Will this Washington Post Article Affect Your Planning?

[larryz]

An interesting discussion of the pricing phenomenon at WDW.

Will it affect YOUR trip? Answer the poll and discuss below...

 

[MakiraMarlena]

No, because it hasn't happened yet.

I buy annuals and I do not pay full price for them. So who knows whether any changes will affect me or not.

 

[angierae]

It's expensive. I could go cheaper if I wanted to. The $100 price tag is misleading anyway. I suppose if you were just dropping in for a day, yeah, that seems pretty ridiculous. A five day ticket works out to $60 a day and that's a fair price, I think, for what you get. And you don't have to stay at the Poly Bungalows.

What you CAN pay is not the same as what you HAVE to pay. I could stay offsite and go way cheaper than I choose to, if I wanted to. Yes, Disney is expensive. I never went as a kid. But it wasn't the end of the world, either. I was 34 the first time I drove through those gates.

 

[danny1649]

Fellow Disers I do not want to see this thread turn into a debate and no personal attacks.Please be polite and no personal attacks in your replies. Thanks Danny

 

[ThinkTink09]

It does make me afraid that one day I will be priced out of my favorite place.

 

[mesaboy2]

The article makes a number of good points, but there's nothing in there that I see we haven't already discussed at some point here. So I voted "no."

 

[Ambear]

The one thing I found weird was the article saying disney used to be a place for all families and now it's a trying to be a premium location. Maybe its just me, but growing up disney was never for everyone. Most kids never go... I'm sure for a variety of reasons but one is definitely cause the parents didn't want to pay for it.

 

[TXAKDisneyFan]

It's expensive. I could go cheaper if I wanted to. The $100 price tag is misleading anyway. I suppose if you were just dropping in for a day, yeah, that seems pretty ridiculous. A five day ticket works out to $60 a day and that's a fair price, I think, for what you get. And you don't have to stay at the Poly Bungalows.

What you CAN pay is not the same as what you HAVE to pay. I could stay offsite and go way cheaper than I choose to, if I wanted to. Yes, Disney is expensive. I never went as a kid. But it wasn't the end of the world, either. I was 34 the first time I drove through those gates.

Agreed. Just because you CAN spend mega-bucks doesn't mean you HAVE to. People take 'budget' WDW vacations all the time - pack their own food, stay off-site (on one of our first trips, we stayed in a hotel on international drive for $12 a night), etc.

I also don't think $60 for a whole day (12+ hours) at the parks is out of line. Especially when compared to other entertainment costs. A movie is anywhere from $7 to $20, depending on where you live and what time you go, and that only lasts an hour or two (and doesn't include food and drinks). Pro sports games are obv much more expensive. And you can't take your own food to either of those places to save money like you can at WDW. I was also looking at swim lessons for the summer in our hometown - there's only one private swim club and it's $55 per half hour lesson! I'd MUCH rather spend that money for a day at WDW!

There are cheaper vacations out there, but really I think most vacations are pretty expensive. I've priced out going to all-inclusives in the Caribbean/Mexico/Jamaica, and they were just as costly as WDW (and without as much entertainment). We're not really "local" vacationers, but have friends who do enjoy things like camping - but when you consider that they've spent $15k+ on a camper, plus purchased countless other supplies, even something as simple as camping is pretty expensive.

 

[ArwenMarie]

The one thing I found weird was the article saying disney used to be a place for all families and now it's a trying to be a premium location. Maybe its just me, but growing up disney was never for everyone. Most kids never go... I'm sure for a variety of reasons but one is definitely cause the parents didn't want to pay for it.

I was thinking that too. When was it ever for everyone?

I never went as a kid. I guess we were poorer than I thought!

 

[georgina]

No it will not have any effect on our plans. I never visited Disney growing up because we lived far away and the only vacations we took were camping trips within a couple hours' drive from home. I don't think kids around here feel entitled to a Disney vacation. My kids are adults and we all went in 2013, but I don't expect they will go back for along time, if ever.

 

[sharonabe]

A couple years back we were looking at going somewhere other than Disney. To spend a week at the beach in a rented house was going to be the same as Disney. Granted, we do get military discounts at Disney which help, but I was really surprised when I priced everything out. We're road tripping this year, and our hotel costs for 8 nights is right around $1000. Then there will be gas, food, and entrance fees to the various places we want to see. I can see this easily being around $2500 by the time we're done.

