Hotel prices around Disney parks rising

No surprise, the price of everything in CA has been escalating the last few months

No idea what's happening in CA, but I can tell you what's happening in SW Ohio.

A perfect storm of:

1. An attempt to get back some of the revenue lost during the pandemic.
2. Inflated rates because of the inflated wages needed to get employees.
3. Pent up demand for travel.

#3 is dictating things far more than #1 and #2.

Rates are high, but people are paying. The wife literally has GMs calling her going, "We're selling out at X. Can we really keep raising our rates?"

Then they do raise them further and they continue to sell out. I now understand how Disney must feel where no matter how high you go people keep coming.

So yeah, hotel rates seem to be through the roof everywhere right now. But people's willingness to pay those rates is driving them up further.

Hell, even in the linked article, one guest talks about spending $425 on a room that cost half that in the past. That's exactly where things are - people are paying it. If they weren't, it'd be back to the $200 it used to be. Supply & demand.

This quote made me yell at my phone when I read it:

”On Sunday, Father’s Day, Disney’s Paradise Pier Hotel is $435 a night and the Grand California is $584, though Sage said most hotels are still affordable.”

Premium hotel rooms in high demand are higher priced right now. Other rooms are not. Film at 11:00. The fact that it came from a Disney blogger made my eyes glaze over. I’m surprised he didn’t work in a line about changes to Pirates of the Caribbean ruining the park.

It's annoying that already the issue of inflation is being made political, when it's about as plain obvious supply and demand as you could get. I'm certainly in that boat (or will be in a boat, we booked a cruise for next year), spending more on everything right now.

That is the beauty of America. If the Democrats are in office and we have inflation, the Republicans say it is the Democrat's fault. If the Republicans are in office and we have inflation, The Democrats say it is the Republican's fault.

Shopping around for some second half of summer trips and the thing that keeps making me put it off is the price of rental cars

Lord Gonchar said:

No idea what's happening in CA, but I can tell you what's happening in SW Ohio.

A perfect storm of:

1. An attempt to get back some of the revenue lost during the pandemic.
2. Inflated rates because of the inflated wages needed to get employees.
3. Pent up demand for travel.

#3 is dictating things far more than #1 and #2.

From afar, this seems like what is playing out in many different ways--and that pent up demand is not just "I haven't been anywhere in a while so I want to go somewhere," but also that folks have a lot of extra resources they don't normally have

We've talked about this here before, but folks who normally might save up to go on a nice vacation every few years had a lot of things they didn't spend money on for a good year and change: no vacations, for one thing. But lots of other things: no restaurants, movie theaters, $5 cappuccino, commute costs, work wardrobe, etc. etc. etc. People are ready to travel, and some of them have more than enough cash on hand to do it.

BrettV said:

Shopping around for some second half of summer trips and the thing that keeps making me put it off is the price of rental cars

Yup! This is killing some of my trips. I canceled a trip to Nevada because the price of my rental was going to be more than my total cost of hotels/flights. I am now looking at making trips to cities with easy to navigate public transportation like NYC.

Thankfully, I'm able to use my employer's negotiated rate with National for personal travel. It's saving me a fortune for the three weeks we have planned in Hawaii later this summer---assuming there is still a car for us when we get there.

99er said:

Yup! This is killing some of my trips. I canceled a trip to Nevada because the price of my rental was going to be more than my total cost of hotels/flights. I am now looking at making trips to cities with easy to navigate public transportation like NYC.

In October 2019 I was able to do a long weekend to Cedar Point Halloweekends from Orlando for something crazy like $200. That included the Frontier flights, the Econolodge, and a rental car at Hopkins.

I was looking at 2-3 nights at CP in July and August. The flights are reasonable and the hotels aren't bad at all. But I just can't justify spending the $550-$600 to rent a car.

Brian Noble said:

Thankfully, I'm able to use my employer's negotiated rate with National for personal travel. It's saving me a fortune for the three weeks we have planned in Hawaii later this summer---assuming there is still a car for us when we get there.

The situation in Hawaii is pretty wild. I'm fortunate that my wife books everything well in advance. We are heading to Hawaii this week and were able to get a Suburban for the week for $600. Granted she booked this back in January. By April the price had skyrocketed to $2400 for the same car before they were unavailable. Fingers crossed they don't give it away before we land on Friday morning.

According to this article, major car rental companies sold about 1/3rd of their rental cars during the slowdown. And chip supply has made it challenging to replace them. Not sure if suggestions they mention work.

https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/travel/travel-planning/why-ren...-expensive

I was watching the sales websites for car rental companies over last summer and it was a perfect time to buy a used car. You could find some damn good deals on cars since they were dumping their fleets.

My wife and I just got back from a beach vacation. I booked our rental car back in November and it was still expensive at $454 for 8 day's for a Nissan Sentra. I looked the week we were leaving and the same rental car was almost $1000.

I also just booked our rental car for Orlando in November and our same midsized car that we typically rent. It was $609 for the week, and we are going the same week we visited last year. It was $386 last year for the same car.

Yet, the Aventura pass holder rate at Universal Orlando is like $99 a night… The market is weird right now.

Nasty motels around Cedar Point are triple last year's rates.

Define "nasty". Only asking because we booked a quick trip on a whim starting this upcoming Sunday at Breakers Express (on-point was sold out) for around 160/night. I thought that was pretty OK for late June. Assuming it wasn't $50 a night last year :)

I think Sandusky rates can be range from reasonable to absurd all depending on how many traveling leagues are Sports Force. Forget getting a room Fri-Sat night anywhere in the area if there is a tourney in town.

Out of curiosity, only thing I see for this Saturday is the "Quality" Inn Huron for $320 a night and Best Western Sandusky for $310. I've stayed a Universal's Portofino for less.