I think you are getting close to the reason for suspending the AP sales in Disney World when you said, "Now, the lawsuit in CA regarding the AP there has merit in my book because while it did say it was subject to park availability, it did not say that was based on Disney deciding to offer those spots to others, IMO, that was and is deceptive." I've been looking at the lawsuit and despite the unavailability language, I too think it might have traction.
If we can discover why Disney suspended sales, it might shed some light on when sales will return, if at all, and if there might be changes.
California has a fairly unique business practices law and that is one of the basis of this lawsuit that was filed as a putative class action lawsuit. In this fairly unique business practices law, it allows for multiples in damages and the recovery of attorneys' fees and costs should the Plaintiff prevail. Disney gave notice of removal and it was removed to federal court. I am thinking the judge they drew is probably not considered favorable for Disney by court watchers.
I know when sales of new passes was halted, the media was full of articles saying they did it to control crowds during the busy holiday season. The media made up the reason. No person from Disney, who had authority to speak, ever said that. So, strike that from the analysis.
The first significant event in the applicable timeline was Disney gave about 6 weeks notice that they would restart annual pass sales. They gave notice on about August 4th for sales starting on September 8, 2021. It is not like them to take action without notice. But, when they stopped new sales it was without notice. Something significant happened.
The second significant circumstance was when they started selling new annual passes again on September 8, 2021, it came with some different terms and conditions. The park availability language was not new. Maybe they strengthened the language, but it was not entirely new. But, in the past, when admission was denied to a passholder it was due to reaching park capacity -- as defined by the Fire Marshall, serious storms, like Hurricane Irma. or other significant closure mandated by someone other than Disney's management preferences. Past practices is an important legal concept when interpreting contracts.
Also, this time, there was something significant; passholders needed to have a park reservation to access the parks. (That may have started earlier upon re-opening after the first big covid surge, but it was really significant when coupled with new annual passes going on sale.) So, to recap, notice of new annual pass sales, and the park reservation system. (The separate pricing of the water parks and photos was just so they didn't bundle and raise the prices even higher. I'm okay with allowing annual passholders to customize their passes by breaking them out in line item pricing. That is not reducing benefits. That is allowing individual choice in line item pricing.)
The impact of park reservations is how they got into trouble. Disney apparently did make statements about managing park experience with reference to crowds. They talked about quality of experience. Remember, they were just coming off of historically low park attendance due to covid restrictions and park attendance caps apparently set by governmental authorities. But, this is Florida and the Governor DeSantis administration removed restrictions of that kind from businesses.
If any of you have ever been to a Disney park when it was closed to further admissions due orders of the Fire Marshall (wall to wall people), I can tell you, it is not just an inconvenience and long lines, it is downright scary. This is when people pick up their children out of the strollers and carry them above their heads. You can't see anywhere. The crowd presses in on you and you cannot move forwards or in any direction. You try to get to the side up against a wall or building. Panic is a real possibility and trampling is a very high risk. Every Disney employee was there trying to move the massive crowd and I could see the fear on their faces. I have been in that more than once in
Disneyland and a crowd too big, but not that scary at Disney World. For high risk of litigation purposes, this would be a situation that the highest level of management at any of the Disney parks would do just about anything to prevent. One of the things they have done -- and rightfully so -- is to lower the cap. We should all be very grateful for that. So, interpreting the Disney-speak, when they say they are trying to manage a quality experience, that's why the park capacities have been lowered. Also factor in 2 years of covid lock-downs and the biggest travel surge in history that shows no signs of letting up yet -- and they are so very right to control the capacity in their parks.
When Disney started selling new passes last September, they were using the "bucket" system of allocated spaces. One bucket for tickets, one bucket for resorts and one bucket for all of the types of passholders. Now, Disney has always seen annual passholders as sort of a "space available" guest to fill in the gaps. But, lately, they had new data that indicated the ticket holders or resort guests spent more per individual per park day. Whether we like that characterization or not, it is a fact that motivates Disney top management, who are accountable to shareholders. So, for the first time, Disney tried to keep annual passholders in the space available slots by controlling the allocations in the passholder bucket. What Ms. Neilsen discovered, in California is that her no-blockout annual pass could not get a park reservation when the ticketed and resort guests (the higher spenders) could! Disney had prioritized the highest profit guest over their (space - available) passholder guests. Lower caps on park maximum attendance meant thousands and tens of thousands of few spaces for passholders.
