Disney World Guest Experience Improves

For the longest time the Walt Disney World Resort was viewed by many as the premier location for receiving the best bang for your big bucks. However, in recent years that has definitely not been the case.

The number of bad decisions in leadership at the Disney company had resulted in an overall degradation of guest satisfaction when it came to Walt Disney world. The Crown Jewel of the Disney Parks portfolio, itself the size of Manhattan, comprise of many hotels, golf courses, and more, had seen better days in terms of guest response. Although international tourism had lifted the resort post pandemic, many guests left their experience feeling a bit hustled even after they were willing to accept the hefty starting price for going to Disney World.

While head of the Disney Parks, Josh D’Amaro, is now singing a different song, it wasn’t so long ago that he was feeling very chipper about the Genie+ addition that guests were paying to skip lines. The once free service for Disney World was now an extra option costing families typically more than $100 per day. At the same time, Genie+ almost never generated any sort of real benefit to families other than what they might have perceived because they had no time to verify the weightlinks they saved by purchasing it (the exception to this is on extremely crowded days) . Buying the premier attraction Lightning Lanes to skip the most popular rides, on the other hand, were sometimes meritorious and allowed guests to skip two hour waits. As a result of both systems operating simultaneously though, many people felt cheated by having spent so much money only to get a ride skip at the end of the day when there is no line to be had. New travelers to Disney may have been fooled, veterans saw what was going on.

Other important parts of being treated well also disappeared. The tram service still to this day is not running as it should. It’s not a fun experience as a grandparent to take your grandchild to Animal Kingdom only to have to walk from the very back of the parking lot, which would put it at more than a mile, in the blazing Florida sun. Other issues like Disney taking away free water at their Starbucks locations didn’t set too well with many either. Increases in parking fees went up all over the resort, sometimes including new parking fees that had never existed before. And all of this was done in order to keep ticket prices the same while also increasing the prices dramatically on everything else. This made for a great PR stunt, but it made for a horrible guest reaction as they were leaving.

Now the same Josh D’Amaro who headed up these initiatives under Bob Chapek is quick to take credit for the switch back to a Disney that cares. Disney has just announced that they will be doing daily room service for their hotel rooms, something that is hard to Fathom they ever permitted to end in the first place. Additionally, hotel guests will no longer have to pay for parking at their hotels. The resort is easing up on some of it’s extremely restrictive reservation systems. Annual pass holders can now go to a park on most days after 2:00 p.m. without seeking a reservation. All In all, it seems that Disney is ever so slightly moving away from a vacation experience that forces families to live on their phones tallying up their expenditures and their reservations.

Disney World Offers “Free” Passholder Park Reservations at All Four Parks This Week https://t.co/YtbrAtYaBS

— BlogMickey.com (@Blog_Mickey) January 14, 2023

While the last few years have left a bitter taste in the mouth of many, we’re hopeful that these changes and more will be able to alleviate some of the damage that Disney has done. The vacation capital of the world should continue to be a place where families can go and feel like they were treated extremely well regardless of socioeconomic status. If Disney continues in this manner then that may be what we see.

One issue though: Disney needs to grow! It is far better to increase capacity than to artificially limit demand by catering to the $400,000 and up club.

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