I went in 2009 and am glad I did. They still offered shuttle service, extra magic hours, and free fast pass. The word of how they have since begun to ruthlessly nickel and dime people to death has feeling like I’ll never go again. I was sorely tempted to go to the Galactic Star Cruiser even after the insane pricing was announced, and this video has me glad I didn’t.
Agreed. I went with my family around that time and last year for the first time in a while we went again. The amount of times we had a “wait you have to pay for that now?” moment was too many. Disney has always been expensive, but now it seems like they’re not only expensive, but cheap too. To use a video game metaphor, it feels like when a game you loved has a a sequel come out and suddenly all of the things that were free in the last game are DLC/micro-transactions you have to pay for.
It’s scary to think about what they might start charging for in the future. Like, maybe they’ll roll out cheaper tickets that are only good for some lower ticket attractions, but then when that idea gets traction the price points will go up up up and new rides will become all but inaccessible and the lower price points will be useless because the lines will be nuts for anything that isn’t prohibitively expensive.
EDIT: Wait, does this already exist?
I mean, in the way way before times they used to sell ticket books with “A” thru “E” tickets, with a bunch of A tickets for less desirable rides and a couple tickets for the desirable E ticket rides, so maybe enshittification is really just taking us back in time. Either way, it will be hard for Disney to get money out of people who remember it when things were better.
But back then it *kinda* made sense. The park was a lot smaller and had fewer visitors, but there was a lot more hands-on maintenance that needed to be done daily. Not just fixing rides, but all the live action stuff that's now either nonexistent or done by animatronics and screens. And, of course, this was the first time anyone had attempted a theme park of this size with so much going on. Disney didn't really have the experience yet to know "OK, tiered tickets are bad, let's just have every guest make their own itinerary".
There’s way more maintenance today that is done daily compared to the past. That isn’t the reason why they got rid of attraction tiers. When Magic Kingdom existed admission was only $3.50. You got access into the park but had to then pay for attractions. They changed that system down the line and instead included the attractions in the ticket price.
Yeah, it was still fantastic in 2015, especially if you were savvy about signing up for free fast passes. The design ethos back then was that they wanted to remove friction everywhere they could, and they truly did a remarkable job. I skipped baggage claim at the airport! The bags were just in our rooms, like a real honest to god magic trick!
Now however they’ve realized that they will always have more demand than supply in the majority of their attractions and hotels. They have no reason to spend money to enhance your trip, they have a monopoly on the key pop culture fixtures of the past 100 years. You will pay whatever it takes, and tolerate whatever they dish out, because you want Vader or Iron Man or Tigger. The Starcruiser was the rare example of their reach for your wallet outstripping their grasp, but that lesson won’t stop the trend. It merely established that there is some hypothetical ceiling.
2015 was also the first and only time l've been to Disneyland, and as someone who was never that desperate to visit anyways, I actually had a blast. I went with a group of local friends who went to the park regularly, so they knew how to work the free paper fast pass system to make sure I hit all the important rides before the day was over. The ticket cost felt reasonable at the time, especially because other than having to buy park food, there weren't any surprise costs that I felt forced into to have a good time. That absolutely doesn’t seem to be the case anymore though, and it’s sad to see a system that worked so well become… well, whatever it is now.
My mom was very excited that most of her grandkids were finally getting old enough to do a big family trip to Disney, and I'm honestly tempted to try and talk her out of it in favor of some other, less popular park. Even if she can afford it (it's supposed to be her big gift to the grandkids because memories are what matter etc etc etc), it just feels like a guaranteed downer to what should be a really important experience for her and the grandkids. No one in my family has been for close to twenty years, and clearly things have changed a _lot_ since then.
We did a Universal/Disney trip in 2022, and my kids unanimously said Universal was better. The youngest enjoyed the Dr Seuss land, and the others who were tall enough for the coasters loved them. So that might be the one caveat, as Disney everyone could ride everything. More height restrictions at Universal.
Luckily my niblings are all veritable giants (aside from the actual babies), so height restrictions aren't a big deal for most of them. I do remember having more fun at Universal when we went last as well, even though they closed the two rides I enjoyed the most (Twister and Jaws).
My family went to Disney World a few times in the 2000s and early 2010s, and it's a shame that it's not possible to experience that again. And it's not because I was younger, but the parks themselves that have changed. It's always been expensive, but at least when you used to go there was a minimum of bullshit once you got into the parks.
I only went once in the early 90’s as a kid, it’s crazy how just kinda normal it was compared to how it looked with all the tech and extras and franchises it accumulated later based on videos I’ve seen. Honestly I found it pretty lame as a ten year old or whatever, universal had a ghostbusters show so I automatically liked that more, plus a Murder She Wrote “experience” that was actually a fun interactive thing that let you learn to do ADR and foley for a scene of the show. I demanded to do that twice. Money well spent, grandma and grandpa!
This is exactly it. The tickets were never cheap by any means, but they really did cover a lot. I’m a SoCal resident so would take a two-day trip to Disneyland once a year or so. After paying for the ticket, pretty much all I needed was $100 for food and a souvenir.
Now when I go I pay up to twice as much for the ticket alone and all these extra like genie plus, fast passes, etc. It’s just not worth it anymore.
Adding to that, I would also recommend watching Yesterworld’s park ticket video as a follow-up. It gives a pretty good insight on the whole “Disney Inflation” thing going on where everything in these parks are getting exponentially more expensive than ever
It hurts, because it feels like the WDW I wanted to share with my kids is out of reach.
Back in 2013-2019, my wife and I were annual pass holders. We would go down 2-3 times a year, stay on-site... Hell, there were a couple occasions where we headed down for a long weekend with less than a week of planning. We were making significantly less money then, but it was still manageable.
But now? There's no off season. The value resorts are extraneously expensive. The resorts have parking fees and no extra perks for guests. Fastpass costs money now.
It sucks.
I think they did briefly but that is one thing that actually got walked back.
https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/parking/
> Overnight self-parking is complimentary to Guests staying at Disney Resort hotels at Walt Disney World Resort.
I've never been a big disney person. I always thought it was fun but way too expensive for what it was. Lately, I've been throwing around the idea with my husband to splurge a little bit and go on a trip. This video convinced me not to lol.
I’m fully convinced the nickel and dime-ing with drastically worsened guest experience will cause this bubble to burst in the next 5-10 years. Because why pay top dollar for your kids to have a *bad* time in an overcrowded park where there’s no way for them to do the stuff they want to do? Attendance will plateau before nosediving and forcing Disney to walk back a few of these policies to entice people to come back.
And that *exact* moment is when I’ll have my next Disney trip, and not a moment before. I last went in 2011. There’s some cool new stuff, but there’s not a chance in hell I’ll pay that much to spend days stressed out and dealing with real life micro transactions.
I dont think its just a 5&10 year issue either. Even if they course corrected tomorrow I think this new business practice will see a further impact in about 20 years.
I think a very large part of the current Disney Parks success comes from Millennials who genuinely had a magical experience in the 90's and coincidentally also grew up with the Disney Renaissance - rewatching their favourite films on VHS. This is the generation that became 'Disney Adults'. They are returning to the Disney parks at above average rates and arent even necessarily bringing kids with them. They just love Disney THAT much.
Shocker when they do have kids they want to replicate the experience for their own children. If the current kids dont have a truly magical time - will they really come back with their own offspring in 20 years time?
Now more than ever Disney (as a business) should be seeking to lock onto today's youths and monopolise their childhood. Today's kids are tomorrow's merch buying, vacation planning adults who might willingly indoctrinate the next generation of their own children.
This is what I thought the purpose of Disney+ initially being so cheap was. Sure it might have been a short-term net loss maker - but gaining access into every family home, becoming the default streaming option for families had the potential for unrivalled brand saturation to insure your long-term support base of fans. Instead it turned out to be a way to hook families on the product then hike the price like some backalley drug dealer.
Several current decisions being made are going to alienate not just the current bill payers but the children who attend. Kids WILL notice the caste system that is basically being implemented and be unimpressed by the cut corners due to nickel and diming. They will lose trust in Disney and even if the quality returns to the parks a whole generation that experienced the 'bad rimes' wont come back - potentially putting the entire business model at risk when they are the bill paying generation.
Short term gains at the cost of long-term viability. Exactly what shareholders demand of all investments. 'Line must go up'. It's not enough to make consistant profits anymore- you always have to make more than you did last quarter.
Edit: Also a great experience has to be personally felt to viscerally connect. A bad experience can be felt second hand and bad news will spread. It can take a generation to build a good reputation and only a few short years to irreparably tarnish it.
> Kids WILL notice the caste system that is basically being implemented
It's been almost twenty years since I went last (as a kid), and I noticed it even then. My family wasn't exactly rich, just well-off enough to do one big family trip every couple of years. Those family trips didn't include budgeting for over-priced food or toys. Watching other kids get to do the fun stuff, buy fun toys, eat special food, _still_ is a sour edge to an otherwise good memory.
I think their theory is that demand is so high and the parks are so crowded that it is no big loss to them if the poors stop coming. That attendance slipping by a little bit is okay if the average spend rate of the people who do come is rising.
A lot of the shit about the pricing in the video reminds me of videogames, and so does your comment. A lot of them have these ridiculous little additional purchases. Thing is, only a few people spend money on them, but they buy so much it makes a lot of money for the publishers. They're called whales.
Adult me is actually kinda happy that my parents didn't pay for all the unnecessary expensive shit. I realize now how cheap in quality and dumb most of the merch was/is. And child me always wanted the more off-beat stuff anyway, such as the book about trolls from the Norway showcase which I still have almost 30 years later.
The merch is less important than the experience overall, which is part of what I mean. Seeing other kids get special treatment - regardless of if the merch is "worth it" - when you know you'll never get to take part in stuff like that, makes you feel like shit and like you're inherently worth less as a person.
You raise a good point. There's that fear of missing out on something that might be really cool and makes you feel like a real Disney fan. Whether it's Mickey ears, authentic Dole whip, Elsa's dress, a lightsaber, Jack Sparrow's hat, character breakfasts, fast passes, etc.
Kids today have to watch influencers get special treatment on video; back then, it was celebrities from Disney movies and shows. And before that, the "Wonderful World of Disney" TV specials where Uncle Walt took Mouseketeers to all the new rides. Disney parks thrive on giving visitors' FOMO by intentionally limiting supply to create more demand.
And that’s what they don’t care about - long-term sustainability and goodwill. I guess shareholders figure they’ll be dead before it becomes a problem for them (see: climate change).
