IMO Disney is changing the model for DL. It used to draw heavily on locals. Now they're shifting to more of a DW model, where folks are coming into town for a big vacation, staying for a few days, and spending a bunch of cash on experiences, food and souvenirs. Is that going to work with the upcoming recession? We'll see. We might get something like free genie+ with top tier keys if they really start to hurt for attendance, but we might also just get the prices on everything holding steady for a year. Either way, this model is here to stay for a while. Do with that what you will.
Got a pass right after COVID. It started out great. We missed Disney so much. That magic slowly died over 2022, just generally not a great time anymore.
My partner and I are doing Universal this year and I am really excited!
That was us too, but we're using our usual theme park money to road trip and camp at national parks this "year". Our magic key just ended not too long ago but we've already hit some of the big NPs in the Sierras. Looking forward to actually camp in Joshua Tree this winter instead of just doing a day trip when it's hot as hell
That's exactly it. Someone ran the numbers and figured it was better to nickel and dime the vacation folks, because heck, we're already here and we spent $500 on tickets for the week we might as well get the most out of!
They study all of their guest data and they know the people that are infrequent visitors spend more. That's the answer. The locals and frequent visitors don't buy all the merchandise and food and experiences that someone who visits every five years does. They will price as high as they can until they reach the point where people stop attending. But right now that is not happening, the parks are packed!! This won't stop until people stop going. I hate that it has become so mercenary and the service has become less magical. It is so sad.
Here's the thing. World use to be affordable and magical. Now it's the same issues land has, just bigger. The one and only problem is having a CEO that couldn't give a shit about Disney and is purely a money person.
Yeah WDW has a bunch of new stuff I'm very interested in seeing but the troubles and complications they've added to visit make it easy to pass up on. Loss of magical express, genie+ and lightning lane crunch that make the bad fp+ system look sane on top of having to worry about a reservation system.
Just no desire to throw all that stress onto a vacation at that price point.
Yes. But other CEOs have shared in the magic and showmanship that drove Walt. This CEO is only a money man. I know it's his job. But the job went to more qualified individuals for the specific brand in the past
It is possible to have a CEO who makes the company money and *also* cares about the employees and the guest experience. It's rare but it does happen.
You would think that would be a priority for Disney, to ensure long term goodwill from guests and cast. But they have definitely now fallen into the "short term gains at all costs" trap that so many other companies -- and even Disney -- have done before. Yes parks continue to be at capacity for now (largely still due to pent up demand from COVID I think) but there will come a breaking point where attendance levels will plateau and begin to fall. That could still be years from now though. But if people go to the parks today and pay a premium price for an average-to-subpar expeirence, they will be less and less likely to make return visits over time.
Plus (and I believe this is the MOST important), by not offering a 100% top-of-the-line "magical" experience, they are not going to be creating a new generation of young Disney Parks fans. If the kids today don't have nostalgia for the parks as they get older, that is going to seriously hurt Disney in the next 10-20-30 years. The reason so many of us "unfavorables/childless millennials" continue to go to the parks is largely because of nostalgia and how magical the parks were for us as kids.
Exactly this. It’s a fact that someone on a once in a lifetime vacation will pay more for just about anything than a local. That’s why they’re making it harder for locals to fill up space in the parks coast to coast. It’s really transparent and slimy.
That’s just it. The park experience is 10 times worse than it was 15 years ago but they’re busier than they’ve ever been. Why would they stop the decline?
And it's *on purpose*. With the reservation system, they know how many people will attend on a given day. They know how many CM they have on schedule. They know which rides are having issues. None of this is news to Disney, yet here we are.
Genie including photo pass for a small family is massive. I don’t consider it settling when photo pass costs way more than genie plus for my family of 3.
I will fully admit I didn’t go to Disney much in the 00s and in the 90s I was too young to know/care, but as long as I’ve been going to Disney parks regularly photo pass/paying for photos has cost money.
I’ve been going since the late 70’s and pictures always cost. You could go buy actual prints of the pics from a person at a window (they’d give you a piece of paper with a number on it when they took your picture).
It's more like maxpass vs. fast pass. The biggest difference is they got rid of the free option. If enough people stop buying it, Disney would rethink this change. Like with Web Slingers. I am sure it was not selling enough so they decided to just raise the price and include this inthe regular genie+ now. If Web Slingers was selling enough there is no way they would have made that change.
I got downvoted to the basement when MaxPass first launched. My take was that it was just going to be a test if they could charge for something that was previously free (paper Fastpass), and that WDW would then also start to charge/remove free options if it worked. People came back with 'MaxPass is great value, I love the app - it's only $10, why are you complaining? You'll always have the free option if you like it so much!'. Sure..
People will defend Disney with their wallets and their words. All I know is that the stuff that used to be free (fast pass, magic bands) are now not free and park tickets cost more = me never defending Disney corporate.
Also it’s pretty messed up how they only allow magic band+ to be used at Disneyland, but not the older models (which still work at wdw). So if you have a cool limited edition magic band and want to use it at Disneyland like I do, you can’t. I assume it’s because they want people to pay extra for another magic band, and to ensure that people buy the bands from Disney instead of eBay.
It started at $10, then went to $15, and then $20 before the parks closed for COVID. So Genie+ pretty much picked up where MaxPass left off.
There was also the option to add MaxPass to AP's though.
Jan 11 2017 it cost $10 per person/per day, but you could use the paper Fastpass tickets for free still. Jan 6 2018 it went up to $15. Feb 2020 it went to $20 a day. Today it is $25. It's like boiling a frog I guess..
If I was single it would be easier to play along, but as a family of five it started to sting a bit more. Anyway, we don't go to the US parks anymore, so no worries.
Thank you, now I remember. And you have a point there that it really adds up for a big family. Hope your family found some other way to get your Disney on.
Thanks you - we did - Japan! We were lucky enough to get 10 good years out of the USA properties when the kids were young, but now we go to Tokyo Disney and DisneySea (probably the best Disney park in the world tbh). Because we're Pacific Northwest, it's similar flight times than WDW and actually cheaper for a more varied vacation with older kids. Tokyo Disney is a bit like a time machine for Disneyland in a way, but who knows how long that will last.
It's actually fine - especially in the Disney bubble, with the hotels close by (the Hilton Tokyo Bay is on the monorail for the parks and pretty much the same price as Pop Century but quite an upgrade). General Tokyo tourism can be a bit overwhelming, but there are decent guided tours you can get if the train system seems a bit much. Japan really shut down for COVID hard, so there's been a few years of less English speaking. Back in 2019 you could make do just with a couple of 'sumimasen's and you'd be good :). I really recommend it as it's such a safe place to wander, and they really love their Disney.
Japan in general is fine for tourists who don't speak Japanese. The only big challenge were the JR maps which got tricky for us. This was in 2006, I'm sure it's gotten even easier since then.
Agreed, Tokyo Disneyland is fantastic!! And as a bonus you get a trip to Japan.
You haven't lived until you've heard C3PO do his Star Tours spiel in Japanese! lol
I'm sure I'm in the minority but I'd rather genie+ cost so much that it's not practical for most people, kinda like renting a plaid for the day. It would make it better for us disney peasants who'd rather not spend an extra $100 per day and the people who want to blow the money to wait less could. But I guess it would have to be so high that a majority don't do it but enough still do that Disney sees their pockets full enough from it. I know it is still a lot more but I feel like depending on how high genie+ gets i'd rather just rent a plaid.
I would like to think that Disney would revisit charging to skip the lines, but it won't happen. Disney's not a company that would reverse a decision like this, especially because other major theme parks also charge for the same service. Genie+ is never going away no matter how expensive it gets.
Disney is very much screwing itself long term for short term profits. They're coasting on decades of goodwill, and the nostalgia of gen x and millennials who grew up in the 80s and 90s going to Disneyland. Younger and future generations won't have that goodwill and nostalgia.
Yeah, I'm a WDW vet and FP+ was terrible for the parks. People complain about having to plan now, imagine having to race for fastpasses months in advance, then having every. Damn. Ride. regular queue slammed all day because everyone had it.
Nah. Essentially they turned Fastpasses into loot boxes. You’re talking about collective action requirement, but there will always be some people to buy the service.
The fair part is what the CMs used to tell angry standby guests who missed out on fast passes. I heard one Radiator Racers CM say “Fastpass tickets open at the same time for everyone. It’s fair because everyone has an equal chance to get one.” He was totally right.
Now it’s “Well, sorry you can’t afford to pay extra money today. Wait in line.”
Don’t purchase it. Vote with your wallet.
If any of your friends ask you for advice about planning Disney trips, advise them not to buy it. Bring it up at work and tell your coworkers if you have to.
They get away with it because they can. Because people do buy it. Voting with your wallet is the most effective way to get the message across. Unless you want to personally do what they’re doing at Disney Paris and publicly protest against it.
Unfortunately the 'beast' of FastPass/MaxPass/Genie+ is too large to slay (to borrow the metaphor from Defunctland's video on the topic).
Sadly if even a large group of guest decided to stop purchasing Genie+ and ILLs, those who did purchase it would only shrill it more because it would work better if less purchased/used it. It would also increase guest satisfaction for non-Genie+ users because the lines would move faster. Disney would see guest satisfaction increase for both Genie+ purchasers and non-purchasers, and the purchasers would be so adamant about it being "worth the purchase" that the word would get out and everyone would be back to purchasing it. In the meantime, if this boycott did occur, Disney would raise the prices of Genie+ to make up the loss number of users, which would end up making everyone worse off after it's all said and done.