Ms. Nielsen filed a he lawsuit was filed on November 9, 2021. Less than a week later, Disney filed a Notice of Removal to federal court. So, we know Disney's attorneys were into this immediately and considered it serious. Disney then, on November 21, 2021, just five days after removal, gave notice that their Incredi-pass, Sorcerer and Pirate were "unavailable" to
new sales, but kept the right of renewal for existing passholders and still allowed the Pixie Dust pass.
By allowing the right of renewal for existing passholders, it limited the pool of possible plaintiffs in the class action suit. They were already there. The lawsuit focuses on the AP blockout dates vs the park reservation system. So, since the new passes were only on sale from September 8, 2021 to November 20, 2021, it shut off adding additional people to the group of people that might have been damaged by their sale of annual passes with various levels of blockout dates. What Disney did was sell passes with defined blockout dates and then due solely to their own authority -- added additional blockout dates by having too few spaces in the passholder bucket. What their lawyers told them is, Mr. Chapek, when you sell an annual pass with blockout dates, you are telling that person they can come on the days not blocked out. Not every passholder will come on every date that is not blocked out, but maybe 20% of them will. So, you have already sold those dates to 20% of your eligible passholders. You cannot therefore sell those spaces again to new ticket buyers or prioritize resort guests. That was what was deceptive; the blockout date availability was being given to ticket holders or resort guests simply because Disney preferred them. It was solely within the control and discretion of Disney and against the express terms of the passholder contract that listed specific blockout dates. In law, the specific governs the general. The unavailability language is a general clause and the calendar of blockout dates per pass type is the specific language. So the blockout dates governs the unavailability language. Otherwise Disney could sell passes and tell us there is no availability until 2025.
One of the things Disney is doing right now with the reservation system is gathering data on how many passholders attend their parks on which days. They will find out if it is 20% or as in California 50% of the crowd consists of passholders.
The reason Disney decided to keep the Pixie Pass is because it blocks out the high attendance days -- every major and minor holiday, spring break and every weekend. It forces those passholders into the "space available" days; as Disney intended passholders to use. (It also may have been a condition of their development permits that they had to provide some kind of park access privilege to Florida residents. That is not an uncommon conditions on high entertainment land use decisions by local government to offset impacts of quality of life for locals. So, that may be why Disney keeps the lower prices passes to locals in both Florida and California.)
Now, litigation like this can generally take years. The person who said park passes may come back next year may or may not have had official Disney information. I suspect not. They did have the reservation system and the annual passes in existence together only from September 8, 2021 to November 20, 2021, so that is a short time. They reduced their risk that way.
So, why the renewals of current passholders? Because since they had to cap the park capacity numbers (due to the post covid travel surge) and cannot control through their bucket system (the litigation), then the only other way to control is to control the actual number of annual passes sold! Yes. I have seen other bloggers pick up on this. The indicators are out there that the actual number of annual passes are limited. They use the word "unavailable" for Disney World and "sold out" for Disneyland. Disneyland has over a million outstanding APs! They will be sold out for years to reduce that number through attrition. Disney World has fewer, but I suspect that with every angry person who will not renew - another annual pass goes back on the shelf. When they have enough, they will re-open sales again -- for a short time -- until those are gone -- and then they will stop again. Disney does not want to be oversold on annual passes so the best time to cut it off was now. They tried to use the reservation system to close the gates, but it failed. So, now they will close the doors another way.
Another thing that supports my observations and theories is that after the Christmas holiday crowds, there have been some crowded times. During all of those, there was park pass unavailability for ticket holders and resort guests, but not for the annual passholders. That tells me their lawyers have advised Disney in the strongest possible terms that they cannot use the park reservation system to reduce the number of passholders in the parks. Passholders have already bought and paid for that availability. So, that's the good news for passholders. But, trust me, you do not want those parks so crowded they are at Fire Marshall capacity caps ever again!
What about DVC members? You are important to them or they would not have started selling new properties as DVC. They will come up with something for you. I do think, however that they will continue to have some Florida resident access as well. I would have to wade through their original local government permitting docs to be certain and I am not going to get that deep into it.
So, those are my thoughts. When will they do it? Probably when they figure out what percentage of passholders attend the parks and when. Pass sales may become seasonal or annual. For my planning, I am going to budget for tickets during the holiday seasons no matter what pass tier I have. Focus on this and you will see where they are going: (1) Limits on the number of annual passes outstanding at any time, (2) Reduced park capacities for safety reasons and (3) Passholders were always meant to be space available guests.
) Chapek using funds to build out/refurb DVC properties now w/plans to eventually increase Cash Sales or even selling some (OKW/VBR/HHI/maybe even SSR?) to dump carrying costs & then evaluating that. Maybe years off, but I firmly believe Chapek's goal is to revamp the entire business model, not just DVC.