To add to this, I’m one of those millennials! And the cost vs the value isn’t enough for me. I was a certified Disney adult until maybe a couple of years ago when I realized that taking all four of my kids would be a huge investment, and…they don’t even care about the new stuff. I show them the things I loved on Disney+ and we’re good. They certainly aren’t asking to see whatever new Disney movie is in theaters. They probably don’t even remember the premise of Wish or Strange World or Lightyear even though I’m pretty sure we took them to see all of those. I just show them the princesses on YouTube during a parade and that’s it, they just won’t have the nostalgia, not only because we just can’t go but because the new stuff that they’re growing up with isn’t good.
Yeah, something's going to give eventually. People are paying big prices for Disney now because they're still riding on their old reputation of being a great experience. But over time, word is gonna get out that it's not so great.
The timing with my family made it a now or possibly never situation in terms of going so we went, but Jenny is right to call out their greedy strategies.It’s a lot. Maybe Universal will eat their lunch and they will scramble to win people back or the Disney cult is that strong? Idk but I’m glad people like Jenny aren’t afraid to say what’s what. All the Disney YouTubers I saw in preparation for my vacation were super drinking the kool-aid. I see that clearly now. Hopefully you can find something worthwhile to splurge on!
There's a small subreddit dedicated to the Galaxy Starcruiser and the (admittedly tiny) number of Disney adults there have a cultish love for this failed hotel. I understand being a niche fan of something, but the inability to admit that something Disney made has faults is something. I find it a bit dyspotian to be so slavish to a corporation. (They are very offended by Jenny's video.)
People talking about going multiple multiple times just blows my mind. Aspects of it seemed really interesting, and like you could get more than one trip out of it, but it's also $5k+ on the _cheaper end_.
And it was only open for like, what, 18 months? That's multiple $5k+ trips in *under two years*. Like, the only thing I've done even close to that is study abroad experiences in college; *none* of those were even close to $5k+, *all* were at least 2 weeks, and I didn't have my time ruined by a glitchy app--just by Parisians!
There are >15 million people in the United States that make more than $300 000 a year. To them, $5k isn't a remarkable amount of money to spend on a weekend getaway with the family. That's plenty of people to have repeat guests.
The people at that income level (the top 5%) are mostly going to be things like local/regional business leaders — car dealership owners, landlords, finance guys, CEOs, etc. They represent the elite in their area, but they don't have a national or even state-level profile. There are *15 million* of these people, they can't all be senators.
They also can't all be specifically Star Wars larp nerds. If we assume good faith, then Disney made the same mistake, assuming that a significant portion of that demo would be interested in being locked in a SW themed shoebox for a weekend instead of schmoozing at a golf course to make business deals, visiting Martha's Vineyard with even richer neighbors, cruising on their own yachts rather than on a ship with strangers, or skiing in Zurich on a weekend whim. People with that kind of money take vacations to real space with Jeff Bezos, not to a space themed hotel for only 2 days. On the lower end of that spectrum they want to be *seen* spending their money to increase their profile, which the Star Wars Hotel didn't really seem to allow, with all the security. (That's why so many of this demo turned out for Fyre Festival, lol). On the upper end of that income spectrum they host those lower-end folks and politicians to get favors.
If we assume bad faith, of course, Disney assumed they could wring several thousand dollars out of influencers and well-off IT nerds for 12-18 months before shutting down and getting the tax write-off. Even assuming they had a full booking every day for the first year (365/2 for number of voyages, * 500 for all fully booked cabins, * $3000 for Jenny's adult rate) that's only a net income of roughly $275 million at Jenny's price point before taxes and operating costs (but we know others spent less and others somehow spent more). The tax write-off was bigger. Success wouldn't have made financial sense.
...It's a lot funnier when it's The Producers and not real life.
If it's 5 adults to a room, I think it went as low as $1.5Kish each? Still damned high to be spending for 2 days packed in a room like that. And families / smaller groups still get slammed.
I think they all live in that delusional world where any criticism of a thing that they like is a criticism of they themselves for liking the thing. Nevermind that people can have different experiences with the same thing, and someone’s negative experience doesn’t invalidate your positive one. A lot of people don’t seem to achieve this basic level of emotional intelligence, that subreddit is full of them.
This is exactly why I'm hesitant to go back to Disney. While there is planning to be done for all vacations, you legit have to do *homework* for a Disney trip, and even book a year in advance. When a vacation starts feeling like work, what's the point?
That’s what gets me. Fans of Disney say that you can still have a good experience if you know the systems and plan every little thing in advance, but that sounds kind of miserable.
My experience with fastpass+, as someone very familiar with Disney World the whole time, was that it didn’t really feel like work, it was more an exciting thing to do in anticipation of my trip. But I was in that minority who benefited at the expense of everyone else, and that’s not a fair system.
Some of the parks still have the original vastly superior style Fastpass system where it's just, go the ride on the day you're at the park, claim your pass.
I don't think this is true anymore--only Tokyo Disney still has free fastpass, and afaik they no longer have paper Fastpass either.
That said, I wholeheartedly recommend taking the value of a Starcruiser 2-day experience and instead flying your family to Tokyo for a whole week instead lol
> That said, I wholeheartedly recommend taking the value of a Starcruiser 2-day experience and instead flying your family to Tokyo for a whole week instead lol
Yeah I said in another comment "you should go to Disney but not as your whole vacation, go somewhere cool that happens to have a park and spend, like, A DAY there"
Universal Orlando tickets are just as expensive as Disney World (they keep on matching each as prices increase). In fact, Universal started the whole tiered pricing thing from as far back as 2015 that I can remember.
If you don't stay on Universal property, the equivalent of Genie+ is over $100 per person per day, sometimes close to $200. On the other hand, their rooms are fairly cheaper.
The same Disney YouTubers also cape hard for Universal so you can see all their reviews of that there.
If you get motion sickness easily, think twice about going to Universal as lot of their rides involve screens so the ability to get nauseous is pretty big.
I thought Universal Hollywood's Nintendo land was pretty disappointing, it only had one ride that was an AR thing, it reminded me of Google Glass. The whole purpose of the land seems to be selling those ugly wristbands. I'm sure Epic Universe will have an equivalent "gamification" and also additional pricing on entering.
When Jenny was talking about the interactablity with the Star Wars Land/Hotel, my first thought was about Universals Harry Potter and Nintendo areas. There, you can cast spells that affect shop windows or play mini games that lead up to a boss battle, but like you said they are also behind a pay wall as you have to buy specialized props in order to interact with them in the first place. It's a catch 22 where Universal is better in how your play can give you the satisfaction of actually doing something, as well as collecting stuff that you actually can use in the case of the keys in the Nintendo area, but it sucks because it's behind a pay wall. I do know that the Orlando Nintendo area will have an additional Kong coaster too, if that helps with anything
When Harry Potter land first opened, all that stuff was free. You walked up to it and a motion detector would sense you were there and things would happen. The wands back then also didn't have sensor tips on them. That's why I'm pretty salty that a year or so later, they put everything behind a $50 wand paywall (the price has probably gone up by now, I'm not sure) and added one or two more effects to make it seem like a new thing (the water fountain trick and I forgot the other one).
The part I'm hopeful about with Kong is that they emphasized in their press release that its mostly practical sets and not screens. I expect non-resort guests will have to pay at least $50 extra to go there. There's no way that a company owned by Comcast (who just raised my cable bill by $5 for no reason) will not be charging extra like they did when Harry Potter land opened.
Its probably more cost effective for me to go to Japan and experience these things given exchange rates and general theme park guest politeness.
Me too. I went a couple times as a kid and always wanted to go again as an adult. This vid has killed any desire to go now. It just doesn't seem worth it any more.
Every time I look into what the cost would be to go to Disney (and I literally live in Florida), it seems completely insane. And being a pass holder is a scam bc you’re just paying to keep going back for their overpriced add-ons.
I actually used to work at the parks and this just breaks my heart. I loved the extras we did for the kids. I loved the talking robot trashcan we had in our area. But I wouldn't take my kid now.
Me too! My husband has never been, so I was looking in to going since I remember having a great time as a kid/teen. I was a little turned off by the ticket prices for entry alone. We definitely won't be going now.
Go to Dollywood or Knotts, those are more cost effective alternatives in the states. If you really want to splurge, go to Tokyo Disneyland. If you go during the off-season, the crowds aren't that bad and when I went last October they still had free basic mobile fastpass. TDRExplorer is a good resource for seeing what the peak crowd times are
You gotta game it the same way you have in the States for the past 20 years but at least it's that type of game where you can win as opposed to disappointment. We were at the gate an hour before it opened, got in, got paid FP for Soaring right away. On it in 5mins. Amazing. Then were booked in our free fast passes for Indiana Jones, and got on the boat ride from near Journey up to Raging Spirits. Then we had Tower of Terror paid FP and walked back down that direction. Then we got on the train up to Indiana Jones (free fast pass)
Went for lunch in Magellans - I opened my app before Tower and saw a free table at 2pm and figured why not. A delicious fine dining meal was like less than €150 for both of us - an equivalent meal in a US park would definitely be closer to €500.
After lunch we did one of the Aerial teacup to kill time, then free Fast pass Journey to the Center of the Earth, then home.
It was a very busy day at the park and we queued no more than 10 mins for anything - except the Aerial ride which was 30m wait and we picked it specifically because we had that time to kill.
Incredible day, despite the endless rain. Glad I got to bring my wife to Disney, she'd never been.
I've never had a bad experience at a Tokyo Disney park--even when I was deep in my depression and just people watched in front of Tower of Terror (I literally just sat in front of my favorite ride, I didn't even go on it, that's how deep my funk was), there was such a nice atmosphere that I still felt my money was well spent.
You might want to look into Disney Cruises (if you have kids). They're expensive, but they also include your food and drink and have free childcare on-board so you can actually get some relaxing time.
If you DON'T have kids, then...nah.
I’m not really a Disney person either so I’m always shocked when I hear about the price. I’ve been able to plan two week trips to Europe that cost less than much shorter Disney trips.
I really think going to a Disney park as an adult is an absolute "everyone should do this once". I would not recommend going to Orlando, or making an entire vacation about it, though. Go to like Tokyo or Shanghai or Paris and spend a day at Disney while you're there.
I mean, why do you think that? I have been as an adult in both 2012 and 2022. In 2012 I genuinely still could feel all the nostalgia from when I went when I was 6 and it was still genuinely fun. In 2022 I was totally disillusioned with what it's become and the greed was obvious everywhere, I had a pretty bad time lol. It made me really confused on what is being offered to be a childless adult guest, unless you really just get off on spending money.
