Originally Posted By jimminy44 >ticket book system orchestrated your day...to guarantee that those small but interesting and unusual things paid for themselves< I get the part about "orchestrating your day". It is a kind of crowd control isn't it? A family running out of E tickets would maybe go on TSI or the Canoes if they were not inclined to pay cash for the next E ticket ride. Thus, preventing long lines at some E ticket rides. But there is still something that is nagging me so maybe if I talk around it I can make it come to light. Even with the old tickets(excluding food and souvenirs) they already got ALL of my money at the turnstyle right? I have read the posts about how this new system will pay for individual rides based on ridership. But didn't they get ALL my money already? What is the difference after that what ride or attraction I go and see if they have ALL OF MY MONEY. They used to be able to allocate that money to keep the park maintained way back when. But it is shocking to me that they would sit at a table and say, "Here is the take. "Sorry Great Moments we keep selling your little brown ticket [and already have the money from those sales] but based on lack of attendance we are not giving you the full share of the money that we already got from ticket sales." This is where I don't understand the idea that if people don't HEAVILY use certain rides/attractions, then the park would or should get rid of them. If they are going to this type of system as some are foreboding, the closest I can describe it would be to say that it would be like privatization of each ride, with each ride possibly someday owned by someone else who just pays rent at the park for the privilege of doing business there like shop/restaurant owners in DtD. Would we welcome this if it happened? Sorry if this seems to ramble but this whole idea is hard to fathom.
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>They better watch out, they could potentially mess with that warm-fuzzy place in the back of your mind that makes a $3,000 trip from Kansas to go to an amusement park seem like a smart move. <<< From what I see, and friends I have who are NOT Disney freaks, I think that warm fuzzy place has already been eroded to a very no-nonsense level, except for the core Disney faithful... (rhymes with Darcy, for instance) >>>Another difference was that the ticket book encouraged people to ride other attractions. If it was money based I would guess that most people just wouldn't be willing to spend thier money or credits to an attraction like Tarzan Treehouse. The credit or money would probably go to the bigger attractions.<<< Brilliantly crystallized. That's the big difference. Unless they FORCE the existence of smaller "compartmentalized" credits, like the equivalent of an A or B ticket or whatever, then this is a fundamentally flawed system, and the Carousels and Mr. Toad's are in serious jeopardy of an asinine valuation system. And I mean asinine in the most insulting and belittling way possible, thank you. It takes ONE person to say "You know what? We don't need to do this. We need to do something else. Value our customers." And then we're past it. Next fall can't come soon enough.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo I can't see this happening. It would end up like a carnival. Jim was right when he mentioned the Vegas thing - how much for one ride? Thanks, but no thanks. This popularity contest would see Disney accelerating their thrill campaign. Cheap mega thrills will bring teenagers in to spend the money. The little nuances and art we have come to expect of the Disney experience will disappear. I cannot see this happening. People already complain at how expensive a Disney vacation is for a family (those who live local, it's a cheap day trip). The ticket system would proliferate the costs and so people will find the value flawed in comparison to other competitors. When DL opened it was new and uncontested. Now we have good quality themeparks all over the world (granted not quite the same quality). It would not work. The smartcards could be good for people who like to budget in advance - to pay for food and souveneers and upcharge specials - e.g. Fantasmic seating. I have to admit gang, it's happening again. The doom and gloom of the internet is tarnishing my view. And I cannot go to the parks at the mo to see it's being blown out of proportion (as per usual). I work for a firm who keep cutting, customer support, staff incentives and indeed jobs. This all to appease stock holders. Truth is, we have lost staff morale, customer satisfaction, and we have opened the door for some innovative organisation to muscle in and take our clientel away. That is the current way of doing business it seems and Disney is definately employing this model. Boy the world sucks right now. I wanna get off.
