Value of a WDW Vacation

[amylevan]

A 5 day MYW w/ PH was $272.00 in 2009 representing a 48% increase from 2009 to today, if you want to compare apples to apples.

Okay, so basically you are looking at a 66% increase over 9 years (2000-2009) and 48% over the next 6 years (2009-2015). What do I take from that?

1) The ticket prices have significantly outpaced inflation.
2) It is not a "recent" thing. You can say that you feel like you get less value for your money in the last 10 years, but at the same time, you would have said the same things 10 years ago. So, it's not a new complaint.

 

[rucifee]

Okay, so basically you are looking at a 66% increase over 9 years (2000-2009) and 48% over the next 6 years (2009-2015). What do I take from that?

1) The ticket prices have significantly outpaced inflation.
2) It is not a "recent" thing. You can say that you feel like you get less value for your money in the last 10 years, but at the same time, you would have said the same things 10 years ago. So, it's not a new complaint.

That is all.

 

[JohnDaleswife]

We also have to consider a very important thing though.

In the last 15 years, there have been two major events that rocked the country, and especially the tourism industry. 9/11 and the housing meltdown both devastated the industry.

Disney HAD to offer tons of amazing things to get people into the parks to continue making money in these down times. They elected to make less profit per person in order to keep things moving forward. So right now, they arent really taking away benefits, as much as they are no longer needing to offer them.

Things like bonuses on packages and annual passes are not and never were for caring about the guest. Those "bonuses" were there based on a calculated decision to increase the sale of those items. They are now finding that America is rallying hard, and they don't need to offer those addons to sell the packages/passes.

If anything bad happens again, you will see more value provided. Its really just business.

This is very true!

 

[Nohal]

Disney has added more things to do in that course of time. I love going to Disney and will continue to go every year as long as I'm able. With that being said maybe I won't stay for 8 nights and have to cut the nights down due to cost. Love the fact that I don't have to pay another $60 or so for a taxi from/to the airport like I did for Universal. Their food prices are high but we go when they offer free dining so that doesn't effect us. We also stay value. If we spent the time at the Jersey Shore for the amount of time at Disney it would cost a lot more and I would be getting less for my money. DS booked a 5 night stay at a value, with TS dining, park hoppers, and memory maker and it cost just as much as his 4 night stay at the shore.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Not even close. I'm not even going to bring up the buy 4 nights of room/tickets and get 3 free that we got in 2004. Those hurricane season discounts are long gone, and it is what it is.

Yes, prices have gone up everywhere, and every one of our 9 trips have cost more than the one before; BUT, until 2013, we always felt we got a good value for what we paid--we enjoyed each trip and felt we were able to do what we wanted to. However, we haven't been since 2013, and planning for 2016 is giving me such a headache that we likely won't go. Not so much the increase in price as the feeling that we are getting less and less for the price. Ticket prices are up, but the number of attractions is not. Things we liked have been closed with nothing opening in their place. We have 14 and 12-yo sons; absolutely no interest in BoG or anything related to Frozen. Those are the only new things I see when I look, other than the Mine Train, which we *might* ride once, just to say we did.

See, we like our trips the way WE like them...riding our favorite rides over and over again, using a combination of careful planning, fastpass(not fp+) and standby when it made sense. We liked riding BTMRR seven or eight times a day without waiting more than 20 minutes in line. One of our best days was the day our youngest turned 10; his wish was to ride ToT ten times that day, and he got to. The change to FP+ goes against what we liked to do; I don't want to wait 25 minutes to ride Figment (or any other attraction that ever had a line) just because it is now FP+ enabled. I don't want to be limited to one FP per day for our favorites. Would we get used to it and be ok with fewer rides on our favorites? Probably not, but maybe. We take 9-10 day trips, with at least two days at each park, sometimes three. We had plenty of times to do our favorites many, many times per trip and fit in the things we consider lesser attractions with little to no wait. Don't even get me started on the tiering of FP+. I understand the need for it, but that is basically because there aren't enough things to do at those parks.

