Does anyone else deal with this?

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

Hi all,

Considering this is a Disney board, I figured other people deal with this as well. My husband and I are a married couple in our 30’s and we get the comments of why we chose to go to Disney since “we are not kids”. We never went as child and we both enjoy it for obvious reasons. What is your response if/when you get these comments and what do you say?

Thank you as always!

Years back I was explaining to a friend that our extended family chose Disney because there was a wide range of ages and Disney had something for everyone. They then inquired about the age range and I said "Oh 22 to 78, " leading them to ask "22 months?"

No - 22 years old!

I've traveled all over the world and love exploring new destinations...but WDW is my happy place and I don't even give the judgment a second thought at this point.

 

[Sprinkles&Sprints]

The other part of it though is people commonly assuming if you’re spending thousands each year at WDW you’re either very rich or being foolish with your money. When it comes to disposable income, the same budget may or may not afford WDW depending what other hobbies and interests have already been spent on.

Yes - I do think this is part of it. In no way am I saying that WDW is inexpensive, but because we go so often, I feel like I know all the tricks to spend wisely. I don't feel compelled to splurge (i.e. sit down restaurants for every meal, tons of souvenirs etc.) as much as I probably would if it was a one and done adventure.

 

[HopperFan]

"Disney is very much geared for adults who enjoy all levels of entertainment. It's way more fun now that my kids are all adults. And honestly most our trips we see mostly adults."

I often say how do you go to the same old same old .......... football games, cruises, sit on beach, fishing, hunting .... I think Disney has more variation than any of those. Each to their own.

 

[The Mayor]

My wife and I are 70 and we enjoy planning and going to WDW every year. Just the two of us. However, that changed in 2022 when we took our whole family…10 of us. It was our 4 grandchildrens first time. Doing it again in 2025!

Now, when it was just the two of us going, a person at work tried to make a joke of how we go to the same place every year. So I turned the tables on her and said, well you go to Aruba every year! Why don’t you go someplace different?She had no reply so the joke was on her.

On the other hand, none of our friends even bring it up. As a matter of fact we have become the go to for WDW for information for their families.

Every year we go we try to do something new or try something different. We also still enjoy going on all the rides. I think A LOT of people that don’t go to WDW don’t understand just how much there is to do there.

 

[MsChristy12]

How do you afford it? It’s to expensive.

Last week, I have a co-worker that commented on my 2-week trip. Basically, we were chatting about good shoes for the parks and I told her that I finally found my holy grail sandals, which are the Tevas. I said it vaguely that "yeah we spent 2 weeks there last year and my feet never felt any discomfort and didn't hurt once". Of course her eyes bugged out and said "2 weeks?! That's too long" My response was "well technically just about 10 days because we did a 4-night cruise prior to the parks" She said "wow I was going to say that you must be a millionaire if you spent 2 weeks at Disney". Which is silly because we were on a Disney cruise and we all know, they ain't cheap! lol! So the 4-night on the Wish plus the 9 nights in the Disney bubble...I guess I'm a millionaire!!

I wasn't even going to tell her how and why...because I know she won't really understand. She said the last time she went, they did Disney World for only 2 days and 1 day Universal. (A little context, I'm from the west coast and I won't go down to Florida to spend just 2 days at Disney) She's the rope drop and play until park close person because she needs to make sure that ticket is worth it. That alone, tells me we don't have the same touring style and you might not even understand why we do it the way we do. But that's okay, we'll just let her think I'm rich! lol!!

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Hi all,

Considering this is a Disney board, I figured other people deal with this as well. My husband and I are a married couple in our 30’s and we get the comments of why we chose to go to Disney since “we are not kids”. We never went as child and we both enjoy it for obvious reasons. What is your response if/when you get these comments and what do you say?

Thank you as always!

"Because I love Disney" works for me. If they continue to pursue the "Why?" I'll just remind them that Walt wanted a place where the whole family, adults and children, could enjoy themselves.

What inspired Walt Disney to build Disneyland?

Walt claimed the idea of Disneyland came to him while watching his two daughters ride the carousel in L.A.'s Griffith Park. There, he began to imagine a clean, safe, friendly place where parents and children could have fun together!

