Goodbye, Maxpass. Hello, Disney Genie.

[dvc lover 1970]

Just watched the video again and something stood out at the roughly :50 mark. To summarize:

"Enter what you want to do (etc) and Genie evaluates hundreds of thousands of combinations of a day..."

Seems like Genie is just a Master Herding Bot.

The App "Evaluates" how many people select Attraction X, then redirects a portion of those to the attraction immediately while sending each other portion in different directions eventually rotating each group back to Attraction X at a predesigned time according to Genie.

To work well in the free mode, it would have to account for those that pay for Genie+ each day and the LL purchases on the fly, which I imagine is where the "Genie Flies In With A Tip" part works. If things get backed up, Genie can offer a tip to stop for a different attraction or a snack, etc.

Regardless, somebody will be glued to their phone (which I'm fine with having been the designated the MaxPasser for the last few years) but the battery drain and connectivity will be something to consider if everyone is utilizing this App.

Also wondering if Genie+ will work outside the park, once your ticket/pass/key has been activated for the day, like MaxPass. It was great to have the kids napping at the hotel, but still be planning for the evening. Again, I guess that comes down to if you can stack Genie+ selections, like MaxPass...PLEASE!!

50 minute mark - does that mean they plan for people to be in standby lines no longer than 50 minutes? Also they are also thinking that people will all follow the genie - what if i want to do somehting different and go wait in the 7dmt line instead of following the genie to jungle cruise?

 

[Drewski77]

It’s kind of funny that Disneyland has been around for over 65 years, and yet to navigate through a day in the park takes so much more effort today.

And you need what amounts to a super computer in the palm of your hand for the entire day.

Actually, even before the park opens if you want a mere chance to get on the newest rides.

Seems like things should get easier not harder, but not with a trip to Disneyland.

 

[lcp9]

I already kind of alluded to this, but after thinking about it, +1 to I wish they had just increased MaxPass price. There was something exciting and gratifying in being able to manipulate maxpass in a way that you really felt like you got your money's worth. Knowing that now I have to pay per person per ride for the rides my kids want to go on most, PLUS the fact that we are essentially limited to riding RSR once in a day - or any LL ride - , is a significant decline in satisfaction for me. It's very strange to me they are limiting the a la carte LL rides.

 

[Wesley815]

50 minute mark - does that mean they plan for people to be in standby lines no longer than 50 minutes? Also they are also thinking that people will all follow the genie - what if i want to do somehting different and go wait in the 7dmt line instead of following the genie to jungle cruise?

No, the post was referring to time point in video, not 50 minutes for queue lines.

 

[Wesley815]

Knowing that now I have to pay per person per ride for the rides my kids want to go on most, PLUS the fact that we are essentially limited to riding RSR once in a day - or any LL ride - , is a significant decline in satisfaction for me. It's very strange to me they are limiting the a la carte LL rides.

Not defending LL, but you don't "have to" to pay per ride or limited rides, since Standby lines will still be open. I agree with your point- however also sadly assume Disney's come back to any complaints will be Standby lines are still free.

 

[Drewski77]

No defending LL, but you don't "have to" to pay per ride or limited rides, since Standby lines will still be open. I agree with your point- I just also assume Disney's come back to any complaints will be Standby lines are still free.

True, but not being forced is a fairly low bar.

Choosing between standby or paying per ride for RSR is a HUGE downgrade from what Maxpass offered.

 

[poptart90]

50 minute mark - does that mean they plan for people to be in standby lines no longer than 50 minutes? Also they are also thinking that people will all follow the genie - what if i want to do somehting different and go wait in the 7dmt line instead of following the genie to jungle cruise?

Yes, sorry, I was referring to the video about Genie on the Parks Blog...at 50 seconds into the video they give the HERD pitch, IMO.

 

[DLgal]

You are likely correct.
Disney wants guests to spend the whole day in the parks.

