Disney Resorts to start charging parking fees....

[Tink-osophy]

Jesus Christ...

Hey, now! Nobody's telling you what to think or feel. We're really not. We just want OUR viewpoints to be clear and not misrepresented to others who are reading.

You said, earlier, that "After reading these replies, I find it funny people are willing to throw something they like/love over a parking fee" and we're just trying to explain that this isn't true. I won't reply again, because there's no point in going round in circles #dizzy

Maybe, listen to the first 20 minutes of the March 20th Dis Unplugged podcast. It's really good.

 

[SmithSmith]

Where do you watch it? Link?

 

[Lynne M]

This thread is circling the drain, guys. Let’s get away from the personal arguments and OT stuff and get back to resort-related discussion, please.

 

[trvlgirlmq]

We made it official, we are not going to WDW for the big trip we had planned for 2020 for my nieces Sweet 16 (her choice was WDW). It was a special trip and we would have stayed in our first deluxe but the changes are too much (not just parking as we would have to drive to justify the expense of deluxe).

We will still honor her wishes but we will be visiting Disneyland after a Mexican Riviera cruise which we booked this morning. We can easily stay on Harbor Blvd without a car, avoid parking fees, intrusive security checks and do some off-site meals. I'm excited to explore some of Mexico and see all the changes at DL since 2006 when we last visited.

 

[Adz83]

Disney may once have been this affordable place that you have all known and loved, but alas, this is not the case anymore.

A new breed of Disney fan is what they are targeting. One that has a higher disposable income, one that does not care about the cost of things, one that will pay more for convenience.

This new breed might not be you and unfortunately that is bad luck.

This new market that Disney has tapped into might not have been about the parks in the past, but Disney have created experiences that are geared towards them to draw them in. You might not like paying for a 3 hour event at the magic kingdom because you are used to long days and long nights for the same cost, but there are people that are.

With the wage that I am on, I can't really afford to go and stay at Poly for a couple of weeks on end, but I do. I make sacrifices in other areas on my life. I do not have kids, I do not own a home, I do not go out each weekend. My guilty pleasure, is going to WDW. If they want to nickel and dime me, so be it. I have made the choice to go and I am sorry, but those of you that decide to stop going, you will be replaced by someone with deeper pockets. Its the way of the world.

I bet you don't all have fancy cars, and season tickets to your local sporting teams because you cannot afford it, maybe it is time to realise that Disney is now something that you cannot afford too.

 

[SmithSmith]

I bet you don't all have fancy cars, and season tickets to your local sporting teams because you cannot afford it, maybe it is time to realise that Disney is now something that you cannot afford too.

There’s literally a hundred pages worth of responses saying exactly why we don’t want to tolerate this new fee, and most of them have nothing to do with cost and everything to do with the current state of WDW. We are sick of paying more for an increasingly mediocre experience.

Disney used to be known for the Disney Difference, but has proven themselves more worthy of Disney Indifference.

 

[Tink-osophy]

...Disney Indifference.

 

[Adz83]

There’s literally a hundred pages worth of responses saying exactly why we don’t want to tolerate this new fee, and most of them have nothing to do with cost and everything to do with the current state of WDW. We are sick of paying more for an increasingly mediocre experience.

Disney used to be known for Disney Difference, but has proven themselves more worthy of Disney Indifference.

Again, if this new group of Disney fans don’t care about the state of the parks, the daily room checks, the country st of hope parking then your dollar doesn’t matter

 

[snappy]

It's the industry standard, right?

 

[ShadeDK]

??? How about a thrifty American group, or thrifty German group, or thrifty Asian group? Not sure what you mean about chanting and clapping.

Just having a bit of fun with the Brazilian Tourist Groups (or BTGs, as they're called around here) - who descend on WDW at certain times each year and are mostly known for being energetic groups of dozens of Brazilian teens/young adults who chant/clap most everywhere they go (and occasionally sit down in the middle of high traffic areas while they regroup). Depending on whom you talk to, BTGs can be lively, festive groups that add to the international experience of WDW, or they can be a very loud nuisance. They come up as a topic of discussion on the boards every so often. Certainly no offense meant to Brazilians - one of my most recent travel regrets was not getting to Sao Paulo last year to visit friends (but my Brazilian visa is still good for 9 more years!). Fique bem! (my Portuguese is a little rusty - hope that translates)

Back to parking fees - even if contacting Disney will not result in rolling those fees back (and I tend to side with those who think they're here to stay), there may still be value as Disney considers future cost increases that affect guests. Maybe, for example, those impending ticket price increases when tiered multi-day passes are announced later this year. A litany of guest complaints about escalating prices is something that Disney ignores at its own risk (you'd almost think they didn't understand the significance of the canaries in the interactive queue of BTMRR).