 

[tvguy]

Hi all,

Considering this is a Disney board, I figured other people deal with this as well. My husband and I are a married couple in our 30’s and we get the comments of why we chose to go to Disney since “we are not kids”. We never went as child and we both enjoy it for obvious reasons. What is your response if/when you get these comments and what do you say?

Thank you as always!

We used to. Living 400 miles from Disneyland our friends thought we were absolute Disney nuts because we went every other year before we had kids. And this was 15 years before the DIS even existed. And by DIS standards were are light weights. People here go once a month!!
We just told folks we enjoyed it. And one of our first purchases as a married couple was Disney Stock which we still own.
My wife and I came to be Disney buffs via different routes. I first went in 1965, and my parents were "from opening to closing" visitors. My wife's parents divorced, and her dad lived in Texas, her mom moved to California. He would fly out and take her to Disneyland, but he was a 9 to 5 park person, leaving the park for lunch and going back in. I discovered this when my wife and I first started dating and she asked me "why do they always show fireworks when news stories are done on Disneyland". She had NEVER seen the fireworks. So our first trip included Early Admission when it was 630 am, until closing, when it was 1 am. Every meal and snack was in the park, 18.5 hours a day in the park.

 

[slo]

Yes - I do think this is part of it. In no way am I saying that WDW is inexpensive, but because we go so often, I feel like I know all the tricks to spend wisely. I don't feel compelled to splurge (i.e. sit down restaurants for every meal, tons of souvenirs etc.) as much as I probably would if it was a one and done adventure.

Same
Same
and
Same

My DD20 and I go to the grocery store before we check in.
*Breakfast is a Nutrigrain Bar & a banana (maybe a yogart too) in our room everyday. The only exception is check out day and we go to Ohana’s for breakfast.
*Lunch is brought into the park and it’s an Uncrustable with some Cheetos. We may treat ourselves to one day with a counterservice lunch.
*Dinner is mainly counterservice. Last trip I made one dinner ADR to try The RRBBQ. We’ve come to enjoy the counterservice food and actually prefer it - eating it is not a sacrifice.

Souvenirs are not something we spend a lot of money on. I’m trying to get stuff out of my house and not bring stuff in. When I do buy souvenirs it’s nothing super expensive.

I do agree that a WDW trip would be more expensive if you were not going to return - you’re going to want to experience and buy as much as you can - it’s understandable on why someone would do that.

 

[elvispursley]

I tell them it’s a place where my mom, who has mobility issues, and I can go easily using her scooter. We love to cruise but as she’s gotten older, it’s harder for her to get around and there aren’t a lot of excursions that are mobility-friendly. I tell people we enjoy relaxing and enjoying the parks sans kids/grandkids, doing what we girls want to do! Most of my friends stoped asking me that years ago.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The other part of it though is people commonly assuming if you’re spending thousands each year at WDW you’re either very rich or being foolish with your money. When it comes to disposable income, the same budget may or may not afford WDW depending what other hobbies and interests have already been spent on.

You're correct there are some people who think you're rolling in dough to get to WDW but to be able to go to WDW especially multiple times in one's lifetime does take a considerable financial investment. A person could abstain their entire lives from vices and still not be able to make a Disney trip work. A person could never go out to eat in the entire year or only go out a few times a year and still not be able to get that WDW trip to work out.

To put it another way using your comment as a basis it would be like commonly assuming that the amount spent on what was mentioned was the main reason preventing them from taking a WDW trip (which was the angle I was coming from).

 

[moonshadow]

I'm 64 and Disney is still my favorite place to go to. If anyone asks me why I still go I say it's because it's the only place that tells me to "Have a Magical Day".

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Last week, I have a co-worker that commented on my 2-week trip. Basically, we were chatting about good shoes for the parks and I told her that I finally found my holy grail sandals, which are the Tevas. I said it vaguely that "yeah we spent 2 weeks there last year and my feet never felt any discomfort and didn't hurt once". Of course her eyes bugged out and said "2 weeks?! That's too long" My response was "well technically just about 10 days because we did a 4-night cruise prior to the parks" She said "wow I was going to say that you must be a millionaire if you spent 2 weeks at Disney". Which is silly because we were on a Disney cruise and we all know, they ain't cheap! lol! So the 4-night on the Wish plus the 9 nights in the Disney bubble...I guess I'm a millionaire!!

