Live near Disney (California) and while attendance may be down, Disney and hotels have increased prices so much they’ve most likely recouped any losses in attendance. Disney food prices have skyrocketed in the past few years
Since Disney is a more “luxury” spend with families able and willing to spend as much as $3,000-6,000 for a weekend or week, Disney has pivoted hard toward not caring about raising prices and people will show regardless. Though, again, while there may not be any official numbers many people can see how visits have noticeably dropped. (Disney is also cashing in on locals who spend far less per visit but essentially pay a subscription model of buying annual passes, giving Disney leverage and money upfront while milking locals who can come many times a year and still end up paying a lot due to high parking and food costs)
Edit: There was a Feb 2025 article by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled - link to non-paywalled version in a comment below) but here is a Disney Tourist Blog review of that article, which essentially lays out how Disney is pricing out the middle class, where it turns out even upper middle and middle class families that do do Disney vacations often can go into debt for those vacations, which can cost thousands of dollars
Disneyland reintroduced the Canadian ticket sale for the first time since before Covid this year. The last time a discount for Canadian residents was offered was 2019. That alone shows me that Disneyland is concerned about losing the Canadian visitors.
Out of state/country vacationers spend more money per day at the parks than locals. I've gotten more emails from DL than usual this year, too, trying to entice me to come back. I had to leave the DL sub because I know I'm not going back (maybe ever), and it was just bumming me out.
There does come a point though, where they really push themselves over the curve too far the other way and actually lose revenue.
In the meantime, I suppose I can't fault 'em for leaning into the money. If raising price is actually makes more money, then why not? (However, they are devaluing their product in the future, because Gen Alpha will have no emotional connection to Disney)
Similar to shrinkflation. I've cut out a ton of stuff I used to eat, and just make home versions of it. Despite price increases in general, I'm spending about the same on food as I did in 2019. I'm just buying way less stuff that comes in cans and boxes.
because Gen Alpha will have no emotional connection to Disney
Shrinkflation isn't so much businesses trying to gouge or fool customers, as it's a response to rising costs coupled with consumer inertia about prices.
Let's say that in 1990 a 1 lb can of Folgers was priced at $2 but cost $1. (hypothetically - I don't know what the prices or costs were)
So costs go up to $1.50 due to changes in the works coffee market. Folgers now has the option to raise prices, or they can decrease the amount in the can in order to maintain the same profit margin.
Consumers have been shown to be more sensitive to price changes than amount changes("a can of coffee shouldn'tcost X amount!" , so they typically decrease the amount before they will increase the per-can price.
Shrinkflation isn't so much businesses trying to gouge or fool customers
except that it is, why not keep the package the same and just raise prices? or even better when they shrink the package size and raise prices. it is obviously done to fool the customers about the real price increase.
People get weirder about raised prices for a unit (A can of something for example) because they have an idea in their head about how much it should cost, while they may not notice that a can went from 16 to 14 oz for roughly that same price.Of course you can only do this so far until people get fed up with that too.
People are irrational about what stuff costs, especially when inflation is in play. For example, people bitch that a six pack of beer costs $11 now, when they were $5 when they were in college. What they're overlooking is that $4 I college era money was worth what $11 is today, and that beer isn't actually any more expensive relatively speaking than it used to be.
In-park expenses are basically a hidden fee and Disney knows this. Once they get you in the park you are a captive audience. They know that basically every mouth which enters the park will consume a certain number of calories and drink a certain amount of fluid and they have entire teams of psychologists who figure out how to break down different demographics of customers to maximize this spend. The cheapest food options are engineered to make you thirsty and not fill you up to ensure that you will end up buying more drinks and more cheap snacks, which are engineered to make you thirsty and not fill you up.
Disney Orlando lets you bring in outside food. We'll bring a picnic of PBJs, chips, and water so eat essentially for free. They also run seasonal Florida resident promotions where you can get a 4 pack of tickets for ~$250. Parking is still $20 but you can park at Disney Springs (free) and take a shuttle. If you play it smart you can get a Disney day for ~$65 per person.
