Prices... sigh.

[leebee]

We had to cancel a Disney trip in 2021 so the cash value of our 2 day tickets- can't remember if they were hoppers or not ($550)- is on hold at Disney towards a future trip. To use those tickets now will cost $620 for 2 day base and $800 for 2 day hoppers. I had no idea prices would go up so quickly. We have been holding these tickets to offset a family trip that was supposed to happen NOW but won't happen until next year at the soonest, but JEEZ is my money losing value. I remember when Disney was pricey but there was value there. Now? Not so much anymore; I hate what Disney has become. (I know, private company, yadda yadda yadda- but still!)

 

[champagne&disney]

That definitely stinks but the same could be said about a gift card to Target or a grocery store or a restaurant. Inflation has hit every part of the American life - not just Disney.

 

[leebee]

That definitely stinks but the same could be said about a gift card to Target or a grocery store or a restaurant. Inflation has hit every part of the American life - not just Disney.

Agree... if I could spend that money on what I want, ticket-wise, but it has to be spent towards the same type of ticket or a higher-grade ticket. No option to do a 2 day base or 1 day PH if the original ticket was a 2day PH.

 

[BostonEd]

That definitely stinks but the same could be said about a gift card to Target or a grocery store or a restaurant. Inflation has hit every part of the American life - not just Disney.

That is technically true, but this probably feels different because you're not buying a $550 gift card, you're buying 2 days each in the parks. Plus, Disney inflation is greater than regular inflation.

 

[Christine]

It amazes me with all the griping about inflation/economy, we're still hitting record numbers in shopping, etc. I'm going to venture that even with these price increases, Disney is probably seeing record attendance. Maybe I'm wrong.

@leebee I'm not sure what the value is anymore either as I feel a lot of the experience is degraded. If I didn't have access to Military Salute tickets, I'm not sure I'd be going again.

 

[fla4fun]

Agree... if I could spend that money on what I want, ticket-wise, but it has to be spent towards the same type of ticket or a higher-grade ticket. No option to do a 2 day base or 1 day PH if the original ticket was a 2day PH.

I did not know this, and it stinks. I thought the credit could be used to buy any tickets, so long as they were equal or higher in price. That makes a huge difference. I suppose you could feel relieved that you hadn’t bought longer tickets, so you aren’t locked into buying even more expensive tickets than you already are. I can only imagine if a family had bought ten day tickets and then had to cancel because of unemployment, wanting to do a much shorter trip later and being locked into buying new ten day tickets instead.

 

[GAN]

It amazes me with all the griping about inflation/economy, we're still hitting record numbers in shopping, etc. I'm going to venture that even with these price increases, Disney is probably seeing record attendance. Maybe I'm wrong.

@leebee I'm not sure what the value is anymore either as I feel a lot of the experience is degraded. If I didn't have access to Military Salute tickets, I'm not sure I'd be going again.

"Reported Domestic Attendance for Fiscal 2023 was 6% higher than Fiscal 2022, hotel occupancy for the fiscal year was 85% vs 82%. Fiscal 2023 also had 23,000 more available room nights than 2022."

So, I think those are fairly solid post-covid numbers -I believe those are WDW & DL combined(Disney doesn't break them down for the public). But I agree -prices aren't going down because people keep buying, and not just Disney, in general. Which keeps interest rates high. I know from where I sit every day, there is enough work to cover the next two years anyway... and by that time I'll qualify for retirement!

 

[HeatherC]

Remember the good old days with those wonderful non expiring tickets? We used to buy the 10 day pass to get like three trips out of them. We still have some old water park passes that are non expiring that we have yet to use.

 

[cabanafrau]

That's a shame. Hope you eventually have a wonderful trip, despite the increases and your misgivings.

We gave up on WDW after our 2013 trip, at which time they were still in the testing phase of FP+/magic bands. With crowd levels having climbed so much without a corresponding increase in capacity while the FP change effectively eliminated spontaneity/touring the way we enjoyed it. we decided it wasn't the style of trip we enjoyed anymore. We left feeling we had merely spent our time shunted around like cattle.

I try to pay attention to changes and new additions to attraction lineups, but inevitably the new concepts don't hold much appeal, most often replace/retool an existing attraction, AND generally manage to shorten(often significantly) the amount of time you spend experiencing the attraction, resulting in no capacity increase. Yet over those same years crowds increased. I frankly haven't even paid enough attention to the workings of the current system to begin to understand what's necessary to queue up for an attraction these days, virtually or live.

I'm honestly not even sure if it's such a thing to just enter a line these days without having prepared some type of virtual credential ahead of time. Doesn't much matter to us, we're just not interested in that type of investment of time, effort and research to visit a theme park. WDW had been our go to destination when we wanted to drop our day to day and vacation with little to no effort beyond arriving, dropping our bags and wandering in whatever direction on a whim and enjoying whatever caught our eye. Once that potential was gone the magic was gone for us.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I'm going soon but someone else is paying. I simply cannot justify paying such a premium for something when I'm not getting what I paid for. Someone posted a thread earlier about World Showcase souvenirs, this is a perfect example. I can get so many of the things I'd buy in Italy, France, or Germany pavilions in the actual countries for cheaper, and if it's cheaper to get to said country in the first place than to go to WDW, why would I bother with Disney? It certainly isn't for the "stellar guest service." Mickey Mouse? I can see him in Disneyland Paris and at least there, I can smoke. Cool food and drinks? Dozens of markets and street vendors around the world have those. Planning for WDW is a chore now - genie this and lightning that and planning everything down to the minute. WDW was never relaxing per se but it wasn't this. There was some spontaneity, some magic. not anymore. I'd rather just read about it or get my fix by following tiktokers.
I think @leebee is asking a more metaphysical question here, and that is at what point do you throw your hands up and say 'I'm done?'

