I hate you for that mental image that just inevitably evoked.
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Yeah, no-one does customer service like Disney. It’s a major expectation that they want to fulfill.
In addition to the cold weather, that was one of the major flaws of Disneyland Paris. They went in thinking the locals – despite centuries of evidence to the contrary – would hop right on board with their customer-service culture. Oops.
As I recall, they had to spend some time seriously re-tooling their employee training programme there before things got better.
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Another bit from that same trip. The SO went downstairs to check out the weight room and brushes against a machine and gets a grease stain on his only pair of good pants.
I call and ask about dry cleaning service and explain the nature of the stain and if we can get it back in time for our dinner reservations. We return to the room about 6…and not more than 30 seconds later there’s a knock on the door with his cleaned pants. They refused a tip and there’s no charge on the bill.
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Thirty plus years ago my single mom was able to take my grandmother and I not long after her divorce. It was one of the best experiences of my childhood.
My wife and I discussed recently the likelihood of us taking our (at present) 5 year old this year or next. The price hike pretty much excludes us from doing this in 2019 and if it the hikes continue at present rate we will never get to take her.
So while you’re fine with not getting to go, I’m really bummed I won’t get to share something so special–and frankly important from that part of my life–with my kid.
On to other things of course. But still, pricing people out of joyful experiences isn’t something we should be so quick to accept.
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More details?
For many years, Disney’s run overseas specials for European, Asian, and South American tour groups that involve big 30-50 person groups getting stuff like free hotel rooms and free park tickets if they stay for multiple weeks. It’s still hugely profitable because of the food & merch sales. They often tie it into sports or cheerleading events that are held on site. I guarantee pretty much anyone who’s gone to WDW in the last few years has seen the big groups of Brazilian kids doing football chants or groups of Asian cheerleaders doing cheers in unison, over and over again.
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Ah…Ah…Ah…Gawrsh!
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Or the company that writes their insurance policy.
There was a New York Times article that came out a couple of months ago in which a media analyst estimated the cost of the various new attractions and expansions that Disney is spending on it’s theme parks is approximately $24 billion over the next 5 years. That’s more than what it cost Disney to buy Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar all combined!
Now that’s not just Disneyland or Disney World but all their theme parks across the world. So there’s a lot being thrown in there.
However, if you try to look up everything being added into any particular Disney theme park and it is a crazy long list that is constantly changing.
It definitely sucks that the prices are going up but at the same time, Disney are just spending huge gobs of money on expanding everything. That said, I don’t know enough about the economics of Disney theme parks about how much revenue that they are bringing in versus what their spending budget is like and how it changed.
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I’d like to push back against that sentiment a little.
Equating class with wealth is certainly more meritocratic than the old system of equating class with birth. But I think it’s still a pretty dangerous path. If we embrace the concept that class denotes certain admirable qualities (and we do - “upper” class) then what you can afford should not be associated with your class, and us casually equating class and wealth helps perpetuate this harmful association.
Of course, if by class one simply means “category”, then the statement is a tautology.
I agree with being bummed. There are certainly many experiences that I enjoyed that I cannot share with my children because they are now outside of my price range (vacationing away from home a few weeks a year being one).
But I have to say in a world where there are many injustices, concentrating effort and attention on my right to scarce luxury experiences seems… misplaced. I can (and do) mourn what I and my children have lost, but should I really be shedding a tear for my ultra-privileged self when we are surrounded by real injustices and suffering?
(I’ll say what I do truly mourn is that most of the memorable activity in my childhood would get Child Services called nowadays - No more 9 year olds setting out on a “Voyage of Discovery” to cross the city on their bicycle with their friend and returning triumphantly home with the East Pole. No more dropping boulders off of cliffs into the lake below only to realize we might have just stranded ourselves on a tiny island because the boat was tied up at the base of the cliff. No danger for my children at all…)
But usually the fire marshal, since they have the rule of law to work with…
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sigh…
It’s still a class system, which includes oppressive structures. Just because it’s better, doesn’t make it moral.
