Genie Service

[crazymomof4]

Here's an interesting analysis of park attendance demographics (from 2018):

https://www.streetlightdata.com/measuring-travel-behavior-disney-world/?type=blog
Interesting to note, and something that I have touched on in previous posts:

"It’s interesting to see in Fig. 4 that households who have an annual income of $125,000 or more (the second largest income group in the US), don’t visit the park as frequently, although they have the funds."​

​

Thanks for this! In addition to the text you quoted, this caught my eye... "many people from lower income levels that visit the park. About 42.1% earn less than $35,000 to be exact. ". As a lay person reading this, it seems these stats would come into play in the oft-discussed topic: "At what point is Disney pricing out a significant portion of their guests?"

 

[DeeCee735]

Some good tidbits for DVC members in there:

AR filter that will make your villa appear undamaged for $29 per night (not available at BRV)
$8 per day unlimited virtual towels

 

[RKS03]

I wonder how long lines will be if you pay for genie+. I loved how fast passes were free but lines were significantly longer than parks who charge for express lines. I will be very frustrated if we pay for it but still find long lines.

 

[Cabius]

Thanks for this! In addition to the text you quoted, this caught my eye... "many people from lower income levels that visit the park. About 42.1% earn less than $35,000 to be exact. ". As a lay person reading this, it seems these stats would come into play in the oft-discussed topic: "At what point is Disney pricing out a significant portion of their guests?"

Cell phone location data is messy. A teen or college student who goes with her parents would show up as a low-income, but they aren't the ones paying for the trip. It's somewhat instructive, but some of the data is interesting (repeat visitors, physical home of visitors) but a lot of it is worse than useless.

 

[TiggerBouncy]

Can you please provide a link to where you "checked" this or, if the link isn't allowed, at least point us in the right direction? So the rest of us can also read this stat and others like it?
I'm genuinely interested. I enjoy researching such things.

Well, again Disney does not publish numbers for us to work with, so it's mostly empirical (which is why I say approx). I can't remember where I saw that 70% figure, but think about it logically.

It's easier to estimate if we break it down by part. We can assume that for the most part, most visitors will go to Magic Kingdom during their trip. Again, we can't go off perfect numbers, so we are working with best guesses / approximations.

Magic Kingdom attendance is about 21 million people per year. We also know from comments made by Iger and Eisner that about 18-19 million of those are unique visits. Which means that only about 2-3 million visits are repeats (that comprises all of the Annual Passholders and people who visit more than once a year. For example, I would typically go 2 times a year (maybe 3), but I count as just 1. But that doesn't tell us how many people go once a year or every other year.

We also know that international visitors make up about 20% (Orlando Sentinal) and about 800K to 1 Million are from Brazil. Another 750K from UK (those are the top 2 I believe). Brazil is often a lot of teen groups that go once as a rite of passage type thing. UK has a higher percentage of repeat visitors, but you are still looking at close to 1.5 million right there of 1 time visitors. If you expand that out, you can easily put the amount of international travelers that are one time at 75-80% of the 20%.

Now lets talk about the 80% Americans. So we are working with only 14 million visitors domestically. Each family member is a visitor. So if the average family is 3 members, that's 5 million families. Out of 120 Million households. Or less than 5% of families per year.

2/3's theme park visitors travel more than 50 miles (Theme Park Tribune).
46% of visitors are 18-29 (many of those will be on their first or second trip as they do not have a lot of disposable income).
Nearly 1/3rd (27%) of travelers use a travel agent - most of these are not millennials who prefer online booking (ASTA). Very few WDW repeat travelers who fall into things like DVC will use one.

You can see the numbers add up quickly. I don't have the time (because I really have to get back to work) to crunch all these numbers, but if you ask yourself when you look on these boards or facebook or anywhere else the number of people who are asking for advise of first time travel or first time in 10 years or I haven't been in 15 years - what has changed... it's easy to see that a large number of people have never been. 70% is really not that unbelievable.

 

[Mumof4mice]

We used FP+ to full advantage and loved it. But we've always thought that FP+ heavily favoured Disney Pros/panners and negatively impacted the park experience of novices. As an example, we felt so sorry for some tearful families, who thought their their tickets included FP+ to FoP, that we offered to take their kids with us as our Riderswitch people. And some were desperate enough to accept our offer!

Having said that, Genie+ is a convoluted system that doesn't even the playing field. DIS veterans who choose to pay the upcharge will still run circles around Newbies.

I would have preferred if Disney went full Universal Express. The nickel and diming cheapens the experience and is decidedly unmagical.

 

[Chris@Blenheim]

We used FP+ to full advantage and loved it. But we've always thought that FP+ heavily favoured Disney Pros/panners and negatively impacted the park experience of novices. As an example, we felt so sorry for some tearful families, who thought their their tickets included FP+ to FoP, that we offered to take their kids with us as our Riderswitch people. And some were desperate enough to accept our offer!

Having said that, Genie+ is a convoluted system that doesn't even the playing field. DIS veterans who choose to pay the upcharge will still run circles around Newbies.

