FWIW, the point here to me isn't the absence of a pin or a trinket. To me it's an apparent Disney Parks trend that's moving away from Magic and toward a cold corporate P&L culture.
Our fondest WDW memories over these past 35 years are small gestures Disney made that cost them a few dollars but bought them boatloads of goodwill from our now multi-generational Disney family. A few (of the many) episodes that come to mind:
- White chocolate monorail and strawberries placed in our room at the Contemporary
- A random cast member handing out pins to guests on a bridge near Test Track
- The chef bringing out a paper chef's hat and putting it on our daughter at a restaurant that occupied space in what is now The Epcot Experience
- Oswald recognizing my wife wearing a pin of him and instructing his handler through hand signals to give my wife another Oswald pin of (at
Disneyland)
I could list many of those moments. Each one cost Disney a few dollars, but that investment bought our loyalty which repaid the cost many times over.
Nowadays it seems Disney is inordinately focused on dollar-consciousness, and it hurts. DME elimination, resort parking fees, FP+/Genie, reduced mousekeeping, ExtraMagic Hours being restricted to deluxe resort guests, etc. are manifestations of this that have been implemented at what seems to be breathtaking speed. And fireworks-reduced "kisses goodnight" shows at Epcot and MK point in that direction too.
Maybe it's covid. Maybe it's Chapek. Maybe it's neither (or both). But whatever it is, it's palpable to me, and if Disney wants to hang on to its earned-over-a-lifetime image of being exceptional, it needs to look for every moment it can to spend a little on Magic in the short term to reap much more in returns in the long run. That's why I think OP's suggestion was a good one.
Disney made $21.5 billion in profit in 2020. That was 21% less than 2019, but in the quarter ending in June of 2021, its profits were up a whopping 49% from a year ago.
That makes stockholders happy, I'm sure. And I'll bet it fattens Chapek's bonus. But if it comes at the expense of long-term guest goodwill and loyalty, is it worth it?
I guess we'll see...