The problem, as always is exploitation and the people no the less fortunate end of the class spectrum getting constantly screwed over.
It’s a symbol of the system which gives others more benefits across the board.
So in other words, only the very worse off get to ever complain about anything. Unless someone is literally starving in the street, they have no right to complain. Got it.
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Yes, with emphasis on the word “constantly”. Late-stage capitalism is a rigged game that not only destroys the (economic) middle class as Westerners understand it but also inhibits class mobility to the point of turning things into an inescapable caste system.
We all agree that no-one is entitled to go to Disneyland, for example, but a lot of non-wealthy people do try to save up for a once-in-a-lifetime trip there. Up to a couple of decades ago, that was a realistic option for most of them: the family would do 5-6 years of staycations or going to local amusement parks or nature reserves or what-have-you and build up a Disney savings fund.
Now? Even if a family can manage to do that, it’s almost guaranteed under the system that “free” market fundies push that the Disney savings fund will be wiped out or gradually diminished by any one of a number of national, household, or person catastrophes that occur in the interim. Unless you’re wealthy there’s no economic breathing room anymore.
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Yes. There has been class mobility in the past, but generally speaking when there were heavier regulations and more taxes, and then it was more between the working and middle class. These past couple of decades of deregulation have helped put a stop to that…
Exactly. Growing up, my dad’s family always went on a two week vacation. More and more Americans can’t afford to do so any more (and even people of means often can’t get the time off). It’s just one indicator of how things are changing. It’s especially troubling when one takes into consideration just how much of our economy is dedicated to entertainment and tourism.
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It’s really all about personal priorities. I have family members passionate about sports, to whom spending $70-90 per person (plus parking, food, merchandise) for a few hours of watching a baseball game is a no-brainer for the experience. My cousin’s family are camping fiends who spend many hundreds of dollars on tents, sleeping bags, and other equipment to sleep in a ‘free’ national park (which is not free to stay in). If you or your kids love Disney films, spending $100 a person to go to the park for a day in that environment isn’t a hardship. But as @anon61221983 says, simply allocating that time is possibly the most difficult and unrealistic thing these days when so many people are living on a margin.
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I think he’s right, though, that there is much less extra money to put away for such trips, too, though. It’s a time and money issue, I’d argue.
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Yes, you can swap out “Disneyland” for “Yosemite” or “Season Tickets”. But one way or another, that savings fund for a once-in-a-lifetimes treat for the family is going to blown away by the modern economy.
Of course, the powers that be have offered an alternative solution: “easy” credit. We know how that story ends.
That’s undoubtedly another factor. Time is the more precious resource, and Disney factors that in, too. Note the difference for locals between the Premier Pass (no blocked days) and the Southern California Pass (now 211 blocked days – weekends, holidays, the entire summer). Besides a single local adult Disneyphile the ability to live the off-peak life and no kids, whatever cost savings there are in terms of money on the SoCal Pass are completely consumed by the lack of reasonable times to visit.
When I say “economic breathing room” it can be measured by time as well as money.
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There’s injustice everywhere though. And frankly, this is the other side of the same argument that conservatives use to deny the impoverished from using food stamps to buy steaks. The argument being, they should be eating basic food to get by and get a job.
Also, I’m not concentrating effort in any way to make it to freakin’ Disneyland. I’m concentrating on giving her experiences she’ll take with her to be a curious and compassionate individual.
That’s all I’m concerned with. Mouseville would be nice, but like I said, we’re beyond worrying about it at this point.
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Right? And they often are both eating basic food and they already have a job… It’s not good enough, unless they are entirely virtuous and entirely suffering to receive help. Even then, it helps to be considered qualified if one is white…
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Also the standard argument rolled out by Libertarian apologists for the current economic system, the most common one being “hey, progressive SJW, you say you hate the 1% but if you’re making $34k/year you’re in the global 1%. Gotcha!” So bloody simple-minded and tiresome.
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