Been there twice - once in the 70’s when I was in junior high and the other in the mid 90’s when my son was somewhere around 5-7. I was not impressed either time. The rides are tame and oriented for little kids. I get a better experience at the local summer traveling carnival in a parking lot. And the first time, I wasted a D ticket (E being the “best” rides like Space Mountain) on “Its a Small World Afterall”. They should be paying people to go on that stupid, worthless boat ride.
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3 people, $1000 per day for park hopper tickets with Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, no guarantees of getting on rides. Food, beverage and accomodations not included.
It’s cheaper to fly to France and take your kids to Disneyland Paris.
It’s about 400-600 per person plane ticket to paris (from Philadelphia the nearest big airport to me) and $147 for a two day two park ticket to disneyland Paris ($75 per ticket) Florida the plane ticket is only 50-100 and thr park tickets for a 4 day pass to 4 parks is 398 per person ($99 a day). Honestly unless the resorts in Paris are cheaper I think they balance out about the same. Now, with all the other stuff you could do while in Europe that’s another matter. Florida’s got a lot of stuff to do around orlando/Tampa too though.
Yeah but you get to see France and don’t have to deal with that shithole Florida and it’s shitty drivers and people.
If you stay on disney property you don’t have to deal with that stuff. Catch the disney shuttle from the airport, take public disney transportation the whole time you’re there. Course you spend more for the resort
This totally glosses over the fact that they’re apparently allergic to overpasses in Florida, and the second you have to leave the Disney property for anything, even by Disney shuttle, it will take you probably an hour to get more than 5km from the entrance.
Yeah I am aware the traffic sucks. My dad lives in Polk city which should only be a half hour but often winds up being 2, and is pretty painful to commute if we stay with him and go to the parks each day.
They shut down the Disney Express from the airport during the pandemic and never restarted it.
Whaaat? But they needed that. I haven’t been back since 2018/19 or something like that
I can’t agree more. Florida is awful.
And your kids will forever cherish the memories of saying Bonjour to Mickey Souris and Donald Canard.
Oh most def. Someone I work with just explained that to me after she did it.
What the fuck?! And people go there for a week? You can buy a good used car for the money spent there. The fuck is wrong with people.
I was actually interested in the star wars hotel when it opened, but researching lightning lanes killed it for me. It was already haves and have nots before the changes, and somehow they made it worse.
I’m not into Star Wars, but I had to admit that hotel experience looked pretty interesting and unique. Then I saw the price…whoa. I’ve always sort of wanted to stay in the Contemporary, but it’s so expensive…I can stay another night or three in other resorts for one night in the Contempo.
I do believe Fastpasses and Lightning Lanes have really damaged Disney. Walt’s vision was that you’d randomly walk around and have a good time. It has turned into a checklist with a schedule. And you have to plan every day months in advance if you want to eat at a restaurant in the park or hit one of the popular rides. I don’t believe this is what Walt intended.
The sheer anxiety of planning all this just to still stand in fucking line has made me dread even considering Walt Disney.
I’m legitimately more likely to fly over to Osaka and visit Universal Studios Japan. It would be more fun and cheaper.
If it was priced more reasonably, and they got some people with experience in running LARPs to figure out the storyline, it could have been good.
I would love to go just for the star wars experience
Amen , truth
I’m a parent We’re not going to Disney it’s a fuckin rip off. If you feel you’re a bad parent because you didn’t bring your kid to Disney seek therapy.
To a little kid, it’s a whole different perspective. Peer pressure is an ugly thing. Your kid can feel ashamed or insecure just because their friends goes to Disney and they’re not.
Make sure they understand that too, not just yourself.
It’s a good opportunity to teach your kid about peer pressure then, and how they don’t need to do everything their friends do.
100% agree. It’s marketed way too well to kids.
My cousin’s didn’t understand what Disney had that was different from other parks nearby, but “knew” it was some amazing perfect fun place filled with adventure. You get there and stand in line most of the time watching people with more money pass you by riding the rides.
And parents can do this by teaching their kids about their actual money. Show them. Kids are smarter than people give credit and people shouldn’t discredit this.
