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Chadsgal
08-04-2011, 12:13 PM
So I read on another website today that there is a rumor going around that Disneyland is talking about taking park hopping away from: All So Cal & Deluxe AP's next year. Leaving the Park Hopper option for only those w/ a Premium AP.

I really hope they don't choose to do this. I am not a local but I do like to buy a Deluxe AP & plan my vacations around the blackout dates so I can get 2 trips out of one ticket. It saves me a couple hundred dollars.

Malcon10t
08-04-2011, 12:22 PM
There's two sides to this. 1. Park hopping helps control the capacity issues. If DL is getting too crowded, people move to DCA for a bit then come back when crowds go down. We do this. If park hopping wasn't allowed at lower levels, I could see Disneyland hitting capacity more often.

2. But looking at the current state, Disneyland may be experimenting with this already, as they are now offering 6 day tickets as "One day one park" at a discount and "park hoppers."

Could it happen? Very well could. But, it is just a rumor at this point.

newhdplayer
08-04-2011, 12:49 PM
Works for me.

But then again, I have PAP's.

If I didn't, I'd be squawking if this were to pass.

currence
08-04-2011, 01:08 PM
When DCA first opened, they offered DL-only annual passes and park-hopper annual passes. After it became clear DCA was NOT the rousing success they had hopped, they removed the option and made everyone a park-hopper.

I haven't heard this rumor, but are they now going back to separate APs or do you still get to park-hop in general, but can only do one park per day? If that's the case, I wouldn't have a much of a problem as my family often only does one park on any given day. But we live close enough that we also only go for a few hours at a time. I would probably want a restriction like that on So-Cal tickets since in theory those are the people who live close enough to make multiple shorter trips.

If they are considering blocking AP holders from ever entering DCA (aka carsland 2012) without a separate admission media or a high-level pass, I think that there could be considerable disagreement by passholders. I also don't see the point in doing that since the lowest level passes can already only go on weekdays when the parks are (at least in theory) less crowded.

it wouldn't surprise me if Disney does make tweaks to the AP program in advance of Carsland. It will be interesting to see the nature/extent of those changes.

Iceman
08-04-2011, 04:08 PM
It sounds like, for the lower-level passes, once you entered a park for a day you could only re-enter that park. I doubt they'd sell DL AP's and DCA AP's, just "one park per day AP's".

dban3
08-04-2011, 04:15 PM
By next summer DCA will be pretty close to a "two-day park" for most out of town vacationers. If I could get a 5 or 6 day One ParK ticket at a good discount over the parkhopper, I'd take it. 2 days at DCA and 3 or 4 days in DL. It should work.

Chadsgal
08-04-2011, 11:54 PM
It did say one park per day & a possible extra charge to your credit card on file if you choose to hop. My family & I are BIG hoppers. We visit both parks almost everyday we are there. Sometimes even mulitiple hops in one day: MM in DL, head over to DCA for WOC FP, then possible back to DL after WOC.

They are saying that this would be implemented next summer with the opening of Cars Land. We shall see I may just have to stick to 6 day Hopper tickets.

Malcon10t
08-05-2011, 05:33 AM
It did say one park per day & a possible extra charge to your credit card on file if you choose to hop. Unless you are making monthly payments, you won't have a "credit card on file".

SuzanneSLO
08-05-2011, 09:29 AM
There's two sides to this. 1. Park hopping helps control the capacity issues. If DL is getting too crowded, people move to DCA for a bit then come back when crowds go down. We do this. If park hopping wasn't allowed at lower levels, I could see Disneyland hitting capacity more often.

2. But looking at the current state, Disneyland may be experimenting with this already, as they are now offering 6 day tickets as "One day one park" at a discount and "park hoppers."

Could it happen? Very well could. But, it is just a rumor at this point.

The source for this rumor said it was being considered to solve the "park hopping problem." I agree with your first point, that in fact, park hoping helps with crowding and is not currently a stand alone problem.

If Disney decides to start selling APs that do not allow hopping, I think they will do this to take advantage of an opportunity: some guests will pay more to be able to hop. Your point 2 confirms that Disney already believes this to be true.

With the price of the DAP and PAP already converging if you buy parking, there may be little room for an add-on to the DAP to allow parking. However, you might see a discounted DAP that did not include hopping. IMO, hopping will always be an option with the DAP. -- Suzanne

IllusionOfLife
08-05-2011, 09:35 AM
I haven't heard this rumor, but are they now going back to separate APs or do you still get to park-hop in general, but can only do one park per day? If that's the case, I wouldn't have a much of a problem as my family often only does one park on any given day. But we live close enough that we also only go for a few hours at a time. I would probably want a restriction like that on So-Cal tickets since in theory those are the people who live close enough to make multiple shorter trips.

