food IS a theme park
There’s no sugar coating it, Disney World is EXPENSIVE, but has it always been this way?
Hollywood Scoops
Are we priced out of a Disney vacation, or are there ways to make it happen on the cheap?
Check out our video below Has Disney World Gotten TOO EXPENSIVE For Us?
Watch the video and let us know if you think Disney World is too expensive for the average family.
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You can do Disney cheaper, but do you want to? We stayed at a Deluxe and my daughter and her husband stayed at Art of Animation. Big difference–transportation. They rented a car because Bob Cheapskate cut off transportation from the airport and charged them to park the car daily. They used the rental car to park at parks when the wait for a bus was ridiculous. Values are forgotten step children when it comes to bus service. They used skyliner as much as possible. We are from the mid-Atlantic region. Flying is expensive (and we do that). Disney is not an every year trip for us. We don’t want to waste 45 min waiting for a bus. It’s up to you.
Once again…Disney blew it by doing away with Magical Express. A large portion of visitors come in through MCO. Brightline is not the answer as has been stated several times. (By the way they just had the 58th Deadly accident since 2017) The reason for ME and the Resort Bus service is to keep traffic down within the Disney World road system. That will suffer as more people rent cars at the airport and more drive from hotel to parks. But Disney dose not care because they just charge for parking $25.00 a night. Park entry is going up, Food has gone up, Hotels have gone up, Merchandise price has gone up while all the perks have gone away, not down, AWAY. No Fast Pass, No Extended Magic Hours, No Magical Express, No Magic Bands for Hotel Guests . No room service, Check in and out done on a cell phone. No menus at Dining establishments again you have to use your cell phone. Guest services totally SUCK at the present time. Pay for premium rides. Park reservations are a must. Park hopping only after 2pm and only of you go to the original park first and the price did not go down to reflect that you can only use it half the day now. Party prices more than doubled. Ride breakdowns are higher than ever. wait times are the longest is Disney History. ANSWER TO THE QUESTION is Disney too expensive…. YES
You are right, Disney World is getting expensive. I’m going in April of 2023 ( 7 days) and I am already up to about $9000,00 with airfare. Worth it though to see my 2 grandchildren’s faces, ages 3 and 6, when they see Mickey and the other characters. Makes it all worth while.
YES.
It was my first time visiting Disney World last week.
The biggest expense for us was the food. We knew it was going to be expensive so we talked about how much we were going to spend each day.
I looked hard and often for discounts and deals on everything. We chose to save by staying 2 miles off property, we picked a budget airline, I used a 3rd party (USAA) to save about $150 on park tickets. I know Sam’s Club or Costco has deals on park tickets as well.
In total we spent $2,600 on airfare, rental car, hotel, park tickets (w/genie+), food, theme park parking, and gifts for family. And that was on TWO people. Yes it is pricey, but I think we saved big by staying off property.
It was about $1,200 cheaper than our honeymoon.
It can be done, but it sacrifices not staying on Disney property and not flying into Orlando International.
My family is on a limited income. We would get the weekday only pass and that was fine for us. But now everything in Disney is so expensive that we can’t afford it anymore. Genie+ doesn’t help when it would cost $45 for the three of us to get it and the food cost is outrageous.
Expensive is just one of the downsides to WDW. There are many others – like no Magical Express or luggage delivery and having to wait in line for attractions for hours in high heat and humidity (or pay for Genie+ and LL).
We have dealt with pathetically slow transportation, packed food courts, crowded theme parks and rude guests (the last is not really new, but with all the changes to our WDW vacation, it seems more annoying).
Mom, dad and grandparents should not be okay with this. This is not the definition of a vacation. Mom and dad work hard all year and deserve a more restful and less stressful vacation. Disney’s motto now is “Pay more, get less”.
I’ve been a loyal Disney vacationer since 1973. Unless some changes are made, I’m done. Our last trip was in May. Next will be at Universal.
Disney is fast becoming the ‘Land of the Have and Have Nots”. You either have deep pockets to be able to afford to go there, or you do not. Difficult to say but Disney has been moving upscale in attracting guests that have the money…now. The days of going to Disney multiple times per year are being cut back by guests in exchange for going every other year, or every 5 years. Everything has skyrocket in price under the Bob Iger years. At least I got to enjoy Disney during the Michael Eisner/Frank Wells years. The 1980’s/90’s were the best. No lines and reasonable prices.
If you have to ask the question, you already know the answer.
Yes. And it’s not even enjoyable anymore.
No longer “The Happiest Place On Earth”. I have to believe Walt intended his parks to be for families of all economic abilities. As one person commented, not just for those with deep pockets. While Disney does everything it can to promote these parks to the families they are outpricing.
Yes and I’m sure the prices will be going up even more. After all where is all the $$$ going to come from for another ship & island? I’ve seen prices since 1971, the average family soon will not be able to ever go to Disney. I’m sure Walt is disappointed in all the changes.
I’m from uk and a DVc member . We had sooooo many points cos of covid we came for the month of august ! We stayed at Akl jambo , Saratoga and poly. We were 14 nights at jambo and had to ask for clean bedding on day 9 ! The reception at poly was fab at jambo was aweful . No one told us that once you’ve spent over $100 on your new wristband they stop working !!! That caused embarrassment and hungry kids. 4 times we had to not get our meal cos the band didn’t work to pay after that we carried a card !!! But sadly and this is sadly as we’ve been members since 2004 my daughter came home and put her DVc up for sale . Not because of the less Disney attitude of a lot of the staff ( and that was often noticeably ) but the cost of food !!! Crazy. Xxx We eventually got Walmart deliveries and did sandwiches for lunch and microwave pasta (in a studio) for dinner . So I’m sorry Mr CEO it may not increase your revenue putting meal prices up cos normal visitors can’t afford it and will do their own food ! We did 4 meals Toppolinos breakfast (fab) rainforest ( great) space 220 lounge (amazing) and chef Mickey breakfast which was bad they couldn’t get us out fast enough!!! Note character breakfasts not dinner to cut costs !!! We will come next year as we have annual passes we bought in 2019 !! But then who knows if we can’t afford to eat there x we won’t be coming for a few years !
Let’s hope ceo doesn’t make it too expensive for normal people sure Walt would be very very sad !!
As the last review stated, I am a “normal person” in the middle income bracket and WDW is out of the question. I’m a retired teacher who went with my sister who was a DVC owner, but after a discussion, we sold it. Disney days are over. So sad for us. Not what Walt wanted.
Our family of 3 stayed at Pop for a week in Oct — the week after all the prices had gone up. We had pre budgeted, so this left us scrambling a bit. We were already driving (18hrs) and only doing 4 table service meals. My husband and I had both donated plasma for months to help save up. That didn’t give us much room to cover the increase last minute… We dropped a table service and ate lots of poptarts and PB sandwiches. We split a lot of kids meals. I think my husband and I each had only 2 alcoholic drinks all week. I’m glad for reviews like DFB because when we did buy food and snacks, they were worth it!! We had managed to get old bands on sale and had prepaid for Genie+, so I’ve already started thinking about how much more we will need to budget next time. I really feel it’s families in our socio economic status they want to push out of the parks… but I know we will go back. It’s just a matter of how often and how elaborate our trips will be.