Transcript from the
DAS part of the episode:
“So on several shows this year, starting with our January 1st show, we mentioned instances of what looked like questionable DAS usage in the parks, with from counting the number of people getting in lines and watching the occasional incident here or there.
And we said that we would not be surprised to see Disney make some changes to its disability access service. And then last Tuesday, Disney announced major changes to its DAS program. The changes are this.
“Disney says it's returning back to the program's original target population, which is those with developmental disabilities that prevent them from waiting in line.
They're moving to a third-party verification company. We'll do live video chats with you to determine the appropriate accommodation for your need.
The interesting thing there is, Disney said that you could be able to schedule those up to 120 days in advance, which is double the 60 now, and the new program is good for 120 days, which is also double the current length. The other interesting thing is, if you show up at the parks, you will not be speaking to guest relations about that. Instead, you'll be directed to a small room, apparently near guest relations, to have that video chat with the same company.”
“So there's no getting around using that third-party company. And then kind of buried in this, Jim, did you see that Disney said that they're going to reconfigure the standby lines so that more people are able to get out and get in them? It was in the aspect, but here, let me give you the source.
So a major source of DAS use is from people who say that they have gastrointestinal issues that cause them not to be able to wait in long lines because they have to go to the bathroom too frequently to wait in that line. So Disney's addressing this by modifying the standby queues at some unspecified, but probably popular attractions to add a return to your place in line feature. They haven't exactly said how they're going to do it, but my sense is you'll be able to like, I don't know if they're going to carve up two lines into three and make one of them an exit and come back, you know, like a third lane or what, but the implementation of this is going to be interesting”
“Yeah, also Disney says that the service is now designed for a maximum group size of four friends or whatever size your immediate family is, whichever is larger and that's down from six. So we're going to restrict the number, we're going to lower the number of people who qualify, we're going to lower the maximum group size and for those who have issues that need going to the bathroom, there's another change coming for that. Okay, so the things that stay the same would be the way that you use
MDE to set return times while you're in the park.
So all of that's going to stay the same. And this takes effect May 20th in Walt Disney World and June 17th in
Disneyland. If you've already registered under the current process and your trip is before then, Disney says you don't have to do anything.”
“And I would expect us to hear more details around the very, very specific steps, like how's it going to work for someone with non-apparent disabilities? How's it going to work for people within wheelchairs and so on? So more of that is to come.
Help Center
But the interesting thing about this is this announcement came out, and we knew it was coming, right? We knew it was coming.
The number of phone calls I got that afternoon from the 407 area code providing background on this, that I'm not saying it came from Disney, I'm saying the information would be such that Disney would never say it out loud, right?
So let me say this, right? So I know a lot of people have a legitimate need for the service, either for themselves or for their children or their parents. I'm convinced Disney knows the demographics of the groups most likely to abuse this system.”
“And if you fall in that group I just mentioned, you are not the droids that they're looking for. They know who they're targeting for this, right? Yeah, so I wouldn't worry about that.
So like, and change is hard and change is scary. I really don't think this new process is gonna be substantially different for the vast majority of people who truly qualify, right? Who fall into this category, right?
The other thing I wanna mention is Disney has thousands of cast members who are either disabled or who have family members that are disabled. And if you told me this new policy went through 25 rounds of internal review and testing before we even heard about it, I would believe that. And the end result is going to be that the people who truly need accommodation are going to wait less in line when all of this is done.”
“So that's the good thing.
No, no, I agree. I agree. The notion is Disney isn't going after your child with autism.
This is an entirely different target in mind here.
Yeah, let me just say this. And I'm not saying that this was told to me or anything. If you think that the best way to get a DAS pass is to show up at a park by yourself with no doctor's note, but a script that you printed off the internet that says, words to use to skip the lines at Disney World for free.”
“And you're reading from that paper to the person at guest relations. You might want to rethink your strategy. That's all I'm going to say on that topic.
Words to the wise, Len, you know.
Okay, I'm not saying it's happened or that Disney has 700 videos like that that it backed up, but anyway. But going over some of the background information, and some of this we knew, some of this we learned, right? Here's why Disney had to make this change.
Daz abuse has gotten out of hand. And again, Disney's not going to give actual numbers on it, but you and I can piece together some things based on what it has said in the past and what it's saying today. All right, so back in 2020, Disney was sued about ADA accommodations.”
