There’s a lot more entertainment out there than the top of the line experience provided by Disney. In the same way that I don’t feel I have the right to a five star hotel, but I do have the right to clean, safe shelter, I don’t believe I have the right to have access to Disney, while I do believe that government should ensure access to our local parks, museums and art galleries.
To be honest, I think this article is part of a larger tendency to focus on the top-of-the-line at the expense of the local, and this has grown much worse in the Internet/international age. Nowadays, we all look at Disneyland, The Smithsonian and MOMA while our local amusement park, museum, and art gallery languish.
Media tends to push us to ignoring our local, less illustrious entertainment sources, and to some extent, I think this article reinforces that tendency where we become in danger of perceiving anything less than Disney as second-class cast-offs.
Frankly, if nobody I know or care about can afford Disney, I suspect that’s only going to make for a better society as we see more government and commercial effort into providing adequate local entertainment. And if some of that proves successful enough and eventually grows beyond my pocket book, that’s merely a new opportunity for someone to provide entertainment for me that’s a little more down market and closer to my budget.
Someone who likes Disney, I suppose. I’m not a Disney fanatic like Cory, but not being someone who likes camping I’d take a few days at Disneyland over a few days at Yosemite if given the choice (yes, I’ve visited Yosemite and other national parks, but I prefer to take them in small doses). What I enjoy is the craftsmanship and detail work of the theme park, as well as the childhood nostalgia factor.
An even better but off-topic question: what kind of idiot shuts down our national parks system to everyone along with the entire federal government as part of an empty political stunt that panders to xenophobic Know-Nothings?
There’s a different question of fairness there, one that has much less to do with wealth. Should the pricing favor families who happen to live in the LA metropolis, or should it favor those who live far away and might only be able to visit Disneyland once or twice in a lifetime?
Of course they could, but given that demand greatly exceeds supply and it’s not easy to quickly build more Disneylands, that transfers the cost from one of dollars to one of time, i.e. queueing at 10 PM in order to get in the park the next morning. Somehow the number of people who might want to go to Disney on any given day needs to be trimmed down to the park’s capacity. If not by admission price, then by some other enforced method.
I’m sure there are laws on the books in both Florida and California about capacity size with regards to public safety. They are usually enforced by the fire marshal for indoor spaces, so possibly for parks like this too.
Admission price is not how disney would enforce the number of people in the park, no. So once again, they already do that…
I always feel weird here when Barks is used to illustrate Disney’s, uh, capitalism. I think Barks would have like this irony? Especially considering the difficult status of his oil painting side business?
What? You don’t think cotton candy should cost $15, or that a churro is worth $7.50 or whatever they cost now?
One of the big issues that they’re going to have to continue to deal with is that for decades, they’ve enjoyed a very supportive position from local governments because of the fact that locals do feel an affinity to Disney. Now, fewer and fewer people down here have passes (because they’re crazy expensive, even for the fairly restrictive So. Cal resident pass), and public opinion is starting to sway. My prediction is that, if Disney continues in this direction, that they’ll quickly find themselves being thoroughly scrutinized, and likely at the end on progressively more restrictive regulation by local government entities. There’s already a distinct vibe of “well, if you’re no longer supporting us locals, there’s not a lot of good reasons to tolerate a lot of BS from a money grubbing corporation”.
Which is why, living only about 20 min. down the road from Disney, I haven’t been in the past 4 years at least…
It’s simply not worth it. For the same amount of $, I can take my kid on a short trip that will have equivalent or greater experience. Snow camping for a weekend? Cheaper than a single day at Disney. Head out to the desert for some bouldering? Dramatically cheaper. Head out to Vegas, buy Cirque du Soleil tickets, get a decent hotel room for the weekend, then head back? Still cheaper…
I was initially confused when I thought the pass being talked about was a daily pass for $1.9k. If it’s an annual pass, well that’s just not a big deal.
Speaking as a person who has only been once, and ended up spending about that much for 2 days with my family (including hotel and food etc), that doesn’t seem like such a bad deal for a full year pass. It is comparable to an annual pass at Whistler, or one of the mountains in Banff, and those are seasonal.
Honestly a full day there can involve a lot of activity and enjoyment. Unlimited days there are probably on another level.
Of course, I don’t know a lot of families of 4 who can drop $8k on annual passes, but I don’t know many people who wouldn’t become suicidal after about 4 days at Disneyland, so YMMV.
They’ve made a lot of Wonderful Things™, but they also regularly commit a lot of corporate dumbfuckery and are notorious assholes about intellectual property. When all your pet loves and hates are wrapped up in one company, it’s kinda hard to look away.
I thought his point was even if admission was free, everything else at the parks (food, souvenirs, etc) costs money.
Also, re the price hike - aw
Fun fact I’m part of a project that is setting up all their park menus into a variable print system. Too bad they won’t take us out to see our handy work when done, haha.
