I Am Not Sure Walt Would Disapprove

[Aluminum Falcon]

The expectation is the price of Genie +, LL AND ticket prices will continue to rise as time goes on. Adding these features gives Disney more avenues to continue tacking on fees onto your vacation and line their pockets.

You say that as if they couldn’t just pile on the price to tickets only, they don’t need an excuse to charge more, and they definitely don’t need multiple avenues to do it.

 

[Liquidice]

I think a dollar is a dollar in my opinion, people are resistant to change and change usually comes with resistance for the status quo, and some of their new programs are more of a tool than just a revenue booster, ( although I’m positive that was also a part of it). The implementation of Genie strikes on multiple fronts for Disney, but it seems to get oversimplified on these boards to just revenue

If Genie were just about trying to help distribute crowds, they could have created the free Genie tool w/o getting rid of FP+. If Genie+ is all about changing things from requiring pre-planning, then why get rid of the free FP option? Just utilize something like Disneyland had where the kiosks could issue Fastpasses for free but Genie+ would be required to book it on your phone. Like you said, this is intended to make them more money at least in part.

Dollar for dollar - like I said - if Disney raised the prices by $7.50 per ticket for everyone they may have been able to obtain the same revenue increase that they would if they're assuming 50% of people will buy Genie+. So the cost to each person would be lower in that way.

The big difference comes in further down the line though. Lets say Disney knows that customers can tolerate a 10% ticket price increase every year. More than 10% and they see a decrease in customers - they definitely have data on how much they can reasonably expect to raise ticket prices each year. With the old system, they could only increase pricing by 10% on tickets. Now with Genie+ they can also increase the price of Genie+ - so like I said they have more knobs to turn - resulting in higher prices not just for tickets but for Genie+ as well - which at the end of the day translates into even higher prices for all of us.

Maxpass is a good example of this - technically in less than 3 years the price doubled from $10 to $20 per ticket per day.

So in the future, you'd be spending not just more on tickets but more on Genie+ and whatever else they decide to monetize in the future.

 

[NickC]

It seems like a small amount when it's expressed in decimals.

Here is what I come up with: (using the numbers from this thread)

1955: .106% of income
2020: .18834% of income
So, the difference would be .08234%, making the increase $54 in today's money . Using the percentage from 1955, today's tickets should be about $70.

Does this math check out?

Also, I don't know if that is good or bad.

 

[middlechild]

Population of the US in 1955 171 million. In 2021 is 332 million, just under double. DL park capacity 1955 opening day crowd of 28000. For comparison an article in OCRegister suggests 60000.
Population doubled, capacity doubled, ticket for entry near the same. Seems legit.

 

[Liquidice]

It seems like a small amount when it's expressed in decimals.

Here is what I come up with: (using the numbers from this thread)

1955: .106% of income
2020: .18834% of income
So, the difference would be .08234%, making the increase $54 in today's money . Using the percentage from 1955, today's tickets should be about $70.

Does this math check out?

Also, I don't know if that is good or bad.

I think the one thing to remember is if the ticket price should be $70 today and ticket prices are actually on average $134 per ticket for Disneyland (ticket prices range from $154-114 per day so I averaged it), the difference is $64 per person, which is actually almost double ($6 off) what you're calculating the price should be. That is a $256 difference for a family of 4 too.

 

[charmed59]

I don’t think Walt was against nickel and diming. After all, Disneyland opened with one ticket for entrance and then extra for the ride book of tickets. As a child I remember when we ran out of e-tickets we would beg dad to buy us one more set to do Matterhorn.

What that did do was spread out crowds. I’m sure there were some families that would just buy a ton of e-tickets and go on every attraction, but they paid more. Families that went on a variety of rides paid less. Grandparents that went along and went on no rides paid even less.

 

[New Mouse]

Disney seems to be removing perks from staying on site, to staying in a deluxe resort. I think they realize that they have an audience that will stay on property with or without perks, so they no longer need to incentivize guests to stay with them. The exception being deluxe resorts, where you are paying a pretty high premium, and i assume Disney has a harder time booking, so perks are shifting to them as of now.

I do understand the frustration, with price increases, but i keep coming back to, if Disney just added all these charges to the price of the daily ticket would everyone be as upset, or would that be more palatable? I personally like the fact that Disney is giving you options, you can pay more, and get more, or you can pay less, and get less, it lets you customize your vacation to what fits your budget. Instead of everyone paying more for the same experience, even if some people didn't want all the options thrust upon them

You arent paying less, they arent reducing the cost to you for giving you less.

 

[mrsclark]

I think using the median income rather than the average (mean) is actually a much better comparison - it keeps the number from being skewed too high by a (relatively) low amount of high and extremely high income earners.

BUT I am not sure you can really compare just ticket price to ticket price - you have to compare features (number of attractions, quality of attractions, shows, fireworks, park hours,etc) - so is it early fair to compare Disneyland of then with WDW of today? I don’t think so but it makes for an interesting thought experiment!

 

[New Mouse]

I think using the median income rather than the average (mean) is actually a much better comparison - it keeps the number from being skewed too high by a (relatively) low amount of high and extremely high income earners.

BUT I am not sure you can really compare just ticket price to ticket price - you have to compare features (number of attractions, quality of attractions, shows, fireworks, park hours,etc) - so is it early fair to compare Disneyland of then with WDW of today? I don’t think so but it makes for an interesting thought experiment!

