The biggest mistake that Disney executives are making behind these decisions is that they are totally convinced that Covid has “shown” them people will be more-than-willing to pay more for less. What they fail to understand is that people went because they were happy to experience any entertainment outside of their homes despite the restrictions everywhere. Nobody expected Fastpass+ or theatrical entertainment to just go away forever.
Now that Covid is finally fading off in the sunset (I mean restrictions are lifting) customers, including myself, are not going to be happy to hear that the pandemic has given them an excuse to add more hoops and up charges to their experience. If I have to pay $150 for a “Lightning Pass” (With tiers mind you. I hate that T-word), AND I had to enter more virtual squirrel lotteries just to go on classic rides, that would never make me want to come back ever again.
I swear Chapek must be on a mission to intentionally burn Disney to the ground. Their arrogance and greed just turns me off more and more as time goes by. And they wonder why there’s such a hostile perception of them nowadays.
It is difficult for me. I enjoy the parks and the rides, specifically the older rides, although we enjoy some of the new attractions as well. FP+ irritated me because it required getting online at 7:00 AM 60 days out to try and lay out a vacation when I just wanted to be able to show up and have fun. Then, I grew more irritated by the impact on the lines, which included standing still for long periods of time while FP+ guests were admitted. Also, it was added to rides that didn't need it because the capacity of those rides was high enough to handle crowds. Now, the threat of this VQ being spread across the parks is really frustrating, although we don't know what it is like. I just want to go and ride the rides or watch a parade and not have to overthink about how to have fun. Instead of wasting money on this crap, why not continue to invest in rides with capacities that hit the 2,500 pph mark? If they want repeat visits, they should have enough attractions that you can't hit them all in one trip instead of limiting access to rides.
When I go to UNI/IOA, my decisions are more streamlined. Should I stay onsite to get Express or just purchase Express separately so that we don't have to change hotels? Second question is usually, does TouringPlans think that it will be busy enough for me to purchase Express? That's a very straight forward decision tree. Now, with Magical Express ending, that is one less reason for us to not switch hotels. Before, we liked ME and would just rent a car and drive to UNI/IOA for the one or two days at the parks. Now, why wouldn't we rent a car at the airport and then do split stays between Universal Orlando and WDW?
I am starting to get a little more cost-conscious, not that I wasn't already, and am starting to consider more offsite stays to obtain more bang for our buck. We still will want to stay at the Wilderness Lodge or Port Orleans but the argument for offsite has more merit because Disney is pricing themselves out of our budget.