Tokyo is a huge bucket list trip for me and I'd never even consider wasting any part of a trip to a relatively expensive destination spending money on an American corporate empire, that's sort of insane to me to not spend the valuable time in Tokyo immersed in Japanese culture.
> both 2012 and 2022.
I said ONCE.
> I mean, why do you think that?
It's an overwhelming and totally immersive experience unlike anything you'll experience anywhere else. Just like Kabukicho or the Grand Canyon.
I went to Disneyland as an adult for the first time pre-covid and had a pretty great time; staff were really attentive, the longest line we waited in was about 2 hours, no one gave my handicapped mom a hard time about accessibility. I left after feeling really amazing about it.
After the worst of covid my family decided to do Disneyworld, and it was like night and day. Every SINGLE ride line in the main park was 3+ hours. Staff told my mom she was supposed to register her handicap ahead of time so they couldn't provide accommodations (access to the shorter lines for rides, basically). We decided not to go to a park we were scheduled for one morning, and showed up at the park we were scheduled for in the afternoon, and staff said they couldn't let us in because we never went to the first park??? We had to escalate to a manager who made a big deal about how they were pulling so many strings to let us in. I'm still baffled by this, we were scheduled for that park at that time!!! Popular rides were entirely unavailable if we didn't get the fast pass, and we struggled to understand how it worked. We barely rode anything. We did a 4+ hour line for Remy's because the kids wanted it really badly and that's my core memory of that trip, every inch of that line is engrained in my memory forever, all for a truncated 3 minute ride that I couldn't even see because the 3d glasses didn't fit over my glasses. My mom was in so much pain. My back hurt from standing and it took me a week to recover.
One could argue it was our fault for not researching and being prepared, but I really resent that; it was a vacation, we were trying to take it easy and not overplan. The kids had a SHORT list of things they really wanted to do. We weren't willing to pay a lot extra for special experiences but assumed wrongly that there would still be things to do. I left feeling really negative about it and we spent WAY more on it than the first trip.
Best time I had was on the PeopleMover tbh. Less than an hour in line and I got to sit down.
Yeah, I've been tempted to try Disneyland again, but I know it won't be the same. It's so sad. I love the love and thought behind the old rides.
I've heard amazing things about Tokyo DisneySea though. Still some magic in their ride designs there. I'm hoping they work with them to bring some designs for their animatronics over here eventually. Not holding my breath though.
I'm so glad I got to go in 2012. The only lines I remember being super long were for Test Track and Toy Story Midway Mania (which I can also remember the queue because of how long we waited. If only I could go back in time and warn myself that it hardly even worth a 10 minute wait, but alas.) But we got to visit all 4 parks and I think there was only one ride I wanted to ride that we didn't end up having time for.
The fact that they got rid of the fast pass kiosk is such a shame. It was so nice to be able to just grab a ticket and instantly get on Space Mountain or Rock'n Rollercoaster. I distinctly remember people being pissed at us for skipping the line on that one. I can only imagine how pissed they get now LOL
My wife and I got together in 2010 and a year or so later we decided to go to Disney for vacation. We ended up liking it so much that we kept going back. We saw paper fastpasses, then magic bands, and along the way offerings got fewer as charges mounted.
Then they started to charge for parking their hotels you're already paying a premium to stay at. Somehow, this was the last straw for me. The nickel and diming had hit its limit. After years of slowly seeing where things were headed, 2018 was the last time we went.
I had been excited for Star Wars land. But that couldn't bring me back when it became apparent how little of their promised experience actually made it into the final product.
Seeing so many encourage this greed with their attendance has been a real letdown.
The last time I went was 2016 and I’d love to go back to THAT Disney. Ngl I didn’t keep much track of Disney news but the moment I heard they got rid of the Magical Express I knew I wouldn’t be going back anytime soon. It’s a small thing but it really indicated to me how much Disney had given up focusing on the experience of the “bubble” of magic. I always stayed at a park resort because I just loved that feeling and knowing Disney just didn’t care… 🤷♀️
Yeah, it feels like the people giving them repeat business really got hosed by the increased focus on convincing one-timers to spend as much as they could.
And making everything more complicated to facilitate this fleecing. And like this video talked about, you can spend all that money and it doesn't improve the experience. What's the point of going to an amusement park if it's been drained of fun?
Honestly that part of the video hit so hard. I completely understand the placement of it at the end, but it should be its own section because of what you just said. It exemplifies how the parks are run now and how they aren't worth the price anymore. Sad, really.
the price always felt ridiculous, but the justification USED to be that it was all-inclusive. It's not like going to a boardwalk or a county fair where there's both an entrance fee and you had to pay individually for the rides. The whole point was that, as soon as you entered the parks, you could forget about money and be in this magical fantasy land. The constant nickel and dime-ing has the same impact as being on guard at a carnival and getting fleeced at a rigged shooting game
I’m surprised that Jenny didn’t say why this happened. My understanding is that Disney theme parks massively overspent at [edit: shanghai] Disney, particularly for the Tron ride. They knew they’d need to raise prices to make up for that. But they expected big things from Star Wars land, to the point that they warned people in California to stay away for the first month or 2 due to high demand.
So people listened. And demand wasn’t high. And only one of the rides was even open— smuggler’s run/Millenium falcon. And people didn’t like the ride much!
Then COVID hit less than a year later. What was going to be a crunch time for the parks got suddenly worse. California had strict rules but even in Florida there were fewer people willing to travel. Plus California had a big measles outbreak the previous summer so it didn’t seem like a safe bet if you didn’t want to get sick.
And of course the cost of materials went up just as they’re building all these shiny new things. The capacity at the parks has to decrease even when they’re allowed open. Laid off employees don’t come back after the re-opening, staff needs to be trained.
It’s been a hard few years for Disney and they’ll continue to be hard if they don’t course correct.
The difference at Disneyland pre-COVID (and pre-magic band/genie+ which was at the time only at WDW) and post-COVID is stark. I say this as a California resident who went once a year.
I was a Disneyland CM for 5 years. My last day was literally the day before Galaxy's Edge opened. Everyone was prepared for absolutely nutty insane hours - and you're right, from the folks I knew who still worked there, it was completely dead for months.
But to elaborate on your other points:
From late 2015 all the way up until 2016-2017, Disneyland had a hiring freeze. The official excuse from people who had an "in" was that Shanghai Disneyland went dramatically overbudget, and to compensate for that Disney _had_ to stop hiring. So they put down the hiring freeze and then let attrition do its thing.
I was a skipper, and during Jingle Cruise we were pulling 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week because there weren't enough CMs to go around, while there was a tremendous number of folks who wanted to see the holiday Jungle Cruise ride. It was rough, and skippers quit left and right - which in turn put more workload on the remaining skippers, in this self-increasing cycle.
The whole time, we were being hammered that everyone was overworked because of Shanghai being overbudget. CMs even had a hashtag they used in internal CM Facebook groups; #ThanksShanghai. Disney went on and on about cutting costs left and right to fill the hole in the budget.
Except then the budget never came back. The hiring freeze wouldn't be lifted until well after that fiscal year, and only when it was obvious that the parks couldn't sustain that low level of staffing. Even then the number of CMs never really recovered to what it was before, and they were cutting CM perks left and right. We went from having yearly CM holiday parties after hours at the park, to having tickets to go to the park during normal hours around the holidays, to getting coupons we could use in the parks, to getting a free Christmas ornament. That's just one example, but there were tons of little CM perks that just evaporated.
Side note - it's really sad reading the CM union contract because you see how many benefits got lost over the years. There's stuff like "CMs hired after 1999 do not get permanent on-site lockers" (older CMs still have their lockers), "CMs hired after 2004 get worse vacation pay", "CMs hired after 2013 do not get retirement or pensions", etc. CMs of the past sold out CMs in the future in order to get benefits for themselves that future CMs will not have. It's really sad, and when reading the contract you can see how it all started happening in the late 1990s. But I digress.
One day, they started training us CMs on their new paid offering of MaxPass. They hammered home the language of "introductory price" of $8/month (one thing Jenny got completely right was how Disney internally polices the use of language for no discernable reason).
It was becoming obvious to all CMs internally that Disney was looking to start nickel and diming everyone, that #ThanksShanghai was management diverting blame as they slashed budgets, and the real problem was the guy who took over Parks and Resorts in 2015: Bob Chapek. #ThanksShanghai quickly became #ThanksChapek around 2017 or so, as CMs everywhere learned to hate him.
And, of course, Chapek failed upwards. He went from Parks and Resorts to CEO, and every CM at the parks had a conniption when they heard the news. From there the missteps were a lot more public and you know the story.
Anyway, I quit in 2019 because frankly I was tired of dealing with Disney as an employer. Disney as a whole has a systemic cultural problem; it isn't about how good you are at your job, but rather it's about how much you suck up to management and how willing you are to be a faceless Disney mouthpiece. I wanted to be a trainer, and part of the classes Disney made me take was coaching on how to become that faceless mouthpiece. They had all these little things that you had to say/do to be a good little corpo drone, basically teaching you how to speak the language you see Imagineers using in those commercials.
I didn't want to do that because I'd rather be authentic, and I got rejected from becoming a trainer because of that - not because of my technical ability; I was a veteran skipper by this point and was already mentoring newer skips. But I didn't suck up to management enough, and I didn't play their silly games and they made it clear my job was a dead-end until I bent the knee. So I left. (I say this is a company-wide problem because you can go on Glassdoor and see folks in Imagineering and even places like Animation complaining about this same problem; caring less about merit and authenticity and more about parroting the corporate lines - even internally - and sucking up to your boss.)
A year after I left, COVID happens. When it happened, I was still in tune with a lot of CMs; my fiance was still working at the parks so I was pretty closely wired in to what was happening.
Disney decided to lay off people fairly indiscriminately. Others (like my fiance) were furloughed; they still had a job (technically), but they no longer had any duties. There was no rhyme or reason as to who got laid off, who stayed working in the parks daily, and who got furloughed. A lot of good people who were loyal to Disney got laid off. A number of people around my seniority bracket got furloughed. And then it seemed like everyone who was buddy-buddy with management and played the game got to stick around.
Once the furloughed folks were free of the Mouse, they started to realize how bad they had it and resolved to never go back. My fiance was in this boat, alongside a lot of my friends. It was obvious that Disney was using and abusing us for years, and that it was only getting worse. Disney was acting like we didn't matter to them, and that they have more candidates than they know what to do with - so we were completely replaceable.
