Bus, Stop! (continued)
Perhaps a more realistic and attainable goal is to transfer the fleet to
busses that use bio-fuels. I saw a test bus using a green technology of some
kind at Fort Wilderness many months ago, so clearly this is on someone’s radar.
That may well happen.
But the Operations folks are looking around, some of them quite worried, for
yet more savings, particularly since bio-fuels aren’t ready for prime time yet.
Recently, their discussions about ideas--again, nothing set in stone
here!--turned to "controlling the controllables." If they can control an
expense, they will try to do so.
One big idea: creating, publishing, making public, and actually sticking to
an honest to goodness schedule for the busses. You’d arrive at Port Orleans
Riverside, say, and they’d hand you a card with the bus schedules on it for the
next week. You’d know when to get to the bus stop, and if you missed a bus,
you’d know when to return. To be sure, Disney would only be doing this to
realize some cost savings, meaning they’d probably only run busses every half
hour, and busses would be fuller on each run. That may not be optimal for
customer satisfaction.
And yet, would it be so bad? Other bus lines publish their timetable and
schedule--just think of any large city! It may even be considered an enhancement
to customer satisfaction, to actually KNOW when the next bus is coming.
A wrinkle they’d have to figure out is how to deal with the times when parks
close. Clearly, you’ll need more busses on the road during those hours. And
hopefully "cost savings" would not translate into "insanely long lines to get
back to your hotel at 10pm". But on paper, the idea isn’t automatically
customer-unfriendly.
Better check the schedule before you head to the
busses!
While the bus schedule (and reduced bus expense) idea may realize some
savings, there’s a second, parallel plan (again, just discussions, so far) to
try something else: eliminate some of the bus lines altogether. The low-hanging
fruit here has to do with the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. The daring plan works
like this: what if you no longer offered busses from ANY hotels to Epcot or the
Magic Kingdom, and only offered busses to the Ticket and Transportation Center
instead? The TTC has monorails to MK and E, to take visitors those last miles,
so busses are theoretically not needed. The MK also has the ferry option, which,
like the monorail, is a lot cheaper to operate than the busses. In other words,
since the infrastructure is already there, why not use it?
An intriguing side effect of this concept, if it comes to fruition, is that
the Ticket and Transportation Center would finally live up to its name.
Everything (well, at least "more things") would finally flow toward the TTC, and
it would really work as a hub. Right now the TTC is being bypassed as a hub due
to the busses. You hop on board a bus at Port Orleans Riverside and disembark
next to the Magic Kingdom main entrance gate; no TTC or hub needed. Well, if the
company needs to save money, perhaps that hub might come into vogue again.
Ironically, this is what many airlines are doing these days as well… eliminating
direct routes.
Is it customer unfriendly? Well, yes and no. Sure, it’s less convenient. You
would then have to take two forms of transportation, not just one, and that
would definitely add time and hassle to your "commute" to the parks. So how can
I claim this is not necessarily customer unfriendly? Because you’d reap a side
effect that I consider somewhat ephemeral and elusive, but nevertheless hugely
important: atmosphere and scene-setting.
Consider: when you take a bus directly from Port Orleans Riverside to the
Magic Kingdom gates, you step off something industrial and smelly and then
you’re supposed to make a sudden switch in mentality to "happy mode" at the
park. Doesn’t work so well, sometimes. Ditto the bus to Epcot, where you
disembark in the magical land of concrete and the "courtyard-‘o-busses". Again,
not so magical after all. But if you had to go to the TTC first, you’d
transition first to a ferry or a monorail. You’d glimpse the Magic Kingdom from
a distance, and excitement would build. As you got closer, the outside world
would melt away and you’d transition more naturally to the magic of the Disney
park. This is the way it was designed originally. The same would be true of
Epcot, where your approach to the park involves a "fly over" via monorail, to
give you a taste of what’s below. Do you really feel all that if you merely take
a bus directly to the destination?
It’s called the Transportation Center, so why not make
it one?
