Episode 760 - Ticket Price Increase

Authored by: frandog on Sunday, August 15 2010 @ 11:12 PM CDT

Completely agree with Scopa. In my opinion, Disney has gone too far with their price increases, especially this year with nothing new being added to the parks. In fact, they have taken things away for the next two years with the Fantasyland renovations. While theme park tickets in general are too high, I have less of a problem with SeaWorld and Universal raising their prices because Universal added Harry Potter and Seaworld has a strategic relationship with Universal.
BTW-Haven't watched an entire preseason NFL game since 2002, and football is my favorite sport (unfortunately, I root for the Jets).

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Authored by: TriSec on Monday, August 16 2010 @ 06:13 AM CDT

I was doing some pricing over the weekend....we can do one of two things from Boston, MA for about the same $5,000...

A trip anywhere in the world. (that includes places like Australia or Egypt).

Or a week at Disney World. (7 days in the park.)

I think things are really getting out of hand.

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Authored by: cgessner on Monday, August 16 2010 @ 11:58 AM CDT

Great episode. In my opinion, the prices at Disney are going up to ridiculous amounts. I wonder a couple of things: 1 -- are they trying to push people to annual passes (whether they need them or not) and 2 -- DVC --- is Disney trying to really move DVC more than ever in order to showcase value for those that return on an annual basis?? Just wondering. Also, let's not forget that it's not only ticket prices that are going up. The price to park your car is going up. The value for your $$ at restaurants like LeCellier which are now two dining credits instead of one showcases less value and added cost. In most instances, businesses cut costs to keep expenses down. In Disney's case, they've not only cut cost, but have cheapened the experience!! I mean, think about it. Fantasmic is only a few times a week, yet the prices go up?? Free dining?? Really?? Is it "really" free if you keep increasing the cost. I'd rather see Disney get rid of free dining and keep the costs down across the board (tickets, hotel, and food).

Bottom line: they won't stop it until theme park attendance is shown to go down over a period of time. Considering that they supposedly want to start wheening the public off of such discounts, how do they expect that to realistically happen when the costs keep going up by this amount??

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Authored by: Ham on Monday, August 16 2010 @ 01:15 PM CDT

Interesting episode. While of course I could never say I like price rises this did make me think of it all a different way. Len said in the episode that Disney's costs such as labour etc aren't going up. But to maintain attendence there has been deep discounting whether it be buy 4 get 3 free, free dining, or free gift cards etc. If you consider these as a cost to their business, then their costs have gone up.

We've all heard that Disney want to wean people off the discounts, but we are still seeing them coming out, so are the price rises more of a 'redistribution' of the dollars coming in to Disney through park gates as opposed to the shop cash registers?

To the average visitor the ticket price is probably expensive no matter what, but they don't see it as x% more than last year as they don't know. As long as they see discounts, then they are probably still happy(ish)

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Authored by: Boots on Monday, August 16 2010 @ 02:53 PM CDT

While I'm not a huge fan of the Disney price increases to say the least, I still consider Walt Disney World to be a "deal" in terms of entertainment. As a teacher I obviously live on a budget, and I really value my money and spend it carefully. I often find myself using the "Is this more fun than a day at Walt Disney World?" scale when I'm thinking about doing something, and 9 times out of 10, a day at Disney is a better deal and use of my money than another activity. Here are some examples of activities that cost as much or more than a day at Walt Disney World...but I feel do not hold the same value as the fun and magic of a full day at one or more of the parks:

-Concerts - my sister recently paid over $100 to see Taylor Swift sing for about 2 hours
-NFL football games - regular season Baltimore Ravens nosebleed seats go for over $80 apiece (and that's not including $4 sodas or $8 beers...)
-Broadway shows - I LOVED seeing the Lion King on stage a few years ago, but my ticket to a 3 hour show cost more than a 1 day park hopper pass at today's prices
-A day at Busch Gardens - $80

I could go on, but there's a few things to think about...even though the ticket prices have increased, I STILL think a day at Disney is a deal all things considered...

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Authored by: AquaViola on Tuesday, August 17 2010 @ 04:14 AM CDT

Whilst Universal Studios have increased their ticket prices, I understand that Sea World has not done so.

A SeaWorld spokesman spokeman said At this time, we have no plans to increase prices at SeaWorld. We run our business plan independently from the other theme parks.

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Authored by: funglu on Tuesday, August 17 2010 @ 10:14 AM CDT

In my opinion, parks that have a low or heavily discounted entry have many more security issues. WDW and Disneyland have far fewer security problems within the gates. WDW has its own case to make here in comparing security issues at Downtown Disney and and the parks themselves. Someone gets punched at Downtown Disney it makes the local news. Someone gets punched in the Magic Kingdom, it makes national news (because of its scarcity). Bad people in general will not pay a high price to be bad when they can be bad somewhere cheep.

But...

I think they (Disney) passed above and beyond that safety threshold ten years ago. I do think the price is too high for most families (their target audience) and therefore we will see more on-site hotel discounts/free dining/seasonal discounts.

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Authored by: lentesta on Sunday, August 22 2010 @ 06:30 AM CDT

A listener pointed out that I failed to consider the increase in Disney's cost of providing health insurance to its employees, when talking about the ticket increases vs. the CPI. Good point. If it's like most companies, the cost for Disney to provide health insurance to its employees has risen faster than inflation every year. See the graph here as an example: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/15/news/.../index.htm

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