With all the price increases is it worth even going?

[Jrb1979]

All this talk of Europe, when we were told to put it back on track! This thread needs to be “cleaned up” again!

How can you have a discussion of if it's worth it if you can't compare it to other places?

 

[DCLMP]

All this talk of Europe, when we were told to put it back on track! This thread needs to be “cleaned up” again!

The topic of the thread is whether Disney is worth it. Since many people have concluded that it's not worth the money its only natural to discuss alternatives.

 

[DCLMP]

Agreed! Rhine river cruise with airfare cheaper than 10 days at WDW

You obviously did not book your cruise through Adventures by Disney. LOL...or did you? I'd love to do a river cruise, but haven't found a good price on one.

 

[notatallmagic]

In the past, we did 2-4 Disney trips a year with our Annual Passes, and then a few days at Hocking Hills (an Ohio State Park - gorgeous!) and our Cedar Point Annual Passes - we live close enough that we can go several times a week, walk on the beach, and have a "free" meal with our $150 all season dining.

We have multiple airports we can use, so we've also found super cheap airfare to Denver, found a lovely little hotel, and explored Rocky Mountain National Park; all for less than $1000 for three days for the whole family. We plan to do more of that type of getaway now that we're taking a break from Disney. There are great travel bargains out there; different than Disney certainly, but Disney really can't be called a "bargain" anymore in any sense of the word.

 

[gmi3804]

How can you have a discussion of if it's worth it if you can't compare it to other places?

…or if those discussions get “cleaned up”?

 

[Moliphino]

It's even better if you can start there. I know several folks who've driven from here to Toronto (about 4.5 hours from here) to save real money on an international long-haul round trip on AC. I've been tempted to do it a time or two myself.

I'm lucky to be somewhat close to Boston, so it's easy enough to get international flights without needing to connect inside the US. I'm excited that Aer Lingus is coming back to Hartford in the spring, as that's even more convenient.
My most recent trips have been around $775-875 per person (Spain, France, Belgium - Belgium would've been about $100 less if my mom had confirmed she could go just a few days earlier). About 5 years ago we got round trip direct flights to Paris for about $400, that was awesome.

 

[slbgnb]

My most recent trips have been around $775-875 per person (Spain, France, Belgium - Belgium would've been about $100 less if my mom had confirmed she could go just a few days earlier). About 5 years ago we got round trip direct flights to Paris for about $400, that was awesome.

A. - $400 round trip to Paris would be amazing! I would book that in a heartbeat.
B. - is that $775-875 a person including $400 airfare? If so, that's impressive. I'm not sure how many days you are talking, but between flight, lodging, food, alcohol, tours, admission tix for sites and maybe a wee bit of shopping - I can't seem to get anywhere near that for any vacations for my family. I'm not going to deny - I'm not a budget traveler. I'm not a deluxe one, but I like to enjoy myself...so somewhere in between. I don't feel like my family of 5 (kids are 20, 18 and 15) can go anywhere for $5K.

 

[tony67]

I see several folks saying Disney was never a cheap vacation and I have to totally disagree.

I was actually a very good value right up until the second or third year of the Disney Dinning Plan.

Hotels were reasonable - especially if you had an AP - 40-50% off was not uncommon.
The cost of an AP was reasonable - not much more than a 5 day ticket.
You could buy a 10 day never expiring ticket.

The quality of the food was very high for a theme park IMO.
Epcot restaurants were run by actual Chefs and had daily specials based on what they could source for ingredients.
The F&W festival was reasonable priced and had quality presenters

At some point they started standardizing the ingredients and every restaurant was just variations of the same ingredients
Quality went down and prices went up - to maximize value of the DDP

IMO this is where it started and Disney has continued to provide less for more.

I went from going 2-3 times a year to once and a while every few years for maybe 2 days - now I frequent Universal.
Costs at Universal are starting to go up no doubt - but nowhere near the rate of Disney.
I also find the staff far more friendly at Universal

For me its less about the cost - but the quality of what you get for the price and for me Disney is not providing anything I feel is worth paying for.

 

[Moliphino]

A. - $400 round trip to Paris would be amazing! I would book that in a heartbeat.
B. - is that $775-875 a person including $400 airfare? If so, that's impressive. I'm not sure how many days you are talking, but between flight, lodging, food, alcohol, tours, admission tix for sites and maybe a wee bit of shopping - I can't seem to get anywhere near that for any vacations for my family. I'm not going to deny - I'm not a budget traveler. I'm not a deluxe one, but I like to enjoy myself...so somewhere in between. I don't feel like my family of 5 (kids are 20, 18 and 15) can go anywhere for $5K.