I would have preferred if Disney went full Universal Express. The nickel and diming cheapens the experience and is decidedly unmagical.

I agree fully. Who wants to get up just before 7am while on vacation to plan your day!!! We use to have months to plan your rides and dinning.

 

[Chris@Blenheim]

I hate it.
Disney was the only theme park operator to offer a free line skipping systems, now they're like Merlin or Six Flag.
This is said by someone who travel solo and can easily afford $15 per day. Thinking about large families, it's a very large expense on top of very large expenses for a WDW vacation.
Hate it, hate it, hate it.

Yes... Family of six here... If your going to charge, just do a flat rate!! I don't want to be staring at my phone all day, checking on rides... Who wants to get up just before 7am while on vacation to plan your day!!! We use to have months to plan your rides and dinning.

 

[New Mouse]

Getting up at 7 for rise is already a drain.

 

[Bearval]

I wonder if they are trying to push people away from hopping? The 2pm rule isn’t friendly to begin with, then add on this…

I highly doubt it. It is a large source of revenue that costs them absolutely nothing and you may be surprised on how many people buy it and hardly use it especially 1st time visitors with small children.

 

[OhDannyBoy]

So is there an official date for this rolling out yet?

Sorry if already answered. A lot to keep up with.

 

[Bearval]

The problem I have with this is that it is not going to work for most people. Hear me out...

There's a comparison with UO's system, which allows anyone staying in a deluxe hotel to bypass the regular line. No pre-planning or reservation required, just show up, flash the card, and move right up to the head of the queue. If you're not staying at the deluxe hotel, it's VERY expensive to add this feature to your ticket. So, the vast majority of people at UO won't have it. I've used it, and cut my wait time on the "B List" rides by 30-60 minutes per ride. The Harry Potter rides didn't offer the "bypass the lines" feature when I was there, so I spent over an hour waiting in each of those lines.

G+ allows you to pay $15, so it's inexpensive, and allows you to make reservation after reservation but only for "B" list (C-D ticket) rides, and only one at a time. You might want to get out of the park by the early afternoon to avoid the sweltering Florida heat, but no... You make that POTC reservation at 7am for 5 minutes after 9am rope drop, show up at rope drop, rush to POTC, get on and ride it. Your next target ride is HM, Splash, or BTMR. You check G+... HM is offering a pass for 10:15, Splash is offered at 11:45, BTMR is offered at 1. Exiting HM at 10:40, you check G+ and it tells you that your next ride is at 3pm on either Splash or BTMR. You then check LL for 7DMT and get a 4pm time there, and it's $20 for that ride alone. You're stuck in the park waiting for your next ride 4 hours from now, so you have lunch, and get into a standby line for whatever you didn't pick as your next ride, waiting 50 minutes in standby, and then the next ride on your list, again on standby, waiting 70 minutes for that. You ride your scheduled ride, and then check G+, and find nothing left that day. Frustrated, the next day you decide to not buy G+. That day you wait 120 minutes for Splash and 90 minutes for BTMR because that day EVERYONE and their brother seems to have purchased G+.

G+ only works when few people buy it at a high price, or everyone buys it. If few buy it at a high price, it's UO's system that allows those who can afford it to not spend time waiting. If everyone buys it, it means that a regular admission ticket on an average day means you'll be spending the vast majority of the day standing in lines to get on a small number of rides, while those on G+ will have shorter waits in the fast line. I doubt Disney will publish how many people purchased G+ that day, or how many of them are in each park, although that could easily be done.

LL is the other wrinkle here. Disney has stated that top tier (A List, or "E Ticket") rides are pay per ride, or standby only. I can see people buying $30 FoP LL's to avoid the 2 hour standby line. Depending upon how many LL's are offered for the ride, this could cause a huge problem. We see it today with Fastpass. If you have a Fastpass, you might wait 30 minutes to get onto FoP when the standby line says 150 minutes. If Disney maximizes revenue by offering the vast majority of spots on FoP as LL's, the standby times will be "get in line at 9am and we might get you on the ride by the afternoon".

So, I don't see this scheme working for anyone but Disney, who has just found a new way to add at least $15-35 to every daily ticket.

If too many people buy genie + this will just let Disney continue to raise the price of it till it gets to the level where it generates the most revenue and creates the illusion that it is a good value to buy.

 

[zavandor]

I highly doubt it. It is a large source of revenue that costs them absolutely nothing and you may be surprised on how many people buy it and hardly use it especially 1st time visitors with small children.

Guilty as charged!
For my first trip to WDW I bought both the parkhopper and water park option, and I didn't park hop or go to a water park once.
I've read it's a common first time visitors' mistake

 

[OhDannyBoy]

I highly doubt it. It is a large source of revenue that costs them absolutely nothing and you may be surprised on how many people buy it and hardly use it especially 1st time visitors with small children.

I'm actually going to attempt to use it BECAUSE of small children.

