Interesting article, Disney may have finally exceeded the price people will pay

[mommy2allyandaveri]

We have been annual passholders many times and the prices used to be SO reasonable. We used to get deluxe for between 300-400. They are more than double now. DH is in education and cannot take time off work so we are limited to when we can go, deluxe no longer works. A premium pass for our family is nearly $5k. That is just so insane to me, there is no way I will ever pay that. We are down to once per year on a 5 day hopper. They've lost a lot of our business.

 

[luvsJack]

It's easy when you grew up poor: rice and beans, eggs, pancakes made from scratch, and lots of pasta and cheap sauce out of a jar, and a huge garden to supplement what you have to buy from the grocery store Feeding a family for next to nothing is easy in real life, it's harder on vacation. I am the queen of packing cheap food, sometimes we will take a whole suitcase full of food, and my kids are fine with it because we don't vacation for the food, we take vacations to spend time together and have unique experiences together.

I have had to eat cheap irl many many times. Lots of rice and beans, lots of making three meals out of one boiled chicken, etc. but I am not and will not eat out of a suitcase for a week on vacation.
Even in a condo with a full kitchen, not cooking every meal. It’s my vacation too. But to each their own.

But I have to say, $20 wouldn’t even buy a family of four an ice cream treat at Disney much less any kind of meal. The cost of food at Disney is a bit out of control.

 

[DietCoke18]

I think the prices are insane. If we didn't own DVC I don't think we'd be going back for awhile. Even with DVC the ticket and food prices are crazy. We have a trip planned for next year. We normally get park hopper+ tickets. This time we're only getting base tickets. That will save us $500. For the first time ever we're not planning on any table service meals. I just can't justify spending almost $300 for my family of 5 to eat at a buffet.

I was looking at moderate in the October, it was over $300 a night. That's just crazy

Same. Pretty much word for word. Dvc helps but it’s still over $3k per trip. Flights food and tickets add up fast

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I have had to eat cheap irl many many times. Lots of rice and beans, lots of making three meals out of one boiled chicken, etc. but I am not and will not eat out of a suitcase for a week on vacation.
Even in a condo with a full kitchen, not cooking every meal. It’s my vacation too. But to each their own.

But I have to say, $20 wouldn’t even buy a family of four an ice cream treat at Disney much less any kind of meal. The cost of food at Disney is a bit out of control.

totally agree, food at Disney is expensive! I have to admit defeat at Disney, there's no way to feed a family for $20/day there. We only eat one meal each day, usually a big counter service meal when we return to the hotel at night. The other meals are cereal or granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, chips, etc. that we packed. On our last trip, my first as a single mom, I budgeted $20 per person/day for food, and we mostly stayed at or below that threshold. I made the kids share snacks sometimes (a Mickey pretzel is too much for my 8 year old to finish by herself) and I didn't order snacks for myself to save money, I just grazed on whatever the kids didn't finish.

 

[luvsJack]

totally agree, food at Disney is expensive! I have to admit defeat at Disney, there's no way to feed a family for $20/day there. We only eat one meal each day, usually a big counter service meal when we return to the hotel at night. The other meals are cereal or granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, chips, etc. that we packed. On our last trip, my first as a single mom, I budgeted $20 per person/day for food, and we mostly stayed at or below that threshold. I made the kids share snacks sometimes (a Mickey pretzel is too much for my 8 year old to finish by herself) and I didn't order snacks for myself to save money, I just grazed on whatever the kids didn't finish.

I have to hand it to you! It’s great that you can budget like that and stay within it! I would have had a mutiny on my hands!

We just got back from a week in Orlando with Dd and sil. Staying offsite helped a lot with food costs for any of the parks. That and the meal plans at Sea World and it’s sister parks.

