included for dvc it would be included for all deluxe accommodations built within the price so I think it could still hold. The one main reason I don’t think it would work is if Disney expects to get $100 to $300 per person per day there’s no way to build that into price of rooms or to include within dues.

"Parking fee" is not included in dues. Because the parking lot is in the legal description of the common area of the resort, and we pay to maintain the common areas, they can't charge DVC Members to park at the resort since we technically "own" the parking lot as part of the condominium. Just like the pools, if they were to charge extra for pool use at resorts, they could not charge DVC Members by Florida Timeshare laws.

 

[vinmar4]

When you wear your magic band on site they know how much you are spending and where you are at. If you only use the DVC room and don’t spend on site with a resort only stay they will know. If enough DVC members stay on site but spend their $$ at universal, sea world etc, they will pick up that pattern, maybe not right away but it will become noticeable.

That looks more and more like our future trips. We are probably going to start looking at our future stays as having a place to stay in Orlando while visiting Universal with an AP, or other places. We will most likely stay, one or two nights at one of their Universal Deluxe resorts ,to take advantage of the express passes. Our Adults kids also love the free concerts that Universal offers , so we may start planning our future DVC stays, based on what's going on at Universal and not Disney.

If we have to spend more, just to get fast passes, we just won't go to the parks anymore and will enjoy a lot more resort only vacations. Things are definitely changing and not for the best , we still love our DVC, but after using these new Gold APs, we don't know if we will buy anymore.

 

[princesscinderella]

That looks more and more like our future trips. We are probably going to start looking at our future stays as having a place to stay in Orlando while visiting Universal with an AP or other places. We will most likely stay one or 2 nights at one of their Universal Deluxe resorts to take advantage of the express passes. Our Adults kids also love the free concerts that Universal offers , so we may start planning our future DVC stays, based on what's going on at Universal and not Disney.

If we have to spend more, just to get fast passes, we just won't go to the parks anymore and will enjoy a lot more resort only vacations. Things are definitely changing and not for the best , we still love our DVC, but after using these new Gold APs, we don't know if we will buy anymore.

We have been to Disney 6 times since they opened for long weekend stays and have enjoyed not going to the parks so much and just enjoying the resorts that we aren’t in a hurry to buy park tickets. We have Universal APs and renewed because it was such a good deal and love the concerts they have too. We saw our favorite band LIVE in feb 2020 at UO for Mardi Gras right before the COVID lock down packed shoulder to shoulder with everyone without a care in the world. It was awesome and I hope they have the concerts again next spring.