As fall approaches in Central Florida, the Walt Disney World Resort is looking to boost attendance among locals.
Disney now is offering Florida residents a Disney Magic Flex Ticket with theme park admission as low as $49 per day, plus tax. Two-day tickets are $130 plus tax and valid through the end of September. Three- and four-day tickets are $174 and $190 before tax, respectively, and good through December 18, though Thanksgiving week is blocked.
Earlier this month, rival Universal Orlando began offering a buy-a-day, get-the-year discount to locals as it also looks to boost attendance while interstate travel remains low and international leisure travel non-existent. Both Disney and Universal have canceled their lucrative after-hours Halloween events, putting more pressure on daily attendance to deliver some financial relief after losing gajillions in revenue during the pandemic shutdown this spring.
Travel restrictions have made it tough for Orlando-area theme parks to draw fans this summer, even with the park capacities restricted due to the need to promote safe physical distancing. That's left locals as the majority of visitors in the parks, which is a tough sell since most Floridians know better than to spend the day outside voluntarily in the middle of summer. But with cooler Autumn weather approaching, theme parks are hoping that deeper discounts might bring more local residents out to visit.
And restricting the discounts to locals helps the parks boost attendance without increasing risk to the Central Florida population — including their own cast and team members — by attracting thousands of visitors from out of state, who might be bringing the Covid virus into the community with them. And, on the flip side, it helps to prevent putting their fans' communities at risk should those visitors bring corona home with them from Florida.
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Passholders overwhelming the phone lines to cancel their APs. Should we expect a large buy-in on this offer? Maybe, maybe not. It does seemed to have work at Universal.
Regardless of the value, my Uni and SW APs are paid through the middle of next year and we have no plans of going. Even if you remove the potential risk of visiting (however substantial or minimal that is), the hassle of going and the reduced experience make it a much more attractive option for us to wait until things can become a little closer to normal. We've found other things to do in the meantime to keep our family busy.
Florida still has a blind eye on how the virus is spreading throughout the state.
I know there can be some viewpoints thrown out there regarding the ‘safety measures’ Disney and the other parks have implemented, but the bottom line is that remaining open increases the opportunity for the virus to spread.
I find these ‘promotions’ of boosting attendance irresponsible during this ongoing deadly pandemic; Disney should be a leader in reconsidering re-closing the parks and then focus its efforts of the government to help implement a better containment and mitigation strategy so we can actually move forward as we transition into the fall and flu season.
I can only see this helping generate traffic on weekends.
Nobody who works during the week is going to buy/use a ticket Mon - Fri with the reduced hours...
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Since Disney periodically offers those deeply-discounted tickets to Florida residents during down times, I doubt the safety of cast members is the reason to offer the deal only to locals.
If the locals don’t take advantage of the deal, I expect that we will see some of the best deals ever at WDW that even out-of-state visitors can take advantage of if they can get down there.