NextGen perspective

NextGen is sort of the umbrella over its components such as MyMagic+, My Disney Experience and Fastpass+.  This extensive article by Tim Grassey and related comments at MiceChat.com are an indicator of what people think about the new system. 

Without upgrades and additions, My Magic + is going to be largely perceived as a trip planning tool and scheduling assistant. This offers many benefits for Disney from scheduling staff, to offering discounts and setting park hours. More importantly, the perception is that if you have multiple items scheduled such as dining or attraction reservations, you will be less inclined to go elsewhere with your money. There is some logic to this belief, but it is not without flaws.

 Fastpass+ is similar in concept and motivation. It was not driven by guest demand – it was driven by the desire to keep people on property. The belief is that if a guest has multiple ride reservations scheduled, that has value to the guest. From Disney’s perspective, they believe the guest won’t want to concede their reservations in favor of visiting another Orlando theme park.

All of these concepts are logical from a business standpoint, however to the consumer they are nothing more than a repackaging of what is already there. The good news for Disney is that many consumers won’t recognize this as a repackaging. For me personally though, it’s getting increasingly difficult to defend marginal changes to attractions while the competition is making substantial changes.

Looking at many posts about the new system over the past few months, there seem to be several common threads.
  (1)  The system tries to force people to plan weeks or months in advance of their visit, but a significant number of guests prefer to keep things spontaneous. So the impression is that Disney is catering to first timers or people who need to have their "fun" planned out.
  (2)  A side effect of the new system is that restaurants are even more difficult to get into and even the 2nd tier attractions are becoming harder to get into.
  (3)  The Magic Bands are supposed to be more convenient and efficient, but this is not always the case.  There are still long lines at park entrances and a new phenomenon: long lines waiting to get into an attraction with a FastPass+. The bands can be awkward to use.
  (4)  Underneath all the hype and technology is the lack of major additions and improvements  to attractions in the parks.  Not only is it the same old-same old, but even the same old is harder to experience. 
  (5)  Technology-challenged people will find the new system confusing and annoying, so it seems that Disney does not care much about that group.  Without a smartphone and MDE app, a person is not going to be able to have much fun anymore.

The MiceChat article makes a good point, namely that NextGen is here to stay so we might as well make the best of it.  There are many interesting things that could be done with the system, so we can keep giving Disney feedback that they may or may not listen to.  But then there's that dark shadow hovering in the background, namely security.  Nobody seems to want to talk about that but, having created such a big, complicated system, Disney needs to be extremely aware of potential threats.  A successful exploit of NextGen could be incredibly damaging, and the news is full of stories about companies that never saw the problem coming.  Access to millions of accounts is going to keep the bad guys motivated to find or create the holes.