There is no way we are going to wait for 60 minutes to ride Winnie the Pooh with my group. We have 5 kids under 8 and a 9 year old as of now (group keeps growing) totaling 15 people. Now I'm banking on availability for what we can ride being good as we won't be using it much for any mountain rides or anything toddlers can't ride, so for that I'll stay positive.

But I see your point. If the lines aren't bad we might not even use it much as the rides we plan to go on have short (ish) wait times for the most part outside of Peter Pan (which even with FP+ was a PITA to get) and maybe Haunted Mansion. I can't really see us using it at all at AK. And I'm not even sure what I can use it for a HS.

 

[Bearval]

Guilty as charged!
For my first trip to WDW I bought both the parkhopper and water park option, and I didn't park hop or go to a water park once.
I've read it's a common first time visitors' mistake

I did it too. Then you find out the littles ones get tired and cranky after a few hours in the park and everyone can't wait to get back to the hotel to eat rest and go to the pool. By then they are ready for bed.

 

[Cabius]

I agree fully. Who wants to get up just before 7am while on vacation to plan your day!!! We use to have months to plan your rides and dinning.

Flashback to two years ago...

"Bob, I just had a revelation: guests can only spend money when they are awake! We need to figure out how to get guests up earlier so they have more resource-extractable hours per day. Here's my idea..."

 

[Judique]

Guilty as charged!
For my first trip to WDW I bought both the parkhopper and water park option, and I didn't park hop or go to a water park once.
I've read it's a common first time visitors' mistake

I've still got many of my water park options tickets, plus guest services converted them to current ticket media for me. I've been to a water park twice in 33 years of visits. One of these days I'll use them. I have used the tickets for mini golf a couple of times.

 

[tjkraz]

Yeah, I don't understand the line of thought of not wanting repeat visitors. Isn't that exactly the purpose of DVC? I doubt Disney designed DVC to be an income generator for members renting their points and competing with their cash resorts. And when you consider the sheer number of onsite DVC rooms, the thought of them not wanting repeat business makes no sense.

As a group, DVC Members have long been on the low side when it comes to guest spending. We aren't paying for hotels. We often have APs to cover multiple trips. We have kitchens in almost every room, which lowers restaurant usage. Guests who visit 1-3 times per year simply aren't buying merchandise at the same level as newbies.

If you compare a DVC member staying 3 weeks/year at the Poly villas vs three families each taking week-long trips to the Poly hotel, the added spend for the hotel guests is staggering.

Disney leaned heavily on DVC members during periods like the '09 recession and Covid to keep the parks afloat. Can you imagine how empty the parks would have been throughout 2020 and early 2021 if DVC owners couldn't make cheap-ish trips? I personally know at least a half-dozen families who delayed trips because they didn't want to deal with masks, no characters, no fireworks, etc. But many DVC members had visited so many times that they weren't as bothered by the service reductions.

For many years there seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgment that Disney had use for both DVC and hotel guests. But it's not inconceivable that Disney management (at its highest levels) has decided that the DVC rosters have surpassed "keep the parks afloat during slow times" levels, and now they want to focus more on the big spenders.

When marketing vacation packages, Disney can bundle hotel, tickets, Genie, Mears transport even dining plan and all the hotel guest is seeing is a final dollar figure. Prices have undeniably gone up, but it's perhaps easier to swallow absent the detail. Especially if you're taking your first trip ever...or first trip in 5+ years.

Meanwhile, a 4-person DVC family is facing the reality that their week-long 2022 trip could cost about $600 more than 2020 just for Mears, Genie+ and magic bands. And that's on top of higher DVC dues, menu prices, ticket prices, etc. That's a lot to swallow, for both current members and anyone contemplating a new commitment to DVC.

 

[k_hase]

I've still got many of my water park options tickets, plus guest services converted them to current ticket media for me. I've been to a water park twice in 33 years of visits. One of these days I'll use them. I have used the tickets for mini golf a couple of times.

Same!! We bought 10 day hoppers with plus options that never expire something like 12 years ago? maybe more. We still have 5 waterpark options left on a two VERY old tickets that were converted. We've gone to waterparks for 3 years, buying only my son's ticket. We've done two trips soley to stay at the resort and visit one waterpark. So a mistake that has turned out to be really helpful!! (I miss the days of the non-expiring ticket, I could get 3 trips out of a 10 day pass, back when I didn't own DVC and couldn't afford nice hotels I could still get Disney trips).

 

[Cabius]

For many years there seemed to be an unspoken acknowledgment that Disney had use for both DVC and hotel guests. But it's not inconceivable that Disney management (at its highest levels) has decided that the DVC rosters have surpassed "keep the parks afloat during slow times" levels, and now they want to focus more on the big spenders.

That's probably true for some metrics, but at a corporate level the revenue from selling new DVC contracts is still huge. They want to keep building a new DVC resort every 2-4 years until 2042, when they can enter an infinite cycle of refurb-and-resell as properties expire.

The doesn't mean that DVC membership has to remain valuable, but it has to seem valuable. At some point, obvious gaps in service levels or terrible word-of-mouth reputation would have a negative impact.