Magic Kingdom tickets up to $99 for one-day, $94 for other three Walt Disney World parks

Capitalize said:

I wonder if many consumers are going to feel cheated, though; considering there really isn't a lot to show justifying the increase in the way of new attractions or significant improvements.

I don't know that I buy this. Food prices go up every year, but I don't get more steak in my pound of steak.

In that case you at least are still getting a pound of meat. Just don't expect to get a half gallon carton of ice cream for your dessert. That is where I feel a bit cheated - paying the same price for a smaller amount.

Keeping the price the same and decreasing the amount of product sold for that price is just another way of increasing prices. Sometimes its better from a marketing perspective if customers aren't paying attention.

Brian Noble said:

Capitalize said:

I wonder if many consumers are going to feel cheated, though; considering there really isn't a lot to show justifying the increase in the way of new attractions or significant improvements.

I don't know that I buy this. Food prices go up every year, but I don't get more steak in my pound of steak.

While that is true, the cost of a steak hasn't seen such a drastic increase like we've seen at theme park gates in the past two decades. These price increases have far exceeded what would be considered typical inflation. Like I said, the market will still bare it (and I'm still buying my own tickets), but I'm just wondering at what point a sizable amount of consumers will care they're paying essentially double what they did 20 years ago to enter Magic Kingdom to ride the same attractions with little to show as far as major upgrades or improvements.

rollergator said:

ApolloAndy said:

To be totally frank, I'd be happy to pay $200/day if I knew it would mean we'd get on everything we wanted to and not have to rush or go open/close.

Disney's IT implementation staff "likes" this. ;~)

Maybe, if their product was actually enabled to deliver this. Being limited to three Fastpasses per day is pissing some people off. Though to be fair, it doesn't matter as much for the parks that are not Magic Kingdom. Even then, there are some weird limitations in place, like you can't score a pass for both Soarin' and Test Track in the same day. (Incidentally, it seems like Soarin' is maintaining the higher standby wait times, which kind of surprises me, as I'd rather do Test Track.)

I imagine that's probably due to a difference in capacity. I know Soarin' takes a lot of people per cycle, but it just doesn't seem like it moves people the way Test Track does.

I don't even think that's it. I think that if you only get three passes, they will go virtually unused on almost everything else. The alternate suggestions the system gives you move people to less busy attractions.

Soarin' is a less intense and less intimidating attraction, which means more families are going to ride it. Even though Test Track isn't that extreme, the sound of the cars racing around the outdoor section probably scares away a good amount of people and children who don't like thrills. Soarin' also has an incredible reputation, while most people probably don't realize that the new car design experience in Test Track is surprisingly fun.

The Fastpass+ set-up does need some re-evalutaion. Those non-headliner fastpasses are getting used enough to greatly increase waits on rides like Spaceship Earth, which is normally incredibly efficient without the complications of the new Fastpass+ system.

On Wednesday of our Disney week we were notified that once we used our three FP+ selections we could go to the app and get more, subject to availability, of course. I'm pretty sure you still couldn't cross back to a tier A attraction, though, and it still had to be at the same park. So at a place like EPCOT where every single E-ticket attraction is on the A list it didn't do us much good. At Test Track we bypassed a 50 minute wait by using the single rider line and literally walked right on.

I'm always amazed by the long standby lines for Soarin' and wonder what gives? I know a whole lot of people love that ride, (it's my partner's favorite Disney ride ever, for instance) but I too would take Test Track over it. I think the issue with Soarin is the slow thru-put. The film has to be of decent length to be worthwhile, and the loading process is kind of lengthy, so compared to the more steady flow of TT it suffers from low capacity. They sure could use another theater or two, and that was rumoured at one point, but they may not thnk it's worthwhile investment.

Capitalize said:

While that is true, the cost of a steak hasn't seen such a drastic increase like we've seen at theme park gates in the past two decades. These price increases have far exceeded what would be considered typical inflation.

It's possible for the value of something to increase. For whatever reason people seem to see value in a trip to WDW. In fact, the wild popularity with people seems to have pushed the value higher and higher. It's clearly something that a lot fo people a very willing to pay for.

When I looked into it, I was surprised to find that Soarin' and Test Track have comparable capacities---and neither can accommodate much more than about half the average daily attendance of the park. Once you get to that point, it's not all that surprising that people are forced to choose between them. That way, everyone can at least get one.

Just found this old commercial on a VHS tape in a box.

21 years ago Florida residents could visit a single Disney park for $24.

That would have been the year I went as a teen. Multiday tickets had rows where they stamped dates on them. Fraud prevention was signing your name on them.

What's interesting is that I distinctly remember getting a deal in 2001 as a Florida resident of 4 days for $99. So the price held pretty steady for those 8 years.

What are the current resident deals? I'm guessing it's nowhere close to $24.

Seems like it's only in the past decade that parks realize the value they offer and admission prices have exploded.

Currently the deal is 3 days for $129, with a fourth add-on day for an extra $20. I can barely turn on my computer without being *bombarded* by the ads for it. With the fixes to the VQ implementation and Seven Dwarfs (sic) coming online....probably take advantage of that later this year.

Lord Gonchar said:

Just found this old commercial on a VHS tape in a box.

You have a VCR player:)

Yes. I bought one off of eBay specifically for tranfserring a box of old VHS tapes to a hard drive.

I'm almost finished. Now I have to do a pile of Mini DV tapes (no biggie, I still have an old Mini DV camcorder laying around) and a box of Hi8 tapes (more of an issue as I no longer have a player...off to eBay, I guess).

Also going to have to find something to transfer the cassette tapes...

What I'm saying is there's no reason to have any kind of player...everything is digital and streaming. I'm trying to bring all my old crap up to date before the resources no longer exist.

And current resident offer of $149 for 4 days still feels like a pretty good deal.

I am past the VCR stage but I still like the feel of having DVDs with all of the home videos on them. For some reason it makes me think they are more secure if I can physically hold the discs that they are on compared to just knowing they are somewhere on a hard drive.

I haven't pulled much off of VHS tapes, only the miniDV. I do have a VCR in a box somewhere, along with a dual-well cassette deck. They have traveled 6,000 miles over various moves without seeing the light of day.