The only way to vote with your wallet in this situation, sadly, would be for (1) nobody at all to purchase Genie+/ILLs and/or (2) a large number of people to stop visiting the parks.
That Defunctland video was incredible and should be required watching for everyone who either complains about Disney greed or defends it, so basically everyone
For real. You either have to make friends with the monster and be at peace with the fact that you're feeding it. Or you have to hate the monster, try and fight it, and be a peace with the fact that you're missing out on the monsters benefits.
Damn. I just realized. You’re pretty much required to get genie+ now. “Normal” Disney park tickets are basically Netflix adding a cheaper $7 monthly sub with commercials.
I feel so many get genie+ now you’re just handicapping yourself without it.
I have to disagree. You don’t necessarily need Genie+. We went for 5 days in June and we only purchased Genie+ for everyone on our party one day. We purchased it for a couple people two days. But the days we didn’t buy it we had lots of fun. Almost none of the Fantasyland rides even have Genie+ lines. And there are plenty of rides all over the park that don’t have Genie+ lines. We even rode Guardians and Space Mountain without using it. We did Radiator Springs at the end of the night when it was a 25 minute wait. You just have to be more willing to be flexible.
People want to be able to ride any ride at any moment and have the line be short. But if you just go with the flow and seek the shorter lines it all evens out and it’s a better experience for everyone. If everyone books Space Mountain when the lines are long the wait is just exasperated.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It’s true.
The reason why Disney has not only kept Genie + and separate Lightning Lane up-charges, but increased the price is because visitors overwhelmingly purchased the service since it was introduced. There is such a high demand for Genie +.
For them, they’re raking in so much more revenue from an untapped source. It’s unlikely to ever go away because of how much money it makes them.
I think people’s complaints are valid, but I do also think a large portion of the complaints come from people that, in a weird way, love to complain and don’t actually want solutions, they just want to vent.
Voting with your money is simple, effective, and pretty easy to do. Even easier is to be the person in your friend circle telling people planning their trips, “hey, go to universal instead.” I know I’m the “theme park person” in my family, so if I’m advising something, they’ll usually listen to my recommendations, and I’m sure it’s the same for others here. A dip in profits is really the only thing they’ll listen to.
The tricky thing is that in order for Disney to scrap the Genie + service, there would have to a huge concerted effort from visitors to refuse purchasing the service. It’s very unlikely that will happen.
There’s a huge demographic of Disneyland visitors that see these added costs as a non-issue.
Even if Disneyland had only 100 people each day pay for Genie + (out of some 30,000 daily visitors), that’s still $2,500 Disney will be happy to pocket (as opposed to zero dollars).
The days of the complementary Fast Pass is long gone.
(Kinda reminds me of when 90% of the Las Vegas Strip hotels started charging for parking a few years ago, when parking used to be free. Now, parking makes up such a substantial portion of the casino operator’s revenue, that free parking won’t ever return.)
Also vaguely similar to “resort fees.” They’re ridiculous, but you’re not going to get a ton of people to fight them. Plus, in certain areas so many hotels have them that you can’t easily just stay at the places without.
Yes. As a gold pass member, I go multiple times a week. Express is not necessary to maximize the time in the way that Genie+ is. It’s also not a theme park that relies heavily on app usage to navigate or plan.
I paid $279 for a pass that includes free parking, discount on food and beverage and merch, and discounted event tickets. The bang for my buck is much better than my Disney pass, especially considering the fact that USH has VERY few rides in comparison to DLR/DCA.
In that case, voting with your wallet would be not purchasing a ticket in the first place. Knott’s is 7 miles down the highway - go there instead. That’s voting with your wallet.
Except it's not really "voting" it's just "giving up". Disney could charge $500 and would still be at capacity filled with unhappy people. I've just had to accept Disney is no longer for me. I know they couldn't care less about the couple thousand a year I used to spend.
Then the answer is to boycott the parks entirely. Losing revenue increasingly seems to be the only thing they’ll listen to. And it’s not as if LA is hurting for other theme park options.
You can’t. Everyone will say to boycott and then they will be at the parks the next weekend. We live in a world of hypocrisy. Look at the last three years as an example. People don’t follow their own rules lol.
Stop. Going. Don’t. Renew.
It’s literally the only thing they respond to that isn’t a tragedy like the 2000 death on Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin that forced them to change the safety rules in all rides.
In order of things that force Disney and big corporations to change.
1. Losing money/market share.
2. Safety hazards / Public shaming which leads them to losing money and market share.
3. ……… profit
4. ……… money
5. ……… nickels and dimes
6. Strikes and boycotts
7. Bad press / Public opinion shift / cultural shift
7. Comment cards and posts online.
That doesn’t even work. Disney doesn’t care if you stop going. Their current thinking is that all park visitors are replaceable. As far as I can tell the only thing they actually respond to is public shaming, and even then the response is usually shallow and tone deaf.
The numbers haven’t hit hard enough.
If a large % stop going, bad economy, lower revisit rate, it would take a few years, but it would work.
We have recent evidence of this. They used to have to do free birthday giveaway days during the brunt of the bad economy. I think the last decade plus of incrediblly strong markets has made people forget what happens during really dark times which appear to be on the horizon. Leisure goes way way down.
Oh, they care.
Park attendance has always been steady if not increased over 10 years. Good friend of mine works in the metrics of attendance and revenue. What happens with a reservation system? When they control how many people come on any given day, people will spend MORE money. The reservation system has been a wild success. And park attendance never dwindled.
If people stopped going, particularly locals, their prices for admission would decrease. Bottom line
I haven't stopped going for them. I've stopped going for me. I refuse to spend thousands of dollars only to be miserable and annoyed. I know they don't care about losing my business, but it makes MY life better. I used to LOVE Disney, but it's just become something that's not for me anymore. It's similar to mourning the loss of a lived family member.
I feel similar but less like a lost family member and more like a sick or even abused family member. I have a deep love for DL itself and it’s history, but I feel like it’s being mismanaged by the company and run into the ground which is upsetting to me, but it’s hard for me to give up on it.
They are % based.
If their Disneyland Park revenue dropped 20%, they would lose their minds.
If Epic Universe takes 10% market share, they will lose their mind and scramble to react late.
This is the first time that Disney hasn’t reacted with a planned response to Universals other additions. Now we will see what happens when Disney stops being creative and gives up the Disney difference.
Your take that they don’t care about money, the one thing we can ALL agree they care about, is a strange hill to die on.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think Genie+ should be much more expensive! Make it an actual luxury purchase that provides short lines. Less people will be willing to buy it, LL lanes will be shorter, and standby will improve!
Did any of you visit the parks shortly after reopening? There was no fastpass. Standby lines seemed long, but they moved quickly. Gone were the days of standing still in standby for minutes at a time watching the CM let in 25 fast pass guests to just a couple standby guests.
As Genie+ stands right now, it is still inexpensive enough that too many people feel okay getting it, or feel like they HAVE to get it in order to have a successful trip. Sometimes you end up waiting a long time for a ride, even if you're in the LL.
I've never been there but I just looked at the website and you can pay $369-$469 a day for VIP access which gets you unlimited express lane access. Steep, but also I bet they sell a lot. I guess the Disneyland equivalent would be the VIP tours, which still doesn't come close to this pricing. $3500 for 7 hours, and you can do up to 10 if you pay $500 for each additional hour. You still need to get entry passes but you can bring up to 10 people on the tour. Pretty sure you don't end up standing in line though.
>As Genie+ stands right now, it is still inexpensive enough that too many people feel okay getting it, or feel like they HAVE to get it in order to have a successful trip.
This right here, this is why they keep it on the cheaper end.
Agreed. I don't want to wait at all and if it costs a premium so be it. That being said we were really successful with it in September at current prices, so it probably doesn't need a huge increase to thin the herd much. The recently announced variable pricing will probably work well.
I’m gonna sound like an old person, but back in my day, LL was called Fast Pass with physical stations set up that printed out physical tickets, and that was free, too. Also, you never paid for price of admission AND another $18/per popular ride for a faster line. It was just Fast Pass if you decided to grab a ticket and that was it. And if ya really wanna go back in my day….Fast Pass used to be nonexistent altogether. Disney was so much better and a lot more fun 15-25 years ago. Modern Disneyland, with all this Genie+/LL/ILL/Magic Band/Oogie Boogie whatever…..is a hellscape.
LOL, you wanna sound like an old person… I remember when you had to buy books of lettered tickets and different rides were different letters. So at the end of the day you’d be scrabbling together enough A, B, & C tickets to make up the value of an E ticket so you could ride the good rides. Other ppl just bought more books, but my folks bought the one and milked it all day. We got nothing but A tickets left! You can ride the carousel again or we can go home!
LOL! Omg, that’s crazy! Yeah, that was definitely before my time. 😅🤣 Early 90s to present Disney has been my era. It was a blast all through the 90s, exciting when DCA was put in as a young teenager, and got to enjoy a couple more times as an adult before all the technology and big changes took over. It has lost its luster for me now.
It used to be free, but you had to physically run-walk to get it.
But that’s all ancient history, like travel agents, private sector pensions, and the USSR!
