Datasets:

---

innovation-hacking2

/

shitposting_dataset2

like 0

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed...." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?", ">\n\nCapitalism, how does it work?" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?", ">\n\nCapitalism, how does it work?", ">\n\nHardly a “stop the presses” revelation" ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?", ">\n\nCapitalism, how does it work?", ">\n\nHardly a “stop the presses” revelation", ">\n\nDisney prices are getting to Jurassic Park price levels. I am awaiting that 'Coupon Day' before I consider going back." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?", ">\n\nCapitalism, how does it work?", ">\n\nHardly a “stop the presses” revelation", ">\n\nDisney prices are getting to Jurassic Park price levels. I am awaiting that 'Coupon Day' before I consider going back.", ">\n\nI mean I've never been. In fact I had to be told by someone when they were talking about 'the magic kingdom' what the fuck they meant.\nBut isn't the gimmick that parents will pay anything to either shut up or treat their little spawn? Like haven't they been gouging these people for years? Fuckers are still paying for it.\nNot sure if I'll ever try it out. At this point I kinda like not paying a tenner per beer or whatever. Can anyone here tell me what it's like to spend....I dunno a week there? I do admit that the ads make it look......just exhausting." ]

[ "\"However, we suspect it is short-term thinking that puts the brand value and long-term health of the business at risk.\" \nFinally someone of note putting their head above the parapet and pointing out the exceedingly obvious, which applies to so many businesses.", ">\n\nThat's a big part of why Chapek is gone. A lot of the pricing issues came under Iger, but folks would always point to Disney as being a higher quality vacation. A lot of that flipped under Chapek, with folks pointing out that the quality was taking a nosedive as the prices continued to go up. The parks were visibly trashed. Rides were obviously in need of repair. Things literally caught on fire more than once.\nBut Iger's recent announcement and the reaction among Disney fans made me chuckle. They're rolling back overnight parking fees at the hotels, after hiking hotel prices. That's a $15-25 savings after a $100 mark up, some real \"JC Penny sale\" energy there. And it's still hundreds of dollars more than staying in a nicer hotel off-site. \nThe other big announcement was that APs would no longer need park pass reservations to park hop after 2pm. Firstly, park hopping used to be all day rather than after 2pm. Park passes were never required at all until 2020, and no other theme parks currently have any such ridiculous requirements.\nI've had a Disney pass myself. Loved Disney. But I'm looking at this shit show and fully aware of what it is. But some of these folks are eating it up.", ">\n\nI dip into the Disneyland sub every now and then and it's insane how many users there defend the high costs. If you compare ticket costs to past years, they shout at you that it's both inflation and the rising quality of the parks. And if you bring up the current quality issues, as you did, then you're told that you're exaggerating. People make posts about how many attractions are going down at the same time, and they get downvoted for it and told it's just anecdotal evidence--even though these posts are becoming more frequent, along with posts about everyone constantly getting stuck on rides.\nAnyway, while I love Disney and still enjoy the parks, I just don't get how people go to the mat for them when it comes to their crazy series of recent price gouging. They're charging $30 friggen' bucks to park these days. There's just no excuse for that, especially with the low wages they give to employees.", ">\n\nI used to have an annual pass for Disneyland and went about monthly and it is insanely expensive now. I used to grumble at the idea of dropping 400 bucks on an annual pass, but now that tier is like 1100 bucks. \nMy dad worked there, my family went for seriously 4 generations, shit my grandfather used to write screen treatments for Walt Disney, Disney always felt like an extended relation to my family going back to the 50s. \nI don't think I'll ever go back again. It's just too expensive now.", ">\n\nI had a SoCal pass a decade ago, went monthly. Was totally reasonable. Even the little price bumps they did over the years weren’t too bad. Now it’s just absurd. The only way I can go now is when my cast member friend checks me in, and they’ve also been more stingy with her perks. Even if I could afford a pass, I wouldn’t bother because the reservation system seems like it makes it a waste.