The $775-875 was just the flights for those trips. Aside from the flights, nothing else was super expensive. I haven't seen the $400 flights post-covid.
A week in Belgium was about $6100 for 3 people including the flights, two weeks in France about $7700 for two people including flights, two weeks in Spain $6700 for two people including flights.

 

[drenalin'junkie]

Myrtle Beach is skeevier than anywhere I went in Europe. I had to stay regularly for work for years. It reminded me of a low rent Daytona,which is also skeevy.
Round trip to London or Paris starts@ $700 for my desired dates.
Lodging @ $100 a night
Meals would be in the $150 per day range
Less than $4k for a week in Europe for the wife's birthday/ Valentine's
Disney would be $5k or better.
US travel to museums, national parks, gardens and historical sites would be half of those.
I can easily see even fervent die hards cutting back or completely changing travel plans over time.
We're fortunate enough to live nearby enough to drive to Orlando so it saves us airfare but without an AP, prices dictate we'll visit the other parks more often than Disney.

 

[tinkerhon]

I see several folks saying Disney was never a cheap vacation and I have to totally disagree.

I was actually a very good value right up until the second or third year of the Disney Dinning Plan.

Hotels were reasonable - especially if you had an AP - 40-50% off was not uncommon.
The cost of an AP was reasonable - not much more than a 5 day ticket.
You could buy a 10 day never expiring ticket.

The quality of the food was very high for a theme park IMO.
Epcot restaurants were run by actual Chefs and had daily specials based on what they could source for ingredients.
The F&W festival was reasonable priced and had quality presenters

At some point they started standardizing the ingredients and every restaurant was just variations of the same ingredients
Quality went down and prices went up - to maximize value of the DDP

IMO this is where it started and Disney has continued to provide less for more.

I went from going 2-3 times a year to once and a while every few years for maybe 2 days - now I frequent Universal.
Costs at Universal are starting to go up no doubt - but nowhere near the rate of Disney.
I also find the staff far more friendly at Universal

For me its less about the cost - but the quality of what you get for the price and for me Disney is not providing anything I feel is worth paying for.

Yep--- totally agree with this--- when the APs were less expensive, we used AP discounts, and could get value resorts for around $89-99 per nite------ (and this was for the week of Thanksgiving--- the only day blocked out from the discount was Thanksgiving day, (and possibly the Friday as well, but the entire next week was discounted) - and the airfare was no where near as expensive as it is now--- Food costs were not even close--- especially CS--- so much less expensive...

 

[snikki]

The travel agent won't be getting up at 6:45am to pre-pay for Genie+ then hitting refresh at 7:00 to try to get a decent time to ride. And then checking throughout the day for the next ride/experience availability. Or trying for the ILL you really want for ROTR, etc. Or arranging for me to nap somehow because I didn't get to do my usual park style, which was hit it early but do enough to leave the park in the after noon for some relaxation before coming back after dark for dinner.

Those were my biggest beefs. That my vacay was requiring early morning and continual management to provide the type of day I wanted to have, while keeping at the park all day in order to do those things. (though it does gall me that I have to PAY to do these things on top of what you pay just to be there.)

We actually had a travel agent/Disney consultant for this last trip, as her services came as a gift with the condo we we had. She did snag some dining reservations for us, but other than that, there wasn't anything she did that I couldn't have easily done, and there were several things she could not do (make the daily reservations, G+, etc.)

There's a service now that will do this for you. I don't know how it works (I've read that you have to give them your MDE info) but I see it on my IG. Some vloggers I follow on IG use them (I'm sure as a free service to promote them).

 

[RoseGold]

Round trip to London or Paris starts@ $700 for my desired dates.
Lodging @ $100 a night

Wherever you are staying in London or Paris for $100/night I am not staying, LOL. Heck, I'm not staying in Orlando for $100/night. I did a $150 Orlando airport hotel once, and it was fine.

 

[Moliphino]

Yep--- totally agree with this--- when the APs were less expensive, we used AP discounts, and could get value resorts for around $89-99 per nite------ (and this was for the week of Thanksgiving--- the only day blocked out from the discount was Thanksgiving day, (and possibly the Friday as well, but the entire next week was discounted) - and the airfare was no where near as expensive as it is now--- Food costs were not even close--- especially CS--- so much less expensive...