“And it was the US. District Court in Orlando. And the court found this data that Disney presented about the old guest assistance card persuasive.
They said, approximately 3.3% of guests at Disney use a guest assistance pass. But the percentage of guests on the most popular rides who have that guest assistance card and use the FastPass line was significantly higher than 3%. So the study that they did showed 3.3% of guests were 11% of riders on Space Mountain, 13% of riders on Splash Mountain, and 30% on Toy Story Mania in one week in April.
And if you look at the overall numbers over the course of a vacation, Disney engineers said that guests with a guest assistance pass were riding Toy Story Mania.
Remember when Toy Story Mania came out, it was super popular. People with guest assistant passes were riding Toy Story Mania an average of 10 times more than guests who didn't have a guest assistance card pass.”
“Okay, and here's where it gets interesting. Disney said on Tuesday that the use of the DAS system had tripled in the last five years. And the DAS system allows you to bring up to five other people on the ride, and that's a really big multiplier effect for every instance of abuse.
So multiplying the previous numbers that Disney's already said in a lawsuit, not by three, right? They said it's tripled, but let's be conservative here and say 2.5, right? That means that 8% or 9% of guests with DAS cards and their groups are taking up to 75% of the seats on popular rides.
And I will defend both of those numbers, Jim, very, very hard. Like I've got to those numbers through multiple estimates and they seem to be consistent. So 8% or 9% of the guests are 75% of the people in the Lightning Lane lines, okay?”
“And that's in line with what we collected by counting the number of people in lines. This year, right, that's, I believe those numbers, right? I don't think Disney's ever gonna say it.
I believe those numbers. And the problem with that, right, is that, again, the people who legitimately need the accommodation are waiting in line longer than they should because of abuse. And remember that because we're gonna come back to that later on.
And not for nothing to, I haven't talked to anyone internally about this. I swear, I've not talked to anybody about this. But Jim, I would bet money that they looked at the upward trend in DAS use and they looked at the June opening of Tianna's bioadventure and they were scared that pretty close to 100% of the lightning lane capacity for Tianna's would have to be allocated to DAS.”
“And that would have shut up basically everyone else in the park from using lightning. And as it was told to me repeatedly, the ADA guidelines are guidelines, not a suicide pact.
Eh.
Right? And speaking of ADA guidelines, Jim, would you like to hear some interesting hypotheticals I came up with? Without talking to a single person ever, Jim, about this.
Not talking to anyone, anyone.
Well, okay, I got it.
Completely hypothetical in my head. Are you ready?
I'm sure. Sure.”
“Okay, hypothetically, Jim,
remember last year when Ticketmaster was, oh sorry, in 2022, when Ticketmaster was sued by Taylor Swift fans for not doing enough to prevent bots from buying ADA designated tickets? Hypothetically, yeah, it happened, it happened. Hypothetically, hypothetically, just spitballing here.
What if Ticketmaster went to the US Department of Justice and said, I thought we couldn't require documentation here. What are we supposed to do? And then hypothetically, because I don't know anything about anything, Jim, right?
What if the DOJ said, you know, Ticketmaster, you should totally read the section marked prevention of fraud and purchase of tickets for accessible venues on our ADA requirements website last updated February 20th, 2020. Again, this is a fever dream. I don't know that this happened, right?”
“And what if Ticketmaster went back to the DOJ and said, could we get some guidance on what you mean when you say venues may take steps to prevent the fraudulent sale and use of accessible seating? Now hypothetically, right, again, I don't know that this happened. If the DOJ came back and said something like, as long as you have substantial evidence of abuse, like something that shows that people who legitimately need accommodation are being negatively affected by this fraud, and you can show that you are doing it in a minimally intrusive way that gets the job done, you can ask more questions as long as the end result is that the aforementioned people who legitimately need accommodation are better off at the end, right?
But in my head, I say that in way more expensive lawyer speak, of course, right? Okay, so let's say that that gets resolved, right? And then hypothetically, Jim, right, if you're a theme park operator with a small army of lawyers,
you might approach the DOJ and say, you know, a day in a theme park is a lot like a Taylor Swift concert. There's limited seating per day, and you wanna make sure that the special seats go to those who actually need them. Would you agree? That's how I would, just me, I would open my conversation to the DOJ with that.
That seems pretty straightforward, right? No, the DOJ would come back and say, but you have proof of this abuse, right? Right, right.
