Middle Class Priced Out???

[Darcy03231]

If you can afford that your not middle class. Which is what this thread is about.

Just because we spend more than average on vacations has nothing to do with our annual income, which is solidly in the middle class range according to every calculator I've checked. What does make a difference is that we don't spend much in other areas. No mortgage, no car payments, no loans, no credit card debt, etc. All we have is our normal household bills, which leaves a lot left over for travel. We also aren't big consumers. When we need something we tend to buy second hand rather than new.

Also, if you do some legwork you can travel pretty inexpensively, depending on where you want to fo. The China trip I'm looking at is a 9 day/3 city trip that includes all airfare, hotels (4*), most meals, all transportation in China, English speaking tour guide, and all entrance fees. It doesn't include the visas (which is about $200/pp), but even adding that in the trip cost is less than $1000/pp. I think we can agree that someone in the middle class can afford that.

 

[Tink_83]

Just because we spend more than average on vacations has nothing to do with our annual income, which is solidly in the middle class range according to every calculator I've checked. What does make a difference is that we don't spend much in other areas. No mortgage, no car payments, no loans, no credit card debt, etc. All we have is our normal household bills, which leaves a lot left over for travel. We also aren't big consumers. When we need something we tend to buy second hand rather than new.

Also, if you do some legwork you can travel pretty inexpensively, depending on where you want to fo. The China trip I'm looking at is a 9 day/3 city trip that includes all airfare, hotels (4*), most meals, all transportation in China, English speaking tour guide, and all entrance fees. It doesn't include the visas (which is about $200/pp), but even adding that in the trip cost is less than $1000/pp. I think we can agree that someone in the middle class can afford

I stand corrected you may just spend less when you travel and spend less in other areas. You are correct that we each spend our income how we want to and we all vacation how we want to. I'd rather do a smaller vacation with nicer accommodations then a longer vacation on an extreme budget but again personal preferences. I apologize for making an assumption without all of the appropriate facts.

 

[TexasAggie73]

Hmm I have to disagree. Disney (the kids adventure place) should be attractive for kids. Kids prices should not be $10 cheaper than that of an adult priced ticket. Whether I have one kid or 6, Disney, Universal and SeaWorld should all have something approaching half priced children (under 16) ticket prices. The way they price it now is ridiculous, and the only thing that comes to mind is "why bother" having kids prices.

I have 4 kids. This year I am flying down to Florida on points on my visa, plus cash tickets. I am staying on site at CBBR in Universal which will set me back $2000. My flights will likely be $2000 K when all said and done. I will stay a week close to Busch Gardens at a h0tel and pay $1700 for the week. Then perhaps a week in Clearwater - Indian Rocks for a cost of around $2200 for a week. Add on tickets for Universal and Volcano - estimate $1800 for 5 day passes or APs. Tickets for Busch Gardens and Seaworld are included in my Hotel package which is awesome. We dont bother with Disney. Then I have to feed my family for 3 weeks. Since we are hoteling it, and not renting homes this time around, then it is potentially $150-200 per day, which will add up. $800 for a minivan. Is anyone adding this up? I might be putting myself off here. Its getting depressing.

I have been to Florida 5 times in the last 7 years. I put 10-15K into the local / US economy. The best value for money I get is at Busch Gardens and, quite frankly, my kids prefer it over Disney. Then Universal is next. To be honest, the water Parks amount to our best days out. Staying at a Vacation Home is better, but my wife wants the kids to have an onsite experience.

Looks like I am in to 12 grand when all is said and done. Its not cheap, Half priced childrens tickets would perhaps take a little off the sting, but not a whole lot.

Sporting events charge the same amount for tickets whether adult ot children. The cost for my favorite college football team in the end zone will cost me a minimum of $80 plus $20 for parking for a half day experience standing in the sun.