\nAnd same here on the family front. I’ve been going since I was a toddler, my mom went with her parents and grandparents. But I have no idea how a family of 4 could do it these days. It’s a shame that the greed is ruining what’s basically a family tradition for many people.", ">\n\nI went with my family of 6 once back in 2005, and that was only cause my dad’s uncle used to be a pretty important guy at the Engineering Studio that does all the parks Animatronic stuff, I can’t remember what it’s called, the one named after a Mary Poppins reference. \nAnother visit has literally never been feasible for my family. I’m super jealous of my dad who lived close to the parks growing up and went all the time, for birthdays and shit, or just cause my grandparents had the time to take them. Now just going with my girlfriend and me seems just as prohibitively expensive as it did for my mom and dad trying to take four kids.", ">\n\nAt some point, shareholders, be it, for those who invest in Disney or whatever else are going to need to realize that \"yearly growth\" is impossible. There are only so many people in the world to take so much money from. They are going to have to settle with \"steady profit.\" I am old enough to remember when \"steady profit\" was a good thing. That you, as a shareholder, were happy with your million dollar \"steady profit\" investment every year. Now shareholders are more, \"Okay, we made a million dollars five years ago. Then two million the next. Then four million the next. Then eight million the next. We should be making sixteen million now or else we are a complete failure!\" You can't think that way. You are setting yourself up to fail as well as setting the entire world around you to fail as you are willing to burn down the whole house in the pursuit of growing profits.", ">\n\nYou invest in stocks for growth or return. Once the growth trails off and the business becomes mature and steady, they should be offering dividends rather than unrealistic expectations, but big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.", ">\n\n\nbut big corps are addicted to hoarding cash for themselves.\n\nBig corps are burning cash reserves to do billions annually in stock buybacks to buoy stock prices because that directly impacts C-Suite compensation.", ">\n\nThere is a tax advantage to all investors. Dividends are taxed when they happen, rising stock prices aren’t taxed until the stock is sold. Investors want to gain value without moving money around so they don’t pay taxes.", ">\n\nThey've always done this, its not new.", ">\n\nI think they make plenty of money. At some point, wall Street expectations that you must have infinite growth or else your stock will tank is dumb.", ">\n\nIt's such a weird mindset, too. Nothing in existence is infinite, why do we expect constant growth?", ">\n\nUnchecked growth only occurs with cancer...", ">\n\nI live close to Orlando, & I know people who are addicted to Disney. They spend half their paychecks and almost every weekend at those stupid parks and then complain about being broke. It has simply never occurred to them that they could stop doing to Disney. \nSqueezing customers is a shitty practice, but at the same time it's absurd that people don't just...stop visiting. People act like this company is a basic need like food or water, I'll never understand it.", ">\n\nFile this under \"No shit Sherlock\"", ">\n\nAlso look under \"Any day that ends in 'y'\"", ">\n\nMy goodness! Is that so?\nActually, what amazed me wasn’t the ridiculously overpriced food or the insane princess dresses, but just how terrible the quality of some of the official Disney merchandise was. If it weren’t literally front and centre in one of their Main Street stores (with prices to match) I would’ve sworn blind that it was some hilariously cheap knockoff.", ">\n\nDisney merch has been shit for decades. You could get some higher end stuff that was okay in the early 00's but like, when I was in middle school the magic shop was still high quality and classy. My mom still has the card to make perfume for her from waaaay back in the day when there was a perfumery on Main Street and they'd make a perfume or cologne that was tailored to you. My dad and I still have the Indiana Jones fedoras they sold, those are nearing 30 years old now. I think I still have the 8 ounce pirate ~~shot glass~~ \"bud vase\" that they sold in the early 00's at Pirates. Hell even California Advenutre had a period where they had good merch, for a few years I got my mom hand-drawn sketches of her favorite disney characters, she's got a room full of them framed and up on the wall.", ">\n\nAt some point, the bubble of Disney's magic will burst. It is a poster child for corporate greed....", ">\n\nThat's why they get you young. It's still a trip as a grown adult to go to disneyland with someone's 4 or 5 year old and watch their mind