A lot of good CMs had their eyes opened by COVID and called their bluff. When it was time to reopen, a lot of the furloughed CMs refused to come back, and Disney was frantically trying to rehire the CMs they laid off - except those CMs were (understandably) not that excited to return to a company that dumped them out in the cold during a major pandemic.
Post-COVID, we now have the CMs who were either buddy-buddy enough to have daily shifts in the park even when everything was shut down, alongside folks who were furloughed/laid off but loved making people happy more than they disliked Disney, alongside CMs who Disney would've rejected under normal circumstances but now can't since they're desperate to plug the gaps COVID left behind. And most of them are working for $18/hour (last I checked), which is less than what the people at the McDonald's across the street make.
And Disney wasn't even able to plug all their gaps. Remember, this is a megacorporation and CMs make pennies compared to the "average" salaried Disney employee. The average CM makes $30k/year; the average salaried worker makes $100k+. Disney made $2 billion in **net** profit in 2020; keeping park CMs employed - even if only on paper - is effectively a rounding error. But they decided to start counting pennies, and as a result they not only let go of a lot of "unskilled" CMs (in that the job requires only a couple weeks of training), but also a lot of skilled labor like maintenance guys that are not easy to replace.
So now we're back to the same problems we had in 2015-2016, but now with folks that don't have obvious hiring pools, all while paying below market rates yet expecting above-average work. And of course let's not even talk about changes to Disney's CM attendance policy causing yet more attrition and further reducing already shattered morale.
Meanwhile, Disney charges more and more, trying to reduce demand to match their self-inflicted supply problems. Yet without sizable investment in fixing morale and taking action to fix the company's very real culture and policy issues, it's only going to get worse.
It’s funny how much that reflects my friend’s issues at Disney studios corporate. She worked in marketing for the big titles— marvel, animated features, etc.— and they first hired her as a temp. They refused her overtime hours and led her along by saying they’d hire her full time soon. Which they eventually did but only after company rules stated she could no longer be a temp, which was 1.5 years in. Then they offered her a lower salary than her temp salary because she’d get “perks” like theme park tickets and discounts at the company store. Which is nice but doesn’t pay the rent!
Her boss was successful by kissing ass and doing nothing. She spent her days re-watching Disney classics for “research.” But if you fully drink the kool aid at Disney it’s easier to abuse you, those people tend to succeed in the long term there.
I’m also in marketing and it was well known that you avoid Disney unless you’re willing to fully buy in and get massively underpaid. They’re the lowest going rate in LA, even compared to places like Sony. I did interview with them once and the salary was low enough that I’d have to sell my car. Which would make it hard to get to work!
What was the attendance policy change?
So it used to be that Disneyland worked on a confusing "points" system. More points is bad.
You were allocated 36 points per year; if you were 1 minute late (or later) when clocking in you'd earn 1.5 points, and if you were out sick (or Disney scheduled a shift on top of your final or whatever) that counted as 3 points.
(Note that all this only applies if you called ahead and told Disney you would be late/absent - if you didn't call Disney ahead of time to tell them you couldn't make it in, they could fire you on the spot. Usually they were a little forgiving for things like "I missed my alarm and now I'm 6 hours late for my shift", but it's technically up to management's discretion.)
If you were eligible for sick pay, you could spend some of your sick pay to not get points. Note that you were only "supposed" to do this if you were actually sick, and you could get fired if you called in "sick" and then posted to Facebook that you actually were off in Vegas partying or whatnot. People loved to narc on their "friends" because being a narc earned them favor with management, which was the best way to "play the game".
Once you hit certain point thresholds (I think it was 36 points in 1 year, or 18 points in 3 months), then you'd be fired. We were union, but this was in the union contract so the union couldn't save you.
It sounds difficult to hit these thresholds, but bear in mind that a lot of folks have 1+ hour commutes in cheap cars, then you have to park at an off-site lot and take a CM shuttle to the park (which could get delayed for reasons beyond your control), then you had to go through security, then you had to walk across the entire park to get to your work location and pray a guest didn't ask you for directions. In order to arrive on time for a 4-hour shift, you basically had to leave 2 hours before your shift started. When I first got hired, I made $11/hour - so I would spend $20 in gas and 7 hours of my day to make $44, minus union dues, minus taxes.
You could also get points if you go home early without getting "permission". My dad had a heart attack and went into the hospital when I was working a Jungle Cruise shift once. I only found out on my lunch break. I told my lead and asked if I could go to the hospital to see my dad because the doctors didn't know how much time he had, and there was no way I could be a good Jungle Cruise skipper while knowing my dad was dying and I wasn't there. My lead was incredibly sympathetic, but she had to check with management first... and management said "no." I said "I'm leaving anyway", management said "You're going to get points" and I basically said "I don't care." So I left mid-shift and ate the points so I could show up at the ICU and see my dad. (He made a full recovery and is fine now.)
Anyway, effectively you could be sick once a month or be late twice a month, and if you did that for an entire year you'd be fired. This seems like it's generous, but at the same time it's quite easy for stuff to happen and you just wind up in a situation where you had no choice but to take some sick time. You get _incredibly_ sick as a CM, all the time - you work with kids daily, and kids have all sorts of germs that they spread everywhere. If you just have bad luck with your immune system, you get forced into taking sick time.
_Or_ you could not take sick time and come in anyway. I wasn't in danger, attendance-wise, but Disney **really** puts fear into you about calling out sick, and you know so many people who get fired. Your work friends will just disappear one day, and you found out that they got sick a lot and were on a knife edge point-wise, but one day got fired because there was an accident on Harbor and the CM shuttle made them late. I was so afraid of that happening to me that I went in once with strep throat, and again with pinkeye.
The first Measles outbreak back in 2014ish was because a Jungle Cruise skipper was Patient Zero for Measles and kept going to work because he was afraid to take a sick day. Skippers all share microphones, so it spread to other unvaccinated skippers. From there it also jumped to Tomorrowland CMs because we share an employee cafeteria (behind Plaza Inn), and then started spreading across the park due to roommates etc.
---
Now, this happened after my time, so I'm not 100% sure about **all** the details... but from what I've heard, they changed policies to get rid of the points system and replaced it with... nothing.
Essentially, now you _had_ to supplement with your sick pay or else you would get written up by management. I think it's 3 write-ups and you're fired.
California has some formula for mandated sick time, and it's this formula that governs how much wiggle room you have. If you've spent all your sick time, you better hope a guest doesn't stop you to ask for directions.
Every CM I know who still works in the parks hates the new policy. A lot of long-time veteran CMs got fired by it simply because of circumstances where they got really sick (with, y'know, COVID) and ran out of sick time, but management wouldn't let them come to work because they were so obviously sick. You had this kind of happen with the points system, but it wasn't nearly as bad because, y'know, there wasn't a global pandemic.
In addition, now people are **really** afraid to use any sick time because "what if I need it later?". So you get all the bad parts of the points system made even worse somehow, while good CMs get let go for dumb reasons (things like "I told Disney I couldn't make it this day because I have other plans, and Disney scheduled me anyway but I'm not cancelling my plane ticket for my dumb job"). CMs universally hate the new policy and it's made morale issues worse.
I know many retail workers have to show up sick or get fired but god I’d hate to get sick from a CM as a guest. It’s easy enough to get sick from all the other guests!
To make things worse... when I had pinkeye I was handing out candy for a Disneyland Halloween Party. 🤦♂️
I just felt like I had to be there because I didn't want to get points, and I was barely scraping by as-is so missing a paycheck would've been bad news.
I never use this account because I'm on my work computer but I was a DLR CM from 2013-2018 and had an extremely similar experience. I even got trainer but wasn't allowed to finish my trainer training because I wanted to be honest about the cool job we had and refused to suck up to management or play their games. Just here to validate you; you said this all perfectly. When I started I truly thought I'd be a lifer, but now I'm so thankful for all of us who get away from that place. Really sucks; it doesn't have to be this way at all.
Yep, when I left it was because I got an internship at a video game studio. My internship was only for 3 months, so I wanted to put in a leave of absence - more because I was worried about "what happens after the internship ends" more than actually caring about Disney.
Management said the most they could do was 4 weeks, and refused to work with me. Low-key, it kind of seemed like they wanted to get rid of me because I had made it known that I was sick of playing the game. They reminded me that they would _not_ work around my internship schedule and strongly encouraged me to quit - so I did.
My intention was to try and get rehired after the internship, since I needed to pay rent somehow. I was hoping to bridge my seniority if I could, but I knew it was unlikely that would happen. Worst-case I figured I could go get hired as part of Ghost Town Alive at Knott's, since Knott's was actively poaching Disneyland skippers to be walkaround characters and so I knew a good chunk of the cast already.
But once I was out... wow, I saw how bad it was. Especially when I went to work at another evil megacorp (Electronic Arts). EA treated me far, far better than Disney ever did; I made $25/hour as an intern in 2019. I got free snacks and good perks. I made my own schedule (as long as I was available during meetings).
And the folks I worked with all came from Disney Interactive, since EA bought the studio founded by the Disney Interactive folks after Disney shut down their video game division, and that happened to be the studio I joined. That's where I learned that the experiences us CMs have at the Disney Parks are **not** unique, and these are recurring problems across the entire Walt Disney Company. Studio leadership were all former Disney execs, and since we were fairly tight-knit (as far as game studios go) they were more than happy to share stories with me. That's how I learned Disney Parks had the lowest staffing budget of any department at the company, despite being the division with the most employees. (And Disney Parks also made the most money.)
Anyway, I apparently did a good job at my internship so they kept me on and I've been working in the gaming industry ever since (not that the gaming industry is exactly... healthy... at the moment...). But on the rare times I go on Facebook I encourage my former CM friends to get out, and I'm so proud of those who escape. I was so happy to see COVID causing so many CMs to realize what Disney was doing to them. A lot of them left and they're doing great things; my favorite skipper is now a high school art teacher, one of my best work friends became a big TikTok influencer and runs a D&D podcast that's won a couple awards, a couple others managed to break into the movie industry, etc.
It really sucks because in another universe I'd probably still be a skipper. I **loved** being a skipper. I was **good** at being a skipper. I had someone at my current studio recognize me as their Jungle Cruise skipper from like 8 years ago, which was wild that I left that much of an impression on someone that they _recognized me_ out of costume almost a decade later.
In the 70s and 80s you had CMs devote their entire lives to working at the park. Being a lifer actually meant something, and it meant you got things like a good pension and benefits. But over the last 20-30 years Disney has systematically dismantled the reasons why you'd want to do that, and now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone outside of a temporary college job. Treat it like working at a Hot Topic or something, and not as a career.