 

[Sabathamk]

Now I'm just wishing we could get vacation time, haha. We are 'owed' 2 weeks vacation each year... but for the last 3.5 years have taken... lets see... 4 extra evenings off, which equates 2 days. And our last trip wasn't 2 weeks long, either. I'm owed 7 weeks! I want this farm to pony up! Ha ha. Problem is, my husband is the main manager, with his dad being the owner who cannot (really... isn't allowed to) work on the farm anymore. I SO need this trip. I don't care if it costs us our entire vacation savings that we scrimped for the last 3.5 years... I want to go! And I need my WHOLE FAMILY there (especially DH. I feel like I rarely see the guy except eating and sleeping).

But... probably won't go again after this year. If rates of prices increase the same rate as now, especially since we haven't seen a raise in 8 years... and likely won't... yeah. Probably won't be able to go again.

 

[Nubiwan]

Sporting events charge the same amount for tickets whether adult ot children. The cost for my favorite college football team in the end zone will cost me a minimum of $80 plus $20 for parking for a half day experience standing in the sun.

Pretty sure my kids don't care to see 4 hours of College ball.

 

[crisi]

Just because we spend more than average on vacations has nothing to do with our annual income, which is solidly in the middle class range according to every calculator I've checked. What does make a difference is that we don't spend much in other areas. No mortgage, no car payments, no loans, no credit card debt, etc. All we have is our normal household bills, which leaves a lot left over for travel. We also aren't big consumers. When we need something we tend to buy second hand rather than new.

Also, if you do some legwork you can travel pretty inexpensively, depending on where you want to fo. The China trip I'm looking at is a 9 day/3 city trip that includes all airfare, hotels (4*), most meals, all transportation in China, English speaking tour guide, and all entrance fees. It doesn't include the visas (which is about $200/pp), but even adding that in the trip cost is less than $1000/pp. I think we can agree that someone in the middle class can afford that.

Well....you don't have a mortgage. So that means you either inherited a house, or paid one off. In other words, your income may be middle class, but your net worth is higher than someone starting out with student loans and a mortgage.

Middle class is a huge range of incomes - and when discussing the middle class, we usually only talk about income - not assets. When the vast majority of people start out - even responsible people who don't have credit card debt and buy the cheapest working car they can - they will have a negative net worth - student loans, likely eventually they'll have a mortgage. Having a mortgage paid off (I paid mine off years ago - I have one again for leverage reasons, but when my mortgage went from $1400 a month to something I was paying for from my dividend checks with money left over) that leaves a ton of cash free. Nor does discussions of middle class take into account the cost of living...California is more expensive to live in than Nebraska.

Kids - number and ages make a big difference as well. If you are a young family and have daycare expenses, they eat up a huge part of your paycheck. But taking five, seven...ten years off until your kids are all in school can be hard on your career path, your retirement accounts. The golden age between childcare bills and college bills - when you should save for college, but people often don't - leaves people flush - but if you are planning on your kids getting a secondary education without them having a large negative net worth, you'll probably be paying some college bills.

So someone with a middle class $50k a year income living in Boston with three kids and a mortgage (they are only making $50k a year because who can afford daycare for three, at that point, one parent is usually staying home) - no they probably can't afford $5000 to take the family to China. Even when they become a two income couple again, saving for three to go to college will keep a budget tight. A couple with no kids, the house paid off, and their daycare expenses are boarding the dog, who has a middle class income of $180k a year living in Albuquerque - sure - $2k is easy. Both are middle class though.

 

[Nubiwan]

I am sure some appreciate the $10-15 less per ticket per child, even if you don't seem to think it matters. I know many people who use DVA just to get an extra $20 per $1000 spent. When you are trying to maximize a vacation, usually any little bit helps.

As for pets, it is quite possible that you will pay more for a flight for an animal than for a child, especially if you take a discount airline like Southwest. Those rates for pets were one-way, not round trip.

And my point wasn't about the space a kid takes up in line, but rather that just like an airline, that child takes up a seat on the ride. There are a limited number of seats per ride per hour, so adding more children to parks adds to wait times for rides, dining and many other things inside the park. Disney prices their tickets in a way that ensures crowd control and profits.