 

[wgeo]

This probably isn't the right thread for this BUT - I just noticed today that Disney is selling an upcharge event to the Halloween party - so an upsell on an upsell. LOL it's never going to end.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

This probably isn't the right thread for this BUT - I just noticed today that Disney is selling an upcharge event to the Halloween party - so an upsell on an upsell. LOL it's never going to end.

yes and the up charge is to go every night for the length of the Halloween Party.
R eally who has time for that? And is it me but if you have seen one fireworks presentation you have seen them all? I don't get it they do not look any different to me but apparently the Halloween one is spectacular but I guess I do not see the difference. I guess if you were collecting candy to give out on Halloween it might be worthwhile to spend over 300.00 per person to collect a 15.00 bag of candy for Trick or Treaters LOL.

 

[Searc]

yes and the up charge is to go every night for the length of the Halloween Party.
R eally who has time for that? And is it me but if you have seen one fireworks presentation you have seen them all? I don't get it they do not look any different to me but apparently the Halloween one is spectacular but I guess I do not see the difference. I guess if you were collecting candy to give out on Halloween it might be worthwhile to spend over 300.00 per person to collect a 15.00 bag of candy for Trick or Treaters LOL.

The Halloween fireworks are different this year, and from what I've read and seen, not in a good way.

 

[wgeo]

yes and the up charge is to go every night for the length of the Halloween Party.
R eally who has time for that? And is it me but if you have seen one fireworks presentation you have seen them all? I don't get it they do not look any different to me but apparently the Halloween one is spectacular but I guess I do not see the difference. I guess if you were collecting candy to give out on Halloween it might be worthwhile to spend over 300.00 per person to collect a 15.00 bag of candy for Trick or Treaters LOL.

There's actually a different upcharge as well. It's like a dinner/dessert party thing where you can meet Cruella (I think) that you have to pay extra for. So they have this Haloween event that you have to pay a hard ticket for where you are supposed to get to meet extra characters and now they've decided to have people pay more to see "special" characters. I suppose that wanting to meet the 7 dwarfs will cost extra pretty soon too.

 

[cabanafrau]

I like Disney too. But at the end of the day, it’s a high end carnival. It’s cool to go to every couple of years.

As for price comparison, it’s now a lot higher than other alternatives. However, I know folks in the Midwest that only go to WDW. Everything else seems outside their comfort zone.

I'm from the midwest and initially visited WDW. My second Disney visit was DLR, pre DCA.

It's always been more common for people in my area to visit WDW than DLR, probably because of transportation costs moreso than comfort zone. I've heard from several people over the past 5 to 7 years or so that they've now visited DLR instead -- several said it was because they wanted to visit Disney, but were feeling WDW was stale and were hoping DLR would be new stuff to experience.

 

[RedAngie]

There's actually a different upcharge as well. It's like a dinner/dessert party thing where you can meet Cruella (I think) that you have to pay extra for. So they have this Haloween event that you have to pay a hard ticket for where you are supposed to get to meet extra characters and now they've decided to have people pay more to see "special" characters. I suppose that wanting to meet the 7 dwarfs will cost extra pretty soon too.

And I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to pay extra on top of extra for it.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

There's actually a different upcharge as well. It's like a dinner/dessert party thing where you can meet Cruella (I think) that you have to pay extra for. So they have this Haloween event that you have to pay a hard ticket for where you are supposed to get to meet extra characters and now they've decided to have people pay more to see "special" characters. I suppose that wanting to meet the 7 dwarfs will cost extra pretty soon too.

Well, there are SEVEN of them! I am sure they will have to charge more. Most likely, they will charge an extra 100.00 and tell you what a great deal you got because they assess 20.00 per character and you are getting two of them for free! They will call it the Snow White Magic Package.....and the extra magic is the extra TWO count 'em TWO extra characters for FREEEEE!

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

The Halloween fireworks are different this year, and from what I've read and seen, not in a good way.

Not according to Tim Tracker's wife Jen(you tube). They were better than HEA but then everything looks better when you are getting it for free and propagandizing to keep the freebies coming.

 

[Sandeep1]

Yup, I think they have. In past years, I use to plan spontaneous quick trips to WDW. But with the tickets getting jacked, and the hotels, I just can't do it anymore.

