News Story: Has the cost of Disney World become unaffordable for the average American family?

[Jothmas]

People who say that WDW has always been expensive or a luxury destination aren’t looking at from a budget traveler standpoint. My family was poor when I was a kid, but we stayed at cheap motels in Kissimmee and ate only at quick service. The admission price was low enough to make the total cost affordable.

As an adult, I remained a budget traveler, and going with lower price food and lodging options has kept it affordable, not a luxury. However, I feel that the total cost has now reached a point where I can’t justify going again after my coming trip in June. The basis for assessing the cost is comparing it to what else that much money could buy. I had done a budget trip to London for a week about five years ago (staying in a college dorm room and using frequent flyer miles for the air travel) and I realized I spent more on a trip to Disney World than I did seeing all the sights in London. Comparing “magic”, it seemed like seeing the real UK in person had more of it than seeing the UK pavilion in Epcot for the 20th time, so to be worthwhile, the Disney trip should cost less, not more, than going to Europe.

 

[BadPinkTink]

Unpopular opinion
Disney has never been affordable for most middle class families. However Disney’s largest demographic has been white people who are historically on the higher end of incomes compared to the general u.s population. Recently middle class white Americans are falling behind and no longer have the same economic power they previously held. Subsequently they believe Disney is becoming too expensive.

In reality Disney has always catered to wealthier groups. Most regular families can’t afford things like hotels, flights for 4 people or eating out each day. The difference is that incomes for certain groups have grown quickly while others have stagnated. While Disney continues to price to the upper middle class, many people have fallen into the middle class.
The problem is not Disney increasing their prices. The problem is that theres a large group of people the feel they “deserve” to go to Disney because they previously could.
However as most Americans support a capitalist society they should instead focus on becoming better players of the game rather then getting mad at Disney.
On the other hand if you are a communist then you have the right to complain. (Although Disney probably couldn’t exist in a communist regime anyways).

LOVE THIS

so much to unpack

The problem is not Disney increasing their prices. The problem is that theres a large group of people the feel they “deserve” to go to Disney because they previously could.

Recently middle class white Americans are falling behind and no longer have the same economic power they previously held. Subsequently they believe Disney is becoming too expensive.

These two I had to pull out. It wont be liked but its the harsh truth.

 

[tup1830]

LOVE THIS

so much to unpack

The problem is not Disney increasing their prices. The problem is that theres a large group of people the feel they “deserve” to go to Disney because they previously could.

Recently middle class white Americans are falling behind and no longer have the same economic power they previously held. Subsequently they believe Disney is becoming too expensive.

These two I had to pull out. It wont be liked but its the harsh truth.

why focus only on "middle class white Americans"?

 

[john7994]

People who say that WDW has always been expensive or a luxury destination aren’t looking at from a budget traveler standpoint. My family was poor when I was a kid, but we stayed at cheap motels in Kissimmee and ate only at quick service. The admission price was low enough to make the total cost affordable.

As an adult, I remained a budget traveler, and going with lower price food and lodging options has kept it affordable, not a luxury. However, I feel that the total cost has now reached a point where I can’t justify going again after my coming trip in June. The basis for assessing the cost is comparing it to what else that much money could buy. I had done a budget trip to London for a week about five years ago (staying in a college dorm room and using frequent flyer miles for the air travel) and I realized I spent more on a trip to Disney World than I did seeing all the sights in London. Comparing “magic”, it seemed like seeing the real UK in person had more of it than seeing the UK pavilion in Epcot for the 20th time, so to be worthwhile, the Disney trip should cost less, not more, than going to Europe.

Yes, I would agree that seeing the "real UK in person" is better than the UK Pavilion at Epcot - that probably could be said for all the countries represented in the World Showcase. But since you are suggesting a comparable cost of being in Epcot versus the real country - then taking that argument further - you should be adding 10 more countries that you are visiting for free beyond the UK by going to Disney.

 

[yensid's offspring]

If you think that losing the magic boils down to these reasons then it is you who is not being realistic.
And while we are on the subject of being realistic, who are you to say what anyone else feels about their own personal WDW vacation is wrong?
FWIW I went once in the 80s, don't even remember it. My experiences are based on what has happened recent years, and yes it is most certainly Disney's fault, they are the ones making the decisions about how their parks and resorts are run.
It's great that you are still able to find magic there, but when it comes to speaking for other people's experience it's probably best if you didn't because it's obvious you really have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to their reasons.

