WDW Price Increase Thread

[HandsomePete]

There’s been a Water parks & mini golf add-on to an AP for years now so not surprised they would bring back a standalone AP for water parks as there used to be.

I have the Water Parks & Mini Golf pass and go a few times a year to each.


It may feel like it’s a snails pace because it’s been a long fight, but the wages have gone from $12 minimum in 2019 to now $18 minimum at Disney come December (and a roadmap to $20 minimum).

That’s great for everyone who works there, they deserve it. At the same time, it’s a 33% increase in minimum pay in just 4 years which is quite a bit. Disney is always going to want healthy margins so increases come with any employee minimum raises. Just because those making the park run are making more doesn’t mean Wall Street expects the margins to decrease so this shouldn’t shock anyone.

It’s slimy corporate games, but I hesitate to call it greed when, if they don’t raise the prices, the margins suffer, Wall Street panics, and stock goes down. It’s an endless cycle.

Going from $12 to $18 is a 50% increase - the equation for percent change is end minus beginning divided by beginning. Wages have gone up 50% in four years while ticket prices have not.

Wages are just kind of the simple thing to point at - the assessed value of Magic Kingdom went up over 8% this year. So yes, despite all the handwringing here about a $969 pass going up by 30 bucks (3%), they’re actually taking a haircut.

And value is subjective - there are an awful lot of people who consider $799 for a Pirate Pass to be an absolute steal even with the blockout dates compared to what you get for $530 up the road.

 

[Rhian]

People seem to forget the need for that profit margin. Having a profit isn't enough if it isn't at the level Wall Street wants.

That's what greed is though, isn't it? Never having enough and always needing to find more. I'm not sure why there's a hesitancy to call it what it is. Normal for Wall Street? Yes. Is it a greedy practice? Also yes.

From the link @Jerroddragon posted earlier:

Strikingly, over half of this increase (53.9%) can be attributed to fatter profit margins, with labor costs contributing less than 8% of this increase. This is not normal.

It would be one thing to have a similar profit margin from year to year but the problem arises from the need to break previous quarter's/year's stats every single time ad infinitum. And if they don't for even a quarter there's suddenly internal talks of restructuring and changing things around to avoid the problem of not having record breaking hand-over-fist money all the time. Because heaven forbid you have a slow year, and tying into what @Mad Dog posted earlier there's added pressure to cover other areas of Disney not related to the theme parks that are also all expected to have a "healthy margin."

That need, the "well I only made $10M in profit, why didn't I get $25M like what the financial forecast said" becomes so pervasive it affects everything and that turns in to prices increasing faster over everything else. Maintenance gets cut back, staff reductions occur, etc. If more money was going from patrons to the parks instead of Wall Street pockets it would be a different discussion (to my point, while there are complaints about Universal's price increases at least EU and some of the recent offerings ease that pain somewhat; this isn't a problem unique to Disney or Universal of course).

Wages are just kind of the simple thing to point at - the assessed value of Magic Kingdom went up over 8% this year. So yes, despite all the handwringing here about a $969 pass going up by 30 bucks (3%), t

To quote from the earlier link -

The overheating view often emphasizes the atypically fast nominal wage growth of the past year as justification of their arguments. But this nominal wage growth—while fast compared to the very recent past—still lags far behind overall inflation and hence signals that labor costs are still dampening, not amplifying, inflationary pressures.


In short, the rise in inflation has not been driven by anything that looks like an overheating labor market—instead it has been driven by higher corporate profit margins and supply-chain bottlenecks.

There's also increases to food, merchandise, and other experience add-ons that I don't think are as heavily looked at as entry tickets. It all adds up over the course of a trip.

EDIT: Submitted this before I meant to but to add: I want to go to Disney again at some point, but these prices jumps each year make budgeting harder to do to a point where it doesn't feel worth it for now.

 

[SkiBum]

That's what greed is though, isn't it? Never having enough and always needing to find more. I'm not sure why there's a hesitancy to call it what it is. Normal for Wall Street? Yes. Is it a greedy practice? Also yes.

Agreed. I'm not standing up for it. I worked for a public company years ago and it was beyond frustrating when that company would get hammered in the quarterly earning release because we didn't make enough money. The focus on earnings is also highly limiting. Companies are hesitant to invest too much in something that has a long ROI timeline because investors are impatient and want fast returns.

What I do see with Disney is that they will eventually price people out of going to their parks. The finances of many families are being hampered by inflation and a trip to Disney is growing more and more prohibitive.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

What I do see with Disney is that they will eventually price people out of going to their parks. The finances of many families are being hampered by inflation and a trip to Disney is growing more and more prohibitive.

I feel like I've been saying this for years. No matter how expensive it gets, desperate families will dig themselves deep into debt for that once in a lifetime experience

 

[JungleSkip]

I feel like I've been saying this for years. No matter how expensive it gets, desperate families will dig themselves deep into debt for that once in a lifetime experience

…yea. I don’t think a lot of people appreciate in these discussions how bad a lot of people are at managing their finances, and how much people are willing to sacrifice to give their kids some memories.