I wasn't even going to tell her how and why...because I know she won't really understand. She said the last time she went, they did Disney World for only 2 days and 1 day Universal. (A little context, I'm from the west coast and I won't go down to Florida to spend just 2 days at Disney) She's the rope drop and play until park close person because she needs to make sure that ticket is worth it. That alone, tells me we don't have the same touring style and you might not even understand why we do it the way we do. But that's okay, we'll just let her think I'm rich! lol!!

The obvious part being missed from your coworker is those park tickets are a decent savings if you can swing those long trips.

It is always more expensive for theme parks for those very short length trips so if you're not aware of how it gets progressively less and less per day the more days you use it's easy to think it must cost a small fortune to go that many days.

***not even getting into the AP topic which of course is a different calculation

 

[MsChristy12]

The obvious part being missed from your coworker is those park tickets are a decent savings if you can swing those long trips.

It is always more expensive for theme parks for those very short length trips so if you're not aware of how it gets progressively less and less per day the more days you use it's easy to think it must cost a small fortune to go that many days.

***not even getting into the AP topic which of course is a different calculation

yeah there were times I was like...should I buy the 5-day or 6-day? Most of the time I went w/ the more days just in case certain big rides we wanna go out goes down the entire day, then we'll have a 2nd chance. Or maybe we wanna have dinner/lunch at certain restaurant inside the park one day and just hang out. I figured, we are already spending thousands, what's another $50 for one more day?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

yeah there were times I was like...should I buy the 5-day or 6-day? Most of the time I went w/ the more days just in case certain big rides we wanna go out goes down the entire day, then we'll have a 2nd chance. Or maybe we wanna have dinner/lunch at certain restaurant inside the park one day and just hang out. I figured, we are already spending thousands, what's another $50 for one more day?

When we priced out the tickets in 2022 for that trip it was like $10 more per person for a 6-day park hopper (purchased through UT) as opposed to a 5-day so we did that knowing that we had our friend's wedding stuff in the middle of the day at Disney Springs so it wouldn't have as much usage but it was barely anything for that extra day (that said a 6-day park hopper was $1,200 for two people so still an investment). Technically we went 7-days in the park but 1 of our days was used with a CM's pass but they offered to use that (they were going to the wedding as well). We normally only do 5 days as we split with Universal.

 

[Once.Upon.A.Time]

Glad to see I’m not alone here.

 

[SpaceMan5]

I have scrolled thru the responses and we all seem to have a similar view point of why we go to DL.

We typically spend 5-6 days in the parks with no side trips. I have had ppl look at me and you can see they are thinking why spend so many days in the parks. Why? Because my rowdy group of pirates love it! Simple as that.

 

[wenrob]

I’m a proud Disney Adult and I don’t care who knows it or what anyone thinks of it. We are only four hours from DLR and have a lot of CA transplants so it’s a little different in that the people around us tend to get it and also go often or grew up going. Still, I do sometimes get comments or questions. If they come from a sincere place I answer sincerely- it’s my happy place and I’m healing my inner child. If they are snarky or judgy I also answer in kind- I wonder what makes you think I need to justify my choices to you? I refuse to let people try to make me feel bad about something that makes me happy. That’s a them problem not a me problem.

 

[mumto3girls]

DH and I went a number of times before kids and occasionally got comments, but mostly about how expensive it was and not about going without children. We even bought DVC prior to kids. We’ve not had a child free Disney trip in 24 years, but youngest DD leaves for college August 2025 and I am thinking about hitting up Food & Wine that fall. We will still take family trips as long as the kids still want to go, but I am anticipating we will have many trips that are just the two of us (and looking forward to it). I expect that we will get some comments, but I will just explain that there were lots of things we wanted to do at Disney that we skipped because it wasn’t of interest to the kids and we are looking forward to enjoying some more relaxed somewhat slower paced trips.

 

[Snowflakey]

If the people saying that to you have children then I'd just reply and say "I don't know why you aren't going since you do have children"

Or you could simply reply "Nunya" - none ya business.

 

[CynBeth]

I am very lucky we do not have kids and no one makes those types of comments to us.