I did not speak for anyone else and was only expressing my opinion with regards to changes in society and changes at WDW that reflect that. Again doing only what you said that others are entitled to, which is express my opinion as to why I feel that the Magic is still there if you look for it. No matter what the Dis Co. is a for profit organization and they are never going to let profit margin suffer regardless of how much they make. a WDW vacation has always been expensive and will continue to be expensive as cost of living and inflation increases world wide. Their prices will increase accordingly so the profit margin does not decrease. To hold high prices against them is not fair. Whether you like it or not they are just doing business. The Government should be the ones you are angry with. Increasing prices and driving up wages / salaries for employees, forces companies to increase their prices to keep profit margins. Again, no corporation is going to let profit margins suffer, so it is honestly not Disney's fault people are being priced out of a vacation, they are just doing business. America is a capitalist democracy and unless we become a Socialist Govt. you can't force corporations to lower profit margins or distribute their wealth. So with the ever changing political and economic climate, prices will continue to rise and people will continue to get priced out.

All of that being said, for those who are lucky enough or dare I say privileged enough to be able to still take their family to WDW, the magic is still there! Again, this is my opinion. I feel the cast members still ty to do what they can to make every guest have the best vacation they can. Cast members provide the service and guest experience that sets Disney apart from other theme parks. If you disagree, apply your same standard to a Six Flags park or even to a lesser extent a Bush Gardens Park and see if Disney still doesn't provide the best customer experience for those who are able to go.

Lastly, even with it being said that their are people being priced out of the Disney experience, I still feel as a middle class parent, who grew up in a middle class family, that many more people are able to make things work and find the funds to take their family to Disney today, than in the past. That is do to the increases in wages for jobs that in the past were not meant to be jobs relied upon to support families. Unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle in a capitalist economy. Increased wages leads to the increased cost of goods and services. It is a fact of life.

 

[bbeagle]

It doesn't. It has the greatest amusement park in the US.

It's the greatest ROLLER COASTER amusement park in the US.

If you don't like roller coasters, the park is not great.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Recently middle class white Americans are falling behind and no longer have the same economic power they previously held. Subsequently they believe Disney is becoming too expensive.

I'm not even sure where you're getting your viewpoint from but lemmie just tell ya there is no "poor rich white people" viewpoint.

And just to give you a viewpoint Brazil among a few other South American countries sent swarms of their citizens to Disney...to celebrate like for their quinceañera hence "the 15s" moniker they earned as well as other celebrations. Pre-pandemic there was a notable shift in how many you saw in the parks namely due to their economy.

It's so silly and trite to even make this not only about Americans but also white as if this is about some white privilege

 

[GroupB]

Ticket price increases don't bother me at all, but what does is the low value in the resort prices. Especially with so many perks having been nixed or nerfed. That said, we still love going! There's something irreplaceable for us, being there in the magic.

We have, however, changed how we visit. We were an AP holding, two trips per year family, with an occasional long weekend. Instead of two 10-day trips, we are now only making one 6-7 day trip per year. In our case, with two young kids, this works better anyway.

 

[Jrb1979]

It's the greatest ROLLER COASTER amusement park in the US.

If you don't like roller coasters, the park is not great.

Disagree. I saw quite a few older people there this past weekend. There is a lot more then just coasters there. They have added lots to appeal to families. Their last addition was a jungle Cruise type boat ride for families.

 

[buzlite]

I'm not even sure where you're getting your viewpoint from but lemmie just tell ya there is no "poor rich white people" viewpoint.

And just to give you a viewpoint Brazil among a few other South American countries sent swarms of their citizens to Disney...to celebrate like for their quinceañera hence "the 15s" moniker they earned as well as other celebrations. Pre-pandemic there was a notable shift in how many you saw in the parks namely due to their economy.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
Yes I agree the economic changes in the last year have been extreme and have been felt around the world. In the current climate of rising prices during a bear market it is understandable that the cost is effecting people everywhere.
My point was about those complaining that Disney is somehow ethically wrong for pricing them out and the anger about it. These are mostly white middle class Americans. Just look at youtube at the series of white vloggers complaining.

Honestly I don't understand the majority of your response.
You do realize their a large proportion of people that consider themselves white in Latina America. So your comment is even more confusing about that part.

Please clarify and I would be happy to explain my stance.

 

[buzlite]

why focus only on "middle class white Americans"?