There may be a day when that stops, but I don’t think it’s in the foreseeable future

 

[Mad Dog]

The one big difference I see between Disney and Comcast, and I've certainly criticized many of Universal Orlando's operating decisions of the past two years is that, on the whole, Comcast seems to make most of their decisions as 'long term' planning and emphasizes long term over short term. Whereas Disney generally seems to have a basic 'short term' outlook, and like most U.S. corporations now, heavily accentuates quarterly results and makes those short term decisions to appease investors. In the long haul, Comcast has a better overall growth strategy. That's kind of been's Comcast MO since they were just a small cable company not that many years ago. And it's worked quite well. Comcast started as a small Pa. company, and I've been following them for a long time, since their early days. And while they can be utterly ruthless at times, they've always played the long ball game. And that's something that's good for us theme park fans.

 

[Jerroddragon]

So and here lies in on of the issues with the Economy

I know everyone involved is adults but I don't think it should be.....illegal to go into debt for vacations when you can't pay it back

I pay off my CC every month, so people doing that then cool get a little money upfront since you can pay it off but people going into lifelong debt over vacations it hurting supply and demand. The Demand should be muchhhhhhh lower making it where prices can stay lower/fall but this current system is basically allowing people who don't and never will have the funds to go to go driving up a demand that should not exist.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

The one big difference I see between Disney and Comcast, and I've certainly criticized many of Universal Orlando's operating decisions of the past two years, is that, on the whole Comcast seems to make most of their decisions as 'long term' planning and emphasizes long term over short term. Whereas Disney generally seems to have a basic 'short term' outlook, and like most U.S. corporations now, heavily accentuates quarterly results and makes those short term decisions to appease investors. In the long haul, Comcast has a better overall growth strategy. That's kind of been's Comcast MO since they were just a small cable company not that many years ago. And it's worked quite well.

Basically

Disney: better at maintenance and upkeep of existing attractions

Universal/Comcast: better at providing new things consistently

 

[JungleSkip]

The one big difference I see between Disney and Comcast, and I've certainly criticized many of Universal Orlando's operating decisions of the past two years, is that, on the whole Comcast seems to make most of their decisions as 'long term' planning and emphasizes long term over short term. Whereas Disney generally seems to have a basic 'short term' outlook, and like most U.S. corporations now, heavily accentuates quarterly results and makes those short term decisions to appease investors. In the long haul, Comcast has a better overall growth strategy. That's kind of been's Comcast MO since they were just a small cable company not that many years ago. And it's worked quite well. Since Comcast started as a small Pa. company, I've been following them for a long time, since their early days. And while they can be utterly ruthless at times, they've always played the long ball game.

I think Disney’s issue right now is it’s rudderless. No one knows who the heck is supposed to take over for Iger, the live action entertainment they’re producing is largely awful and people are losing interest, and Fox/D+ are still a huge drain on the company.

Without new leadership with a vision, they’re kind of just flailing all over the place trying to find a foot hold

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Boy I remember hoping Universal would acquire Fox and wow, I did not know anything back then

 

[JungleSkip]

Boy I remember hoping Universal would acquire Fox and wow, I did not know anything back then

It was such a monumentally bad deal. Mindblowing that multiple companies bid an insane amount for it

 

[Rhian]

What I do see with Disney is that they will eventually price people out of going to their parks. The finances of many families are being hampered by inflation and a trip to Disney is growing more and more prohibitive.

There's been discussion about that in other threads haven't there? In terms of people spending fewer only-Disney vacations by spreading out visits to other parks. One could make the argument a factor to increasing prices is to make up for that money lost to competition.

There's a flip-side to pricing people out and that's pricing others in. There's people who won't spend money on a vacation unless it was above a certain amount; someone touched on it earlier and that was with a higher price tag comes higher guest expectations. Pulling in more affluent guests also means pulling in a different set of expectations, which is where the complaining about price increases starts.

At some point though a goes from a guest thinking "I get all this?!" to "I'm only getting this?" and thus spend fewer days at the resort or don't visit at all. Galactic Starcruiser is a recent example of this crossroad between financial demographics, understanding who their audience is, and changes in the kind of families Disney is trying to capture (which is all of them, but not all of them can afford it and that pool is shrinking).

None of these things are necesssarily an issue but because above all else profits must go higher it hinders reinvestment to really address these problems. If Disney wants to price some people out to get others in they are free to do that but the theme parks were built for one market and now must be changed to fit a new one (different kind of guest, different expectation).

I think a lot of guests would be happier if they simply sped up their construction speed because at least that would be a good tangible return on their money. But as JungleSkip said without an overarching goal and direction to the company it's all a mess.

I feel like I've been saying this for years. No matter how expensive it gets, desperate families will dig themselves deep into debt for that once in a lifetime experience

I would say there's also no reason why Disney (or any theme park) should only be a once in a lifetime experience.