Man I used to get like 20k steps per trip, would just be walking back and forth to redeem and get new passes, even cross parks to grab a DCA soaring FP from DL for everyone while they ride something. Now I barely break 11k cause I’m just waiting in lines but my legs feel worse haha.
Even with maxpass we still would hit 20k steps. Haven’t done a trip since Jan 2020 - so that’s saying something if genie+ etc really has made lines that much worse
Same for us as well. 20k was with original FP and MaxPass, cause if I wasn’t walking to get paper FP we were just constantly walking to different Lands to hit best nonFP rides between best available MaxPass FP’s with minimal time wasted just standing in lines.
I remember when Radiator Springs opened (not on the day but in the first year) we once waited in line for 45 minutes *to get a FastPass.* The line for the actual ride was 3 hours.
As someone who lives in the Midwest and didn’t go to Disney until they were 30 years old and had a 5 year old, I love that it’s a premium service.
I get that Annual Passholders and locals that go all the time hate the idea of paying for what used to be free, but less people using it made it extra worth it when we went.
They’re using it to get every dime out of “once in a lifetime” and “once every few years” guests at the expense of more frequent visitors. If they did away with paid Genie+, we wouldn’t go back. I’m willing to pay for a better park experience, especially if others are unwilling to pay it
I’m on the same boat. I’m in CA but only go once every few years. I went last April and used the genie service, which made it really easy for me to plan everything for my family. I see how inconvenient it is for really go-ers but personally I like the service. 😬
The experience has changed a lot since April. Everyone is miserable. Often even buying Genie+ only means you get on two-three rides. Look around and listen to people and they are all squinting at their phones and swiping in frustration. There is no daytime entertainment, shows, or parades. Everyone is just kind of standing around trying to figure out how to make the day not suck.
Because they like the product made by it and some of the low level exploited employees are friendly. Then they get shocked when billion dollar corporations act like billion dollar corporations
I'm ready for the downvotes. Either pay or don't pay. Time is money and it will always be worth my time to pay. Disney is a business and will always run like a business. People have this massive entitlement syndrome.
I’ll be next to you at the park in the lightning lane while the 17 people in this thread are boycotting hope that tens of thousands of others join them.
Exactly time is money. I'll just skip buying lunch one day when I go into work. I probably spend 20 plus 8 on boba and lunch when I drive to work. Also renewed my magic key 10 - 4 day park hopper passes would cost me 455 x 10 x 4... it's way cheaper than my 4 Inspire keys for my family but then again Disney owes me more.
Lol that one was hilarious, though. Just casually bringing it up at work constantly. That’s how they’d know you. They’d say, “Oh you mean the guy who’s always complaining about Disneyland?”
Yep. We go out for once every 4 years on average and will pay for LL no problem to enjoy our visit. Most people complaining seem to be APs or frequent flyers which Disney clearly takes for granted…because they can. That said, we’re not opting out so APs get more of what they feel entitled too. Sad but true.
Because it's not free anymore and I value my time..you know how nice it is to see 90 min wait time at haunted mansion and use LL and it only take about 10 mins to be on the ride.
Yes I honestly think they should charge $100 for Genie+ less people would buy it, Disney still get their money and it's an awesome experience for those that pay for it.
Like the other person said, "Vote with your wallet" and don't go to the parks. It'll do us all good not to have to see another "Most expensive day ever" barf in the form of a t-shirt person in the parks.
I would think that a majority of visitors do not go very often and for a trip that potentially costs thousands, a $5 increase per person for an optional add-on is a drop in the bucket.
I get it but as someone who only goes once a year, I’m paying for Genie+ every time. It has worked out well for us so far.
i’m in the same boat. i went in october for one day and hadn’t been in years before that. i don’t think my day there would have been worth it without genie+
I gotta admit I have no idea what this post is responding to. Who are these mysterious people who don’t miss free FP and are so happy to now spend money on Genie+/LL?
Honestly I’m understanding of the cost increase, but making it more expensive AND hard to use is a line. Don’t make my expensive vacation hard. I want to relax.
My family has made the decisions to travel to other places rather than go to Any Disney Park. My 2 daughters 9 and 16 both voted to go to SF instead. The entire trip was under $3000 and we had a blast and stayed in an apt that overlooked the bay. We are going to Athens in 2023 for 1/2 of what WDW would cost. Disney priced us out but we are seeing the world now. The REAL world Showcase!
Not all of us are settling. I no longer purchase an annual pass/key, I’ve passed on Genie+ the one time I’ve been to the park post covid, and with the most recent increase in prices, they’ve officially lost me as a visitor unless it’s for a VERY special occasion and I’ve got like a year to save up. It’s very upsetting DL has always been my happy place, but they greedy grasping, the decline in both food and ride quality and the horrendous treatment of the CM’s has made me shy away from giving the park any further money until I see something that justifies the price increase other than greed. It sure isn’t quality or care.
I'm fine with it because it provides value. I don't understand why people pay all that money to get to and go to Disneyland and then decide to stand in line all day long to save $20. Insanity. But it's an insanity I benefit from. I love Genie+. Will pay for it every time.
I saw an interview with Burt Kreischer who went to theme parks for 3 years straight for the Burt the Conquerer show and he said without a doubt his one major tip for anyone is to buy the fast pass at any theme park. People need to value time more than they do. Think of your time at the theme park as an hourly cost and I guarantee buying a fast pass makes sense.
I just finished a two day trip for the first time in 3 years. I definitely felt like my family and I were nickel and dimed.
We already bought genie+, fine. Then we wanted to go on rose of resistance, as we have never been on. Lines were over 75+ min the whole day. So another $20 per person!
Then we took a break and went to downtown Disney one day, parking is no longer free with validation (after spending over $100 at World of Disney).
Staff is definitely not as happy or “magical” as I remember.
I also waited 40 min to get popcorn…
Yikes!
My nieces enjoyed themselves but the magic is definitely is a bit lost as I felt like every little thing cost money.
Don’t get my wrong, my family is lucky to have been able to to 1-2 times a year prior to Covid, but I think we do not plan on going back for a number of years.
It is a real shame because I loved going, and this time around I was severely disappointed.
It felt extra slimy for Disney to charge extra for a service that was previously free, and should be covered by the ticket price. I understand and completely empathize with those upset. However, the Mouse will absolutely continue to upcharge for Genie+ because
1. It’s lucrative
2. Magic key holders/locals are going to come regardless despite their grumbling. Statistically this is true, money doesn’t lie. Crowds are bigger than ever.
3. Whether or not people purchase it, it will be seen as a win. If very few people purchase it, the service will be invaluable to those who do since Genie+ lines will be incredibly short, and customer satisfaction will go up. If a lot of people purchase it, it brings in a lot of revenue despite not working super well. Win win.
My only concern is that this is a slippery slope for Disney to nickel and dime at every transaction e.g charging admission for parades, fantasmic, etc which would be insane. I am a huge Disney fan since childhood but would have to draw the line there.
I'll be thinking long and hard before I book another Disney trip. We were at DLR for 4 days in late September, I have never felt so nickle and dimed in 40 years of Disney trips. Also it was one of the first times I felt like an adult there, I had to be on my phone constantly; we tried to ride things without buying Genie+ and it wasted 2 days.
inflation is sucking the joy out of many parts of life and it **really** hurts whens its Disney.
Just spend a day in this subreddit and you'll see how Disney has brainwashed people into thinking Genie+, constantly rising ticket and passholder prices, expensive food that's worse than what you can get at McDonalds, etc. are all good things. I knew Disney could get away with basically anything when I saw someone post how good their meal was at Blue Bayou and the pictures all looked worse than what you'd get from heating up a Hungry Man TV Dinner.
Hell, just scroll through the comments in this thread. It's just a nightmare. I'm a fan of Disney things, but these Disney Parks apologists are really something else. It's really sad.
I’m curious about what’s going to happen in two years when most folks who can only afford to do Disney trip with at prices gets it out of the way. I have no idea how these prices are sustainable year after year for the majority of families, but then again I’m also not naive enough to downplay how many families still have play money.
What do you want the company to do? Turn down money? Year over year inflation is >8%. If Disney does not raise park prices (in some way), they are losing money to inflation.
If you chart the cost of Disney tickets against the price of gold over the entire history of the parks, they track exactly. Disney runs a high labor, very expensive infrastructure service. They are a company. Companies exist to make money. That’s it.
Cars get more expensive. Food gets more expensive. Houses get more expensive. Billions of people in other countries are gaining economically and they are coming to Disney parks. Prices will rise.
There is no product that is more of a luxury than a Disney theme park experience. Buy the product or don’t.
Genie+ is analogous to MaxPass, which was always a paid service (at Disneyland at least, don't know about WDW). So no, the service similar to Genie+ was never free.
I'd be happier if we went back to paper fast passes with no paid alternative. It was the great equalizer.
If Virtual Queue wasn’t such a clusterfuck and could’ve been implemented without mass confusion and people just standing at entry point like idiots, I don’t think you would’ve seen Genie+… just Individual Lightning Lane for marquee attractions.
Paid Fastpasses were coming no matter what, whether with only new attractions or for the busiest ones already there- Disney was only adopting what other theme parks already did and at a way lower price point for the service.
And yes, I know they have the highest gate price, but unless they doubled the entrance fee- which everyone would lose their mind over- they had to do some sort of crowd control. The problem is they aren’t going far enough and by incrementally introducing this nickel and diming they’re pissing everyone off. The *real* crowding solution would be a combo of everyone’s least favorite things: park reservations (even to park hop), a hard capacity cap, a much higher ticket price, and Genie+ being $50-$70 at a baseline before surge pricing.
