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Today’s Disneyland is a price gouge, not a magical experience

92 points by imperio59 5y ago

rob_c 5y ago
Had the similar feeling when I visited the Paris one a few years back. Still found it funny given the number of adds I had to filter to read a story about being ripped off, not attacking the author as much as the site.
tacon 5y ago
I have only experienced Disneyland while in college in the early 70s. We went on Caltech/JPL night, and our groups had the park to ourselves. I don't remember long lines, and the price was so reasonable I don't remember what it was. I am sure I would be totally repelled by the currently optimized money suck, just as I was recently repelled attending a conference in Las Vegas.
rectang 5y ago
When I was a kid, there was a local amusement park that had a Galaxi roller coaster. My parents took me on a week day, there was no line, and I rode the thing maybe 20 or 30 times in a row. It was so cosmically satisfying after having to wait in line for hours at Disneyland.
diordiderot 5y ago
No one goes there anymore anyways, its too crowded
- diego_moita 5y ago
  Now I feel dumb. It took me 2 seconds to get the joke.
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    Google "Yogi Berra." The future ain’t what it used to be.
    - stan_rogers 5y ago
      He never said most of the things he said.
      - eesmith 5y ago
        That's a Yogi-Berraism right there. In about 40 years it will be attributed to him. ;) In these two cases, he said them, but was far from the first. From https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/06/future-not-used/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/06/future-not-used/ on "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be": > In conclusion, Paul Valéry, Laura Riding, and Robert Graves used the saying by 1937. Based on current evidence Laura Riding and Robert Graves deployed the phrase in English first. Yogi Berra and others used the expression in later years. From https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/ on "Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded": > In conclusion, the earliest instances of this remark were anonymous. The comedians Rags Ragland and Ukie Sherin employed the quip, as did the writer John McNulty. In addition, there is some evidence that Yogi Berra employed the joke, but in all cases the jest was already in circulation.
- pokepim 5y ago
  This comment makes zero sense, lol.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    The phrase is used on places that are so crowded that you avoid going. So they could easily have more people going if the park was bigger or If they built 2-3 more Disneyland’s in the general area. Crowd is the biggest reason I stopped going, cost a close second.
  - DaveExeter 5y ago
    It's called a "Berra-ism" https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-quotes https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-...
- insickness 5y ago
  The food is terrible. And such small portions!
  - sergers 5y ago
    Food was whatever for most part... Their turkey leg is good. Portion size, my wife and I generally shared meals... And surprised that many people could eat alot of the meals to themselves
    - smnrchrds 5y ago
      It's a quote, in case you have not seen it before. For context: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4151-there-s-an-old-joke---um-two-elderly-women-are https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4151-there-s-an-old-joke---...
      - latexr 5y ago
        While commonly attributed to Woody Allen (and he does say it in Annie Hall), the joke can be attributed to Harry Hershfield[1]. In Allen’s defence, he opens the joke by saying it’s an old one. [1]: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_food_is_terrible_and_such_small_portions https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the...
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      For me, the turkey leg seems like something incredibly optimized to look and smell appetizing at the cost of actual eatability. It's so dang salty!
- designium 5y ago
  How no one goes there anymore if you are saying that is too crowded?
  - dangus 5y ago
    (That's the joke)
  - MomoXenosaga 5y ago
    Lol yeah you can say this about every tourist trap can't you? Louvre, Giethoorn, Venice, the Forbidden city.
  - jimmygrapes 5y ago
    Nobody drives because the traffic is so bad
chris_st 5y ago
We were there a few years back, and I saw someone with a T-Shirt that proclaimed, in large letters: Most expensive day ever Looked closely, and to my (lack of) surprise, it was an official Disney product.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Just curious, exactly how close did you get to the t-shirt wearer? Did they mind? Did they stop for you? Usually an "official Disney product" would be designated on a tag inside the shirt... just trying to picture this interaction
  - itsokimbatman 5y ago
    It’s been a minute since I’ve been to the parks because of Covid, but I am almost positive you can buy those shirts in the park gift shops. So the person you’re replying to may have just seen them for purchase.
    - listenallyall 5y ago
      He said he saw someone wearing it.
  - chris_st 5y ago
    They've got an "official" Disney logo adjacent to the words. We were in the next table at the cafeteria (remember when that wasn't a scary concept?), big guy, big shirt, big letters. Nothing creepy!
boublepop 5y ago
Just recently went to Disney land myself. We did the tour hopper on a day when California land closed early for a Halloween event, unfortunately we didn’t book well enough in advance to get tickets for the event, but that’s just bad planning. Anyways, the trip was amazing and magical as ever, there was no mysterious lack of black people, OPs experience is completely foreign to my own. The fast track wasn’t there, and we too looked puzzled at a group going through anyway until we realized they where accompanying a disabled guest. I don’t know if they also have some VIP thing, but I don’t mind waiting longer so someone in a wheelchair and their friends can have a nicer visit to the park. We knew we wouldn’t be there at 7am, so we planned on being ready to join the RoTR virtual line, instead of being in a ride when it opened, and we got a spot, amazing ride, though I’m puzzled why after a virtual line we still had to stand in a real line for 1 hour, they could just call in fewer groups at a time. The ride was still worth it all though, absolutely amazing, I would recommend it to anyone even with the 1 hour line. Cost wise, yes Disneyland is expensive, but as a european who also has to book expensive flights on top, I still think it’s worth it.
- brutus1213 5y ago
  I made the same mistake as you a few years back. Had no indication that they were closing early for holloween (and letting in others plus a parade). I was pretty annoyed that I couldn't pay more to stay (same situation .. was sold out). My thinking was that this is locals crowding out the tourists. When I considered what I paid compared to annual pass, it was clear that the hard core disney fans in the area were getting a far better deal than I was. I was also appalled at the number of people (popular rides like guardians of the galaxy had 1.5-3 hour waits). I did not understand Fastpass (my bad but come on .. it was visiting a theme park for my kids .. why do they make it so complicated? I am on vacation to avoid complexity.) As a parent with little kids who could not go on every ride, it was simply terribly over priced. It was not like this when I was a kid. Basically, my experience made me swear off Disney .. it is like the big mac burger .. the picture of the burger is amazing. Reality is different.