Disney will get absolutely killed during the next recession. Absolutely buried.

 

[RamblingMad]

Yup, I think they have. In past years, I use to plan spontaneous quick trips to WDW. But with the tickets getting jacked, and the hotels, I just can't do it anymore.

Disney will get absolutely killed during the next recession. Absolutely buried.

They were running their parks in the red during the last one. They let maintenance get bad enough that you can find blogs pointing out attraction issues.

 

[LSUmiss]

I've seen variations on this article all over for the past month. I sure wish Disney was cheaper, of course, but I'm not sure overall this is bad for disney.

The article says "But not even Disney can keep winning forever. With this dip in attendance, Disney might now finally have discovered that ceiling beyond which it no longer can keep raising prices without consequences. " And I disagree with that. Disney DID win. They had fewer people in the parks, which means lower staffing costs and yet they still made more money than before. Disney doesn't care what the attendance number is as much as they care about their profit. They'll do whatever it takes to make more money.

And I wonder if they push prices higher to see if they can have even fewer ppl pay more.

 

[North of Mouse]

We've purchased AP's in the past and had intentions of getting them in 2020 when we have a trip planned for April. After all the recent increases across the board, we have dropped that plan and will go for this trip, then forget the two additional trips we had planned for the coming AP year. Other destinations are calling us that are far less expensive.

 

[LSUmiss]

I don't think the cost of admission is wholly to blame in the drop in attendance. I have been hesitant to plan another trip (to WDW) because all of the windows for Fast Passes and dining reservations and the price of accommodations have made me dread the planning. I love it there, but fussing with Magic Bands and all the linking of tickets and reservations, etc. is just getting to be too much for a vacation. There are so many layers of planning that it takes the fun and flexibility out of the trip. Now, maybe my husband and family would feel differently because they are not in charge of the arrangements, but at some point I would like to be able to just relax and enjoy the vacation without having to worry about missing some ride or meal or predetermined activity.

I agree. I actually don’t mind the preplanning. But, I hate how inflexible things are & with every trip I think it gets worse. I used to be able to have a good solid plan & pretty much stick to it so the planning didn’t bother me. But, now I have a toddler & I often find ourselves missing things we wanted to do b/c he is napping or taking a break or something. I makes me resent all the planning when things aren’t easily rescheduled.

 

[LSUmiss]

A lot of this is true. Pre booking fpp is great if you travel with grown ups and can make fixed plans. It’s awful for people with small children, or minor health complaints, or who just like to go with the flow.

My pet peeve is that you can’t trade top flight fast pass in one park for one in another. I know that logistically it probably wouldn’t work, but on our last trip I gave up two sets of fpp for flights of passage on different days because our toddler wanted to do magic kingdom instead (fair play to him, mk is the best for small people) and on both days the choices for new fpp were non existent. All that effort to plan our days out and get gold standard fpp for the most popular attractions at 60 days out gone to waste. If I could have switched them for seven dwarfs mine train I’d have been so much happier! As it was I was a grumpy person because I was effectively losing out despite being well prepared.

And I bet there were people wanting fop that had sdmt on their accounts too...

This kind of stuff happened to us last trip with a toddler too. For the first time it really made me resent all the planning b/c I just had to give it up & trade it to wander around mk looking for something with an acceptable fast pass WAIT.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I like Disney too. But at the end of the day, it’s a high end carnival. It’s cool to go to every couple of years.

As for price comparison, it’s now a lot higher than other alternatives. However, I know folks in the Midwest that only go to WDW. Everything else seems outside their comfort zone.

Flying non-stop it's about a 2hr 45min flight to Orlando, and about a 3hr 30min flight to LA for me. It's nothing to do with comfort zone for everyone I know.

Lot is advertisements. You just don't see DLR stuff. You see WDW stuff. My husband keeps commenting on how crazy it is to see all the DLR stuff where he's temporarily living in Long Beach because he's not used to it at all.