Much of Disneyland today is very similar to Disneyland then...

 

[Itsnotmykitchen]

I don’t think Walt was against nickel and diming. After all, Disneyland opened with one ticket for entrance and then extra for the ride book of tickets. As a child I remember when we ran out of e-tickets we would beg dad to buy us one more set to do Matterhorn.

What that did do was spread out crowds. I’m sure there were some families that would just buy a ton of e-tickets and go on every attraction, but they paid more. Families that went on a variety of rides paid less. Grandparents that went along and went on no rides paid even less.

I think charging per ride was a pretty standard way for amusement parks to operate, at the time, so I’m not sure that’s really nickel and diming.

 

[Heather07438]

Also chiming in to say I appreciate the work and info, and also to note that it is refreshing to see a community understand that it can be helpful to measure prices both relative to wages and to other price inflation.

Yes! And also offerings at WDW through the decades expanded.

Part of what makes a trip valuable to my family is the variety. It's incredible the array of experiences we can pack into a day at WDW and we can do that all week. We can enthusiastically utilize every hour of our lower priced multi-day tickets and not get bored. MK was lovely when it opened but in the beginning WDW was limited to 1 park and a couple resorts. What portion of my earnings I'd be willing to spend for that is different compared to what I'd be willing to pay for today's offerings. Comparing costs thru the years is complicated.

 

[mrsclark]

Much of Disneyland today is very similar to Disneyland then...

A lot of it is similiar, but I don't think you can discount all the rides that have been changed or added to Disneyland since the opening. Some of the major rides/attractions that have opened since 1955 include Dumbo, Tiki Room, Matterhorn Bobsleds, small world, Pirates, Space Mountain, BTMRR, Star Tours, Splash, Fantasmic, Indiana Jones, MFSR, and ROTR. Even when those replaced older attractions I disagree that there is NOT a significant difference between Disneyland of 1955 and Disneyland of today.

 

[mrsclark]

Not to mention the Monorail and Haunted Mansion - which I missed in my original list..

 

[New Mouse]

Not to mention the Monorail and Haunted Mansion - which I missed in my original list..

But of that list, 90% of it is significantly dated today.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I think using the median income rather than the average (mean) is actually a much better comparison - it keeps the number from being skewed too high by a (relatively) low amount of high and extremely high income earners.

That's a good point!

For instance, looking at these two sets of numbers (just a random textbook-type example, not income numbers):
Set A 30 30 70 70 70 70 70 110
Set B 10 20 20 20 20 30 200 200

the average of each = 65, but the both the median and the mode of set A = 70, and set b = 20. Even though the average of each set is the same, the typical example of each set is very different (and 6 out of 8 entries in the first set would be "above average" but only 2 out of 8 in the second set.)

Sadly, I think income numbers can behave in a similar way to this example, skewed by super-high outliers. So it's quite possible that the typical family does feel like Disney is more expensive now than the typical family did back then. And it might be actually taking up a larger chunk of their income.

But while that means Walt might balk at the current base ticket prices, I'm still not sure whether the change in structure to add-ons would bother him or not, because of this:

After all, Disneyland opened with one ticket for entrance and then extra for the ride book of tickets.

Everything is cyclic. When Walt first built Disneyland, it was a pieced-together experience, where you could spend more or less. Only later did it become an all-inclusive type experience. Now it seems to be cycling back. (I personally liked the all-inclusive style better, but I'm sure some people feel differently, and I'm not sure which Walt would have gone for.)

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

You arent paying less, they arent reducing the cost to you for giving you less.

If you choose not to purchase Genie+, you would be getting less, for a lesser price, then a person buying Genie+. If you pay for a delux resort, you get extra hours after closing, (paying more to get more), if you stay on site, but not at a delux resort, you do not get extra hours after closing (paying less and getting less). I was not referring to discounted rates, if that’s what you meant

 

[Aluminum Falcon]

But of that list, 90% of it is significantly dated today.

Some call it nostalgic, or timeless, but I guess dated works

 

[_19disnA]

No idea if Walt Disney would approve of how things are run currently, but it also isn't 1970 anymore. Clearly the rate at which their prices have gone up far exceed other vacation destinations. There are a LOT of places we currently vacation and NONE of them charge $500+/night for a hotel room. Obviously there has been inflation in the past x years, but somehow these other places haven't raised prices nearly as much as Disney. That is what matters to us when making decisions about where to vacation. In my view, the relative price of a Disney vacation has gone up far more then most other alternatives.

 

[bakerworld]

Frankly, my impression of Walt Disney is that he liked making $$$$ but he didn't like to be 'called' on it and used his brother has the goat. EOD, DL was created to make $ and Walt hoped people liked it so much that they'd return over and over. We only went to DL once in '72 and it was horribly crowded, we couldn't even get near the Matterhorn so we ate lunch and left. After that I really had no desire to visit WDW but eventually I did in '77 and WDW has been a much better experience. WDW is expensive - has always been and always will be expensive. I do think Disney made it harder on themselves with adding all the 'freebies' and now replacing the 'freebie' era with a 'a la carte' era.

 

[ttintagel]

Two ticket books? The people I know who went during those days remember coming home at the end of the day with unused tickets that they saved up for next time.