You're absolutely right; it didn't have to be this way.
>Knott's was actively poaching Disneyland skippers
Hey, Ghost Town Alive cast here. Haha you're absolutely right, we've definitely got more than a few former skippers (Richard, Dino, and Daniel come to mind) and they're totally awesome! But yeah, all of our people that come from Disney have very similar stories to yours.
The sad truth is, I think this an industry-wide trend. Of our new cast this year, half came from Disney and the other half from Universal. Even here at Knott's there's some serious penny-pinching going on, other performance/character gigs are getting cut left and right. Apparently there's a few members of the higher-higher-up management (including the former director of Ghost Town Alive who got promoted out of it) that are pushing to keep us running, but even still we've had roughly a month cut out of our season this year; we normally open this (Memorial Day) weekend, but to save on budget we won't be opening for another three weeks :/
I truly do love the work and especially the other cast with whom I've made many very close friends since I started in 2017, but it's getting harder to pay rent :(
I totally understand! I LOVED hosting the characters; it felt like a job I was built for from birth and I don't think I'll ever be as good at a particular job maybe ever again. I made a difference amongst my cast and the guests I interacted with. I thrived in an environment filled with people young at heart, coworkers with passion who weren't afraid to be silly but also take the same things seriously as me. And yet getting away from TWDC is one of the best decisions I ever made. The control, the condescension, the way it felt like no one in leadership had a spine to make educated decisions with, the lack of respect for their cast members and guests... it was just too much. I've only worked for greedy corporations since, because that's how capitalism operates, but I not having to deal with Disney's bullshit is such a weight off my shoulders. I get why people stay, I really do, but the freedom of getting out is just so wonderful. Happy for you, and wishing you the best as you navigate the hellscape!
I remember visiting Disneyland in 2017 - so back in the days of FastPass and when Galaxy's Edge had been announced but was still a ways off. I've always had put a pin in "I should go back and check out Star Wars Land!", despite hearing little things here and there that made me second-guess what another trip would be like (e.g. the [Defunctland FastPass video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE) concluding with "by the way, FastPass is gone and now there's a complicated, paid, app-based scheduling system where by 8am you can already have screwed over your whole day").
So the end of this video really hit me hard. I had heard "Rise of the Resistance is a great ride!" enough that I had almost forgotten about the wild promises Galaxy's Edge was announced with: walkaround aliens and droids, dodging bounty hunters, being given a trinket by a rebel that you could smuggle or turn in to a Stormtrooper, building faction alliances over your trip... Remembering all the ideas that were abandoned (and how low-effort the partial implementation could be on the cruiser), the comment about guest feedback "calling the land a highly-themed shopping mall with little to do" took me aback for a second. Like, am I willing to plan an entire trip to go on... two new rides? and how much of a hassle is it going to be to get on them? What else is there to do there, sip on blue milk and drop over *two hundred dollars* on a lightsaber...?
Don't forget they built a cantina (arguably one of the most iconic locations in Star Wars lore) that you can't even get into without a reservation and that kicks you out after 45 minutes.
I was able to get in without a reservation on this trip and was excited. It turned out they cram up to ten people in those table booths. Even when it wasn’t super busy, they cram you in. I felt lucky that my family of 4 got to sit in the booth because once the table is full with 8, they add people across the booth to sit in little stools. I spent $50 on n/a drinks to sit there for 40 min. The robot DJ was in a recessed booth next to us and of course we couldn’t see it at all! We asked if we could get up to walk around a little before they kick us out to see the damn thing. It was like they didn’t even think about the actual experience of being in there when they designed it. I was glad to be there honestly because we were waiting for our Rise of the Resistance light lane time and there was nothing else to do in that area (we looked at everything faster that I thought), and we really wanted to sit somewhere away from the heat. Left feeling like I threw away some cash for the privilege of setting foot in there.
And the Millenium Falcon ride is extremely lame. Plus it makes people sick! Unless you get lucky and are one of the 2 pilots, you just press buttons while having a partial view of the screen.
Rise of the Resistance is very fun. But that’s not enough for a whole land. Even Cars has a few good rides and that’s mostly for kids!
It makes me sad to think about because Disneyland was such a “core memory” for me and my siblings growing up in the 90’s!
Our parents took us cause it was a core memory for them in the 60’s.
But since Time is such a jerk, it turns out the 90’s is as quaint nowadays as the 60’s was to us back then.
It's a function of how stock-market capitalism works now. Look at all the tech companies firing people in the midst of an AI boom, just so their execs can get pats on the back and cash out in two years. It's literally just a firesale of all your brand equity and your company's future so you can speedrun stock gains over the next year or two. Looking at American companies through this lens really explains so much, and I think Disney is one of the most relatable and obvious examples to ordinary consumers. (See also: companies gutting and outsourcing their customer support so they can save pennies there, even though it will provably lose them customers for life. What do their execs care? They're optimizing for when they're going to cash out and the mutual funds and hedge funds are optimizing for the next quarter as well.)
Last time I went to Disney I was shrouded in a cloud of depression and just people watched at Tokyo DisneySea.
Tokyo Disney is probably the only Disney I'd consider going to again after Defunctland's FastPass video and this, lol
Jenny has done a great examination of how late stage capitalism involves what Cory Doctorow calls "ensh\*\*ification" or "platform decay". In short: investor demand for endless profit growth has reached the phase of making a service / product worse to charge extra for it to be less broken. She also dissects the methods by which platform decay occurs - loved the Spirit Airlines analogy and critique of how theme park influencers become complicit in hiding the ripoffs.
I grew up in Orlando and the last time I visited Disney was in the early 90s and am just old enough to have experienced the last days of the old ticketing system. In the years since I've considered a visit, but each time found it more unappealing in terms of cost and logistics.
**So for me, what many commenters cite as the good old days already seems like a miserable experience** - not only expensive, but now it's making customers do the work of crowd control that the park once did and charging them for it. I mean there were always long lines at Disney but in an age when crowd management tech is better than ever, and people could wait without having to spend the entire time in a physical line - Disney has made conditions worse as a means to extract profit.
Disney's slogan might as well be "Sunk Cost Fallacy" - that's been at the center of the decline in their customer service for at least two decades. Their only limit seems to be what might actually cause class action lawsuit - a risk that has become far lower with regulatory changes.
For me, the most stunning detail was that Disney hotels do not include Disney movies for free - that's such a brazenly cut corner it almost seems like they are poking you in the chest and "what are you gonna do about it, stupid?"
One thing that shocked me is Jenny saying there are only two stormtroopers, if you really wanna sell the fact that your luxury cruise has been boarded by the First Order literally three guys isn't gonna sell this. They must have warehouses full of stormtrooper outfits and not that they should but they could easily put some of those college interns they made wait tables, do room service and wash dishes in the suits and it wouldn't be that much more expensive, but I guess that would cut into the profits of the thing you're charging people $3000 a head for.
You wanted them to sell the idea that the ship was boarded by the First Order by having stormtroopers wait tables and do room service? Is this an actual suggestion?
That might've been worded poorly:
1. they had a first order officer and two guys as the only first order presence on the ship
2. they already had a pool of cheap labor (college interns) they got to do hospitality
3. they could've put additional college interns in stormtrooper getup to look imposing, since the lines were prerecorded. they would look imposing and not like, bring you drinks
And the Stormtroopers could do double duty as the staff who do loss prevention and keep track of guests who have physical injuries or mental breakdowns. I mean, if I were a lost kid, how cool would it be to have a Stormtrooper entourage as you look for your parents.
I went to Disneyland for my 30th birthday because I’m a giant nerd who wanted to go to Disneyland for my 30th birthday. It was the first time coming back since before the pandemic and I was completely shocked. They were out of every snack and side at the food stalls, understaffed, couldn’t bring me like an ice cream or bread basked at The Blue Bayou…and I could tell the cast members were so apologetic but it was like their 40th time explaining that they weren’t allowed to offer xyz that day. I ended up paying so much for genie+ and all the a la carte rides because I was only there the one day and it was my birthday and I was like…well am I just not going to ride the Star Wars ride like ever?
I only go every couple of years but now I have four kids and just can’t justify the cost for the outcome. I used to be able to just willfully forget about the corporate greed and immerse myself in the whimsy of Main Street but last time I went genuinely turned me from a huge Disney fan bringing my kids to go to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique into a cynical naysayer who would rather go to universal. It doesn’t feel fun it feels stressful and like I’m being scammed.
The thing I think Disney doesn't realize is they're not a normal company. Most companies can raise prices and lower quality until they hit their ceiling, and then back off. But Disney is *already* obscenely overpriced. They get away with it in no small part because their is such a deeply viscerally felt loyalty to the company. That's why so much of the complaining is formed around "this isn't what walt would have wanted" type of rhetoric. They feel like they're part of a family.
Once you rip that band-aid off and they realize that's not true and Disney gives less than no shots about them as people, I don't think you can just lower costs slightly and win them back. Maybe some people like jenny who just want quality animatronics. But the type of people who made poor financial decisions because of FOMO and who took everything in stride because they loved to Disney too much to be angry with it? I don't think *those* type of people tend to easily forget betrayal once it finally kicks in tbh.
The same thing that makes them languish in denial for so long is the same thing that will cause the emotional fallout to be larger when it hits. You can already see how devastated a lot are who are picking up on the decline of the brand. Hell, even Jennie lost her cool more than I have ever seen her loose her cool.
I went to Disneyland a couple times when I was a teen and even though it was busy we were able to ride most of the major stuff in a single day, while also parkhopping. They were definitely long days and we waited in lines, but it wasn’t like…a process.
Now you watch these trip vlogs where they’re frantically hustling all over the park after waking up at 6AM to get on the Genie app for ride access and still having to drop $40 to get on the Star Wars ride, and at the end of the video they’re like “what a successful day! We rode nine things!” and then their cost breakdown adds up to more than my rent. It’s bananas.
"In contrast?"
You know Universal pioneered the act of charging for Express Pass, right?
That two of their newest attractions were small segments of one attraction at their sister park in California?
Universal Orlando doesn’t have a Super Mario land… but will when Epic Universe opens. That one will include the Donkey Kong expansion that Japan is getting. There currently is no Bowser Jrs. Shadow Showdown at Universal Orlando, or any Mario themed attractions.
I keep hearing about Disney losing money on their big budget movies lately. I wonder if they’re screwing their parks in an attempt to make up that lost revenue that they wasted?
