It would be so interesting to see the information systems and work at Disney to figure out some kid of way to make it work better.

I know someone who works in a top position at one of the WDW parks, and I have heard some of this info. How many enter the parks. How they divert crowds (sometimes a food cart will do it). How they know expected numbers and can turn the dials to raise or lower it last minute.

However, it is SO complicated. There is constant tension between population, money, desirable rides, employment, quality of experience, geography.

I imagine some futuristic system where you input all the stuff you are interested in. And it spits out an itinerary that hits all of your stuff with minimal waiting. Hits a window of desired meal spot, and takes into account the walking and geography. And they do this for everyone so it all works.

Anonymous wrote:I am grateful to my parents for never taking us to Disneyland/World, and never encouraging a huge love of Disney. I loved the Little Mermaid but even as a child I never understood and was even somewhat embarrassed by others who seemed obsessed by Disney.
So glad to be passing this on to my kids. We would all much rather spend a long weekend around national parks than a crowded, expensive amusement park.

See the Utah parks thread for comments on Zion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s for folks that are ok spending 10k on an amusement park. Clearly there is a demand or they would cut prices. Personally I would go to Europe instead for the money.

Same.

And your children would be experiencing the actual world (other cultures, customs, food, cultures, nature).

Not riding plastic, mechanical toys.

Who is spending $10k going to Disney? We go to Disney often, as we obviously like it, but typical trips are in the $3-4k range. Plenty of money left in our vacation budget to see other places, countries, cultures, etc.

Anonymous wrote:The system is definitely broken, which is what happens when you spawn an entire ecosystem dedicated to "hacking" the system. You shouldn't have to "hack" a family vacation. They should threaten to sue every "Disney consultant" who uses their name, nuke the existing priority system, severely cap the number of people in the parks and hotels at any given time, raise the cost of a single-admit ticket which gets you access to everything with the promise of an under-30-min wait for every ride (that you don't have to reserve or wake up at 6am on vacation to ride) and serve a decent glass of wine for throttled parents at the end of the day. The upscale food and bev is GARBAGE, and boy do they make you work for it.

Thats Disney's problem at the end of the day. A Disney vacation is work, not play.

Agree with the wish that once you were in the park you could actually ride the rides. But severely limiting the number of people in the park = park reservations = planning way in advance = hacks. Unless you are talking about raising the price so high that it eliminates the vast majority of people.

The system is definitely broken, which is what happens when you spawn an entire ecosystem dedicated to "hacking" the system. You shouldn't have to "hack" a family vacation. They should threaten to sue every "Disney consultant" who uses their name, nuke the existing priority system, severely cap the number of people in the parks and hotels at any given time, raise the cost of a single-admit ticket which gets you access to everything with the promise of an under-30-min wait for every ride (that you don't have to reserve or wake up at 6am on vacation to ride) and serve a decent glass of wine for throttled parents at the end of the day. The upscale food and bev is GARBAGE, and boy do they make you work for it.

Thats Disney's problem at the end of the day. A Disney vacation is work, not play.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just spent 4 days at Disney. Overpriced and very poor experience. It must be an absolute mess for families that don't want to shell out for all the extras. Extras, which are slowly become necessities if you want to actually get on rides at the park.
I told my kids for this kind of money we could have spent a week on my home country and lived like kings!
Rant over

Why don't you go back to your "home country" then??

Disney is the American ideal.

Obviously, it seems not to be for many Americans.

Do you always subsume marketing with so little thought?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am grateful to my parents for never taking us to Disneyland/World, and never encouraging a huge love of Disney. I loved the Little Mermaid but even as a child I never understood and was even somewhat embarrassed by others who seemed obsessed by Disney.
So glad to be passing this on to my kids. We would all much rather spend a long weekend around national parks than a crowded, expensive amusement park.

So glad I passed down to my kids the ethos that people can love what they love and it’s not their place to judge.

