What will be your breaking point? Resort fees?

Also, it is hard to compare vacation costs from one to another. You say all you would have to do is skip one Disney trip for a year and you could go to Japan. I just priced the cost of one round trip ticket from my home airport, and it is over $1600. I can't fathom spending 5x that on a Disney Trip.

We go to Disney 2-3x year and spend at least 5k each time between travel to/from, hotel, tickets, food, entertainment, and souvenirs. So yes, that's quite a bit more than $1600.
 
If you can do it for $5K, you are my hero :worship:

I couldn’t do it when we used to take DD and a friend when she was in middle school, high school and college. She’s a vegan so mostly table service. Meals alone at Disney prices. . .
 


Toy Story and Star Wars-Galaxy's Edge are so HYPED ups as an amazing fix to everything- these add ons are way too small to shift the crowds and will have 2 hour+ wait times as they intended so they can continue to raise ticket prices. I sure do hope im wrong.

Strangely reminiscent of Pandora.
 
We go to Disney 2-3x year and spend at least 5k each time between travel to/from, hotel, tickets, food, entertainment, and souvenirs. So yes, that's quite a bit more than $1600.

$1600 was just a flight for 1 person. No hotel or food or anything else. So for 5 we are at $8000 just on airfare. Disney world is cheaper, at least the way I typically do Disney
 
If you can do it for $5K, you are my hero :worship:

I couldn’t do it when we used to take DD and a friend when she was in middle school, high school and college. She’s a vegan so mostly table service. Meals alone at Disney prices. . .

I can't either. Even for two, the cost is high, so a family for less than that boggles my mind! I follow the discounts, am pretty stingy in terms of extras, and still average $5000.

$1600 was just a flight for 1 person. No hotel or food or anything else. So for 5 we are at $8000 just on airfare. Disney world is cheaper, at least the way I typically do Disney

It's the airfare that is a killer!
 


I so agree with other posters that once you venture out and see what other destinations you can get for equal or less money, Disney becomes illogical. WDW is an emotional thing and that's how they get us to spend over and over. Friends ask me why we don't visit the actual countries that are in Epcot, instead of going to Epcot. This is a good question. Because Epcot gives us the warm fuzzies? With the way costs have risen, it's hard to justify the cost of those warm fuzzies. I recently priced what it would cost our family of 5 to go to Japan, and truth be told all we'd have to do is skip our Disney trips for one year. Mind blowing.

I think part of why Disney trips suck the life blood out of my vacation budget is the way they are priced and marketed. I am tempted to renew my continually more expensive annual pass due to the free parking st the parks and discounts on Disney food and stuff and go at least more than once annually. Or tempted to stay more days because the price of 10 day ticket is marginally more than say a 5 day ticket. It’s a slippery slope for sure. My other favorite destinations don’t work this way, and I am starting to really value that fact.
 
Although I certainly agree there are so many wonderful places to see outside of Disney, I do think the one thing I get there that I can't find elsewhere is that comfy feeling of the "bubble". When you're in those parks, you can wander freely and relax, in terms of worries about your personal safety and security.

Not saying be completely clueless w/respect to your children, watching your belongings etc, but it's nothing like touring a U.S. urban city...exploring certain higher-crime bahamas/caribbean ports on a cruise or navigating a foreign country by land - especially when you don't speak the native language. Tourists have a big target on their backs as potentially easy mark - and a lot can go scary wrong in a strange place. I always am looking over my shoulder, watchful, cautious not to stray into bad areas or neighborhoods, etc.

We go many other places, but Disney still feels like my childlike innocent escape from those worries - despite all the less-than-ideal issues experienced these days.
 
We treat Disney as one of those expensive "big" vacations.

We will spend money one year on a big trip to Caribbean, then the next two years a cheaper trip to D.C or something, then the next a big trip to Disney, then next year cheap trip, then maybe Europe if we can swing it the year after that!

There is no way we can afford to go to Disney every year if we want to see other places in the world.

This year's big trip is dental surgery. :sad2:
 
Although I certainly agree there are so many wonderful places to see outside of Disney, I do think the one thing I get there that I can't find elsewhere is that comfy feeling of the "bubble". When you're in those parks, you can wander freely and relax, in terms of worries about your personal safety and security.