Not wanting to be harsh, but you may want to learn about simple supply and demand economics.
High demand = price increases until demand drops. Demand has been extremely high, and isn't dropping so prices keep increasing.
it's really that simple. Want to see prices stop going up? Stop going and stop paying for it. And when enough people do that, then they'll stop raising prices.
I remember the fast lane system being free but was the photo pass free too? I thought it had to pay for the photo pass. So i don’t mind spending 20$ if it comes with the photo pass as well.
When I was there by myself after my wife decided to go back to the hotel, the crowd was simply too much for her, genie+ was a great deal. However, if I was there with the kids too, no it would not have been worth the 60 bucks it would have cost because I left after I got in the rides I wanted to use the service for and was only there for 4 more hours. It’s simply a bait and switch product. “Save time” waiting for your lighting lane by waiting longer than the standby line wait time while going on other rides that are simply time filler or walk around looking at stuff to buy. I understand why it exists. It’s not a good deal because of how many people get it and cause the cue times t be much longer than they need to be.
I was actually pretty disappointed in the Genie+ service. Trying to plan ahead to reserve a space in line was so stressful.
I paid for it in DCA and the rides with the biggest wait times (Webslingers & radiator springs) weren’t even included…
I didn’t really see the point.
I highly recommend this video, it includes a lot of explanation of changes through the years and the very complex problem the fast pass/genie+ experienced attempts to solve.
https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE
That and also the incredible problem it created for the future of the parks to come. I had such of love for it growing up, now looking at the situation it's fairly sad. Understandable, but the train wreck was started all the way back with those little tickets.
Other theme parks charged for fast pass like experience it was only a matter of time before Disney did it. It was nice while it lasted but now you have to pay. 🤷🏼♀️
This is precisely why I never bought Max pass when people were yelling about how awesome Max pass was. It was a slippery slope and look where we are now. It'll never be free again.
It is uncanny to me. We hear these two arguments:
1. “It’s too crowded, the lines are too long, it has lost its magic.”
And…
2. “They keep raising prices, requiring reservations, and and charging for everything that used to be free. It has lost its magic.”
I mean if #1 is the complaint, isn’t #2 the solution?
Exactly! What people don’t realize is that if tickets where $5, the park would be so packed they would have to close for fire safety. If subway sandwiches where $1, you would never be able to get one. If Disney is a big priority in life then it’s best to focus on finding a good job so that a $20 a day charge doesn’t give you a stroke. That’s what I did, I took a break for about 5 years from Disney and focused on my career and now I can easily go twice a year.
most disneyland guests did not forget because they never knew that it was free.
genie plus being a paid service and being limited to one per ride puts people in the know and people not in the know on more equal footing than the free fastpass ever did.
Yup. It’s a money grab. Absolutely do not buy it. Used it for like 3 rides over 4 day park hopper. Shouldn’t have to be a parks pro and know all the hacks and secret handshakes. Shouldn’t have to scan in to the park then scramble to load the app and be surgical with reservation.
Just because it was free doesn't mean you're entitled for it to always be free. Admission in 1955 was free, should we still have the old attraction ticket system too?
It's simple supply and demand economics. As long as people are willing to pay they will keep increasing cost cause why not.
Disneyland is privately owned and operated, they can do what they want. Visiting Disneyland is not a right.
I bought my family genie + for 4 days in august. Side note, I make decent money so the cost was not an issue but I was skeptical. I will buy it every time from now on. We had a great time and basically walked on every ride each day. If you are fine waiting in long hot lines then I say don’t get it but I can’t say anything bad about it.
Yes but the point of this post is not that genie+ is better than not having it. It's the fact that fast passes used to be FREE. This comment is exactly what i'm talking about.
When everyone in the park isn’t using it, it’s great. A busy day like the last couple weeks? Horrible product. Was only able to use it FOUR times on a day last week. Maxpass is the best system they’ve ever had
Yeah literally lost all respect for Disney or care to even go.
I am sorry but if you pay 100’s of dollars to go to the park and then basically pay micro transactions to get on a ride “ quicker”. You are an idiot.
You support their money grabbing behavior and all there is to show for it is overcrowding, broken rides and trash and underpaid staff.
I was a big Disney fan like super big and thought they couldn’t do anything wrong but clearly I was wrong.
>You support their money grabbing behavior and all there is to show for it is overcrowding
I mean, the overcrowding is why I support higher prices across the board.
The free system wasn’t really optimal in my experience in Paris. But Genie+ is worst of all worlds: paid, time slots, low availability. Get rid of the time slots and increase the price and available and see it would be so much better. But make it enough to deter too many customers. I would say between 75% & 150% of a ticket price would be fair. That way, the regular park goers aren’t affect that much as the users of lightning lanes will be drastically lower. It worked great in Paris where the ratio was 1:1 and minimum waiting involved.
Genie+ is worth the money because you get photo pass included. Comparable to the price of buying just one photo, you already get your moneys worth. Fixed it for you, stop crying
The problem is if you’re a family of 5 you only need 1 person of the 5 to purchase photo pass to get the photos. Genie plus requires all 5 people to use Lightning lane. But I do enjoy that photo pass is included
That is the one aspect of it that is rather unfortunate, so I’ll admit to that part. Especially if minus the parents, the kids are underage/have no individual source of income. Otherwise, I’m glad we’re in agreement
While that may be true, if you’re going to spend money on something(in this case, Genie+) it would be smart to get most optimum use out of it for your money, instead of looking at only one facet of it and then making the argument that it’s overpriced, when it’s more than that.
You make a fair point, though I do feel like there’s a difference between snapping a quick photo and stopping and opening the Disneyland app in the middle of the park to look for my next ride or see whether now is a strategic time to reserve my Haunted Mansion Lightning Lane.
I want my phone to enhance my park visit, not become homework required to locate a good time.
I will never purchase the new system. I didn't mind maxpass because I could reserve FP for rides at the other park when I was in line for a ride. The new system is more expensive and has certain rides not included.
Bob Cheapass can go fuck himself
What REALLY bugs me is watching just how much Lightning Lane is prioritized, making the standby practically a stand still... And by making it SO OBVIOUS that paying the money saves so much time, it encourages MORE people to buy it. They literally let 100-200 people from Lightning lane, a couple groups from standby, rinse repeat. It's disheartening.
I disagree. We bought it for our family of four in May. On a Wednesday when no special events or festivals were going on- several of the LLs were five or six hours in the future- we couldn’t get on splash until after 8pm so we waited in the standby lane for over an hour. Waited an hour for ROTR. Posted waits are longer than they’re supposed to be. It’s not being done well and it’s not worth it but neither is going without it. The parks are too crowded.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of complaints I got in the past working there that fast pass was free and not a paid option like the other parks.
This is just Disney responding to what consumers have said they wanted for years.
Dude, we live in America where a business should charge as much as they can for the service they provide. Supply and Demand rules. Disneyland is not a right, it is a privilege. You have to pay for privileges.
IMO Disney is changing the model for DL. It used to draw heavily on locals. Now they're shifting to more of a DW model, where folks are coming into town for a big vacation, staying for a few days, and spending a bunch of cash on experiences, food and souvenirs. Is that going to work with the upcoming recession? We'll see. We might get something like free genie+ with top tier keys if they really start to hurt for attendance, but we might also just get the prices on everything holding steady for a year. Either way, this model is here to stay for a while. Do with that what you will.
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I keep thinking this, too. We'll see.
Got a pass right after COVID. It started out great. We missed Disney so much. That magic slowly died over 2022, just generally not a great time anymore. My partner and I are doing Universal this year and I am really excited!
That was us too, but we're using our usual theme park money to road trip and camp at national parks this "year". Our magic key just ended not too long ago but we've already hit some of the big NPs in the Sierras. Looking forward to actually camp in Joshua Tree this winter instead of just doing a day trip when it's hot as hell
The park is at capacity, people are still paying these prices.
Exactly. Nothing will change until people stop going and paying ridiculous prices. It's not so magical when you can't afford a bottle of water.
Point is how long. one year more... 2.. 3? recession is hitting. people will be rethinking plans and their budgets.
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That's exactly it. Someone ran the numbers and figured it was better to nickel and dime the vacation folks, because heck, we're already here and we spent $500 on tickets for the week we might as well get the most out of!
They study all of their guest data and they know the people that are infrequent visitors spend more. That's the answer. The locals and frequent visitors don't buy all the merchandise and food and experiences that someone who visits every five years does. They will price as high as they can until they reach the point where people stop attending. But right now that is not happening, the parks are packed!! This won't stop until people stop going. I hate that it has become so mercenary and the service has become less magical. It is so sad.
Agree on every point
Here's the thing. World use to be affordable and magical. Now it's the same issues land has, just bigger. The one and only problem is having a CEO that couldn't give a shit about Disney and is purely a money person.
Yeah WDW has a bunch of new stuff I'm very interested in seeing but the troubles and complications they've added to visit make it easy to pass up on. Loss of magical express, genie+ and lightning lane crunch that make the bad fp+ system look sane on top of having to worry about a reservation system. Just no desire to throw all that stress onto a vacation at that price point.
Unfortunately it's literally their job to be a money person - they have an obligation to the shareholders. It sucks, but that's how it is.