Or they can be assholes like my parents and endlessly gloat about their so-called success and prowess with money and tell me how I need to be a success and be smarter about money … BUT they also were secretive about their finances and never taught me anything of value. Those were a fun first couple years of adulthood.
Having been a little kid once, I literally never felt any urge or need to go to Disney land/world and was never once bullied or pressured to go.
This is a made-up issue.
How old are you? Different times, different perspective, different issues.
Each generations have its own issues.
Back in the 90s, if one kid doesn’t have a Gameboy he’s happy to watch other kids play. But now, if one kid doesn’t have the stupid Stanley Cup, they’re targeted for bullying.
You can’t assume your own experience and emotions is the same as everyone else.
A Gameboy and Stanley cup are both items other kids would see you with. Going on a vacation away from all your peers seems like a weird way for kids to peer pressure each other.
And when I was a kid in the 90s they’d beat you up and steal your Gameboy, and today I watch my kids and their friends and their school share and care about others and won’t put up with bullying.
Interesting. Almost like it’s different everywhere all the time.
Fucking hate those Stanleys. How many water bottles do people need? I have one. I have had one for like 8 years. It’s bloody well fine.
Good training for life. Might as well learn at an early age that you cant afford to have everything all the time that everyone you know has.
It will never end. There aren’t infinite hours in a day. Every parent is going to have to make the call about how many extras they can afford and have time for. So yeah your kid didn’t go to Disney, but they got to go ice skating every single weekend.
That’s the most pussy rich kid take I’ve ever heard. If my kid was peer pressured over a 10k Disney trip I’d be living in the wrong town probably or I’d make my kid do chores and earn a weekly allowance so they better understand how hard it is to earn money. I’ve raised my kid from an early age to not give a shit about what anyone else has that we don’t and to find fun in the beauty of nature and what we can afford.
If your kid is being bullied over Disney they have pathetic friends.
Usually your friends isn’t the one who’s done the bullying.
Bullies exist in every generations and ages, and they don’t need a whole lot of reasons to bully someone else.
Ffs, I went to Taiwan earlier this year for a little over a week for like $2k total, plane tickets from the US and everything (granted we stayed in some pretty sketchy hotels but it isn’t like the fancy ones were that bank-breaking). I don’t understand why people are putting their livelihoods at risk for a corporate hellscape instead of hopping to another country for a bit and seeing all the world has for us
- Traveling with children to foreign countries is a lot harder than with adults
- Entirely honestly some people have little to no desire to leave the US. I don’t think you could pay me to spend a week in east Asia, that’s just not my idea of fun.
- Disney is huge. There’s days worth of things to do, multiple parks and experiences directly marketed for kids (be that good or bad). You don’t even have to stay in the Disney ecosystem with places like legoland, universal studios and a bunch of other theme parks.
- Either way you’re potentially bringing a kid through the airport to an unfamiliar area with limited supplies in suitcases. My family brought me to Korea when I was very young and a terrible kid to deal with and they’ve never said it was worse than bringing me anywhere else at that age. Given the small sample size I have though I’d genuinely like to know which parts in your experience are harder
- There is more in the world than east Asia and even just sticking to the US there are huge swaths of national forest and many cities with unique cultures that could be just as fun for a kid and even cheaper to visit than international travel
- Taiwan was huge too with lots of cool things, arcades, food everywhere, the crayon factory, a city full of pampered cats. If you need a string of theme parks to come up with a days worth of things to keep a kid entertained than something is wrong
And I don’t mean to be entirely against theme parks. I’ve been to Universal, Legoland, Disney world, Cedar Point, among others, as a kid and with kids. My complaint is simply why would you choose to go into debt for somewhere like that when you can have just as vibrant an experience with your kids for cheaper doing something else? It’s depressing
I try to take the whole family to South East Asia once a year. It’s a lot of work and money but totally worth it. It’s a freaken experience and my kids get to spend time with that side of the family.
A little memory that sticks out. One night me and my wife were sitting on a porch in Northern Thailand, almost by the border. Rural doesn’t come close to describing it. I noticed that the ambient noise of the insects were so loud that it was about the volume of a bar and me and her were talking loud over it.