 

[barkley]

Remember the good old days with those wonderful non expiring tickets? We used to buy the 10 day pass to get like three trips out of them. We still have some old water park passes that are non expiring that we have yet to use.

my son turns 27 soon-he still has 1 day left on one of those passes which was when he qualified as a 'child'. he used a few days up WAY back in 2012 but both he and my oldest have no desire to ever return (they both opted for universal on our last-2019-trip to orlando).

 

[leebee]

I'm going to ask at guest services if we can exchange these for 1 day park hopper passes. It'd be $485 so I'd lose some money but then at least it'd be over and done with. We only go to Disney when we can get a great rate on a resort hotel and don't usually go to parks much anymore. We are in it for the hotel and food, and honestly I can get as good or better for the same price in SO many places.

 

[NYCgrrl]

I'm going to ask at guest services if we can exchange these for 1 day park hopper passes. It'd be $485 so I'd lose some money but then at least it'd be over and done with. We only go to Disney when we can get a great rate on a resort hotel and don't usually go to parks much anymore. We are in it for the hotel and food, and honestly I can get as good or better for the same price in SO many places.

Instead of losing money on the transaction how about selling it outside of Disney? I know nothing about what’s allowed, not allowed but it’s a thought.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I can see him in Disneyland Paris and at least there, I can smoke.

what an odd flex

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Our trips are resort-heavy now. When we venture into the parks it’s usually on days that are slower and/or we get there early and leave as it’s getting busy, or we stay and just liesurely go on what we can. We also don’t even buy our tickets until we’re there and we decide what we want to do, unless we’re going on a specific day, for a reason. (Like, in 2022 we went on Christmas Day so we bought Epcot tickets ahead of time, then wound up going into the parks last minute on Christmas Eve when temperatures suddenly dropped and crowds became unusually low which turned out to be fantastic.) It works for us. And I realize ticket costs are rising but we think in the long run this saves us money. Of course, we don’t have little kids in the family right now so I think that makes a difference. (I know you have a young grandson @leebee.)

Recently we did something similar, and kids ventured over to Sea World on another day. We enjoyed doing some things off-site including outlets and some restaurants and places we’d never been to before. (Of course car rental prices are a whole other topic.) We also saw some friends on another day, etc. so it’s still fun for us. Prices are up for virtually everything, everywhere, so we just factor it all in to our budget. Fortunately we’re at an age and stage where we can afford it. I feel bad for other folks who can’t, but many seem to still be making do, as well, as far as trips go. It’s the housing and things like pet care that are suffering, it seems.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

OP the pricing has accelerated faster but has been going up and up over the years.

When we went in 2017 we bought tickets in 2016 but at the pricing of 2015 from a third party. Our 2022 tickets were extremely pricey compared to that.

Even our DL tickets when we went in 2019 included early entry because they were 3 day hoppers which is no longer an option. Only those staying onsite (which are very pricey hotels) get it.

Really the downside is when Disney went to seasonal tickets and date-based tickets. Those two things meant missing the trip or adjusting it created a lot of loops. Even worse when they stopped selling the flexible option add on when you had seasonal tickets. Obviously the best tickets were non-expiring ones but if speaking about recent times that adjustment to lock you in more with less flexibility is really when adjusting trips became super stressful.

 

[cvjw]

Last year, I was able to apply the value of an unused 3 day ticket to five 1 day tickets. Maybe call back and speak to someone else.

And yes, Disney tickets have gotten insanely expensive. We used 8 comp one day park hoppers in March of last year. The cash price was over $1600 for those tickets.

 

[JLTraveling]

what an odd flex

I agree with him. It's insane that the Orlando parks now require smokers to go all the way out the freaking gate to smoke. Everything worked well when there were a couple of well secluded smoking areas inside each park, in areas that nonsmokers never had to go near. If I can go to Paris cheaper than WDW, see Mickey, and as a side note also smoke in the park....why not?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I agree with him. It's insane that the Orlando parks now require smokers to go all the way out the freaking gate to smoke. Everything worked well when there were a couple of well secluded smoking areas inside each park, in areas that nonsmokers never had to go near. If I can go to Paris cheaper than WDW, see Mickey, and as a side note also smoke in the park....why not?

Well that would be missing the point.

It's not insane, that's part of the culture here in the U.S. as is the culture to be more tolerant of smoke in France irrespective of the health hazards known for way too many decades. Still it's not something I would choose to boast about hence the flex comment.

I wasn't discussing costs but for the majority they can't get to DLP for cheaper than WDW because the costs to get to Paris are quite high. Same for Japan. I mean we're going to Disneyland there where tickets are less than half the costs of WDW but the $4k we just spent to get there and back from Japan are nowhere near what we would pay in total for a long WDW trip.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

Still it's not something I would choose to boast about hence the flex comment.

I wasn't boasting. I was saying that if I'm going to go to any Disney park, I'll go to DLP, and that's a fringe benefit of going to a park in France. I'm not embarrassed that I smoke, it's a choice that I make and I knowingly accept the risks. Just like I'm not embarrassed that I use pot or drink alcohol. If you don't want to be around it, then walk away, or even better, stay in America and let us European-minded folks puff away.