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5. Hotel Package Pick-Up

Image: Disney

STATUS: Slashed

One of the lesser-known services offered to guests at Disney Parks is Package Pick-Up, which offloads the irritation of having to carry a bag of souvenirs all day. In practice, guests can send a fragile snow globe, oversized stuffed animal, or awkward poster print to the front of the park to be grabbed on the way out of the park at the end of the day instead of lugging it onto rides or storing it in lockers. 

For Disney hotel guests, the service was even more beneficial, with Resort Hotel Delivery! If you go through the expense of buying a Lightsaber, for example, who wouldn't want to take some quick glamour photos with it out in Galaxy's Edge? But naturally, carrying the awkward, padded case around the rest of the day or trying to store it on the Tower of Terror or Rock 'n' Roller Coaster is a recipe for disaster. Instead, you can drop it off at Dok Ondar's and pick it up the following day at your resort! Genius, right? 

Merchandise pick-up was one of many services slashed due to COVID-19 to reduce the number of hands touching things. Weirdly, it didn't return even once Disney stepped back its pandemic-related health policies. In 2020, the front-of-the-park pickup briefly resumed for the holiday rush (December 20 - January 2) but then disappeared again. It's not yet clear if Disney will resume the service for the holidays in 2022, or if it'll ever return.

6. Complimentary MagicBands

Image: Disney

STATUS: Replaced with an upcharge
PRICE YOU'LL PAY: $80+ (for a family of 4)

In 2013, Disney launched the MagicBand – an all-in-one incarnation of the resort's 2010s technological MyMagic+ initiative. MagicBands were imagined as a panacea for Disney World's woes. Developed before smartphones were widely in use, the colorful, RFID-enabled plastic wristbands were the place where Disney's dissimilar systems would converge. That one, simple, easy-to-manufacture bracelet would act as a guest's park ticket, room key, credit card, FastPass+, and dining reservations. It didn't hurt, of course, that they were stylish, customizable, and collectible – the perfect souvenir for a 21st century Disney trip.

Today, it's almost hard to believe that MagicBands were free* (read: included) for guests staying at Disney Resort hotels. Better yet, they'd arrive in an excitement-building box with each guests' chosen color and engraved name – a sort of extra expense it's hard to imagine Disney ever approving. For a generation, though, the appearance of MagicBands in the mail served as a signal that a trip was coming, and MagicBand tan lines as the symbol that one had just ended.

Image: Disney

Disney officially ended the free* distribution of MagicBands on January 1, 2021. MagicBands can still be purchased (the formerly-free ones retail for $19.99, with more elaborate ones costing much more), paired, and used just the same way a ticket would, but you won't receive complimentary bands with a resort reservation anymore.

It makes sense... MagicBands fulfilled their purpose by bridging the gap to today, when smartphones are plentiful and powerful enough to serve the same function (and without the manufacturing and shipping costs). By the 2020s, MagicBands had become a middle man between the parks and the My Disney Experience app anyway, but it's still a free* service (and in this case, a physical product) that's no longer offered, and makes a stay in the "Disney Bubble" that much less magical.

7. Extra Magic Hours

Image: Disney

STATUS: Replaced with a free* service

Extra Magic Hours allowed guests of Disney resort hotels access to a select theme park each day by tacking on an additional hour before or two hours after the standard day exclusively for hotel guests. It was a major perk in the sense that it gave guests a head-start (or a "VIP" evening), but it also had its faults... like, for example, seemingly every on-site guest opting to visit whichever park offered the perk that day, all but ensuring it would be the busiest park on property, largely negating the "benefit" anyway.

The replacement for Extra Magic Hours comes in two forms. The first, Extended Evening Theme Park Hours leave a park open two hours after its posted closing time, but just for guests staying at Deluxe hotels. (A rare stratification for Disney, who tends to be pretty egalitarian with on-site guests.) Early Theme Park Entry is for guests staying at any Disney hotel (and participating partner hotels). Rather than an hour-ish of exclusive access to one select theme park each day, Early Entry essentially opens all four of Walt Disney World's hotels to hotel guests 30 minutes before its official opening time to the public. Like during Extra Magic Hours, only select attractions are available.

