Why WDW Cast Members aren’t expecting to have a very Merry XPass in 2012

Jim Hill

13 years ago

It's the joke that senior members of Mouse House management
have never found to be all that funny. That it now costs so much to vacation at
the WDW Resort they should probably change the name of the place to Wallet
Disney World.

(L to R) Larry Silverstein, president and CEO of Silverstein
Properties;
Mickey Mouse; Meg Crofton, president, Walt Disney Parks and

Resorts Operations, U.S. and France; and Kathleen Taylor,
president and
CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts.
Copyright Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

But with last Tuesday's ground-breaking ceremony for the
oft-delayed Four-Seasons-Resort-Orlando-at-Walt-Disney-World project – not to
mention next year's roll-out of the XPass program (which – for a price — will
offer WDW Guests the opportunity to pre-book an entire vacation's worth of
rides on the Resort's most popular attractions as well as guaranteeing
these high-end customers a primo reserved viewing spot for theme park parades
and/or nighttime extravaganzas like Epcot's "Illuminations" and DHS's "Fantasmic!")
… One wonders if the Mouse's increasingly obvious pursuit of the big-bucks bunch
is going to have a negative impact on the way the general public views Walt
Disney World vacations in the not-so-distant future.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like Mickey hasn't been paying
attention to all of the other market segments that make up the potential WDW
visitor pool. Take – for example — Disney's Art of Animation Resort. With its
1,120 family suites, this soon-to-open complex is obviously targeting the
likes-to-travel-together-as-a-large-group demographic (i.e. family reunions, little
league teams, cheerleading squads et el).

Likewise those 25 acres of additional playing fields that
are currently under construction at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. They
aren't just being added due to increased demand. But – rather – because the
Mouse's long-term goal here is to lure even more football, soccer, lacrosse and
field hockey teams down to Walt Disney World to take part in tournaments and
training camps. Which will then help put heads-in-beds over at the Pop Century as
well as at all three of Disney's All-Star Resorts.

Guests cross a rickety rope bridge as part of Wild Africa
Trek, the new add-on experience at Disney's Animal
Kingdom. Photo by Kent Phillips. Copyright Disney
Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved

But when you take into consideration the Golden-Oak-at-the-Walt-Disney-World-Resort
project (i.e. that luxury real estate development that Mickey is building right
next door to the Four Seasons which will feature custom-built, single family
homes) as well as Wild Africa Trek (where visitors to Disney's Animal Kingdom –
in addition to the usual theme park admission fee – pay $189 per person to take
part in a VIP safari) … It's pretty clear that – over the past five years or so
– the WDW Resort has begun placing increased emphasis on catering to those
visitors who are willing to pay top dollar for a premium vacation experience.

Now – to be fair – it's worth noting here that The Walt
Disney Company isn't the only one who's doing this sort of thing these days.
You only have to look at the number of professional sports teams who regularly
retool the arenas they play in order to add even more Skyboxes and/or the hot Broadway
shows like "Book of Mormon" that now charge $302 – $352 for premium seats to
know that this offering-an-exclusive-upscale-experience-to-those-who-are-willing-to-pay-top-dollar-for-it
trend is now a pretty common practice in the worlds of sports & entertainment.

But where this practice is potentially going to get
problematic – at least as far as the Mouse is concerned – is with next year's
roll-out of XPass. Which is basically going to stratify the Walt Disney World
vacation experience in a fairly public way.

To explain: You may have heard about that restricted parade viewing
area that was tested at the Magic Kingdom back in October. Well, that's
actually supposed to be one of the bigger selling points of Walt Disney World's
XPass system. That you and your family no longer have to stake out a spot an
hour or more ahead of time in order to get a great viewing place for the 3 o'clock
parade. If you've made XPass part of the WDW vacation package that you've booked,
your perfect viewing spot (which will be right on the Hub, directly across from
Cinderella Castle) is reserved in advance. All you have to do is show up 15
minutes before the parade steps off, allow the Cast Member who's controlling
access to this roped-off area to scan your XPass wristband … and then you're
in.