This is also why they offer the DAS. It's not JUST out of the goodness of their hearts. They offer it because it helps those guests STAY IN THE PARK LONGER. When the CMs have occasionally asked us "how would your day be different if you didn't have a DAS?" Our answer has always been "it would be a lot shorter." That is the last thing they want to hear.

 

[DLgal]

I don’t see how they disable the app working outside the park. GPS is notoriously inaccurate. And requiring folks to allow location access in order to use G+ seems like a bad idea.

I can almost guarantee that you will HAVE to allow location services to use the app. The entire premise of the system is built on that. If they don't know where people are, they can't tell them where to go.

 

[bwvBound]

Adding: The MagicKey (AP) folks are another variable. How many times can Disney get the AP holders to add G+ one day at a time before offering a flat rate that favors Disney's pocket more often that the AP's pocket??

Thought experiment:

What if G+ was FREE, but the cost of tickets was increased $20 across the board?

Would people be happier with that?

Tickets increase $20. G+ is free. But there are a few top attractions not included in G+ that require an extra fee to use the LL queue.

I think that might have been more well received. There would still be gripes about the additional charges for top attractions, but it would be balanced by the perception that MaxPass (which used to cost) is now free as G+.

It wouldn't work logistically.

The system is predicated on the idea that not everyone will use it. If every person in the park can book fastpass access on their phones... then it loses its value. "If everyone is super, no one is!" and all that...

If it WOULD work logistically, and we're just thinking in terms of what people would be happier with, it's hard to tell... But probably people would say, "Grandma doesn't want FP access anyway, so we'd rather not pay $20 for her."

I still don't think G+ is the part of it that people really have an issue with. It's the top-tier attraction charges...

 

[MonocularVision]

I can almost guarantee that you will HAVE to allow location services to use the app. The entire premise of the system is built on that. If they don't know where people are, they can't tell them where to go.

Would you like to wager on your certainty?

It will not require location services to operate.

 

[DLgal]

Would you like to wager on your certainty?

It will not require location services to operate.

Well. Are you an insider who actually KNOWS? If so, not fair. If not, sure, I'll make a wager. It's very essy to grant location permissions ONLY while using an app. I don't see why Disney would not require it while in the parks if they can.

 

[AndrewC]

Very interesting seeing the responses from people.

I'm curious if there is a trend here at all.

Local or people within say 2 hour drive of Disney being very against these new changes

People traveling into the area (flight or long drive) being either ok with this change or actually for the change

First, I think FastPass was a broken system. I think it worked well for years but finally reached a point where it was negatively affecting the parks (at least Disneyland and DCA). We all know Disney had capacity issues with specific rides and sometimes just in general. I don't like 100+ minute wait times for rides, and I'm sure others don't. I don't even have kids, I can't imagine if I did have kids and had to deal with wait times like that for a ride they just HAD to go on.

I think FastPass and MaxPass also encouraged more people to ride severely overcrowded (popular rides). There is very little "cost" in picking a popular attraction with those system. If you have a standby line there is a very real cost to people. You might only have 5 hours in the park and you have to spend 1 hour (20%) of your time waiting for a SINGLE ride. That's a high cost. Tap a button and do other things for four hours before returning to the ride is almost free in the sense of time and effort.

Disney needs to leave access to these attractions but also encourage guests to try other things.

They could do a couple things....

Leave Fastpass/MaxPass the same but allocate less seats to the FP/MP pool and more to the standby line. This devotes more ride capacity to the standby line and guests that really want to wait can, guests that put more value on their time elsewhere will skip the ride. The end goal is hopefully lower overall demand and thus lower wait times (more on this below). Side effect: The FP/MP availability will disappear much faster. Get to the park an hour after opening, too bad, top rides don't have any more passes already. Paid for MP but showed up at 9:45 am, too bad, all return times are used up. Physical ticket areas for the passes now spend more time idle and might disappoint guests that trek from one end of the park to the other to pull a pass just to find out they're gone. MP may be purchased less because it's viewed as worthless unless you rope drop.

