A Disney World Story That's Realistic About The Costs!?

TomG said:

Jeff, you just don't get it and I wouldn't expect you to.

You're confused. I get it, I just think you're wrong.

That was a nice little mic drop there.

Thats why they make 48 flavors..

Which flavor do you complain about not being able to afford 6 cones of?

Agree with you 100 percent but you are on the wrong forum. You are trying to change the mind of someone who is not thinking straight. Anyone who goes to Disneyworld as much as i'm reading has made it religion and you know how that goes. Disney has become a place where entitlement parents with their scooters bring their entitled kids and make sure their kids get the most magical experience, running like maniacs to the front of the lines with no regard for anyone else using the park. And yea go ahead and not stay on the monorail, take the buses around the park, jammed on them like sardines, gotta believe the gospel just to do that. Give up, take the 6g's and take them to Hawaii. No pretending.

Tekwardo, guys like you probably don't go for ice water on a hot day. I don't complain I just make suggestions. I spend more money in week by accident then most people BUDGET. My problem is I don't know what the word budget means.Your such a bleeding heart for WDW why don't you send them donations towards Igers paycheck.

No one is a bleeding heart about anything. You apparently confuse a lack of comprehension with not only disagreement, but also statements of fact as advocacy for something. Which leads me to...

lchere said:

Agree with you 100 percent but you are on the wrong forum. You are trying to change the mind of someone who is not thinking straight. Anyone who goes to Disneyworld as much as i'm reading has made it religion and you know how that goes.

Welcome, second new guy. You couldn't be more wrong. The regulars here, if I were to generalize a little, tend to be pretty indifferent toward Disney, because it isn't actually big on roller coasters (you're viewing CoasterBuzz, FYI). But we've been at this now for nearly 16 years, and despite many changes in the amusement industry as a whole, we're pretty realistic about why and how they happened.

So if you joined to troll and call us fanboys, man, you're not even close. We tend to think that hardcore "Disney people" are a bunch of assholes that aren't very fun to hang out with. In fact, the fanboys generally adopt TomG's "they're too expensive" motif. We're here arguing the opposite: The market dictates the cost, and we're not convinced that it has topped out yet. TomG's most unrealistic beef is that he can't sleep 6 in a monorail hotel for a "reasonable" amount, for which we've tried to explain supply and demand, but he makes it a moral issue that's all Bob Iger's fault.

I do donte to his pay check. As do several million other people.

TomG said:
Try to get one of those room. I can only go when my kids are out of school in November and later summer. There are only a handful of those room available and its like hitting the lottery to get one...

Yet another reason you're paying eleventy billion dollars for a week at a deluxe resort on the monorail...

Also check mouseowners.com. Sometimes you can steal a DVC property from an owner who can't use their points. But the times you go may make that tough, too.

TomG said:

Tekwardo, guys like you probably don't go for ice water on a hot day. I don't complain I just make suggestions. I spend more money in week by accident then most people BUDGET. My problem is I don't know what the word budget means.Your such a bleeding heart for WDW why don't you send them donations towards Igers paycheck.

Wow. Way to go ad hominem there. What do anybody's spending habits have anything to do with Disney's price points?

More importantly, I think you also overestimate how much any of us care about you or Disney personally. This is an abstract argument about an abstract business concept in an abstract industry. This is not about "I love Iger" or "I hate TomG." This is about what Disney can and should do as a publicly owned company.

Yeah I'm not even sure what he was implying about me and budgeting. I'm single and my house and cars are paid off. Thanks.

You said that which flavor do I complain about not being able to afford of the ice cream. I never said I couldn't afford anything so I don't know where that's coming from if you read my original post I said I wish Disney would make it affordable for for a family of six to stay in a nice hotel and not be able to get two rooms instead of one larger one

TomG said:

... I spend more money in week by accident then most people BUDGET....

Really? I'm not even sure where you're going with this.

