After modifying Genie+ for variable rates, Disneyland hit $35 per guest on the weekend. Is this just the start?
Plenty of bloggers and commentators online are complaining about the sharp increase in the cost to attend a Disney theme park. It’s not necessarily that the tickets have increased, but rather that the other dollar amounts are all on the rise. Food, drinks, extras, parking, and hotel rooms are all up. One of the previously free amenities, the Fastpass system, was renamed Genie+ and then transformed into a pay to skip the line system. The benefit of using the system is questionable, but unaware consumers continue to buy the service at about a 50% rate.
Now Disney has changed the line skip system so that it is under a variable rate depending on how crowded the park is. The problem is that the price never goes down below what it once was for sparsely attended days when it is largely useless. Instead the price only goes up, and it is now showing that it will go up rather sharply. What was once a $15 add-on became double that for a Disneyland weekend.
Now a source is telling me that Disney may be looking to further modify the price and structure of what was once called Fastpass. The program is lucrative for the theme parks and allows them to keep ticket prices relatively similar to 2019. However, with the company looking to extract even more revenues out of the parks, adding an even higher tier to the current Genie plus system is alluring to Executives to say the least. That is why the source says that Disney leaders over the prior retreat looked at options for splitting Genie plus into two tiers. These would be called Genie plus gold and Genie Plus silver.
standby waits are impossibly long thanks to genie plus, and honestly? I don't think increasing prices will deter people from using it. I'm no economist but if the system is required for a good day, people are gonna keep buying into it. i will prolly never stop talking about this https://t.co/9BSyh5KY6F pic.twitter.com/RT05hpk8re
— Castran! (@Castrann) October 15, 2022
I am told that executives looked at new additions they could give to the genie plus gold concept that would satisfy raising the price to $50 per day (or more) while the lower tier would continue to exist with the variable rate just as it is now. Some of the things that were being looked at are VIP seating locations for night time shows and parades, the ability to pick one extra attraction to ride at the very end of the day, likely within the final half hour, as well as a new mobile food reservation system that is under development but not understood yet by the source.
For now, all of this is rumor and speculation given that we’re perhaps six months to a year or from any planned change. But it is interesting to get some intel on allegedly what was being discussed by leaders of Disney Parks during their time at Disney World last week.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments below. As always, keep reading That Park Place for all the latest news that should be fun!