Your last line sums up Disney. How can they lose with fans like us? For the sake of the richer folk (mostly adults at the Disney parks I was last seen at) not having to wait in larger line ups, Disney have to bare the brunt of inflated ticket prices. What a bunch of troopers. I am pretty sure Walt Disney did not envision the gouging his company does and how unattainable his parks are for - I am guessing here - over 50% of American children. Not his plan at all. But hey, as long as the adults are happy huh?

Look, I get the whole marketing thing and people pay for what they can afford etc., but lets not kid ourselves that somehow Disney is all for the kids. Somehow making itself affordable for everyone, which was clearly the initial vision of the founder.

 

[crisi]

Your last line sums up Disney. How can they lose with fans like us? For the sake of the richer folk (mostly adults at the Disney parks I was last seen at) not having to wait in larger line ups, Disney have to bare the brunt of inflated ticket prices. What a bunch of troopers. I am pretty sure Walt Disney did not envision the gouging his company does and how unattainable his parks are for - I am guessing here - over 50% of American children. Not his plan at all. But hey, as long as the adults are happy huh?

Look, I get the whole marketing thing and people pay for what they can afford etc., but lets not kid ourselves that somehow Disney is all for the kids. Somehow making itself affordable for everyone, which was clearly the initial vision of the founder.

Disney was never attainable for 50% of American children. When Disneyland first opened, it was in California. Airfare was really high, and driving across the country in the 1950s and 1960s was a rare event. Sure, you could get into Disneyland for free, and ride tickets weren't very expensive - but they were still out of reach for a lot of low wage Americans.

I grew up in a nice middle class family - two working parents in the late 1970s early 1980s. I remember almost no family vacations that weren't visiting family. We did make it to Disney once - when I was a senior in high school - but it was a stretch to go. I remember my cousins going when I was in middle school and my parents explaining to me that they were much better off than we were (and they were). The vast majority of kids I grew up around never got to Disney - and it wasn't just choice - they couldn't afford it.

The reality of Walt Disney is that he did indeed want Disney to be attainable for everyone - if you couldn't afford the parks, you could enjoy the movies or pick up a Mickey Mouse doll. But the parks were never meant to be attainable for everyone - they were specifically targeted to a class of people who didn't go to traveling amusement parks - the well off middle class.

 

[dclpluto]

You have to do what works for you. As I said before I will not pay them high daily park prices or a week of park prices. I'm a dvc member also. I haven't been to wdw in 2 and a half years. Going in June with annual passes. Going 4 different times in the year a week at a time. Than once the annual pass has expired I will take a year off of wdw and go back when Star Wars come. I will have annual passes again.

 

[xipetotec]

I know this topic comes up in discussions a lot. But I'd really love to know if everyone believes that WDW is pricing out the middle class? Or...any other classes for that matter! If you feel like you're being or have been priced out, why specifically do you feel that way? Do you still go on trips to WDW? How have you compensated for their price increases? On the other hand, if you don't feel as though WDW is pricing people out, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that as well!

For us, we're not 'priced out", we are DVC members, but we'd usually for for 9-10 days because after 4-5 days, it became a really good deal to stay more days ( and spend out money at Disney World ).
With the last pass increase, they didn't change the price of single day tickets much... but if you look at 8-10 days passes, we're paying almost 100$ more than before. ( with park hopper ).

Not sure that next time we won't strip out the park hopper and visit other things in Orlando with less days at disney.

 

[Darcy03231]

Well....you don't have a mortgage. So that means you either inherited a house, or paid one off. In other words, your income may be middle class, but your net worth is higher than someone starting out with student loans and a mortgage.

Middle class is a huge range of incomes - and when discussing the middle class, we usually only talk about income - not assets. When the vast majority of people start out - even responsible people who don't have credit card debt and buy the cheapest working car they can - they will have a negative net worth - student loans, likely eventually they'll have a mortgage. Having a mortgage paid off (I paid mine off years ago - I have one again for leverage reasons, but when my mortgage went from $1400 a month to something I was paying for from my dividend checks with money left over) that leaves a ton of cash free. Nor does discussions of middle class take into account the cost of living...California is more expensive to live in than Nebraska.