 

[MrInfinity]

Why would this article affect my planning? It's an article claiming "They have priced the middle-class families out", which is completely unbased. Middle-class families (young parents of children 3-9) are the bread and butter of Disney World and make up the vast majority of guests and profit to WDW. Think of you. You're going to Disney World. Are you middle class? It may be expensive to take vacations, but it's doable with some planning and saving. I can't stand completely false articles. Could you imagine if the middle class was priced out, and only upper class people were actually able to afford it? The US population is what... 320 million? So the upper class (5%) is 16 million? So if the upper class is 16 million, but Disney World hosts 50 million guests per year, OBVIOUSLY the middle class is not priced out. Even if every rich person in the US went to Disney World every year, that would only make up for about 1/3 of their actual attendance, and that's not even considering Disneyland, Universal, and every other theme park lumped in the "parks like Disney World" blanket statement that would have 0 attendance unless these same 16m rich people are single handedly keeping all theme parks afloat. Silly articles.

 

[WillAustin]

The article makes a number of good points, but there's nothing in there that I see we haven't already discussed at some point here. So I voted "no."

Me too. It's an expensive place already and will continue to be.

 

[princessanj]

We are a middle class family that lives 9 hours away, and we are still able to afford to go once and sometimes twice per year. I never visited as a child and it was always a dream. Now, with staying value and using quick service dining, we get to take our little ones all the time. It costs just as much to go on a vacation to the beach for a week as it does Disney. People give us the whole "how do you afford it?!" all the time. I politely have to tell them that it isn't as much as they think, because they don't have to stay in those $500/night rooms or pay $100 for every meal. We love Disney World and will continue to go, even through price increases.

 

[itchin2go]

I was thinking that too. When was it ever for everyone?

I never went as a kid. I guess we were poorer than I thought!

I went once as a kid. We stayed at a budget hotel, and I can remember looking at the Contemporary like it was nirvana.

I think this is a very slanted article. It focused on premium experiences, which are not the norm ... the bungalows for instance.

It feels like the author wanted to write about how expensive DisneyWorld is, and found examples to support that ... which, let's face it, is not hard to do. However, we don't do VIP tours or stay in $2,000 per night bungalows. We stay offsite and buy multi-day tickets.

I don't think I learned anything new.

 

[ruthies12]

Yeah I was 30 the first time I went. My biggest issue with prices will be if they take away the being able to bring in your food and drinks, that is where I save the most money I think. As they raise prices, I will stop doing the add ons. For example for our bday trip in December I have CRT booked and wishes dessert party and a few other things that really aren't necessary to a normal vacation that are adding a huge cost. In future I probably won't do those things again even though I do plan to go back in 2017.

 

[Mikie]

Will the article itself change my plans? No, it's not a revelation that Disney is expensive. Will the gist of the article - that Disney prices are slowly, steadily outpacing the growth (or stagnation) of middle class incomes - effect my plans? Probably. We go every 2.5-4 years. I did notice that our food, room and ticket prices were quite a bit higher than all my notes from previous trips. It may be more obvious to me with those couple year jumps between trips than it is to annual and bi-annual visitors on whom the prices can sneak up.

Add-on experiences have been increasing a lot over the years as well (or maybe they've always existed, but as I've "covered the basics" and discovered internet planning sites, maybe I'm just learning about them now?) So far, those things are invisible to me when I choose not to buy them. Other than seeing the monorail drive through the Contemporary (we don't stay there) my family and I can be blissfully ignorant of the thousands-per-night resorts, the $200 toddler makeover at BBB, the VIP tours, and $50+ per person dessert party because so far Disney manages to do all those special experiences for other guests without making me feel one bit "less" for not having done them. When I see people zip by me in the FP line, I know I'm not just a second-class citizen who didn't pay for front-of-the-line access - I'll be using my FP later.

There's a circus that comes to my town that has a reasonable admission but an outrageously long intermission during which you can buy elephant rides, buy camel rides, pay for a picture next to a tiger, pay for a miniature train ride, pay for . . . you get the idea. You know going in that the "admission" is not the whole price unless you're prepared to tell your kids "No, we are just going to watch the other kids have fun for 45 minutes. We didn't pay for that".

As long as Disney offers me an exhausingly full day of activities I love (as they do now) without making me feel like I'm missing out on all the good stuff, I'll save every few years and get back there. If that changes, I'm going to get priced out.

 

[AquaDame]

Eventually? Yes. My current plans? No....

We are VERY fortunate in that as Disney has raised prices we have grown up and lucked into good jobs that allow us to keep going despite the prices. If they get too high we will stop going mind you - but for us, so far, the price is in line with other vacations we take.

 

[danny1649]

I would say if price of goes up many will say ,that's it no more WDW and I'm one of those folks.Then time goes by and I say well time for a trip to WDW and in the end I will pay more for ticket and go.I'm a WDW nut like many.We can only hope it's not a huge increase and a long way off. Danny

 

[DisPup75]

I voted 'no' because the article itself doesn't change my plans and the premise won't change my plans in the immediate to near future. I'm something of a cheapskate and the value for the cost of a WDW vacation is decreasing (I don't feel that way about DisneyLAND yet). At some point it will be too expensive/top crowded/too complicate and I can foresee opting out in the future. But for now, I can still see us visiting every 2-3 years.