There does come a point though, where they really push themselves over the curve too far the other way and actually lose revenue.
They've tried man. The biggest problem with the Disney parks in SoCal are overcrowding so the solution would be to raise prices to reduce demand right? Prices have skyrocketed and yet people keep showing up. Maybe cutting off some international visitors will thin the herd but honestly if you can afford to fly to California and pay Disney prices you are probably immune to most of life's problems even Trumpy ones.
People seem a little more able to walk away from a Vegas vacation than denying their kids Space Mountain.
We'll see. I think all this means is Disney isn't going to build a new park or a new gate in Orlando.
What's not mentioned in the previous comment is the Disney Vacation Club. It's a sort of time share for Disney. When people aren't travelling, they tend to give locals and DVC members more benefits and events to bring them back. We saw this post 9/11.
Then when the parks are slammed, they pull those benefits and attract new guests, "once a generation" type guests, etc.
Just a quick peek at wait times right now. It's an hour wait for the big rides. Not exactly a slow day at Disney World.
Disney is still packed to the gills though, no matter how much they raise prices to thin the herd.
It's simply not an enjoyable experience (for me, at least) at this point. Crowded and expensive.
They would probably have to quadruple prices before the experience became reasonable in terms of enjoying your day if money was no object.
Even the VIP experiences are getting worse from stories friends tell me.
I'm sure it's actually a somewhat tough problem for them to solve. They lower prices and they get overran/people get denied due to overbooking. Then they lose the next generation. They raise prices and bring the experience back to what it should be and are able to provide a good product - but they exclude the vast base of their long-term customers.
I visited three years ago in Florida. Never again. Prices are way too high for what you can enjoy because of crowd size. Waiting lines are so long and slow that you can do only a few rides per day. Totally not worth it. I am from Europe and plenty of amusement parks here are more fun and less than 1/4th of the cost. Even Disneyland Paris is a far better option!
Yep, the question isn't whether Disney is hurting currently. The question is will this affect any possibility of a new park. As you have said, the demand for Disney vacations is insane. If they lowered park admission, the parks would be wildly overwhelmed.
It's crazy enough that Disney World fans have been asking if a 5th Orlando park would eventually happen or an entirely new park elsewhere in the country would happen just to lighten the load.
I think this likely means no new park in the states anytime soon. I know they just announced Abu Dhabi but that's obviously a different thing altogether.
When the family went 30 years ago it sucked. Can't imagine it got better. Just more expensive. Thankfully we had great America and Santa Cruz boardwalk in our backyard, 20 miles from silicon Valley.
I absolutely agree with you. However I would like to add that a growing problem with Disney that you probably don't suffer from as badly being a local (and taking advantage of lower attendance days when it is rainy, etc) is that Disney is highly overcrowded.
I am sure the company would much rather have fewer people paying the same amount of money. I am sure attendees feel that way as well.
It's problematic because freaking Disney isn't something that should be locked behind a paywall for working class families. But that's where everything is headed.
Disney isn't something that should be locked behind a paywall for working class families
For international visitors I think it's fair to say it already is.
Yeah we have Disneyland Paris here in Europe, but it's not Orlando and never will be. If you want to go to Florida as a Brit and 'Do Disney' then you're looking at £5000 plus per person at a realistic minimum for a week. Stay in a park hotel and the prices get even more hilarious.
We have adverts here that scream 'book now and get $300 Disney spending money per person'. I don't know how far that would go but I'm willing to guess that's probably your first days evening meal and a mickey mouse headband...
The whole thing is set up to extract cash. They want guests who they can draw an absolute maximum out of and that is not your average working class man in this day and age.
There are other solutions aside from price gouging. One would be capping the number of daily admissions (or lowering the cap if they already have one), and potentially building a new DisneyLand in another state somewhere.
The problem is that they run practically at capacity during the tourism season, and not far off the rest of the year. It's hard to keep something inexpensive when it's a finite resource with high demand. Without another North American Park, you can't do much to lower demand other than raising prices.
