Even Disney Is Worried About the High Cost of a Disney Vacation

[LAS2AMS]

Ahh, yes, River Country... Great story from that trip - Check-out day. We had used our park tickets, but still had WP access, so we ventured to FW, took the bus over to River Country and had a great few hours being 29yo kids.

Packed up our stuff, and hopped the bus back to parking, and realized we didn't have the rental car key. Panic! Ran back to the bus, back to RC, searched the sandy area where we had our stuff... Nothing...

Dejected, we return to parking, and at this point just need help. Walked over to the old kennel facility there and asked to use a phone to call the rental car agency. The sweet CM working there, says, "Oh shoot, we have a key service - I'll call them. Where is your car?"

She then directed us to call the rental agency to get "the key code" for the car. This was much easier than I anticipated, and we scribbled it down.

We walked back to our car - and waited 3-5 minutes, before we see a Disney van creeping around the lot like they were looking for someone. We flag him down, he jumps out and slides open the side door of the van. We see racks and racks of key blanks jingling like "tinker" bells. The locksmith collects our scrap of paper, selects a blank from one of the loaded wires, and cuts us a key right there in the parking lot. We are ecstatic!

We then ask him what we owe him, and he says, "Not a thing, sir. Have a magical day".

I'm not sure you can get a new key fob these days for less than 6 or 700 bucks! We celebrated with the drive to the Poly pool bar for that Maitai I mentioned earlier, ate dinner at Ohana as a walk in, and watched fireworks from the beach.

Ahh, memories of kinda better times...

Disney still does car care well. Just last week we were coming back to our car in the Toy Story parking lot and there was a swarm of Disney Security and Anaheim PD around my car. I genuinely panicked when I saw that, only to discover they were changing the tire on the car parked next to me. Probably 1/2 dozen people helping out…

 

[PlutoNotPlanet]

I think Wall Street only worries when no MORE middle class feel it’s affordable. That means slower GROWTH.
Who are addicted to Disney adapt well though complaining (like me lol)

 

[reddog21]

Oh yeah, Bob and I know each other on a personal level. We go way back.

Fact - hand trained successor failed
Fact - came back for multi millions
Fact - has stated only going to be back a short time

You don't have to personally know someone not like them.

Chapek on paper should have been a home run to lead Disney given his track record. Anyone denying that didn't follow his career with Disney. He also wasn't hand trained by Igor, The 2 never really worked all that close together before the transition.

He most certainly didn't come back for the money(he never really left). He only get's a salary of 1m(still a lot) but compared to other CEO's of like companies that amost nothing. He only gets paid on the performace of the company.

Igor has tried to retire several times and can't seem to leave. To me that's someone passionate to see a company succeed, you may no like his approach but that doesn't mean he hasn't been successful.

 

[PlutoNotPlanet]

At least Iger did not reverse Genie+ though did make it easier. Cutting cost is not wrong to any executive but just needs to be done properly. Same for hiking price. Strategy wise, streaming might have been changed the most (and now back to the right track)

 

[LAS2AMS]

I think Wall Street only worries when no MORE middle class feel it’s affordable. That means slower GROWTH.
Who are addicted to Disney adapt well though complaining (like me lol)

The WSJ doesn’t care. It’s a clickbait-type story that ran to increase engagement. The data was supplied by a fourm user.

An article that ran in the NYT in 2023 asserted that the mean travel spend of a Millennial was $7K, and those who spent more on travel typically spent less elsewhere.

The bread and butter of Disney is middle class folks who spend disproportionately on Disney. Disneyland has the infrastructure to attract the rich and famous, WDW does not. Not uncommon for a lot of East Coast, including Florida, rich and famous to go to DLR in lieu of WDW. Hence why WDW alllowed Four Seasons into its property.

 

[RivShore]

For those of you not keeping up with the news, Canadian travel to the US is plummeting as a result of politics and a weak CAD. Florida is being hit the hardest. Right now, summer hotel rates in Orlando are the lowest we’ve seen since COVID. Looking at Priceline, which often has discounted Disney hotel rates (although high booking fees$, I’ve seen the Contemporary and Polynesian for below $400/night for much of the summer. Grand Floridian is at $425. Coronado Springs and AKL at $189. I’ve seen All Star Sports for $109. Rates and availability seem to come and go, but like I said earlier, Disney is very smart at discounting.

I’m sure we’ll see a summer ticket offer soon.

Do we know what % of visitors to Orlando have historically been from Canada?

 

[clarker99]

Do we know what % of visitors to Orlando have historically been from Canada?

