Originally Posted By Marlin Perkins I have an AP too, you certainly can't blame folks for having one, especially locals. But I was just thinking about crowds. Another way to calm the ride lines down would be to charge "per ride" again like the old ticket book days. Only today, they could have a prepaid debit card attached to a souvenier lanyard, covered with collector pins...
Originally Posted By MomluvsDisney I am an AP holder as well so I am glad they are available ~~smile~~ I cannot see Disney going back to individual ride costs, especially in todays economic times. With most of the major theme parks in california offering yearly passes for a one days admission price, I am sure Disney is eyeing their bottom line and putting these promotions out to try to keep the currnet folks while still attracting more. I could see the single ride pricing plan to be something that would help with crowds, but would cause them to lose money in the long run.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros If they want to scale back the crowds some, I think the first step would be to do away with the 2fer. Yah, it's nice for locals, but it creates rather large crowds, often when the CM's aren't expecting it. If these trends continue, I really hope that they get rid of it, at least by the time they're finished with the DCA makeover and it can handle it's own crowds. And I really don't believe that 80%+ of the visitors to the park aren't single day tickets. Yes, I realize that there are a large number of APers and folks who come for 2-3 day (or longer) vacations, but I still feel like a very large portion of the crowd (I would guess around 50%) is locals who are just there for the day. I guess I'm usually there on weekends, so that crowd might be different than during the weeks, but there definately seems to be a feeling of "let's do everything because we only have one day" in the parks. Not that it's a bad thing, but it just seems like the numbers are a little off.
Originally Posted By dllovinrn We were there the first week of March, and we saw a fair amount of Birthday button people, but not too terribly many. Technically, we were there to celebrate my Dad's 87th birthday with him, which happened to be later in the month. So obviously he did not get in free. I just couldn't see the free day making up for being there during everyone's Spring Break-UUUGGHHHH! (We had a great time celebrating with Dad anyway.) I do think this is a nice promotion for those living close enough to take advantage of it (generally Southern Californians), but we could not possibly take 4 Disney vacations during the year to celebrate everyone's Bday. (We did take 3 last year, though). NOt to mention, take kids out of school several times. I too am hoping this promotion ends after 2009, and that Disney thinks up one that isn't so biased toward the population nearest the park, who will be the main people to take advantage of it. Don't people in SoCal have plenty of Disney perks already, what with their annual passes?