#wronglyentitledballs again, just because.

TomG said:

I never said I couldn't afford anything ... I said I wish Disney would make it affordable

QFT

(Author's note: At this point I'm just trolling this guy. The actual conversation is long past of the point of productivity. Ahhh....the offseason.)

Since I dont have any kids I wish Disney gave me half off of everything when my wife and I go. ;)

I typically travel with just the four of us...but with a teen and a tween (boy and girl) it is hard at this point to get them to sleep in the same bed. I'm not even sure you can fit a rollaway into the smaller Disney rooms but, even if you can, it gets pretty congested. The value I get out of a cheaper, larger room off property is more significant to me than the value I may get from staying on property...thus my choice of accommodations.

Again, I don't think Disney is hurting as a result of my choice but I do have reason to believe they are sensitive to my choice and they would like to capture more of that market than they are currently getting. One way they may go about it is by building more Disney Vacation Club. I'm not sure if they do this now or not but if they were to have such an inventory of Vacation Club that supply outweighed demand then I think they would do what most other time shares in Orlando do and sell off those unused nights/weeks to the general public. I've stayed at the Vistana resort, for instance, several times without being an owner. Granted, it is typically off season. But, the quality of the Vistana resort is pretty significant, in my opinion, and the room with plenty of space for all of us, and a kitchen to boot, is pretty great. I bring my own food for breakfast (and at times other meals if we don't plan on going O-C in the parks) which saves me a significant amount of money.

Is there a little more hassle for me? Sure, I need to pack a cooler. But I would argue my personal transportation is as efficient as the Disney transportation (assuming I'm not staying in a monorail property) and I also don't have the sense of being tied to the WDW property...allowing me to do other things in the area.

I'm not sure Tom is making the best argument but I think what he is expressing is true for lots of families and Disney not only has heard it...but will be addressing it in the coming years.

You're expressing something different... you're pointing out the desire for more room, and that's why you stay off-campus. He's taking that and extending it into an entitlement issue while injecting some weird morality argument about greed and CEO salary.

You are taking Disney's pricing scheme as a given and changing your plans and expectations around that. Tom is taking his plans and expectations as a given and asking Disney to change its pricing scheme around that.

Well, yes, that argument is weak. Plenty of people, obviously, don't mind plunking down $10,000 plus on a Disney vacation. Heck, plenty of people don't mind plunking down way more than that for a private jet to get there and a butler and nanny to join them on the trip.

We've had an interesting conversation throughout this year about money we've been spending to go along with our Annual Passes. Prior to this year I'm not sure I ever made reservations for a sit-down restaurant at any of the parks. But, have the AP and having the ability to pre-plan some things I gave it a try. Boy did I like it..even though it cost quite a bit more to eat at those restaurants. Taking away the stress of finding a place to eat, not fighting the often insane counter service lines, etc has had a pretty high value to me this year and, as a result, we have had quite a number of $100 plus meals. I rarely, if ever, spend more than $100 on a meal unless my wife and I are doing something special...or if I'm splurging for the kids. Yet I'm doing it pretty regularly at Disney because I find value in the time and in the actual meal.

As we are winding the year up I'm not sure I'm going to go through the exercise of figuring out what we spent. I'm sure it is pretty significant. Heck, it costs us well over $100 every time we drive up and back just with tolls and gas. Add to that the hotel stays we've had, food in the parks, some extras like the Cirque show and Disney has made out pretty well on the Annual Passes I purchased, even though I got a "deal" with the AAA rate. But I don't particularly care about how much money I spent because I know my children are going to remember this year forever.

Oh, and I'll be in the Magic Kingdom tomorrow and Animal Kingdom on Sunday.

And, for the record, I'm not in the 1% or even in the 10%. To be fair, I'm probaby in the top 20-25% but the frequency of visits to Disney for Florida (or California for that matter) residents is a bit skewed, for obvious reasons.