Originally Posted By Nobody RE: posts 59 & 60... I feel safe in saying that many folks had left-over A, B, and even C coupons sitting in drawers at home when the passport system was put into place.
Originally Posted By Nobody By the way, I find it hard to believe this topic has gone over 60 posts. You posters must not have read the referenced article very well. I'll quote one line: "Now that you've got all the inside info on Disney's proposed SmartCard program,..." Now, how does one make that rolling-eyes emoticon...?
Originally Posted By Jim in Pasadena CA Nobody, we understand it's only a proposal. Well, at least I do.
Originally Posted By Britain Nobody, what do you mean? When the passport program was in place that was the end of the ticket system, unless I'm mistaken. All tickets, A through E were null and void.
Originally Posted By Jim in Pasadena CA ^^^--- actually, the tickets were given value and could be used toward the purchase of Passports. I worked in WDW Guest Relations in 1987-88, and we still were getting guests with shoeboxes full of old tickets. We would count them out, give them their assigned value, and see what discont they'd get off of a Passport. Sometimes they'd end up getting two or three Passports without opening their wallets. All just from old tickets.
Originally Posted By TheBigChurro Dumb idea. Separate admissions were fine in the early days because of the novelty of the attractions and the low cost of them as well as the entrance. Plus it was easy to experience just about everything without spending multiple days due to the crowds. But now they can't afford to lower the entry cost without making individual rides way too expensive. And if the kept entry near its cost now, rides would have to be so cheap as to make the system useless. Who's going to pay $3 to ride space mtn when it still costs $30 to get in? The reason why I blame this on the "MBA" mentality is this. It used to be be that somebody did what they knew and made a business out of it. Bakers learned to be bakers and eventually opened a bakery of their own. But with the vast majority of MBAs, they come out of college having learned "business" from a book, and attempt to employ their new found knowledge in whatever job they end up at. What works here should work there. Um, no. But that's really what's happening here. Somebody thought ticket idea was good, but the ticket itself was hampered by being old technology. Hey, we'll just take the idea and update it, not realizing that there was a good reason to replace tickets in the first place. Replacing tickets with a single cost entry wasn't done just because of the cost of dealing with the tickets. Being able to buy the entry and forget about it makes the experience all that much more enjoyable. Return the guest to the burden of dealing with the logistics of buying entry, buying attractions, maximizing the value of the purchase, weighing the cost of experiencing one attraction vs another...and you have less happy guests. dumb idea.
Originally Posted By Nobody Britain, What I'm saying was that people did indeed sometimes leave the park without using all of their coupons.
Originally Posted By Nobody JiP, Maybe it's just me, but I have the feeling that we might not actually have ALL the inside info on this proposed program.
Originally Posted By themur I think the one price for all attractions works if everyone is paying the same price but we know that is not the case. With the huge number of AP's the price for a day varies from a few bucks to $47. So if you want to keep the one price for all, then you need to eliminate all but the Premium AP's and then increase the Premium AP to $500 or more.
Originally Posted By Britain No one is saying it would still cost $30 to get in! What if admission is a flat $50, and that already includes 500 points on your card. You have essentially "pre-paid" for any combination of attractions. All that remains to be seen is where you funnel what you've spent. This will make management want to raise the bar and plus every single attraction, even the smaller ones, so that you won't be satisfied with doing everything just once. Ah, once again, the need for variety and re-ride-ablility! This would finally bring an end to the movie-based attraction addiction the parks have been hooked on. The "So much happening in this cocktail-party" attraction like Pirates or Indy will return! I agree, we really don't know the details of how they would work such a plan. All I'm saying is that it could work wonderfully.
Originally Posted By rasvar What is there to say that they don't drop the general admission price down to $5-$10 and charge $2 for E's on down? They could still offer a full unlimited pass and annual passes with the same technology. You would just have to insert your smartcard into the turnstile at every attraction. Add little benefits where you buy so mauc, bonus dollars are added to your card for use in other areas. They could even add virtual coupons to the smartcard. This is why they are thinking about it. It is not just changing the admission. The goal is to come up with new ways to funnel money in the park. If you have money stored on the card, you are more likely to go ahead and spend it. With that said, I still think the cost of development and implementation will probably end this project before it really gets started.