  - jinushaun 5y ago
    Disneyland is complicated because the majority of park attendees are annual pass members who visit the park regularly. They have perfected a system that has completely saturated the capacity of the park. It’s akin to bots buying up all the consoles leaving none for real people. One-off visitors to the park have no chance against this crowd. I know because I’m married to one of these people. We easily ride all the rides we want multiple times a day.
alborzb 5y ago
For anyone interested in the Fast App discussion from this article, I highly recommend this video from Defunct Land -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE The video not only does a deep dive into fast pass, but also does a statistical model break down to reveal that the modern implementation of fast pass is actually not what you might expect and serves to increase wait times for rides!
- jedberg 5y ago
  Great video! For those wondering, it goes into queuing theory and complex systems theory and how they apply to wait times at theme parks, but honestly a lot of it could be applicable to an engineering tuning their load balancer or their app, or how to process a waitlist for your startup, or many other applications of queuing theory to an engineer.
  - xtracto 5y ago
    I was thrilled to see the agent based models they glanced at, and the extensive micro simulation they performed to duplicate the patterns seen in the parks. It's been a while since I did research in those areas, but brought me a smile seeing them in a 100% practical application.
- MBCook 5y ago
  Warning: almost 2 hours. That said it’s a FANTASTIC video. Basically a documentary on the history of FastPass and it’s variations, and how they shape people’s experience at Disney parks. Well worth a watch for the HN crowd.
  - jrs235 5y ago
    I concur! Just finished watching it at 1.5x speed.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  How does Fast Pass in Disneyland work? The video is a bit long. I have used something similar at another (not Disney) park and it allowed me to skip queues all the time, even on the same rides and there was no pre-booking requirement. I think it was by far the best experience in a theme park I have ever had. Not so much for the people without it of course, for them it made the queues longer.
0xy 5y ago
People SAY they want cheaper admission, while the same people would endlessly complain at the inevitable 2-3 hour per ride waits it would create. It's a classic supply and demand problem. Would you pay half price for an international flight that had all the seats ripped out and standing room only, so you could barely move?
- PeterisP 5y ago
  As the experience of discount airlines e.g. Ryanair shows, very many people actually are willing to tolerate pretty much the minimum legally allowed conditions if it allows them to travel internationally much cheaper. Like, if it was legal to have seat-less standing room in airplanes then I'm quite certain that some companies would offer that for a discount and that they would have planes full of customers.
  - 0xy 5y ago
    Yes, you're right. However, Ryanair has a rating of 1.3 on Trustpilot while Disneyland has a 4.7 and Disney World has a 4.7 as well on Google reviews. Customers may buy cheap garbage, but they aren't happy about it. It doesn't breed long term loyalty. I can't imagine what Ryanair's NPS scores are. If waiting in lines tripled, I don't think they'd have a 4.7.
logicalmonster 5y ago
Is it an expensive day? Sure. Would almost every guest prefer to pay less? Absolutely. But just to be a contrarian and play Devil's Advocate, what if one were to make the argument that Disney is actually severely, ludicrously underpriced? Despite allegedly being at a fraction of capacity, the place is still uncomfortably jam-packed, with obscene waiting times at most rides. That's indicative of a venue that hasn't reached price equilibrium. There's so many Disney fanatics, I bet they could double or triple prices and still only take a minor hit to overall attendance. And actually, many guests might actually prefer paying more, despite any preferences they might initially express. Think about it, if could ride 2 or 3 times as many rides in a day due to reasonable crowds, then you might be happier spending 1 or more fewer days in Orlando and save time and money overall paying more per day for a much better experience.
- xapata 5y ago
  If word-of-mouth marketing is important ("Mom, my friend went to Disneyland last year, why can't we go?") then attendance may drop off more quickly with a price increase than for other goods. The cost of recovery might be high. Also, we don't know the balance of sunk costs and operating expenses, and the expense of a marginal guest. Walt Disney designed the company to have its various activities support each other, so each in isolation might appear underpriced. Is the goal of Disneyland to make a profit on tickets, or to sell toys and a Disney+ subscription when the kids go home?
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    You might be correct, but just to play Devil's advocate a bit more, in the social media age, word of mouth marketing might be overshadowed in importance by the importance of social status in marketing, which a more exclusive experience would be. Imagine if Disney was a bit more of exclusive experience, and people felt they could truly boast about visiting Disney that year. That's a powerful thing in marketing. People who were on the fence might feel compelled to save every spare dollar they could to try and make the trip happen. I understand that they don't want to be seen as elitist, there's probably a fine line that would have to be made here. And I'm sure that Disney employs a number of analysts who have tried to figure out all of these scenarios already. Just interesting speculation. I think the safest path for them is keeping prices high, but not out of reach for most families to reasonably aspire towards.
otterley 5y ago
This story says to me, "keep buying Disney stock!"
pavlov 5y ago
I’m at Walt Disney World right now. It’s certainly expensive and plastic and rather boring (which is fine since this trip is for the kids), but not any worse than pre-Covid experiences at Disneyland. There’s a Lightning Lane system that lets you pre-buy slots in line for the rides. The mobile app is pretty useful and takes off some of the pain in negative experiences like waiting for the awful food. People wear masks indoor as required. Sure, corporations slowly spoil everything, but I don’t think Covid has been a particular turning point for the Disney theme park experience.
mrfusion 5y ago
It might be a way better experience if they doubled the price. For me the crowds and wait times are the biggest negative.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Also the experience-impacting changes they've made to accommodate crowds, like the removal of benches from most walkways.
- wccrawford 5y ago
  For people who feel like that, they've been introducing paid fast pass systems lately, as well as some free systems that attempt to schedule your rides for you so that you can hit them when they're less crowded. When my wife and I went to Universal Studios in California years ago, we paid for the "front of line" addons thinking it would help a little bit with the wait and be worth it. So few people bought that pass that it literally sent us to the front of the line every time we got in line. We blew through the whole park in the 1 day that we had reserved for it, and had time to spare.