get blown as they see all the characters and stuff that they were raised on.", ">\n\nAnd people still show up, I stopped going once the tickets were around $80, that's how long ago I figured out I couldn't afford Disney vacations anymore, between tickets, food, and drinks inside, plus the lines, I'd just rather take a cruise or camp at a few National Parks and call it good.", ">\n\nYour one-day pass, plus park hopper option, plus Genie+, plus signature ride fee just made your $120 ticket a $240 ticket.", ">\n\nI can't imagine spending $240 a person to get into an insanely crowded theme park to stand in line all day long.", ">\n\nI can’t imagine park hopping with a one day ticket.", ">\n\nNo, but if you want to park hop on any given day, you have to purchase a park hopper for all days. Creative fleecing.", ">\n\nOh! See! One of my other comments talks about how challenging it is to know the ins and outs of the programs.", ">\n\nHearing a couple I know plotting out their trip to Disney and universal studios months in advance was stressing ME out. I thought this was a vacation and you have to run across the park to drink at the star wars cantina?", ">\n\nAttendance is still sky high. Genie+ knowledge is mandatory. It’s hard out there for a Mouseketeer.", ">\n\nI remember going on the 80s in the afternoon, to stay late on the weekend so we could hit up After Dark and it wasn't more expensive than going to any other nightclub in L.A.\nOr going one afternoon because we wanted, specifically wanted, to have dinner at the Blue Bayou Inn. The test was gravy.\nThe thought of that paying more than $100 a ticket per person just to get in is not on the menu", ">\n\nIf Disney charged 20 bucks like they did in the 80s, the park would sell out and turn a bunch of people away. Their way of combating that is to raise the prices of everything to the point where they price out customers who can't afford it.", ">\n\nI worked at Disney in the 80's. We had a list of how many people were estimated in each park. And there was a limit for each.\nThere was a problem with too many people in certain parks even then.\nWhen lines for rides at EPCOT were over an hour each...it was a shitty experience.\nI remember standing at the end of the lines which had actually reached each other they were so long telling them to go to the world sites rather than wait in the lines. Over Christmas it was packed.\nGoing in the off season was always the best times to go.\nCrowd control is a must. And yes...they will raise prices until they see a drop in demand.", ">\n\nAnd six flags $12.99 hot dog is not a rip off as well.\nI have a mid sized six flags park in my area, its not magic mountain or anything like that, its actually quite small and run down, and that's the price for a single hot dog and bun. Parking is also $20. The park is probably like 1/100th size of disney, yet we pay disney prices. My area's average income is what, about 35-50k a year and these are the prices.\nThe ticket only gets you into the gate. Once you get into the gate at disney its almost impossible not to spend money. I also hear you have to pay per ride now if you want to reserve a ticket for the rides. If not I assume you will be in a 4 hour line for one ride. You would only get a couple rides in one day if you bought a day ticket and no other perks, and you would have to spend most of that day in line.\nMy point is disney is not the only one gouging, all theme parks are gouging these days except for a very select few parks in the USA. A single carnival ride where I live is like $6 for an adult ride.\nI had to stop going on amusement rides and to theme parks because the cost is just too much now. Its no longer worth it. Plus I already rode all the rides when I was younger, there isn't much new that appeals to me at least in my area. Some of the rides are the exact same thing I rode in the 1980's.", ">\n\nI've actually found Disney food prices to be lower than Six Flags and Cedar Fair and those two offer far worse food.", ">\n\nFrom what I heard some disney food is actually quality, unlike the run of the mill theme park stuff you get everywhere else that is just reheated hot dogs and hamburgers for $12.99. So yeah, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more for quality food. But I have issue with parks charging $12.99 for a reheated hot dog. However there's basically no park out there that doesn't allow you to bring in your own food or go to your car and eat, so I just bring my own food so its no issue.\nThe parking lot at my park isn't big so its no problem to walk to and from your car, you just have to be prepared with your own food, they even have picnic tables in the parking lot to eat at.", ">\n\nI liked the Universal Studio tours better than Disneyland last time I went.