We had trips with flights under $100 round trip and Pop at like $75/night. I remember when drinks at the Dawa bar were $5-6, now they're $15.

 

[MillauFr]

The topic of the thread is whether Disney is worth it. Since many people have concluded that it's not worth the money its only natural to discuss alternatives.

Unfortunately based on the Disneyland annual pass debacle this week it seems that all this talk about people dropping Disney is just that talk.

 

[Dulcee]

Maybe it's just me but I'm amazed at all this Europe talk for vacations. Maybe my family is unique but we don't have much interest in Europe or cruises for vacation. Do any of you do low end vacations? Meaning places like Myrtle Beach or other amusement Parks?

We do lots of different vacations. Last summer we did a few days on the Jersey shore (near my old hometown) followed by a few days in DC. We often do beach trips, renting a whole home, to the outer banks or Savannah/Tybee area. Split amongs friends and cooking multiple meals at the rental house keeps those trips pretty low cost.

Next spring break we're attempting to swing the US Virgin Islands but a week there (plus airfare) will easily outprice our typical Disney spring break trip.

We don't, however, do other theme park vacations. My husband and I did Carowinds (local to us) once as a couple and never went back, or had any desire to. When our three kids are older we'd like to do Universal but while our kids are little (2 are under the age of 5) other theme parks have never held as much value as WDW... so to stay on topic, for us WDW is still "worth it" in the theme park category.

 

[DCLMP]

A. - $400 round trip to Paris would be amazing! I would book that in a heartbeat.
B. - is that $775-875 a person including $400 airfare? If so, that's impressive. I'm not sure how many days you are talking, but between flight, lodging, food, alcohol, tours, admission tix for sites and maybe a wee bit of shopping - I can't seem to get anywhere near that for any vacations for my family. I'm not going to deny - I'm not a budget traveler. I'm not a deluxe one, but I like to enjoy myself...so somewhere in between. I don't feel like my family of 5 (kids are 20, 18 and 15) can go anywhere for $5K.

Airlines run sales to Europe. You can sign up for their rewards programs and they’ll send you emails. There’s also tools like sky scanner that will alert you. AirBNB is great for families. Hotels in Europe rarely accommodate 4 guests much less five. We rented an Airbnb in Athens that slept 8 for under 200 a night. Booking.com will also list a lot of apts and homes.
Have you considered a cruise? It’s the cheapest way to see Europe and kids love it.

 

[RoseGold]

Unfortunately based on the Disneyland annual pass debacle this week it seems that all this talk about people dropping Disney is just that talk.

Meh, the DL keys are a lot of locals. It's a totally different discussion.

 

[Moliphino]

Wherever you are staying in London or Paris for $100/night I am not staying, LOL. Heck, I'm not staying in Orlando for $100/night. I did a $150 Orlando airport hotel once, and it was fine.

Can be under 100 euro depending on time of year, but I've stayed at a couple different hotels in this chain in Paris and they're very nice.

Astotel boutique hotels

 

[AnnabelleTheTalkingTree]

"Worth it" is so subjective. There are lots of things in life that are too expensive to feel worth it to me - designer handbags, for me, are not "worth it," though it seems to me that for a lot of women I know, they ARE worth it. It depends so much on what you value and what excites you, how you like to spend your money. And that is different for everyone. For me, Disney is still "worth it" because, while obviously expensive, we have found ways to make the Disney vacation we want fit into a budget that feels okay for us (i.e., I don't think staying at a value resort would be "worth it" to me for various reasons, but renting DVC to stay deluxe, IS worth it to me).

In terms of Disney, or anything really, it comes down to a cost vs. enjoyment ratio, and that's a personal calculation you have to make. We have always loved Disney, way back before we had kids. But it feels even MORE worth it to me now that we do have little ones in tow. For us, there is relaxation that comes when the kids are consistently engaged and entertained, and there is value in seeing the magic through their eyes. That's only to a point, though, obviously, because there's a breaking point for everyone. Right now we still have a way to make the vacation we want fit into the budget we have. If prices go to far beyond that, I would take my family elsewhere. I'm not willing to spend more than we're comfortable with for a vacation that doesn't fit our needs. Meaning, right now we can fit a DVC rental for 8 or 9 nights into our budget, plus flights and park hoppers. But if that becomes to expensive and our only option is to fly in for a 4 nighter at a value resort, I would be heavily considering alternatives.