A Few Thoughts About the Cost of WDW
Mar. 8th, 2022 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
walkitoutLet’s get a few things out of the way first.
WDW is really expensive. It has always been really expensive, but it is a lot more expensive now than it was 10 years ago, and fucking bonkers more expensive than when it first opened. Do I mean this in nominal dollars? NO! I mean it in real, inflation adjusted dollars. Someone Posted on FB receipts from a Poly stay in the first year or so it was open, and compared it to then current (this was at least months ago, possibly over a year) rack rates for the same dates. I whipped out the CPI inflator to confirm that YES, the Poly — same rooms, same dates — is WAY more expensive than it was when it was new.
I go to WDW a lot, and I am often paying not just for myself and my immediate family, but for other people as well. We bought into DVC … a while ago (look, you can read the play by play of the decision making process over the years in this blog, as well as somewhat detailed trip reports from most if not all of those trips) because I wanted to be able to leave the parks midday for nap and/or pool and return in the evening or whatever, and the geography of WDW is such that that means staying on property. Also, this is the only way to get a unit with a kitchen on property. While I have explained this to people over the years, I’ve always been pretty careful to push back on comments like, “Oh, I bet you save a lot of money that way” (referring to either the timeshare aspect or the kitchen). _NO_, this does not save money. The dues are bonkers expensive. And honestly, we mostly eat breakfast in the room, and breakfast is not a particularly expensive meal even at Disney. There are much cheaper ways to do WDW than what we do. The one aspect of DVC that you could argue is a benefit is that it doesn’t just _retain_ resale value; it _appreciates_, which is hilarious, given that those points do expire eventually. (I’ll be old, climate change, etc. etc.)
Having carefully established that WDW is expensive, let us consider another aspect of theme parks: how many attractions do you get to experience? In this respect also, WDW is _seriously less desirable_ than it once was. I’ve gone back in my trip reports and I can clearly see how Disney has gotten really good at load balancing; many of the tricks that used to work years ago to repetitively go on a good ride over and over and over again have quit working completely (true, pandemic is a feature in this; it’s possible this will loosen up again someday. LOL, no, what are you, delusional?). Parade? Still an hour plus line on _it’s a small world_. Late at night? Peter Pan will still have an hour line. Haunted Mansion? OK, _maybe_ you can get on that one in under an hour if you time it correctly. You used to be able to get into the parks during off season and the first hour of the day (non extra magic hour, or, stay on property and arrive for extra magic) and do 2 or even 3 rides in that first block of time. Nope.
All that said, am I gonna keep going?
Sure! I did, for the first time in a long time, go see what points were selling for (I was looking at the Disneyland Hotel DVC property to see if those sales have started), and what my various points might price at if I were to sell them. Wow. Inflation. Anyway. Also, I’ve cut way back on sit-down dining reservations because they have become laughably difficult to get (I expect this to ease up as capacity restrictions in dining ease up). I’ve also changed my focus for the day — I’m no longer All About the Rides; I’m doing more shows, spending more time taking pictures, more time looking at stuff in shops. That’s an evolution that goes with A getting a little older and being interested in different things, and it is also a reaction to line length.
But I do want to make a few observations about Lightning Lane / Genie. When I was first setting up trips to WDW, it was incredibly difficult (for me, anyway) keeping track of and hitting all the deadlines. 11 month booking window at home resort (7 month otherwise). 180 day ADR window. 60 day FastPass booking window. And if you miss a window, sometimes _you don’t get to do the thing at all_. There were so many awful aspects to this. I had friends and family who would try to plan a trip to WDW, who just gave up entirely because the pre-planning timeline was just too long. I had family who _did_ go to WDW, got there, stood in line for a couple hours, gave up and left because it was miserable. I _told_ them about the planning; they _ignored_ the information; they tried to be spontaneous and it _sucked_. Anyone looking at what’s involved in planning / paying _now_ and says the good old days were better is someone who is absolutely _MAD_, delusional, or who is basically expressing a major personal preference for detailed up front planning.