\nDisney should notify ticket purchasers what rides are shut down before people pay those ticket prices.", ">\n\nAnd this comes as a surprise to who exactly?", ">\n\nI know a lot of people love visiting these parks and some even feel it’s an essential American experience, but I just don’t understand the appeal, especially not for the price.", ">\n\nWhy don't they open more parks? I get that it's a special place but imagine having 2 more Disney parks in the US. I'd imagine it would have to be some place where the weather isn't cold and snowy. Maybe Texas? Or maybe a huge indoor park in New England? But it would thin the herd at the current parks and add more avenues for revenue and bring more people that otherwise can't afford the travel let alone the hefty price.", ">\n\nI agree. If they opened a mid-Atlantic or northeast park akin to Disneyland, it would satisfy the people up there who only want to do a day or two.\nDisney World is so crazy because it’s the Disney park that is so encompassing, people from around the world congregate and spend like a week there", ">\n\nPeople who live in the Mid-Atlantic area go to Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. I am sure there are some die-hard Disney fans that would go to a Disney themed park there but Disney would still be fighting against some heavy competition that had generations of brand building behind them for that area of the country. Not to mention their tickets start of as half the cost of Disney. The cheapest ticket right now for Disney world starts off at $109. For almost twenty dollars less, right now, you can buy a ticket for Busch Gardens that would also pay for your meals all day. Drinks included.", ">\n\nDude Disney is the biggest entertainment brand in the country it would blow the fuckin lid off the other two. You ever been to Disney? Not even close", ">\n\nSqueezing .. like giving warm hugs ?", ">\n\nI was just at Disney World a few weeks ago, they are flat out ruthless with the prices they charge for stuff.", ">\n\nSuper easy fix to this. Don't go there.", ">\n\nBut, wasn’t that always the point? Squeeze money out of making delusional people feel safe in their delusions? I don’t see how the business model has changed.", ">\n\nHave you seen how much food and drink cost in their Star Wars sections? The empire is really squeezing the common folk to build that 8th Death Star.", ">\n\nAnd yet 75% of the park profit comes from less then 30% of the guests- the families from Iowa on a omcr in a lifetime vacation could disappear and Disney profitability wouldn't change much because they wouldn't need so much food/ people etc. \nDisney is expensive because people will pay it", ">\n\nDon't ask my for my source but at Disneyland socal, they discovered that their sales numbers were about the same between pre-pandemic and current attendee capacity capping.", ">\n\nIn other news sly is blue and water is wet", ">\n\nBreaking news for 1980", ">\n\nHere’s a crazy idea…Stop going to Disneyland", ">\n\nholy crap - single day tickets are $115-$135? \nlast time i was at DL ticket's were like $15 for kids and $20 for adults (pretty sure, i was just a teen) although it was the mid 1980's \nluckily everyone's earning ten times as much now, so they can afford this /s", ">\n\nA single day is over $160 for magic kingdom on popular days. One day with tax will cost us $688 for four people ($172/per person) for our trip in February.\nWe have a resort booked for May and decided to skip the parks. We will explore central Florida instead.", ">\n\nIf you still want to hit up some parks, check out Busch Gardens (in Tampa) or SeaWorld, they're a lot cheaper, and still a lot of fun.", ">\n\nWatch out, you'll get people who watched an incredibly misleading documentary telling you Sea World is Satan.", ">\n\nThey literally sell shirts saying “most expensive vacation ever” and stuff like that. Plan on spending about $25-$50 per hour per person while in the park.", ">\n\nI’ve been on the property for almost a week, all the gift shops sell the same rotation of stuff, yet to see those shirts for sale. It’s probably unofficial and people wear them to the parks", ">\n\nMy friends were just telling me how much it cost to take there kids to Disney and I about damn near fell over. It's insane what people are paying.", ">\n\nJust ANOTHER corporation gouging the living shit out of customers....and blaming IT ALL on inflation. Shocker!", ">\n\nJust got back from there. My partner convinced me to come help with her and her three kids vacation. It was a terrible trip and a real strain on her and I’s otherwise solid relationship. You literally get fleeced from every possible angle. \nI knew what I was getting into and still got more bitter and cynical than I could have anticipated.", ">\n\nWall Street still wants more.", ">\n\n\"Anybody who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.