Where do you get that in the developed world? I am normally a bit amused if I hear a single cricket at night or see a single firefly. And here I am almost shouting over the sound of insects and watching as the grass moves from all the animals hunting each other.
Give me that again over the sanitized fun of Disney. Disney has an animatronic elephant? That’s nice. I and my wife and kids got to play in the water with real ones, and the price was under 5 USD.
I don’t know how many people are in your family so I can’t evaluate the $2k.
The plane ticket was the most expensive part at about $1.2k iirc. If you planned ahead better than me it’s not hard to find $1k or even a little cheaper, granted I live in a city with an international airport so ticket prices also tend to be a bit cheaper here. A family of 4 could do $100/night hotels and get places much nicer than what we did and have enough room. Food costs are so low in Taiwan we stopped even tracking it. Maybe if you only want to eat at fancy sit down places in the center of Taipei or something food would start to add up. I’d high end estimate $10/meal/person but realistically it’s like half that
So say a family of 4 over a week, that’s $4.8k plane tickets, $700 housing, $840 food, total for all big purchase estimates here is $6,340. Cheaper tickets readily knocks $800 off without putting much effort into hunting for deals, another $400 off for food if you aren’t being fancy with it every single meal (besides the excitement of street food is probably more fun for a kid than telling them to sit still for an hour while there is so much going on outside)
Because of the disproportionate cost of the plane tickets, if you were to stay longer than a week the cost compared to Disney gets increasingly better. There are also many other international locations that can be cheaper, and thousands of places just in the US filled with unique experiences and culture that can be engaging for kids at an even better price tag
If you can afford Disney go for it. But going into debt over it is like taking a payday loan to hit up a Cheesecake Factory when there’s a block full of food trucks with a dozen cuisines just down the road for cheaper
Completely agree! Taiwan is a gem. One block of Jiufen (the village that inspired Spirited Away) is more “thematic” and memorable than all of the countries in Epcot combined.
Jiufen was stunning I could spend my life there
Just to add a perspective, I wouldn’t take my kids there if it was free.
But other kids do, and you don’t want to show how poor you are, so you have to go. So take a loan, smile and go. /J
And fucking of course the kids can’t go during summer vacation because that would cost too much so it has to be during the school year. And heaven fucking forbid they bring a bit of school work with them because “we are on vacation”. Can’t go to the amusement park forty minutes away because “it’s not the same”. Can’t go to the beach ten minutes away because “the beaches in Florida are different”. Can’t just do a three day weekend when the kids are off school and rent a cabin because"we have to go with our friends".
Entire fucking life is cleaning up or paying for vacations. Vacations that are money pits and boring as shit.
What the hell is the point? It is just having the kids watching tablets in hotels, or melting in lines, or all the other tiny shit that sucks about flying.
I am fine. I don’t need to spend thousands of dollars escaping from my life.
Thank you. I have never been to Disney world/land. Not as a kid, and won’t as an adult. I’d rather stay home and play video games with my husband than go stand in a line across the country.
I mean, don’t have kids, but even if I did I’d take them hiking for free at the state forest and go catch grasshoppers or something.
I have a friend who goes with their husband and kiddo who spends the entire year seeking out the cheapest ways to go and it literally takes months but saves them $8k off normal pricing. That still leaves them needing $7k for the week vacation. I couldn’t even imagine caring that much about something. I wouldn’t mind going but the absolute most I’d spend if $2k for the entire stay which will never happen since the flights alone would be that for me and my family.
That’s US dollars right? How on Earth does it cost 7 grand to go. It definitely didn’t cost that much in 2018 when I last went.
Not crazy for a vacation with flights and a hotel involved for 4 people for 7 days.
- $2k on flight’s
- $2k for hotel (and a few cabs)
- $1k for food
That’s $5k before any tickets to the park.
$1k for food I don’t know what you eat to get a number like that. A full family for a week at Disney? That should be at least $25k, maybe $30k if you want souvenir cups
Typically, on vacation you have to eat out more. That’s about $15 per meal per person per day, excluding breakfast.
I’d assume that includes flights, lodging and meals. If they have two or three kids I could see it costing that much all in, especially if you go to the park multiple days.
