Believe it or not there are a lot of FL residents that never go and some that go once in a blue moon, or once a year. I assume Disney wants some of their money too. Most ppl don’t go b/c of the cost.
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I think Disney, in particular, wants FL residents to go because of the EP festivals. If not for that, they probably would be less inclined.
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another thought… I would never pay the same prices as someone coming in from out of town to a place that’s in my own backyard. Plus if I like it, I’m really NOT going to pay full price to go again, but if I can get a deal on tickets I’ll go more frequently. Especially since it’s so close to home. Disney must realize this and in order to capture more sales they give locals a break on tickets. I avoid DS anymore b/c it’s a BIG hangout for local teenagers… blech
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I’m not sure where to put this but did Chapek really say that the customer was the most important guide? What does he mean? Why do we not feel important then? Is this gaslighting?
CEO Bob Chapek Outlines Goals for the Walt Disney Company | the disney food blog
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He said the consumer. Singular.
The intention is to raise prices until only one person can afford to come to WDW. And Disney must make sure that WDW is very attractive to that one person. Thus they are at the centre of every decision.
More seriously, Chapek was talking — if I may use some management jargon here — bollocks.
It is unequivocally clear that ending DME and ending free fast passes was not what the consumer wanted. (To anticipate @ryan1’s intervention at this point, let me clarify: no-one was asking for paid fast passes.)
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Knoebels is in northern pa and that park had an all day ride pass or you can just buy tickets to ride the coasters. No admission price.
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I totally believe it. My daughter in law is from Orlando, she has been 3 times in her life.
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I love this Disney-value vs. Universal-value debate!
I visited UOR for the first (and to date only) time in 2017. I was certain I’d love it even more than WDW because I love thrill rides and I’d heard that UOR was the thrill champ.
I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 full days at USF and IOA and the Royal Pacific resort (no Disney at all on that trip), but I found many of the attractions underwhelming, with the notable exception of the Wizarding World. In particular, I grew increasingly bored with all the simulator rides. Honestly, if it weren’t for the Harry Potter lands I probably wouldn’t return.
This year it’s back to WDW for me, for over a week, with just one day’s detour to UOR for Hagrid and VelociCoaster.
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I agree with that. Well, I wouldn’t go to UOR every time I visit Orlando.
The genius of Hagrid is that it is both a great themed rollercoaster and a great rollercoaster. You can hate Harry Potter but absolutely love the ride.
ROTR doesn’t quite hit that mark. It’s not really a ride. There are jaw-dropping moments, which mean more to real fans, but if you had zero interest in Star Wars, I think it would be a one and done.
VelociCoaster’s line has decent theming. The ride itself isn’t particularly awesomely themed. But it’s an awesome ride. So again, they hit two markets: Jurassic Park fans, and rollercoaster junkies.
Fast and Furious was a mis-step. But UOR learned from it.
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Please don’t take this the wrong way, but my wife and I had a conversation about that very thought yesterday. For the first time in forever I got a text-like notification yesterday on my cell phone from Disney Destinations promoting their year long 50th anniversary activities. My first thought was … is this spam, how’d they get my phone number? Then I realized that this was in addition to 5 other emails I’ve received from Disney Destinations in just the last 2 weeks promoting their cruises, the Aulani resort, the new Special Offers and a PIN code. My wife also commented that she has started seeing more and more Disney advertisements on national TV. For us going to WDW is a 16 hour car ride. I share all that because we just cancelled a reservation at the CS Tower in February for two reasons, primarily covid but honestly, also cost. Silly me just couldn’t get past the realization that we’d spend darn near the same this year (all costs included) at the CS resort as we spent last April at the GF. Out of frustration I rationalized our decision not to go on Disney management manipulation. Disney is still getting beat up badly by financial analyst. One just downgraded the company yesterday due to perceived poor profit growth in part, at its park business. I worked with executive leadership before I retired. For me so much of what I see and hear Chapek do is dejavu. No wonder they are pulling out all the financial stops on everything they control to increase revenue and profits. Unfortunately for us out of towners the value just isn’t there anymore. We don’t get the same ticket and room offers that lucky locals do, and I fully understand that. As everyone who posts here knows, ticket prices aren’t the only thing going crazy these days. For us however, it seems that the “deals” have been replaced by marketing hype.
