Walt Disney World starts the annual Orlando theme park price hikes

You guys realize Mark is currently on Celebrity Big Brother, right?

He's going to take out Omarosa....

This just in.

Disneyland fans have entered their annual "oh no Disney s charging too much!!!" phase.

The Disney Premiere Passport will cost $1,439 per person. I hold to the notion Disneyis going to charge that much bcause their number crunchers crunched the numbers and determined that was an appropriate price point for that product.

I'd go over to MiceAge and ask, have they not realized yet that Disney does this every year, and despite fan outrage, continues to thrive, year after year, but I was apparently banned last year for pointing out th April Fool's joke article on March 26 was not really an April Fool's joke. :-)

Yeah they don't have much of a sense of humor over there.

For fans of the happiest place on earth, they're not funny at all.

From what I have encountered the biggest fans of the happiest place on earth are the most miserable people on earth.

They're like heroin addicts. Always chasing that perfect day they remember having.

Jeff said:

Brian Noble said:
When it comes to service level in hotels, Universal/Lowes runs circles around Disney.

I wish that was my experience. I had a ton of issues with my last stay in 2011, and before that in 2007. Four-dimaond my ass. They had excuses for every failure.

Jeff, you must either have really bad luck with your hotel stays or your resort lodging expectations are not realistic; because you also referred to the Swan & Dolphin as "dumps" in the past (I've had nothing but outstanding stays there multiple times). And while I have yet to stay at one of the Universal/Lowes properties, I've heard nothing but fantastic things about them. So go figure I guess...

But to speak further on Brian's point, I agree that the service level at the Disney resorts can be inconsistent and to be honest, not all that remarkable. I've stayed at resorts in Mexico and hotels in Asia that blow Disney out of the water when it comes to level of service. Heck, I'd even say that the service level at the Hilton Bonnet Creek (Hilton operated on Disney property) offered pretty top notch service beyond what I typically receive at a "Disney" property.

Swan & Dolphin are dumps. Objectively I believe that's true. They're dated and not nice. RPR is a very nice hotel, but if you can't get a crib in a room until 10 hours after you arrive, when it was on the reservation, that's a pretty serious failure. Ask anyone who travels with a baby.

Nothing screams late 80s/early 90s like the faded pastel colors of Swan and Dolphin!

That also describes the condition of the carpet in the hallways, only with a solid layer of filth on top. Unless they changed it since 2014, it's a dump. Condition of the room furniture was similarly atrocious. Your average Holiday Inn Express is better condition.

Hanging n' Banging said:
the service level at the Disney resorts can be inconsistent and to be honest, not all that remarkable.

If your idea of service is a saccharine smile and "Have a Magical Day!" then Disney is pretty good. But, if you actually have a problem you need to solve, they are useless. I once had to go track down a water polo ball that had been shipped to the wrong place, because the desk clerk at Bay Lake Tower couldn't successfully translate a shipping address to a specific resort. "I'm not even sure that's on Disney property..."

The Swan and Dolphin just finished a $140,000,000 renovation. I stayed there years ago and I agree the rooms were not nice and very dated. Holiday Inn Express was being nice. However, I just stayed there last year and found everything to be much better! The Dolphin lobby is amazing now and the best Italian food on property is Il Mulino at the Swan.

As for the Universal Resorts, we stay every year for a stay-cation at Portofino Bay and found our stay to be a higher quality than most Disney Deluxe Resorts. However Disney has been in a major remodel mode with the majority of their resorts and thus I may feel differently now. I need to book a stay at a deluxe resort again to see if things have improved. It has been three years or so since i stayed at a Deluxe on property. Living in Celebration has caused us to want to stay home more frequently since we are so close to Disney. Staying at Universal is nice for us since we lived in Dr Philips up until a few years ago, so we still enjoy the area....however traffic in Dr Philips has become much worse over the years and with the major construction of I-4 going on we tend to stay away from the area. I really want to head there for Mardi Gras festivities.

In the 10 years I have lived in Orlando, I have seen quite a few of the resort rooms of Disney, Universal, and off property when my parents and other family and friends have come to stay. I just had my parents here a few weeks ago and they spent a weekend at Cabana Bay. Without a doubt the quality of the rooms, furnishings, amenities, common areas have always been significantly higher at the Lowes properties at Universal. The Disney resorts are perfect for convenience for any trip where the bulk of your time will be spent doing Disney stuff and many of them are very nice. But the $119 a night room my parents had at Cabana Bay a few weekends ago exceeded any moderate they/we have ever experienced at WDW. It just sucks they charge a nightly parking fee rather than bundling it all.

On the flip side of that, the nicest resort room I have ever seen in Florida was a villa at Disney's Saratoga Springs. I could move into one of those any time.

Yeah, I never had any issues with the facilities themselves at UO (I was a platinum Loews whatever member at one point), it was the service failings over simple stuff. And yeah, annoyed about the parking costs (Swan & Dolphin does it too). I've stayed in a variety of Disney's rooms, and they've all be fairly nice with nice decorating. Haven't had any anomalies with service, save for the fact that it's impossible to get late night food in most of those places. Nothing quite beats the service of the onboard rooms on DCL though. It's pretty great when you get to know your stateroom host.

I'll be at the newly renovated Yacht Club in just over a month. I'm hoping to find that the newly re-done rooms are more worthy of their price tag. I will report back with findings.

I was in there in 2015, and while the furniture showed minor signs of being tired, at worst the bathroom just felt a little dated, but in excellent shape. Felt like I got my money's worth (as did the lifeguard at the pool when I lost my shorts getting out).

Was that a dollar per inch?

Butt crack is priceless.

Not to change the subject.... *wink*

I find it a little funny that I see 6-hour waits for Avatar stuff and whatnot, and people complaining about the high prices never stops. Can't even begin to guess what they'd have to charge to have crowds be "reasonable" during Bowl Season in late December...everything has a demand curve, including Disney tickets.

To drive home the point, let's say they *didn't* close the gates when reaching capacity, and had tickets sill available at the $75pp/pd price point...how crowded would their parks be then?

Right? Maybe I'm too "elistist" or "rich" or whatever, but I wouldn't even want to set foot in a Disney park with lower prices. It's already shoulder to shoulder on the midways during the times of year I can go. I'd rather they jack up the price by 50% if it means less crowds.