I can’t afford a trip anytime soon anyway, so it’s not like they’re going to be worried enough about losing my business to give me a phone call. But it’s nice to be heard, even knowing it’s not likely to have an effect.
I could learn to live with the idea of some kind of paid fastpass, although I still think it goes against the spirit Disney cultivated for generations. BUT...
My main problem is just how doggone
complicated the whole Genie system is. I feel like I’d need a flowchart and a set of reference books just to get through a day in the parks. If they really felt like they had to bring in more money per guest, it seems like it would have been so much simpler to have just increased the price of an all-inclusive ticket. Or gone back to the opening-day system of charging a lower entrance fee and then requiring separate paid tickets for individual attractions. The higher cost of an “E” ticket made it more likely that fewer people would be using one st any given moment. And people were less stressed worrying about getting their money’s worth and feeling like they were paying for activities they didn’t even get to do.
And everything worked fine in the days before before paper FP, too. If the posted wait time for an attraction was longer than you felt like waiting, you just moved on to something else and came back later. Attractions like the Haunred Mansion were “people eaters,” with their high capacity moving even long lines through quickly. With the capacity to check wait times from anywhere in the park on your cell phone, it would be even easier.
I can’t help but feel like they’re capitalizing on the all-too-common frailty many people seem to have, of feeling like having more money makes you somehow more special. And before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, I know that paid VIP tours have always been available (I was on one once, as part of a conference for work, and it was pretty awesome). But they passed largely unnoticed by most average guests.
There was always a feeling for most of us, that when you left the real world behind and stepped into that happy place, everyone was more or less equal under that one moon and one golden sun. There was a great sense of camaraderie among all those strangers - nowhere else have I been as likely to strike up friendly conversations with people I’d never met and would probably never see again. We were all in the same boat, be it waiting in line for a ride, waiting for our ADR table to be ready, sharing a crowded bus or elevator, or even literally being in the same boat. We offer to take each other’s pictures. We share the last table in quick service restaurants so nobody has to eat standing up. We squeeze one more person into a crowded elevator or Monorail car. We keep an eye out for each other’s kids when they look like they might be wandering off into danger and ooh and ah over their little princess and pirate costumes. We lend a helping hand when somebody is having trouble getting into or out of a ride vehicle. We congratulate passers-by wearing birthday or anniversary buttons. Yeah, there are always a few jerks, but they’re generally the exception.
Is that going to continue to be the atmosphere now that we know all guests may be equal but some are more equal than others?
Anyway, I’m coming down off my soapbox for the night. Many thanks to the OP for that contact information, and to anybody who listened to me vent!
. Everyone is entitled to their opinion for sure. But like I said, there's always going to be initial resistance. I'm just not convinced (yet) that YouTube likes/dislikes in a sample size of roughly 10-15K viewers is representative of what actual public sentiment will be once this thing actually rolls out in its final form. I'm just not ready to pass judgment until I have all of the details. Maybe this will be a disaster. Maybe it will be fantastic and well-loved. My guess is, like any new rollout we've seen over the years, it's going to be somewhere in between. But we'll see as more details are released and things become clearer!
