Well, I must admit that I too “second guess” myself for what I am willing to pay these days to go to WDW, as the original poster asks. Especially now that Disney’s current Special Offers seem like last year’s “rack rates”.
But what has really changed my emotional connection to the experience is not the cost. It is the loss of the little things (and maybe some big things too) that my family & I found so memorable thru the years. For example, I’d love to watch the short Muppet’s act in the 2nd floor window above Hall of the Presidents once again … as the new Cars Theme that is speculated to be replacing Rivers of America in that area of MK has no appeal. Ditto for the live bands that used to play in the Grand Floridian lobby and play in the band area behind the United Kingdon in Epcot. Or those wacky guys who impressively climbed stacked-up chairs in the Italy area. I’ll even take the old Fountain of Nations in Epcot any day over that new Journey of Water. Dare I even mention the loss of the Electric Light Parade. I’d dearly love to get a photo of my grandkids in the same hammock on the beach area at the Poly to go with the photo I have in the scrap book of my boys (my grandkid’s parents) in the hammock from our very 1s stay at the Poly. Of course, those hammocks disappeared years ago. I could go on with other examples, but I won’t waste your time anymore.
As other poster before me have pointed out, money is relative. I remember how rich I felt when I got my 1st part time job in high school making the minimum wage in those days of $1.25/hour. Yes, I’m that old. But good memories on the other hand are not relative. They are priceless, even at the ticket prices Disney wants these days.
Yes. This is very true. We joke about the whole “you are the magic” line, but it does seem to be the way of things. While there is plenty of magic at Disney…the magic has definitely been diminished.
Personally, I think it’s less about the economy and more about corporations simply price gouging. It started with covid. We stopped eating at one of our favorite restaurants because the meal we order went up eight bucks. I believe it comes down to what consumers are willing to take. They have us so duped folks are scanning and bagging their own groceries. (Something I refuse to do.) As long as we are willing to pay close to two hundred bucks to get in the parks, and an additional thirty on top of it to skip ahead of folks in line - they will keep charging it.
Disney is the place where my kids can just be kids. At home there’s all sorts of pressure to grow up too fast. At Disney, DS12 will happily get made over as a knight and pose for pictures. At home, the only place he’s gonna be a knight is in some video game.
So I pay crazy prices to watch my kids be kids. And honestly, to escape. I am overwhelmed most days of my everyday life. At Disney, I can relax. I can say yes to donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then yes to ice cream for dessert! I can, as it were, Let it Go!!
This is funny. I am total opposite. I LOVE LOVE self checkouts. I will avoid regular checkouts if at all possible! I don’t want to have to interact with anyone when I buy groceries.
Although, we have been shopping at Aldi for 20+ years. It is really weird for me to let someone else bag my groceries!
Don’t get me started. I am one of those people who watched the slow decline of Downtown Disney in the 2008 era. It went from buskers and live bands at every turn to absolutely nothing. I loathe Disney Springs knowing what Downton Disney used to be.
They don’t interact anymore. You can’t even get them to tell you what the total is. You see the screen - figure it out for yourself. Customer service has completely disappeared. But I refuse to do their work. I was in Target recently at 5:00 in the afternoon. There was one cashier and her lane was closed, which I didn’t realized. She attempted to turn me away. I asked if there were any other humans on register and she decided to take me. I was prepared to park my cart to the side and leave the store. I’m one of those people.
Haha I love self checkout too - we got in trouble last week for using self checkout with too many items (had no clue the place we went to had a restriction) …my mom just told the lady we were leaving the regular checkouts for those that prefer them and complain there are not enough of them (she used to work retail)
I’ll just say …as much as you complain about the prices, as a Canadian I need to pay 40% on top of that (thankfully that does not fully translate to prices at home, people think our groceries are more expensive when compared to Americans, but they are not when you factor in exchange for many things)
I still enjoy my Disney bubble, so as long as I do, I will continue to visit the parks. Countless trips and always something new to see and do.
Sure, but for decades now Disney has pushed the envelope often increasing prices multiples of typical inflationary increases.
Once they saw the economy was mostly beyond the 2008 financial crisis they not only pushed the envelope, they crumpled it up, doused it in Mickey waffle batter and set it on fire.
Me too. I was just telling my husband about a time I stayed in a castle view room at GF for $400 a night and thought it was good. LOL! The whole lightning lane thing and the money they want for it is ridiculous though.
It’s all supply and demand. As long as there are people willing (able) to pay whatever Disney charges, the prices will continue to rise. Disney has become an elite company in the league of Mercedes and Rolex; there will always be people who can afford it, and corporate is happy with that.
This is well said. I have been trying to ween myself off of Disney Parks for a little while because I remember how it was. Disney prices have far out paced inflation, and to compound onto that we are getting less for that higher price in the parks.
But people keep coming in droves and so there is very little motivation for Disney to change. They stopped carry about the average family a long time ago and still pretend to. Its unfortunate but the state of corporate culture today. Maybe the bottom will drop out after Epic Universe opens and Disney will wake up. We can dream.
In this same boat. Fortunately I am in a position where sacrificially I can pay the prices to go to the park (no fancy resorts or meals), but I recognize it is a lot of money. And it only seems to keep going up.
Sadly I think this is key here. The shareholders and leadership want monetary returns, and see that as valuable. That however means that affordability is sacrificed. I would love to someday see someone lead the parks division with a goal of lowering the ticket prices, but no such leader would be popular among the shareholders.
There is another aspect of the affordability discussion we don’t like to talk about…but it has to do with crowds. We don’t like crowds. So, how does Disney keep the crowds levels in check? They could limit crowds by putting caps on the number of tickets sold and require park reservations or similar…but we know how people reacted to that. So, Disney has to price things that it limits crowds to a point where they aren’t oversold. This means raising ticket prices. Unfortunately this has the side effects of pricing folks out.
Actually, I own some of these. Not many, but a few. Their shares are down almost 30% from 5 years ago, and their dividends are like 20c/share per quarter.
From an investment I’d be happy if they lowered pricing to make it more affordable… Means more people could go or go more regularly, which would to my way of thinking increase profits despite the lower price points. I’d also be happy if they increased the value:cost ratio so people are happier to spend their hard earned and saved $$ there rather than their competitors. That’s how I see it working at least.
From a customer perspective, I’d also be happy with these changes
I was thinking about this the other day! At the time he was talking about making sure that there were at least some affordable options, some of the time - things like those 3 day 3 parks and 4 day 4 parks tickets. Or low, low season tickets. But that no longer seems like the focus.
I feel like if this were possible or that straightforward, they would have done it. I think however they have found that premium prices would bring in more profit.
I personally think cutting prices would be at the expense of reducing profit, but it would bring additional intangible value of more favorable brand image and more people getting to experience the park, which I am all for. Do the major stock holders have this same motivation though? I would guess no, but maybe I’ll be surprised
If they lower prices, more people will come, and the parks are already crowded. They will be forced to put capacity limits into place and reinstate park reservations. Then the complaint will be, these parks are too crowded, why do we keep coming back here? I don’t think there’s a win-win.
But good memories on the other hand are not relative. They are priceless, even at the ticket prices Disney wants these days. 
(thankfully that does not fully translate to prices at home, people think our groceries are more expensive when compared to Americans, but they are not when you factor in exchange for many things)
