News Round Up 2019

[rteetz]

News

D23 is 10 years old! Tonight was the big D23 anniversary party

https://d23.com/10-fan-tastic-memories-from-10-d23-team-members/

 

[JaxDad]

If you're a Disney regular, I can't imagine you own enough stock to make these price hikes feel good for your personal financial situation.

If you do own that much stock, can I come on your next vacation?

I’m just getting close enough to retirement that every penny matters...

 

[Q-man]

They will keep going until a recession hits and people stop.

Or if the numbers come back showing FP revenue gained is lower than F&B and merchandise revenue lost from people standing in line instead of buying.

 

[YesterDark]

and that is sad .... these trips (and the planning of them) to Disney should feel positive and not like something you feel you *have* to do or are grudgingly doing.

I still think there are ways to do it on a budget and the value of the amount of entertainment per $ spent can be high ... but may have to think about it differently- spend less (stay off site, etc.) or go less often. As much as I love Disney there are other vacation destinations out there

Walt Disney World trips are fast becoming status symbols rather than a normal family vacation. Our vacation is book in the god awful heat of August and I took advantage of free dining. It's over $5,000. To make it more "affordable" is to stay offsite, so I'm spending roughly $150 a night instead of $250 a night. The meal plan is a wash because on vacation we'd be spending the same amount of money on food every day anyway because we like to eat out. The park tickets are just nuts.

Family of 5 for tickets is $2000-$2500. You only start getting a deal on them on your 5th ticket. When you think about it, it's ridiculous. As someone who travels a lot for business and I stay at a lot of hotels. $130-$180 is the average cost throughout the country for a decent hotel. I don't mind spending the $250 a night at a moderate. I actually feel that it's a good deal considering the location!

Family of 5 Disney Dining Plan is Roughly around $270 a day which again, is a wash if you enjoy a nice dining experience. Could I do it cheaper? Could I buy groceries? Sure. But I don't want too. Even staying off site or on another vacation I would be eating out every night anyway. Or cooking at home but the "savings" is probably going to a few bottles of wine where I'm not really drinking alcohol at Disney. I had a two bedroom suite at OKW a few years ago with my sister and her family. Five adults and 4 kids. We did the whole grocery thing and outside breakfasts and a few dinners, we still spent a TON of cash on food.

Typical Disney Vacation per day:
Hotel: $150, $250, $350 a night (V/M/D)
Tickets: $100 a day (at 5 days: $80, at 6 days $70)
Food: $35-$76 (from a few QS meals to DDP)

That's your breakdown. Forget travel costs or any other shopping costs you do. At WDW you're spending nearly $300-$450 a person per day. That's from cheap to moderately expensive.

I think the first you'll see if there is a substantial dive in attendance (economy or any other reason) is the reduction in ticket prices.

Rant over, not sure why I typed all this, but I feel better.

 

[rteetz]

News

Michael Eisner enjoying his time at WDW

https://twitter.com/michael_eisner/status/1104797140235239424?s=21

 

[andyw715]

Walt Disney World trips are fast becoming status symbols rather than a normal family vacation. Our vacation is book in the god awful heat of August and I took advantage of free dining. It's over $5,000. To make it more "affordable" is to stay offsite, so I'm spending roughly $150 a night instead of $250 a night. The meal plan is a wash because on vacation we'd be spending the same amount of money on food every day anyway because we like to eat out. The park tickets are just nuts.

Family of 5 for tickets is $2000-$2500. You only start getting a deal on them on your 5th ticket. When you think about it, it's ridiculous. As someone who travels a lot for business and I stay at a lot of hotels. $130-$180 is the average cost throughout the country for a decent hotel. I don't mind spending the $250 a night at a moderate. I actually feel that it's a good deal considering the location!

Family of 5 Disney Dining Plan is Roughly around $270 a day which again, is a wash if you enjoy a nice dining experience. Could I do it cheaper? Could I buy groceries? Sure. But I don't want too. Even staying off site or on another vacation I would be eating out every night anyway. Or cooking at home but the "savings" is probably going to a few bottles of wine where I'm not really drinking alcohol at Disney. I had a two bedroom suite at OKW a few years ago with my sister and her family. Five adults and 4 kids. We did the whole grocery thing and outside breakfasts and a few dinners, we still spent a TON of cash on food.

Typical Disney Vacation per day:
Hotel: $150, $250, $350 a night (V/M/D)
Tickets: $100 a day (at 5 days: $80, at 6 days $70)
Food: $35-$76 (from a few QS meals to DDP)

That's your breakdown. Forget travel costs or any other shopping costs you do. At WDW you're spending nearly $300-$450 a person per day. That's from cheap to moderately expensive.