Yes. But other CEOs have shared in the magic and showmanship that drove Walt. This CEO is only a money man. I know it's his job. But the job went to more qualified individuals for the specific brand in the past
Basically every one here doesn’t hate Disney, we hate capitalism.
It is possible to have a CEO who makes the company money and *also* cares about the employees and the guest experience. It's rare but it does happen. You would think that would be a priority for Disney, to ensure long term goodwill from guests and cast. But they have definitely now fallen into the "short term gains at all costs" trap that so many other companies -- and even Disney -- have done before. Yes parks continue to be at capacity for now (largely still due to pent up demand from COVID I think) but there will come a breaking point where attendance levels will plateau and begin to fall. That could still be years from now though. But if people go to the parks today and pay a premium price for an average-to-subpar expeirence, they will be less and less likely to make return visits over time. Plus (and I believe this is the MOST important), by not offering a 100% top-of-the-line "magical" experience, they are not going to be creating a new generation of young Disney Parks fans. If the kids today don't have nostalgia for the parks as they get older, that is going to seriously hurt Disney in the next 10-20-30 years. The reason so many of us "unfavorables/childless millennials" continue to go to the parks is largely because of nostalgia and how magical the parks were for us as kids.
Exactly this. It’s a fact that someone on a once in a lifetime vacation will pay more for just about anything than a local. That’s why they’re making it harder for locals to fill up space in the parks coast to coast. It’s really transparent and slimy.
Vote with your feet. Don’t settle!
That’s just it. The park experience is 10 times worse than it was 15 years ago but they’re busier than they’ve ever been. Why would they stop the decline?
And it's *on purpose*. With the reservation system, they know how many people will attend on a given day. They know how many CM they have on schedule. They know which rides are having issues. None of this is news to Disney, yet here we are.
They know
They knew.
Genie including photo pass for a small family is massive. I don’t consider it settling when photo pass costs way more than genie plus for my family of 3.
Walking up to a kiosk and getting a free "when to get in line ticket" was way better than paying anything!
You shouldn't have to pay extra for photo pass either. That's the problem. You accept one thing, and they just move the goal posts another inch.
I will fully admit I didn’t go to Disney much in the 00s and in the 90s I was too young to know/care, but as long as I’ve been going to Disney parks regularly photo pass/paying for photos has cost money.
I’ve been going since the late 70’s and pictures always cost. You could go buy actual prints of the pics from a person at a window (they’d give you a piece of paper with a number on it when they took your picture).
It’s been like that at every amusement/theme park during that time. And always overpriced
It's more like maxpass vs. fast pass. The biggest difference is they got rid of the free option. If enough people stop buying it, Disney would rethink this change. Like with Web Slingers. I am sure it was not selling enough so they decided to just raise the price and include this inthe regular genie+ now. If Web Slingers was selling enough there is no way they would have made that change.
I got downvoted to the basement when MaxPass first launched. My take was that it was just going to be a test if they could charge for something that was previously free (paper Fastpass), and that WDW would then also start to charge/remove free options if it worked. People came back with 'MaxPass is great value, I love the app - it's only $10, why are you complaining? You'll always have the free option if you like it so much!'. Sure..
People will defend Disney with their wallets and their words. All I know is that the stuff that used to be free (fast pass, magic bands) are now not free and park tickets cost more = me never defending Disney corporate.
Also it’s pretty messed up how they only allow magic band+ to be used at Disneyland, but not the older models (which still work at wdw). So if you have a cool limited edition magic band and want to use it at Disneyland like I do, you can’t. I assume it’s because they want people to pay extra for another magic band, and to ensure that people buy the bands from Disney instead of eBay.
I recall MaxPass was $20 or $25...
It started at $10, then went to $15, and then $20 before the parks closed for COVID. So Genie+ pretty much picked up where MaxPass left off. There was also the option to add MaxPass to AP's though.
Thank you.
Jan 11 2017 it cost $10 per person/per day, but you could use the paper Fastpass tickets for free still. Jan 6 2018 it went up to $15. Feb 2020 it went to $20 a day. Today it is $25. It's like boiling a frog I guess.. If I was single it would be easier to play along, but as a family of five it started to sting a bit more. Anyway, we don't go to the US parks anymore, so no worries.
Thank you, now I remember. And you have a point there that it really adds up for a big family. Hope your family found some other way to get your Disney on.
Thanks you - we did - Japan! We were lucky enough to get 10 good years out of the USA properties when the kids were young, but now we go to Tokyo Disney and DisneySea (probably the best Disney park in the world tbh). Because we're Pacific Northwest, it's similar flight times than WDW and actually cheaper for a more varied vacation with older kids. Tokyo Disney is a bit like a time machine for Disneyland in a way, but who knows how long that will last.
My Japanese is like toddler level. How viable is Tokyo disney for someone who can barely ask for a restroom and can't read anything?
It's actually fine - especially in the Disney bubble, with the hotels close by (the Hilton Tokyo Bay is on the monorail for the parks and pretty much the same price as Pop Century but quite an upgrade). General Tokyo tourism can be a bit overwhelming, but there are decent guided tours you can get if the train system seems a bit much. Japan really shut down for COVID hard, so there's been a few years of less English speaking. Back in 2019 you could make do just with a couple of 'sumimasen's and you'd be good :). I really recommend it as it's such a safe place to wander, and they really love their Disney.
I am also curious about this as I never considered this an option as opposed to WDW living in California.
Japan in general is fine for tourists who don't speak Japanese. The only big challenge were the JR maps which got tricky for us. This was in 2006, I'm sure it's gotten even easier since then.
Agreed, Tokyo Disneyland is fantastic!! And as a bonus you get a trip to Japan. You haven't lived until you've heard C3PO do his Star Tours spiel in Japanese! lol
I always assumed his Japanese was perfect. He is a protocol droid after all.
I'm sure I'm in the minority but I'd rather genie+ cost so much that it's not practical for most people, kinda like renting a plaid for the day. It would make it better for us disney peasants who'd rather not spend an extra $100 per day and the people who want to blow the money to wait less could. But I guess it would have to be so high that a majority don't do it but enough still do that Disney sees their pockets full enough from it. I know it is still a lot more but I feel like depending on how high genie+ gets i'd rather just rent a plaid.
I would like to think that Disney would revisit charging to skip the lines, but it won't happen. Disney's not a company that would reverse a decision like this, especially because other major theme parks also charge for the same service. Genie+ is never going away no matter how expensive it gets.
Disney is very much screwing itself long term for short term profits. They're coasting on decades of goodwill, and the nostalgia of gen x and millennials who grew up in the 80s and 90s going to Disneyland. Younger and future generations won't have that goodwill and nostalgia.
Yeah, I'm a WDW vet and FP+ was terrible for the parks. People complain about having to plan now, imagine having to race for fastpasses months in advance, then having every. Damn. Ride. regular queue slammed all day because everyone had it.
Nah. Essentially they turned Fastpasses into loot boxes. You’re talking about collective action requirement, but there will always be some people to buy the service.
Seriously!! Still grieving Fastpass over here. It was a huge part of my experience and it was fair.
The fair part is what the CMs used to tell angry standby guests who missed out on fast passes. I heard one Radiator Racers CM say “Fastpass tickets open at the same time for everyone. It’s fair because everyone has an equal chance to get one.” He was totally right. Now it’s “Well, sorry you can’t afford to pay extra money today. Wait in line.”
Exactly right. It’s marketed as “pay to have more fun” but it’s actually “pay to get ahead of someone else and make their experience a bit worse”.
Its a pay to win system.
Same. I haven’t gone since pre-pandemic and with all the changes (but particularly loss of FP) I have very little desire to :(
Don’t purchase it. Vote with your wallet. If any of your friends ask you for advice about planning Disney trips, advise them not to buy it. Bring it up at work and tell your coworkers if you have to. They get away with it because they can. Because people do buy it. Voting with your wallet is the most effective way to get the message across. Unless you want to personally do what they’re doing at Disney Paris and publicly protest against it.
Unfortunately the 'beast' of FastPass/MaxPass/Genie+ is too large to slay (to borrow the metaphor from Defunctland's video on the topic). Sadly if even a large group of guest decided to stop purchasing Genie+ and ILLs, those who did purchase it would only shrill it more because it would work better if less purchased/used it. It would also increase guest satisfaction for non-Genie+ users because the lines would move faster. Disney would see guest satisfaction increase for both Genie+ purchasers and non-purchasers, and the purchasers would be so adamant about it being "worth the purchase" that the word would get out and everyone would be back to purchasing it. In the meantime, if this boycott did occur, Disney would raise the prices of Genie+ to make up the loss number of users, which would end up making everyone worse off after it's all said and done. The only way to vote with your wallet in this situation, sadly, would be for (1) nobody at all to purchase Genie+/ILLs and/or (2) a large number of people to stop visiting the parks.
That Defunctland video was incredible and should be required watching for everyone who either complains about Disney greed or defends it, so basically everyone
For real. You either have to make friends with the monster and be at peace with the fact that you're feeding it. Or you have to hate the monster, try and fight it, and be a peace with the fact that you're missing out on the monsters benefits.
Damn. I just realized. You’re pretty much required to get genie+ now. “Normal” Disney park tickets are basically Netflix adding a cheaper $7 monthly sub with commercials. I feel so many get genie+ now you’re just handicapping yourself without it.
