Disney World is Worried About Its High Prices.
Disney World is pricing out the middle class. This has become an increasingly “popular” topic among fans. Every few months there’s a big piece in the mainstream media that gains a lot of traction and draws new attention to issues of price increases, nickel & diming, and unpopular decisions made by leadership.
Usually, these articles are supported by quotes from disgruntled fans. They paint a picture of the company suggesting its about to hit its breaking point, and fans in revolt. The thing is, you could use fan anger to “prove” anything. Disney diehards are a passionate bunch, and I could crowdsource an article about the closure of the Fossil Fun Games in Chester & Hester’s Dino-Rama being Walt Disney World’s worst decision ever.
This isn’t to diminish complaints about rising prices. It’s just to say that quotes from random fans aren’t really as conclusive as to consensus as some outside the community might believe them to be. Disney reaching its breaking point has been a much-discussed topic for at least the last decade. However, an excellent new report in the Wall Street Journal actually brings something new (and worthwhile) to the table: internal discussions from Disney about pricing problems and quotes from the company.
Before we get to that, let’s talk about the numbers supporting the assertion that Disney is pricing out the middle class. There’s a lot of financial analysis in the article, which is interesting, but not altogether dissimilar from our own How Much Does It Cost to Go On a Walt Disney World Vacation in 2025?
As with our assessment, the WSJ breaks down different tiers of trips. We have four tiers, mirroring Walt Disney World’s own Value, Moderate, and Deluxe Resort hierarchy–along with the addition of a frugal class for guests staying off-site and trying to do Disney as inexpensively as possible.
By contrast, WSJ has five tiers. That’s not the biggest difference, though. Instead of just taking the cost for each tier of trip at face value, they’re overlaying that with the five U.S. income tiers, and government BLS statistics on average annual travel spending. We question this approach to some extent.
While there is an undeniable nexus between income and travel spending, it’s not definitive.
It’s a fool’s errand to conduct an analysis of Disney pricing out the middle class–or any of the quintiles of consumers–based solely on spending and income data. There are over 125 million households in the United States, and Disney only needs to capture a small percentage of them–we’re talking single digits–each year. And that’s assuming no one visits from overseas, which is obviously inaccurate.
Averages are important but not outcome determine for Disney. What various tiers of average American households “can,” “should,” or “do” spend per year on travel is only part of the equation. Because all it takes is the outliers to skew things completely. Nevermind credit card debt, saving up for expensive vacations, multi-generation trips funded by grandparents, or even the international “whales” (non-derogatory) who make up an increasingly large slice of the tourism pie (not just for Walt Disney World, but for pretty much everywhere).
We’ve previously rebutted the notion that Walt Disney World is now catering only to the wealthy–or even the top 20% of American households, as WSJ suggests. To the contrary, the parks are still reliant on the middle class, and that demographic being willing and able to spend the ever-increasing amount that a Walt Disney World vacation costs.
To be sure, there are wealthy Disney guests. It’s probably fair to say that the top 20% is overrepresented at Walt Disney World as compared to most vacation destinations. However, there are not enough of them to fill the parks and resorts on a daily basis. Bluntly, Disney is dead without the middle class.
The majority of Disney guests–probably the overwhelming majority–are still the middle class, splurging or going into debt. The upper class cannot sustain the parks and resorts. If you visited Walt Disney World today and could Thanos-snap away everyone who wasn’t part of the top 20%, the parks would suddenly look like ghost towns.
To be very clear: we are not saying that this makes the nonstop price increases any better. Nor does it make Walt Disney World’s current approach a savvy long-term business strategy (it makes it worse!). We’ve been sounding the alarms about Disney eroding goodwill for years, and have serious concerns about the company cultivating new generations of fans.
There’s nevertheless a fundamental difference in pricing out the middle class versus attempting to extract more money from them. Disney is squeezing the middle class, not attempting to exclude them. The rich are not booking motel-style rooms with exterior hallways at the Value or Moderate Resorts, let alone the many nearby off-site budget hotels that Disney relies upon to fill the parks. Rite of passage vacations among the affluent are certainly a thing, but not nearly enough to sustain Walt Disney World.
The bottom line is that Walt Disney World is a middle class vacation destination. We’ve made this argument before, often when there’s new data to “prove” that Walt Disney World is dangerously unaffordable. The reality is that the data is important, but it’s only one half of the puzzle. If prices alone were conclusive, Disney would’ve been in serious trouble over a decade ago. And yet, that obviously wasn’t the case.
In reality, the current trajectory doesn’t change until the middle class says “enough is enough.” When that happens is more complicated than simply looking at income and spending. It also concerns guest satisfaction, intent to revisit, and perceptions of value for money. There’s the objective side to this that does matter, but the emotional component is equally critical.
Walt Disney World could increase prices ’til the cows come home, but if they’re also increasing the perceived value at a commensurate clip, many of these conversations about pricing people out wouldn’t be happening. Middle class Americans would save and splurge, viewing their trips to Walt Disney World as “worth it” even if they came with financial strain.
The reason these conversations are happening more and more is because the price increases have been accompanied by cost-cutting, nickel & diming, and other net-negatives that change the calculus for middle class Americans. Not just them, either. No one likes to be ripped off, so that 20% quintile that can safely afford Disney may opt against it, further underscoring the importance of the non-financial factors at play. This is starting to happen and the tide is turning, as evidenced by a year-plus of lower crowds.