I think the first you'll see if there is a substantial dive in attendance (economy or any other reason) is the reduction in ticket prices.

Rant over, not sure why I typed all this, but I feel better.

I agree, it interesting to see the increase over the past four years. Our last trip in 2015 (2ad/2kids, Pop, 7 day park hopper, free dining - upgraded to Disney Dining, memory maker, breakfast at akershus, and all travel expenses/cash/) was $125/person/day (8 days total)

That same trip now would easily be 25-30+% more

 

[YesterDark]

I agree, it interesting to see the increase over the past four years. Our last trip in 2015 (2ad/2kids, Pop, 7 day park hopper, free dining - upgraded to Disney Dining, memory maker, breakfast at akershus, and all travel expenses/cash/) was $125/person/day (8 days total)

That same trip now would easily be 25-30+% more

I don't remember my costs from 2015. My sister (DVC member) took care of everything and we just paid her cash. Park tickets have gone up a bit, but not much. Even today a 7 day ticket package gets you into a park at $62 a day. It was probably somewhere in the mid 50s 4 years ago.

The real cost is food. Disney Dining Plan is up like $15 over the last 4 years or so. That's your 25% increase right there.

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I hope they know what they're doing.

If it becomes clear at some point that they've dialed this wrong, they'll tweak or reverse. The beauty of flexibility.

And if there's one thing that's abundantly clear after YEARS on these boards, it's that for ever customer who says "I've had it!" because of any one change, more come to take his/her place... or they stomp their feet and still go back.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Walt Disney World trips are fast becoming status symbols rather than a normal family vacation. Our vacation is book in the god awful heat of August and I took advantage of free dining. It's over $5,000. To make it more "affordable" is to stay offsite, so I'm spending roughly $150 a night instead of $250 a night. The meal plan is a wash because on vacation we'd be spending the same amount of money on food every day anyway because we like to eat out. The park tickets are just nuts.

Family of 5 for tickets is $2000-$2500. You only start getting a deal on them on your 5th ticket. When you think about it, it's ridiculous. As someone who travels a lot for business and I stay at a lot of hotels. $130-$180 is the average cost throughout the country for a decent hotel. I don't mind spending the $250 a night at a moderate. I actually feel that it's a good deal considering the location!

Family of 5 Disney Dining Plan is Roughly around $270 a day which again, is a wash if you enjoy a nice dining experience. Could I do it cheaper? Could I buy groceries? Sure. But I don't want too. Even staying off site or on another vacation I would be eating out every night anyway. Or cooking at home but the "savings" is probably going to a few bottles of wine where I'm not really drinking alcohol at Disney. I had a two bedroom suite at OKW a few years ago with my sister and her family. Five adults and 4 kids. We did the whole grocery thing and outside breakfasts and a few dinners, we still spent a TON of cash on food.

Typical Disney Vacation per day:
Hotel: $150, $250, $350 a night (V/M/D)
Tickets: $100 a day (at 5 days: $80, at 6 days $70)
Food: $35-$76 (from a few QS meals to DDP)

That's your breakdown. Forget travel costs or any other shopping costs you do. At WDW you're spending nearly $300-$450 a person per day. That's from cheap to moderately expensive.

I think the first you'll see if there is a substantial dive in attendance (economy or any other reason) is the reduction in ticket prices.

Rant over, not sure why I typed all this, but I feel better.

Definitely get where you are coming from. There are ways to save (stay off site, bring snacks, etc - we crunch numbers and usually works out well for one of us to get an AP and the TiW for the discounts and free parking and including memory maker, etc) - but at some point if you are doing all this cutting corners, are you still enjoying this as a vacation?

I do try to remember that “fan” is short for “fanatic” which means not all decisions made are always the most logical.

I can’t imagine any one thing stopping us from going but all these small things and rising prices changes how we go and how often

 

[SaharanTea]

I’m just getting close enough to retirement that every penny matters...

But those pennies are just going back to Disney and then some.

 

[sachilles]

Regarding the comments on Bus service from AKL, we made our first stay there a couple weeks ago at Jambo house.
I thought pick up times were fine and similar to other resorts. Allowing Kidani on first was a challenge sometimes, but understandable.
Where it seemed to fail, or be below standard was the drive time(excluding to and from AK). Traffic has increased in WDW in general, and the bus system pays the price for it. I found they took routes with less traffic but were longer in order to execute their route. Currently looking at taking the DVC plunge, and while we loved the AKL resort, the transport situation has eliminated it as one of our targets for home resort selection. I was amazed at the trip length too and from Disney springs and the MK.
The mention of the train from Rafiki's being repurposed to AKL, that could be done for minimal investment as you have the train already. However I don't know that it solves any real issue, as I think the bus service will still serve quicker to AK in that scenario.

