Maybe Disney should build parks in Texas and the Midwest to accommodate demand.
Everything is so expensive now. We recently did a weeklong vacation split between San Fran and Seattle for 3 of us and our damage was just shy of $10k including airfare, hotels, food and entertainment. I estimated $5-6k when budgeting, but I guess I need to recalibrate those estimates in the future.
My dad’s company (So. Cal Edison, the “Gas Company”) used to rent Disneyland on a night in Feb. every year. I think it was only like 6 hours, but almost all rides were walk-ons and there was basically no cost unless you wanted to eat or buy merch. I haven’t been in like 25 years, and a lot has changed, but I got plenty of “dismal land” as a kid.
Also, grew up middle class but had at least one ten kid birthday party at Disneyland my mom could afford to pay for, but that was the early 80s.
I’ve never been to Disneyland, but likely will be in a few years. Always did Disney world.
Also really want to go to the San Diego zoo thing that’s super open. Anyone ever been?
Most of all, I want to go to cedar point. Best rollercoaster park in the world, even if it’s in ohio
Never been to Disneyland either. I stayed at a hotel across the street and still chose not to go. Seems like a worse Magic Kingdom.
San Diego Zoo is a national treasure. Go if you can, and try to make it to the Safari Zone too.
I’ve been to Cedar Point but I hate rollercoasters. It was cool despite that flaw
Safari zone is the one I want to go to. I kind of hate zoos in general.
I’d make an exception for the main zoo, unless it’s an animal welfare kinda thing
It is very expensive, but if you’re paying $1500 a day for a family of four you are doing something wrong. Probably staying on-site when there are really nice offsite hotels for much cheaper and on-site benefits are nearly nonexistent right now. [
Each ticket with park hopper is $200 per day, you’re obviously doing fast passes after dumping $800, it’s close to $1000 per day just on park tickets. Any hotel not swimming in cockroaches will be $300 per night. And that’s before you eat or buy junior a t-shirt.
I complain about Ohio a lot, but they have the rollercoaster game locked down. Cedar Point is awesome, and I’ve taken my youngest there a few times. This weekend, he and I went to Kings Island for the first time (for him; I went once when I was a kid). Not as good as Cedar Point, but 3 of the rides we went on were fantastic and we went on each of those multiple times.
Prices were lol - $45 admission fee per person which is obviously fine, but $145 per person for the Fast Lane pass for a single day. So even Kings Island in Cincinnati Ohio is running $200 per person per day before parking, food, etc.
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Eh. Multi-day park tickets go down in price the longer you stay. By way of example, if you stay a week in December this year, you can get a 7 day park hopping ticket from Undercover Tourist: https://www.undercovertourist.com/orlando/walt-disney-world-resort/#tickets For $623 plus tax for adults or $606 plus tax for kids.
You are wrong about hotels. You can stay in a very nice timeshare hotel* (that includes kitchen and extra bedroom and washer dryer) in the $175 to $250 per night range. I personally recommend Sheraton Vistana Resort which is a fantastic resort and can be got starting for about $175 a night which can be further brought down by a AAA or Marriott member points. You can go even cheaper by staying at a VRBO at Windsor Hills, which similarly gets you a 2-3 bedroom style accommodation, in the $150 per night range for a nice one. There are also plenty of nice “regular” off-site hotels in the $150-$175ish range. Hotels in Orlando are plentiful and you’re not into “roach motel” category until you start going into the $100 per night or less category.
If you stay at a timeshare resort with a kitchen, there’s no need to do breakfast out (we always do cereal), so you’re just talking about food for lunch and dinner. It’s still very expensive, yes, but not quite as bad as what you’ve posted.
*Timeshare hotels meaning you pay cash to stay at the hotel, not that you buy a timeshare.
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I grew up with annual passes. we would go 1-2x a week after school. in those days an entire family’s annual passes with the resident discount was less than a few hundred. I remember vividly when I was like 8, annual passes were $75 or so.
if the last time you went was 25 years, i think you’d be surprised. they’ve invested blockbuster movie budgets into these rides and lands and the results have been pretty incredible. my sister is fairly important in disneyland org and my impression has been the last several years they’re actually suffering from too much success, their biggest problem is too many customers and has been for a while.
pre-pandemic they were hitting park capacity daily which in earlier years was thought to be impossible in all but the busiest holidays. raising prices appears to have very little effect either.
I recommend not arguing with jman about Disney.
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I recommend a big red button at the top of the site that allows users to block all posts about visits to Disney. I don’t have kids so my vacations are fun.
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Gaffigan sums it up well
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People who go to Disney without kids are definitely a little weird. I would not go to Disney without kids. It is, however, a fantastic trip with kids.
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yeah i didn’t get it for a long time, but i do all sorts of stupid things to put a smile on my daughters face. I’m sure disney will be one of them too
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This is definitely true. Their parks are hitting “capacity” through their park reservation system basically every day always now. Raising prices has had no effect.
I went to Disney with my kid and it still sucked. I have to admit that I didn’t spend hours and hours researching all the angles and had no idea that lines for anything good started at like an hour. I’ll never go back.
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