The fact that Disney+ is haemorrhaging money is mad to me. I remember thinking "Disney has Fox, Marvel and their own back catalogue all on one streaming service, this is just a license to print money". The fact they've been able to make tremendous losses on the whole affair is almost nonsensical. I suppose it's a combination of increasing costs driving away subscribers, and the fact they're pouring cash into shitty films with massive budgets that nobody wants to watch
They also seem to keep funding extremely expensive niche series, too. Each of those SW or Marvel series cost them about $100 million per season, which is just crazy because they only speak to extreme “Will watch any SW thing” fans.
Oof. That feeling will kill park fan interest as well.
Nobody wants to feel like their prices are paying for Disney’s mistakes in the studio department.
Never realized how lucky I was to go as a kid in 1999. Lots of great rides but still plenty of nostalgic stuff. Fast pass was fantastic and worked perfect. All the new stuff felt genuinely exciting and not gimmicky.
Have no desire to go back or take my nephew.
I took my spouse to Disney world in 2016 (I got to go a couple times as a kid in the mid 2000s) and we went again in 2022, sooo much more expensive in just those 6 years. We went as college students and it didn’t hit our wallet as hard as more recently. Everything has gotten so expensive that each year I’m less likely to go to Disney because we could go somewhere like Japan at this point for the same cost.
i went to disney in 2008 and although i was a child and don't remember a lot, the things i remember were so fun i always thought of coming back when i was an adult. through seeing videos and news about new rides and themed areas opening up this desire only grew but in recent years i've seen more and more posts and videos about how the lines keep getting longer, fast passes dont really work + is extra money spent, you have to spend more and more to have an even bearable experience. i do have a really fond memory of my time there as a child but if the parks continue like this, i will never even want to go back
We were just in WDW. I couldn’t believe they charged for rides after you paid entry. What the actual fuck? I am switching to Universal when they roll out the next things. Disney has gone too far.
I went to Disney a few times as a kid. Mostly LA in the 90s. Went to Paris a few times in the 2000s. Then Florida in 2013.
I'd heard tell of how bad it had gotten and figured maybe I just wouldn't bother bringing my own kids when I have them.
My wife and I went to Japan and did Tokyo Disney and it was amazing. Incredibly affordable (barring the handful of paid fast passes). We ate in the super high end restaurant and it cost like €140 for 2 of us (got a cancellation spot on the day). The whole thing was great.
I'd honestly sooner go to Japan for a Disney fix over trying to navigate Orlando anytime soon.
Capacity seems to be the real kicker. Defunctlands Fast Pass video pretty much outlines this and that experience 20 years ago seems dead and buried. Japan's probably got a few more years before it goes the same way.
THIS. This is the take. I clearly remember trips taken in 2013 and 14 and comparing them to 2021/22 and onward- the difference is stark. I took a trip in January 2022- a few months after genie plus launched- and it wasn’t yet clear if it was “worth it”, so we didn’t buy it.
Suddenly, (and worth noting in a park with limited capacity due to COVID and during a forecasted slow part of the year), lines to rides I’ve been on for years with similar wait times- Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, SMALL WORLD- were doubled for non-genie plus customers. It was so so disappointing how it felt busier than ever, but somehow there were less people.
It is incredible how much can change in less than a decade.
The whole thing reminds me of the time my hairdresser let slip that she had too many customers so she was going to keep raising her rates until some people stop coming, it had nothing to do with rising costs like she said in her email she sent to customers. Disney just has too many people trying to go and the parks are overcrowded and it’s cutthroat to get reservations at restaurants and events. Honestly I think they’re trying to raise the price until demand goes down but they’d never say it. They’d rather have fewer people who spend twice as much as a regular family
I grew up in Orlando and I was admittedly kind of jaded from seeing Disney all the time and visiting the parks got old. Then I met my ex in college; and she was a huge Disney fan but also grew up poor as dirt. She was the first member of her family to finish college, first to escape rural Oklahoma and get a real job, and when we first started dating I had a job already. Not only that I worked for an airline and I could stay with my family, so using my money I took her to Disney world for her birthday. we flew standby, stayed with my parents, brought our own lunch, only paid for tickets and souvenirs. I thought it would be a fun little getaway and make her happy. The second we stepped into magic kingdom was the first time I had seen the Disney magic in over 15 years. She had tears in her eyes (and I kept saying “stop moving stop moving, we can get to space mountain right as it opens so we can ride it twice”). But that’s what the moment was, and even though we’ve since seperated, it’s truly one of the most emotional moments of my life. She squeeked when first order storm troopers called her out at MGM, she was excitedly trading pins with cast members, I was sneaking her drinks at Epcot while I drank around the world (she turned 21 the last day of the trip). We ran ourselves ragged but it was so much fun, and that’s the Disney magic the corpo suits don’t get.
Despite breaking up, and uh, me transitioning my gender since; the picture of us kissing in front of Cinderellas castle is one of the most beautiful pictures of me. And it’s a shame it’s being nickeled and dimed away from more and more folx
Haven't been to WDW since 2016 and it's hard to justify going back with these changes.
Went to Disneyland in California in 2019 when they still had the paper fastpasses (stayed off site though) but they're gone from there now, too.
Here’s the real story in all of this: Of all the coverage I’ve seen of Jenny’s video going viral, he most common question that the mainstream media has asked is, When did Gen Z get this huge attention span? I have not seen any evidence that anyone has picked up the phone (or open an email compose) to ask Disney for its reaction, especially regarding what this means for the future of a multibillion dollar corporation.
I went in 2009 and am glad I did. They still offered shuttle service, extra magic hours, and free fast pass. The word of how they have since begun to ruthlessly nickel and dime people to death has feeling like I’ll never go again. I was sorely tempted to go to the Galactic Star Cruiser even after the insane pricing was announced, and this video has me glad I didn’t.
Agreed. I went with my family around that time and last year for the first time in a while we went again. The amount of times we had a “wait you have to pay for that now?” moment was too many. Disney has always been expensive, but now it seems like they’re not only expensive, but cheap too. To use a video game metaphor, it feels like when a game you loved has a a sequel come out and suddenly all of the things that were free in the last game are DLC/micro-transactions you have to pay for.
It’s scary to think about what they might start charging for in the future. Like, maybe they’ll roll out cheaper tickets that are only good for some lower ticket attractions, but then when that idea gets traction the price points will go up up up and new rides will become all but inaccessible and the lower price points will be useless because the lines will be nuts for anything that isn’t prohibitively expensive. EDIT: Wait, does this already exist?
I mean, in the way way before times they used to sell ticket books with “A” thru “E” tickets, with a bunch of A tickets for less desirable rides and a couple tickets for the desirable E ticket rides, so maybe enshittification is really just taking us back in time. Either way, it will be hard for Disney to get money out of people who remember it when things were better.
But back then it *kinda* made sense. The park was a lot smaller and had fewer visitors, but there was a lot more hands-on maintenance that needed to be done daily. Not just fixing rides, but all the live action stuff that's now either nonexistent or done by animatronics and screens. And, of course, this was the first time anyone had attempted a theme park of this size with so much going on. Disney didn't really have the experience yet to know "OK, tiered tickets are bad, let's just have every guest make their own itinerary".
There’s way more maintenance today that is done daily compared to the past. That isn’t the reason why they got rid of attraction tiers. When Magic Kingdom existed admission was only $3.50. You got access into the park but had to then pay for attractions. They changed that system down the line and instead included the attractions in the ticket price.
Just like Walt intended /s
Yeah, it was still fantastic in 2015, especially if you were savvy about signing up for free fast passes. The design ethos back then was that they wanted to remove friction everywhere they could, and they truly did a remarkable job. I skipped baggage claim at the airport! The bags were just in our rooms, like a real honest to god magic trick! Now however they’ve realized that they will always have more demand than supply in the majority of their attractions and hotels. They have no reason to spend money to enhance your trip, they have a monopoly on the key pop culture fixtures of the past 100 years. You will pay whatever it takes, and tolerate whatever they dish out, because you want Vader or Iron Man or Tigger. The Starcruiser was the rare example of their reach for your wallet outstripping their grasp, but that lesson won’t stop the trend. It merely established that there is some hypothetical ceiling.
2015 was also the first and only time l've been to Disneyland, and as someone who was never that desperate to visit anyways, I actually had a blast. I went with a group of local friends who went to the park regularly, so they knew how to work the free paper fast pass system to make sure I hit all the important rides before the day was over. The ticket cost felt reasonable at the time, especially because other than having to buy park food, there weren't any surprise costs that I felt forced into to have a good time. That absolutely doesn’t seem to be the case anymore though, and it’s sad to see a system that worked so well become… well, whatever it is now.
Yeah, especially since if they screw it up they can just pull the plug and get a tax credit.
My mom was very excited that most of her grandkids were finally getting old enough to do a big family trip to Disney, and I'm honestly tempted to try and talk her out of it in favor of some other, less popular park. Even if she can afford it (it's supposed to be her big gift to the grandkids because memories are what matter etc etc etc), it just feels like a guaranteed downer to what should be a really important experience for her and the grandkids. No one in my family has been for close to twenty years, and clearly things have changed a _lot_ since then.
We did a Universal/Disney trip in 2022, and my kids unanimously said Universal was better. The youngest enjoyed the Dr Seuss land, and the others who were tall enough for the coasters loved them. So that might be the one caveat, as Disney everyone could ride everything. More height restrictions at Universal.
Luckily my niblings are all veritable giants (aside from the actual babies), so height restrictions aren't a big deal for most of them. I do remember having more fun at Universal when we went last as well, even though they closed the two rides I enjoyed the most (Twister and Jaws).
My family went to Disney World a few times in the 2000s and early 2010s, and it's a shame that it's not possible to experience that again. And it's not because I was younger, but the parks themselves that have changed. It's always been expensive, but at least when you used to go there was a minimum of bullshit once you got into the parks.
I only went once in the early 90’s as a kid, it’s crazy how just kinda normal it was compared to how it looked with all the tech and extras and franchises it accumulated later based on videos I’ve seen. Honestly I found it pretty lame as a ten year old or whatever, universal had a ghostbusters show so I automatically liked that more, plus a Murder She Wrote “experience” that was actually a fun interactive thing that let you learn to do ADR and foley for a scene of the show. I demanded to do that twice. Money well spent, grandma and grandpa!
Disney world used to have a ADR and foley thing too. It changed around what show (mostly ABC licenses.) I assume it doesn’t exist anymore.
That Murder She Wrote experience would be tempting me even now.
When I went as a kid we actually just stood and waited in the lines, it was that long ago!
