If you like roller coasters like we do, there's no comparison to Cedar Point, it's got the most amazing concentration of coasters anywhere.
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Disney Vacation Experiences
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If you like roller coasters like we do, there's no comparison to Cedar Point, it's got the most amazing concentration of coasters anywhere.
CEDAR POINT....YEAHHH. I lived on the mistake on the lake for almost 16 years. Best part was Cedar Point on a Tuesday or Wednesday. Surprisingly July 4th was a great day as almost nobody there .
My defense of Disney Parks is that many of their rides are completely unique, however the prices have become onerous. I always wanted to go to Cedar Park, although I don't know if my neck could now take it.
Here's the thing about Disney ticket prices - it's not about money, it's about demand. The parks have a capacity problem. During the summer Magic Kingdom will reach capacity by about noon every day. So how do you thin the crowd? Raise the prices until some of them stay home and add seasonal pricing to even out the demand between peak and off seasons. The money just happens to be a side benefit.
I have a plate and screws in my neck (fusion at c5/c6 for a ruptured disk). I've ridden about everything at Cedar Point, but my last ride on the Mean Streak was so rough I thought it was going to kill me. I didn't shed a tear to see that one closed down.I always wanted to go to Cedar Park, although I don't know if my neck could now take it.
No, I think its all about the money, they have little desire to have a business model that prevents people from spending money at Disney, because if they don't go to WDW, they will go to Universal.
Disney wasn't the first to implement the flexible ticket pricing, but rather Universal which doesn't seem as busy as Disney parks and it was purely for revenue enhancement. Many people have little choice but take trips during traditional school vacation times, so they see the value in increasing the price during those time frames.
Disney has been raising its prices across the board, not just using the flexible pricing, and reducing its incentives quite a bit over the past few years. Basically why offer an incentive to people who will already planning a trip.
They used to offer sales for a family of 4, now I see them advertised incentives for a family of 3 at the sale price of a family of 4, i.e., higher price, so they reduce the head count to make it look like you're saving more money.
That may be, but the food prices are outrageous, no real excuse there as they are gouging their customers. We stayed at the All Star Movie resort where the room price was a reasonable $140 a night.
Regarding coasters, I do not like the jerky 90 degree turn metal whiplash coasters if that is what the Mean Streak is. What I like in rollercoasters are the drops and the loops, but I don't like spinning, which some coasters have the car spinning on their wheels while you go up and down.
Agreed. I don't mind the high price to get in, but the food prices are highway robbery.
While I'll not dispute the high prices, but I usually do one or two of the following.
First run the numbers to see if he meal plan makes sense. Now that my kids are > 10 years old and are now considered "adults" the meal plan isn't as attractive as before.
Secondly, load up on breakfast and eat snacks, so that we can get by with a light lunch and then have a nice enjoyable dinner. Plus where ever possible, we get kids meals (including for the adults
)I try to do everything I can to save money.
Its been a few years, since I've taken my family to Disney and things have changed and not for the good. Walt Disney World, seems to be more focused on profits and squeezing every last penny from their customers then providing a "magical" fun experience for families. Many free services have been cancelled - under the guise of Covid. Magical Express (the free bus service from the airport), and Fast passes.
Fast Passes, were cancelled because of the pandemic, Which doesn't make any sense, since now you have more people congregating in long lines for long stretches of time. They've replaced this free service with a paid system (Genie), its tiered, You have Genie 15 dollars a day (per person) and the lightening Lane, a per ride, per person fee for the popular rides, like the 7 dwarves. You need the base Genie to get the lightening lane. Its not inconceivable to spend 40 dollars on a single ride (to avoid the general admission line). You can see that getting really expensive for a week vacation and because of that most people stopped buying or limiting the use of that service. I've known people and seen trip reports where a 2 hour wait for a ride (not a crazy popular ride like the 7 dwarves) is typical. You'll be lucky to do 4 or 5 rides a day at that rate.