In fairness to Disney, here is where we stayed last April and how they treated us. Boy did we get spoiled. See post #21. GF Room Upgrade
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I have a specific question about VelociCoaster but I’ll start a new thread for it.
I know we wouldn’t have the immersion of SWGE. I saw their original plans for it and it made me mad because of how pathetic it was. I stressed the me because I’m only a mild fan. Pathetic is the polite term.
Minnie27mouse, you don’t see UOR worthwhile as a destination, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t. My daughter is a wimp about rides. Well, spinning is great but she hates long drops. She loves loves loves UOR. We did three trips to UOR on an annual pass and since we drive each trip is a min. of a week. Maybe because we love re-rides of our favorites, but a week seems like the right amount of time at UOR.
Note, I can’t compare it to Disney. Our trip starts in two weeks. We also like long trips in general and we’ll be at Disney world for two weeks with 10-day tickets.
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Didn’t take it the wrong way at all. We all want a deal especially if we love to be in the magic. The room discounts depend on status BTW: right now DVC mbrs get 30% off APs 25% and FL res 20%, I think as a local, that wants to go frequently, the best choice is an AP. If I had to pay full ticket price I wouldn’t go as frequently and buy lunch/dinner, buy pins etc. Using round numbers, if tickets were $100 and I met my goal of going once a week it would cost $5200 bucks; NOPE! not doing that! W/ the current FL res ticket deal only $2548… still NO! I know locals generally don’t stay on property so spend less but I’ve stayed on property 3x w/ my DVC points in the past six months. Not all locals are equal 
I hope you get here soon. I hope Disney ldrshp stop gauging out pockets soon too.
My DH is a Star Wars fan. He was a one and done ROTR with the current waits. He doesn’t think it is worth the long lines. (We went at “rope drop” which was 7:45am.) If it got down to an hour or less, he would get on again, but he thought there were other better attractions.
Thank you, but I doubt we’ll be going back now until the gouging clearly stops, if ever. Here is another example of why I say that. Its a screen shot of the ONLY room available at the GF out of two weeks my wife and I were considering for our upcoming 50th anniversary in May. No joke, only this $2,395 a night room showed as available to me in those two weeks when I searched this afternoon. Nothing else. And this was using the special PIN code and reservation link I was sent!!! As much as I love my wife and would like to splurge on another adventure in Florida, it aint gonna happen at these rates.
If I check the other “Special Offer” offers instead of my wonderful PIN code … you guessed it, other less expensive rooms (but with a smaller discount) became available. I’m fast getting tired of trying to work around all the crazy pricing games Disney set up so I can enjoy myself at WDW without feeling like I was played.
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Yikes! I don’t blame you. Have you thought about renting DVC points? I’ve never done it, but looked into it, many liners swear by it too. An example of renting points: I just saw four nights at Poly for 17 pts a night, deluxe studio. If they were rented at $20 a point (don’t know what going rate is) that would be $1360 for the four nights (total).
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Renting points is the best! (Unless you own. )
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Daves DVC is $20 at most home resorts more than 7 months out, $19 if not. I think at DVC store but not 100% sure its this website, but one of them anyways, they have a chart showing how many points per night for every room type for every day of 2022. This also helps if your trying to rent points at a lower rate vs. set dates on a calendar.
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We are doing one night, two park days at Disney in March and two nights, three park days at Universal. The cost is about the same for both trips, which is nuts since one is a whole night longer!
I just came back from Universal Hollywood (did the VIP tour) and I’m super excited about Nintendo world opening up one day. Oddly, I think Universal does a better job of setting the stage for the rides and telling the story in the ride. The queues and preshows really tell you where you are and make you part of the story in a way I don’t think Disney has really managed as well yet (except for ROTR which is the best ride of any of the parks.)
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