Express Service Upcharge

[frank_1991_]

Not surprised considering all the recent up charges but Disney just announced a new upcharge express bus service between parks for only... $15 per person or $24 for a multi-day park hopper. AP holders can purchase on a per day basis. The Express Bus service will be picking guests up directly inside the parks and then "magical" transport them by way of backstage areas to another park arriving faster than regular
transportation service.

The pickup locations are as follows:

MK- Buzz Lightyear Space Ranger Spin
Epcot- Guest Relations by Spaceship Earth
DHS- Rock n Roller Coaster courtyard
AK- Kilimanjaro Safaris

Service starts December 7 2016, and will run from 10am to park close every 30 minutes.

I wonder what more shameless, I mean... MAGICAL upcharge experiences are awaiting for 2017!

 

[s8film40]

These upcharge things are really beginning to appear very desperate. It makes me wonder if WDW is trying to cover for some financial issues.

 

[frank_1991_]

These upcharge things are really beginning to appear very desperate. It makes me wonder if WDW is trying to cover for some financial issues.

What's desperate is the way Disney fans are actually defending this new extra. For me the fact that they drop you off in backstage areas is just terrible. There is no concern for show anymore at Disney.

 

[Porkchop]

This on top of the fema tents would have Walt rolling in his Effing grav. This is horrendous

 

[Teebin]

So, is WDW run like a subsidiary much like Pixar and Marvel?

 

[WAJAS]

So, is WDW run like a subsidiary much like Pixar and Marvel?

No it's a division of The Walt Disney Company. They specifically call it a business unit per Wikipedia.

 

[s8film40]

So, is WDW run like a subsidiary much like Pixar and Marvel?

There are actually multiple subsidiaries that make up WDW. The biggest and main one is the Walt Disney World co. There are others that exist to benefit WDW and are somewhat seperate as well as subsidiaries under that company.

 

[UNIrd]

Is it like an inside park Uber service? That's the only way I could justify it.

 

[Scott W.]

What I'm finding slightly odd about this, is that this could drastically speed up the time hopping between parks which could make doing 2 parks in a day a bit more realistic for more people resulting in people buying less days.

 

[frank_1991_]

This on top of the fema tents would have Walt rolling in his Effing grav. This is horrendous

True. To be honest I wouldn't doubt if this is just the beginning of a lot more upcharges planned for 2017. I believe it started with the upcharge ice cream after hours party at MK. The ground work is already laid out in the current fastpass system to implement a upcharge system and considering how fee happy they have been recently with the handling fees at hotels for packages, it's only a matter of time before they bring about upcharging a fastpass+ system.

 

[ragerunner]

These upcharge things are really beginning to appear very desperate. It makes me wonder if WDW is trying to cover for some financial issues.

It does make you wonder what is actually going on behind the scenes. It just doesn't seem like they are doing this many desperate moves at their other resorts.

 

[ragerunner]

I am beginning to wonder if WDW's development pattern, spread out parks with a massive amount of infrastructure and transit to support it, is not finally eating into the bottom line of WDW. No other Disney resort has this type of extra overhead. It's no different than a city, more compact cities have lease cost per mile to maintain its infrastructure vs sprawling suburban communities do.

 

[DK745]

Is there a nice list/summary of all the recent upcharges at WDW somewhere?

 

[frank_1991_]

Is there a nice list/summary of all the recent upcharges at WDW somewhere?

I'm working on it right now.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

After so many years of not allowing guests backstage and spending millions even billions of dollar to transport guests to a "different world" and building berms, they decided to go low with a $15 up charge to save a couple of minutes... This is especially weird in Animal Kingdom's location as you are in Africa and then out of nowhere you pass thru the "magical gate" to a world of grey buildings and trashcans.

Unless they decide to blindfold people in backstage areas...?

 

[Scott W.]

After so many years of not allowing guests backstage and spending millions even billions of dollar to transport guests to a "different world" and building berms, they decided to go low with a $15 up charge to save a couple of minutes... This is especially weird in Animal Kingdom's location as you are in Africa and then out of nowhere you pass thru the "magical gate" to a world of grey buildings and trashcans.

Unless they decide to blindfold people in backstage areas...?

The 'keep the magic alive' blindfolds are an extra $10 and can only be used once per ride.

 

[Teebin]

Why are they delivering people backstage?

 

[JokerMan0925]

Why are they delivering people backstage?

It's faster. They can get from Point A to B quicker going backstage as opposed to on Guest roads.

 

[bob albert]

I haven't had a problem hopping to all four parks in a day on the normal buses. I would be pissed if Disney cut bus services a bit to make this new up-charge seem more attractive.

What a ridiculous undisney like concept tho.

 

[frank_1991_]

Why are they delivering people backstage?

It also will reduce the amount of people park hopping between parks at the security line since those who use this service would only have to be checked once at the start of the day and avoid the other security lines.