Lol... We all judge. Growing up, I really found it odd that certain kids were all about Disney things and their parents seemed to encourage it. It just seemed like such a limited way to be, I guess. Plus kind of a lot of wasted money. I'm sure others judged me for my hand-me-down/thrift store clothes and homemade dolls. That's fine. I'm passing on my own culture to my kids; others do the same in their way.

We did 2 days at Disneyland / California Adventure Park with a then 6th and 2nd grader. I’d recommend this for anyone who wants to check the box on Disney. I think less expensive than Disney World, and only 2 days. We stayed at an off site hotel across the street, no exorbitant rates.

At these ages, we skipped the princess meet and greet stuff, pricey restaurants, but kids still enjoyed Star Wars, Marvel etc.

Kids feel like they had the Disney experience and have never asked to go to Disney World.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s for folks that are ok spending 10k on an amusement park. Clearly there is a demand or they would cut prices. Personally I would go to Europe instead for the money.

Same.

And your children would be experiencing the actual world (other cultures, customs, food, cultures, nature).

Not riding plastic, mechanical toys.

Thrill rides are marvels of modern engineering and artistry.

We have to go to Europe to visit family. The kids think it's okay but it's not some kind of paradigm shifting, horizon expanding experience. It's really hard to get a genuinely new cultural experience these days. But theme parks can really awaken imagination and shift perspective. Maybe we just travel too much, but it's hard to get a truly perspective altering experience these days just on foreign travel.

Got back from several days at Disney last week. No kids, just my DH and I. I had never been and he’d been once at the age of 12 when it opened in ‘71. We had a lot of fun. Went to Magic Kingdom and Epcot and stayed at the Polynesian. It kind of is what it is. We are pretty well traveled, but were able to enjoy the “countries” in Epcot anyway, even though we have actually been to many of them. I feel like Disney was fascinating from an almost academic standpoint because it is, in many ways, a lesson in things done well. We didn’t feel we’d waited at all for Haunted Mansion because of the incredibly detailed stuff to look at while waiting. I will admit that we payed for as many “lightning lanes” as possible to avoid long lines; not sure we would have enjoyed it otherwise. FWIW, as far as that legendary Disney customer service goes? Didn’t see it. Service was never bad, but it was rarely all that good either.

Anonymous wrote:It’s for folks that are ok spending 10k on an amusement park. Clearly there is a demand or they would cut prices. Personally I would go to Europe instead for the money.

Same.

And your children would be experiencing the actual world (other cultures, customs, food, cultures, nature).

Not riding plastic, mechanical toys.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just spent 4 days at Disney. Overpriced and very poor experience. It must be an absolute mess for families that don't want to shell out for all the extras. Extras, which are slowly become necessities if you want to actually get on rides at the park.
I told my kids for this kind of money we could have spent a week on my home country and lived like kings!
Rant over

Why don't you go back to your "home country" then??

Disney is the American ideal.

Did you really just tell someone to go
Back to their country bc they didn’t like Disney?

NP - Did you really just comment on this without reading the post they were responding to?

"I told my kids for this kind of money we could have spent a week on my home country and lived like kings! "

Response: "Why don't you go back to your "home country" then??"

Happy to have had the opportunity to give our grandchildren a one-off trip to WDW after the pandemic. They will have other travel opportunities in their lives, but this one was magical for them and for us.

Anonymous wrote:I am grateful to my parents for never taking us to Disneyland/World, and never encouraging a huge love of Disney. I loved the Little Mermaid but even as a child I never understood and was even somewhat embarrassed by others who seemed obsessed by Disney.
So glad to be passing this on to my kids. We would all much rather spend a long weekend around national parks than a crowded, expensive amusement park.

Embarrassed as a kid? They make a$$holes early in your family, I guess.

Disney is worth it for adults that are Star Wars fanatics. Go early. It's not worth it if you have to drag a little kid and they whine half of the time. And they probably don't even remember anything by the time they understand how cool it is.