Making MaxPass more expensive wouldn't do much because that would just make it seem even weaker. If someone can snag a free pass 30 minutes before you get into the park and use up the same return windows as what you paid for, then why pay for it

Leave FastPass and MaxPass the same but increase the cost to enter the park. This absolutely could work because again it would deter people from the most popular attractions simply by having less people actually visit the park. Side effect: Your lower utilized rides still go unridden because there just aren't as many guests in the park. Your food sales are lower because there aren't as many guests. Your merch sales are lower... etc etc etc. You get into this difficult area of staff standing around with very few guests on some rides, do you close those rides to reduce that staff? Not ideal.

The common trend in those options is less guests wanting to ride the most popular rides, but using some different methods to get that result. Let the lines speak for themselves and force guests to realize the value of time for that ride or pay more and potentially not even get the guest into the park. I think this also plays into why the new Keys have way more weekends blocked out. Most leisure travel will take place over a weekend. I might start mid week or bleed into the next week, but most will include a weekend. Locals that don't need to travel could more easily visit during weekdays. If children are young enough a parent could just take a day off work, work four tens that day, or something else to get a midweek day to hit the parks. If kids are school aged, well the passes still could allow them to visit as often as they want after school lets out for the day. This is trying to remove the local annual pass people from being in line at the most popular attractions at the same time out of state travelers might be.

So we know what Disney wants to do. They want as many people in the parks as possible and to do that they need locals to visit on less leisure travel days (mid week) and Disney wants less people to just go for the most popular rides. What can you do to achieve high attendance but less demand on specific rides...

You leave ticket prices the same so you get out of state families visiting. You bring back APs but you restrict them a lot more in key areas (even one step below the max price has a lot of Saturdays blocked out. It's hard to make use of the weekend at all when that specific day is a blockout). You remove the free option of passively waiting for a popular ride because you want to bring the value back to it. This ride costs something now, it costs time and you have a limited amount. You train guests to see "value" in looking at the app, not just for wait times, but to maximize their day. In doing so, all you really are doing is drawing their attention to the wait times (which have always been there) and hope they'll see the value in doing three rides with 20 minute wait times instead of one ride with a crushing line that's 60 minutes. With this combination you have guests traveling from far away to visit the parks (use the hotel, have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the parks, and buy some merch to take home) but you also have locals that just drop in any old day for a few hours. You have locals shift more time to slower weekdays because that's when they can ride the popular attractions since they now have to spend time waiting for them. You're running an optimized system.

BUT! What about those times it's just busy busy. It's summer, people ignore their better judgement and visit around a holiday or locals don't want to visit on Monday and instead go Friday because school is out. Now your hardest work to get people to decide if the long line is worth it goes out the window, but all lines are long. Well, mainly for the out of town guests that drop big money on the hotels and stuff, you have this little thing called Genie+ (same old FastPass system, just now far less used [hopefully]). Pay some extra bucks and your $5,000 vacation won't be ruined because you'll get to do most the stuff you wanted to do, not over and over, but at least once. Going one step more, because Disney thinks the time of standing in line for high end attractions (RSR and Star Wars/Marvel) will be valued by guests to be MORE than $20, they're worried everyone will just buy Genie+ and the whole system grinds to a halt again like it did before. Well that's when pay per ride comes into play.

After thinking about this more and more, I honestly think this is Disney just trying to say "please don't go on this ride right now!" Locals still can hit the ride during mid week and really slow times by waiting standby for free and out of town guys won't leave crying that they spent thousands and couldn't get one the ride without waiting 100+ minutes...

 

[Drewski77]

Very interesting seeing the responses from people.

I'm curious if there is a trend here at all.

Local or people within say 2 hour drive of Disney being very against these new changes

People traveling into the area (flight or long drive) being either ok with this change or actually for the change

First, I think FastPass was a broken system. I think it worked well for years but finally reached a point where it was negatively affecting the parks (at least Disneyland and DCA). We all know Disney had capacity issues with specific rides and sometimes just in general. I don't like 100+ minute wait times for rides, and I'm sure others don't. I don't even have kids, I can't imagine if I did have kids and had to deal with wait times like that for a ride they just HAD to go on.