The new system: 2 months for ADRs. Same day for LL / Genie, with the additional wrinkle of if you are staying on property, try to hit that 7 am. But it acts like they release things later in the day, so it’s fine to use it even moment to moment in the parks. The downside about 2 months for ADRs is that there are a fuck ton more people prepared to do detailed meal planning 2 months in advance than there are people prepared to do meal planning 6 months in advance. The upside, however, is that _you don’t have to plan your meals 6 months in advance any more_. You might say, oh, well, that’s just for sit down, but you know, try being me, married to R, and traveling with other people with other food allergies. WDW’s advice is pretty fucking clear: sit down restaurants have a lot more flexibility in terms of accommodating food allergies. It was _hard_ trying to engage in collaborative meal planning 6 months in advance. 2 months in advance is considerably more manageable (altho to be fair, I mostly know what people like at this point so I have stopped asking for as much input anyway; also, they are much clearer on the planning process, which helps, too).
TL;DR: WDW is now charging _in money_ for things that you used to pay for _in time_. None of this was every available to the population at large. WDW has _always_ been a largely inaccessible, luxury experience.
Here’s the WaPo article someone sent me a link asking for an opinion. Mostly, it’s a good survey of what I’ve been seeing on the FB DVC group. There are some people who are disillusioned — there have _always_ been people who became disillusioned by WDW and stopped going, just like there are always OB/GYNs retiring from catching babies, and K12 teachers who decided they are Done Teaching and so forth — and there are more people who are like, LOL, come on, it’s always been nuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/03/07/disney-world-disneyland-ticket-prices-fees/
I do feel like it’s time to start building theme / amusement parks again, or at least more gates at existing ones. Sesame Place is opening soon (LegoLand NY opened last spring). My kids are too old for those; we’ll see where it all goes. UO has been About to Add a Gate since forever. Maybe it’ll happen and take some of the pressure off.
ETA: I meant to say. One gets to go on _fewer_ rides at WDW, but _wow_ the quality of the rides these days. I’d rather get Flight of Passage once than Expedition Everest a dozen times. I’d rather get Rise and Runaway Railway and _no other ride the whole trip_ than Space Mountain until I feel like throwing up would be an improvement. Also, if you really need a volume ride and a good experience, just single rider Smuggler’s Run until you’d prefer to take a nap.
ETAYA: The WaPo article quotes a tweet comparing StarCruiser hotel to the $10K gold Apple Watch. To which I respond, Accurate! But the value judgement — but not everyone can do that! — is such bullshit. _No matter what the cost_, StarCruiser is 100 rooms, booked exclusively as 2 night stays. That is a _very_ limited resource. Not everyone can do that, no matter what you charge. Specifically, probably less than 75K people a year can do that.
WDW is really expensive. It has always been really expensive, but it is a lot more expensive now than it was 10 years ago, and fucking bonkers more expensive than when it first opened. Do I mean this in nominal dollars? NO! I mean it in real, inflation adjusted dollars. Someone Posted on FB receipts from a Poly stay in the first year or so it was open, and compared it to then current (this was at least months ago, possibly over a year) rack rates for the same dates. I whipped out the CPI inflator to confirm that YES, the Poly — same rooms, same dates — is WAY more expensive than it was when it was new.
I go to WDW a lot, and I am often paying not just for myself and my immediate family, but for other people as well. We bought into DVC … a while ago (look, you can read the play by play of the decision making process over the years in this blog, as well as somewhat detailed trip reports from most if not all of those trips) because I wanted to be able to leave the parks midday for nap and/or pool and return in the evening or whatever, and the geography of WDW is such that that means staying on property. Also, this is the only way to get a unit with a kitchen on property. While I have explained this to people over the years, I’ve always been pretty careful to push back on comments like, “Oh, I bet you save a lot of money that way” (referring to either the timeshare aspect or the kitchen). _NO_, this does not save money. The dues are bonkers expensive. And honestly, we mostly eat breakfast in the room, and breakfast is not a particularly expensive meal even at Disney. There are much cheaper ways to do WDW than what we do. The one aspect of DVC that you could argue is a benefit is that it doesn’t just _retain_ resale value; it _appreciates_, which is hilarious, given that those points do expire eventually. (I’ll be old, climate change, etc. etc.)
Having carefully established that WDW is expensive, let us consider another aspect of theme parks: how many attractions do you get to experience? In this respect also, WDW is _seriously less desirable_ than it once was. I’ve gone back in my trip reports and I can clearly see how Disney has gotten really good at load balancing; many of the tricks that used to work years ago to repetitively go on a good ride over and over and over again have quit working completely (true, pandemic is a feature in this; it’s possible this will loosen up again someday. LOL, no, what are you, delusional?). Parade? Still an hour plus line on _it’s a small world_. Late at night? Peter Pan will still have an hour line. Haunted Mansion? OK, _maybe_ you can get on that one in under an hour if you time it correctly. You used to be able to get into the parks during off season and the first hour of the day (non extra magic hour, or, stay on property and arrive for extra magic) and do 2 or even 3 rides in that first block of time. Nope.