I agree with this. For the So-Cal tickets this is perfectly reasonable since the owners of those passes, like you said, usually make more frequent and shorter trips so Park Hopping isn't a big factor into that. But if you were to apply this to all but the Premium annual passes for out-of-towners it'd be a serious non-starter. Our family lives in Utah and we usually make one week long trip every year and time it so that we can fit both trips under the annual passes, but if we had to start buying Premium passes for all five members of our family, there's no way we'd be able to do that.

Bolivar
08-05-2011, 11:00 AM
To me, right now there is DL which is made up of several lands: Tommorowland, Adventureland, Fantasyland, Critter country, Toon town, Main Street, DCA…

I don’t think Disney likes that. They want a separate park the has a separate admission and that makes them more money. There vission was a ticket for each or a premium to be able to go between them. That didn’t work because DCA just wasn’t good enough to be a stand alone park so abandanded that. The makeover is to accomplish what they failed to do the first time around. Or at least that is what I assume.

SteveK
08-05-2011, 11:07 AM
Understand the rationale but would be bummed if they did this. Always enjoyed the benefit of being able to park hop during long Sunday trips to the park.

I suppose they'll reduce the price of my AP once they take away this perk, right? :eyeroll:

Bolivar
08-05-2011, 12:47 PM
Oh, you'll be able to park hop on those long Sunday's, you will just need to pay a premium for that privilege. And I am sure that they are going to work hard to make that premium be right at the sweet spot where it is as expensive as possible while still being low enough that you will want to pay for the privilege.

DizneyMommy
08-05-2011, 02:15 PM
Personally, we go over to DCA just to eat, YUM!, but if they did this to us they would actually lose money on us. We would eat before/after going to the park if we were only going into DL, if they stopped letting us hop. I rarely buy food at DL, just not impressed for the price, when we can go over to DCA and get greek, chinese, italian, soups... and so on. But thats just my two cents. I would not pay for my whole family to have Premiums just so I can hop over to spend more money on food. That makes no sense for us.

Aside from that... the other major problem I have with it is this. These are the prices for a WDW pass which has NO BLACKOUT DAYS and includes 4 parks, and parking. Already a PAP is very close in price to the renewal cost in FL, and only includes two (one and half if you consider the construction mess) parks. The DAP, when you add parking, is coming very close to that itself BUT includes blackout days, and now if they change this it won't even have park hopping? This makes no sense. And hey, why do they get to pay less for kids in FL and we don't? They are getting a WAY better value out there than we are, that is for sure.

Guest 10+ Guest 3-9
Annual Pass $552.74 $509.07
Annual Pass Renewal $510.14 $469.67

houseofmouse
08-05-2011, 03:06 PM
The greedier they become, the less I want to visit. Dizmommy is right, 2 parks in CA is almost as much as 4 in Florida. Somehow that just seems off.

I wonder if they would then offer a DL AP only and a DCA AP only? Personally if they took hopping away, they darn well better lower the prices then. But we are not going back for two summers, so I wonder what it will be like then?

DizneyMommy
08-05-2011, 03:14 PM
I personally dont think it makes any sense to offer a DL pass and a DCA pass. WDW only offers one and they have FOUR parks. If they didn't see it necessary to offer the option to buy only one park with them so spread out, it makes even less sense for DL to do that with the two parks so close. It would be insulting to AP holders who have had access to both parks for so long to make us either pick one park or pay substantially more.

I'm sorry - flame me if you will but I'm sayin it - Cars Land is just hunky-dory, but DCA is NOT worth that much more of our hard earned money just for that. IMHO, adding Cars Land just brings it it up to a decent second park instead of the barren, lacking concrete jungle it had been.

Bolivar
08-05-2011, 03:47 PM
I remember that they still sell a one day, one park ticket so I went to see the difference between the two and they now have both one day and hopper tickets at all levels: one day, two day, three day, etc. up to six day. When did they start that?

The difference ranges from $25 for one day tickets to $15 for six day. For us, a family of 5 who usually go for six days, that would be an extra $75 to get hoppers. I would rather not pay that, but likely would to be able to hop.

olegc
08-05-2011, 07:14 PM
to me - it seems it's an idea to try and stem the tidal wave of AP holders that are mostly local, and the "hopping" problem mentioned I would only think would be for the different shows - go to WoC, run to Disneyland to catch Fireworks or Fantasmic, or vice versa. I remember when the entertainment schedule came out last summer (or this summer) and folks were generally annoyed that shows were on at the same time so they could not hop to see them. To me - this is what Disney may want to stem due to the sheer volume of people rushing in at one time and the amount of personnel it may take to handle that. How many of you have tried to quickly hop only to find 2 gates open.