Another decrease for us is the food. Yes, my kids are both Disney adults and we would have to pay more;but I could handle higher prices if they hadn't changed all the menus, taken away favorites without adding anything in the place of it, and made all the menus so similar and bland. The trip before last is when we stopped doing TS meals and eating mostly counter service and having breakfast and occasionally sandwiches in our room.

We started to notice these things and other minor things that all made it worse on our June 2013 trip. We adjusted by spending more days out of the main parks and in the water parks. It did not cause us to spend more time/money shopping and eating, it sent us to the resort pool. We drive 14-15 hours to get to Disney, and that is too far for a short 4/5 dY trip to make sense for us.

The more I read about rooms not being cleaned to par, CMs with attitude issues, long waits for minimal attractions, assigned seating at Fantasmic (yes, that is only a test right now), the possibility of ticket prices being based on what day it is, hotel rates through the roof, MDE consistently having problems, scheduling FP 60 days out and some things so hard to get then, plus things I am not thinking of right now--thanks, but no thanks. We will likely cherish our memories from the 9 trips we were fortunate to take and take our vacations elsewhere.

 

[flateacher]

You definitely do get more for your money, especially if you're a premier pass holder. Preferred parking, 20+% off on most things, 15% discount to bring your friends, fast pass almost everything after 4, what's not to love! We decided a few weeks ago not to renew Disney, I feel like I'm flushing money whenever I go. We'll still go until our passes expire, Disney has simply stopped caring about us. Why would they when they have tour groups and 1%'ers? I saw that they are taking away free parking from the DisneyLand pass holders, how crummy is that?

Wow! Taking away the free parking... I would be mad!

Edited to add: I agree about the fp+ system taking value away - I want to vacation and ride the way I want to ride...when I want to ride. The over scheduling was not fun - having to pick when and where I eat 180 days out? Picking time and day I want to ride something? not fun...

 

[rucifee]

Wow! Taking away the free parking... I would be mad!

It's now a "premium" annual pass feature at Disneyland, my guess is that you can expect that in Orlando soon as well.

"Guests will also no longer be able to purchase an annual parking add-on pass. However, the parking add-on will be grandfathered in for guests who already have them and will continue to be included for premium passes." - ABC 7 Los Angeles

 

[hcothren]

Our first trip was in 2010 and the food prices were ridiculous and quality not that good...we are going in September and I am planning for the food to be more expensive and less quantity and quality compared to 2010.

 

[Marionnette]

I think perception is getting the better of most. Has Disney gotten more expensive? totally. Has EVERYTHING gotten more expensive since 10/15/20 years ago? Also yes. I think we just feel it when its time to make large vacation purchases.

Disney is still an incredible value when it comes to vacation. Now this is obviously less true if you stay in concierge and only do table service meals on property, but thats a different story.

I still think that your money goes further at Disney than it will compared to other options, relative to inflation and such.

"Value" is a product of perception. I was always willing to pay the premium for a Disney vacation because I considered it to be a good value. I no longer consider it to be a good value for all of the reasons that @bigbabyblues outlined.

real data analytics

has nothing to do with how people perceive something to be. If I feel that I'm paying more and getting less for my money, then IMO the "value" has diminished.

 

[SirDuff]

So maybe I am not arguing for it getting cheaper. I am just arguing that WDW is still a better value for my money relative to the other options.

I think that that is the point (bolding/italics mine). The value for *your* dollar isn't the same as the value for *my* dollar or the value for someone else's dollar.

 

[Colleen27]

Hmmm, hard to answer.

I don't feel like it is as good a value as when we started going with our kids, but our "Disney era" coincided with the post-9/11 series of terrorism/recession fueled discounts so we got spoiled. I do think the quality has gone down (less entertainment and "extras", lower food quality and smaller portions, crappy generic merchandise), though I think that's starting to (slowly) change in some ways, but the main difference is that those discounts have gone away so we're paying premium prices for what was never quite a premium experience in my view.

