Business Insider – Walt Disney World and Disneyland will now charge visitors up to $20 a day to skip lines for rides, a perk that was previously freeEstimated Reading Time: just 2 min

As reported on Business Insider:

• Walt Disney World and Disneyland are retiring FastPass, which allowed customers to skip ride lines for free.
• Customers will now need to pay $15 to $20 extra per ticket to skip ride lines.
• Disney’s parks have not yet returned to profitability after being hit hard by the pandemic.
• See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Disneyland and Walt Disney World have decided that customers will need to pay extra to skip lines for rides.

The California and Florida-based entertainment parks said Wednesday that they will retire the FastPass perk, which previously allowed park goers to skip lines for free.

Customers who want to skip lines will now need to pay $15 extra per ticket per day at Walt Disney World Resort and $20 extra per ticket per day at Disneyland Resort to access the new Disney Genie+ service.

The new Disney Genie service is built into the Disney mobile experience apps and aims to create personalized itineraries for customers, allow them to join virtual lines, and make restaurant reservations. Through the Disney Genie+ service, customers pay extra to skip lines by accessing rides through Lightning Lane entrances.

Disney’s amusement parks across the world were hard hit during the pandemic after being closed for months on end and then reopening at reduced capacity. The company’s parks business has not yet returned to profitability, according to its most recent earnings results.

Read more: Disney is riding high on Wall Street but still faces 7 big headaches, from streaming wars to franchise fatigue

Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks and Resorts, told The New York Times that the Disney Genie tool would pull in revenue that could be reinvested in experiences. It’s also designed to improve the customer experience, he said.

Still, some customers will likely find the extra charge hard to swallow after years of being able to skip lines for free.

"Change is change, so it will take a moment for the guest to understand what this is," D’Amaro said. "But we are very, very confident in this tool and its ability to improve the guest experience overall."

Disneyland Paris also abandoned the free FastPass perk last month.

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Source: Business Insider
Author: insider@insider.com (Mary Hanbury)
Date: August 19th 2021
Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/disneyland-disney-world-charge-visitors-to-skip-lines-2021-8
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