Data from visitflorida dot org up to Dec 31, 2024
https://www.visitflorida.org/resources/research/

This is not Orlando specifically but gives you an idea.

 

[Genie+]

I’m not sure how you can say that was ‘obviously wrong’ when that was the system in place for many years and led to record profits for the parks fueling expansion.

I can say now that it was obviously wrong, because as mentioned above, it did NOT result in a meaningful increase in per guest spending. I bet it did increase the number of daily rides for some guests who knew how to use the system though.

except that Fastpass wasn't just about helping people to get on more rides. It was all about customer service and something intangible yet necessary called Goodwill. With the free fastpass, guests felt like they had an option to standing in line for long times, had less to complain about, and were generally happy about spending even more money on sweatshirts and more future trips. I'm sure it's not just the fact that we no longer have resort delivery that has cut merchandise sales, but when we were there 2 weeks ago we bought nothing in the parks other than food, and most of the stores were basically empty. I think their merchandising sucks compared to 10 years so that's a factor, but they did have some very nice shirts and sweaters...that nobody was buying...

we've also gone from 2 weeks trips onsite with 7 park days every year to 1 week with 3 park days every couple of years. And many people I spoke with during our trip are doing the same. The parks feel more crowded but that's because there is much less to do that doesn't require a one hour wait or a lightning lane. And doing nothing for 55 minutes to do a ride for 5 gets boring real fast.

the next trip we'll be staying offsite, since there are so few amenities now for resort guests that I'm just comparing prices now. That's another thing that created Goodwill, and made us happy to wear our Disney shirts year round and help our friends to plan their trips.

As someone who hopped on the Disney Parks bandwagon in the late 2010s…

when Magic Bands and FastPlus+ and places like Be Our Guests consistently exceeded guest expectations…

while the stock rocketed and year on year the parks grew into greater share of the profits.

I do not think it coincidence. Buoyed by social media and the hype of delivering a great guest experience for the money spent, more people were enticed to give it a try and those already familiar started going more often.

I feel like Disney Parks (WDW in particular) are coming down off their peak now. It’s hard to blame them for trying to maximize the opportunity, but I do see the guest experience coming off the rails at WDW.

Coming off the 2001 and 2008 recessions, it seems they focused on setting guests up for success. Year(s) of a Million Dreams and investment in park technology helped make huge gains in popularity. I think the resulting data was both a gift and a curse though. Now they could see exactly which levers resulted in higher spending. They could see phenomena like the more challenging parks became, the more willing guests spent to compete with each other. But at some point that breaks. A couple levers too many, and well off the track from where enthusiasm grew to such heights - and they forgot how to manage setting guests up to succeed. They lost some of the ingredients to that secret sauce. I think if you polled guests year on year how well they thought a WDW trip delivered, that is on a decline.

Personally WDW is losing its luster for my family. More expense while more tedious is leaving us less eager to return. When I look at the many trips we’ve taken the last few years something glaring popped out. We are repeatedly not accomplishing certain rides after multiple trips. It shouldn’t be that hard. Not after doing repeated trips with 2 days in each park. That would’ve been unfathomable pre-2020. Doubt is starting to eat away at our enthusiasm.

For now we’re taking a break. Which is weird considering we just bought DVC in 2023. Right now we don’t have our next trip on the books - highly unusual for us the last decade. All we have is using our DVC ‘sometime in 2026’. As a family we’ve already talked about just buying UO multi-day ticket to check out Epic Universe and enjoying the WDW resort bubble outside the parks. For sure we’ll be going back to WDW but I’m pretty sure the period of us taking multiple trips per year is over.

We’ll find out how many new visitors replace those burnt out from WDW’s park experience.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/caroli...-division-reports-lowest-profit-in-two-years/

“It was a different story when the world emerged from the pandemic. When lockdown ended, consumers had tremendous pent-up demand to travel and were flush with furlough cash so they could pay a premium in order to visit theme parks. Disney took advantage of this and increased ticket prices whilst scrapping previously free frills at its flagship Walt Disney World theme park complex in Orlando, Florida.

Free buses from the airport to its on-site hotels came to an end along with contactless room keys which came in the form of wristbands. However, perhaps the most transformative change across all of Disney's theme parks has been scrapping the queue-cutting passes which were previously a complimentary privilege with each entrance ticket. They now come at a cost and, according to a recent data hack, reported by the Wall Street Journal, they generated more than $724 million in pre-tax revenue between October 2021 and June 2024 at Walt Disney World alone.” ~Nov 29, 2024

 

[Minnie1222]

View attachment 939477
Data from visitflorida dot org up to Dec 31, 2024
https://www.visitflorida.org/resources/research/

This is not Orlando specifically but gives you an idea.

