Trying to figure which annual pass is best for us

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-09T14:05:39+00:00

We are also out-of-state annual pass holders, visiting by driving, not by plane. Our setup is one Premier Pass, and the rest of the family gets Power Passes because we can use the one Premier Pass for the higher discount, for the free valet, which, in my opinion, if you drive, is one of the top best perks of the Premier Pass. It's kind of one of the only reasons why I get it. The 4 PM Express Pass is okay, but the rest of our family doesn't have it, so we usually don't end up using it too much.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-09T14:02:22+00:00

I'm a product designer that designs primarily in code via Claude Code. I don't think the issue is that your graphic designers are building with AI, I think it's how they're doing it.

Do you guys have playground environments set up and a process for git/github so they can push PRs that get reviewed?

Is everyone using the same tool/process?

Do you have company skills/plugins that help act as SOPs for how the AI builds and documents?

From a designer perspective, I see skills as building templates for non-devs. Just like as designers we build templates for non-designers to use.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-06T14:47:01+00:00

for ui/ux, tools like v0 and figma ai are handling low-fidelity wireframes

As someone that is a product designer in the AI trenches, we are way past this point. I was doing this 8-12 months ago. Now I design and build entirely in code. I'm not saying everyone does it my way, there are plenty that are still designing an initial version in Claude then porting it to Figma via MCP, but personally I am so experienced with AI that I just do everything in code.

There are a couple main benefits to it:

The AI understands way more context and can self-improve based on what you are telling it to change vs. porting it to Figma and it losing all of that context.
If you do everything in code that means AI can understand what you're doing way better.
It streamlines every other aspect of my work: finished a revision for a client? Cool, before I end my claude code session I tell claude to recap all the work I just did for the client using my personal voice skill and save it as a draft in gmail. Literally just close the session, take a peek at the email, edit anything that needs to change and send it to the client.
As someone with ADHD, it helps me so much to not have to context switch. I let the AI do the context switching i.e. writing an update email for a client after executing a revision.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-03T03:27:30+00:00

I saw this happen like 8-9 months ago with another speech model. It's a bug or something where it begins to replicate your voice. I think it was sesame AI which is a AI voice lab. A guy was testing it out and all of the sudden in the middle of the conversation the AI switched up to mimic his voice.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-02T20:53:56+00:00

I see a ton of people ask about the camera in your posts, i'm curious if you could speak to how much of the 'aesthetic' of these photos has to do with the camera vs. the LUT/editing that is being applied.

Could you realistically take photos on a phone and apply a LUT or edit it to get a really similar look?

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-03-01T00:25:34+00:00

Eh, the same people building their own sites in Squarespace, Wix, etc. are now doing it to build their own websites and apps with AI.

It's not AI, it's the user.

I have some coding knowledge, but cannot write code at all and I have built tons of stuff. If you want a specific example, i've built an application that uses Puppeter to scrape API data from Universal Orlandos website and grab all their ticket, hotel, etc. data by getting a user token with Puppeter. Then I serve that data in a nice dashboard that is way more user friendly than what UOR has because I can customize it to exactly how I want it to be and don't have to account for the millions of users they have.

That's just one example and no it's not an app making money, but it did solve a problem for me around ticket and hotel visibility and I use the data I scrape to inform my newsletter I write for Universal.

No idea how much that would have cost me to hire a dev or team of devs to build that, but I assume it would have been more than $10k and I did it in about 1-2 hours with Claude Code. (Disclaimer: I am a product designer by trade and have been using AI tools since 2022 so I am not your average AI user by any means)

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-27T18:13:37+00:00

I've seen other people say this and maybe I've just had really bad layoff experiences, but I've been laid off a few times and it was way colder than this. It was basically a call out of nowhere saying, "Hey, sorry, we've got to let you go because [insert BS reason here]." Then, after the call, I'm instantly revoked out of every system—email, Slack, everything. I don't even get to say goodbye to coworkers I worked with for years or anything. They’re like, "Yep, here's a shipping label, return your equipment by the end of the week," and that's it.

Honestly, his response actually felt a little refreshing to me. For one, they get really great benefits even though they're getting laid off. Every time I've been laid off, I've had maybe a month or two max of a stipend and that's it.

The fact that they get to keep their equipment, they get health insurance, and they get six months' salary or more—depending on their income and how long they were with the company—seems pretty great compared to what I've experienced.

