As non-local / overseas passholders, who incidentally spend thousands at UOR every year due to extended stays on property, the inconsistency in the messaging has been frustrating.
We originally booked to come over to be there for the 22nd May when the date was announced. We bought park tickets for Grand Opening (along with the 24th and the 26th) and booked Helios for a couple of nights from the 22nd, which was also said to be its grand opening date - only for Helios to suddenly open up at only a few days notice, its grand opening date to be moved to this new date, and to watch from afar as other APs got to experience very low capacity preview dates.
When the previews were recently extended - with an email entitled ‘Passholders: More Preview Ticket Dates Available’ - my wife and I moved our outbound flights three days earlier (at a cost), booked three nights at Helios (at a cost) and bought preview tickets (at a cost). We also switched the park tickets we had for the 24th May to an additional day of preview tickets, even though we had already bought a multi-day express pass that covered that date - figuring that an additional day of low capacity previews would be a better option than a regular day with an express pass. Now we're not so sure this was the right move, but its too late to do anything about it.
I do of course understand that these previews are meant to stress test the park, so I don’t take issue with the preview capacity increasing - but they could have easily announced that they would be opened up to additional cohorts of guests when they were recently announced. Without them doing so it does feel like a bit of a bait and switch and doesn’t make me feel particularly valued as a long term passholder.