hirundo 5y ago
To me this sounds like good old Disneyland, plus an app. I grew up a few miles down the street in the '70s. It was routinely as crowded then as the author is describing now, with hours to get on the Matterhorn, Pirates, Haunted House, Tom Sawyers Island. Hours to get a couple of pancakes at a restaurant. We'd ride the spinning teacups over and over just because the line was shorter. The "magical" trips were on the special events, like the yearly high school graduation days, with relatively few people and we could ride the best rides until we got sick of them. Back then the best rides were rationed by E tickets, which sort of entered the language. Those coupon packs sure felt expensive. I wonder if the prices haven't just kept up with inflation.
- CurtHagenlocher 5y ago
  Yes, I remember the primary way to buy tickets was as packs. Invariably, you'd have leftover A and B tickets (which couldn't be used for nearly anything) and you'd have to buy extra E tickets because the pack came with just one.
ALittleLight 5y ago
This seems like the "It's so crowded nobody goes there" thing. If prices were too high and the experience was not-quite-miserable, wouldn't it be less crowded? It also seems like the author remembers the place as being less expensive when they were a child, but they aren't accounting for inflation and their childhood memory was only of admissions whereas in the present they account for parking and food and possibly other costs.
0x7265616374 5y ago
> Rod Benson is a columnist for SFGATE, a fine artist, and a former professional basketball player for the NBA D-League and Korean Basketball League. He’s previously written for Yahoo Sports! and SLAM magazine and is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley. I don't find a butthurt, thinly veiled anticapitalist rant about known quantities and easily accessible numbers, by written by someone who enjoys a mountain of privilege, to be particularly interesting or compelling. Things are more expensive than they were in our youth. Entertainment destinations are expensive. The privileged class can afford them. These things are not new.
- mparkms 5y ago
  I don't know how much you think D-League players make but the current base salary (for what is now called the G-League) is $37k a year, and I imagine it was much less when he was playing in the late 2000s.
MomoXenosaga 5y ago
Reminds me of Dutch people taking their own food to Disneyland Paris. The most famous Dutch theme park even has a picknick field but it made American heads explode in rage.
- hsod 5y ago
  ? Disneyland allows outside food. You see people eating McDonald’s or homemade sandwiches all the time
cavisne 5y ago
Sounds like when this person was younger they still got some enjoyment out of life, now woke culture has poisoned their brain so much that an online ordering system not letting the in "just a bit early" is a personal affront.
sumthinprofound 5y ago
I'm just wondering out loud how privacy invasive the app the author mentions that sounds required for the full park experience.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  Well, for basic functionality, there's location tracking while in the park, plus demographic info and your listed preferences for at least nominal customization (though some Youtuber experiments have suggested it's pretty bad at that). A huge number of people in Disney parks are location tracked constantly anyway because they use MagicBands, which have some kind of specialty extended-range RFID (along with the normal tap-range RFID functionality) that's used to automatically monitor ride throughput and general traffic in the parks.
  - sumthinprofound 5y ago
    Thanks that clarifies things without me having to research privacy policies.
RicoElectrico 5y ago
At this point Disney holds children's minds hostage. As a thought experiment, what would happen if it ceased to exist today along with its characters? Imagine the trauma many kids would experience, as if they lost someone from their family. I get that Disney delivers on the promise of family-safe entertainment but this is not healthy. Certainly the capture of copyright law (i.e. endless extension of the copyright expiration period) is not the price worth paying for it.
- B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
  Could always be split into smaller companies, like Bell forty years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System The reverse seems to be happening, though ...
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  The whole Princess part of Disney culture comes across as pretty gross tbh. I don't have kids but have talked about this with friends. Even though they wanted to keep their daughters away from it, it's nearly impossible.
  - sergers 5y ago
    My daughter loves to be a princess... Not any particular Disney princess, but loves it.. She also loves to be a doctor, astronaut, grocery store clerk, firefighter, construction worker, chef etc... I grew up watching non stop Disney, in a family of mostly strong independent women who also loved Disney princesses. Nothing wrong with the stereotypical fairytales... If you/your child is consumed by it, you need some more exposure to other things
- sergers 5y ago
  Kids would latch on to whatever popular form of entertainment, as they already do today(my kids not the biggest fan of Disney). Not so sure of the trauma you speak of If Disney ceased to exist, this would be shocking to everyone not just children.
dangus 5y ago
I find it hard to sympathize with the author on this experience. Disney is trying their best to alleviate crowds and overall bad experiences by raising prices. First, the author was prepared to be bitter from the start of the day. Complaining about the price of parking is our first red flag. Yes, that's right, parking your 4,000 pound car does cost $25, this is 2021 not 1965. If parking was $5 or $10 or free, would the author have a space to park at all? The author wonders why Disney is delivering a sub-par experience. But, here's the thing, a global pandemic happened, and Disney was hurt financially as a result. They are much less of a pure media company than their peers at Comcast or AT&T, with close to half of their revenue coming from theme parks. Unsurprisingly, those theme parks bled cash in 2020. Fast forward to 2021 and you've got theme parks attracting plenty of attendees, but we combine that high-labor business with a national labor shortage and/or rising labor costs that are concentrated almost entirely in the service industry. Finally, this is the biggest reason I don't sympathize with the author: he doesn't seem to have done a lot of research before going to the park. Disney for decades now has not been a place that you just show up on a random day and waltz on in. You have to plan it or you will have a bad time. That means planning your trip with sites like mousehacking.com, and that means reserving dining and experiences far in advance. I almost don't want to get into it, but I also think that the discussion of race and inclusivity was unnaturally shoe-horned into this article. The author should already know why the attendees are mostly of a fair complexion: they're members of the higher income brackets of the USA, the people who can afford Disney in the first place. Disney did not create that nationwide racial income disparity. Though, their own racist media of the past (and perhaps even the present) did nothing to end it, either. But all of that potentially interesting discussion is just thrown into an article that ultimately isn't addressing those issues. It's ultimately just about a guy who went to theme park despite not really liking theme parks.