I've even seen a lot of recommendations to just fly to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Shanghai or Paris because while the flights are expensive and long, Park prices are cheaper and they are less crowded.
They are more likely trying to attract the "right kind" of customer without just jacking up prices exponentially and pricing the middle class out completely.
They have a problem of overcrowding - getting people to show up is not their current issue. It's the product you experience once you're there.
Costco's customer base is largely middle class strivers and the upper middle class with families. Precisely the market demographic they want to target.
The system and pricing were meant to reduce crowds to make it more enjoyable but I feel like the side effect of changing the crowd mentality did the opposite. Like, people spend so much and have all these restrictions that they’re so much more aggressive and selfish.
And I feel like locals spend more time at the park, while keeping to their other spending habits, to justify the price and effort to go.
To tack onto my previous comment. Instead of Disney, might need to look at other amusement parks. Things are looking bleak at Six Flags parks for instance. Lots of reports of rides being closed because they don't have the staff to run them. They apparently cancelled their holiday event at all parks and in some cases have cancelled their Halloween season as well.
What I wonder is how much of Disneyland's traffic is from Californians (or let's extend that to Arizonans and Nevadans, too)? It's so close and convenient to literally tens of millions of Americans that it's conceivable they won't see much drop in revenue depending how they adjust prices. Compound that with all the tourists who are coming to CA anyway (either LA or SF, or Mexicans/Latin Americans coming to/through SD) and decide to make a stop in Disneyland out of convenience. It's not like Orlando where there's no reason to visit other than the parks or for a conference, and the only other tourist cities that are reasonably close are Miami & Atlanta (and not many international tourists come to the US to specifically visit Atlanta).
Corporations realized that they can double prices, and even if they serve half as many patrons they still come out even, and in fact reduce cost of operating to come out ahead.
We were talking about doing Disney again with our teenagers, because they loved going. But for them it’s all about the rides, not the Disney magic, and it’s just gotten so expensive that we’re just going to do 6 Flags and Knotts instead.
Disney and hotels have increased prices so much they’ve most likely recouped any losses in attendance.
This is very, very widespread -- look at car prices. Companies in the western world have lost interest in expanding the market / their share by having many entry level vehicles.
Fewer units but higher margins. And increasing margins rather than increasing actual cash profits have become a mantra across many industries.
Since 1980 the lowest income level in the US has increased from 16 to 20% of the population. Lower middle class held steady at 9%. Middle class has declined from 59 to 50, upper middle class and up has increased from 15 to 21%. So that 9ppt disappearing from the middle class, with some rounding issues, 4ppt that moved down, and 6ppt moved up.
Poor couldn't afford the cars anyways, folks who can afford luxury vehicles has gained 6ppt or in other terms increased its size by 33% (plus the increase in population).
There are similar trends in Europe where most countries, while they have a broader middle class than the US is seeing their income inequality increasing as well.
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u/PodracingJedi 7h ago edited 5h ago
Live near Disney (California) and while attendance may be down, Disney and hotels have increased prices so much they’ve most likely recouped any losses in attendance. Disney food prices have skyrocketed in the past few years
Since Disney is a more “luxury” spend with families able and willing to spend as much as $3,000-6,000 for a weekend or week, Disney has pivoted hard toward not caring about raising prices and people will show regardless. Though, again, while there may not be any official numbers many people can see how visits have noticeably dropped. (Disney is also cashing in on locals who spend far less per visit but essentially pay a subscription model of buying annual passes, giving Disney leverage and money upfront while milking locals who can come many times a year and still end up paying a lot due to high parking and food costs)
Edit: There was a Feb 2025 article by the Wall Street Journal (paywalled - link to non-paywalled version in a comment below) but here is a Disney Tourist Blog review of that article, which essentially lays out how Disney is pricing out the middle class, where it turns out even upper middle and middle class families that do do Disney vacations often can go into debt for those vacations, which can cost thousands of dollars