When Walt Disney (DIS) reopened Disney World after its somewhat brief pandemic-related closure, things were not the same as they were before.
There were obvious pandemic-related conditions such as temperature checks, mask-wearing, and social distancing.
It never felt exactly right to wait in a line spread out across the park because people needed to be six feet apart.
Disney had cast members carrying signs about mask-wearing and rides either had plexiglass barriers or empty seats between passengers.
Disney also made it so nearly all food was ordered via its app and cash nearly became useless once inside the parks.
The biggest change, however, wasn't any of those things, many of which have gone away. Instead, it was that limited capacities forced Disney to go to a reservation system where in addition to a ticket, customers needed a reservation for the specific park they planned to enter.
Now, it's possible that Comcast's (CMCSA) Universal Studios will do the same thing.
A Look at Disney's Reservation System
Disney has a reservation system that operates on its website and app. In order to make a reservation, a guest must attach a valid ticket or annual pass to his or her account.
Once that's done, the prospective visitor can then check to see which parks have availability on the days their party plans to visit.
It's a little more complicated than making a dinner reservation, because Disney has different buckets of availability for different types of admission. There was a pool of reservations for passholders and another one for people staying on the property, for example.
Disney has never explained the breakdown of which reservations it makes available to which groups, but you can assume the company does not want people staying in its hotels to not be able to access its parks.
It was a system that could be (and remains) frustrating. You might want to go to Hollywood Studios while only Epcot has reservations.
It's sometimes possible to snag a reservation at a park that has no open slots by constantly refreshing the reservations web page, presumably because someone else canceled.
The system was needed due to capacity limits, but it made planning a Disney vacation a bit harder for people coming in from out of town. It also made it more difficult, if not impossible, for local passholders to spontaneously visit the parks.
Universal Considers Reservations
Universal has quietly (as quietly as a survey sent to thousands of people can be) sent surveys to annual passholders with questions about a reservations system. That's not a guarantee it will add one: Feedback will likely be overwhelmingly negative, but it shows the idea is at least being considered.
"With Covid-19 measures reducing as we look to a world where we "live with Covid" this seems like a strange time to be considering adding a park reservation system at Universal Orlando Resort.
Not having a park reservation system has been a huge positive for Universal Orlando Resort since reopening and has pulled many guests towards the resort," wrote Theme Park Tourist, which first reported the news of the survey.
At various times during the worst days of the pandemic (aside from when the parks were closed), Universal did have long lines of people waiting to get into its parks which needed people to leave before more could be admitted. If that's a recurring problem in the (sort of) post-pandemic world, a reservations system might make sense, even if guests (and most certainly passholders) don't like the idea.
