It is easy to forget that, alongside his vision, Walt Disney had some fairly simple principles at the heart of his creation of the Disney theme parks.
Disneyland itself had a central tenet. It must be a place where the average American family could learn and enjoy life together.
Disney, as super-mega-globo-corp, seems to have completely forgotten this.
Peak one-day tickets at Disney World in Florida now exceed $200 per person. With the year-on-year ticket price increases far over inflation, ticket prices have doubled in just over a decade.
Things get even worse when you get inside the parks.
Online finance masters NerdWallet crunched some numbers on this and found that a “cheap and cheerful” Disney World trip for a family of four can run them up $6,000.
Want a bit of luxury or some extras? At the high end, expect to part with $15,000.
You could get a decent second hand car for that!
The biggest issue appears to be add-ons. Fast Passes were once free, and as you know, in Disney the word “free” is verboten.
Lightning Lane now runs at $40 per person, per park, per day, and then premium rides like Tron have a $25 surcharge on top of even that. If you want to just swan onto rides like a rock star, you can pay another $450 per person, per park, per day and simply not queue. On top of a $200 ticket.
Yes. Seriously.
Parking at Disney World, free on my first ever visit and $5 per day in one of my memories, is now at least $35 per day.
The result of all this paid line skipping is that normo lines are now simply unmanageable, driving you to the premium options as a customer, making the whole thing worse.
There are also more people let into the parks, overcrowding them on busy days.
Food wise, the signature Mickey Mouse ice cream bar cost $2.79 in 2009. The price right now is $6.50.
As for the learning, commentators point out tat the science pavilion has been replaced with a Guardians of the Galaxy thrill ride, and the Nordic mythology themed area of the World Showcase has been replaced with Frozen. Don’t think. Just consume.
All of this led to a rather staggering claim being made online. It is cheaper for an average, Mid-Western American family of four to fly to Tokyo and visit a Disney Park there for a premium trip than it is for them to have a premium experience at Walt Disney World in Florida.
This felt like the kind of claim that we simply had to look into. Using a myriad of online booking sites, a bit of time, and a hastily assembled AI prompt, it turns out that it is largely true! Unbelievable!
The modelling we used was for 2 adults, 2 children ages 4–11 staying for 5 nights / roughly 6 days and travelling from a major U.S. city n the Mid-West.
This was for a Premium Disney experience in both destinations, staying on premise, in broadly like-for-like accommodation. The airfare was economy class.
The park tickets and hotel prices in Tokyo were so much more reasonable than those in the US, that they more than completely offset the cost of the airfare to Japan.
This is simply insane! Which begs two questions.
Firstly, does anyone in Disney Corporate care that they are now so far out of step with their founder’s vision?
Secondly, if a US Disney holiday is now such a luxury item, how come I can’t move on YouTube without finding videos of weaves being ripped off in fights in Liberty Square?