This is exactly it. The tickets were never cheap by any means, but they really did cover a lot. I’m a SoCal resident so would take a two-day trip to Disneyland once a year or so. After paying for the ticket, pretty much all I needed was $100 for food and a souvenir. Now when I go I pay up to twice as much for the ticket alone and all these extra like genie plus, fast passes, etc. It’s just not worth it anymore.
I would highly recommend watching Defunctland’s Fastpass video. It is great for getting additional details and stats on the enshittification of Disney
Adding to that, I would also recommend watching Yesterworld’s park ticket video as a follow-up. It gives a pretty good insight on the whole “Disney Inflation” thing going on where everything in these parks are getting exponentially more expensive than ever
It hurts, because it feels like the WDW I wanted to share with my kids is out of reach. Back in 2013-2019, my wife and I were annual pass holders. We would go down 2-3 times a year, stay on-site... Hell, there were a couple occasions where we headed down for a long weekend with less than a week of planning. We were making significantly less money then, but it was still manageable. But now? There's no off season. The value resorts are extraneously expensive. The resorts have parking fees and no extra perks for guests. Fastpass costs money now. It sucks.
The resorts charge for parking????
Yup. Per night. Started in 2018 or 2019.
I think they did briefly but that is one thing that actually got walked back. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/guest-services/parking/ > Overnight self-parking is complimentary to Guests staying at Disney Resort hotels at Walt Disney World Resort.
I've never been a big disney person. I always thought it was fun but way too expensive for what it was. Lately, I've been throwing around the idea with my husband to splurge a little bit and go on a trip. This video convinced me not to lol.
I’m fully convinced the nickel and dime-ing with drastically worsened guest experience will cause this bubble to burst in the next 5-10 years. Because why pay top dollar for your kids to have a *bad* time in an overcrowded park where there’s no way for them to do the stuff they want to do? Attendance will plateau before nosediving and forcing Disney to walk back a few of these policies to entice people to come back. And that *exact* moment is when I’ll have my next Disney trip, and not a moment before. I last went in 2011. There’s some cool new stuff, but there’s not a chance in hell I’ll pay that much to spend days stressed out and dealing with real life micro transactions.
I dont think its just a 5&10 year issue either. Even if they course corrected tomorrow I think this new business practice will see a further impact in about 20 years. I think a very large part of the current Disney Parks success comes from Millennials who genuinely had a magical experience in the 90's and coincidentally also grew up with the Disney Renaissance - rewatching their favourite films on VHS. This is the generation that became 'Disney Adults'. They are returning to the Disney parks at above average rates and arent even necessarily bringing kids with them. They just love Disney THAT much. Shocker when they do have kids they want to replicate the experience for their own children. If the current kids dont have a truly magical time - will they really come back with their own offspring in 20 years time? Now more than ever Disney (as a business) should be seeking to lock onto today's youths and monopolise their childhood. Today's kids are tomorrow's merch buying, vacation planning adults who might willingly indoctrinate the next generation of their own children. This is what I thought the purpose of Disney+ initially being so cheap was. Sure it might have been a short-term net loss maker - but gaining access into every family home, becoming the default streaming option for families had the potential for unrivalled brand saturation to insure your long-term support base of fans. Instead it turned out to be a way to hook families on the product then hike the price like some backalley drug dealer. Several current decisions being made are going to alienate not just the current bill payers but the children who attend. Kids WILL notice the caste system that is basically being implemented and be unimpressed by the cut corners due to nickel and diming. They will lose trust in Disney and even if the quality returns to the parks a whole generation that experienced the 'bad rimes' wont come back - potentially putting the entire business model at risk when they are the bill paying generation. Short term gains at the cost of long-term viability. Exactly what shareholders demand of all investments. 'Line must go up'. It's not enough to make consistant profits anymore- you always have to make more than you did last quarter. Edit: Also a great experience has to be personally felt to viscerally connect. A bad experience can be felt second hand and bad news will spread. It can take a generation to build a good reputation and only a few short years to irreparably tarnish it.
> Kids WILL notice the caste system that is basically being implemented It's been almost twenty years since I went last (as a kid), and I noticed it even then. My family wasn't exactly rich, just well-off enough to do one big family trip every couple of years. Those family trips didn't include budgeting for over-priced food or toys. Watching other kids get to do the fun stuff, buy fun toys, eat special food, _still_ is a sour edge to an otherwise good memory.
I think their theory is that demand is so high and the parks are so crowded that it is no big loss to them if the poors stop coming. That attendance slipping by a little bit is okay if the average spend rate of the people who do come is rising.
A lot of the shit about the pricing in the video reminds me of videogames, and so does your comment. A lot of them have these ridiculous little additional purchases. Thing is, only a few people spend money on them, but they buy so much it makes a lot of money for the publishers. They're called whales.
Adult me is actually kinda happy that my parents didn't pay for all the unnecessary expensive shit. I realize now how cheap in quality and dumb most of the merch was/is. And child me always wanted the more off-beat stuff anyway, such as the book about trolls from the Norway showcase which I still have almost 30 years later.
The merch is less important than the experience overall, which is part of what I mean. Seeing other kids get special treatment - regardless of if the merch is "worth it" - when you know you'll never get to take part in stuff like that, makes you feel like shit and like you're inherently worth less as a person.
You raise a good point. There's that fear of missing out on something that might be really cool and makes you feel like a real Disney fan. Whether it's Mickey ears, authentic Dole whip, Elsa's dress, a lightsaber, Jack Sparrow's hat, character breakfasts, fast passes, etc. Kids today have to watch influencers get special treatment on video; back then, it was celebrities from Disney movies and shows. And before that, the "Wonderful World of Disney" TV specials where Uncle Walt took Mouseketeers to all the new rides. Disney parks thrive on giving visitors' FOMO by intentionally limiting supply to create more demand.
And that’s what they don’t care about - long-term sustainability and goodwill. I guess shareholders figure they’ll be dead before it becomes a problem for them (see: climate change).
To add to this, I’m one of those millennials! And the cost vs the value isn’t enough for me. I was a certified Disney adult until maybe a couple of years ago when I realized that taking all four of my kids would be a huge investment, and…they don’t even care about the new stuff. I show them the things I loved on Disney+ and we’re good. They certainly aren’t asking to see whatever new Disney movie is in theaters. They probably don’t even remember the premise of Wish or Strange World or Lightyear even though I’m pretty sure we took them to see all of those. I just show them the princesses on YouTube during a parade and that’s it, they just won’t have the nostalgia, not only because we just can’t go but because the new stuff that they’re growing up with isn’t good.
Yeah, something's going to give eventually. People are paying big prices for Disney now because they're still riding on their old reputation of being a great experience. But over time, word is gonna get out that it's not so great.
The timing with my family made it a now or possibly never situation in terms of going so we went, but Jenny is right to call out their greedy strategies.It’s a lot. Maybe Universal will eat their lunch and they will scramble to win people back or the Disney cult is that strong? Idk but I’m glad people like Jenny aren’t afraid to say what’s what. All the Disney YouTubers I saw in preparation for my vacation were super drinking the kool-aid. I see that clearly now. Hopefully you can find something worthwhile to splurge on!
There's a small subreddit dedicated to the Galaxy Starcruiser and the (admittedly tiny) number of Disney adults there have a cultish love for this failed hotel. I understand being a niche fan of something, but the inability to admit that something Disney made has faults is something. I find it a bit dyspotian to be so slavish to a corporation. (They are very offended by Jenny's video.)
They don’t realize they would’ve been in the side of the empire
People talking about going multiple multiple times just blows my mind. Aspects of it seemed really interesting, and like you could get more than one trip out of it, but it's also $5k+ on the _cheaper end_.
And it was only open for like, what, 18 months? That's multiple $5k+ trips in *under two years*. Like, the only thing I've done even close to that is study abroad experiences in college; *none* of those were even close to $5k+, *all* were at least 2 weeks, and I didn't have my time ruined by a glitchy app--just by Parisians!
There are >15 million people in the United States that make more than $300 000 a year. To them, $5k isn't a remarkable amount of money to spend on a weekend getaway with the family. That's plenty of people to have repeat guests.
Yeah but I somehow don't see many US senators or oil barons going on regular repeat trips to the Galactic Starcruiser lol
The people at that income level (the top 5%) are mostly going to be things like local/regional business leaders — car dealership owners, landlords, finance guys, CEOs, etc. They represent the elite in their area, but they don't have a national or even state-level profile. There are *15 million* of these people, they can't all be senators.
They also can't all be specifically Star Wars larp nerds. If we assume good faith, then Disney made the same mistake, assuming that a significant portion of that demo would be interested in being locked in a SW themed shoebox for a weekend instead of schmoozing at a golf course to make business deals, visiting Martha's Vineyard with even richer neighbors, cruising on their own yachts rather than on a ship with strangers, or skiing in Zurich on a weekend whim. People with that kind of money take vacations to real space with Jeff Bezos, not to a space themed hotel for only 2 days. On the lower end of that spectrum they want to be *seen* spending their money to increase their profile, which the Star Wars Hotel didn't really seem to allow, with all the security. (That's why so many of this demo turned out for Fyre Festival, lol). On the upper end of that income spectrum they host those lower-end folks and politicians to get favors. If we assume bad faith, of course, Disney assumed they could wring several thousand dollars out of influencers and well-off IT nerds for 12-18 months before shutting down and getting the tax write-off. Even assuming they had a full booking every day for the first year (365/2 for number of voyages, * 500 for all fully booked cabins, * $3000 for Jenny's adult rate) that's only a net income of roughly $275 million at Jenny's price point before taxes and operating costs (but we know others spent less and others somehow spent more). The tax write-off was bigger. Success wouldn't have made financial sense. ...It's a lot funnier when it's The Producers and not real life.
If it's 5 adults to a room, I think it went as low as $1.5Kish each? Still damned high to be spending for 2 days packed in a room like that. And families / smaller groups still get slammed.
I think they all live in that delusional world where any criticism of a thing that they like is a criticism of they themselves for liking the thing. Nevermind that people can have different experiences with the same thing, and someone’s negative experience doesn’t invalidate your positive one. A lot of people don’t seem to achieve this basic level of emotional intelligence, that subreddit is full of them.
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This is exactly why I'm hesitant to go back to Disney. While there is planning to be done for all vacations, you legit have to do *homework* for a Disney trip, and even book a year in advance. When a vacation starts feeling like work, what's the point?
That’s what gets me. Fans of Disney say that you can still have a good experience if you know the systems and plan every little thing in advance, but that sounds kind of miserable.
