We're kind of bummed. Our son turns 7 this year and we were going to get our first family AP. We live close so our plan(s) were the afternoon trips on weekends or meeting my brother's family there for a random day when they came down from Santa Clarita. Weren't really planning the "entire day trip" idea since its so close. Well, guess we'll see what the future brings.
That's basically why I've had the pass for 7 out of the last 10 years. I would just pop on over after work, maybe grab a bite, get on a ride or two, maybe do some dark ride photography and then leave. I very rarely did full days unless I had friends/family visiting from out of town in which I would mostly be the coordinator of rides to ensure maximum efficiency. As much as I loved the AP program, it was very much out of hand. They kept increasing the prices on the Sig+ to try to price people out of those 3 weeks during Christmas, but people kept paying and the result was that the few days after Christmas, the park would reach capacity around noon and they would have to close the gates/ticket booths for a few hours. Most of the high crowd days is partially attributed to us locals showing up and Disney knew this. They would rather have non AP's in the park because vacationers/out of town guests who purchase tickets are going to buy more merchandise than local AP holders. That's not to say that we don't help with merch because Disney often has those special popcorn buckets that AP holders will go grab during an offpeak day. As much as this did work in the past, changes to APs had to be made and unfortunately, it wasn't a matter of if, but rather when, and COVID accelerated those plans.
As far as the future plans, it does make sense to shutter the program right now because when the parks do open, there is going to be some type of capacity restriction for the park. Opening up all AP's to a reservation system while still charging people the normal amount simply wasn't going to work. The current speculation is that when they do re-open AP's, they will all either be Flex passes with each tier providing X amount of reservations per month, or they will be moving to each pass having X amount of entries per month or year with a discount on tickets when you exhaust your amount.
Pretty much the same for Astylla and I. It was fairly common for us to leave Friday after work, especially if there was a good southwest deal going on, spend all day saturday, do a half day sunday, fly back sunday night and go back to work on Monday. We didn't get to take too much advantage of her shift work with the Sheriff's office as she's only been there a couple years, but with her working 3.5 days off 3.5 days, and being on overnight, there were a couple trips we did where we left Sunday around 8am as she got off work at 6am, and would return Wednesday night as she didn't have to be at work until Midnight Thursday morning to start her work week. Getting 3+ days in the parks without having to burn any leave was great.
Yeah Disneyland is pretty great when you have more than a day there or have an AP because you don't feel pressured to cram everything into one visit. A few years back I had some out of state friends who wanted to take their kids to Disneyland so we planned a huge trip. We skipped the park hopper and just focused on one park a day and by the 3rd day, we were running out of things to do lol.
One of the Disney forums was discussing the future of APs and someone brought up an interesting speculation. Basically they were predicting that APs would be more in line with the DVC point system where each tier of AP gives you X amount of points per year and visits require X amount of points to use based on if it was a peak day or not.
That would be interesting. Only issue I can see with that is use it or lose it issues. At least with DVC, you can sell unused points third party so you don't lose them. You won't be able to do that with an AP.
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Yeah true and having rollover is one of the big selling points to DVC as you can just save up your yearly points and have a longer vacation the following year or get a bigger room. Whatever option they choose I really do hope they get rid of a top tier pass that gives 365 day access. As much as I loved my Sig+ pass, Disneyland is absolutely miserable on the days following Christmas, especially the 27 and 28th when they tend to reach max capacity around noon and have to shut the gates. I wouldn’t mind having the top tier pass being similar to Signature with the 15 days around Christmas and New Years blocked out. To compensate, they could provide a 20% discount on tickets during those days if people wanted to go or simply just make those days flex.
Jungle cruise to be "re imagined " , not a fan of this change I'll be honest but I'm in the minority thinking I'm sure.
https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/bl...-kingdom-park/
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Now I am even more determined to pretend my daughter is 2 until our current passes run out. I am going to renew, but I hate the idea of having two separate due dates to remember, so was waiting until ours ran out before finally getting her own.
We get the deluxe, which works out perfectly for us. We'll probably stick to that.
https://www.ocregister.com/2021/02/0...ence-in-march/
Disney California Adventure will launch a food and beverage experience that is expected to kick off in mid-March during the spring season when the Anaheim theme park typically runs an annual food and wine festival.
“Currently planned to begin mid-March, we will debut an all-new, limited-time ticketed experience, focused on our world-famous food and beverage offerings from around the resort, the latest merchandise and unique, carefully crafted entertainment experiences,” Disneyland president Ken Potrock said in a letter to cast members.
The limited time food and beverage event will bring more than 700 Disney cast members back to work in addition to the 230 employees that have already returned to work along Buena Vista Street, according to theme park officials.
Wonder if it’s going to be cost to enter plus cost for the ticket lanyards. Last food and wine festival I did I think it was $45 for the lanyard with 8 tickets to be used on all food except alcohol. If you didn’t get the lanyard the food was individually priced $8-15 if I remember correctly.
Being a passholder definitely made the lanyards worth it because you could use half of them one day and come back another day to use the rest. I think now with this being a limited experience, there is more pressure to get as much value out of the lanyard as possible which isn't difficult especially if you go with 2 or more people and split the tickets.
Completely off topic but this reminded me of when Astylla got one of the plant based sliders and I mistook it for the beef slider I was wanting and devoured the whole thing in front of her.
It was like watching a toddler who just dropped their ice cream cone and they couldn't decide whether to laugh, cry, or murder their husband.
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Not sure how I completely missed this, but a survey is being conducted by Disney and given to selected guests to select how many AP's they would buy based on the new AP options.
https://blogmickey.com/2021/01/disne...rt-membership/
Possible Features:
- All Passes would be Flex
- No 365 full access
- Reservation Windows differ based on pass
- Max Reservations differ based on pass
- Some passes give ability to go a set number of times without reservations
- Some passes give the option to go a set number of days that the pass is blocked out from via reservations
- Different discount tiers for Merch, Food, and Special Events
- New Perks: Rewards Program and Special Entrance
- Some tiers give a specified amount of free tickets, or discounted tickets (friends and family)
This is just a survey so they are just gather info from guests to find out what they value most. The AP's most likely won't look like what is in the screenshot but at least we have an idea of what they are aiming for.
Disney World announces that their current theme park reservation system will remain in place “at least through January 2023”. Oomph. I was hoping after months of vaccinations they might change it but it appears not. Part of the fun was park hopping and spontaneity and COVID has taken that from us. Boooo. Glad I completed my 4 parks in 1 day challenge a couple years ago.
I was just there two weeks ago where I didn't hop and just this past Thursday to Saturday when I did. Hopping is actually pretty easy if you plan it out well enough. Considering you had to plan out fastpasses months in advance, where as most days you can at least chance the reservation if you change your mind.
The skyliner is your friend for hopping between HS and Epcot. Other days I heard doing AK at opening then going to MK or Eocot worked well. I actually like the reservation system and would be okay without fastpasees for awhile still.
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Hmmm we were going to do our big DW trip by like 2022, so I guess we gotta plan accordingly. I am hoping hubby and I have our shots by then. Problem is, he's gonna be like on the last of the list for shots.
And the official pricing for California Adventures "A Touch of Disney"
Guests ages 3 and over: $75
Includes parking
Each ticket includes a $25 dining card for food and non-alcoholic beverages. Some restrictions apply
Unlimited Disney PhotoPass downloads
Reservations open on March 4th