I was going to take family to Disney in 2022, but the cost is ridiculous. in 2017 (or 2018 I forget). A 9 day trip including airfare and a stay at a moderate resort (Port Orleans) ran me about 6,500 to 6,800 dollars. If I were to go in 2022 I'm looking at price tag between 12,000 to 14,000 for the same length of time at the same resort.
Sadly, I'm crossing Disney off as a potential go to spot to take the family.
I'm not the only one complaining
Disney World is getting so expensive that it's pricing out the middle class
The dream Disney World vacation is too expensive for the average American family
Has Disney World Become Too Expensive?
Fast Passes, were cancelled because of the pandemic, Which doesn't make any sense, since now you have more people congregating in long lines for long stretches of time. They've replaced this free service with a paid system (Genie), its tiered, You have Genie 15 dollars a day (per person) and the lightening Lane, a per ride, per person fee for the popular rides, like the 7 dwarves. You need the base Genie to get the lightening lane. Its not inconceivable to spend 40 dollars on a single ride (to avoid the general admission line). You can see that getting really expensive for a week vacation and because of that most people stopped buying or limiting the use of that service. I've known people and seen trip reports where a 2 hour wait for a ride (not a crazy popular ride like the 7 dwarves) is typical. You'll be lucky to do 4 or 5 rides a day at that rate.
I was going to take family to Disney in 2022, but the cost is ridiculous. in 2017 (or 2018 I forget). A 9 day trip including airfare and a stay at a moderate resort (Port Orleans) ran me about 6,500 to 6,800 dollars. If I were to go in 2022 I'm looking at price tag between 12,000 to 14,000 for the same length of time at the same resort.
Sadly, I'm crossing Disney off as a potential go to spot to take the family.
I'm not the only one complaining
Disney World is getting so expensive that it's pricing out the middle class
The dream Disney World vacation is too expensive for the average American family
Has Disney World Become Too Expensive?
I can kind of relate to your experience Mike, and unfortunately, we had similarities to what you did with our vacation spot. (And I don’t mean to detract away from Disney, but I just thought I would share my experience with how ‘strip servicing’ and inflation is truly affecting the economy from frequenting guests/loyalists.)
We vacation typically every year [With exception of 2020 due to the pandemic] down in Fort Myers Beach, Florida at Pink shell resort. It’s both adult and family oriented, and is the nicest resort they have in that specific location. We’ve been a long time member, and have a timeshare.
We vacationed in August 2021, however was our last time, but still was enjoyable. The customer service was great, but the price gouging was…. outlandish.
By tradition, we always eat at the resort when we fly in the afternoon of, and just with an appetizer, drinks and some specialty sandwiches, our tab was $90. (In years past, it was more like $60.)
Pink shell is known to have an amazing breakfast buffet on-site, of delicacies that are excellent with almost everything you can think of and more, and we always look forward to that when we wake up. Well, their breakfast was stripped down to basically cheaper variants of hashbrowns, under cooked scrambled eggs and unappealing bacon and sausage. So they clearly eliminated a lot of the more expensive items, replaced with where it was never like this all the years we’ve been there before.
The on site bar they have with poolside service for drinks, was probably three dollars higher for every drink. They have amazing piña colada’s, and one piña colada is $16, and prior to that, it was probably like $10.
We actually spent more money on local competitor restaurants then we did at the resort, because of the price gouging.
And something else that I noticed they were doing to make money in every hotel room, they have a ‘party tray’ that includes the likes of candy, alcohol, little gourmet items, etc. And it doesn’t tell you that they’ll charge you if you eat it or drink the items, But they want the guest to assume that it’s ‘free’, so they can over-charge you when you check-out. They’ve never had trap gimmicks like this over the years we’ve stayed there before.
So we’ve decided to not return and look at other destinations spots in the future, which is really unfortunate, but we’ll still rent the timeshare out to other guests.