- nasmorn 5y ago
  I think it is hilarious that one is expected to do more research to go to Disneyland than I do for a 3-day backpacking hike with my children.
  - dangus 5y ago
123pie123 5y ago
I went ages ago for about 10 days, when I heard that President Obama was going to the magic kingdom park and the park would be partially shut (the day before this was to happen) - I said to my family - lets go at the same time. the place was almost empty - woo, everything was open with little to no queues another thing that happened was the castle and dining - aparently you're supposed to book ages in advance to dine there (6-9months or so) my missues did ask me about a year before we went about this and I said don't bother... but typical me when I got there I was like wow - lets dine there. My missues was not happy and recited our previous conversation and explained again (through gritted teeth) about the waiting list. I said they must have cancellations etc.. she did go up and they said not really but if you wait something may pop up She waited 15min on her own and when I caught up - she said loads of people were being turned away with the same response as her (not really but if you wait something may pop up) I shrugged and just waited about 5mins more. then person on the desk said we could go in - woo, loved it it to pieces Our extended family (loads of us went) was royaly pissed at us just going in without booking - we may have just got lucky though YMMV
- jafo 5y ago
  In the spring of 2001, I planned a trip to Disneyworld for that fall, specifically the third week of September. Park was open, but empty. Quite the surreal experience.
jedberg 5y ago
Disneyland has a big problem. It's super popular but can't get any bigger. As demand keeps growing, they could either increase capacity or increase prices to lower demand. They've pretty much run out of space to get bigger. There are two neighborhoods next to Disneyland where they could buy every home for about $1B, but it would only gain them a few extra acres. They've already started moving some of the support buildings to cheap industrial lots nearby and then converting the on-site support buildings to ride areas (that's how Toon Town and Star Wars land were built). But there are only so many chunks of land to buy, and despite being very wealthy, they aren't wealthy enough to buy that much land in urban Southern California. Their only option is to raise the price while removing incentives. At this point their annual pass is actually a worse deal than buying tickets when you want to go. You can only get in about four times a year on an annual pass with their new reservation system. My dad wanted to use his pass, but he could only get a reservation a few months from now -- but he could buy a daily ticket for next week. Oh, and the way people get the 7am ride reservation is by staying at the Disneyland Hotel, and they also get in early to start forming those long opening lines. On a side note, Disneyland has never been about inclusiveness. Walt Disney was famously racist and anti-semitic. He'd be pretty happy about the fact that only white people are going.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  Anybody who claims that only white people go to Disneyland has obviously never actually been there in the last 50 years or so. I was there last year and white people were definitely in the minority. Sounds like more divisive misinformation to me.
  - plorkyeran 5y ago
    The article specifically says that the lack of Black people there this year was a surprising (to the author) change.
    - fundad 5y ago
      it's a real shame though, being surrounded by Black Joy was the most memorable attraction for me
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bluedays 5y ago
It stopped being a magical experience when they stopped allowing the Disney character actors walk around the park, and started demanding everyone wait in line to see them.
ekhaliul 5y ago
After I took my kids day after thanksgiving for the first time last Friday, I was wondering why this problem simply exists. And how is it possible to pay such big amount of money for outdated experiences that we had. There is a nice analysis of everything that Disney tried as far as controlling lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE As a person that came from USSR, I see that many of the issues are created by removing money as a control mechanism of supply and demand. If you pay entrance fee and then remove fine tuning for each ride, the result is long lines. My personal opinion is that pay-per-ride is a much better model although I can see how many may disagree. From my childhood in a country where money did not have much meaning, I learned that all-you-can eat mode for a price of entry will be filled with schemes, long lines, and tricks to game the system.
Kaibeezy 5y ago
Took the kids a couple of years ago. It was a hot, crowded and expensive misery. I asked for our money back. I was assertive but not an asshole. Aaaand... They upgraded our bracelets to skip-every-line. Yep, that was pretty good. That evening, while waiting for the Uber Minnie Bus, a couple of senior customer service people asked about our day. I told them straight up, no embellishment. Aaaand... They gave us a skip-every-line upgrade for Epcot the next day. Also pretty good. Needless to say, we are never going back.
- spaceflunky 5y ago
  So I work for a FAANG company and I worked on a tech partnership with Disney. To Disney's credit, they are INCREDIBLY understanding about the need for all families to have a good day at the park. They spend a lot of money on R&D for finding ways to track how many rides people have been on and what is the appropriate amount of time in between rides, etc etc. One the technologies they were developing was to have a system monitor everyone's experiences and if they found someone who's experience metrics were too low they could send a cast member out to find the family and give them a skip the line pass or meal voucher. They also knew what was the most common hour for kids to have meltdowns and strategically send out juice/snack vendor carts out around that time. This is what just what they shared with us, so god knows what else they know. IIRC they said 6 rides was the ideal number for a family to say they got their money's worth.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  I refuse to go to Disneyworld during the summer peak or X-mas vacation. But fall and spring days that aren't too crowded are on the table. It does take a lot of research to figure out when to go for the best experience, and things like school schedules for school-aged kids can get in the way of having flexibility to go when not everyone else is going.
mbg721 5y ago
There are enough Disney fans that the rational thing to do would be to price it for the true believers and not one penny less. My assumption is that there is a huge value drop-off for people who don't spend a lot of time on the franchise, and that's why (or at least why I tell myself) my kids are going someplace else next year.
authed 5y ago
the wait times are even worst then the costs... but either way I like something like Busch Gardens mush more.
RickJWagner 5y ago
“Capitalism is a smooth summabitch,” I said under my breath.... I wonder why the author doesn't go to one of the socialist Disney-type parks?

