Disney learning guests aren't made of money?

I was reading a couple of articles on the unanticipated decline in attendance at DL after SWGE opened, including one from today that reports that hours are being cut by for employees.

But this quote from the article caught my eye:

Since local hotels expected a “huge influx” of visitors, many of them raised their prices in response. “So, it simply got more expensive to come stay in Anaheim,” he said. “In addition to that, we raised our prices, we brought our daily price up, so if you think about local visitation we brought the price of a one-day ticket up substantially from a year ago.”

The “he” here was Iger.

While it is hard to say if Orlando will experience similar disappointment (I fully expect they will),it does make me wonder if Disney is actually learning what the cut-off point is people are willing to pay.

If SWGE doesn’t do well by comparison, it does give me hope that Disney might put a pause on all the price increases they have been doing as of late.

But, as is always the caveat: we shall see!

5 Likes

If the price increases lead to lower crowds and a better experience while I’m there, it’s worth it.

3 Likes

Yes, please! If it takes me a little longer to save up for a trip, but equals lower crowds, I’m all for it!

1 Like

Disney like many other corporations believe in charge as much as people are willing to pay. They are willing to pay a lot. Many don’t even consider the price they just book and in some ways that’s the way it should be. If you have to think about the prices and cut corners to be able to afford it you probably should reconsider. Disney’s prices are NOT going to go down and people will still flock to the theme parks as they bring you to a fantasy world everyone wants to live in.

1 Like

I saw this too. It was refreshing to see Iger voice the realization- of course what he/next CEO does with it, we shall see.

1 Like

I think about the prices of everything I buy and everything I do. I would imagine most people do. If people are willing to cut corners to do something special, I don’t see any reason for them not to do that.

6 Likes

I’m with you missoverexcited on this one. On our very 1st trip to WDW eons ago with the kids, we stayed at the Poly for $200/night. MK admission was in the $30’s as I recall. I remember thinking at the time how all that was highway robbery. Still we came back for more thru the years. But now my sense of frugality is at my own personal cut-off tipping point. If Disney doesn’t “put a pause” on their price increases, we most definitely will “put a pause” on our visits.

4 Likes

That is just ridiculous.

I sure hope that Disney takes that pause. Since the crowds were so low at Disneyland. We made a decision to go to Disneyland for the day to experience SWGE just in case that WDW was crazy crowded we could just skip SWGE on our upcoming WDW vacation. For 3 people, one park 3 adult tickets with Max FPs, parking, QS breakfast,QS lunch, 1 Dole whip, 1 churro, 1 bottle of water, QS dinner, 3 drinks at Oga’s and some candy for my poor hubby that had to work… cost me 887.00. That is just stupid… I am not sure how family can afford this without going into debt. When my kids were growing up we went to Disneyland every year. I could not do this with these prices and that is so sad to me. And for what I am paying for my WDW vacation I could do Europe, Australia, and/or China. Well I guess I will see all those countries in Epcot Bahaha

5 Likes

The large increase in annual pass cost this year has guaranteed that we will not be at Disney in 2020. As a family of 5, we just can’t swing it. I found myself feeling really emotional about it. Disney has been a big part of our lives these last three years. The joy of planning trips, experiencing new resorts, and making life-long memories has been wonderful, and I will miss it. I know we will eventually go back, but I have to wonder if Disney realizes that for families like mine, who relied upon annual passes in order to make multiple trips in a year, means that they have lost all of our business? I know that we are just one family, so really it won’t make that big of a difference to them, but it makes a big difference to us, and I can’t help but feel sad about it.

2 Likes

I get this. I could’ve written this in 2014. As a matter of fact, I probably did write something just like this on the DIS boards.

I was heartbroken that my Happy Place got so changed up I no longer had the guarantee of a good time for the cost I had to put in. I was actually mourning a little as we cancelled our trip that year.

ETA - I truly don’t believe Disney cares as much about the repeat visitors as we all think they should. I don’t think they will ever run out of first time visitors.
Though… Maybe they should stop building so many hotel rooms until they find out for sure? (I also think they are methodically working out their plan of just having repeat visitors be satisfied with less and/or just creating more up charge experiences to “help” us do more.

2 Likes