Not saying be completely clueless w/respect to your children, watching your belongings etc, but it's nothing like touring a U.S. urban city...exploring certain higher-crime bahamas/caribbean ports on a cruise or navigating a foreign country by land - especially when you don't speak the native language. Tourists have a big target on their backs as potentially easy mark - and a lot can go scary wrong in a strange place. I always am looking over my shoulder, watchful, cautious not to stray into bad areas or neighborhoods, etc.

We go many other places, but Disney still feels like my childlike innocent escape from those worries - despite all the less-than-ideal issues experienced these days.

You must have ventured into certain areas in New Orleans. I went to high school, college, and lived there until our oldest was 11, so I have some knowledge.

I feel safe in most areas of Disney except Disney springs. Not my crowd. Also feel safe where we stay in Manhattan but we have been many times and know where we are going and how to get there. We don’t wander.
 
This is us, too. Our APs expire in February and we're not renewing, but until then it's offsite, the Swalphin, or DVC rental.
In all the years going to WDW, I still haven’t tried the Swalphin resorts. They used to give discounts to nurses, I wonder if they still do that. Maybe I’ll try one of them next trip.
 
In all the years going to WDW, I still haven’t tried the Swalphin resorts. They used to give discounts to nurses, I wonder if they still do that. Maybe I’ll try one of them next trip.

I don’t know but the AAA discounts are good. Many DIS posters report getting very good deals on Priceline for these as well.

And I can get a good senior rate now too.
 
I've been a lifelong Disney fan - the parking didn't bother me since I don't typically drive, BUT Resort Fees would be the 1 way for my trips to go from once every 3 years to once every 5 years - and probably be offsite at that.
 
I typically only go to Disney World to take each child/grandchild on a one-and-done trip but during the mania of planning two one-and-done trips for different granddaughters, I tentatively planned two more different trips: one an adult only and one a family. Ultimately, both trips were decided against.

It wasn't just one thing, it was everything. At the top of the list was the poor service (180 day ADR window but no calendars available at that time, no guarantee of entertainment I paid extra for, unable to get answers to what should have been simple questions, the list goes on) but a close second was the amount of planning needed to ensure a quality trip. It was just too much.

I have two more one-and-done Disney World trips I am suppose to take grandchildren on. However, the parents have been warned not to tell the children because the trips may not happen. The breaking point for staying on-site, aside from cost, is the security checks. If they are still going on, we will not be staying on-site, period. The breaking point for the parks, again aside from cost, is crowds. If it is still crazy-busy, I will take them on a different vacation.
 
Just returned from 4 day F&W trip, irked me on the parking charges- they add it daily to your folio ( Maybe to appear as if its a nominal fee compared to a one shot total) It was overall a nice stay, dining has increased, refill mugs increased, WiFi and MDE was pretty crappy. Ruby Red Grapefruit beer in Germany is the bomb.

Parks were very clean, MNSSHP on Friday October 5 was a ghost town-very light crowds, I was very surprised. Epcot was busier than Ive seen in the past because of F&W.

Might just cut this down to once every 2 years, still on the fence.
 
My breaking point would be a decline in the quality of the experience. That's why we go to Disney, why we're willing to pay the high prices and why we now only stay on-site after having stayed off-site for many years. We live far away and ANY big trip ANYWHERE is going to be a major expenditure just in airfare.

The parking fee did take me by surprise- but for us, there's Uber/Lyft. Fees are like this (or worse) in all the major cities where we might otherwise visit.

I also agree with the comment about dogs. We are already seeing that at our resort, YC. I think there won't be many as they aren't allowed in the parks, but people push the envelope. Dogs aren't allowed on the trails in Yellowstone but I still see them there all the time- just in the last year or two.

But it's still less expensive than Europe or Hawaii, that is what I'm comparing it to. Those places have resort fees and/or parking fees and/or food costs that would make your eyes water, especially for a family of five. But it's a long way to anywhere from where we are (that's the down side of living next to Yellowstone!). So that's the vacation market I compare it to.

I guess it seems like Disney is trying to cater to people like us from far away, who make a major investment when they come. Just having seen what is going on at Yellowstone, I'd say the things for the locals will be on the chopping block first. With the sophistication of Disney's data processing, they can fine-tune their tickets and passes anyway they want to in the future, day by day- even minute by minute. That's the whole purpose of Fastpass, after all. They'll start little by little, maybe blocking AP holders on more peak days than they already do, or during peak times on certain days. Then they'll start in on the tickets held by people staying off-site (to an extent, they already do with EMH & FP+). Expect this all to get worse now that they have the data and ability to make real-time changes.
 
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