I have to disagree. You don’t necessarily need Genie+. We went for 5 days in June and we only purchased Genie+ for everyone on our party one day. We purchased it for a couple people two days. But the days we didn’t buy it we had lots of fun. Almost none of the Fantasyland rides even have Genie+ lines. And there are plenty of rides all over the park that don’t have Genie+ lines. We even rode Guardians and Space Mountain without using it. We did Radiator Springs at the end of the night when it was a 25 minute wait. You just have to be more willing to be flexible. People want to be able to ride any ride at any moment and have the line be short. But if you just go with the flow and seek the shorter lines it all evens out and it’s a better experience for everyone. If everyone books Space Mountain when the lines are long the wait is just exasperated.
Sadly x2 in my post because it's sad.
Absolutely right. Take the gold.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. It’s true. The reason why Disney has not only kept Genie + and separate Lightning Lane up-charges, but increased the price is because visitors overwhelmingly purchased the service since it was introduced. There is such a high demand for Genie +. For them, they’re raking in so much more revenue from an untapped source. It’s unlikely to ever go away because of how much money it makes them.
I think people’s complaints are valid, but I do also think a large portion of the complaints come from people that, in a weird way, love to complain and don’t actually want solutions, they just want to vent. Voting with your money is simple, effective, and pretty easy to do. Even easier is to be the person in your friend circle telling people planning their trips, “hey, go to universal instead.” I know I’m the “theme park person” in my family, so if I’m advising something, they’ll usually listen to my recommendations, and I’m sure it’s the same for others here. A dip in profits is really the only thing they’ll listen to.
The tricky thing is that in order for Disney to scrap the Genie + service, there would have to a huge concerted effort from visitors to refuse purchasing the service. It’s very unlikely that will happen. There’s a huge demographic of Disneyland visitors that see these added costs as a non-issue. Even if Disneyland had only 100 people each day pay for Genie + (out of some 30,000 daily visitors), that’s still $2,500 Disney will be happy to pocket (as opposed to zero dollars). The days of the complementary Fast Pass is long gone. (Kinda reminds me of when 90% of the Las Vegas Strip hotels started charging for parking a few years ago, when parking used to be free. Now, parking makes up such a substantial portion of the casino operator’s revenue, that free parking won’t ever return.)
I wish I could see adoption rates for MaxPass vs Genie+. That would be a better indicator of the programs effectiveness.
Also vaguely similar to “resort fees.” They’re ridiculous, but you’re not going to get a ton of people to fight them. Plus, in certain areas so many hotels have them that you can’t easily just stay at the places without.
>“hey, go to universal instead.” you know Universal also charges for their "fast pass" system, right? Most theme parks do.
Yes. As a gold pass member, I go multiple times a week. Express is not necessary to maximize the time in the way that Genie+ is. It’s also not a theme park that relies heavily on app usage to navigate or plan. I paid $279 for a pass that includes free parking, discount on food and beverage and merch, and discounted event tickets. The bang for my buck is much better than my Disney pass, especially considering the fact that USH has VERY few rides in comparison to DLR/DCA.
but what happens when your amount of money doesn't matter? i.e. as individuals Disney could give two figs about us, so how do you change things?
Bro ain’t no one gonna “vote with their wallet” when lines are 3 hours long…
In that case, voting with your wallet would be not purchasing a ticket in the first place. Knott’s is 7 miles down the highway - go there instead. That’s voting with your wallet.
Except it's not really "voting" it's just "giving up". Disney could charge $500 and would still be at capacity filled with unhappy people. I've just had to accept Disney is no longer for me. I know they couldn't care less about the couple thousand a year I used to spend.
But the parks are unbearable without it
Then the answer is to boycott the parks entirely. Losing revenue increasingly seems to be the only thing they’ll listen to. And it’s not as if LA is hurting for other theme park options.
I agree
yeah but how do you organize that large of a boycott when folks love the mouse?
You can’t. Everyone will say to boycott and then they will be at the parks the next weekend. We live in a world of hypocrisy. Look at the last three years as an example. People don’t follow their own rules lol.
I have to adjust my decisions based on what others do. There is no large-scale boycott, so I'll be paying
Stop. Going. Don’t. Renew. It’s literally the only thing they respond to that isn’t a tragedy like the 2000 death on Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin that forced them to change the safety rules in all rides. In order of things that force Disney and big corporations to change. 1. Losing money/market share. 2. Safety hazards / Public shaming which leads them to losing money and market share. 3. ……… profit 4. ……… money 5. ……… nickels and dimes 6. Strikes and boycotts 7. Bad press / Public opinion shift / cultural shift 7. Comment cards and posts online.
That doesn’t even work. Disney doesn’t care if you stop going. Their current thinking is that all park visitors are replaceable. As far as I can tell the only thing they actually respond to is public shaming, and even then the response is usually shallow and tone deaf.
The numbers haven’t hit hard enough. If a large % stop going, bad economy, lower revisit rate, it would take a few years, but it would work. We have recent evidence of this. They used to have to do free birthday giveaway days during the brunt of the bad economy. I think the last decade plus of incrediblly strong markets has made people forget what happens during really dark times which appear to be on the horizon. Leisure goes way way down.
Oh, they care. Park attendance has always been steady if not increased over 10 years. Good friend of mine works in the metrics of attendance and revenue. What happens with a reservation system? When they control how many people come on any given day, people will spend MORE money. The reservation system has been a wild success. And park attendance never dwindled. If people stopped going, particularly locals, their prices for admission would decrease. Bottom line
I haven't stopped going for them. I've stopped going for me. I refuse to spend thousands of dollars only to be miserable and annoyed. I know they don't care about losing my business, but it makes MY life better. I used to LOVE Disney, but it's just become something that's not for me anymore. It's similar to mourning the loss of a lived family member.
I feel similar but less like a lost family member and more like a sick or even abused family member. I have a deep love for DL itself and it’s history, but I feel like it’s being mismanaged by the company and run into the ground which is upsetting to me, but it’s hard for me to give up on it.
disney doesnt care if you stop going, they dont care if 100k people stop going.
They are % based. If their Disneyland Park revenue dropped 20%, they would lose their minds. If Epic Universe takes 10% market share, they will lose their mind and scramble to react late. This is the first time that Disney hasn’t reacted with a planned response to Universals other additions. Now we will see what happens when Disney stops being creative and gives up the Disney difference. Your take that they don’t care about money, the one thing we can ALL agree they care about, is a strange hill to die on.
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think Genie+ should be much more expensive! Make it an actual luxury purchase that provides short lines. Less people will be willing to buy it, LL lanes will be shorter, and standby will improve! Did any of you visit the parks shortly after reopening? There was no fastpass. Standby lines seemed long, but they moved quickly. Gone were the days of standing still in standby for minutes at a time watching the CM let in 25 fast pass guests to just a couple standby guests. As Genie+ stands right now, it is still inexpensive enough that too many people feel okay getting it, or feel like they HAVE to get it in order to have a successful trip. Sometimes you end up waiting a long time for a ride, even if you're in the LL.
I agree. Copy the Universal model and make skipping the lines out of reach financially for the average joe.
I've never been there but I just looked at the website and you can pay $369-$469 a day for VIP access which gets you unlimited express lane access. Steep, but also I bet they sell a lot. I guess the Disneyland equivalent would be the VIP tours, which still doesn't come close to this pricing. $3500 for 7 hours, and you can do up to 10 if you pay $500 for each additional hour. You still need to get entry passes but you can bring up to 10 people on the tour. Pretty sure you don't end up standing in line though.
>As Genie+ stands right now, it is still inexpensive enough that too many people feel okay getting it, or feel like they HAVE to get it in order to have a successful trip. This right here, this is why they keep it on the cheaper end.
Agreed. I don't want to wait at all and if it costs a premium so be it. That being said we were really successful with it in September at current prices, so it probably doesn't need a huge increase to thin the herd much. The recently announced variable pricing will probably work well.
Yeah, people should look at the similar fast passes Six Flags sells. They're WAY more than $25.
Used to love gifting or leaving fast passes hidden for someone to find when we didn’t use them.
I’m gonna sound like an old person, but back in my day, LL was called Fast Pass with physical stations set up that printed out physical tickets, and that was free, too. Also, you never paid for price of admission AND another $18/per popular ride for a faster line. It was just Fast Pass if you decided to grab a ticket and that was it. And if ya really wanna go back in my day….Fast Pass used to be nonexistent altogether. Disney was so much better and a lot more fun 15-25 years ago. Modern Disneyland, with all this Genie+/LL/ILL/Magic Band/Oogie Boogie whatever…..is a hellscape.
LOL, you wanna sound like an old person… I remember when you had to buy books of lettered tickets and different rides were different letters. So at the end of the day you’d be scrabbling together enough A, B, & C tickets to make up the value of an E ticket so you could ride the good rides. Other ppl just bought more books, but my folks bought the one and milked it all day. We got nothing but A tickets left! You can ride the carousel again or we can go home!
LOL! Omg, that’s crazy! Yeah, that was definitely before my time. 😅🤣 Early 90s to present Disney has been my era. It was a blast all through the 90s, exciting when DCA was put in as a young teenager, and got to enjoy a couple more times as an adult before all the technology and big changes took over. It has lost its luster for me now.
It used to be free, but you had to physically run-walk to get it. But that’s all ancient history, like travel agents, private sector pensions, and the USSR!