Originally Posted By TheBigChurro "This will make management want to raise the bar and plus every single attraction, even the smaller ones, so that you won't be satisfied with doing everything just once." no it won't. "This would finally bring an end to the movie-based attraction addiction the parks have been hooked on. " no it wouldn't. "All I'm saying is that it could work wonderfully." or it could make a visit annoyingly complex. All it's really meant to do is add more points where money can be raised. In a single entry cost, you can only raise it there, every so often. But add costs to attractions, and you can raise the cost of entry, and the cost of each and every attraction. $3 bucks not enough for your e tix, raise it to $4. Build a new killer attraction, make it a $5. Just don't expect prices to go down like they did when a D ticket became a C ticket. Won't happen anymore. dumb idea.
Originally Posted By TheBigChurro "What is there to say that they don't drop the general admission price down to $5-$10 and charge $2 for E's on down? " 1. There's a basic infrastructure/labor cost that has to be recovered. 2. Super low entry costs = crowds. And probably of a type that would be worse than the so cal aps are now.
Originally Posted By rasvar My ride costs were a little low. I would say that $15 - $20 entry and $5 - $3 would be in line for all the attractions. The only thing I did not like about the old ticket system was waiting in line at the ticket booth to get more E's so I could get back on Space Mountain. If you went with a 'virtual' ticket instead of just assigning a cost, you would succeed in spreading people out to the large and small attractions. That is where a smart card can work. Now an even scarier concept would be dynamic cost. The longer the line, the more it would cost to get on. With the idea that you get folks to go to attractions with shorter or no lines. There are so many things they could come up with this system. If an attraction is running with a lot of empty cars/seats, the price can be dropped to entice people into the line. Maybe Tiki Room is running slow. Add a special discount for a cookie or beverage instead of lowering the price. The posibilities would be endless. You think people work hard at trying to figure out fastpass. Wait until you see what people try to do to figure what price will happen when if you have a dynamic system in place. Not saying any of this will happen. I doubt the smartcards even occur. But all of that is within the realm of possibility.
Originally Posted By cantstandher I think Fab-o doesn't know what she's talking about. Shocker. no way this will happen.
Originally Posted By arstogas I have every confidence that Fab DID get the story firsthand from someone within WDI. There's little question of that. But the thing is, a LOT of ideas are constantly being proposed. They go through a process to finally get to someone that will hear and pass the concept along. Now this is a more business-bottom-line sort of thing, and that gets me thinking it has probably already gotten to someone within corporate for review. THAT SAID, it doesn't mean that this research was SUGGESTED by the "evil MBA's we like to flog, (and I do mean LIKE) or that any initiative will follow through to implement such a plan. My guess is if ANYTHING at all is done, they'll try something like it somewhere localized, and see how that works. Maybe even one or both of the big waterparks in WDW, though those are not as good a test because the big impact of something like this would be tested in a park with an enormous DIVERSITY of attractions, like Disneyland or Epcot. No telling if it will happen, but regardless of one's opinion of Fab, she doesn't come up with this stuff out of thin air.
Originally Posted By arstogas Oh, another thought. This talk about every attraction coming from popular (and usually Disney) movies. Well, not every attraction. There WERE intentions of tying MISSION: Space to the film MISSION TO MARS, but they were abandoned (good thing) and the initial concepts had nothing to do with the movie, either. There was a "middle period" when there was that inevitable attempt at synergy. EXPEDITION EVEREST is not a movie-based attraction. At least not yet. You never know what bandwagon the film division will try to jump on. And EE is a major, major attraction. So let's not go too far with the sweeping generalizations. These two major new E ticket rides came with no prepackaged audience, and I think that bodes well for the future. It's the lower cost attractions and overlays that are suffering from this, and while I don't like that either... save the big money for new ideas.
Originally Posted By rasvar I agree completely with Arstogas. There are so many ideas that are floated and tested in smaller scales that never make it to the end for one reason or another. It was not like all for one passes just occured overnight. They were tested. I was lucky enough to test one at WDW when my family won a week long, everything included trip. Instead of tickets, we had badges that we had to wear around our necks at all times. This pass was designed to cover food too. Even at the fast food counters. It was another few years before the passports occured. However, items like signing food off in the parks to passes did not occur for another few years. I was also lucky enough to get selected to test an information pda that would, in theory, be made available to the public and let them know things that or going on. Truthfully, when I did the survey afterwards, I did not think it would fly. However, it could have been a predescesor to PAL Mickey. Evrything goes through stages of devolpment. Some things never happen. Others get tested. One last example. WDW in just the last year installed some cameras that guests could use to take pictures of them at various spots. They ran some tests. Based on the fact that those cameras [themed to match the area and not at all inexpensive looking] were gone. I would guess that project did not work. The smartcards would probably go through tests. But it doesn't mean they will happen.