According to the WSJ, these conversations are also happening inside the company–not just outside it among fans and critics. This is precisely why all of this matters–because it’s not just the normal financial analysis, but because the WSJ is showing that Disney is starting to lose the middle class on the equally important emotional level.
This brings us to the truly interesting tidbits from the WSJ, which reports that “some inside Disney worry that the company has become addicted to price hikes and has reached the limits of what middle-class Americans can afford.” People with Disney familiar with pricing say that “internal discussions over whether Disney parks may be losing their grip on the hearts and wallets of families with young kids have become more frequent.”
And then there’s this: “Starting in late 2023, the company’s own internal surveys of Walt Disney World and Disneyland guests found that the number of them planning return trips had ticked sharply down.”
This doesn’t come as any surprise to us. If you search this site for “intent to revisit or recommend” or “intent to return” or “guest satisfaction”, you’ll see we’ve been discussing these dropping metrics for a while. It’s our understanding that guest satisfaction took its first big hit with the rollout of Genie+ (late 2021), but improved in 2022-2023.
It’s one thing for us to hear this and another entirely for the Wall Street Journal to be able to credibly source and report it. Although the WSJ doesn’t say as much, our understanding–which we discussed at the time–was that leadership on the ground at Walt Disney World was very concerned with this and wanted to make changes, but then CEO Bob Chapek refused. (That’s precisely how leaks like this start in the first place–concerned employees sounding alarms but being overridden by senior management.)
Most fans probably don’t need a reminder of the dark days of the Chapek era, but most of this was set in motion by him. He cut once free-perks, reduced park entertainment and offerings, and set in motion two years of the most precipitous price increases we’ve ever seen at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Suffice to say, there’s a reason fans hate Chapek.
Upon his return, Bob Iger made it clear that he had been “alarmed” by price increases at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, and was concerned that Chapek was “killing the soul” of Disney. This was widely reported at the time–it’s nothing new.
Shortly after returning, Iger called a meeting with Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro and asked him to come up with a list of things the company could do to win back the goodwill of fans. According to people familiar with the meeting, D’Amaro offered up discounted parking, more days during the off season with lower-priced tickets, and freezing the regular rounds of price hikes.
Iger chose to bring back free overnight parking at Walt Disney World Resort hotels and ticket promotions, but regular price hikes continued, the WSJ reported. This isn’t entirely accurate.
I don’t know why I even bother since perception is reality and prices spiked massively from 2019 to early 2023–and fans are still reeling from that. But Walt Disney World did not raise ticket prices between December 2022 and last year. That was unprecedented.
At the same time, hotel rack rates barely budged last year (below the rate of inflation, on average). For 2025, there were just as many rack rate decreases as there were increases. Due to greater discounting, the effective rates at resorts largely decreased from 2021-2022 to 2023-2024 (and in 2025, so far).
Ticket prices are up, and fairly significantly for many dates, in 2025. Restaurant and merchandise prices have continued to increase, unabated, since 2022. Same goes for upcharges and add-ons, including the line-skipping service (that once was free). So it’s not like overall prices have held steady.
To be clear, none of this is a defense of Disney–just striving for accuracy. We have also argued that while Iger got off to a strong start in improving guest satisfaction, that progress has stalled and more needs to be done (see Walt Disney World Could Fix the Guest Experience by Improving These Things and Big ‘Little Things’ Disney World Needs to Bring Back).
The bottom line is that prices have gone up sharply since 2019, and even though increases have decelerated dramatically since 2022, it’s no wonder fans are disgruntled. The cumulative impact of the cost-cuts coupled with price increases is still staggering, and much more needs to be done to address it.
WSJ also reports that about a year after Iger’s return, Disney began to have “serious concerns” about the rising cost of visiting the parks, according to former employees involved in the discussions. The results of surveys asking whether Walt Disney World and Disneyland guests intended to return soon showed a drop. This aligns with what we’ve been told, and also extends to the likelihood to recommend metrics (which is equally important).
The issue was reportedly raised with Iger, according to WSJ citing people familiar with the matter, but parks were still booming. The Experiences division, which is primarily Parks & Resorts, had become the company’s primary profit engine in 2022, replacing the declining cable TV business. Experiences represented 70% of Disney’s overall operating income in the 2023 fiscal year, up from 41% in 2019 and 34.5% in 2018.
The Experience unit’s income of $3.1 billion for the final three months of 2024 was flat year-over-year. Attendance declined 2%, and operating income fell 5% year-over-year. As we explained following last week’s earnings call, the results probably would’ve been more positive but for Hurricanes Helene and Milton, both of which had a long tail of cancellations. Nevertheless, this came at the same time that the international parks were up a staggering 28%, fueled not by the smoke and mirrors of cost-cuts and higher guest spending, but by opening new lands and attractions.
Pricing has been a concern for investors and analysts, and was even one of the catalysts for the proxy fights of the last couple years. For the company’s part, CFO Hugh Johnston indicated during the December earnings call that Disney needs to be “smart about pricing,” especially at the lower end of the market where consumers are “feeling stress.” (This is similar sentiment to what fast food chains and retailers have reported during their recent earnings calls.)