Originally Posted By arstogas >>>People already complain at how expensive a Disney vacation is for a family (those who live local, it's a cheap day trip).<<< Well, even there, I'd suggest that for a middle-class family, even the day trip, on an Annual Passport, represents an expenditure of money that's only affordable intermittently. Unless your kids are the amazingly self-constrained type who don't crave every colorful souvenir in sight, and don't beg for ice cream at every ODV cart they see... a day trip at Disney is a treat... but not really ever "cheap", unless you bring your own food and buy no souvenirs. Though I'm sure that romantic couples can do this, I doubt too many families with little kids find it cheap anymore. A bargain? Maybe. But it's still part of their budget they have to part with. And increasingly, Disneyland is less worth the money.
Originally Posted By Alex Disney Lets keep it the way it is. I dont like the sound of a Pay for a attraction thang! °o°
Originally Posted By DlandDug I really tried to avoid going through this board...but here I am. I seem to recall that once upon a time Disneyland was a SHOW. Does anyone go to a show and figure out the cost of each act, or costume, or song, and pay piece by piece? Granted, Disneyland is a much bigger SHOW than the average film or stage play. But it will live or die by the same standard: is the audience being entertained? Are they getting their money's worth? There's the little secret lurking behind Walt's Big Idea: when the show is really good, people don't notice they are spending money. It's the illusion that everything at Disneyland is being done because, aw, they love us! And we love them! We spend our money to prove it. It's a big love fest. and Disneyland has warm feelings all the way to the bank. But when the illusion is blatantly violated, the guests are more furious than any scorned lover. Annual Passholders are constantly held up in these debates as some sort of pack of leeches. "If we could just get rid of those no-account APs, the Park would be filled with quality folk who spend money!" If a plan like the one being discussed results in a drastic decrease in attendance, how will this be perceived as a good thing? The article actually posits that crowded conditions will be reduced, making the Park more popular. HUH? If the end of the year figures show that attendance has decreased, there will be some serious shaking up. And yes, WDI is full of people who need to justify their existence. Remember, it was some genius there who determined that the best way to get the numbers up at Future World was to demolish "Imagination" and replace it with "Journey Into Your Imagination." It must be popular--it's hardly crowded at all! To sum it up, there's a great old saying in Hollywood. When the studios had a bad year, and all the analysts were chewing through their pencils, the wily old producer had the solution: Nothing a few good movies can't solve.
Originally Posted By rasvar In theory, I think the smartcards can work. The problem would be the actual implementation. A phased rollout for such a system would not really work. Therefore, the infrastructure would need to be installed and capital expended prior to the system bringing in any money. I have had experience with smartcards in my company. They are not easy and the technology is somewhat hard to work with, at times. My company actually scratched smartcards after the intial test turned out to be too expensive in the operations area. Disney has a hard enough keeping ticket readers running. Smartcard reader/writers are a lot more finiky. Plus, smartcards are susceptible to hacking. Where a smartcard may work is on resort guests with package plans that include meals and things like Disney Dollars. It could work for food and merchandise locations. Even park admission at the turnstiles. However, I don't think it would hold up well for continuious usage as attraction admissions. Add to that, the hassles of support for bad smartcards. Some places only store data on money or value only on the smartcard itself. I don't think Disney could do this becuase of possible hacking and the fact that people will lose and damage these things. Imagine the fun someone could have by finding someones smart card that has $500 value loaded in it by some package plan. The idea works nice on paper. The actually implementation is the item that, if a proper study is done, I think Disney will find will not be cost effective.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy Switching back from "unlimited daily passports to all attractions," to a per-ride charge would be an ugly thing to try to implement, now that the world is all used to "I can ride all I want." How about this -- use SmartCards and charge per ride for the E-tickets. But keep all A thru D attractions walkon like they are now. This is a little like the coupon books used to be. There were many more A through D coupons than E-tickets.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy Maybe your admission to the park includes all A thru D attractions unlimited -- but a limited number of E-tickets per day. If you want more E-tickets, fine, buy some more. This could work for AP's too.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy Since the park is a contained environment, I would think the SmartCard readers would all talk to a backstage computer. No "loading" of the card would be necessary. All data is on the backstage computer. The cards themselves would only have a date and an ID on them. If you lose your card, notify a CM. They'll cancel the old card instantly, and give you a new one. If a crook were to find your old card, it won't work anymore, once it's been cancelled. Disney is great at technology.