92 points by imperio59 5y ago

Had the similar feeling when I visited the Paris one a few years back. Still found it funny given the number of adds I had to filter to read a story about being ripped off, not attacking the author as much as the site.

tacon 5y ago

I have only experienced Disneyland while in college in the early 70s. We went on Caltech/JPL night, and our groups had the park to ourselves. I don't remember long lines, and the price was so reasonable I don't remember what it was. I am sure I would be totally repelled by the currently optimized money suck, just as I was recently repelled attending a conference in Las Vegas.

rectang 5y ago

When I was a kid, there was a local amusement park that had a Galaxi roller coaster. My parents took me on a week day, there was no line, and I rode the thing maybe 20 or 30 times in a row. It was so cosmically satisfying after having to wait in line for hours at Disneyland.

diordiderot 5y ago

No one goes there anymore anyways, its too crowded

diego_moita 5y ago
Now I feel dumb. It took me 2 seconds to get the joke.
- listenallyall 5y ago
  Google "Yogi Berra." The future ain’t what it used to be.
  - stan_rogers 5y ago
    He never said most of the things he said.
    - eesmith 5y ago
      That's a Yogi-Berraism right there. In about 40 years it will be attributed to him. ;) In these two cases, he said them, but was far from the first. From https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/06/future-not-used/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/06/future-not-used/ on "The Future Is Not What It Used To Be": > In conclusion, Paul Valéry, Laura Riding, and Robert Graves used the saying by 1937. Based on current evidence Laura Riding and Robert Graves deployed the phrase in English first. Yogi Berra and others used the expression in later years. From https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/08/29/too-crowded/ on "Nobody Goes There Anymore, It’s Too Crowded": > In conclusion, the earliest instances of this remark were anonymous. The comedians Rags Ragland and Ukie Sherin employed the quip, as did the writer John McNulty. In addition, there is some evidence that Yogi Berra employed the joke, but in all cases the jest was already in circulation.
pokepim 5y ago
This comment makes zero sense, lol.
- treeman79 5y ago
  The phrase is used on places that are so crowded that you avoid going. So they could easily have more people going if the park was bigger or If they built 2-3 more Disneyland’s in the general area. Crowd is the biggest reason I stopped going, cost a close second.
- DaveExeter 5y ago
  It's called a "Berra-ism" https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-quotes https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-...
insickness 5y ago
The food is terrible. And such small portions!
- sergers 5y ago
  Food was whatever for most part... Their turkey leg is good. Portion size, my wife and I generally shared meals... And surprised that many people could eat alot of the meals to themselves
  - smnrchrds 5y ago
    It's a quote, in case you have not seen it before. For context: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4151-there-s-an-old-joke---um-two-elderly-women-are https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4151-there-s-an-old-joke---...
    - latexr 5y ago
      While commonly attributed to Woody Allen (and he does say it in Annie Hall), the joke can be attributed to Harry Hershfield[1]. In Allen’s defence, he opens the joke by saying it’s an old one. [1]: https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_food_is_terrible_and_such_small_portions https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the...
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    For me, the turkey leg seems like something incredibly optimized to look and smell appetizing at the cost of actual eatability. It's so dang salty!
designium 5y ago
How no one goes there anymore if you are saying that is too crowded?
- dangus 5y ago
  (That's the joke)
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  Lol yeah you can say this about every tourist trap can't you? Louvre, Giethoorn, Venice, the Forbidden city.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  Nobody drives because the traffic is so bad

chris_st 5y ago

We were there a few years back, and I saw someone with a T-Shirt that proclaimed, in large letters: Most expensive day ever Looked closely, and to my (lack of) surprise, it was an official Disney product.

listenallyall 5y ago
Just curious, exactly how close did you get to the t-shirt wearer? Did they mind? Did they stop for you? Usually an "official Disney product" would be designated on a tag inside the shirt... just trying to picture this interaction
- itsokimbatman 5y ago
  It’s been a minute since I’ve been to the parks because of Covid, but I am almost positive you can buy those shirts in the park gift shops. So the person you’re replying to may have just seen them for purchase.
  - listenallyall 5y ago
    He said he saw someone wearing it.
- chris_st 5y ago
  They've got an "official" Disney logo adjacent to the words. We were in the next table at the cafeteria (remember when that wasn't a scary concept?), big guy, big shirt, big letters. Nothing creepy!

boublepop 5y ago

Just recently went to Disney land myself. We did the tour hopper on a day when California land closed early for a Halloween event, unfortunately we didn’t book well enough in advance to get tickets for the event, but that’s just bad planning. Anyways, the trip was amazing and magical as ever, there was no mysterious lack of black people, OPs experience is completely foreign to my own. The fast track wasn’t there, and we too looked puzzled at a group going through anyway until we realized they where accompanying a disabled guest. I don’t know if they also have some VIP thing, but I don’t mind waiting longer so someone in a wheelchair and their friends can have a nicer visit to the park. We knew we wouldn’t be there at 7am, so we planned on being ready to join the RoTR virtual line, instead of being in a ride when it opened, and we got a spot, amazing ride, though I’m puzzled why after a virtual line we still had to stand in a real line for 1 hour, they could just call in fewer groups at a time. The ride was still worth it all though, absolutely amazing, I would recommend it to anyone even with the 1 hour line. Cost wise, yes Disneyland is expensive, but as a european who also has to book expensive flights on top, I still think it’s worth it.