All that said, am I gonna keep going?
Sure! I did, for the first time in a long time, go see what points were selling for (I was looking at the Disneyland Hotel DVC property to see if those sales have started), and what my various points might price at if I were to sell them. Wow. Inflation. Anyway. Also, I’ve cut way back on sit-down dining reservations because they have become laughably difficult to get (I expect this to ease up as capacity restrictions in dining ease up). I’ve also changed my focus for the day — I’m no longer All About the Rides; I’m doing more shows, spending more time taking pictures, more time looking at stuff in shops. That’s an evolution that goes with A getting a little older and being interested in different things, and it is also a reaction to line length.
But I do want to make a few observations about Lightning Lane / Genie. When I was first setting up trips to WDW, it was incredibly difficult (for me, anyway) keeping track of and hitting all the deadlines. 11 month booking window at home resort (7 month otherwise). 180 day ADR window. 60 day FastPass booking window. And if you miss a window, sometimes _you don’t get to do the thing at all_. There were so many awful aspects to this. I had friends and family who would try to plan a trip to WDW, who just gave up entirely because the pre-planning timeline was just too long. I had family who _did_ go to WDW, got there, stood in line for a couple hours, gave up and left because it was miserable. I _told_ them about the planning; they _ignored_ the information; they tried to be spontaneous and it _sucked_. Anyone looking at what’s involved in planning / paying _now_ and says the good old days were better is someone who is absolutely _MAD_, delusional, or who is basically expressing a major personal preference for detailed up front planning.
The new system: 2 months for ADRs. Same day for LL / Genie, with the additional wrinkle of if you are staying on property, try to hit that 7 am. But it acts like they release things later in the day, so it’s fine to use it even moment to moment in the parks. The downside about 2 months for ADRs is that there are a fuck ton more people prepared to do detailed meal planning 2 months in advance than there are people prepared to do meal planning 6 months in advance. The upside, however, is that _you don’t have to plan your meals 6 months in advance any more_. You might say, oh, well, that’s just for sit down, but you know, try being me, married to R, and traveling with other people with other food allergies. WDW’s advice is pretty fucking clear: sit down restaurants have a lot more flexibility in terms of accommodating food allergies. It was _hard_ trying to engage in collaborative meal planning 6 months in advance. 2 months in advance is considerably more manageable (altho to be fair, I mostly know what people like at this point so I have stopped asking for as much input anyway; also, they are much clearer on the planning process, which helps, too).
TL;DR: WDW is now charging _in money_ for things that you used to pay for _in time_. None of this was every available to the population at large. WDW has _always_ been a largely inaccessible, luxury experience.
Here’s the WaPo article someone sent me a link asking for an opinion. Mostly, it’s a good survey of what I’ve been seeing on the FB DVC group. There are some people who are disillusioned — there have _always_ been people who became disillusioned by WDW and stopped going, just like there are always OB/GYNs retiring from catching babies, and K12 teachers who decided they are Done Teaching and so forth — and there are more people who are like, LOL, come on, it’s always been nuts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/03/07/disney-world-disneyland-ticket-prices-fees/
I do feel like it’s time to start building theme / amusement parks again, or at least more gates at existing ones. Sesame Place is opening soon (LegoLand NY opened last spring). My kids are too old for those; we’ll see where it all goes. UO has been About to Add a Gate since forever. Maybe it’ll happen and take some of the pressure off.
ETA: I meant to say. One gets to go on _fewer_ rides at WDW, but _wow_ the quality of the rides these days. I’d rather get Flight of Passage once than Expedition Everest a dozen times. I’d rather get Rise and Runaway Railway and _no other ride the whole trip_ than Space Mountain until I feel like throwing up would be an improvement. Also, if you really need a volume ride and a good experience, just single rider Smuggler’s Run until you’d prefer to take a nap.
ETAYA: The WaPo article quotes a tweet comparing StarCruiser hotel to the $10K gold Apple Watch. To which I respond, Accurate! But the value judgement — but not everyone can do that! — is such bullshit. _No matter what the cost_, StarCruiser is 100 rooms, booked exclusively as 2 night stays. That is a _very_ limited resource. Not everyone can do that, no matter what you charge. Specifically, probably less than 75K people a year can do that.