Disney Parks Don't Want YOU Anymore

disney is at war but not with who you might think we like to glorify the idea of a battle between universal and disney the concept that in places like orlando then fighting it out for the top spot of being florida's best theme park destination but that's not what this video is about it's a more complex battle something that has gradually been rising as their theme parks become more and more popular over the last decade and that battle is that disney is at war with you it's a bizarre concept to wrap your head around why would disney want to fight off the very people that keep it afloat well despite the price of us-based disney theme parks rising rather dramatically every year they are also continually more popular than ever after a night at the hoopty do review in 2019 as part of my honeymoon to walt disney world i had the opportunity to speak to a bus driver somebody who had worked as a cast member at walt disney world resort for a few decades i pointed out that our trip was specifically planned to take advantage of the february lull a time that is historically quieter at theme parks because it's post holidays when most people are either back at work or school but it was the busiest i had ever seen the parks when i told them this they remarked that the parks don't really have a quiet time anymore and this was for two reasons the first was that disney had created a system that when it was quieter the tickets and group specials were more affordable driving up the demand for those time periods the other thing that they noted was that as the economy became more stable disney became more popular and since the 2008 global financial crisis ended they had only seen crowds increase even as somebody who is seasoned with theme parks these crowds were difficult to deal with and our experience became more and more draining as our 10-day trip went on we spent a lot of our time on our phones constantly refreshing the walt disney world app hounding for fastpasses to try and beat the two to three hour queues for even the most basic attraction reservations were gone months in advance and despite being somebody who can enjoy theme parks by just admiring the scenery and not going on any rides the atmosphere was stressed and tense we specifically planned our days to avoid parks with extra magic hours but it seemed wherever we went the crowds followed and this is the problem disney is very very popular their brand has grown exponentially to not just cover princesses and unique theme park attractions but now covers marvel star wars fox abc espn and more there is barely an entertainment stone that has been unturned by the walt disney company and that popularity is great for disney but not so great for theme park guests this is where a choice lies for disney and where the war begins should disney make their theme parks more affordable therefore allowing more people to enter but with more crowd in or should they make them more expensive and massage the experience for those that can afford to go this is the battle that they're fighting with us every time the prices rise so do the complaints facebook posts reddit threads forums tweets and blogs will argue that disney is no longer affordable for them and that they won't be able to go sadly this is the point they raise their prices to softly gate their theme parks ensuring that the capacity is used instead by people that they will know have the money to afford it disney is a company driven by data it's such a big part of their business that they even have a conference for it with the enthusiastically named disney data and analytics conference where i'm sure you'll find the most exciting of people this data is used to determine all sorts of decisions within the company from movie production to marketing but most importantly for this video it determines theme park and resort ticket prices whilst their data is a closely guarded secret something that they'd never let their competition get their hands on we know that there are specific groups of people that they target to come to their parks and resorts i was listening to the disney dish podcast this week where they discuss survey questions they got from their listeners one of them was a survey to their annual pass holders they asked them what their annual income was in us dollars disney doesn't usually ask these questions but the range of answers started at under 40 000 us dollars annually and capped out at half a million dollars interestingly of the 14 selections two of them represented the entirety of the bottom 50 percent of american households keeping those two in mind there were four responses that would help disney differentiate between the top 4 of american households by income if you had any doubt about what people disney were targeting that should hopefully clear it up as we slowly exit the hopefully worse parts of covert 19 with continued post-pandemic record-breaking crowds we're gradually starting to see a sentiment towards disney fostered by the public and media something which has always been there but has never really been a point of contention this large this is the idea that disney is wildly expensive well firstly it's not an idea disney is wildly expensive mousehacking.com has an article outlining the cost of a walt disney world vacation leading into 2022 and 2023 and for a family of four to stay at the resort for five nights at pop century one of the value resorts with the base ticket two days of genie plus and the other goodies that come with a vacation of this type then you're looking at a near minimum of 5731 us dollars for five nights before people this doesn't include anything outside of walt disney world such as flights transportation or travel insurance to put that into perspective you can travel from hawaii to australia on a 20-day cruise with royal caribbean for 6 435 us dollars for the same family of four which includes entertainment food and activities for all of those 20 days also what i mentioned above is almost the absolute cheapest vacation that a family can have at walt disney world and it's roughly 1 9 of a family's disposable income per capita in the united states at 45 284 u.s dollars disposable income isn't what it sounds like though it's just what you receive after tax instead discretionary income is what many consider to be play money following the most common trend that households will have expenses equal to 60 percent of their disposable income that makes an average walt disney world vacation over one-fourth of a family's yearly discretionary income and leaves just roughly 12 000 us dollars for anything beyond the most basic needs such as long and short-term savings and other forms of entertainment for most people a yearly walt disney world vacation just isn't realistic and this is great news for disney as they have found that the people who come more generally spend less recently we've seen both disneyland and walt disney world cut off the supply of their new annual passes to their guests and it's for a fairly blatant reason season passes are mostly fan servers they provide very little benefit to a theme park beyond a more predictable income method when it comes time for renewals but generally they run these at a loss their hope is similar to a gym that you will buy the annual pass but be in a situation where you can't attend the theme park because pass holders add to the crowds and they generally don't spend as much as those with day tickets although staying at the resort the reasoning behind this is that the theme park experience becomes less special and more mundane for those that go more often why eat in the park when you can just grab mcdonald's on the way home or prepare your lunch before coming in pass holders are more likely to gawk at a price but for those having a once-in-a-lifetime trip they don't care they're going to buy as much food as possible stay