 

[Colleen27]

I think this fable probably explains what is happening in the Disney boardrooms better than anything else.

"There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg.

The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.

Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead."​

I took a seminar in the 80's or 90's that was about customer service and repeat business. The seminar kept pointing to Disney as the example of how they manage to be profitable every year due to 87% (or 78% - I can never remember the exact statistic) repeat business. They were the industry leader in repeat business.

Lately - oh, maybe in the past five or 10 years - Disney has changed their model and they're now trying to get more and bigger golden eggs out of their geese so they can be richer today instead of profitable for the next 20 or 30 years. It would seem that Disney no longer cares about repeat business or longevity; they want ALL the golden eggs now. And, for the short term, it may work because there are still a lot of geese out there who are willing to continue laying these eggs for Disney.

But for many of us, this parking fee was the Countryman killing us and cutting us open. Disney may not miss our business today, tomorrow, or even next year. But I think five years from now they're going to be bringing in analysts and business managers trying to figure out why the profits have fallen off. Just ask Eisner. He was brought in for the same reason a few decades ago.

Those who don't learn from past lessons are doomed to repeat them.

And unfortunately, this is an entirely predictable consequence that an out-going leader like Iger has little incentive to avoid. That's something that hasn't been talked about much on these threads but is likely a driving force behind at least some of the changes. Disney has a top boss with one foot out the door who has a compensation package that richly rewards meeting relatively short-term targets in his remaining tenure, and other execs likely have similar incentives in their pay structure. That sets up a situation in which killing the goose to get two eggs today, therefore "beating expectations", is better for the people in charge than keeping it alive to reap the long-term rewards. Because the reasons to care about where Disney will be in ten or twenty years aren't nearly as persuasive as the reasons to care about adding every dime they can to the bottom line this quarter or this year.

 

[Dean Marino]

It's in the Master Declaration of each resort. This was discussed on the DVC threads. https://www.disboards.com/threads/can-disney-charge-dvc-for-parking.3670675/ Page 2 has the image and specific discussion of that image.

THANK YOU.... that post has the pertinent data. We now know where to look in OUR Contract Data - "Master Declaration - VWL".

 

[Roxyfire]

THANK YOU.... that post has the pertinent data. We now know where to look in OUR Contract Data - "Master Declaration - VWL".

Happy to help! I thought it was an interesting post and good discussion to share.

 

[Gryhndmom]

We made it official, we are not going to WDW for the big trip we had planned for 2020 for my nieces Sweet 16 (her choice was WDW). It was a special trip and we would have stayed in our first deluxe but the changes are too much (not just parking as we would have to drive to justify the expense of deluxe).

We will still honor her wishes but we will be visiting Disneyland after a Mexican Riviera cruise which we booked this morning. We can easily stay on Harbor Blvd without a car, avoid parking fees, intrusive security checks and do some off-site meals. I'm excited to explore some of Mexico and see all the changes at DL since 2006 when we last visited.

FYI...Just returned from disneyland and they also have the bag checks and screeners which I thought was the same at WDW.

 

[ShadeDK]

And unfortunately, this is an entirely predictable consequence that an out-going leader like Iger has little incentive to avoid. That's something that hasn't been talked about much on these threads but is likely a driving force behind at least some of the changes. Disney has a top boss with one foot out the door who has a compensation package that richly rewards meeting relatively short-term targets in his remaining tenure, and other execs likely have similar incentives in their pay structure. That sets up a situation in which killing the goose to get two eggs today, therefore "beating expectations", is better for the people in charge than keeping it alive to reap the long-term rewards. Because the reasons to care about where Disney will be in ten or twenty years aren't nearly as persuasive as the reasons to care about adding every dime they can to the bottom line this quarter or this year.

I'd "like" this statement 100 times more if I could - because it's a very big part of the problem (one that doesn't just affect Disney, but most companies, where short term gambles are rewarded more than long term stability). Very often (including today) I see someone suggest increasing prices are just something to accept because Disney's purpose, as a company, is to make money. Wellllll....not exactly. It's an oversimplification.

