niccikatie
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 5, 2010
Random thoughts (without trying to repeat all the excellent points already made):
1) These price increases really start to stack up, don't they? Following the 2018 increase in ticket prices and the parking fees alone, for example - a family of four driving to WDW for a 7 night onsite stay with 5-day tickets will now get to pay these additional amounts that didn't exist in January: Value - $231, Moderate - $273, Deluxe - $308. Earthshattering numbers? No - but those amounts aren't for any additional actual services beyond what was already provided eight weeks ago for $0.
2) Quite a few comments on parking fees charged by hotels in urban or congested areas. All very true - and I'd add that many of those hotels cater not only to tourists but to high volumes of business travelers, who expense those fees to their companies or clients because those travelers have to be there. Although many leisure hotels and resorts also charge parking fees, it's riskier since you're charging those to people who you ideally want to incentivize to visit and would have to pay those fees directly (rather than reimbursed via expense report). If you're going to do it (and not that I'd advocate any parking fee), why not a trial run of parking fees at the six resorts that offer convention services (GF, CR, BW, CSR, BC, and YC)?
3) A few comments about why the fees are different at Values, Moderates and Deluxes, when a parking space is a parking space. I suppose it's a progressive approach - while the Values are paying less in actual dollars, they are paying a higher percentage of fees relative to their stay. Assuming an average nightly rate for each tier (Value - $125, Moderate - $250, Deluxe - $400), the parking fee at the Values adds about 10% per night to the cost, versus about a 6% increase for the Moderates and Deluxes. Even though the Values have a lower fee, you could argue they are impacted more.
These are excellent, rational views on why this is so irritating. Especially #1! If you take the 88% occupancy figure in the article posted previously in this thread, those small numbers become HUGE numbers on the bottom line.