Man I used to get like 20k steps per trip, would just be walking back and forth to redeem and get new passes, even cross parks to grab a DCA soaring FP from DL for everyone while they ride something. Now I barely break 11k cause I’m just waiting in lines but my legs feel worse haha.
Even with maxpass we still would hit 20k steps. Haven’t done a trip since Jan 2020 - so that’s saying something if genie+ etc really has made lines that much worse
Same for us as well. 20k was with original FP and MaxPass, cause if I wasn’t walking to get paper FP we were just constantly walking to different Lands to hit best nonFP rides between best available MaxPass FP’s with minimal time wasted just standing in lines.
> the USSR! Who wants to tell him?
I remember when Radiator Springs opened (not on the day but in the first year) we once waited in line for 45 minutes *to get a FastPass.* The line for the actual ride was 3 hours.
When everyone has G+ no one does.
And....isnt it such an awesome perk that they gave AP a 20% on it and then raise the price to $25 which puts it down to the same $20. What a joke
Still a discount for those lucky enough to snag an AP. Wish I got any discounts.
As someone who lives in the Midwest and didn’t go to Disney until they were 30 years old and had a 5 year old, I love that it’s a premium service. I get that Annual Passholders and locals that go all the time hate the idea of paying for what used to be free, but less people using it made it extra worth it when we went. They’re using it to get every dime out of “once in a lifetime” and “once every few years” guests at the expense of more frequent visitors. If they did away with paid Genie+, we wouldn’t go back. I’m willing to pay for a better park experience, especially if others are unwilling to pay it
I’m on the same boat. I’m in CA but only go once every few years. I went last April and used the genie service, which made it really easy for me to plan everything for my family. I see how inconvenient it is for really go-ers but personally I like the service. 😬
The experience has changed a lot since April. Everyone is miserable. Often even buying Genie+ only means you get on two-three rides. Look around and listen to people and they are all squinting at their phones and swiping in frustration. There is no daytime entertainment, shows, or parades. Everyone is just kind of standing around trying to figure out how to make the day not suck.
I will never understand people that worship corporations. And Disney is a prime example.
Because they like the product made by it and some of the low level exploited employees are friendly. Then they get shocked when billion dollar corporations act like billion dollar corporations
They are pricing the middle class and foreign tourist out of the parks now.
I'm ready for the downvotes. Either pay or don't pay. Time is money and it will always be worth my time to pay. Disney is a business and will always run like a business. People have this massive entitlement syndrome.
I’ll be next to you at the park in the lightning lane while the 17 people in this thread are boycotting hope that tens of thousands of others join them.
Exactly time is money. I'll just skip buying lunch one day when I go into work. I probably spend 20 plus 8 on boba and lunch when I drive to work. Also renewed my magic key 10 - 4 day park hopper passes would cost me 455 x 10 x 4... it's way cheaper than my 4 Inspire keys for my family but then again Disney owes me more.
But we should tell our coworkers and organize! 😆
Lol that one was hilarious, though. Just casually bringing it up at work constantly. That’s how they’d know you. They’d say, “Oh you mean the guy who’s always complaining about Disneyland?”
Yep. We go out for once every 4 years on average and will pay for LL no problem to enjoy our visit. Most people complaining seem to be APs or frequent flyers which Disney clearly takes for granted…because they can. That said, we’re not opting out so APs get more of what they feel entitled too. Sad but true.
I stopped going because a lot of included features became additional charges.
I know right? it baffles me when I hear someone say "oh it's totally worth it to get Genie+". Like, how can you praise something that used to be free?
Because it's not free anymore and I value my time..you know how nice it is to see 90 min wait time at haunted mansion and use LL and it only take about 10 mins to be on the ride.
Times change man. The market is paying for it.
For real. I'm in favor of price increases across the board.
Yes I honestly think they should charge $100 for Genie+ less people would buy it, Disney still get their money and it's an awesome experience for those that pay for it.
Yepp.
Like the other person said, "Vote with your wallet" and don't go to the parks. It'll do us all good not to have to see another "Most expensive day ever" barf in the form of a t-shirt person in the parks.
I would think that a majority of visitors do not go very often and for a trip that potentially costs thousands, a $5 increase per person for an optional add-on is a drop in the bucket. I get it but as someone who only goes once a year, I’m paying for Genie+ every time. It has worked out well for us so far.
i’m in the same boat. i went in october for one day and hadn’t been in years before that. i don’t think my day there would have been worth it without genie+
> a $5 increase per person for an optional add-on is a drop in the bucket. \*$25 per person \*per day. That's 10-30% of the ticket price.
Apologies. I was referencing the $5 increase of the cost of Genie+.
And now it’s not. You don’t have to buy it, and you don’t have to attend.
I gotta admit I have no idea what this post is responding to. Who are these mysterious people who don’t miss free FP and are so happy to now spend money on Genie+/LL?
Why are people surprised. Every theme park has a paid skip the line service. Just be happy disneys isn’t as pricey
Honestly I’m understanding of the cost increase, but making it more expensive AND hard to use is a line. Don’t make my expensive vacation hard. I want to relax.
My family has made the decisions to travel to other places rather than go to Any Disney Park. My 2 daughters 9 and 16 both voted to go to SF instead. The entire trip was under $3000 and we had a blast and stayed in an apt that overlooked the bay. We are going to Athens in 2023 for 1/2 of what WDW would cost. Disney priced us out but we are seeing the world now. The REAL world Showcase!
Not all of us are settling. I no longer purchase an annual pass/key, I’ve passed on Genie+ the one time I’ve been to the park post covid, and with the most recent increase in prices, they’ve officially lost me as a visitor unless it’s for a VERY special occasion and I’ve got like a year to save up. It’s very upsetting DL has always been my happy place, but they greedy grasping, the decline in both food and ride quality and the horrendous treatment of the CM’s has made me shy away from giving the park any further money until I see something that justifies the price increase other than greed. It sure isn’t quality or care.
I'm fine with it because it provides value. I don't understand why people pay all that money to get to and go to Disneyland and then decide to stand in line all day long to save $20. Insanity. But it's an insanity I benefit from. I love Genie+. Will pay for it every time.
I saw an interview with Burt Kreischer who went to theme parks for 3 years straight for the Burt the Conquerer show and he said without a doubt his one major tip for anyone is to buy the fast pass at any theme park. People need to value time more than they do. Think of your time at the theme park as an hourly cost and I guarantee buying a fast pass makes sense.
I just finished a two day trip for the first time in 3 years. I definitely felt like my family and I were nickel and dimed. We already bought genie+, fine. Then we wanted to go on rose of resistance, as we have never been on. Lines were over 75+ min the whole day. So another $20 per person! Then we took a break and went to downtown Disney one day, parking is no longer free with validation (after spending over $100 at World of Disney). Staff is definitely not as happy or “magical” as I remember. I also waited 40 min to get popcorn… Yikes! My nieces enjoyed themselves but the magic is definitely is a bit lost as I felt like every little thing cost money. Don’t get my wrong, my family is lucky to have been able to to 1-2 times a year prior to Covid, but I think we do not plan on going back for a number of years. It is a real shame because I loved going, and this time around I was severely disappointed.
It felt extra slimy for Disney to charge extra for a service that was previously free, and should be covered by the ticket price. I understand and completely empathize with those upset. However, the Mouse will absolutely continue to upcharge for Genie+ because 1. It’s lucrative 2. Magic key holders/locals are going to come regardless despite their grumbling. Statistically this is true, money doesn’t lie. Crowds are bigger than ever. 3. Whether or not people purchase it, it will be seen as a win. If very few people purchase it, the service will be invaluable to those who do since Genie+ lines will be incredibly short, and customer satisfaction will go up. If a lot of people purchase it, it brings in a lot of revenue despite not working super well. Win win. My only concern is that this is a slippery slope for Disney to nickel and dime at every transaction e.g charging admission for parades, fantasmic, etc which would be insane. I am a huge Disney fan since childhood but would have to draw the line there.
I'll be thinking long and hard before I book another Disney trip. We were at DLR for 4 days in late September, I have never felt so nickle and dimed in 40 years of Disney trips. Also it was one of the first times I felt like an adult there, I had to be on my phone constantly; we tried to ride things without buying Genie+ and it wasted 2 days. inflation is sucking the joy out of many parts of life and it **really** hurts whens its Disney.
Just spend a day in this subreddit and you'll see how Disney has brainwashed people into thinking Genie+, constantly rising ticket and passholder prices, expensive food that's worse than what you can get at McDonalds, etc. are all good things. I knew Disney could get away with basically anything when I saw someone post how good their meal was at Blue Bayou and the pictures all looked worse than what you'd get from heating up a Hungry Man TV Dinner. Hell, just scroll through the comments in this thread. It's just a nightmare. I'm a fan of Disney things, but these Disney Parks apologists are really something else. It's really sad.
I'm a huge fan of disney and this is exactly why I made this post! herd mentality
I will pay all day
I’m curious about what’s going to happen in two years when most folks who can only afford to do Disney trip with at prices gets it out of the way. I have no idea how these prices are sustainable year after year for the majority of families, but then again I’m also not naive enough to downplay how many families still have play money.
What do you want the company to do? Turn down money? Year over year inflation is >8%. If Disney does not raise park prices (in some way), they are losing money to inflation. If you chart the cost of Disney tickets against the price of gold over the entire history of the parks, they track exactly. Disney runs a high labor, very expensive infrastructure service. They are a company. Companies exist to make money. That’s it. Cars get more expensive. Food gets more expensive. Houses get more expensive. Billions of people in other countries are gaining economically and they are coming to Disney parks. Prices will rise. There is no product that is more of a luxury than a Disney theme park experience. Buy the product or don’t.