I think FastPass and MaxPass also encouraged more people to ride severely overcrowded (popular rides). There is very little "cost" in picking a popular attraction with those system. If you have a standby line there is a very real cost to people. You might only have 5 hours in the park and you have to spend 1 hour (20%) of your time waiting for a SINGLE ride. That's a high cost. Tap a button and do other things for four hours before returning to the ride is almost free in the sense of time and effort.

Disney needs to leave access to these attractions but also encourage guests to try other things.

They could do a couple things....

Leave Fastpass/MaxPass the same but allocate less seats to the FP/MP pool and more to the standby line. This devotes more ride capacity to the standby line and guests that really want to wait can, guests that put more value on their time elsewhere will skip the ride. The end goal is hopefully lower overall demand and thus lower wait times (more on this below). Side effect: The FP/MP availability will disappear much faster. Get to the park an hour after opening, too bad, top rides don't have any more passes already. Paid for MP but showed up at 9:45 am, too bad, all return times are used up. Physical ticket areas for the passes now spend more time idle and might disappoint guests that trek from one end of the park to the other to pull a pass just to find out they're gone. MP may be purchased less because it's viewed as worthless unless you rope drop.

Making MaxPass more expensive wouldn't do much because that would just make it seem even weaker. If someone can snag a free pass 30 minutes before you get into the park and use up the same return windows as what you paid for, then why pay for it

Leave FastPass and MaxPass the same but increase the cost to enter the park. This absolutely could work because again it would deter people from the most popular attractions simply by having less people actually visit the park. Side effect: Your lower utilized rides still go unridden because there just aren't as many guests in the park. Your food sales are lower because there aren't as many guests. Your merch sales are lower... etc etc etc. You get into this difficult area of staff standing around with very few guests on some rides, do you close those rides to reduce that staff? Not ideal.

The common trend in those options is less guests wanting to ride the most popular rides, but using some different methods to get that result. Let the lines speak for themselves and force guests to realize the value of time for that ride or pay more and potentially not even get the guest into the park. I think this also plays into why the new Keys have way more weekends blocked out. Most leisure travel will take place over a weekend. I might start mid week or bleed into the next week, but most will include a weekend. Locals that don't need to travel could more easily visit during weekdays. If children are young enough a parent could just take a day off work, work four tens that day, or something else to get a midweek day to hit the parks. If kids are school aged, well the passes still could allow them to visit as often as they want after school lets out for the day. This is trying to remove the local annual pass people from being in line at the most popular attractions at the same time out of state travelers might be.

So we know what Disney wants to do. They want as many people in the parks as possible and to do that they need locals to visit on less leisure travel days (mid week) and Disney wants less people to just go for the most popular rides. What can you do to achieve high attendance but less demand on specific rides...

You leave ticket prices the same so you get out of state families visiting. You bring back APs but you restrict them a lot more in key areas (even one step below the max price has a lot of Saturdays blocked out. It's hard to make use of the weekend at all when that specific day is a blockout). You remove the free option of passively waiting for a popular ride because you want to bring the value back to it. This ride costs something now, it costs time and you have a limited amount. You train guests to see "value" in looking at the app, not just for wait times, but to maximize their day. In doing so, all you really are doing is drawing their attention to the wait times (which have always been there) and hope they'll see the value in doing three rides with 20 minute wait times instead of one ride with a crushing line that's 60 minutes. With this combination you have guests traveling from far away to visit the parks (use the hotel, have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the parks, and buy some merch to take home) but you also have locals that just drop in any old day for a few hours. You have locals shift more time to slower weekdays because that's when they can ride the popular attractions since they now have to spend time waiting for them. You're running an optimized system.