brutus1213 5y ago
I made the same mistake as you a few years back. Had no indication that they were closing early for holloween (and letting in others plus a parade). I was pretty annoyed that I couldn't pay more to stay (same situation .. was sold out). My thinking was that this is locals crowding out the tourists. When I considered what I paid compared to annual pass, it was clear that the hard core disney fans in the area were getting a far better deal than I was. I was also appalled at the number of people (popular rides like guardians of the galaxy had 1.5-3 hour waits). I did not understand Fastpass (my bad but come on .. it was visiting a theme park for my kids .. why do they make it so complicated? I am on vacation to avoid complexity.) As a parent with little kids who could not go on every ride, it was simply terribly over priced. It was not like this when I was a kid. Basically, my experience made me swear off Disney .. it is like the big mac burger .. the picture of the burger is amazing. Reality is different.
- jinushaun 5y ago
  Disneyland is complicated because the majority of park attendees are annual pass members who visit the park regularly. They have perfected a system that has completely saturated the capacity of the park. It’s akin to bots buying up all the consoles leaving none for real people. One-off visitors to the park have no chance against this crowd. I know because I’m married to one of these people. We easily ride all the rides we want multiple times a day.

alborzb 5y ago

For anyone interested in the Fast App discussion from this article, I highly recommend this video from Defunct Land -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE The video not only does a deep dive into fast pass, but also does a statistical model break down to reveal that the modern implementation of fast pass is actually not what you might expect and serves to increase wait times for rides!

jedberg 5y ago
Great video! For those wondering, it goes into queuing theory and complex systems theory and how they apply to wait times at theme parks, but honestly a lot of it could be applicable to an engineering tuning their load balancer or their app, or how to process a waitlist for your startup, or many other applications of queuing theory to an engineer.
- xtracto 5y ago
  I was thrilled to see the agent based models they glanced at, and the extensive micro simulation they performed to duplicate the patterns seen in the parks. It's been a while since I did research in those areas, but brought me a smile seeing them in a 100% practical application.
MBCook 5y ago
Warning: almost 2 hours. That said it’s a FANTASTIC video. Basically a documentary on the history of FastPass and it’s variations, and how they shape people’s experience at Disney parks. Well worth a watch for the HN crowd.
- jrs235 5y ago
  I concur! Just finished watching it at 1.5x speed.
cinntaile 5y ago
How does Fast Pass in Disneyland work? The video is a bit long. I have used something similar at another (not Disney) park and it allowed me to skip queues all the time, even on the same rides and there was no pre-booking requirement. I think it was by far the best experience in a theme park I have ever had. Not so much for the people without it of course, for them it made the queues longer.

0xy 5y ago

People SAY they want cheaper admission, while the same people would endlessly complain at the inevitable 2-3 hour per ride waits it would create. It's a classic supply and demand problem. Would you pay half price for an international flight that had all the seats ripped out and standing room only, so you could barely move?

PeterisP 5y ago
As the experience of discount airlines e.g. Ryanair shows, very many people actually are willing to tolerate pretty much the minimum legally allowed conditions if it allows them to travel internationally much cheaper. Like, if it was legal to have seat-less standing room in airplanes then I'm quite certain that some companies would offer that for a discount and that they would have planes full of customers.
- 0xy 5y ago
  Yes, you're right. However, Ryanair has a rating of 1.3 on Trustpilot while Disneyland has a 4.7 and Disney World has a 4.7 as well on Google reviews. Customers may buy cheap garbage, but they aren't happy about it. It doesn't breed long term loyalty. I can't imagine what Ryanair's NPS scores are. If waiting in lines tripled, I don't think they'd have a 4.7.

logicalmonster 5y ago

Is it an expensive day? Sure. Would almost every guest prefer to pay less? Absolutely. But just to be a contrarian and play Devil's Advocate, what if one were to make the argument that Disney is actually severely, ludicrously underpriced? Despite allegedly being at a fraction of capacity, the place is still uncomfortably jam-packed, with obscene waiting times at most rides. That's indicative of a venue that hasn't reached price equilibrium. There's so many Disney fanatics, I bet they could double or triple prices and still only take a minor hit to overall attendance. And actually, many guests might actually prefer paying more, despite any preferences they might initially express. Think about it, if could ride 2 or 3 times as many rides in a day due to reasonable crowds, then you might be happier spending 1 or more fewer days in Orlando and save time and money overall paying more per day for a much better experience.

xapata 5y ago
If word-of-mouth marketing is important ("Mom, my friend went to Disneyland last year, why can't we go?") then attendance may drop off more quickly with a price increase than for other goods. The cost of recovery might be high. Also, we don't know the balance of sunk costs and operating expenses, and the expense of a marginal guest. Walt Disney designed the company to have its various activities support each other, so each in isolation might appear underpriced. Is the goal of Disneyland to make a profit on tickets, or to sell toys and a Disney+ subscription when the kids go home?
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  You might be correct, but just to play Devil's advocate a bit more, in the social media age, word of mouth marketing might be overshadowed in importance by the importance of social status in marketing, which a more exclusive experience would be. Imagine if Disney was a bit more of exclusive experience, and people felt they could truly boast about visiting Disney that year. That's a powerful thing in marketing. People who were on the fence might feel compelled to save every spare dollar they could to try and make the trip happen. I understand that they don't want to be seen as elitist, there's probably a fine line that would have to be made here. And I'm sure that Disney employs a number of analysts who have tried to figure out all of these scenarios already. Just interesting speculation. I think the safest path for them is keeping prices high, but not out of reach for most families to reasonably aspire towards.

otterley 5y ago

This story says to me, "keep buying Disney stock!"

pavlov 5y ago

I’m at Walt Disney World right now. It’s certainly expensive and plastic and rather boring (which is fine since this trip is for the kids), but not any worse than pre-Covid experiences at Disneyland. There’s a Lightning Lane system that lets you pre-buy slots in line for the rides. The mobile app is pretty useful and takes off some of the pain in negative experiences like waiting for the awful food. People wear masks indoor as required. Sure, corporations slowly spoil everything, but I don’t think Covid has been a particular turning point for the Disney theme park experience.

mrfusion 5y ago

It might be a way better experience if they doubled the price. For me the crowds and wait times are the biggest negative.

crooked-v 5y ago
Also the experience-impacting changes they've made to accommodate crowds, like the removal of benches from most walkways.
wccrawford 5y ago
For people who feel like that, they've been introducing paid fast pass systems lately, as well as some free systems that attempt to schedule your rides for you so that you can hit them when they're less crowded. When my wife and I went to Universal Studios in California years ago, we paid for the "front of line" addons thinking it would help a little bit with the wait and be worth it. So few people bought that pass that it literally sent us to the front of the line every time we got in line. We blew through the whole park in the 1 day that we had reserved for it, and had time to spare.