\n\"Kenneth Boulding quoted in Collision Course by Kerryn Higgs", ">\n\n\"He also raises concerns about the strategy for Disney's streaming business, which has reported big losses.\"\nNo wonder I've been seeing ads for bundling Disney with Hulu for a supposedly bargain price.", ">\n\nWhat took them so long to figure that out. I stopped going to Disney the moment it went over my budget.", ">\n\nThe headline makes it sound like Disney characters are going around giving unwanted bear hugs or something, which would be concerning as well", ">\n\nEverything I've seen about Disney World in the past few years makes it seem crazy expensive and complicated and I have no desire to have to get a degree in logistics to take a vacation.\nGoing to fly to a random city, go museum hopping, and look for things like guided walking tours instead.", ">\n\nCleveland and Philadelphia have amazing museums", ">\n\nI’m pretty disappointed that this isn’t an article about a corporation groping the bellies of their customers.", ">\n\nWith how much maintenance of those machines costs (no wonder they flew out engineers from India and fired their original staff) , every single human who chooses to enter the mouse trap should be appreciated not extorted because it’s their green paper that’s keeping Dizney from bankruptcy", ">\n\nPay $4000 to wait in line for 3 hours and do a 5 minute ride", ">\n\nYep, just came across some pictures of my family at Disneyland for Halloween a couple years back. First thought was, we won’t be doing that anymore…", ">\n\nEvery time I went to a Disney property when visiting family in Orlando I felt like everything was expensive but I was just shy of getting ripped off.\nThen I went to Universal and felt like I was getting absolutely fucked in the wallet at every turn.", ">\n\nDisney collects biometrics on children without parental consent. That’s should be enough to end them as a commercial enterprise", ">\n\nDisney has been a shit company for a long, long, long ass time. But shills will be shilling and try to defend them more than they would defend their own friends and family. They are putting in that non-profit PR work for a company that would happily bleed them dry.", ">\n\nWho do you mean by shills? I know plenty of people who love Disney products, but I’ve never met a soul who defends the pricing. Everyone just tolerates.", ">\n\nWho goes to disney for a cheap vacation? I was solidly middle class as a child and a disney vacation was way, way above our price range. I'm really trying hard to feel bad for the rich people that are choosing to go to an expensive vacation destination.", ">\n\nOh no. It's not just rich people that go. Far from it. People will go into lots of debt to take their tiny tots to Disney because it's a \"must do\" family vacation. They don't even blink about spending a gazillion dollars to get stupid mouse ears and matching t-shirts and fast passes or whatever they're called and stay at a Disney resort so they can post it all on Facebook and brag to their coworkers that their 4 and 5 year old have been to Disney. \nIn addition, Disney has been milking people for years who desperately want a \"classic\" American experience, be it Disney parks, movies, merchandise, what have you. They're a greedy, monstrous company.", ">\n\nIt’s a theme park\nNo one is forcing you to go", ">\n\nIn other news: Scientists discover water is wet!", ">\n\nThis is pure entertainment. You don’t have to go.", ">\n\nThey are in the business making money for themselves and shareholders. Nothing more, nothing less. They just give a shiny coating on it for customers to just vomit money all over them.\nThe more money you give them and the more compelling experience they give customers, the more they will jack the price because they know customers will bend over to give it to them.\nIt's pay to play with Disney.", ">\n\nDisney is great but holy shit it’s expensive", ">\n\nWhy are \"news articles\" just blatantly obvious common sense now?", ">\n\nCapitalism, how does it work?", ">\n\nHardly a “stop the presses” revelation", ">\n\nDisney prices are getting to Jurassic Park price levels. I am awaiting that 'Coupon Day' before I consider going back.", ">\n\nI mean I've never been. In fact I had to be told by someone when they were talking about 'the magic kingdom' what the fuck they meant.\nBut isn't the gimmick that parents will pay anything to either shut up or treat their little spawn? Like haven't they been gouging these people for years? Fuckers are still paying for it.\nNot sure if I'll ever try it out. At this point I kinda like not paying a tenner per beer or whatever. Can anyone here tell me what it's like to spend....I dunno a week there? I do admit that the ads make it look......just exhausting.", ">\n\nThis is why Chapek is out and Iger is back in. The board saw the writing in the wall and made a change. I’m not saying Disney isn’t still going to squeeze every cent out of their customers, but the nickel and dimeing will largely stop." ]