And of course, because if I'm running a theme park, I would be super prepared and I would say like, oh my God, we have spent untold staff hours counting people in line. We have population analyses that would make the Census Bureau weep with joy. We have disks full of social media posts from click chasers explaining that they said that they, what they were saying to get a free front of the line pass, but the next day, film themselves sweating in a yurt during yoga in the desert for three hours.”
“Like, is that the kind of proof that you need? Because like, this is like 75% of our line sometimes. In that case, the DOJ might say, you know what, a couple more questions could be useful here.
I'm not saying it happened. I'm just saying in my head, that's how I imagine it would go.
That's a very interesting head you got going there, Len.
I picked up so many random calls from the 407 area code this week, Jim. All right, one last thing on this. And for anyone who owns Disney stock, I was also on a call with someone going through the likely park ops and financial impacts of this change.”
“And the thought occurred to me on this call that, by the way, I knew this person existed. I had no idea this person knew I existed. But I'm on this call, and the thought occurred to me that if almost four out of five people in the Lightning Lane line for popular attractions aren't paying for it, then all the extra revenue, Jim, that Parks and Resorts has seen over the last few years has come from just one in five guests in each Lightning Lane paying for it.
And that means, Jim, if these new DAS rules can convince just one in four of those users to switch to paying for Ginny+, Disney basically doubles the money it's making from Lightning Lane.
Hadn't we heard that was at least a billion?”
“The number that no one disagrees with, let's put it this way, is 800 million. And I've talked to a bunch of people about this. If you told me a billion, I'd believe a billion, sort of like in secondary stuff or whatever.
Anyway, so when I was in this call with someone, I said, okay, you know, like the numbers indicate that people who really need DAS are being harmed by waiting in line longer, right? And these changes will fulfill the intent of the ADA guidelines. So on that alone, right, you should make the changes.”
“You should make the changes to do good. And they said, you know, yeah, that's really what we're trying to do. That is literally the intent.
And then I said, so the extra billion dollars in profit is just a byproduct you'll have to live with? And Jim, this person laughed and laughed until they, until they coughed. Honest to God, I have never heard anyone at that level of a company laugh that hard in my life.
He laughed and laughed and laughed. It was hilarious.”
“They took it in the spirit it was intended, right? I really do think this is the right move, right? But it's just...
Oh, no, no, no, totally. But let's be honest here. It is the right move, but on the same time, it's a right move that Disney has a huge financial incentive to implement.
Right. Exactly.
The payoff is huge.
Oh, by the way, I was talking to somebody else, and I was relating this story to them, and they mentioned... I don't want to know if you've heard this, that when Imagineering is coming up with their next generation of rides, part of their financial modeling is actually building in the individual lightning lane and Gini Plus revenue, which conceivably would allow them to either fund bigger projects or more projects sooner. Hypothetically, I don't really know what the number is, but if we're getting $40 million a year out of Rise of the Resistance and the ride costs $500 million to build, your timeframe for profitability is reduced.”
“Also, it reduces the risk. If you think about how Disney used to make its money back in opening rides, it was like, okay, we're going to spend $100 million building Splash Mountain. I hope to God the advertising is good enough to get people to book trips so we can make that money back.
That's an indirect way of measuring the success of an individual attraction, right?
Oh, yeah. But at the same time, to circle back to what you mentioned at the top of the segment about Daz, think about the very thing you just mentioned about, okay, we're gonna have to reconfigure the line so there is a way for people to exit from the line, get to a bathroom, and then return to the line without disrupting. And it's just sort of when you factor in what that's going to mean, that you now have to go to the pre-existing queues for at least all of the most popular attractions of the park and work this in.”
“I mean, it just sort of reminds me of what happened back in the late 1990s, early 2000s, when FastPass first came in, and every time they put in a new FastPass, it was a million dollars. In fact, it was Bruce Vaughn, the then head, or the now head of Imagineering, who was championing FastPass back in the day, who said, look, yes, it's a million dollars, but when you think about, you know, someone isn't waiting in line, which means they're in the shop. They're getting drinks.
They're eating Mickey pretzels, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we are making that money back. Trust me, invest that money.
Yeah, 100%. And this is way easier to measure.
I agree.”
From The Jim Hill Media Podcast Network: DD Ep 475: Re-opened 1900 Park Fare serves up a superior character meal, Apr 14, 2024
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podca...-fare-serves-up-a/id452620851?i=1000652447127
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