Johnston indicated that Disney has tried to hold prices steady for lower-priced offerings at the parks and that most of the price increases were concentrated among premium packages or during high-demand dates. He added that the company wants to “tap in to those families and build the habit of coming to Disneyland or Disney World, not one time, but multiple times.”
“The number-one thing we hear from the millions of guests who visit our parks each year is how much a Disney vacation means to them, and we intentionally offer a wide variety of ticket, hotel and dining options to welcome as many families as possible, whatever their budget,” said Josh D’Amaro in a written statement to WSJ. “We also know that in inflationary times it’s especially important to give families ways to save on their visits.”
One random tidbit from the WSJ article that I found interesting was this: “Five years ago, the skip-the-line feature FastPass was free. Now visitors choose from three different tiers of Lightning Lane passes for the privilege—the most expensive reaching $449 a person a day.”
I’ve mentioned this repeatedly, but one of my recurring fears as a longtime fan is been that Disney is inflicting long-term brand damage for short-term financial gain. This line in the article is a perfect example of that. That $449 cost is eye-popping, and will catch the attention of the general public.
Without added context, they might (understandably!) assume that line-skipping at Disney costs hundreds of dollars, not that it starts at under $20. Insignificant as it might seem, lines like those might turn people off from even considering a Disney trip. They won’t learn the full range of Lightning Lane prices, because they’ll say “I’m out” before it even comes to that.
Obviously, this WSJ article as a whole is damaging to Disney. But so are specific sentences like that, or every single article about the failed Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. Same goes for the $100,000+ private jet Disney Parks worldwide “adventure” and the Storyliving by Disney communities.
Those have received outsized negative attention for niche offerings–same with Lightning Lane Premier Pass–and I really wonder whether the limited financial gain is worth the brand damage inflicted. It’s not something that shows up on a balance sheet, so of course they look like positives (except Starcruiser, which very obviously was not). But a balance sheet can’t measure long-term ramifications or indirect consequences. I feel like this is a microcosm for this “Disney is pricing out the middle class” conversation, as a whole.
The WSJ report also points to a couple of surveys that indicate an overwhelming majority of Americans feel theme parks, cruises, and other expensive vacations are financially out of reach.
Many are reporting trading down from these to nature-driven experiences, such as state parks or beaches. Visitor data from the National Park Service bears this out, as does the growing discrepancy between Orlando International Airport’s traffic volume and Central Florida theme park (all of them) attendance.
Disney called one of the polls “flawed and misleading” and unfairly cast Disney in a negative light, according to the WSJ. The company’s response strikes me as oddly defensive, but I’m admittedly not as interested in this type of survey. Over the last decade-plus, I’ve received countless ‘story pitches’ about surveys like this for Walt Disney World, Disneyland, and myriad other destinations. (In fact, you can find recent articles similar to this one about tourism in Las Vegas or New York City.)
It’s been true for a while that the majority of Americans feel Disney vacations are financially out of reach.
The percentages have undoubtedly increased, but the results themselves are nothing new. Those of us who can afford to visit are extremely fortunate. As with the income vs. costs data, what matters more is behavior.
Are enough people voting with their wallets, or are they complaining about prices in surveys but continuing to visit and having positive experiences? It’s undeniable that the financial burden is steep; but is the emotional value still worth it? That’s what makes the intent to revisit/recommend and guest satisfaction metrics the biggest key to all of this.
I’d go a step further and say the “intent to recommend” is a very underrated variable in this. We have heard from more and more fans that, even though they’re still going to Walt Disney World for emotional or sentimental reasons, they’ve stopped recommending it to friends.
It used to be the case that current Disney fans were excellent, unpaid brand ambassadors for the company–introducing Walt Disney World to others, making new fans in the process. What we’ve heard is that–due to higher prices, greater complexity of visiting, less value for money, and more–fewer readers of this site are recommending Disney Parks to others. This is really significant, and under-discussed. People trust the word of one person in their own social circles more than that of one-thousand social media influencers.
This is also why it’s worse for Disney to lose fans on an emotional level. If costs were all that mattered, the damage would be easy to undo. Disney could turn its big pricing dial down, or pull that giant discount lever and entice people to return in greater numbers. But when you lose fans emotionally, the likelihood of that damage being undone is far lower.
Ultimately, this WSJ piece is not going to be “breaking news” to anyone reading this. It covers some well-trodden ground, and similar sentiment to what we’ve been hearing and expressing (see our article, Is Disney Eroding Fan Goodwill?, from 2018 and its nearly 400 reader comments) for years–long before the Chapek regime.
One difference here is that we’re starting to see cracks emerge in Disney’s financial results, with growth at Walt Disney World and Disneyland being primarily driven by price increases as attendance “softens” and demand moderates. Another is that the WSJ spoke to people inside the company, with the leaks suggesting that there are significant worries within about pricing (and probably a fierce internal debate if this is bubbling over with people going to the press).