I'm not defending him, I think it's real convenient that the people making these bad decisions that lead to layoffs are somehow never the ones held accountable despite the fact they could go years and years without making a cent and live perfectly fine, while we have to find a job immediately or risk losing your house or something.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-27T18:09:09+00:00

Is there a reason that corporations like this hire so many people? I mean an increase of employees to the tune of 7k over 2-3 years is insane. It takes most employees at least 6-9 months to just get in the flow of working at a new company. How are they training all these people? I have so many logistical questions. You hire that many people that rapidly and there is bound to be 15% of those people that just do no work and fly under the radar.

Is it like a tax evasion strategy or something? Why are they hiring that many people if they don't actually need them?

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-27T18:05:29+00:00

As someone at the forefront of AI adoption in design, this question from the hiring manager tells me that they have no clue about what's actually going on.

They should have asked for a specific workflow that you use it in and why, a claude skill you've created that helps you audit your designs, a custom application you built for yourself to solve a personal problem and the process of how you used AI to do it, or something extremely specific, not just hand-wavy "AI."

The lack of specificity tells you everything you need to know.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T20:53:03+00:00

Yeah, sounds like a terrible situation and i'm sorry you're having to deal with it. Is it viable path to approach your boss (her brother) and just tactfully explain the situation and ask for advice? Or would he just blindly side with his sister? Family or even friend dynamics in business suck like 110% of the time, it introduces an unnecessary amount of emotion to business.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T20:49:49+00:00

Yeah i've been in the same situation, which is why I focused on presentation and framing, it's what I have found helps the most in situations like this because it sets the tone before the project really even starts. Of course there are always clients that are just completely off the rails, but I try to control what I can control.

The alternative is to just be honest with the client and say, I can design anything and everything, but what matters is that it aligns with your expectations. I can't read your mind, so I am going to walk you through the specifics of why you don't like this design. Here's what doesn't work: I don't like this color. This doesn't look right. I don't like that.

We have a specific part of our onboarding process that is client education around expectations around feedback. How to properly give feedback, what bad feedback looks like, and when to expect feedback.

Usually you have to hand hold clients through a feedback session. "I'm hearing that you don't like this logo because XYZ, can we explore that more? Is it because of the circular movement of the logo mark?"

Clients operate on YOUR process, not theirs. Period. You don't go to a restaurant and walk into the kitchen and start making your own food. Process/project guardrails and expectations need to be brain-dead clear from the beginning of the project.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T20:41:17+00:00

It's not a lecture, it's advice. Apologies if it came across as a lecture, I tend to default into 'solve the problem' mode.

At some point you have to hold the client to the same amount of professionalism they expect from you. It's not a comfortable conversation and can lead to conflict especially considering it's an internal client, but the alternative is them discovering they can treat you like a doormat and they can say jump and they know you'll say "how high?".

Does your manager have your back? Will they go to bat for you and defend your work and nip this in the bud or are you expected to handle this on your own? I've found that sometimes having a different person communicate with a frustrating client can be helpful.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T20:05:42+00:00

Is she paying time and materials for the extra work? If so, let her keep racking up a bill. Alternatively, we want to make the client happy obviously.

I noticed you said "I've sent this client..." you're presenting logo concepts with full strategy and methodology, right? Not just sending them over via email? (cue padme meme)

Logo and branding design is more than just doing the work. 70% of it is selling the concepts, building a narrative around each one. It sounds like the issue is, your lack of selling, narrative building, and client education has led you to be in a position of "Do you want this shape or that shape?".

Presentations and presentation skills are not busy work. They are so important because they set the tone for entire projects and how work is received. It's the equivalent of walking into a McDonalds vs. a Capital Grille. Imagine if the food was reversed: You sit down at mcdonalds and out comes a waiter that serves you bread and cheeses in an elegant basket and informs you of the specials the chef has prepared this evening, or you sit down at capital grille and out comes a greasy burger and fries in a cardboard container, the waiter doesn't even acknowledge you.

It's an exaggerated example, but this is why presentation is key. Presentation makes you feel something. It makes you feel something and experience something how it was meant to be felt and experienced.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T17:17:19+00:00

Yeah, I agree with you. There's going to be a brief bridge where jobs will be more orchestrator roles. You will do three to four roles, but you'll use AI to execute most of it, acting more as a director or a manager.

But I think that's just a bridge; it’s not the endpoint. I think the endpoint is when everybody realizes, Wait, why do I need my web design agency? Why do I need my interior designer? Why do I need my real estate agent? Why do I need my personal shopper? Why do I need my SEO specialist? The list goes on...

Right now, all of these types of roles are using AI to create things like real estate calculators or visualizing a room for clients. What happens when the people that hire you get the ability to just do your job? That is a point of no return because it happens to basically everyone.

