Disney hates poor people

I thought you were supposed to leave your wife in the car with your child when you went in the park...

#ThrowBackFriday

I've said more than once I'd happily pay a surcharge to enjoy a child-free Magic Kingdom.

Kudos to the Onion. This is hilarious!

Gator, that's only for riding wooden coasters...

Disney World without kids would be awesome.

Didn't Kennywood have (experiment with?) adults only nights? I seem to recall it was for people who were at least twenty one and there were temporary liquor bars and stuff like that. Or... am I making this up?

That was a private buy-out they used to do every other year for about a decade to help raise money for some education fund. It was an over-21 event, but it wasn't an actual operating day.

Ah... the thought of most any amusement park..... no screaming children.... no children, period.... no strollers.... and a Manhatten, up, Maker's, in hand? Sounds like heaven.

I'd like no screaming teenage or college girls. When someone screams right behind me through the entire ride 90% of the time it's high school and college girls. I swear I outgrew that phase by 12 or 13.

They are just attention whores. Those are the same people that post selfie after selfie on Facebook to try to get people to comment how great they look.

If you attend any of the IAAPA park events, they are pretty much kid (and crowd) free. At last year's Magic Kingdom IAAPA event, it was really strange walking down a practically empty Main Street USA...

Sorry to resurrect this one. But I'm just gonna leave this here:

Walt Disney World's Middle Class Problem

The arguments made in the article are hilarious (to me, at least - someone that feels Disney offers a unique high end experience that will cater perfectly to the "less customers paying more even if that's not what's really happening and the parks still reach capacity" crowd), but the comments to the article are even better.

How will these people will feel in another ten years when Disney has continued to grow revenue at this same pace while still maintaining the same "booked to capacity" level of customer base?

More than six months after the original Washington Post piece Jeff linked to, you have people writing practically the same article. I wonder how long people will get away with writing this before it's just flat out incorrect (if it isn't already)?

My. What an astounding grasp of the obvious the author has.

I think my favorite line in the article is "...what Disney is hoping [emphasis added] is that a new class of wealthy traveler will chose [sic] to visit Disney..."

Really, Dakota Gardner? You think Disney raised prices because the company hopes wealthy people will "chose" Disney?

Ugh, the writing on that site is just ****ing awful. If there was any money in it, I'd write more myself. Of course, then I couldn't afford WDW.

The comments are ridiculous, especially when people use the word "greed." I love the parallel drawn to the cruise industry as well. Disney fares go up for the same reason tickets do: People will pay more for a better product. I know I could do a Carnival cruise cheap, but when I'm in Nassau standing on deck 11 of the Dream looking across at some crappy Carnival boat with a dozen verandahs and 80's decorating in the dining room windows, I'm going to assume the service also sucks.

Isn't it funny, the side effect of the "Walmarting" of America? We expect low prices and crappy product and service, now people think they're entitled to better for the same price. Good luck with that.

I can rarely bring myself to read comments, and didn't here. Reading the article... people will pay for what they want.

I'm going to go in a slightly different direction on this. I think Disney is consciously moving up the "value chain" in the US and targeting a higher slice of the socioeconomic strata. If you look at the recent out-of-park US development, it's been DVC in Florida and Hawaii, and a "Value" resort where 3/4ths of the rooms are suites that start north of $300/night. Other development includes standalone homes that start in the $2M range, and a lease for what is by all accounts a very swanky Four Seasons. The new stuff in Disney Springs is also decidedly upscale---a $12 side of asparagus, anyone?

As I've been thinking about the economy in other contexts, there's a good reason for this. Take a look at the first graph in this article:

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-28/four-charts-show-h...ing-better

If you are a mass-market/middle-class discretionary-expense business in the US, that chart is really bad news. Of course, that chart also helps explain Disney's increased investment in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The decline of the mid-market restaurants may be an indicator of that trend as well, but I still think it's because people caught on that it was microwaved crap. :)

You know, I'm not sure WDW has ever been priced to appeal to the mass market/middle class.

Poking around The Googles, I found Disney, in 1971, offering a four day/three night package that would run a family of four around $1,500 in 2015 dollars. Add in airfare and car rental and you're over $2,000.

Brian Noble said:

start north of $300/night.

I consider myself a pretty savvy WDW repeat visitor with a pretty good handle on WDW resort room market pricing.

For my tastes, an average "business class" hotel room outside of WDW (Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott etc.) in the $150-$200 a night range in most markets gets you a decent room in a decent property in my opinion.

Having said that, I continue to be amazed how WDW can continue to fill the majority of their deluxe rooms and command a $300 a night minimum. In fact, I can rarely price out a room in one of the monorail resorts for less than $400 a night for most of the season.

My point is that I think it really is telling that WDW can sell several thousand $300/$400/$500+ a night rooms each day, day in and day out.

They know their customer base. They don't ask $500 a night and hope there will be folks willing to pay that much; they charge $500 a night because they've studied each segment of their market and know they can fill X number of rooms nightly at that rate.

I'm a big fan of Beach Club/Yacht Club, given the proximity to Epcot, but I've always paid less than $200 a night. Certainly it depends on when you go.

The Swan is a hidden gem in the Epcot area, as well. If you don't need every last one of the Disney perks, it's a great option, and typically much more affordable than the Disney resorts next door. My brother loves it there, but he's also sitting on seven figures worth of Starwood points, so he could spend a couple months there for free if he wanted to.