Finally, there’s the practical reality that Disney has a couple of years ahead of it with no new attractions opening, and at a time when it’s biggest competitor is opening a brand-new theme park down the street. My sincere hope is that important people inside the Walt Disney Company recognize the gravity of all this and the long-term ramifications and intend to do something about it. I was optimistic about that in early 2023, and although I’m still optimistic about the long term investments in new attractions and lands, there needs to be a greater sense of urgency about improving the guest experience and satisfaction in the near-term. Otherwise, there won’t be as many fans or as big of a pool of guests from which to draw once all those fancy things open.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What would you like to see done to improve the guest experience and satisfaction at Walt Disney World? Think that runaway price increases are the big concern, or is the value proposition an equally or more significant matter? Thoughts on the WSJ article? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I would prefer they double prices and cut the amount of people allowed in the parks in half.
In the 90’s we took our family of 4 to Disney World. My husband was a teacher and I was a stay at home mom. To keep it simple our yearly income was around 40k. At that time we stayed in a moderate hotel, Port Orleans. We went to the parks for 4 days then a cruise for 3. Then after our cruise we stayed another week at Port Orleans. We did many character meals and sit down restaurants. We flew from CA. Did not rent a car. It was not a big hardship to save for this vacation.
Now with the cost of inflation, time, we would be making about 92k. There is no way we could go to Disney World today let alone do a cruise and spend an extra week with park hoppers and many character meals. On top of this, there is quite a bit of extra entertainment that is not present now in the parks as there was in the 90’s.
Disney should be nervous about rising costs. They need to be nervous that a Disney fan is wondering what they get for their dollar. At the very least they should have the same entertainment as in the past and if they decide to raise the price to visit, give us something for it. Not take it away.
To say Chapek is the dark days, when Iger returning didn’t fix the dark days. Iger’s mistakes didn’t get repaired like LucasFilms, Pixar, Marvel, and Disney Animation. Then the theme parks are worse off after more ill conceived updates to classic attractions including the awful Splash Mountain replacements. Then the prices keep increasing to attend the theme parks. The value isn’t there. I’m not naive enough to buy Lightning Lane, but the theme parks are clearly not as crowded as it used to be so savvy park goers should know it’s not necessary to buy the line cutting passes. Disney IS gouging the guests. The value isn’t there. The magical thrill is lost. I just don’t feel it anymore. Universal seems to have it coincidentally.
This will be the first year I’ve given up going to WDW even once, despite being an AP holder and making 3-4 trips annually, each time getting more and more frustrated paying more and getting less year over year. I finally let the AP expire and have no intention of returning in the foreseeable future. After 25 years of trips and raising my kids on these vacations, the idea of not being able to do this for our grandkids is depressing, but I could no longer stomach the endless money grabs. I’d stopped encouraging and help friends plan first time trips a few years ago but held on and kept returning out of the emotional component you referenced above, but even that finally soured.
I love the Disney parks and regularly visit Disneyland and the internationals when I can, but I too am feeling the squeeze. In particular, the last Disneyland price increase really is unjustifiable. I do think it’s going to be difficult for them to overcome the psychological barrier that is a park ticket that isn’t $100, but $200.
I bought two sets of DL tickets to use in 2025 and honestly, as much as I love the parks, I’m regretting that decision. I’m really starting to pay attention to the entertainment and what is being offered outside of attractions. The original plan was a spring break trip, but oh wait, Disneyland’s running basically no entertainment, so that doesn’t seem worth it. So maybe I’ll go Halloween and…no, nothing new there unless I get OBB tickets, which I got shut out of the time I tried to buy them. Welp, looks like it’s summer and Christmas again. It’s great to have Wondrous Journeys and Paint the Night back for the 70th, but what would have been even better was if they weren’t artificially suppressed over the last several years. No one asked them to run terrible fireworks shows or choose to stop running their then-brand new night parade. No one asked them to just let a modern night parade sit there in favor of MSEP or nothing. They did it themselves.
It’s really starting to hurt to be asked to pay more than ever before while they don’t even pretend to meet their end of the bargain, again, especially where entertainment is concerned. Fantasmic still doesn’t have a dragon? The Hyperion’s still empty, as is the Fantasyland theater? DCA atmospheric entertainment in particular has been decimated and largely replaced by nothing? LLMP is more than MaxPass, but I now I can’t reride attractions and things like RSR are off limits unless I want to pay more? Now not even the day parade is running the entire year. THE DAY PARADE. Something that used to run daily except for when it was swapped out for the Christmas parade. It’s not even so much that I love, or loved, all of these things, but their absence is felt, and is really robbing the parks of energy and choices.
That is the one thing I really enjoyed about the parks at Christmas this year-they were overflowing with entertainment and acts. DCA, especially, felt alive in a way it hadn’t in YEARS. And the kicker is, I wouldn’t be shocked if you or others told me that previous years there used to be even more.
So now I find myself having changed from a fan who would have gone to the parks at any opportunity in the past, to one that is closely watching the offering and entertainment schedules and only going when it seems like the park is running with enough offerings to “deserve” my visit.
I would love to bring friends with me and share with them the magic of the parks, but the reality is that they just can’t afford it. I’m a teacher, so I don’t even make all that much, but nonetheless I’m in a better financial position than many of my friends. I would love to invite them to come with me. I don’t because I know that they’re not in a position to come, and it’s not for lack of interest on their part.
It really does feel like a death by a thousand cuts.