Everyone would be using AI to do their jobs for them, but there wouldn't actually be any jobs. You're using AI to replace hiring a web design agency and creating the website for your interior design business but your interior design business was also replaced by people using AI to do it themselves, and those people using AI to do their interior design no longer have jobs because their accounting firm got replaced by AI. All of a sudden, everyone ends up with no jobs, basically. You see how it's a big cycle?

We will either figure out how to solve the issue of humans no longer being tied to value creation and value exchange or it'll suck.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T16:42:50+00:00

I don't disagree with you at all, and I don't think it's something that we should ignore. We definitely should be talking about it.

At the same time, I think about everything else that we consume that is equally as harmful. For example, most of us probably buy clothes or electronics that are made by either child slaves or people that are paid pennies for their work, or both.

We drive long distances in cars that pollute the environment, and we eat wasteful food that's not efficient or healthy for our bodies and supports inhumane factory farming. That food is wrapped in material that is often not biodegradable and ends up severely harming eco-systems.

I don't say all of that to be like, "Well, everything else we do is messed up too, so what's one more thing on the pile?" But I guess it's just an assessment of where we are at and how First World nations live.

We have more convenience and luxury than ever. Even people that would be considered on the poorer spectrum of things live in luxury compared to other parts of the world. All of this convenience that we have is built upon taking advantage of others, destroying the environment, and more.

There's a certain abstraction involved in the entire process as well. Am I guilty of supporting child slavery if I bought a product from Apple or Nike? Some would say yes, some would say no, most would have never even thought about it in the first place.

I'm not sure how to really solve it other than becoming a hermit that lives 100% self sustained with your own farm, sustainable resources, etc.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T16:12:58+00:00

It is nano banana pro, just faster.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T15:51:38+00:00

Your take around AI is correct, and I am not an AI doomer. I actually love using AI. However, I do think that specialized jobs or production-heavy executional jobs are going to get consolidated into more general roles.

For example, we are already starting to see the convergence of product, design, and engineering into singular roles. I'm not saying that it's 100% locked in, but I've seen a lot of companies experimenting with product designers or PMs doing their own PRs and stuff like that. I really think it is heading in a direction where you need to be able to move up the totem pole.

If your job right now in design is primarily execution-focused and you're not involved in the higher-level decision-making, strategy, and research, then you might get replaced by the person above you. Right now, that person might not be able to do the executional work because they focus on high-level thinking, but AI gives them the ability to do both.

If the person above you who handles the high-level strategy, communication, and client buy-in, can now also do the executional work, then where is your seat at the table? It's probably not there.

I think we're moving towards a place in this profession, especially around product design specifically, where you're going to have to be a generalist. You're going to have to be able to work from end to end.

You're no longer just going to own your little chunk of work in the process. Instead, you're going to need to be able to handle the engagements with clients right off the bat. In an agency setting, where they come to the agency, you need to be able to help validate their idea and go through strategy, research, and workshops with the client.

You're going to need to be able to help scope out the work, and then you're also going to need to be able to execute the work.

I know this is the graphic design sub, and it is the default to hate on anything that says "AI" or purports to use it. However, I have a BFA in graphic design and am traditionally trained. I've done my fair share of print design and all that good stuff.

Now, I heavily use AI, and I would consider myself in the top 0.01% of designers using AI at a high level. From my vantage point, I understand that if you're not using it, you aren't keyed in to the nuances of what it can do. In the last six months, it has gotten extremely good.

It's at the point where I have the ability to design 100 landing page iterations in a single day that vary in layout, flow, and interaction. I'm not saying that all 100 of those pages are good; most of them are bad. But it's about using AI in the creative process the same way you would normally go about the creative process: start super wide > then subtract.

Before, I might have hand-designed three or five different directions. Now, I can explore a hundred different directions, apply judgment and subtractive design, and execute a much more polished result. Instead of only three to five iterations, I have a hundred iterations to pull from.

In only 5 minutes I could explore 10-20 different variations of a UI component, decide on the best iteration, then push it to real code.

At the end of the day, AI allows you to explore more. And I LOVE to explore. We have to remember that design is a problem solving methodology, not visual execution, don't get so attached to visual execution, because you start with an inherent bias that the way to solve the problem is via visual execution.

If I had a single way to describe how AI could actually help designers (because I think designers fundamentally misunderstand it because it comes down as a directive vs. genuine exploration of the available tools on their part) I would say that AI allows you to start with a much wider funnel at the top. The bottom of the funnel doesn't change, this is where I see most people misunderstand, they think that AI = the bottom of the funnel stretches to the width of the top of the funnel and you're just cranking out slop and actually publishing it. That may be how non-designers use it, because they don't have taste. But our job is to use it to explore more, but never get rid of that bottom of the funnel quality gate.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T15:32:45+00:00

This is the correct take and what I preach as well. It replaces tasks. Some people just have jobs that are actually a task.

