Walt Disney World starts the annual Orlando theme park price hikes

I stopped reading when the main picture was a picture of (Hong Kong) Disneyland, not Disney World.

I particularly liked the environmental side of it. The colleges that I have been to had more red solo cups, plastic plates then actual students/glassware but she must not have that at her college, so lets call out Disney instead.

And the ping pong balls are definitely not recyclable.

Enh. I didn't stop reading, but eyes won't stop rolling either. Apparently the idea that people value a Disney vacation differently is completely foreign to the population at large.

I stopped reading at the title.

I then copied the link and shared it here in hopes that someone else would read it and comment and I'd get the gist without wasting my own time.

I win the hipster olympics.

I didn't even start reading this thread. In fact I didn't even visit CoasterBuzz.

What's a computer?

Good heavens. If you don't want to go to WDW, don't go. Don't write whining articles about how terrible a place you don't want to go is.

As for camping, the cabins at Fort Wilderness is as close to camping as I care to get. I like my creature comforts.

Since no one has given Lord Gonchar the cliff notes yet...

1. Disney sucks but she has never been there.

2. Food sucks and is expensive.

3. Spend money on college instead.

4. Camping is better.

5. Disney hates the environment.

Your welcome..

*You're

You're welcome.

You can still do plenty at the Magic Kingdom without waits. I went to the X-mas party this year and had only 8 hours in the park, in addition to seeing the fireworks, and the parade, castle stage show and splash mtn twice I rode most rides once, the only rides I did not do were:
-The transportation rides (train, main st vehicles, riverboat)
-The spinners (dumbo, carpets, etc)
-Tiki Room
-Hall of presidents
-Peter Pan
-it’s a small world
-Barnstormer
-Speedway
-Buzz Lightyear
-Monsters Inc

I also had time to eat and camp out for good spots on the parade route and for fireworks. I thought it was money well spent.

More rants in the comments about Disney, DCL specifically, with words like "corporate," "saccharine," "gouge" and the other usual suspects. Also, I think the author just sucks at traveling. How much common sense do you need to not get your little girl dressed up when you're going to the beach?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/travel/disney-cruise-magic-bahamas.html

Anybody that follows up a cruise muster drill with a room service order and watching TV in their stateroom sucks at cruising, traveling, and probably life in general. How does someone spend 10 years as a travel editor for a major newspaper and never go on a cruise?

Lol. I understand the not cruising part, but you're on a giant ship on your first cruise leaving port and you go into your small room and watch TV? That's really weird and self defeating. He already had this article written and had to justify it by going on the cruise...

Also, a few years ago on another message board I broke down the cost of entertainment on a per hour basis for a day in a national park, day at a domestic beach resort, attending a D1 NCAA football game, a day at Cedar Point, Universal and Disney World, as I had been to all of them in the past year. I factored in the cost of a hotel, parking fees, and admission. For the parks, I used the online ticket price for one day. I also used summer hours to figure out the price per day, and for the game used 5 hours as the length of the game. Even with the handicap of using one day tickets for the Orlando park the price per hour from cheapest to most expensive were:

-Day at National Park
-Day at Cedar Point
-Day at Beach
-Day at Universal
-Day at Disney World
-Day at Football Game

That was even with me staying on property at a deluxe resort (Royal Pacific and Wilderness Lodge) vs a Hampton inn 60 miles away from the game. I’m sure an a list concert would be even worse. The price is still fair, and while my own tastes in WDW experiences (Deluxe hotel, one table service meal per day) make the trips expensive enough that I have to space out the years I own an AP there, I still think there is value.

I'm with you there. We're going to spend some time in NYC without the boy, and rooms anywhere in Manhattan don't come cheap. Add in the airfare, food, theater tickets, touristy stuff... it will easily cost more than a cruise and the service won't be as good.

Jeff said:

More rants in the comments about Disney, DCL specifically, with words like "corporate," "saccharine," "gouge" and the other usual suspects. Also, I think the author just sucks at traveling. How much common sense do you need to not get your little girl dressed up when you're going to the beach?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/05/travel/disney-cruise-magic-bahamas.html

Well, also, as soon as I read the little girl's review, "Best time ever," I immediately thought, "Disney did its job." I mean, I know there should be some adult accommodations, but I'm mostly into Disney for my kids and the expectation that I'll have nearly as much fun as they do strikes me as incidental if not unrealistic.

The thing is, unless you like to gamble, I don't see how a Disney cruise could not meet your own expectations. Admittedly, I only know DCL, but a friend put it to me like this: "Do you want to go to the piano bar with nowhere to sit and bartenders that ignore you, or do you want to go to the one with plenty of seats and several people there to wait on you?" That perfectly describes my experience. I've never been more taken care of in an adult entertainment context as I have on a DCL cruise. And while looking at a glacier.

I've cruised multiple times with Carnival and Royal Caribbean, once with Norwegian (in Europe). In my experience the ship and head chef are more important than the line. I've never had an issue with service on any of my cruises. My fellow passengers however... there's no pleasing some of them.

Interestingly enough, I was listening to a podcast with Len Testa of Touring Plans about their crowd calendars and data metrics and the like. (apologies for the long read, but it's worth it)

I learned a few things - first, that Touring Plans hires full time employees, mostly statisticians and professional numbers people, to visit the parks each and every day to sit, watch, count, wait in line and time to make sure times are accurate for reporting and then contrast it with Disney's own numbers in order to bring the most accurate information they can. They have a formal, and informal relationship with Disney's data division, receiving feeds on crowd levels, wait times, etc.. They have spent more than $1M doing analysis of the crowd levels and ride capacities over the last few years, which, for a "fan" website, is absolutely amazing.

Here is where it gets interesting - January and February 2018 had an average crowd level of 7/10, which is equal to or higher than any month in 2017, including June/July peak months. So, the parks have been insanely crowded, and their predictions were completely blown - or so they thought. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were accurate, but M-Th were way off, so they decided to dig in.

95% of public school districts are in session during these last 2 months, so they knew it wasn't an influx of people taking their kids out of school. Tourism from Brazil is actually down by a large amount this year, and everywhere internationally, actually. The US economy and domestic travel appears to be up quite a bit since they started measuring 2010, but it still doesn't account for the higher crowd levels, especially when it doesn't appear that attendance levels have really spiked.

They decided to start looking at attractions, and they started counting people at the exits of rides. Just a few numbers he threw out:

Space Mountain is 1600pph and was doing around 1100-1200

Rock N' Rollercoaster - 1400pph - was running at 900pph

7 Dwarfs Mine Train - 1350pph was running at 850

Keep in mind, this is happening Monday-Thursday. On the weekends, thew rides were hitting their expected capacity. the result of that, though, is the lines always seem the same length or people aren't waiting in them, so the park actually seems to be at the same crowd level every day.

They don't know the exact reason, but the most obvious theory is that it's an Op-Ex expenditure cut, reducing the amount of trains = less staff required, and less maintenance.

Overall. they worked up all the numbers, and while the rides show a cut of up to 30% at a given time, they estimate the park actually has performed around a 5% ride capacity cut during the M-Th week.