[]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.", ">\n\ncorrect. they use \"tax and spend democrats\" as a pejorative when they are the cut taxes and spend more republicans. one side is responsible the other not so much" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.", ">\n\ncorrect. they use \"tax and spend democrats\" as a pejorative when they are the cut taxes and spend more republicans. one side is responsible the other not so much", ">\n\nYep. \"Tax and spend\" vs. \"don't tax and spend more.\" The hypocrisy drives me insane." ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.", ">\n\ncorrect. they use \"tax and spend democrats\" as a pejorative when they are the cut taxes and spend more republicans. one side is responsible the other not so much", ">\n\nYep. \"Tax and spend\" vs. \"don't tax and spend more.\" The hypocrisy drives me insane.", ">\n\nThat can’t be right….I thought that when librul commies always blow up the deficit?" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.", ">\n\ncorrect. they use \"tax and spend democrats\" as a pejorative when they are the cut taxes and spend more republicans. one side is responsible the other not so much", ">\n\nYep. \"Tax and spend\" vs. \"don't tax and spend more.\" The hypocrisy drives me insane.", ">\n\nThat can’t be right….I thought that when librul commies always blow up the deficit?", ">\n\nIt’s all good, it’s republicans in the photo like they did a fucking thing about it" ]

[ "anyone remember the Clinton budget surplus? some of us do. no wonder the gqp lost its sh*t over him", ">\n\nI remember. And I was young too but EVERYONE was talking about it.", ">\n\nIt is possible to have a prosperous country and budget surplus in government but it requires Democrats in charge.", ">\n\nSo it'll never happen in America.", ">\n\nIf we still have a democracy in a few years, younger generations (Millennials and Zoomers) are about to overtake Baby Boomers in voting numbers, are growing more and more politically engaged and increasingly hate conservatism with a passion.", ">\n\nSaddest part of this is that we’ve had the numbers to at least match boomers at the polls for years, but Millennial turnout just broke 50% a few years ago.", ">\n\nWe're trying. I got my wife to vote for the first time ever, and we just turned 30", ">\n\nLol why is the picture a picture of Kevin McCarthy shaking someone's hand?", ">\n\nBecause it works on a non zero percent of people.", ">\n\nWhat does?", ">\n\nThe subtle implication that the brand-new Speaker of the House had something to do with lowering the deficit.", ">\n\nWhy would the times do that?", ">\n\nJournalism has been dead for awhile now and is mostly just a political dog show now.", ">\n\nDebt is not the same as deficit", ">\n\nNot sure I follow your point. You would agree that deficit spending results in debt, correct? \nTrump's tax cuts to the 1% for their historic stock buyback resulted in the third-biggest deficit increase of any president.", ">\n\nYes I would. But people use debt and deficit interchangeably and they are different calculations", ">\n\nAnd what does that have to do with the person you were responding to?", ">\n\nBecause this post is about deficit and they're talking about debt", ">\n\nExcept they're actually talking about debt. Did you even look at their link?\nBefore Trump the DEBT was at ~20 T. After Trump it was at ~28 T.", ">\n\nThe title of this post is deficit", ">\n\nThe great thing about the comment section of reddit is we get to talk about things not strictly pertaining to the subject of the post", ">\n\nDems always lower the deficit, and Republicans always explode it, but stupid brainwashed clowns believe otherwise", ">\n\nI keep hearing that but haven’t been able to find any sort of breakdown. Does anyone have a resource or like a timeline that shows national debt and who’s in charge of the senate, house, White House, etc?", ">\n\nThe Republicans under W did not let anything stop them from cutting taxes. Not even concurrent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.", ">\n\ncorrect. they use \"tax and spend democrats\" as a pejorative when they are the cut taxes and spend more republicans. one side is responsible the other not so much", ">\n\nYep. \"Tax and spend\" vs. \"don't tax and spend more.\" The hypocrisy drives me insane.", ">\n\nThat can’t be right….I thought that when librul commies always blow up the deficit?", ">\n\nIt’s all good, it’s republicans in the photo like they did a fucking thing about it", ">\n\nSo it looks like the old man, Biden,b and the Democrats know what he is doing. 👏👏👏👏" ]