As a public company, Disney's duty is to maximize the value of its shareholders' interest. Making money is directly related to maximizing value - but it's more than just making money and includes other variables (like how that money is made and impact on value over time). Disney could make a boatload of money today by selling off its assets, or auctioning off the Marvel and Star Wars IP - but it's not doing that because there's greater shareholder value in holding on to those properties and developing them in the future than selling them off today. And that's where things like the parking fees get complicated - yes, those fees make money today and increase shareholder value in the short term. But if aggressive price increases erode guest satisfaction, corporate goodwill, and repeat business in the long term - Disney has made money in the short term but it hasn't necessarily maximized shareholder value if that leads to long term declines in the business. Absent a rapid reaction by the market, however, the total impact of incremental price increases long term is something that current management can leave to the next round of executives to deal with.

 

[JacknSally]

FYI...Just returned from disneyland and they also have the bag checks and screeners which I thought was the same at WDW.

I think the OP was referring to the new daily "security checks" in the hotel rooms, not the bag checks at the parks.

 

[TheFloatingBear]

Back to parking fees - even if contacting Disney will not result in rolling those fees back (and I tend to side with those who think they're here to stay), there may still be value as Disney considers future cost increases that affect guests. Maybe, for example, those impending ticket price increases when tiered multi-day passes are announced later this year. A litany of guest complaints about escalating prices is something that Disney ignores at its own risk (you'd almost think they didn't understand the significance of the canaries in the interactive queue of BTMRR).

Excellent (and funny) metaphor - and I agree! And replying to something you posted several pages ago but I didn't have time to reply - I also agree the arbitrary nature makes it an especially tough pill to swallow...I'm a flyer and it bugs me! Again, short term and while the economy is good, this business model can continue and it won't matter, but I have to say, around where I live, the canary is already gasping a bit! Where I live, most people need to fly and I see a lot more "one and dones" than people who create a tradition of going regularly like my family. I don't think alienating (or pricing out) the people that are close enough to drive on a more regular basis is showing a lot of forethought.

 

[DISNEY1975]

Apparently you've never been on a WDW bus returning to a value resort from one of the parks after closing.
The South Americans, especially the girls, seem to think that everyone wants to hear them sing at the top of their lungs, in Spanish, for the entire trip back to the resort.
My SIL, who is Puerto Rican, wouldn't translate what they were singing because he said it was too gross.
He's not a prude........

Ha! First of all, Brazilians speak Portuguese, not Spanish, so Im not sure what he was translating. Second, I have read posts about Brazilians teen behavior, but I have also seen the same thing about American cheerleading competition groups and other American teen athletes for competition being unruly, cheering (what you call chanting), singing, laughing being loud teenagers, because that is what happens when you get a group of teens together. I never understood why the word "American" is never used when talking about them, but any time someone looking latino (which Brazilians are not) and speaking a foreign language, people are quick to throw "Brazilian" in their sentence.

Last, the person I quoted said some comment about thrifty Brazilians piling into a car. I have no idea why someone would make a comment like that. It had NOTHING to do with this thread or conversation. It was being discussed that the UK gets great deals on WDW vacations and Brazilians do not. The comment made after that was unnecessary. If it was a group of Americans on the bus singing Let it Go at the top of there lungs (which Ive heard many times in line at rides) nobody blinks, but foreigners cant sing in their native language?

Just WOW.

I guess Ill tell my daughter she cant sing or clap while at Disney. But maybe is doesnt bother people at the Deluxes, which is where we typically stay. So to reply to your comment, no Ive never been on a bus returning to a value resort....which is why I comment on this thread about the parking fee. Should I get 2 cars for my family of 5? Wouldnt wnt any comments made about us piling in and looking like clowns coming out.

 

[Tink-osophy]

...

 

[DISNEY1975]

Just having a bit of fun with the Brazilian Tourist Groups (or BTGs, as they're called around here) - who descend on WDW at certain times each year and are mostly known for being energetic groups of dozens of Brazilian teens/young adults who chant/clap most everywhere they go (and occasionally sit down in the middle of high traffic areas while they regroup). Depending on whom you talk to, BTGs can be lively, festive groups that add to the international experience of WDW, or they can be a very loud nuisance. They come up as a topic of discussion on the boards every so often. Certainly no offense meant to Brazilians - one of my most recent travel regrets was not getting to Sao Paulo last year to visit friends (but my Brazilian visa is still good for 9 more years!). Fique bem! (my Portuguese is a little rusty - hope that translates)

Very respectful response. Your explanation is appreciated.