Firstly because Disney's largest demographic is white people. The rich white people don't care because they have money to burn. The impoverished white people would likely not expect to be able to go to Disney yearly. This leaves the Middle Class White Americans. This is also the group that is most visible in their complaints.


In summary it's mostly white middle class americans complaining online about Disney raising their prices too much right now.

Edit: Also average American family is usually a phrase to refer to white american families. It's not like the average american black family was the primary clientele that could afford to go to Disneyland when it opened.

Edit: It is 100% a privilege to complain that Disney World prices are stopping you from affording a luxury trip or multiple trips to Disney. I consider it a privilege that my parents drove 24 hours to Disneyland in a car with 5 people, stopping at a rest stop to sleep. Then visiting for 1 day before returning back home back because my parents needed to work. But guess what, most of my friends never even got that one day. I'm in a place now where I can do luxury trips to Disney but I realize its a privilege to even go once in your life. Its a privilege to be able to compare prices from your past trip to future trips.

 

[bbeagle]

Disagree. I saw quite a few older people there this past weekend. There is a lot more then just coasters there. They have added lots to appeal to families. Their last addition was a jungle Cruise type boat ride for families.

Maybe I should look into Cedar Point a bit. The Jungle cruise ride sounds interesting.

I haven't been there in about 10 years. Before that, I remember very few shows or rides to appeal to non-roller coaster people. Since my wife and young kids don't like rollercoasters, we haven't been back. I'll take your word, and try to google some maps and reviews of Cedar Point more recently.

 

[HIRyeDVC]

Disney is not a public service. It's a business. No one is entitled to it. If I can't find value in it, I would look elsewhere.

 

[BrianL]

A lot of the concern isn't necessarily with rising prices, it's rising prices and reduced quality at the same time. So many things were scaled back and yet we're paying more. A lot of this has to do with staffing challenges, but it's something they need to figure out. I don't really see them at that tipping point yet - personally I still think there is a lot of magic to be had there - however I can see that the current trend may continue to a point where it becomes untennable, and nobody wants that, especially Disney. Maybe they have some plans in the works to alleviate these issues, but at this point it doesn't look like it. That's were a lot of the concern comes from, at least from my perspecitve.

 

[HIRyeDVC]

A lot of the concern isn't necessarily with rising prices, it's rising prices and reduced quality at the same time. So many things were scaled back and yet we're paying more. A lot of this has to do with staffing challenges, but it's something they need to figure out. I don't really see them at that tipping point yet - personally I still think there is a lot of magic to be had there - however I can see that the current trend may continue to a point where it becomes untennable, and nobody wants that, especially Disney. Maybe they have some plans in the works to alleviate these issues, but at this point it doesn't look like it. That's were a lot of the concern comes from, at least from my perspecitve.

New shows and attractions. Disney will continue to pump out new IP and new themed attractions at the parks to draw crowds. Sure some services have degraded. But I'll be shocked to see people leaving Disney in droves because the magic is no longer there.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
Yes I agree the economic changes in the last year have been extreme and have been felt around the world. In the current climate of rising prices during a bear market it is understandable that the cost is effecting people everywhere.
My point was about those complaining that Disney is somehow ethically wrong for pricing them out and the anger about it. These are mostly white middle class Americans. Just look at youtube at the series of white vloggers complaining.

Honestly I don't understand the majority of your response.
You do realize their a large proportion of people that consider themselves white in Latina America. So your comment is even more confusing about that part.

Please clarify and I would be happy to explain my stance.

I said pre-pandemic..we're talking before 2020. It was fairly well discussed people were concerned that Disney would be hit because of Brazil's economy tanking among a few other countries as they comprised of a large international group who came to Disney. Sorry no brushing off your comment due to "economic changes in the last year" because that wasn't even a blip on the radar when the SA tour groups started dropping off heavily.

Ethnicity-wise with respects to exactly how you spoke you were talking about white people in the U.S. and not subtly at all interjected white privilege as a reason. I think that came out pretty resoundingly clear.

You said it not I:

However Disney’s largest demographic has been white people who are historically on the higher end of incomes compared to the general u.s population.

Recently middle class white Americans are falling behind and no longer have the same economic power they previously held. Subsequently they believe Disney is becoming too expensive.

The problem is that theres a large group of people the feel they “deserve” to go to Disney because they previously could.
However as most Americans support a capitalist society they should instead focus on becoming better players of the game rather then getting mad at Disney.

