Things we liked/valued:
1) Magical Express (including airport to resort luggage transfer)
2) Advanced ADR booking for your whole resort stay (180+10)
3) Complimentary Magic Bands
4) 60 day Advanced Fast Pass+ booking
5) Dining plans (we didn't always use these but it was nice to have the option)
6) Complimentary luggage transfer between resorts (for split stays)
Right now, the only one of these that seems to have survived Disney's post-pandemic changes is luggage transfer between resorts and I seriously wonder how long that will continue.
Things we didn't use or care about:
1) Extra Magic Hours (EMH)
The main reason we didn't use EMH is because we loved the strategy of doing a pre-park opening character breakfast and then touring that park from rope drop to early afternoon. Under that strategy, it was advantageous to pick a non-morning EMH park so other resort guests wouldn't get a jump on popular attractions while we were at breakfast (we'd typically visit our first few attractions standby while saving our fast passes for later). And because the strategy required early to bed/early to rise, we almost never took advantage of evening EMH.
Disney's recent/proposed changes massively discourage that strategy going forward, especially since now, instead of getting ready to head to a character breakfast at 7 am, I'm supposed to be on my phone frantically trying to reserve fast passes. And going forward, since every park will have early opening for resort guests every day, a pre-park opening character breakfast will be relatively disadvantageous (whereas before, it got us into the park ahead of the crowds). Then, to add insult to injury, the cost of the fast passes will probably end up being more than the cost of the character breakfast.
The perks Disney is removing were previously our main motivators for being willing to pay the substantial premium to stay on property at WDW. While we still love many Disney resorts, it just isn't worth it for us to go to WDW if we can't do it our preferred way. Because of this, we've decided to spend our vacation dollars elsewhere.
1) Magical Express (including airport to resort luggage transfer)
2) Advanced ADR booking for your whole resort stay (180+10)
3) Complimentary Magic Bands
4) 60 day Advanced Fast Pass+ booking
5) Dining plans (we didn't always use these but it was nice to have the option)
6) Complimentary luggage transfer between resorts (for split stays)
Right now, the only one of these that seems to have survived Disney's post-pandemic changes is luggage transfer between resorts and I seriously wonder how long that will continue.
Things we didn't use or care about:
1) Extra Magic Hours (EMH)
The main reason we didn't use EMH is because we loved the strategy of doing a pre-park opening character breakfast and then touring that park from rope drop to early afternoon. Under that strategy, it was advantageous to pick a non-morning EMH park so other resort guests wouldn't get a jump on popular attractions while we were at breakfast (we'd typically visit our first few attractions standby while saving our fast passes for later). And because the strategy required early to bed/early to rise, we almost never took advantage of evening EMH.
Disney's recent/proposed changes massively discourage that strategy going forward, especially since now, instead of getting ready to head to a character breakfast at 7 am, I'm supposed to be on my phone frantically trying to reserve fast passes. And going forward, since every park will have early opening for resort guests every day, a pre-park opening character breakfast will be relatively disadvantageous (whereas before, it got us into the park ahead of the crowds). Then, to add insult to injury, the cost of the fast passes will probably end up being more than the cost of the character breakfast.
The perks Disney is removing were previously our main motivators for being willing to pay the substantial premium to stay on property at WDW. While we still love many Disney resorts, it just isn't worth it for us to go to WDW if we can't do it our preferred way. Because of this, we've decided to spend our vacation dollars elsewhere.
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