We are Canadian, working “middle” class, and to go on vacation, we have to consciously save money and plan as frugally as possible. Like Lenore, my family and I had been going to WDW every year or every second year from 1995 to Covid. We are avid Disney fans. We too have witnessed the perks and entertainment slowly disappear (even entire experiences disappear – remember Pleasure Island with its comedy and entertainment clubs in Disney Downtown?). We have seen the rides breaking down more frequently (poor maintenance?), increasingly longer lines even with the line-skipping apps, and the overall costs rise to an unimaginable level. Our most recent trip was in 2022, and at that time, the Genie, line-skipping, and pre-registration requirements for park entry added nothing but stress to our trip. Unless we decide to completely cancel US travel due to political climate, we are hoping to do one final family trip (16 of us) to Orlando next year so that our youngest travelers can experience everything their older siblings and cousins have enjoyed over the years. I say “final” because for future trips, we can get greater value travelling elsewhere (like Canada, Mexico or Europe). This next trip, we are thinking of not booking any Disney time at all if we go, due to Disney’s apparent policy of high-cost -less-value, and the fact that a lot of “fun” entertainment for the little ones has been removed! (Dino-land and Boneyard for example at Animal Kingdom, with nothing to replace them for a few years). We will be focusing on Universal/Islands of Adventure which has better ticket offerings/sales, more activities for for all ages, and a brand new park! Busch Gardens could easily replace AK for us at lesser cost, and Kennedy Space Centre would be a change for all. Disney has literally priced themselves out of our price-range, and I am sure that we are not the only Disney fans who think that way. Several years ago, my husband and I went on a tour of the DVC offerings and were very tempted to purchase DVC so that our children and grandchildren could always have a place to stay when visiting Disneyworld. I am glad now that we didn’t buy, and I am very sad that I have to say that.
One thing that is a great point is that people are no longer recommending Disney vacations to their friends. For myself, I always used to tell friends and family to go to Disney World and would then list all the extra things that made a Disney trip worth it. Unfortunately all of those “selling” points I used to tell to people are gone. Disney World had never been an inexpensive place to vacation, but it used to be easy to overlook that fact because you felt there was value in all of the “extra” services and amenities that came with staying at Disney. No more. I used to look forward to retirement and being able to go multiple times a year. Now that I am retired and am fortunate to be able to go multiple times a year if I wanted to, I no longer do because I feel that WDW has lost a lot of the magic, so most of my vacation dollars are going else were now. While I may still visit maybe every other year or so, it no longer means to me what it used to, and that’s all on them. On a side note, I have a annually published travel book from 1992 and it has the rooms at the Grand Floridian listed at $299 a night….I remember reading that back then and wondering “who in the heck can afford that?”
I strongly agree. Disney is not only massively complicated to plan for newbs, but it’s a huge turn-off for folks who are used to just paying admission and parking and finding food on the fly. I hesitate to recommend Disney as a “vacation,” because it’s NOT a vacation. It’s now a complicated endurance contest in the heat that will cost you a ton of money with no guarantee that rides you paid extra for (or got up at a 7 a.m. virtual queue for ON VACATION) will be operational, in between mobile ordering, studying YouTube videos for how to use the constantly changing FastPass/Genie+/Lightning Lane system — it’s not a relaxing vacation. Unless they have a travel agent, experienced family member going, or money and time to burn, I hesitate to encourage folks to go now.
High prices and and perceptions of less value will certainly cause Disney to lose fans on an emotional level. But ripping out the Rivers of America to put in a Cars attraction has to be the biggest factor in Disney history when it comes to losing people on an emotional level. Almost nobody likes this plan. I’ve heard Disney executives were genuinely taken aback by the massive backlash which resulted from this announcement alone.
Good article, Tom. I read the WSJ article also, and I think a few relevant points aren’t adequately covered: FIRST: Disney’s rapid Parks pricing increases occurred when the rest of the company was throwing billions at new ship construction and Disney+. The execs needed to milk the only profit maker they had to offset those costs and prevent a shareholder revolt. Now that Disney+ will be a $1B profit generator and those ships are coming online, management could SLASH the parks pricing in ways to restore their unique love affair with the fans before its lost forever, such as returning to 2019 pricing/value model in its entirety, Magical Express, Fast Pass, etc, and still show year-over-year profit growth as a company while pulling off one of the great marketing coups in business history. SECOND, Disney’s strategy seems, in part, to fill the parks with FL residents on Annual Passes. This has been a big driver in park overcrowding with its coincident high level of guest dissatisfaction. Those annual pass sales are like a one-time revenue sugar high but I’d argue the locals aren’t in the parks to spend money on food,LL or merch, whereas the family coming once a year from Iowa spends huge on all that, but the foolish level of overcrowding ruins their experience. Disney needs to understand the tradeoff between getting the revenue and killing the guest experience, and make some significant.changes.
I was actually going to include a few paragraphs about streaming, debt, cable, etc., and Disney Parks needing to pick up the slack! I didn’t because this is already really long and that would’ve made it a lot longer. I agree with your point, but with that said, past experience has been that there will always been some new problem point for which Parks & Resorts needs to pick up the slack. (Before streaming it was ESPN no longer being the financial powerhouse it once was.)