I pretty much have always been of the opinion that Disney is something unattainable for people but it was overall more attainable in the past. The thing is their competition isn't nor has been on the same expense level. Trying to frame it like you are completely goes left field and makes honestly no real sense (no offense intended).

Did you search "white Disney vloggers" or something on youtube? I don't have the time nor the inclination to seek out only white vloggers but there's many vloggers these days too many to sift through so if you're going to say something like that it should be backed up with a extensive search of all the vloggers Disney has and count up the ethnicity and race of them all otherwise it's more like a selective bias statement you're making (I don't think you really intend to prove me wrong but you are employing a bias in your statement).

We make more money than we did in 2017 when we did our last trip before this one a few weeks back (which was for a wedding otherwise we would not have gone down at this time) and while my feelings aren't of anger, I think the conversation can be discussed just how drastically more expensive our trip was in comparison to 2022. Our tickets alone were almost double (although to be fair we purchased our 2017 trip tickets in 2016 at 2015 prices).

FWIW it appears you've been on the Boards quite some time but I don't know how active you are. Ever since I've joined in 2015 the conversation has been Disney pricing out people. I do think what is different now and supersedes the Recession is a flurry of stuff like high inflation, stagnant income, high gas prices (more recently in the last several months), car pricing nutty and lack of cars to begin with, housing pricing being so high, and seeing that Disney is a per usual tone deaf to it all. Now the people who have disposable income are traveling to Disney but some of that is sheer luck in how things panned out for them. And right now there's a lot that is either gone for good at Disney or unavailable. I mean we were were there only MK parking trams were in service (AK coming back in a few days) and right as we parked one afternoon in DHS a woman behind us talking to her kids said "it's way too expensive to not have those things back" and she was meaning the parking trams. It's not that she thinks she's entitled to parking trams nor would I think that way either, it's more like "for pete's sake Disney", small detail but big impression is probably how I would describe it.

 

[BrianL]

New shows and attractions. Disney will continue to pump out new IP and new themed attractions at the parks to draw crowds. Sure some services have degraded. But I'll be shocked to see people leaving Disney in droves because the magic is no longer there.

Well, I honestly don't think it will come to that as I do think Disney will get it together - right now though there are definitely some cracks showing, and it's totally reasonable to see that as troubling. One thing they have got to do is get these new attractions built faster. It's one thing to need a while to complete a first-of-it's-kind roller coaster like Guardians, but getting a show like Fantasmic! back online shouldn't be taking years! I still have faith though, but I'd like to see things getting along a little better.

 

[LSUmiss]

It’s also about how close you live like someone mentioned. We live w/in driving distance & find it much more enjoyable to do quick less expensive trips frequently. We have annual passes & stay inexpensively usually renting DVC points. But, this allows us to not feel like we have to do everything every trip. I couldn’t imagine spending $5000 or more on a week long trip & feeling like you missed out on things b/c of crowds. I understand that not everyone has this luxury, but I used to feel disappointed when we used to try to get it all done in a week. And I know ppl who live by us who could do it the same way as us, but insist on week-long trips & then get disappointed. We are on our way home now & had an absolutely wonderful trip this time. Character interactions were wonderful & every CM we encountered was pleasant. Also, I can’t imagine how crowded it would be if it were cheaper!

 

[GeekzRus]

It's like the Be Our Guest is now 62 dollars for lunch.... That is crazy!

We had went to Be Our Guest. It was a one time experience wasnt super impressed like Cinderella's Castle or Ohana which I can see that type of price tag. Food was okay but not great.

 

[HIRyeDVC]

Well, I honestly don't think it will come to that as I do thing Disney will get it together - right now though there are definitely some cracks showing, and it's totally reasonable to see that as troubling. One thing they have got to do is get these new attractions built faster. It's one thing to need a while to complete a first-of-it's-kind roller coaster like Guardians, but getting a show like Fantasmic! back online shouldn't be taking years! I still have faith though, but I'd like to see things getting along a little better.

it's a tough one. I agree that shows like Fantasmic needed to come back sooner. But there is also the severe labor shortage being experienced across ALL industries, including construction. Our current economic problem goes much deeper than just drop in stock prices, inflation, and rise in interest rates. Sure there are a lot of families struggling right now. But there are also PLENTY of families with money to spend, more than Disney can handle because they just can't hire people fast enough. Not enough want to work these jobs anymore!