I was just watching Erin Burnett and she pretty much slammed Disney too. Followed by a story about how a Saudi prince went to
Disneyland Paris with 60 friends to celebrate his college graduation and dropped 20 MILLION for the trip. Then she said "I guess you have to be a prince to go to Disney to meet a princess."
No big shocker though, I see it covered every year when Disney raises prices....then NEVER mention Universal. I'm sure Disney is used to it and couldn't care less.
Part of it I would say is name recognition. Most people know about the Disney Parks. The Universal Parks however, (prior to this year's increase in advertising), I'd say a LOT of people outside of the Theme park community don't really know a lot about. There are still a lot of people who think the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" is a big stand alone park, and not just a single land within a park. So based off that, it makes sense to mention Disney and Not Universal.
That being said... I'm not sure it's as easy to villify Universal on the idea of the price increases currently. Universal is actively investing a LOT of money into the parks in ways that are very obvious, and adding a lot of new attractions, experiences, and other things which are hard to miss. Since they opened the WWoHP (and did a dramatic price increase from the $99 7-day tickets of a few years back), They have been almost non-stop in their construction and "plusing" of the parks. It shows, and it makes it a lot easier for someone to justify the price increases when you see a small annual increase in price and another new or recently improved attraction within the parks.
At Disney we've been getting the annual price increases for years, and this year was the first year we actually have something "new" to show for it. We've also been seeing a lot over the years where they've been cutting back on what we get for the money (some of those extra bits of magic. hours cut back. shows and entertainment cut backs. some maintenance cut backs. attempts to fight or avoid increasing benefits for the employees who make the magic, etc), And it becomes much harder for us as regular repeat guests to argue that the value for our vacation $ isn't declining dramatically year over year.
I personally don't have an issue with price increases if I can see how they are helping cover increased costs.... either the general costs of doing business (energy, insurance, etc), or labor related costs (employee raises, etc)... but Disney's increases over the years have been at such a rate, and so far beyond what we are seeing as cost of doing business increases that it's harder to truly justify those price increases.
But honestly, I don't see why Disney doesn't consider lowering their prices a little, or keeping them the same for a year. Smack Universal in the face after their annual price raise with a laugh, and market the idea of 'being economical for families of all sizes' with a locked-in-price move for one year.
As Metro mentioned... Perception would be a huge reason Disney can't do that right now. Universal has been adding so much to their parks on a regular basis over the past couple years, That if Disney decided to stand pat it would be WAY to easy for the attempt at "We didn't raise our prices but they did!" PR to be spun back around at them with a "Disney hasn't done anything to enhance your experience this year, so they didn't raise prices. Here at Universal we've added the new Transformers Attraction and completely revamped the area around the Simpsons. We've greatly increased the value for your Vacation dollar while only increasing prices slightly.".
I don't agree with him, but some aren't into rides "that lamely take you through a bunch of cheesy animatronics"(his words not mine) I know most here would disagree, but believe it or not there are a lot of people who agree with this. Had this argument over dinner with a large group and was surprised that a lot of them agreed with my dh
It has been quite of few years since I've hit WDW, but I have never waited in lines at six flags that are any longer that what I have seen described here during peak season and at least they give you a FP for all option.
) and I was talking about a 10-day non-expiry PH with no plus features. And guess what? You are right about the pass that you purchased. The gate price was $593 in 2009 and is now $796 for an increase of 34.29%. The pass I was talking about was $536 (I thought that the price I had before included tax, but it didn't) in 2009 and is now $770 for an increase of 43.45%. Disney "bundled" the WP&M with the PH for a lower combined price in 2012, so that's why your ticket went up less. Both passes went up about 11.25% on June 1st with most of the increase coming from a big bump in the non-expiry fee.