Kids - number and ages make a big difference as well. If you are a young family and have daycare expenses, they eat up a huge part of your paycheck. But taking five, seven...ten years off until your kids are all in school can be hard on your career path, your retirement accounts. The golden age between childcare bills and college bills - when you should save for college, but people often don't - leaves people flush - but if you are planning on your kids getting a secondary education without them having a large negative net worth, you'll probably be paying some college bills.

So someone with a middle class $50k a year income living in Boston with three kids and a mortgage (they are only making $50k a year because who can afford daycare for three, at that point, one parent is usually staying home) - no they probably can't afford $5000 to take the family to China. Even when they become a two income couple again, saving for three to go to college will keep a budget tight. A couple with no kids, the house paid off, and their daycare expenses are boarding the dog, who has a middle class income of $180k a year living in Albuquerque - sure - $2k is easy. Both are middle class though.

I agree. The point I was trying to make to a PP was that people who are middle class can get a lot of paid vacation time and their personal financial circumstances may allow them to travel frequently and for longer periods of time.

As I posted up-thread, we're not priced out, we're valued out. We have middle class friends who are priced out. We're a one income family (DH is retired) with no children at home. They're a two income family (they're younger than us) and still have children at home. While their income is higher than ours, so are their expenses, which makes travel for them pretty much out of reach. Since we don't have those expenses, we can travel more on less income. A family of four with an annual income of $100,000 with a mortgage or rent, funding their retirement, and saving for college doesn't have the same amount of money to travel as the family of two living in the same area that makes $50,000/yr with no expenses other than monthly bills. That was the point I was trying to make.

 

[Viking7641]

IMO our society is pretty ridiculously vague about what "middle class" is on the high and low ends.

I am borderline middle class. Probably closer to working poor and I have a decent job that pays better than a lot of my friends. None of us are really "middle class"

But people I know with dual six figure incomes and one kid? Sorry you are wealthy. I know that might make you feel bad. But its true.


For me the value still exists at current prices, for now. I don't go on vacation to the beach, as I live 5 minutes from one and pay $20 a year to use it.

I get value out of not driving or just having to think about things for a week, and just do things I don't have the opportunity to everyday.


That being said, Disney well knows that the gap between the wealthy and the rest is increasing, and they fully realize they can only exclusively target the six figure incomes and do fine, better in fact. Less people putting down more money for what they feel is exclusivity, add ons, and special upsells.. Win/win. Less crowds, same or higher revenues.

 

[advfhorn]

Well Disney just became more $ reasonable then Universal, who just went up to $160 pp/day with no price break until the 3rd day ... and Universal has a lot less to do than Disney. If you take the time to research and plan, or hire a good travel agent .... Disney is still the better bet for 4+ days of family amusement for all ages. This is coming from a family who travels in our RV a lot and does multiple amusement parks per year. Although Disney better get some more high power rides soon or my 9 yr old roller coaster fanatic son is going to want to stop coming.

 

[crisi]

But people I know with dual six figure incomes and one kid? Sorry you are wealthy. I know that might make you feel bad. But its true.

Again, circumstances. At one time we had two six figure incomes - and were supporting three households - our own with two kids, my mother in law - who got the short end of a divorce settlement fairly late and only has a small social security check, and my brother in law - who was dying of cancer. Oh, and I was still helping my sister get back on her feet as she sobered up. Our income gave us the resources to do it, but it didn't leave amounts left over to fund anything close to a "wealthy" standard of living.

 

[MillauFr]

Out of curiosity how do people here think Disney can reduce demand if they don't increase the price? Sell tickets by a lottery system? The biggest problem with Disneyworld and Disneyland are they are too crowded.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

As I posted up-thread, we're not priced out, we're valued out.

And there is the Real Answer to the Question!

 

[Viking7641]

Well Disney just became more $ reasonable then Universal, who just went up to $160 pp/day with no price break until the 3rd day ... and Universal has a lot less to do than Disney. If you take the time to research and plan, or hire a good travel agent .... Disney is still the better bet for 4+ days of family amusement for all ages. This is coming from a family who travels in our RV a lot and does multiple amusement parks per year. Although Disney better get some more high power rides soon or my 9 yr old roller coaster fanatic son is going to want to stop coming.