So I fear there will be some new problem that “forces” Disney to milk the cash cow that is Walt Disney World even more. I would LOVE to be wrong about that, and have the company start easing up on Parks & Resorts and getting things back closer to 2019. (There’s no going back to that completely.)
I disagree about overcrowding. Both in the sense that I do not find the parks to be ‘foolishly’ overcrowded (save for a few weeks of the year) and also that APs are the problem. Disney needs APs when there’s excess bandwidth (and there is on days when the lowest tiers of APs have access), and reservations keep them (“us” since I’m one of the undesirables) out when there isn’t. APs don’t spend nearly as much per visit, but we still do spend–fill tables, buy merchandise, etc. Not only that, but Disney *wants* a requisite amount of crowding, as it maintains uptake of Lightning Lane purchases and other upcharges.
Keith, is this speculation or fact-based?
Tom,
I love your articles. Thank you for taking the time to write!
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this one. The parks ARE foolishly crowded. And I do think locals have a lot to do with that – especially as you see Epcot become absolutely unnavigable by 6pm. Would love to see an article after you do a zag where they zag trip and just pretend to be a normally-informed (non disneytouristblog highly informed) traveler and travel on a school holiday (times when many families travel because they can’t afford to take weeks off of work to watch their kid on breaks AND then take more weeks off to travel on non-peak dates). I’d be curious to see how much you accomplish and if your mind changes about the place being far far too overcrowded. And I’m not talking wait times. I’m talking not being able to get a stroller through Main Street or the shops.
I know you don’t like the idea of a 5th gate, but that’s what they need to do with all new attractions in order to spread out the crowds. The main walkways in each park act as choke points. If they keep increasing park attractions (and therefore letting more people in) without increasing choke points, we are going to continue to feel it is overwhelmingly crowded.
the main thing the extremely long article doesn’t contain are actual dollar amounts of anything! you don’t list prices of disney owned hotel packages, hotel/park passes packages, hotel prices, park passes. you just list percentages!
I understand that you’re referencing an article in the WSJ, but this article doesn’t state any real information.
If there are (as claimed) 1.34 billion different ways to build a Chipotle burrito, imagine how many possible permutations there are for the cost of a WDW vacation. Anyone with some familiarity with planning or going on a trip to WDW within the last 5-10 years has absolutely encountered higher prices. I don’t need Tom to build us a spreadsheet of the rack rates, by year, of every room type at every WDW property, or develop a “churro index” algorithm, to relate to every point in this article. And numbers can’t prove something is appropriately priced or too expensive or overpriced (that’s totally subjective); the main point of this post is that some at Disney understand why “middle class” vacationers are feeling squeezed by price hikes.
You want numbers, click here (hope it’s ok to share this):
https://touringplans.com/blog/how-much-disney-can-americas-middle-class-afford-in-2025/
It is really hard to read your articles as they are very long and keep jumping back and forth on what you are speaking about. I will tell you one thing, you mentioned as long as the perceived value is still there, price will not matter as much. My question how do you think the value that has been offered has increased in the last 15 to 20 years. Just look at Magical Express, gone. We bought into DVC in 2008 and doing analysis we figured if we went twice a year it would pay for itself in 3 years. Now annual passes are more than double what they used to be, Tables in Wonderland, a wonderful dining benefit, is gone. Service is horrible even at the GF, one of our DVC resorts as I have seen garbage lay on the floor in the morning for an hour before I mentioned it to a cast member as at least 3 cast members walked right past it. I get nowhere near the same feel as I did 15 years ago.
The Disney feeling of 15 years ago (even 10) was so much more “magical” for sure. Iger is destroying it. We go because we own 300 points but have a hard time recommending newbies to vacation there.
Here’s another challenge: Many Canadians may be boycotting all American travel. My family will be taking a European trip instead.
keep up with that. pass it around. we will enjoy a few less people in the park.
By the times these kinds of articles are getting written, especially given recent announcements by Disney and the very big deal that is the imminent opening of Universal’s new park, the damage has been done, and all that’s left to do is to wait to see how it plays out. Disney is pretty clearly out of step with the public consciousness in many ways. Pushing massive expansion when consumers are especially sensitive to costs, after an extended run of increasingly blatant overreach with pricing is pretty… dumb strategically. (Having massive construction projects at 3 of the 4 parks at Disney World is not great planning either, even if Disney didn’t have a poor track record of responding to changing circumstances, pretty likely now, by abandoning major projects.) Come to Disney, stare at construction walls, and front us the money to pay for everything you can’t do, because we took it away or it isn’t built yet!
Disney doesn’t need to purposefully exclude the middle class to accomplish it anyway. And there is more than one way to do it. So although “motel-style rooms with exterior hallways at the Value or Moderate Resorts” doesn’t exclude the middle class, other aspects of the experience do. It may only take one, and that one will not be the same for everyone. Just the availability of high-priced (i.e. unaffordable) line skipping services is a way to exclude people, as are the kinds of exclusive experiences Disney has been pushing more and more, from separately ticketed entertainment to limited-capacity venues like lounges, and that’s just the beginning.