With the exception of Covid years, Canadian visitors to Florida since 2017 has been 3-ish millions per quarter??

Post-Covid, the highest number of oversea/international visitors per quarter was a little under 9 millions, while Canadians were consistently over 3 millions. So for every three international visitors, at least one of them is a Canadian?

 

[clarker99]

With the exception of Covid years, Canadian visitors to Florida since 2017 has been 3-ish millions per quarter??

Post-Covid, the highest number of oversea/international visitors per quarter was a little under 9 millions, while Canadians were consistently over 3 millions. So for every three international visitors, at least one of them is a Canadian?

Each data point is 4 Quarters. So each data point shows the last 12 months of visitors.

So Canada is ~3m visitors a year.

 

[clarker99]

With the exception of Covid years, Canadian visitors to Florida since 2017 has been 3-ish millions per quarter??

Post-Covid, the highest number of oversea/international visitors per quarter was a little under 9 millions, while Canadians were consistently over 3 millions. So for every three international visitors, at least one of them is a Canadian?

Domestic Visitors to Florida jumped significantly post-Covid and it is impressive that it has sustained this new level. Non-Domestic tourism has not recovered.

 

[Pinnochio]

My next point is more debatable, but I believe it's pretty clear that even middle class people are wealthier today and have more disposable income than when I was growing up and beginning adulthood in the 1970s and 1980s. (If you disagree, I'm not going to argue or try to prove it - I'll just rest on the first point anyway).

I agree!

 

[RivShore]

View attachment 939477
Data from visitflorida dot org up to Dec 31, 2024
https://www.visitflorida.org/resources/research/

This is not Orlando specifically but gives you an idea.

I should have know @clarker99 would have the data at hand!!

So if I'm reading this, and calculating, correctly, Canadian visitors are around 2% of total worldwide visitors. That is what I was trying to answer, is a slowdown from from Canadian travel going to have a real impact on WDW visitors. It certainly seems the answer is no, at this point.

 

[Minnie1222]

So if I'm reading this, and calculating, correctly, Canadian visitors are around 2% of total worldwide visitors. That is what I was trying to answer, is a slowdown from from Canadian travel going to have a real impact on WDW visitors. It certainly seems the answer is no, at this point.

But, what is the spending power of this 2%? Anyway, it's still sad to be boycotted though.

 

[RivShore]

But, what is the spending power of this 2%? Anyway, it's still sad to be boycotted though.

Sure, you would rather not have a boycott issue but, as usual in today's world, the old and new media over amplifies everything way beyond it's actual real world impact.

 

[clarker99]

I should have know @clarker99 would have the data at hand!!

So if I'm reading this, and calculating, correctly, Canadian visitors are around 2% of total worldwide visitors. That is what I was trying to answer, is a slowdown from from Canadian travel going to have a real impact on WDW visitors. It certainly seems the answer is no, at this point.

Yeah, 2% now vs. 3% pre-Covid. Canada is the 2nd largest visitor to Florida next to the USA. It currently doesn’t matter that Canadian visitors are down given that Domestic travellers have drastically increased since 2019.

I am intrigued to see how things trend with foreign tourism to Florida/USA from this point fwd. Do people actually stay away or not?

 

[RivShore]

Yeah, 2% now vs. 3% pre-Covid. Canada is the 2nd largest visitor to Florida next to the USA. It currently doesn’t matter that Canadian visitors are down given that Domestic travellers have drastically increased since 2019.

I am intrigued to see how things trend with foreign tourism to Florida/USA from this point fwd. Do people actually stay away or not?

I think macro economic forces will be the main thing, by far, that will cause any significant changes to foreign visitor numbers (persistent inflation, a strong USD, recessions, etc.).

 

[lowlight]

When people complain they don’t want to go to Disney because it’s too expensive, people say who cares someone will fill your spot. The drop in Canadians won’t even be a blip on the radar, assuming even 10% change their minds. Most that I know personally are still going this year (to DL, eww).

 

[MouseyMin]

What bothers me is that the park prices rose and the quality fell in order to counter the losses at the other divisions of the Walt Disney Company.

 

[RivShore]

What bothers me is that the park prices rose and the quality fell in order to counter the losses at the other divisions of the Walt Disney Company.

There is a give and take to a conglomerate like Disney - during Covid, the other division kept the parks afloat, no?