Disney World is the happiest place on earth, right? I’m not so sure. I recently took my toddler there, and she loved it – she was most excited to see Buzz Lightyear. She also didn’t want to get leave rides when they ended. I know I’ll make several more trips there, and my daughter will love it. At the same time Disney just costs a lot of money and isn’t actually that good.
- If all you buy is tickets you don’t get to do much. You need to purchase Genie+ as an add-on to be able to purchase enough Lightning Lane access to make efficient use of your time getting to actually ride rides or see shows. Otherwise you just buy tickets to spend your time in a couple of lines for the day.
Once you’re going to Disney, it’s a mistake not to spend because it’s the incremental dollars that get you the value out of the trip, and it’s a small expense relative to the total cost (including flights, hotel).
- But by the time you’re all in the expenses become once in a lifetime or out of reach for many. You’ll probably buy a toy and a souvenir. It’s $100 for lunch for a family of four at a quick serve restaurant, and the food is bad. There are nice restaurants, those are more expensive. Since I wasn’t going to make a full day of it with a three year old, I opted for the (really quite) bad food. Which gets back to much of Disney not even being that good.
- Two kinds of custom t-shirts are most common among park guests,
- Coordinated t-shirts for the whole family, “The [Last Name] Family Takes Disney World 2022”
- Some version of complaining about the cost, such as “Straight Outta Money” with Mickey ears. It’s usually the dad wearing this.
- Everyone is excited as they enter the park. By 11 a.m. adults all look unhappy. They’re sitting on ledges looking down at their phones, wondering why they did this and will the day be over soon?
I remember going as a kid for the first time, back when you bought packages of tickets and each ride had a different ticket value. An “E Ticket” became synonymous with the best rides not just at Disney but also life. And I went many times where it just wasn’t that busy. You could go ride numerous rides throughout the day without any special passes. Now the place is so crowded so often that you can’t do much and you pay a lot for the privilege of not getting much out of the trip.
Only a moron would fail to see the parallel and learn from it. You know, like expecting that prices to go see Mickey Mouse should remain the same as when they were kids 20 years ago, even though prices for everything else as well as wages have increased drastically in that time?
G’day.
LOL – “Nobody goes there anymore: It’s too crowded.” I don’t know if that’s tongue-in-cheek or the person is simply as stupid as they sound, but that was funny.
@DCS “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” is an old quote most frequently attributed to Yogi Berra. The humor found in the mutual exclusivity of the two is the point.
Taking your family to Mouseworld or Ratworld for a day of fun is an enjoyable experience when you visit during a week with an impending CAT 2 or higher hurricane heading directly for Orlando. Adverse weather is your friend as it helps to reduce park attendance. Furthermore, you may receive an airline weather waiver to give you maximum travel planning flexibility.
Wow – from the comments left here, My $1,050 Disney entrance bill for family of five looks reasonable. NEVER AGAIN!
Discounted Disney gift cards are helpful. All the ones I’ve purchased have been at a 5-10% discounted rate. And at this point I have enough for our resort and tickets.
Lunchbeast: that’s a quote from Yogi Berra, hall of fame Yankee catcher. His whole shtick was saying counterintuitive things.
Does no one know history anymore?
@KimmeA — I agree — if you do your research, there are many fun on-site Disney World restaurants with decent food. For this reason, in recent years, I would only take my family when I could get the “Free Disney Dining.” Of course, they’ve been making it harder to get the full dining package in recent years. The rides themselves tend to be pretty “meh,” with a few exceptions. The crowding keeps getting more problematic, and I wish Disney would spend the money on a new park to disperse the people better. Oddly, 15 years ago, Disney was a fairly CHEAP family vacation if you knew how to play the game. But most of the tricks have been shut off and the price doesn’t seem justified by the experience, even if you’re a gamer. I have no current plans to return.