When we returned home, I started reading reviews to see what people were saying, and others were commenting similarly to how they were cutting corners, operating costs with a very high inflation fee, and downgrading once was an amazing breakfast service.
We only go in February and it was AWESOME last year!
Absolutely no lines for anything. A couple of pictures to show how empty the park was. I've probably been a couple of dozen times to Disney World and have never seen it so.... amazingly empty!
Just got back from Denmark. Certainly recommend checking it out. Denmark closed the museums and other public venues, two days after we arrived so we decided to Coffee Bar Hop in just about every city near the trains. We also ran through many of the parks and walked a few of them as well. Beautiful country and people.
Daughter "jumping" into the new year in Aalborg.
Note: PTSD suffers should NOT visit during New Year's. Aalborg sounded like a war zone for 5 days.
It was pretty awesome!
Responding to this 2017 comment to mention that as someone who had only ridden the FL version it was such a "What the hell??" moment for me seeing the boats go by a restaurant in the Disneyland version.
I remember when you posted your photos of your Disney vacation in the ‘vacation thread’ while back. That really was the pinnacle of taking advantage of vacationing if someone was comfortable enough to do so, being that crowds was basically nonexistent, pricing was extraordinary cheaper and flying in airplanes was without hassle, given they were half full, if the that.
It’s unfortunate that inflation is really pushing people to re-think about their vacation hubs, and as we can see, resorts, vacation clubs are really taking advantage of pushing the limits, especially for repeat tourists who are loyal.
By the way, great photo. Nice to know that you get to make memories in these unstable times with your daughter/family. I don’t have kids, but I do enjoy traveling and will definitely look into Denmark in the future.
And probably the closest most people will ever get to eating at Club 33 .
:-(
(now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised if Blue Bayou and Club 33 share a kitchen)
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Its great you had a wonderful time last year, my prior Disney vacations are some of my most cherished memories.
Sadly, it seems time have changed, I've since cancelled my February vacation. The resorts are fully booked, I've heard that the crowds in the parks are insane, and wait times are long and excessive, in part due to loss of the free fast pass service. Also because of those crowds, my family isn't too excited about being shoulder to shoulder with a sea of people during a pandemic.
Normally I would think in the middle of February, the crowds would not be bad, but with every resort booked up on property and it seems many resorts off property are full that may not be the case for the week of Feb 18th - 26th (Friday to Saturday)
Overall, it was the cost, which got out of control, I just couldn't see spending 12k to 14k just to wait in lines that were measured in hours - people were complaining about 2 hours wait times for the jungle cruise line.
Here's one poor sole waiting for one ride for 4 hours only have the ride close down. I don't care how good the ride is, waiting 4 hours for a ride just isn't right.
Disney Guests Left Devastated After Four Hour Wait Ends in Catastrophe
They're building (built?) Club 33 locations in each of the Florida parks but I don't see how they can have the mystique the Disneyland one has.
I've only done that once and it was to ride the Rocket Rods at Disneyland. It was a "never again" at the time, but now I'm kind of glad we stuck through it because that ride existed for such a short time.
i assume it has changed in the last 30 years, several times.
Wasn’t Capt Jack featured for a couple of years?
I could be wrong, since I never went on a cruise, but I believe most cruise lines do that.
i assume it has changed in the last 30 years, several times.
I haven't been on it in 2 years but last time I did he was still there.
Disney River Cruises in Europe don't, which was delightful.
That was an ocean cruise, which last I heard, most (all?) ocean cruises charge, including Viking.
Viking River Cruises in Europe did not charge for internet either last time we traveled (6 years ago).
A lot of people in this thread probably already know about this, but here's a website that's fun for tracking how Disney parks have changed over the years:
Yesterland - Disneyland History & Other Disney Park History
Yesterland, a Theme Park on the Web, featuring Discontinued Disneyland Attractions