Some may say that Disney should then get more people to staff up, not close down - but my guess is they are trying to balance guest experience, capacity planning, and operational costs.

On the notion of cutting off hopping altogether - I can't see it though. So many things geared towards passholders are in different parks (events, pins, merchandise releases, etc) that if you have it in one and then maybe something else in another, and you limit hopping, how will that allow those AP holders to spend more? Seems like this is an idea floated out there by operations (or maybe Gate) but it has not been floated past other divisions. One poster above mentioned going to DCA to eat. wow - that's excellent for their costs. You go in the park and buy food but don't ride anything so the portion of operating cost goes down. Yeah, sure, one person but still.. What if lots of people do that? Yeah - the gate may not see an increase but wear and tear and possible constant crowding goes down and if they cut off hopping it would be equivalent from a gate perspective.

Ultimately - I think they need to wait until after the walls come down in DCA. They may go back and make DCA a seperate true gate but then after the fever wears off I would guess they would go back to the all parks model (like florida).

Unless, of course, florida is planning something. You know - that one parks mantra ;-).

Teddi
08-05-2011, 08:17 PM
I remember that they still sell a one day, one park ticket so I went to see the difference between the two and they now have both one day and hopper tickets at all levels: one day, two day, three day, etc. up to six day. When did they start that?

About 6 weeks ago, when they introduced the price increases, they introduced the multiday 1day/1park tickets.


For us, a family of 5 who usually go for six days, that would be an extra $75 to get hoppers.

See now, I saw it as just the opposite- that you could *save* money on a non-hopping option, especially since new prices went into effect the day they released the new, lesser cost ticket type.

I do really want to stress that that article is ONLY a rumor. There were two flaws mentioned as fact in the article (a, charging a "hopping fee to the credit card on file", like Mal said, many or most AP holders don't have cards even "on file") and one other point was also just not really factually accurate. So, I think it's a bit too soon to act on this rumors or try to figure out just how it would work.

mouse on mars
08-11-2011, 03:39 PM
I'd be so pissed if they did this.

3Princesses1Prince
08-15-2011, 01:17 PM
1) I don't think the rumor is that you get an AP to either DL or DCA, but that you can't hop from one to the other in one day.

2) though WDW has 4 parks, they don't have that many more rides than DLR.

3) I think Disney is testing the waters by introducing the non-PH tickets for 3-6 day stays.

cookie7762
08-15-2011, 08:49 PM
I would be so unhappy if they did this! I rarely spend a full day at DCA and I think that even with the addition of cars land, I still won't desire a full day there. As a northerna Californian I typically come down for 2-3 days. To be obligated to spend and entire day at DCA out of my 2 day trip might prompt me to skip it all together, and in the long run it might prompt me to not renew my DAP.

disneyobsessed
08-16-2011, 09:20 AM
If you take a look at MiceAge and Al Lutz's article today, he's adding fuel to this rumor. Everything Al Lutz writes is rumor anyway, so take it all with a grain of salt. His interpretation seems to be that Disney may at some unspecified future date add another grade of AP such that there are parkhopping and non-parkhopping APs. It sounds like non-parkhopping APs would allow you to enter either park, but only one of them, per day. Park-hopping would be a premium upgrade to an AP. Again, strictly rumor at this point. I shudder to think what the pricing might be for a fully non-blocked out, non-park-hopping AP in the future, but I can see the possibility of this change coming someday if Disneyland and Disney California Adventure continue to be as successful and generate the kind of demand and revenue that they have been generating.

MrsPooh
08-16-2011, 11:55 AM
I understand the crowd thing, but before they do this, they need to open DCA for the full hours that DL is open. Most people rush from DCA over to DL once the park is closed. Or, they go to DL for a couple of hours to kill time until DCA is open. It's so flippen stupid. Fix one crowd control problem, with the hopper thing, and not fix the hours? Makes no sense.

disneyobsessed
08-16-2011, 12:09 PM
I understand the crowd thing, but before they do this, they need to open DCA for the full hours that DL is open. Most people rush from DCA over to DL once the park is closed. Or, they go to DL for a couple of hours to kill time until DCA is open. It's so flippen stupid. Fix one crowd control problem, with the hopper thing, and not fix the hours? Makes no sense.

Also included in today's rumors from Al Lutz was the assertion that DCA will be open 8 AM - 11 PM next summer. This I would definitely like to see happen.