Universal seems to be aiming at 1-2 day visitors and squeezing all they can.

Which makes perfect sense. I can't see myself spending 3 days + there as it stands. Add in Nintendoland and more HP, maybe.

 

[Darcy03231]

And there is the Real Answer to the Question!

While it's been an interesting and thought provoking thread, I really don't think there is an answer! There are too many variables, as seen by the replies here. "Middle Class" covers a wide range of incomes, and doesn't take into consideration the cost of living, family size, assets, debts, age, etc. As we've seen here there are middle class families who are priced out and others who aren't. There are those like me that are "valued" out and there are those who will do everything possible to get to WDW on a yearly basis, despite the rising costs, because it still has value to them (and if I still had young children I might be right there with them). There's truly no "one size fits all" answer.

 

[crisi]

While it's been an interesting and thought provoking thread, I really don't think there is an answer! There are too many variables, as seen by the replies here. "Middle Class" covers a wide range of incomes, and doesn't take into consideration the cost of living, family size, assets, debts, age, etc. As we've seen here there are middle class families who are priced out and others who aren't. There are those like me that are "valued" out and there are those who will do everything possible to get to WDW on a yearly basis, despite the rising costs, because it still has value to them (and if I still had young children I might be right there with them). There's truly no "one size fits all" answer.

Exactly.

And as a business model, Disney doesn't have to make themselves affordable to everyone. They have a constraint on how many people they can serve - as MillauFr pointed out. If everyone could afford to take their kids on a Disney vacation - even just once - they wouldn't have enough park - nor enough room to expand the parks (not to mention not enough capital to expand the parks). As long as the pricing allows sufficient people to get through the gates for them to turn a profit, they are good.

 

[jrivr]

I think if you look at stagnant wages, higher cost of healthcare etc... vs rising prices at WDW I would say that the gap is widening. I do not feel like the middle class is priced out yet. After reading this, I spoke to my parents as they divorced and they ended up at different income levels. My dad took me to WDW at will as his income was substantial. My mom could not afford to. However we were able to rent places on the beach frequently and had a lot of great vacations. She said that WDW was always out of her price range. So with that limited experience seems to me that WDW has always been a different tier vacation. For me personally, I have moved out closer to Disneyland. My oldest is 7 and we will be going to Disneyland for the third time since having children. We are middle class and pretty frugal. For our trip to Disneyland for the 5 of us taxes, tickets, hotel we are out about $2.5k for 6 days of paradise. That does not count food, souvenirs or travel. The hotel is within a third of a mile and it has a breakfast buffet and a kitchenette. So we have a big breakfast, have a snack in the park or depending on how big the breakfast was just eat some granola bars etc.. and then have a nice dinner each night. We plan on about $110 per day for food. We can drive fairly cheaply. For souvenirs we buy stuff online beforehand and hide it and each day Mickey or one of his friends leave a toy for each kid while we are at the park. We also allow for them to buy 1 decent souvenir for the trip. So for us, we are looking at around $3700 total. For the rest of the year we usually have one other "big" vacation and around 7 camping trips. Camping trips are usually 3 days or less and I cook all meals so it is really cheap. We will be heading to WDW in about three years. When we go to WDW, I plan on staying for 10 days and pricing it out now we will probably only have that vacation and a lot of camping. But it will be a blast. I thought I would just stay in Disney, but after looking at the videos for Volcano Bay and the fact that my son and I are reading Harry Potter now I do not see missing out on Universal Studios. That adds a lot of money. That being said, I view WDW as an experience that my kids will have two to three times in their childhood. When I go I will be staying onsite as being in the bubble is what I want when I go to the world. I could make it cheaper by staying offsite, cooking my own meals etc.. But when I go to WDW I want to go all out. I do not want to think about anything other than having a great time. So in that way I am limiting myself. Plus, I can go to DL fairly easily so I will be fine with the limited exposure to WDW.