hirundo 5y ago

To me this sounds like good old Disneyland, plus an app. I grew up a few miles down the street in the '70s. It was routinely as crowded then as the author is describing now, with hours to get on the Matterhorn, Pirates, Haunted House, Tom Sawyers Island. Hours to get a couple of pancakes at a restaurant. We'd ride the spinning teacups over and over just because the line was shorter. The "magical" trips were on the special events, like the yearly high school graduation days, with relatively few people and we could ride the best rides until we got sick of them. Back then the best rides were rationed by E tickets, which sort of entered the language. Those coupon packs sure felt expensive. I wonder if the prices haven't just kept up with inflation.

CurtHagenlocher 5y ago
Yes, I remember the primary way to buy tickets was as packs. Invariably, you'd have leftover A and B tickets (which couldn't be used for nearly anything) and you'd have to buy extra E tickets because the pack came with just one.

ALittleLight 5y ago

This seems like the "It's so crowded nobody goes there" thing. If prices were too high and the experience was not-quite-miserable, wouldn't it be less crowded? It also seems like the author remembers the place as being less expensive when they were a child, but they aren't accounting for inflation and their childhood memory was only of admissions whereas in the present they account for parking and food and possibly other costs.

0x7265616374 5y ago

> Rod Benson is a columnist for SFGATE, a fine artist, and a former professional basketball player for the NBA D-League and Korean Basketball League. He’s previously written for Yahoo Sports! and SLAM magazine and is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley. I don't find a butthurt, thinly veiled anticapitalist rant about known quantities and easily accessible numbers, by written by someone who enjoys a mountain of privilege, to be particularly interesting or compelling. Things are more expensive than they were in our youth. Entertainment destinations are expensive. The privileged class can afford them. These things are not new.

mparkms 5y ago
I don't know how much you think D-League players make but the current base salary (for what is now called the G-League) is $37k a year, and I imagine it was much less when he was playing in the late 2000s.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago

Reminds me of Dutch people taking their own food to Disneyland Paris. The most famous Dutch theme park even has a picknick field but it made American heads explode in rage.

hsod 5y ago
? Disneyland allows outside food. You see people eating McDonald’s or homemade sandwiches all the time

cavisne 5y ago

Sounds like when this person was younger they still got some enjoyment out of life, now woke culture has poisoned their brain so much that an online ordering system not letting the in "just a bit early" is a personal affront.

sumthinprofound 5y ago

I'm just wondering out loud how privacy invasive the app the author mentions that sounds required for the full park experience.

crooked-v 5y ago
Well, for basic functionality, there's location tracking while in the park, plus demographic info and your listed preferences for at least nominal customization (though some Youtuber experiments have suggested it's pretty bad at that). A huge number of people in Disney parks are location tracked constantly anyway because they use MagicBands, which have some kind of specialty extended-range RFID (along with the normal tap-range RFID functionality) that's used to automatically monitor ride throughput and general traffic in the parks.
- sumthinprofound 5y ago
  Thanks that clarifies things without me having to research privacy policies.

RicoElectrico 5y ago

At this point Disney holds children's minds hostage. As a thought experiment, what would happen if it ceased to exist today along with its characters? Imagine the trauma many kids would experience, as if they lost someone from their family. I get that Disney delivers on the promise of family-safe entertainment but this is not healthy. Certainly the capture of copyright law (i.e. endless extension of the copyright expiration period) is not the price worth paying for it.

B1FF_PSUVM 5y ago
Could always be split into smaller companies, like Bell forty years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_the_Bell_System The reverse seems to be happening, though ...
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
The whole Princess part of Disney culture comes across as pretty gross tbh. I don't have kids but have talked about this with friends. Even though they wanted to keep their daughters away from it, it's nearly impossible.
- sergers 5y ago
  My daughter loves to be a princess... Not any particular Disney princess, but loves it.. She also loves to be a doctor, astronaut, grocery store clerk, firefighter, construction worker, chef etc... I grew up watching non stop Disney, in a family of mostly strong independent women who also loved Disney princesses. Nothing wrong with the stereotypical fairytales... If you/your child is consumed by it, you need some more exposure to other things
sergers 5y ago
Kids would latch on to whatever popular form of entertainment, as they already do today(my kids not the biggest fan of Disney). Not so sure of the trauma you speak of If Disney ceased to exist, this would be shocking to everyone not just children.

dangus 5y ago

I find it hard to sympathize with the author on this experience. Disney is trying their best to alleviate crowds and overall bad experiences by raising prices. First, the author was prepared to be bitter from the start of the day. Complaining about the price of parking is our first red flag. Yes, that's right, parking your 4,000 pound car does cost $25, this is 2021 not 1965. If parking was $5 or $10 or free, would the author have a space to park at all? The author wonders why Disney is delivering a sub-par experience. But, here's the thing, a global pandemic happened, and Disney was hurt financially as a result. They are much less of a pure media company than their peers at Comcast or AT&T, with close to half of their revenue coming from theme parks. Unsurprisingly, those theme parks bled cash in 2020. Fast forward to 2021 and you've got theme parks attracting plenty of attendees, but we combine that high-labor business with a national labor shortage and/or rising labor costs that are concentrated almost entirely in the service industry. Finally, this is the biggest reason I don't sympathize with the author: he doesn't seem to have done a lot of research before going to the park. Disney for decades now has not been a place that you just show up on a random day and waltz on in. You have to plan it or you will have a bad time. That means planning your trip with sites like mousehacking.com, and that means reserving dining and experiences far in advance. I almost don't want to get into it, but I also think that the discussion of race and inclusivity was unnaturally shoe-horned into this article. The author should already know why the attendees are mostly of a fair complexion: they're members of the higher income brackets of the USA, the people who can afford Disney in the first place. Disney did not create that nationwide racial income disparity. Though, their own racist media of the past (and perhaps even the present) did nothing to end it, either. But all of that potentially interesting discussion is just thrown into an article that ultimately isn't addressing those issues. It's ultimately just about a guy who went to theme park despite not really liking theme parks.