BUT! What about those times it's just busy busy. It's summer, people ignore their better judgement and visit around a holiday or locals don't want to visit on Monday and instead go Friday because school is out. Now your hardest work to get people to decide if the long line is worth it goes out the window, but all lines are long. Well, mainly for the out of town guests that drop big money on the hotels and stuff, you have this little thing called Genie+ (same old FastPass system, just now far less used [hopefully]). Pay some extra bucks and your $5,000 vacation won't be ruined because you'll get to do most the stuff you wanted to do, not over and over, but at least once. Going one step more, because Disney thinks the time of standing in line for high end attractions (RSR and Star Wars/Marvel) will be valued by guests to be MORE than $20, they're worried everyone will just buy Genie+ and the whole system grinds to a halt again like it did before. Well that's when pay per ride comes into play.

After thinking about this more and more, I honestly think this is Disney just trying to say "please don't go on this ride right now!" Locals still can hit the ride during mid week and really slow times by waiting standby for free and out of town guys won't leave crying that they spent thousands and couldn't get one the ride without waiting 100+ minutes...

No offense at all, but:

If anything takes this much time to explain…it is probably an illogical system without much benefit to end users.

Here is a much simpler explanation for why Disney is doing this:

Because it makes them more money, and despite a downgraded customer experience, Disney believes people will still pay.

 

[MonocularVision]

Well. Are you an insider who actually KNOWS? If so, not fair. If not, sure, I'll make a wager. It's very essy to grant location permissions ONLY while using an app. I don't see why Disney would not require it while in the parks if they can.

Heh, no insider knowledge but a ton of experience developing a major app. The idea that Disney will display a block screen telling folks they can’t use their fancy new app or Genie+ until they enable location usage is really just something I don’t think they will do. It raises privacy issues they aren’t going to want to deal with. Might it be a degraded experience? Sure. There is some functionality that doesn’t work as well, but I will eat my Mickey Ears if they require it.

 

[AndrewC]

No offense at all, but:

If anything takes this much time to explain…it is probably an illogical system without much benefit to end users.

Here is a much simpler explanation for why Disney is doing this:

Because it makes them more money, and despite a downgraded customer experience, Disney believes people will still pay.

So you think HUGE companies only make good systems or changes if it can be summed up in one sentence? If they have problems that are that simple to fix, they're doing something really wrong from the get go.

I think this will improve guest experiences (locals go off days, out of town people don't miss attractions after spending thousands to get there), maximize attendance (keeping gate prices the same), and potentially draw more rider volume to less "loved" attractions because they are basically walk on.

 

[Drewski77]

So you think HUGE companies only make good systems or changes if it can be summed up in one sentence? If they have problems that are that simple to fix, they're doing something really wrong from the get go.

I think this will improve guest experiences (locals go off days, out of town people don't miss attractions after spending thousands to get there), maximize attendance (keeping gate prices the same), and potentially draw more rider volume to less "loved" attractions because they are basically walk on.

How long are the most effective commercials from HUGE companies?

Certainly a fraction of the time compared to the 15 minute video Disney used to try and explain its new program.

How long are the instruction manuals when you buy a computer from Apple, the biggest company in the world?

A sliver of the size your post needed to explain Disney’s new program.

Definitely doesn’t need to be merely one sentence to explain, but Disney putting short-term profits over customer experience seems a far likelier explanation.

 

[Tinkaboo]

And we were all wondering how they would make up the financial loss of being closed for a year. Riddle solved.

Ireland is looking better all the time.

 

[whoever]

It'a just Maxpass at more price with less available attractions. Nothing to see here honestly. I'll buy it at $20/day times 5. Literally what we used to pay for Maxpass, now we'll just get less from it. Call it Disneyflation..

 

[Drewski77]

It'a just Maxpass at more price with less available attractions. Nothing to see here honestly. I'll buy it at $20/day times 5. Literally what we used to pay for Maxpass, now we'll just get less from it. Call it Disneyflation..

So it’s Maxpass without the top attractions and only able to hold one at a time…that seems to literally be not close to what Maxpass was.