in the nicest rooms on property and buy all of the extras that make the trip easier to manage you're only there once why bother thinking about money and instead just have fun this is why disney coming out of the pandemic doesn't really want pass holders around they have an opportunity to start fresh and the idea of that involves as little pass holders as possible unfortunately for disney the passes do provide consistent income which the accountants like but with their high prices a unique reservation system with strict block out dates walt disney world annual pass has been virtually only available to florida residents apart from the most expensive option disney was able to design a system that turned most people off the idea of getting an annual pass generally a price rise should keep enough people at bay but it can only get you so far even though multitudes of people complain about price hikes between 2009 to 2019 us-based disney theme park attendance rose from 69.5 to 87.3 million gas a jump of almost 25.6 percent despite the fact that the ticket price had risen almost 60 percent from 79 to 125 us dollars so if you can't stop them at the gate what are your options my parents and i used to frequent a marina where we went to an awesome greek restaurant and often they had a board showing the different boats for sale around the area i promise that this is relevant when looking at the board you had your standard dollar prices but all of the bigger boats said p-o-r which apparently stood for price on request i was bothered by this why don't these boats have prices and i wanted to know them so i asked my dad what they'd likely be worth and he responded with if you have to ask you can't afford it we're moving into this era the us-based disney theme parks you may have heard of the concept of vacation by spreadsheet the idea that there are so many paid extras at disney nowadays that if you want to carefully budget your trip then you're going to need to brush up on your excel skills genie plus transport to and from the airport lightning lane after hours events paid experiences like building a lightsaber park hopping memory maker and even magic bands are all additional costs on top of your trip and that's not including food and drink mapping out all of this would be a nightmare not the disney experience that you want but it's done intentionally to push those penny pinchers out of the way to focus on those who are happy to just slap down a credit card and go some of these features even used to be free and were included in the ticket price if you stayed with them at a resort but since they've been replaced by paid additions things haven't gotten cheaper they've just blatantly pushing those costs onto the guests similarly things like extra magic hours which were available to all guests staying at a disney world resort and included an hour before open and two hours after closing for select parks exclusive to them have been replaced for more acquisitive changes instead it's been replaced with a flat 30 minutes before a park opens to help kick-start your day but extended evening theme park hours have been changed so that you get two hours extra on select days but only if you stay at a deluxe resort of villa which start at around 476 us dollars per average night excluding tax that's a lot of money this is perhaps one of the most egregious changes considering that even disney's value resorts used to get this for free just a few years ago but it gets worse many of disney's systems are intentionally designed to disadvantage those who are not utilizing their resorts or additions such as genie plus whilst 30 minutes early doesn't seem like that much for a resort guess it's a lot for somebody who is staying off property even if you're in front of the line as somebody who isn't staying at a resort there is still a whole walt disney world worth of people who have gotten into the park before you this means that there is a little chance of getting a few rides in before the park gets inundated with guests as lines would have already formed for almost everything from attractions to starbucks disney is sent in the message that if you're not willing to pay then they don't really want you there and even with all of these changes to increase guest spending disney still announced further ticket price hikes in october ranging from 3 to 8 depending on the demand of the day that you're visiting despite a majority of theme park perks still not running at full capacity due to the pandemic we're starting to get a trickle of information regarding the return of things such as entertainment and spectaculars but this is in spite of the price rises rather than being complementary ultimately and probably sadly disney aims to make sure that their theme park crowds manage themselves by ensuring that low-paying guests have a worse experience and thin themselves out this leaves the parks with less gas but more people who are willing to pay top dollar this is probably bad news for those on the edge there is a silver lining here i know some people might not want to hear it but you don't have to go to disney as it becomes more expensive and ultimately more exclusive it provides other theme parks an opportunity to get access to guests that wouldn't usually visit them universal studios florida for example provides premium hotels with included unlimited express pass at a drastically reduced price compared to walt disney world i promise that this isn't sponsored even though it kind of sounds like it their hope is that people who no longer feel that they can fund that premium disney world experience will instead jump over to their parks where they'll be able to satisfy the same feeling of luxury in a theme park environment now i'll be interested to see how this progresses it probably won't always stay like this especially with a third theme park on the way but currently the universal studios florida resort is far more affordable than disney and that sort of competition is never a bad thing disney currently sits on a throne of hubris and it seems that they can't be budged they're happy to bark orders and people are willing to accept them but there's the concept of vote with your wallet if you don't like these changes then don't put up with them go elsewhere try something different i won't diss anybody's want to go to disney it's special for a lot of people and there are those that can easily afford it but if you're upset about the price hikes or changes to the tickets or resorts then the only way that you can truly show that you don't agree with these changes is to go elsewhere now if you want to keep this conversation going i highly recommend checking out reviewtime.com forum where you can talk with other review time fans about what is happening in the world of theme parks even though we read every comments some of them we don't want to read but we still do we can't always respond to them but we do our best to ensure that we're engaged with every topic on our forum but what do you think a disney theme park is too expensive and is that necessarily a bad thing are you excited to try something different to go somewhere where you've never been to before even if disney theme parks are traditional to you i'm excited to see what you say for the home of all things theme parks i'm dom from review time thanks for watching liking and subscribing we'll see you next time [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: ReviewTyme

Views: 720,806

Keywords: reviewtyme, review, tyme, time, reviewtime, disney parks, walt disney world, disney world, disneyland, disney, disney vlogger, theme parks, amusement parks, disney expensive, disneyland resort, disneyland rides, genie plus, disney genie plus, genie plus disney, genie plus disney world, magic keys, walt disney world 2022

Id: 9W2ZZUxza24

Length: 17min 19sec (1039 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 10 2021