 

[Mad Dog]

Disney has been living off of their excellent long term brand image and marketing for a good while. That hasn't drastically eroded yet, but if ever does they're in for a rude awakening. ........Sometimes the mighty brands fall when they embrace short term results over long term policy. Sears is a perfect example. For years they lived off of their strong consumer image which was headlined by their lifetime guarantee on the Craftsman tool line. The accountants and Executives got greedy though. They ended the lifetime warranties to save what amounted to pennies for the bottom line. Customer backlash was huge and then the backlash extended to other products in the line that also saw eroded guarantees. That was the beginning of the end. Their brand image collapsed rapidly and they were never the dominant force again. And that happened a few decades before the more recent collapse of brick and mortar retail stores, malls etc. ....This could happen to Disney if their 'brand image' ever collapses due to poor mgt. decisions.

 

[JungleSkip]

Disney has been living off of their excellent long term brand image and marketing for a good while. That hasn't drastically eroded yet, but if ever does they're in for a rude awakening. ........Sometimes the mighty brands fall when they embrace short term results over long term policy. Sears is a perfect example. For years they lived off of their strong consumer image which was headlined by their lifetime guarantee on the Craftsman tool line. The accountants and Executives got greedy though. They ended the lifetime warranties to save what amounted to pennies for the bottom line. Customer backlash was huge and then the backlash extended to other products in the line that also saw eroded guarantees. That was the beginning of the end. Their brand image collapsed rapidly and they were never the dominant force again. And that happened a few decades before the more recent collapse of brick and mortar retail stores, malls etc. ....This could happen to Disney if their 'brand image' ever collapses due to poor mgt. decisions.

I think the company is cyclical.

I remember the end of the Eisner era and we were all having very similar conversations. Then the Iger era had Disney at possibly their most dominant ever over the entertainment sector. And before the Eisner era, people were saying the company was doomed during the Ron Miller era.

Not saying it’s a guarantee that the pendulum swings back the other way this time, but history has shown it to be more than possible

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I would say there's also no reason why Disney (or any theme park) should only be a once in a lifetime experience.

Oh for sure - they shouldn't be so expensive as to have to take out massive loans or go into debt to go ONE time. We're lucky to be able to make just enough to have Universal passes and make a yearly trip down to Orlando, but even that's tight sometimes (and that's for 2 adults, I can't imagine with multiple kids)

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

The fact that Universal, at least according to rumors, already has something Potter related for 2026, and Zelda, a major, brand new land and ride exclusive to Orlando, is telling.

Universal is actively invested in several major projects even post Epic opening. Disney literally has nothing planned and operates on goodwill and loyalty. I really think Epic Universe, along with the Nintendo partnership is just a total, flat out, game changer.

Kids are less and less “growing up” on Disney. Video games are basically just as big as an entity as Disney with the younger generation focusing more on that for entertainment, interactivity, or world building. Universal is simply a step ahead of them in the theme park game because of that, and I can family trends shifting with more Nintendo coming to the parks.

 

[Mad Dog]

I think the company is cyclical.

I remember the end of the Eisner era and we were all having very similar conversations. Then the Iger era had Disney at possibly their most dominant ever over the entertainment sector. And before the Eisner era, people were saying the company was doomed during the Ron Miller era.

Not saying it’s a guarantee that the pendulum swings back the other way this time, but history has shown it to be more than possible

Yes, I agree. I don't think the Disney image is collapsing yet. Short term they're OK, but the long term is where it could go either way depending on how they respond to all of these negative divisions that aren't parks/resorts/merch. . Parks image is still fairly strong. One major change though, is that Disney is much larger and diversified than they were during those other down cycles. Usually diversification is a strength, but not necessarily in Disney's case. These divisions are just about all on the sick list, and if Disney Execs don't respond properly, there's 'trouble in River City. Trouble with a capital T".

 

[JungleSkip]

Kids are less and less “growing up” on Disney.

Uh, no. Not in my experience, not at all.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Uh, no. Not in my experience, not at all.

Video Games, in my experience, are just as much of a major thing like “Disney” is as a brand. Video Games is a genre, that Disney has no game in from my understanding. So many kids now play games even on their phones. It’s sometimes far more accessible than sitting down and watching a Disney film. I just see it as a trend shift. Not ignoring your experience though. Disney will never die and that’s not my point here.

The video game market is GIGANTIC and untouched in theme parks. Universal is ripping that band aid off. It’s fascinating.

 

[JungleSkip]

Video Games, in my experience, are just as much of a major thing like “Disney” is as a brand. Video Games is a genre, that Disney has no game in from my understanding. So many kids now play games even on their phones. It’s sometimes far more accessible than sitting down and watching a Disney film. I just see it as a trend shift. Not ignoring your experience though. Disney will never die and that’s not my point here.

The video game market is GIGANTIC and untouched in theme parks. Universal is ripping that band aid off. It’s fascinating.

Video Games are huge, but the idea that legions of children aren't sitting around watching Disney stuff nonstop is just not reality.

Bluey (and yes I know that isn't a Disney property) is insanely popular, and American kids are only getting that on Disney channels or D+, which leads to them getting hooked on a myriad of other shows and movies.

I think the "grown up content" on D+ (and I struggle to call it that with how badly childish a lot of D+'s "blockbuster content" is written) is atrocious, but they still know how to get kids hooked.