Yea, I plan to go again in the next year and in CAD it’s about $2500 for flights for four, $2750 for five days of tickets, $1200 offsite accommodations, plus food and local transportation.
There are other ways to go, to stay on park or get package deals but $7000 seems about right for a family of four.
Maybe they have 14 kids. Tickets are around $200 per person per day now though IIRC.
They only need 2 kids for just the tickets alone to be $800/day. That’s not including hotel, transportation, food, etc. It’s easy to see how 7 days could cost them $7000.
There are so many better ways to spend 7k on your kids then Disney. Hell, just go to a closer theme park if you really want to go on rides.
No you don’t understand all your “friends” are going so we have to go. Also it isn’t the same because it is Disneyworld. And unless it’s literally considered the biggest amusement park on earth everything else is shit.
No I am totally not bitter about being dragged into it two years ago and how expensive it was.
Ffs a great family meal will set you back about a $100 dollars at a restaurant. You could have one amazing meal with your family at a reasonable distance, per week and still come out ahead. Every try Mongolian food? Guess what you can. I have never had it. I can have it 70x instead of going to Disneyworld for three days.
I’ve been to Disney in Orlando dozens of times growing up. Haven’t been there for 10 years or so…so took a few days and went to the park.
Wow, sooooo many people, like sooooo many people you can’t walk down the paths without doing the New York shoulder to get through. I didn’t know about the phone thing… It’s a new smartphone system where you reserve spots in rides at certain times, but all reservations are gone 5 min after opening time for the app. The entire park was filled with people staring at their phones trying to get in on a canceled reservation. Well I didn’t know about this…so I was in the stand by lines. 1 to 2 hours per ride and a non stop stream of fast pass people kept walking right in. The New Tron ride was fast pass only.
All day there and I think we got on 4 rides. Peter Pan standby was 3 hours long.
For all the money paid to get in, the crowds, the stupid new smartphone thing… I will never go back to Disney. Let the stupid international tourists have it.
Cape Canaveral visitor center was sooo much better.
The crowds vary wildly at Disney World. First time I went with my kids we did the first week of November. Not many people at all, and we could get on a lot of rides without much of a wait and it wasn’t too crowded. Bonus: We got to see the Halloween decorations the first day we were there, and then Christmas decorations for the rest of the time. 10/10, would go again.
The second time we decided to do a Christmas trip. There were two days where Magic Kingdom literally told people there wasn’t enough room. Even Epcot and Hollywood Studios were crowded, and we didn’t get on many rides. The hotels were loud, too. 1/10 would not recommend.
However, I haven’t bothered looking at prices because my kids are grown and I’m happy being at home, but if I had to pay 50% more for the first experience it would have been worth it, and the second I wouldn’t have taken even if it was free.
That sounds horrendous
Yeah, I don’t understand it. I went as a kid in a literal back brace and wheel chair, skipped most of the lines, and I still thought Universal was better.
Branding just ruins some people’s brains.
What time of year was this? I’m gonna take the kids eventually, but I’m pulling them out of school and we are going to find the least peak time possible. I refuse to go anywhere on spring break or over the summer.
I don’t even remember. I do remember it being hot as hell, but Florida.
So between February and November, got it.
Disney World lines in the 80s and 90s were always 45 minutes to 2+ hours. 45 minutes for the rides no one wanted and 2+ hours for the popular ones.
I always went for free because my mother worked there or a friend’s mom did. It was worth free.
“Morons that are bad with their money continue to act like morons”
This is one that I’m on the fence. To me it kinda feels like less advantaged people are finally playing the same game as rich folk. I don’t think it’s smart to go in debt over a vacation, unfortunately people do it all the time.
I mean, if you have no possible way of paying any of this back, might as well have fun before the house of cards collapses.
The govt is in massive debt. Tesla and many corporations are running a loss. Heck my city and school district is running this year with multi million dollar short falls, but somehow the city keeps spending money. The system is set up to run in debt. Everyone that has money, even billionaires, borrows money. I’m considered middle class, but am in massive debt because I bought a house and a car.