Which – I have to admit – sounds like a really cool perk.
But the downside of this aspect of XPass is that – in order to accommodate the
500+ Resort Guests who have booked this premium vacation package and thus will
be expecting an exclusive parade viewing experience right in front of the Castle
as part of their day at the Kingdom … Well, that means that this portion of the
Hub will then be strictly off-limits to the tens-of-thousands of theme park
visitors who have also bought admission to the Magic Kingdom that day and will
be looking for primo viewing spots along the parade route.

And given that roping off a huge section of the Hub on a
daily basis and then restricting access to this area to only those Guests who
have purchased a specific vacation package is kind of a significant departure from the way
that the Walt Disney World Resort has done business for the past 40 years
… Those who handle Crowd Control at the Magic Kingdom are already allegedly
mapping strategies about how to best manage the Guests. Especially those who
are bound to be incensed when they learn that their family's favorite parade viewing
spot is now only available to those who have paid for this privilege.

That – in a nutshell – is what concerns many long-time WDW
cast members about XPass. Some of the more in-your-face components of this new
premium guest experience program.

Again – to be fair here – there will be entire aspects of XPass
that will basically be invisible to the average WDW visitor. Take – for example
– those booked-in-advance rides on some of the most popular attractions at the theme
parks. Given that these specific ride times will be culled out of the Resort's
FASTPASS system, the people who are using this aspect of their XPass vacation
package will just blend in with the rest of the other Guests. The only thing that
might possibly give them away is their special XPass wristband.

That said, things might get a little awkward on attractions
like "it's a small world" (where people who have booked the XPass vacation
package will – prior to their arrival in Orlando – then be able to go online
and build their very own customized Mary Blair-esque doll. Who will then appear
on a flat screen in "it's a small world" 's finale sequence and dance for &
wave to the Guest who actually created this doll). When there's a boatload of
tourists experiencing this attraction together. And this CG "it's a small world"
doll zeroes in on a single Guest and then only interacts with them.

Walt Disney World management does anticipate that there'll
initially be some issues with XPass. Which is why – after this premium vacation
package is officially announced after the first of the year – it'll then only be available
for Guests who book stays at deluxe WDW resorts like Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and
Spa.

Then – after they've worked all of the kinks out (More
importantly, should there actually be sufficient Guest demand for this program. Let's remember that there have been other innovative
uses of technology [EX: My Pal Mickey] previously introduced at the Parks that were then met with a collective shrug from WDW visitors. Which is why
these other expensive-to-develop-and-maintain initiatives were eventually
abandoned) – XPass will be made available to Guests who stay at the other WDW Resorts.
Provided – of course – these people are willing to pay the high price tag associated with this premium
vacation package.

Of course, the executives who spearheaded the development of
XPass – who poured tens of millions into the creation of this NextGen project over the past 10 years –
hope that Guests will gladly pay top dollar for this
sort of vacation experience. But as for those frontline Cast Members who
actually have to work in the theme parks while XPass is initially being rolled out
and members of the general public then have to educated about things like that
newly blocked-off parade-viewing-area in front of Cinderella Castle … Well, all these
folks can think about is what happened back in 1999 when FASTPASS was initially
introduced. Which was when fistfights & screaming matches used to regularly
erupt inside of WDW's theme parks. All because Guests waiting in the stand-by
line couldn't understand why those people clutching those tiny pieces
of paper were then being allowed to board Space Mountain ahead of them.

Which is why – to folks who'll actually be working at the theme parks
in the late winter / early spring of next year (which is when the first Guests
who have booked those XPass vacation packages are expected to start arriving at the Resort) –
2012 is looking a lot like 1999. Which is why these WDW veterans don't expect
to have a very Merry XPass. At least not until all the kinks get worked out. More importantly, 'til Cast Members & the general public get educated about how this new premium vacation package is actually going to impact the theme-park-going experience of all of the other Guests in the Park.

But what do you folks think? Does a premium guest experience
like XPass intrigue you enough that you'd actually be willing to book a top-dollar
vacation package to stay at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa? Or would
you be far more likely to pay for a premium guest experience like this if XPass were
something that you could just "add-on" the very next time you visited Wallet … er … Walt Disney World ?

Your thoughts?