2Pirates2Princesses
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2010
vallamen said:I can't stomach the high current rack rate prices plus minimal discounts that came out for the first quarter of 2013. I was shocked when I priced out this year's trip. I think the price they are currently asking for a value room seems high at rack or minimal discount. Transportation perks are not a factor in my decision as we rent a car for cheap anyway. Neither is the extended hours, as we tend to hit the non-EMH parks anyway.
With the price shock, we actually started to explore other options and I have to say we are pretty excited about our upcoming trip which includes $0 being spent at disney. For the first time in about 6 years (about 7 Orlando trips), we are actually staying off site. Instead of onsite, we are opting to stay in a 2 bedroom/2 bath unit at Bonnet Creek for less than $100 a night, going to discovery cove and sea world, and seeing several spring training baseball games. My boys are going to be thrilled!
Our only disney thing will be Chef Mickey, but that is free to us with disney chase rewards $.
If free dining had come out, might be a different story. Disney probably would have gotten the majority of our $. We have been wanting to do Discovery Cove, the high price of Disney this year made us reevaluate how we spend our vacation $ and we opted for Discovery Cove. I think it will have a ripple effect for us though. After this trip, I have a feeling I will never convince my husband to stay onsite again. 2 bed/2 bath timeshare right next to the parks with nicer amenities for less than the price of a value room......Exploring other options this year has really opened our eyes and I am not sure we will ever do another exclusive Disney trip or stay onsite. Disney will probably only be a small portion of our trip at the most.
I agree with what you have said and I think for our family our first WDW trip last year was our last "exclusively Disney" vacation because the increase in the cost of park tickets and steady increase in the resort rates (with minimal if any discounts) just isn't practical for us. We love Disney and the all inclusive aspect of staying onsite was nice (particularly Magical Express); but I think Disney knows that once more people start opting for offsite options, those guests' eyes will be opened to the other great parks and lodging options in Orlando. It surprised me how they shortened the window for the free dining offer this fall and how for the first time in years free dining wasn't offered for Jan or Feb, but instead this S/P/D promo is out which does provide a nice savings but not nearly as much as free dining to keep our family onsite with the higher rates we would pay by going during "regular" season for our upcoming trip. We are booked at Bonnet Creek for our May trip and plan on spending time doing stuff outside of Disney (Sea World and maybe a beach day), which we most likely wouldn't do if we were staying onsite.