When I compare what we do now to what we did on our first trip, in the 90s, though... Back then we couldn't afford to stay on site; the value resorts hadn't yet opened and the on-site mark-up was huge. We had fewer days in the parks, and almost no TS meals. I remember a lot of long lines and no Fastpass at all. And we paid a small fortune to fly down. Compared to that experience even today's prices feel like a value - I seldom pay more than $200pp for our flights, we know the "tricks" to eating well at reasonable prices and enjoy the variety of largely overlooked dining options (like sharing multiple dishes in the lounges instead of getting traditional table service, or grazing on counter service around the World Showcase), and we get so much more enjoyment for our money than we did back then. Some of that is knowledge, some is changes at WDW, and some is a combination of the two, but all in all I do feel like our current trips are a better value than that first one was.

 

[Kalliope]

I received 2 different surveys after returning home from our most recent WDW vacation. I agreed to participate while at WDW, so I knew they were coming. However, what struck me in both surveys was the focus on value ~ the value of staying at a WDW resort hotel and the value of visiting the parks and other offerings (DtD, water parks, mini golf, etc). Did I feel it was a good value? Did I feel like I got my money's worth, etc.

The lack of value people often talk about here seems to be getting through to someone.

 

[kathy884]

The theme park tickets for me are way more expensive now. We only do maybe one or two days at Disney a trip, so now that's almost $100 a pop per person. We used to buy the multiple day tickets that with no premium you could use over multiple years or even decades making per park visits very economical.

Air on the other hand is a bargain now. I can usually get a round trip air for about $300 pp. Plus with my Southwest credit card, it seem I have points to cover tickets almost all the time, meaning no out of pocket cost. // Air was a lot more expensive when inflation is taken into account years back for us anyway.

Lodging is less expensive for me now too, just because I know about and am comfortable doing offsite condo rentals. I often high season get a two or three bedroom condo at a beautiful place in the $800 - $1000 range. I use tug2.net and redweek.com for these usually. Some people even get better deals with sky auction, but I haven't seen anything for my weeks and where I've wanted to stay the few times that I checked. The internet just makes all of this so easy to find and book. Way back then, I'd sometimes use the entertainment book and get a Marriott condo week for $1200 a week -- way more than $1200 in today's dollars, but a good deal for me then compared to other things.

To make Orlando a low budget trip, what I've done to mitigate the high theme park prices is just do three theme park day on a week long trip, typically one of the Disney parks on day, and the other two days at SeaWorld, buying online in advance for a discount and using the second day for $15. Obviously this for many people who want to see and do all the theme parks would be a poor choice as the whole reason for going is Orlando may be to experience every one of the world class theme parks. Our purpose as we've been before is just to have a little fun on a budget. And this approach keeps out theme parks visits per person under the $200 pp price point for the week. But we are usually down there with extended family and enjoy just hanging at the resort -- tennis, swimming, doing other little inexpensive offsite things in Orlando, etc. on non-theme park days. Many, people I'm sure wouldn't find that appealing and want a major world class theme park experience every day when then are staying in the theme park capital of the world and I totally get that too.

Food seems pricier to me than it used to be, even considering inflation. But I think what I really miss are the pre dining plan days, when we could eat anywhere high season with just a 15 minute wait (even Christmas). Now I'm on the phone for any table service reservations six months in advance. That's just insane, so I've switched to great offsite dining experiences instead (e.g. Café Tu Tu Tango -- great small plates restaurant with artist onsite instead of Ohana or Boma, for example). // Higher end experience, better quality, and a better value.

 

[Andrew015]

See, I took the OP's question to be Disney trip to Disney trip. Did you get more value AT DISNEY years ago than you get AT DISNEY now?

You interpreted my question correctly. This is strictly comparing "Disney of today" vs. "Disney of the past" - specifically that of the late 90's - early 2000's, in terms of adjusted dollars to factor in inflation.

Did you get more for your dollar then or now?

 

[ShirikiUtundu]

I think you got more for your money back then. There were more & deeper discounts to be had then than there are now. You could walk into almost any restaurant without needing reservations and remember the old Food N Fun Card? The dining plan options are outrageous now.

 

[Accident]

i'm spending about the same but I've learned the discounts much better, staying in lower end rooms but staying longer.. Budget wise, not really much has changed but how I go has.