Disney beats estimates, US theme park revenue for quarter was $4.8 billion

The first demand is "#1- TALKING HEADS on ALL Characters" and I for one will immediately book my flight if they roll out a David-Byrne-in-a-big-suit meet & greet.

SAME AS IT EVER WAS

How much ya'll think #1 costs each? Cause if you aren't happy with parking prices now....

Bob Killjoy has stomped on the pixie dust and its down to less then a trickle on my kids

I wasn't going to share any more of these. But I just couldn't resist.

Long live the magic!

What a time to be alive. Entitled people are entitled to visit Disney, white people want laws so they don't feel uncomfortable about racism, and don't say "gay" in school.

Whelp. There goes rotisserie Walt again.

It's amazing how many people confuse "Disney is a company that makes money by selling happiness" with "Disney wants me, personally, to be happy."

It truly amazes me when people don't realize companies like Disney are in this whole thing to make money, the genuine belief that they exist purely to "make magic"

"Walt wanted a place where families from all walks of life could come and enjoy themselves, now it's only for the rich"

I mean, lots of people can go and enjoy themselves, but people want to experience IT *ALL* without paying for it all. It costs money to create "magic", and the more "magical" stuff gets, the more money it requires.

He may have wanted people to be able to come and enjoy, but that doesn't mean everyone gets to enjoy "equally".

There's also some pretty good evidence that ol' Walt was a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist who wanted to price out the riff raff when it came to Disneyland.

It’s always interesting that these nuts think that because they think it’s too expensive that only the “rich” can afford it.

Re: riff raff, that's always been an unspoken Disney strategy.

I think that's touching on another potential reason why folks are so upset, but it gets fairly deep in the sociological weeds: a class-conscious, performative, aspirational form of consumption. Trouble is, if you can't consume that way anymore, it lays bare the reality that the consumption was, well, aspirational. The "I stretch to come once a year" guy may be squarely in that reality.

I suspect this essay was what got me thinking along those lines. It might have been something else, but this is a good start.

https://tressiemcphd.medium.com/the-meltdown-crisis-dda5c3ff51a5

bigboy said:

It’s always interesting that these nuts think that because they think it’s too expensive that only the “rich” can afford it.

That is a pretty common definition of "rich" though: someone who makes/is worth $x more than me. And I don't think Abigail shares the view that great uncle Walt was a capitalist. LOL

I've been continually climbing that income ladder my entire career, and even at this point closer to the end than the beginning, I've never felt "rich." I don't even know what that means. To me it would mean having choices to do whatever you want, and I'll never be there until retirement. Even then, it will have its limitations, I just don't need to show up to work anymore.

Meanwhile, a coworker was telling me today that he's paying $200 a day for a lift ticket for skiing. That's just a chair lift, in the cold, for $200. But tell me again how Disney is relatively expensive.

Jeff said:

I've never felt "rich." I don't even know what that means.

Obviously, you don't have enough plaid shirts. Or was it flannel? I can't remember now.

I remember an editorial written by a family's "head of household" living where the Obamas lived in Chicago. They said that they were living paycheck to paycheck and that their taxes were too high, it just wasn't fair you see. They listed their expenses. They had a landscaper, two luxury cars (in urban Chicago), kids were in private school, etc. My wife and I settled on our house because it was nice and we could afford the mortgage without sacrificing travel and such (< 10 years away from paying it off). We have a car with 100k miles because it still works and we don't need a new one.

All that to say that I'll consider myself "rich" when I can live where I want and buy whatever I want.

Jeff said:

Meanwhile, a coworker was telling me today that he's paying $200 a day for a lift ticket for skiing. That's just a chair lift, in the cold, for $200. But tell me again how Disney is relatively expensive.

There's no denying that skiing is expensive. Theme parks are a good value comparatively based on hours used alone. But just like theme parks, paying full price is for chumps. I would have paid $1,240 so far this season if I would have paid full price.

When I was a kid Disneyland cost 3 bucks.
Of course the average paycheck was 5 bucks so there ya go.