Originally Posted By fastpassmountain Fascinating Topic! For the most part I would have to say that instituting a pay-per-attraction system could likely create more problems than solutions. Here are a few scenarios/reasons: A lot of AP-holders nowadays will visit the park for a half day or so, ride a few rides, take in a few shows, perhaps enjoy a meal, and then leave. For the budget conscious guest, I could see people really trying to milk their admission's worth. People might pay the lowest cost to enter the park, visit one or two attractions, then spend the rest of their visit aimlessly roaming, attempting to do "free" things. The park's walkways could become much more crowded with wandering guests- perhaps far worse than the current AP leisurite set. Second, having to pay for attractions does not give the park an incentive to build the biggest, best, most elaborate attraction as idealized in Michelle’s well-written article. Any introductory economics course thoroughly covers supply and demand curves. With these there’s a point at which supply for a good or service meets its adequate demand (forgot what the term is called), and Disney would much more likely use this point to budget an attraction so that it would generate the greatest amount of returns at the lowest cost. One could argue that the major studios create big-budget films with the intentions of drawing in blockbuster crowds. However, I think the difference here is that theme park attractions are more often built with the value of permanence versus initial short term fiscal gains (although the parks’ recent offering have me second-guessing ). Third, as expressed quite well by many on these boards, it would most certainly create a much more confused vacation experience. As noted earlier, many guests are still unaware of the Fastpass system, and even some who know of it’s existence still don’t use it because they think there is a charge or they need a special pass to use it. Since even Fastpass isn’t as effective as it could be, I can’t imagine how any marketing wizards would be able to make a pay-per-attraction system ‘fool proof’. Imagine how out-of-state travelers wanting to book a Disney vacation and expect to see and do everything might feel. It would be a much harder sell for an agent or Disney travel representative to get a family of four to vacation according to a smart card system package. Families would be strictly relegated to budgeting not only their time, but their money at the park- and perhaps ultimately decide upon spending less days at DLR, and more at other local attractions or just make the trip shorter altogether. Families usually want no-brainer Disney vacations, not one's where credits and tickets must be calculated and thought out. People aren't just going to shell out money because they want to ride Space Moutain again to the extent that a system like this would be created for. Lastly, if a system like this were proven to be ineffective, it might just turn people off to Disney altogether. About five years ago a DVD-type format called Divx was introduced that Circuit City (and a few other smaller companies) tried to sell to the public as an afforable, user friendly product. Essentially, it was a DVD that you could only watch a few times. After that, you had to buy rights to see the movie again. Not only was it unclear that you were only buying the first few viewings (I think it gave you a 48 hour viewing window after your first viewing before it was locked again), but even those who understood the system didn’t like the idea that they didn’t actually own the movie (and as such, didn’t have the right to see it at any time). How this is applicable to the parks is that when you buy a ticket for unlimited use of attractions, there’s the feeling that you’re truly unlimited in what you can do, even though you're limited by lines, energy and operating hours. People like the idea that they can ride the Jungle Cruise or Matterhorn as many times during the day if they want, even if they only ride it once. A pay-per-attraction system would create a far different park culture, annoying more people than pleasing, and ultimately turning off guests from visiting the park for good. There’s a much greater feeling in knowing that you have the run-of-the-park, not what’s left on your card. Even most carnivals have unlimited ride wristbands nowadays. There must be other solutions to the ‘problem’: significantly increasing the cost of an AP; limiting normal park operating hours and extending the day for a nominal fee (i.e. E-Ticket nights or a comparable promotion); creating more people-eating attractions that alleviate some of the crowds in the walkways and therefore create a more pleasant experience; making Fastpass a pay system instead of free system (like some Six Flags parks have instituted); creating levels of passports that allow unlimited Fastpass, front of the line privileges, automatic re-rides, etc.. A system where one would have to pay-per-attraction would severely cheapen the magic, not create a more pleasant entertainment experience. Just my .03 cents (.02 + inflation)