nasmorn 5y ago
I think it is hilarious that one is expected to do more research to go to Disneyland than I do for a 3-day backpacking hike with my children.
- dangus 5y ago

123pie123 5y ago

I went ages ago for about 10 days, when I heard that President Obama was going to the magic kingdom park and the park would be partially shut (the day before this was to happen) - I said to my family - lets go at the same time. the place was almost empty - woo, everything was open with little to no queues another thing that happened was the castle and dining - aparently you're supposed to book ages in advance to dine there (6-9months or so) my missues did ask me about a year before we went about this and I said don't bother... but typical me when I got there I was like wow - lets dine there. My missues was not happy and recited our previous conversation and explained again (through gritted teeth) about the waiting list. I said they must have cancellations etc.. she did go up and they said not really but if you wait something may pop up She waited 15min on her own and when I caught up - she said loads of people were being turned away with the same response as her (not really but if you wait something may pop up) I shrugged and just waited about 5mins more. then person on the desk said we could go in - woo, loved it it to pieces Our extended family (loads of us went) was royaly pissed at us just going in without booking - we may have just got lucky though YMMV

jafo 5y ago
In the spring of 2001, I planned a trip to Disneyworld for that fall, specifically the third week of September. Park was open, but empty. Quite the surreal experience.

jedberg 5y ago

Disneyland has a big problem. It's super popular but can't get any bigger. As demand keeps growing, they could either increase capacity or increase prices to lower demand. They've pretty much run out of space to get bigger. There are two neighborhoods next to Disneyland where they could buy every home for about $1B, but it would only gain them a few extra acres. They've already started moving some of the support buildings to cheap industrial lots nearby and then converting the on-site support buildings to ride areas (that's how Toon Town and Star Wars land were built). But there are only so many chunks of land to buy, and despite being very wealthy, they aren't wealthy enough to buy that much land in urban Southern California. Their only option is to raise the price while removing incentives. At this point their annual pass is actually a worse deal than buying tickets when you want to go. You can only get in about four times a year on an annual pass with their new reservation system. My dad wanted to use his pass, but he could only get a reservation a few months from now -- but he could buy a daily ticket for next week. Oh, and the way people get the 7am ride reservation is by staying at the Disneyland Hotel, and they also get in early to start forming those long opening lines. On a side note, Disneyland has never been about inclusiveness. Walt Disney was famously racist and anti-semitic. He'd be pretty happy about the fact that only white people are going.

jimmygrapes 5y ago
Anybody who claims that only white people go to Disneyland has obviously never actually been there in the last 50 years or so. I was there last year and white people were definitely in the minority. Sounds like more divisive misinformation to me.
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  The article specifically says that the lack of Black people there this year was a surprising (to the author) change.
  - fundad 5y ago
    it's a real shame though, being surrounded by Black Joy was the most memorable attraction for me

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bluedays 5y ago

It stopped being a magical experience when they stopped allowing the Disney character actors walk around the park, and started demanding everyone wait in line to see them.

ekhaliul 5y ago

After I took my kids day after thanksgiving for the first time last Friday, I was wondering why this problem simply exists. And how is it possible to pay such big amount of money for outdated experiences that we had. There is a nice analysis of everything that Disney tried as far as controlling lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE As a person that came from USSR, I see that many of the issues are created by removing money as a control mechanism of supply and demand. If you pay entrance fee and then remove fine tuning for each ride, the result is long lines. My personal opinion is that pay-per-ride is a much better model although I can see how many may disagree. From my childhood in a country where money did not have much meaning, I learned that all-you-can eat mode for a price of entry will be filled with schemes, long lines, and tricks to game the system.

Kaibeezy 5y ago

Took the kids a couple of years ago. It was a hot, crowded and expensive misery. I asked for our money back. I was assertive but not an asshole. Aaaand... They upgraded our bracelets to skip-every-line. Yep, that was pretty good. That evening, while waiting for the Uber Minnie Bus, a couple of senior customer service people asked about our day. I told them straight up, no embellishment. Aaaand... They gave us a skip-every-line upgrade for Epcot the next day. Also pretty good. Needless to say, we are never going back.

spaceflunky 5y ago
So I work for a FAANG company and I worked on a tech partnership with Disney. To Disney's credit, they are INCREDIBLY understanding about the need for all families to have a good day at the park. They spend a lot of money on R&D for finding ways to track how many rides people have been on and what is the appropriate amount of time in between rides, etc etc. One the technologies they were developing was to have a system monitor everyone's experiences and if they found someone who's experience metrics were too low they could send a cast member out to find the family and give them a skip the line pass or meal voucher. They also knew what was the most common hour for kids to have meltdowns and strategically send out juice/snack vendor carts out around that time. This is what just what they shared with us, so god knows what else they know. IIRC they said 6 rides was the ideal number for a family to say they got their money's worth.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
I refuse to go to Disneyworld during the summer peak or X-mas vacation. But fall and spring days that aren't too crowded are on the table. It does take a lot of research to figure out when to go for the best experience, and things like school schedules for school-aged kids can get in the way of having flexibility to go when not everyone else is going.

mbg721 5y ago

There are enough Disney fans that the rational thing to do would be to price it for the true believers and not one penny less. My assumption is that there is a huge value drop-off for people who don't spend a lot of time on the franchise, and that's why (or at least why I tell myself) my kids are going someplace else next year.

authed 5y ago

the wait times are even worst then the costs... but either way I like something like Busch Gardens mush more.

RickJWagner 5y ago

“Capitalism is a smooth summabitch,” I said under my breath.... I wonder why the author doesn't go to one of the socialist Disney-type parks?