Originally Posted By ssWEDguy One of the beauties of the old coupon system that isn't present in the "one price for everything" model is that it encouraged riding A thru E-tickets. You were less like to spend your entire day on re-riding E-Tickets once you ran out of E-coupons, and would have to buy more.
Originally Posted By merlinjones How about a little Mickey Mouse shaped mark on your foreheard with a scanner chip inside that sends an orgasmic wave everytime you pass a churro stand and an electric shock when you pass the Tiki Room? Gives ImagineEars a whole new meaning. Do you really want Michael Eisner as your Big Brother?
Originally Posted By tangaroa >If a plan like the one being discussed >results in a drastic decrease in >attendance, how will this be perceived >as a good thing? The trick is to get less people to go - but make the same amount of money as before. To do that you need to raise the average price a person pays to get in. Doing that would price out some people, but those still going would make up for it with higher prices. And that decrease in attendance would help reduce maintenance costs on infrastructure and ride capacity problems. It really would make a lot of things better.
Originally Posted By rasvar "The cards themselves would only have a date and an ID on them. If you lose your card, notify a CM. They'll cancel the old card instantly, and give you a new one. If a crook were to find your old card, it won't work anymore, once it's been cancelled." By definition, that would not be a 'smartcard.' That would be nothing more than what is in use in WDW for hotel keys and room charges. Smartcard technology utilizes and actualy embedded chip on the card to store a large amount of data and allow it to be updated independently of a central computer system. It would also be able to maintain information on it that could be used for tracking purposes. If they want the system you suggest, WDW already has it. I can't see WDI getting all hyped up about that.
Originally Posted By Britain I am not plowing through these responses so if I say something that has already been said, then stop me...or rather, don't. But I don't understand folks who say this will bring death to the smaller attractions. Say you buy your admissions card, and with it comes 1000 Disneypoints. You can now spend those points as you please. You can ride Indy 20 times (if Indy is priced as a 50 point ride - the new equivilent of a E-ticket) or you can ride each of the e-tickets a couple of times and add a mix of A through D tickets. Now here's the beauty of it: If you simply must ride the bigger attractions again, go add another five bucks to your card. But after a little while, folks will look at their card status and rather than add more points (and rather than leave the park and thereby erase the points - no, you can't use them on another day, unless it is a multiday passport) folks will say, "We have 12 points left. Lets go see Mr. Lincoln, Tiki Room, and use the last few points on an ice cream and a penny arcade moviola." This will do what the old ticket system did: Disperse crowds to the small ticket attractions, and lessen the crowds on the large ones. Plus there is the added benefit of "since we have already spent the money" more merchandise will be bought. Hopefully this will end the era of "Since Amercians don't spend like the Japanese, they can't have parks like the Japanese."
Originally Posted By ni_teach This is such a bad idea I don’t know where to begin. I wish that I had an hour or so to write up the entire problem that this system would lead to. JUST SAY NO!
Originally Posted By tangaroa >But I don't understand folks who say >this will bring death to the smaller >attractions. Since there would actually be a price value associated with those attractions, I could definitely see some skipping them over. How much would you be willing to pay for Storybookland? 3 dollars? 2 Dollars? How about Casey Jr? Or the Canoes? Pay money to paddle around an island? Yeah right.
Originally Posted By Britain But if you already have two bucks on your card what are you going to do? Let 'em go to waste!? Yeah right! You'll go on the canoes!
Originally Posted By Britain The same logic that says people won't use their points to go on small attractions says people would have thrown away their A, B, and C tickets, and that didn't happen.