I hear over and over again that part of the magic of Disney is nostalgia, and then I see them do things that have nothing to do with nostalgia. Whether that’s bulldozing, figuratively and literally, beloved aspects of the parks, or building rides like Tron – it’s a fun ride, but I can’t imagine a more generic, forgettable overall experience. It’s like they built the ride system and forgot to create the ride around it, you know… the part someone would be nostalgic about in the future. (As an innovative experience, it’s overshadowed by its own lockers.) –, or focusing publicly on the business as an excuse to raise prices (increases that aren’t justifiable from a business perspective, just nice to have). And then there are circumstances not entirely under Disney’s control… Social media hype may drive FOMO, but it erodes any sense of nostalgia. It’s hard to get nostalic about chasing someone else’s experience.
Disney Parks has been successful because of the very broad awareness and perceived relevance of Disney Parks. But those kinds of influences run both ways. When something is expensive yet attainable, people’s first reaction is often to indulge. But when that same thing becomes unattainable, as a matter of survival and dignity, people will often reject it. From media to Parks I think we’re closer than ever to a wide rejection of Disney, as they abandon the kind of innovation and widespread appeal that made them distinct and special.
Re: “There are so many memorable things about Walt Disney World that are simply gone, without anything having taken their place.” My workaholic parents managed to take my brother, sister, & me to WDW 3x in the late ’80s/early ’90s, & I cherished every moment of those trips. We always combined it with a beach stay & enjoyed a few nights at one of the original Downtown Disney hotels. Recently, I took my kids to WDW in an attempt to recreate some of that magic & nostalgia. Unfortunately, I didn’t succeed as much as I had hoped.
The visits we made in recent years were, to say the least, overwhelming. Perhaps the greatest disappointment came when I realized that one of the most unforgettable experiences—the super-cool, eerie skeleton reflections at the end of the Haunted Mansion attraction—had been removed. I still vividly remember the awe I felt when my Dad & I saw our skeleton forms staring back at us in the mirror, it was my favorite & I could not wait to share that moment with my children. The anticipation was real as we finally (after a brief shut-down stop) neared the end of the ride in our dune buggies. But when I saw that it was gone, I was utterly crushed. What could possibly have been the reason for its removal?
Like many others, we try to save where we can—bring our own refillable water bottles, eat granola bars for breakfast, share meals, skip extra expenses – ILL, MagicBands, & the like. But I’ve been seriously questioning whether the emotional value of a WDW vacation is worth the cost—both the financial cost & the mental effort. From the research & planning to navigating the crowds, securing ADRs (even the non-fancy ones), & finding lodging for my non-nuclear fam of 5, it is a stressful, if not painful, task. But worth it, or so I thought, to share those magical memories with my husband & kids on their first visit to the parks. But while some memories were created, they didn’t come close to outweighing the disappointments.
As a child, I remember walking right up to characters without any lines, seeing them up on elevated stages so more people could see, & riding BTMR again & again with my siblings—no waiting. Space Mountain was another unforgettable experience. But during our 2023 trip, the 6 of us (incl grandma) rushed through a chaotic early entry only to face a 70-minute wait for SM—only for the ride to break down. I couldn’t hold back my tears.
Though not a part of my childhood, Avatar Flight of Passage was impressive, but the experience didn’t live up to the massive hype. It certainly wasn’t worth the nearly 2hr wait. The same can be said for 7DMT—how are these lines still so long for rides that, IMHO, aren’t all that remarkable?
The thought of dealing with the crowds, waiting in long lines for Rise of the Resistance, & struggling to get a reservation at Oga’s Cantina just to stand for 45min has been enough to deter me from visiting Hollywood Studios altogether. I haven’t been since it was MGM Studios, & my Star Wars-obsessed fam still hasn’t even experienced it. Shouldn’t all of this (& so much more) be a wake-up call? Maybe it is.
As the vacay planner, & til recently, a lifelong Disney fan, given these recent experiences, we have no plans for any more Disney-related trips in the near future—including Disney Cruise Line. It’s bittersweet to say, but I think we’ve reached our limit, at least for now.
If anyone has insight on the HM skeleton reflection removal, I’m all ears.
Jillian, the interesting things in your commentary is are the waits you experienced. As bad as it is now vs. when you were a kid, as the Air Boss said to Maverick, “The pattern is full.” Ya maybe gotta wonder why, but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; Disney is conditioning the next generation of park goers to be satisfied with less for more.
I’m sure all of your excellent points have been well-discussed in the comments, so I’ll just add that my own experience is EXACTLY your last point. I’m still going, and I will until my kid gets sick of it (she’s 14, and we decided to try out AP for the first time in 2024). But pre-2020: I’d drag friends and family along. I’d arrange our WDW schedule so we could meet up with local friends, or overlap with other people’s trips. I’d tell everybody who was interested, especially with kids in a certain age range: oh you gotta go, and here’s how to do it, and here’s all the things to consider. My social media memories regularly pop up times that I sent my standard 2004-2015ish WDW care package of ponchos and Birnbaum books to friends planning a trip. I was a WDW hype man.
I’m less and less that. I still love being there, and the kid and I will definitely keep going (at times with the spouse, who’s not quite as into it as we are, but that’s another relevant change: we don’t compel her to go anymore). But it’s so expensive and so upcharged and so perk-diminished and so complicated to plan that it’s started to feel kind of ick and kind of exhausting to suggest it to others. Where do you even start. I’m close to doing the addict turn: “make sure you don’t end up like me.”