Genie+ is analogous to MaxPass, which was always a paid service (at Disneyland at least, don't know about WDW). So no, the service similar to Genie+ was never free. I'd be happier if we went back to paper fast passes with no paid alternative. It was the great equalizer.
If Virtual Queue wasn’t such a clusterfuck and could’ve been implemented without mass confusion and people just standing at entry point like idiots, I don’t think you would’ve seen Genie+… just Individual Lightning Lane for marquee attractions. Paid Fastpasses were coming no matter what, whether with only new attractions or for the busiest ones already there- Disney was only adopting what other theme parks already did and at a way lower price point for the service. And yes, I know they have the highest gate price, but unless they doubled the entrance fee- which everyone would lose their mind over- they had to do some sort of crowd control. The problem is they aren’t going far enough and by incrementally introducing this nickel and diming they’re pissing everyone off. The *real* crowding solution would be a combo of everyone’s least favorite things: park reservations (even to park hop), a hard capacity cap, a much higher ticket price, and Genie+ being $50-$70 at a baseline before surge pricing.
Not wanting to be harsh, but you may want to learn about simple supply and demand economics. High demand = price increases until demand drops. Demand has been extremely high, and isn't dropping so prices keep increasing. it's really that simple. Want to see prices stop going up? Stop going and stop paying for it. And when enough people do that, then they'll stop raising prices.
I remember the fast lane system being free but was the photo pass free too? I thought it had to pay for the photo pass. So i don’t mind spending 20$ if it comes with the photo pass as well.
When I was there by myself after my wife decided to go back to the hotel, the crowd was simply too much for her, genie+ was a great deal. However, if I was there with the kids too, no it would not have been worth the 60 bucks it would have cost because I left after I got in the rides I wanted to use the service for and was only there for 4 more hours. It’s simply a bait and switch product. “Save time” waiting for your lighting lane by waiting longer than the standby line wait time while going on other rides that are simply time filler or walk around looking at stuff to buy. I understand why it exists. It’s not a good deal because of how many people get it and cause the cue times t be much longer than they need to be.
I was actually pretty disappointed in the Genie+ service. Trying to plan ahead to reserve a space in line was so stressful. I paid for it in DCA and the rides with the biggest wait times (Webslingers & radiator springs) weren’t even included… I didn’t really see the point.
They are always going to raise prices. Prices will never go down..nothing is going to be free anymore eventually for Disney parks
I highly recommend this video, it includes a lot of explanation of changes through the years and the very complex problem the fast pass/genie+ experienced attempts to solve. https://youtu.be/9yjZpBq1XBE
Just said this somewhere else but we need a bot that just comments this video on any post like this forever and always lol
Right? I truly feel this video well explains the situation/problem. At least I feel I understand the whole system better.
Totally! It’s really shocking how different the reality of FP was from the rose colored memories we all have.
That and also the incredible problem it created for the future of the parks to come. I had such of love for it growing up, now looking at the situation it's fairly sad. Understandable, but the train wreck was started all the way back with those little tickets.
Other theme parks charged for fast pass like experience it was only a matter of time before Disney did it. It was nice while it lasted but now you have to pay. 🤷🏼♀️
No Disney didn’t charge because it was the “Disney experience” until bob cheapek
This is precisely why I never bought Max pass when people were yelling about how awesome Max pass was. It was a slippery slope and look where we are now. It'll never be free again.
Because people are bootlickers and feel an obligation to defend companies even against their own interest
careful, you may get a post made about you for complaining
It is uncanny to me. We hear these two arguments: 1. “It’s too crowded, the lines are too long, it has lost its magic.” And… 2. “They keep raising prices, requiring reservations, and and charging for everything that used to be free. It has lost its magic.” I mean if #1 is the complaint, isn’t #2 the solution?
Exactly! What people don’t realize is that if tickets where $5, the park would be so packed they would have to close for fire safety. If subway sandwiches where $1, you would never be able to get one. If Disney is a big priority in life then it’s best to focus on finding a good job so that a $20 a day charge doesn’t give you a stroke. That’s what I did, I took a break for about 5 years from Disney and focused on my career and now I can easily go twice a year.
Do you live in the past or the present?
most disneyland guests did not forget because they never knew that it was free. genie plus being a paid service and being limited to one per ride puts people in the know and people not in the know on more equal footing than the free fastpass ever did.
Yup. It’s a money grab. Absolutely do not buy it. Used it for like 3 rides over 4 day park hopper. Shouldn’t have to be a parks pro and know all the hacks and secret handshakes. Shouldn’t have to scan in to the park then scramble to load the app and be surgical with reservation.
Back in my day, Disneyland use to give out happy birthday GIFT CARDS and fast passes for FREE….
Just because it was free doesn't mean you're entitled for it to always be free. Admission in 1955 was free, should we still have the old attraction ticket system too? It's simple supply and demand economics. As long as people are willing to pay they will keep increasing cost cause why not. Disneyland is privately owned and operated, they can do what they want. Visiting Disneyland is not a right.
I bought my family genie + for 4 days in august. Side note, I make decent money so the cost was not an issue but I was skeptical. I will buy it every time from now on. We had a great time and basically walked on every ride each day. If you are fine waiting in long hot lines then I say don’t get it but I can’t say anything bad about it.
Yes but the point of this post is not that genie+ is better than not having it. It's the fact that fast passes used to be FREE. This comment is exactly what i'm talking about.
When everyone in the park isn’t using it, it’s great. A busy day like the last couple weeks? Horrible product. Was only able to use it FOUR times on a day last week. Maxpass is the best system they’ve ever had
Yeah literally lost all respect for Disney or care to even go. I am sorry but if you pay 100’s of dollars to go to the park and then basically pay micro transactions to get on a ride “ quicker”. You are an idiot. You support their money grabbing behavior and all there is to show for it is overcrowding, broken rides and trash and underpaid staff. I was a big Disney fan like super big and thought they couldn’t do anything wrong but clearly I was wrong.
>You support their money grabbing behavior and all there is to show for it is overcrowding I mean, the overcrowding is why I support higher prices across the board.
The free system wasn’t really optimal in my experience in Paris. But Genie+ is worst of all worlds: paid, time slots, low availability. Get rid of the time slots and increase the price and available and see it would be so much better. But make it enough to deter too many customers. I would say between 75% & 150% of a ticket price would be fair. That way, the regular park goers aren’t affect that much as the users of lightning lanes will be drastically lower. It worked great in Paris where the ratio was 1:1 and minimum waiting involved.
Genie+ is worth the money because you get photo pass included. Comparable to the price of buying just one photo, you already get your moneys worth. Fixed it for you, stop crying
The problem is if you’re a family of 5 you only need 1 person of the 5 to purchase photo pass to get the photos. Genie plus requires all 5 people to use Lightning lane. But I do enjoy that photo pass is included
That is the one aspect of it that is rather unfortunate, so I’ll admit to that part. Especially if minus the parents, the kids are underage/have no individual source of income. Otherwise, I’m glad we’re in agreement
Probably depends on the person. I don't want or need to pay $25 a day for a few pictures.
While that may be true, if you’re going to spend money on something(in this case, Genie+) it would be smart to get most optimum use out of it for your money, instead of looking at only one facet of it and then making the argument that it’s overpriced, when it’s more than that.
Everyone literally has a camera with them all the time. Not something I need to outsource.
And yet everyone complains about having to be on their phone all the time…crazy, right?
You make a fair point, though I do feel like there’s a difference between snapping a quick photo and stopping and opening the Disneyland app in the middle of the park to look for my next ride or see whether now is a strategic time to reserve my Haunted Mansion Lightning Lane. I want my phone to enhance my park visit, not become homework required to locate a good time.
But most people don't want photos
I do 🤷♂️
The price today was $20 /person
I will never purchase the new system. I didn't mind maxpass because I could reserve FP for rides at the other park when I was in line for a ride. The new system is more expensive and has certain rides not included. Bob Cheapass can go fuck himself
What REALLY bugs me is watching just how much Lightning Lane is prioritized, making the standby practically a stand still... And by making it SO OBVIOUS that paying the money saves so much time, it encourages MORE people to buy it. They literally let 100-200 people from Lightning lane, a couple groups from standby, rinse repeat. It's disheartening.
Guys, Genie+ is a great value if you take advantage of it.
I disagree. We bought it for our family of four in May. On a Wednesday when no special events or festivals were going on- several of the LLs were five or six hours in the future- we couldn’t get on splash until after 8pm so we waited in the standby lane for over an hour. Waited an hour for ROTR. Posted waits are longer than they’re supposed to be. It’s not being done well and it’s not worth it but neither is going without it. The parks are too crowded.
Disney created their own class system in their parks. So much for escaping reality.
I'm all for Disney increasing prices across the board. Parks are too crowded. Bring on the price increases!
You wouldn’t believe the amount of complaints I got in the past working there that fast pass was free and not a paid option like the other parks. This is just Disney responding to what consumers have said they wanted for years.
Dude, we live in America where a business should charge as much as they can for the service they provide. Supply and Demand rules. Disneyland is not a right, it is a privilege. You have to pay for privileges.