 

[dlavender]

and that is sad .... these trips (and the planning of them) to Disney should feel positive and not like something you feel you *have* to do or are grudgingly doing.

I still think there are ways to do it on a budget and the value of the amount of entertainment per $ spent can be high ... but may have to think about it differently- spend less (stay off site, etc.) or go less often. As much as I love Disney there are other vacation destinations out there

I think about it as you do, think about spending differently.

We are taking a large family trip again this year. Last year we had 3 rooms at POR for 4 days. This year, we are staying offsite (at a 1/3 of the cost) and doing 3 days in the park. We did get talked into doing EMM, but with the money saved elsewhere we are still coming in below last year's cost. Since some really wanted to do EMM, I said the only way was to offset that cost somehow. Only meaningful way was to move off site. So we did it. One up-sell actually "saved" us money.

In our scenario, the price increases worked against them (but probably not since someone else probably is taking our place at the resort, and we are still going).. lol

 

[SaharanTea]

and that is sad .... these trips (and the planning of them) to Disney should feel positive and not like something you feel you *have* to do or are grudgingly doing.

I still think there are ways to do it on a budget and the value of the amount of entertainment per $ spent can be high ... but may have to think about it differently- spend less (stay off site, etc.) or go less often. As much as I love Disney there are other vacation destinations out there

My wife talked me into going this summer with the dining promotion and her fear of Star Wars crowds in the next couple of years. This talk of charging for fast passes has me very spooked. I was thinking that it would happen after out trip (if true), but more people seem to be indicating it could be much sooner.

It makes me very sad as it would likely dry up the last bit of value I see in going to Disney World. I just hope it's not as bad as people are speculating.

 

[PolyRob]

(but probably not since someone else probably is taking our place at the resort, and we are still going).. lol

It’s sad, but true!

 

[adam.adbe]

We’re going to Alaska this year. I feel real good about the value of those vacation dollars.

Eleven nights in Japan this June for my family of three, plus two nights layover in LA, including bullet train between Tokyo and Kyoto, Ghibli museum, and three days in Disney Tokyo, worked out cheaper than a six day WDW trip. Compared to, say, a cruise, WDW is competitive, but it's getting to be hard to justify as a headline family vacation, as there's too much of the world to see, and I probably get to keep some change at the end.

 

[adam.adbe]

The FP thing is rumored to be for all guests right? Cos I'm really struggling to see an advantage for WDW resorts, or Good Neighbors if there's only one FP to be had. Since WDW have just gone to the effort of adding new Good Neighbor resorts, the timing seems unlikely?

 

[rteetz]

The FP thing is rumored to be for all guests right? Cos I'm really struggling to see an advantage for WDW resorts, or Good Neighbors if there's only one FP to be had. Since WDW have just gone to the effort of adding new Good Neighbor resorts, the timing seems unlikely?

Details are not yet available but it seems some changes are coming.

 

[adam.adbe]

In our scenario, the price increases worked against them (but probably not since someone else probably is taking our place at the resort, and we are still going).. lol

I gotta think there's some visitor-reduction / average-revenue-per-guest-increase inflection point they're aiming for. Less guests means less cast members, and other savings, but probably only really makes sense if those guests also spend considerably more.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Eleven nights in Japan this June for my family of three, plus two nights layover in LA, including bullet train between Tokyo and Kyoto, Ghibli museum, and three days in Disney Tokyo, worked out cheaper than a six day WDW trip. Compared to, say, a cruise, WDW is competitive, but it's getting to be hard to justify as a headline family vacation, as there's too much of the world to see, and I probably get to keep some change at the end.

Lots of places are cheaper than WDW. But I'm one to compare like for like vacations. I don't compare theme park vacations with beach vacations or history vacations.

But for us the airfare getting to Japan would be the hurdle (as to some other places). Cost-wise other things may not be as much. I shudder to think of how much the plane ticket was when my husband when to Japan in 2014 for business AND he stopped over in Hawaii for a long enough layover to be cheaper and his company still had to increase the credit limit on the CC so he could book a ticket. *That said disclaimer haven't checked out Japan prices lately.

 

[rteetz]

News

Orange Bird Sipper is now reportedly 1 per guest

https://twitter.com/thedclblog/status/1105125748661207041?s=21