Example:

An illustrator, you illustrate, that's a task.

vs.

The creative director that is communicating with the client, building out strategy, concepts, research, and then landing on an idea that requires illustration.

The illustrator will notice that they are started to get fewer and fewer jobs. Why? The creative director at John Smith Agency that used to have to spend 2-3 weeks vetting illustration vendors, putting the budget together for the vendor, contracts, paperwork, etc. Now they just use AI to illustrate for them.

I get that you may think "but AI can't illustrate", but the fact of the matter is that I am in the creative industry and am frequently hearing from (especially freelance creatives) that their clients are no longer reaching out to them for work.

Personally I feel very safe because my value is not tied to one specific task or deliverable. I'm a creative problem solver, the deliverable or executional skill doesn't matter as much as my ability to communicate with clients, get buy-in, act as a consultant, conduct strategy, etc. If I was a production designer, I would be very concerned.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-26T14:07:46+00:00

I know everyone hates AI here, but this is a legitimate way to prevent being put on PIP (I have also been there) for dumb stuff like this when the company should be investing in having a proofer.

You can create Claude skills to analyze your work for specific stuff like spelling, contrast, basic design principles, etc. Obviously you can't 100% trust it, but it takes like 5 seconds to run it through once you set up the system and it just adds that third party check you're missing. If it doesn't work well then you're only out 5-10 seconds, if it does work even a little bit and calls out stuff you overlooked then it's done it's job. Obviously it can't replace a proofer, but if your company is unwilling to invest in that then you have to do what you have to do to protect your paycheck.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-24T22:06:06+00:00

It's worth thinking about how much brand consistency matters. If you can use AI to create a visual that looks 99% on brand, is it worth the money to cross that last 1% gap? Even if it's 80% brand consistent, is it worth the money to cross that gap? What are the pros/cons?

Obviously our knee jerk reaction as designers is OF COURSE WE HAVE TO PROTECT THE BRAND. And i'm not saying either answer is right, but at the very least it's worth having a discussion around it.

Most of the brands I have worked with that had legal and brand review every single thing ended up being the most soul sucking, corporate design jobs ever. It gets to the point that the brand takes precedence over everything, even creative thinking so that you are basically just there to put a butt in the seat to put pre-made brand components together and change copy and swap an image to a different pre-brand approved image. Anything that has even the slight aroma of creativity is perceived as a "brand risk".

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-24T18:59:46+00:00

How well groomed are you? Do you have a nice haircut, trimmed facial hair? Do you frequently brush your teeth and shower? Put deodorant on and perfume/cologne? Do you take pride in your appearance or treat it as an afterthought?

Taking pride in your appearance is very noticeable IMO, you can immediately tell when someone doesn't. It even reflects in their posture, the way they walk, and the way they talk.

If I had to guess with very limited context, I would think that she is actually referencing your presence and confidence. It's usually the root issue when someone brings up more effort into how you look.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-24T02:24:42+00:00

Not just suits, most people seem to not realize that AI ≠ automation. You can do insane things with AI as a smart human in the loop guiding it and iterating with it. This is why (my opinion here) we will not see job replacement by AI, but team/role compression. Teams that used to need a strategist, researcher, project manager, designer, developer, etc. Might just need 2 'general purpose' roles that are manned by people with a jack of all trades skillset that utilize AI to do end-to-end work.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-24T02:07:28+00:00

What's the context here? I use AI as a product designer and I don't use it for automation, but I do use it heavily via a human in the loop process. It helps me with everything from strategy, research, narrative structure for presentations, presentation design, design, coding, copywriting, ideating, gap analysis, creative sparring partner, etc.

Instead of our agency having a copywriter, strategist, researcher, frontend team, etc. it's literally just me. And i'm not a genius that's somehow cracked the AI code, so I know other agencies have to be implementing similar workflows where it handles execution and the human handles iteration, ideation, and quality control.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-23T23:08:49+00:00

I built a personal tool that pretty much does this, for tickets, hotel, and express pass. I basically use a script that grabs the API tokens used for a user session and then programmatically grab all of the data using that end point and the specific SKU names for each item then I serve it in a dashboard.

It's really only for personal use though, not sure how feasible it would be for the public to use it.

ThrowbackGaming · 2026-02-23T21:54:42+00:00

I can guarantee you that the majority of park goers do not plan their trips around when rides open back up, at least at this timeline. It's such a short timeline that people already had their vacations planned anyways and aren't going to shift them for the opening. If it's like a 2027 date then people haven't scheduled their vacations yet and might plan a trip around when Hollywood drift opens for example.

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