As a replacement for Extra Magic Hours, Early Entry makes a good amount of sense, as it better distributes hotel guests across the property instead of inviting them to descend on one particular park en masse. The people who will be really affected by this "perk," though, are those staying off-site. Whereas off-site guests could simply avoid whichever park was offering Extra Magic Hours to ensure they weren't affected in the past, now off-site guests begin every day at every park at a clear disadvantage since on-site guests have already had 30 minutes to surge into E-Ticket lines or gather at "rope drop" points farther in the park. 

8. Resort Airline Check-In

Image: Disney

STATUS: Slashed

Just as our list of lost perks and new upcharges began with the start of guests' trip and the loss of Magical Express, it ends with a small but frustrating inconvenience at the end of the trip. Resort Airline Check-In allowed guests of Disney hotels to check-in to their flight (on select carriers) and print boarding passes through their Resort's front desk – just in time for Magical Express to pick them up and whisk them back to the airport, worry-free.

Just as Magical Express "magically" delivered bags to your room on arrival, guests could check luggage from their hotel lobby, which would then make its way onto the airplane, checked through to its final destination. 

Resort Airline Check-In is no longer available. That means that the end of a trip to Walt Disney World is a lot like the end of a trip anywhere else... you need to lug your bags out to the hotel's front porch to either catch a Lyft, Uber, shuttle, or rental car back to the airport. It's not exactly "magical." In fact, it's the same treatment you'd get for staying outside the Disney Bubble. Yep, the end of yet another free* service means that the perks of staying on-site are few and far between.

Bubble, burst

Image: Disney

For many guests returning to Walt Disney World for its 50 anniversary, the story told back home won't be about Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind or TRON Lightcycle Power Run; it'll be the story of costs run amock and perks slashed. To recreate the "Disney Bubble" experience you might remember from an on-site stay in 2015 – with free* Magical Express, hotel parking, FastPass, and MagicBands – a family of four would need to shell out at least $1,000 for Mears Connect, hotel parking, Genie+, and 4 Magic Bands... and that doesn't include intangible perks like Resort Delivery and Airline Check-In, or raised prices for parks, hotels, food, souvenirs, and more.

That's why now is a good time to make the jump to our "Bursting the Disney Bubble – Part II" feature, where we offer some quick reversals and policy changes that can easily get Disney Parks back on the right track...

The most important question, though, is this: will anyone change their vacation plans as a result? While angry fans take to social media to decry that they're never giving Disney another of their hard-earned dollars ever again, they... will! They always do! So even as perks are slashed, upcharges are added, and vacation prices spike, Disney's betting that you'll still go, and that you'll probably pay for what used to be free*, too. Will you?

 
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Comments

Sadly, I think Disney is giving into what the American public wants, namely cheaper prices with extra (optional or not) fees. Like the article said, a lot of "free" things at Disney World are baked into the overall price, such as a higher room rate or a higher day pass. This creates a feeling that everything is included, which is almost a magical feeling.

How many people would prefer to fly on "Cheapest Air" for $300 and pay for carry-on bags, pay for checked luggage, page for seats, and pay for drink? Now how many people would prefer to pay $500 for an all-inclusive flight with no extra fees! Well, $200 is cheaper than $300, right? Not when the added fees brings the total to $600... but by the time you realize that, you're stuck!
The same goes for hotels: there's a hotel for $200 with some fees or another one for $250 with no fees. How bad can that be? Well, the hotel for $200 charges a resort fee of $40 and a parking fee of $30, for a total of $270. But, hey, the room rate is cheaper, right?

(As a side note, if you get a chance, take an all-inclusive European river cruise- yes, it's more expensive, but there's far less worry about whether the company will charge you for this thing or that thing.)

On the other hand, Disney's not lowering its prices now that the free items aren't free. In my opinion, that seems greedy and not very "magical". On the other, other hand, Disney is a company and companies need to make money. And as long as people keep going to Disney World (with little complaining), then they can keep charging fees.
Though, like the article says, I wonder how long it'll be until people start complaining on social media- either when they're at the parks or when they get back. Maybe it'll take 5 or 10 years for parents to decide that their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disney World just isn't magical any more. If Disney World (of all places!) is going to nickel-and-dime you, then why not go to a local theme park instead?

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