Like Tom’s saying: if Disney doesn’t fix this, they’re going to have a generational problem.
IF THEY R JUST FIGURING OUT THAT THE PEOPLE WHO MADE THEM
R PRICED OUT INSTEAD OF GIVING THE RASIES.FIRE THEM ALL U GOT TO BE KIDDING THAT NOBODY NOTICED THIS THEY JUST IGNORED IT
SO LET THEM PAY AT LEAST THEY MAY BE TALKING WOKE IS ALL BUll
Nonsense like this should really be deleted.
I think you underestimate the number of guests who are top 20th percentile in family income.
Top 20% is what I call tv-middle class. People in the 20th percentile don’t consider themselves upper middle. (And top 5%ers probably consider themselves upper middle, not rich).
People in the true middle take driving vacations, not flying. Camping and motels, not hotels.
Top 20% starts at a family income of $150,000.
50th percentile is $80,000.
A 5 day Disney vacation for a family of 4— tickets alone cost over $2,000. Total cost with transportation really starts at about $5,000 and easily goes to $10k+.
I dare say— a family earning $80,000 is not paying $10,000 for a single 5-day vacation.. and rarely paying $5,000.
And even the $150,000 family would be hard pressed to take too many $10k vacations.
Take out the locals and the off-site guests… I’d guess that the overwhelming majority of deluxe resort guests are top 20%.. probably most of the moderate resort guests. And likely the overwhelming majority of value resort guests are at least top 50%.
The big issue I see — there are still “middle class” accommodation options, with value and offsite.
But base tickets have gotten so expensive.. at well over $100 per person per day, that really starts to get painful for a family…
Tom, Thank you for keeping us all abreast with everything Disney. We have visited Disney theme parks every year (and many multiple times a year) from 1999-2019. Since Covid we have only visited a few times and you hit on the biggest reason why. Previous to Covid we spent many vacations in Disneyland using the Paid Max Pass. It cost us up to $15 a day (I believe) but we still purchased it for our family of nine because we felt it was worth it. We loved the convenience of scanning our APP as we got in line and then, while in line, we could select our next fast pass to use later. We easily gathered 7+ fast passes a day this way as we are avid “rope drop-park closing” fans. Although this was a large cost for our large family, all of our kids were willing to cut corners on other amenities (cheaper hotels mostly) in order to keep this cost in our budget.
Our most recent trip to Disneyland was horrible. Genie Plus/Lightning Lane feels so different than Max Pass. Max Pass felt like Fast Pass, I just paid for the convenience of not literally going to a fast pass console to receive the pass. Genie Plus/Lightning Lane feels like playing games in Las Vegas. I wouldn’t be surprised if their algorithm is written in such a way to keep people “playing” throughout the day. It doesn’t make us feel like winners, but chumps. Kind of like Las Vegas.
I think the nail in the coffin, this last trip, was the fact that stand by wait times were over an hour for most rides and the rides themselves were only using half of the vehicles. Is this done because maintenance is so poor and the rides are all broken? Or is Disney trying to make us feel that we MUST buy Lightning Lanes otherwise we must wait and wait?
For our family the magic was lost that day. I would love to try again, but it will take a lot of work to convince my family that a Magical Vacation is actually available in the Disney Parks.
Well, I agree with you and everyone else’s points, so I won’t regurgitate them.
Let’s see if this is Disney smoke being blown up our butts. This is being reported as internal rumors. No word on top brass having any angst as they rake in millions.
*Talk is cheap.* Build the stuff. Stop price hikes. Bring back entertainment and maintenance. Disney is quickly becoming a woke bogeyman to the right and irrelevant and overpriced to everyone else.
Love my DVC, but we have no problem skipping the parks and hitting Wild Florida, Discovery Cove, Universal Studios, Epic Universe, Islands of Adventure, Kennedy Space Station, and other entertainment in the sunny environment.
I agree with you. Whenever Disney World goes into a slump of boring: no new rides or new entertainment at the parks, I escape to Universal. Last time I went to Universal for several years for vacations to visit Wizarding World when it first opened Hogsmeade and then Diagon Alley. Two years ago, we had a lovely time staying at Cabana Bay and walking (not driving) to Volcano Bay which is a 10 minute walk. We went 3 times to Volcano Bay. We went to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure 3 times. One evening was for Halloween Horror nights. It was the most relaxing vacation we ever spent in a theme park. We were not in a rush to do anything because we were familiar with most of the rides. We went on the new ride in Minions Land. We tried the new food. We loved staying at Cabana Bay because of the cafeteria style restaurant where you could just go get food anytime you wanted during the day.
My family and I have been going to Disney- either every year or every other for over 25 years.
I have seen fast pass, magical express and special rate tickets (for non Florida residents)go by the wayside-
I understand costs are rising everywhere- but more and more – the cost comes with less.
I have told my family i will not be going to Disney until they open new lands – we stopped going to Animal Kingdom- and if we didn’t have die hard star wars fans – I may have stopped going to that park too.
Increasing rates with no return is over- Disney needs to get their act together.
I always wonder- what would Walt Disney think of all of this.