It kinda feels like regular people are finally playing the same game as rich people. Why use, and lose, your money, when you can lose other people money instead? What are creditors going to do? Take away the fun experience I had at Disneyland?
They can’t get me to pay back the debt if I have no job, or any future prospects for a job. Might as well have fun while they can, I guess.
I just feel for these folks when the rich, in the US, bribe enough politicians to brings back debtors prisons.
The place is crowded and they’ll keep charging more pushing out lower income people.
When we used to go they had a meal plan, a bus to bring you from the airport for free and the little NFC watch was free to make all you purchases. I think it cost twice as much now and you get less.
FUCK Disney
Wouldn’t be an issue if people got paid properly for their work…enjoy the debt banks. It’s going to hit you the worst.
Wouldn’t be an issue if people got paid properly for their work
This is one place where that actually wouldn’t fix this problem. There is finite capacity at the parks. Disney keep raising the prices as a a disincentive to go. People keep paying the higher prices. source
If everyone was paid properly, that would mean even more people going to the parks.
Perhaps a lottery scheme would work, like hunting permits. That seems to manage a constrained resource.
There is finite capacity at the parks. Disney keep raising the prices as a a disincentive to go
They COULD alleviate the overcrowding problem by simply not letting in far more people than can be comfortably accommodated, but where’s the profits in that? 🤦
They already tried that, they kept the park reservation system in place that they put in during Covid for a period of time post Covid to limit the number of people in the park far in advance of the actual day. This was done because they let go a whole bunch of staff because of Covid then couldn’t get them back so had reduced ability to soak up visitors pre Covid.
It was an incredibly contentious choice as it meant to had to plan the exact park you wanted to go to up to 12 months in advance of the date you going. Disney has become a planning nightmare, its a hobby in its own right to manage properly and if you don’t do it then you have an objectively worse experience than those who do during any remotely busy time.
I think it might solve the problem. The parks might get even more expensive to curb demand, but people could afford to save up for it instead of going into debt and demand would be tempered by the fact that people could afford to do all sorts of other things with their free time.
Jimmy! Just for you Jimmy! Just for you were taking on a second mortgage! You deserve the Walt Disnay experience Jimmy! Were not good parents unless you see Mickey In person Jimmy.
Are you hearing us Jimmy it’s important you know the Disnay experience!!
What’s that you just want to play Minecraft Jimmy? You failed abortion of a kid! You are going to see Disney world if I have to sell my fucking Kidneys, I swear to god!
Jimmy it’s gunna be rice and beans for a bit, You’ll understand when you’re our age.
Sorry Jimmy I know you thought you were to inherite this home, but remember that Disney trip we took when you were two. No, well no matter we have pictures we haven’t look at in 30 years. But the bank owns this house so you’ll still need pay the mortgage when we are gone.
Saw a kid puke in the pool once on a Disney cruise. You shoulda seen those cast members come running in full hazmat suits and shut down the entire deck! A finely tuned machine, like swappin tires at the Indy 500. If Disney ever got into the military-industrial complex they would take over the world. Worth every penny.
The only thing worse than Disneyworld would be a Disney Cruise.
Now I want to go there just to puke in different areas and see how the cleaning team works
I took my kids in lieu of them having birthday parties one year. We told the person when we checked in and they gave us a few stickers that said “It’s my birthday!”
Everyone in every park who saw that sticker stopped and wished my kids a happy birthday. The guy sweeping up trash on Hollywood Boulevard, the cashiers at Epcot, the housekeepers at the hotel, everyone. Even Cinderella stopped marching in the Main Street parade to come over and say “Happy Birthday!”
I get that they’re a horrible, soulless corporation but damn do I appreciate how special they made my kids feel.
So give your kid a birthday sticker if you go. Got it.
I feel bad for the parents because I bet so many of them are unaware of the totally greedy changes Disney has put in these last 5 years. Their parents took them to Disneyland so they just do the same for their own kids.
Anyway, they monetized their “fast pass” system in a way that they have an economic incentive to keep lines long. - despite everyone having smartphones, and despite Disney already having a park app for people to use. I won’t be visiting while that’s in effect, that’s for sure.
To be fair, you could stop that sentence after the word “debt”.
