Jes, I think the difference is that Disney is not marketed or perceived as a luxury product. If you ask the average guy on the street to name a luxury vacation destination, you're probably going to get answers like Paris or Rome or Fiji. I highly doubt anyone will say Disney World. At least here in the US, going to Disney is no more exclusive than going to the beach. This is a place where our high school kids go for their senior class trip, even from 1,000+ miles away. It's the quintessential American family vacation.
There is a lot of chatter in the US about the disappearance of the middle class. A lot of that is political mumbo jumbo but when people see things they used to be able to afford start to become unaffordable, it gets them upset. Wages have been stagnant for many years while the cost of goods and services has steadily increased.
I totally get that Disney is a publicly owned company and has to keep the shareholders happy. Heck, I'm one of those shareholders. Still, to see prices jump 15% overnight is a little hard to swallow. My income didn't go up 15%. It didn't go up at all. So going to Disney just got a little less affordable for us. Will we stop going? No, because we still have enough wiggle room in our budget to absorb the increase, but I have no doubt that for others that won't be the case and a trip may need to be cancelled or postponed.
Interestingly, Pete alluded to the price hike as being a way to curb the crowds in
Disneyland but didn't make the same mention regarding Disney World. I was hoping he would address that. I still believe that at least in part, they are trying to address the overcrowding issue.