I was thinking about the medium-term effect of COVID on WDW and had a thought.
The pandemic has forced people like me to look elsewhere for our vacations. What I’ve discovered is that there are other options and some of them are really quite good. And a lot cheaper.
At the same time, the longer I am forced to wait before I can return, the less pull the place has on me. I’ve started to forget whatever it was that made me so obsessed about WDW. And I’m being attracted to other options that I’ve discovered.
Before March 2020 I had become a two-trips-a-year person: one summer trip, one Christmas trip. I had two trips booked and paid for in 2020, for the third year in a row.
Of course both of those were cancelled and I currently have no Orlando trips booked. I’m talking about August 2022, but in part because I have flight vouchers I have to use.
I really enjoyed my trip to DLP last summer and it’s a lot easier and cheaper to get to than WDW. I’ve had some pretty good trips to local parks that are so cheap that cost is barely a consideration. I have a couple of cruises booked and I may discover I love cruises.
Of course I’ll come back to Orlando. But not twice a year. Maybe not even every year. I had more options than I allowed myself to discover.
I wonder how many other people are thinking the same.
In the short term, yes I will be back as I leave in only 3 days. Like many others this is a 2020 make up trip. After this trip I highly doubt we will be back at WDW for several years, but we may go to Disneyland next year so who knows!
We were going to buy DVC in early 2020. The decision is on hold. Our decision has more to do with the current management and decisions being made than COVID or a time away from the parks. It seems like they are going out of their way to strip all of the magic. It now seems like a typical theme park that is grossly overpriced for what you get. Will see if we feel the same after our trip in January. Hope I’m wrong.
Same for us, same reasons. Make up trip for several canceled 2020 trips, and after that we have no plans to return )m(not like, ever, but not in the next ~2 years). We might go to DL. We might just go other places. Now, if they would bring back (or add) some of the things that make WDW really stand out from others, I might change my tune. We’ll see in a couple weeks after I return from our trip. I know we’ll have a great trip. I do still love it. It’s just missing that extra oomph that has always put it over the top for me. We’ll see. In three weeks I’ll probably be saying “I can’t wait to go baaaaack!”