Note: since Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Disney’s Hollywood Studios don’t have
monorails, the busses would continue to go from hotels to those parks. Only
Epcot and the Magic Kingdom would see direct routes cut.
Since this is all preliminary, and just talk for the moment, no one knows if
they will actually go to the plan to offer bus schedules, or remove "direct
routes" from hotels. Perhaps they’ll even do both of the plans to realize
maximal savings.
I’m not convinced that either plan is perfect, but both of them do offer some
customer benefit, even while letting the company save money. I’m never one for
maximizing Disney’s wealth (you have surely seen me rant and rave about high
prices over the years, especially food and souvenirs), but I think in this case
Disney can be excused for wanting to save some money. Especially if travel gets
bad enough.
"Casino" Restaurants
Here’s an email I got last week that deserves to be quoted in its entirety:
We recently also visited "The Wave" and unfortunately did not have as
good of an experience that you did. I originally wrote a whole listing of
what our experience was and why I felt the need to tell you about our
experience to give a counterpoint. However, when writing it a larger concept
dawned on me. My dislike for my experience there didn’t come from all of the
negatives, it was more because of my expectations and perspective I went
into dining there with.
As a local resident and Disney Dining Experience cardholder, we have eaten
at all of the Disney Resort restaurants and enjoy some of them so much we
make a point to drive to property just for dinner. Several of our favorites
are California Grill, Flying Fish Cafe and Artist Point. We make sure to go
there occasionally to remember why we like them so much.
Seeing what price point that The Wave, it should be at a level of food and
service equivalent to Narcoossee’s or the Kona Cafe. It did not reach that
level at any time of our visit after the very pleasant welcome we received
at the desk.
When thinking of why this restaurant was developed, I started to realize
that this place was not designed with me in mind. I felt that it was
overpriced, aspired to apparently lofty goals but for some reason or another
failed to meet them and suffered from spotty execution. If I want to pay
that much for a dinner, I could go to so many other places in Orlando and
get better food, better service and lower prices.
Then I thought what would I think of the place if I was a guest visiting
Disney World. What if I had spent most of the day at the Magic Kingdom and
wanted to eat somewhere nice but not so nice that I’d have to go back to the
room and change for an evening out? Also I’d also most likely be on the
Disney Dining Plan. I’d want to maximize my "free meal" which I’ve already
paid for. If that were the case, I would probably love this place. It’s
close to the park but still removed. It’s sophisticated yet casual. The
prices are high but I wouldn’t care because it’s already paid for. I’d be
getting an expensive meal and not paying for it.
This would appear to be first of what I call "casino restaurants" to be
opened at WDW. Only meant to be visited by those who are given free passes
to eat there. The prices for those not going for free do not match the
establishment. However, most people aren’t paying anyway. The higher the
perceived value of the meal the better the person feels about getting it for
"free".
This would be a continuing trend in focusing away from the local resident
and more on the guest spending their entire vacation on site. The crippling
of the Disney Dining Experience over the past few years was apparently just
the beginning.
I’ll do the only thing I can to protest this change, I’ll continue to visit
local establishments who care about my business. I’ll eat at Disney as a
necessity, but no longer as a choice. I’ll still visit the few
establishments which are run as fine restaurants, regardless of their
location. Hopefully the grinding pressure will not force these places to
yield to the trap of a "captive audience" which no longer has to provide the
best experience to get people to walk through the door. Their sole purpose
of being to provide a place to spend your "included meal".
Disney World probably wouldn’t even notice my protest though. They have
apparently already decided that my patronage is not that important anyway.
Kevin Yee's New Books Now at Amazon
I have two new books for sale on Amazon, both of which have been discussed
here before: "Mouse Trap - Memoir of a Disneyland Cast Member" and "Tokyo Disney
Made Easy." Amazon finally asked for several boxes of stock for these titles
(I've had them around for a couple of weeks), so I'm guessing sales will be
prompt by July 1. Have a look below if you're interested. |