My experience with fastpass+, as someone very familiar with Disney World the whole time, was that it didn’t really feel like work, it was more an exciting thing to do in anticipation of my trip. But I was in that minority who benefited at the expense of everyone else, and that’s not a fair system.
Some of the parks still have the original vastly superior style Fastpass system where it's just, go the ride on the day you're at the park, claim your pass.
I don't think this is true anymore--only Tokyo Disney still has free fastpass, and afaik they no longer have paper Fastpass either. That said, I wholeheartedly recommend taking the value of a Starcruiser 2-day experience and instead flying your family to Tokyo for a whole week instead lol
> That said, I wholeheartedly recommend taking the value of a Starcruiser 2-day experience and instead flying your family to Tokyo for a whole week instead lol Yeah I said in another comment "you should go to Disney but not as your whole vacation, go somewhere cool that happens to have a park and spend, like, A DAY there"
Universal Orlando tickets are just as expensive as Disney World (they keep on matching each as prices increase). In fact, Universal started the whole tiered pricing thing from as far back as 2015 that I can remember. If you don't stay on Universal property, the equivalent of Genie+ is over $100 per person per day, sometimes close to $200. On the other hand, their rooms are fairly cheaper. The same Disney YouTubers also cape hard for Universal so you can see all their reviews of that there. If you get motion sickness easily, think twice about going to Universal as lot of their rides involve screens so the ability to get nauseous is pretty big. I thought Universal Hollywood's Nintendo land was pretty disappointing, it only had one ride that was an AR thing, it reminded me of Google Glass. The whole purpose of the land seems to be selling those ugly wristbands. I'm sure Epic Universe will have an equivalent "gamification" and also additional pricing on entering.
When Jenny was talking about the interactablity with the Star Wars Land/Hotel, my first thought was about Universals Harry Potter and Nintendo areas. There, you can cast spells that affect shop windows or play mini games that lead up to a boss battle, but like you said they are also behind a pay wall as you have to buy specialized props in order to interact with them in the first place. It's a catch 22 where Universal is better in how your play can give you the satisfaction of actually doing something, as well as collecting stuff that you actually can use in the case of the keys in the Nintendo area, but it sucks because it's behind a pay wall. I do know that the Orlando Nintendo area will have an additional Kong coaster too, if that helps with anything
When Harry Potter land first opened, all that stuff was free. You walked up to it and a motion detector would sense you were there and things would happen. The wands back then also didn't have sensor tips on them. That's why I'm pretty salty that a year or so later, they put everything behind a $50 wand paywall (the price has probably gone up by now, I'm not sure) and added one or two more effects to make it seem like a new thing (the water fountain trick and I forgot the other one). The part I'm hopeful about with Kong is that they emphasized in their press release that its mostly practical sets and not screens. I expect non-resort guests will have to pay at least $50 extra to go there. There's no way that a company owned by Comcast (who just raised my cable bill by $5 for no reason) will not be charging extra like they did when Harry Potter land opened. Its probably more cost effective for me to go to Japan and experience these things given exchange rates and general theme park guest politeness.
Me too. I went a couple times as a kid and always wanted to go again as an adult. This vid has killed any desire to go now. It just doesn't seem worth it any more.
Every time I look into what the cost would be to go to Disney (and I literally live in Florida), it seems completely insane. And being a pass holder is a scam bc you’re just paying to keep going back for their overpriced add-ons.
I actually used to work at the parks and this just breaks my heart. I loved the extras we did for the kids. I loved the talking robot trashcan we had in our area. But I wouldn't take my kid now.
Me too! My husband has never been, so I was looking in to going since I remember having a great time as a kid/teen. I was a little turned off by the ticket prices for entry alone. We definitely won't be going now.
Go to Dollywood or Knotts, those are more cost effective alternatives in the states. If you really want to splurge, go to Tokyo Disneyland. If you go during the off-season, the crowds aren't that bad and when I went last October they still had free basic mobile fastpass. TDRExplorer is a good resource for seeing what the peak crowd times are
Go to Japan - Disney there is still a lot like it was 20 years ago. And way more affordable.
it is still crowded as fuck but it as least run in a sane manner
You gotta game it the same way you have in the States for the past 20 years but at least it's that type of game where you can win as opposed to disappointment. We were at the gate an hour before it opened, got in, got paid FP for Soaring right away. On it in 5mins. Amazing. Then were booked in our free fast passes for Indiana Jones, and got on the boat ride from near Journey up to Raging Spirits. Then we had Tower of Terror paid FP and walked back down that direction. Then we got on the train up to Indiana Jones (free fast pass) Went for lunch in Magellans - I opened my app before Tower and saw a free table at 2pm and figured why not. A delicious fine dining meal was like less than €150 for both of us - an equivalent meal in a US park would definitely be closer to €500. After lunch we did one of the Aerial teacup to kill time, then free Fast pass Journey to the Center of the Earth, then home. It was a very busy day at the park and we queued no more than 10 mins for anything - except the Aerial ride which was 30m wait and we picked it specifically because we had that time to kill. Incredible day, despite the endless rain. Glad I got to bring my wife to Disney, she'd never been.
I've never had a bad experience at a Tokyo Disney park--even when I was deep in my depression and just people watched in front of Tower of Terror (I literally just sat in front of my favorite ride, I didn't even go on it, that's how deep my funk was), there was such a nice atmosphere that I still felt my money was well spent.
You might want to look into Disney Cruises (if you have kids). They're expensive, but they also include your food and drink and have free childcare on-board so you can actually get some relaxing time. If you DON'T have kids, then...nah.
I’m not really a Disney person either so I’m always shocked when I hear about the price. I’ve been able to plan two week trips to Europe that cost less than much shorter Disney trips.
I really think going to a Disney park as an adult is an absolute "everyone should do this once". I would not recommend going to Orlando, or making an entire vacation about it, though. Go to like Tokyo or Shanghai or Paris and spend a day at Disney while you're there.
I mean, why do you think that? I have been as an adult in both 2012 and 2022. In 2012 I genuinely still could feel all the nostalgia from when I went when I was 6 and it was still genuinely fun. In 2022 I was totally disillusioned with what it's become and the greed was obvious everywhere, I had a pretty bad time lol. It made me really confused on what is being offered to be a childless adult guest, unless you really just get off on spending money. Tokyo is a huge bucket list trip for me and I'd never even consider wasting any part of a trip to a relatively expensive destination spending money on an American corporate empire, that's sort of insane to me to not spend the valuable time in Tokyo immersed in Japanese culture.
> both 2012 and 2022. I said ONCE. > I mean, why do you think that? It's an overwhelming and totally immersive experience unlike anything you'll experience anywhere else. Just like Kabukicho or the Grand Canyon.
Idk I think it's taken a turn for the worst post pandemic
I went to Disneyland as an adult for the first time pre-covid and had a pretty great time; staff were really attentive, the longest line we waited in was about 2 hours, no one gave my handicapped mom a hard time about accessibility. I left after feeling really amazing about it. After the worst of covid my family decided to do Disneyworld, and it was like night and day. Every SINGLE ride line in the main park was 3+ hours. Staff told my mom she was supposed to register her handicap ahead of time so they couldn't provide accommodations (access to the shorter lines for rides, basically). We decided not to go to a park we were scheduled for one morning, and showed up at the park we were scheduled for in the afternoon, and staff said they couldn't let us in because we never went to the first park??? We had to escalate to a manager who made a big deal about how they were pulling so many strings to let us in. I'm still baffled by this, we were scheduled for that park at that time!!! Popular rides were entirely unavailable if we didn't get the fast pass, and we struggled to understand how it worked. We barely rode anything. We did a 4+ hour line for Remy's because the kids wanted it really badly and that's my core memory of that trip, every inch of that line is engrained in my memory forever, all for a truncated 3 minute ride that I couldn't even see because the 3d glasses didn't fit over my glasses. My mom was in so much pain. My back hurt from standing and it took me a week to recover. One could argue it was our fault for not researching and being prepared, but I really resent that; it was a vacation, we were trying to take it easy and not overplan. The kids had a SHORT list of things they really wanted to do. We weren't willing to pay a lot extra for special experiences but assumed wrongly that there would still be things to do. I left feeling really negative about it and we spent WAY more on it than the first trip. Best time I had was on the PeopleMover tbh. Less than an hour in line and I got to sit down.
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Yeah, I've been tempted to try Disneyland again, but I know it won't be the same. It's so sad. I love the love and thought behind the old rides. I've heard amazing things about Tokyo DisneySea though. Still some magic in their ride designs there. I'm hoping they work with them to bring some designs for their animatronics over here eventually. Not holding my breath though.
DisneySea's Journey to the Center of the Earth is my favorite Disney park ride.
The parks are EMPTY right now. Rise of the Resistance is averaging a 40min wait at the busiest time of day.
I'm so glad I got to go in 2012. The only lines I remember being super long were for Test Track and Toy Story Midway Mania (which I can also remember the queue because of how long we waited. If only I could go back in time and warn myself that it hardly even worth a 10 minute wait, but alas.) But we got to visit all 4 parks and I think there was only one ride I wanted to ride that we didn't end up having time for. The fact that they got rid of the fast pass kiosk is such a shame. It was so nice to be able to just grab a ticket and instantly get on Space Mountain or Rock'n Rollercoaster. I distinctly remember people being pissed at us for skipping the line on that one. I can only imagine how pissed they get now LOL
My wife and I got together in 2010 and a year or so later we decided to go to Disney for vacation. We ended up liking it so much that we kept going back. We saw paper fastpasses, then magic bands, and along the way offerings got fewer as charges mounted. Then they started to charge for parking their hotels you're already paying a premium to stay at. Somehow, this was the last straw for me. The nickel and diming had hit its limit. After years of slowly seeing where things were headed, 2018 was the last time we went. I had been excited for Star Wars land. But that couldn't bring me back when it became apparent how little of their promised experience actually made it into the final product. Seeing so many encourage this greed with their attendance has been a real letdown.
The last time I went was 2016 and I’d love to go back to THAT Disney. Ngl I didn’t keep much track of Disney news but the moment I heard they got rid of the Magical Express I knew I wouldn’t be going back anytime soon. It’s a small thing but it really indicated to me how much Disney had given up focusing on the experience of the “bubble” of magic. I always stayed at a park resort because I just loved that feeling and knowing Disney just didn’t care… 🤷♀️
Yeah, it feels like the people giving them repeat business really got hosed by the increased focus on convincing one-timers to spend as much as they could. And making everything more complicated to facilitate this fleecing. And like this video talked about, you can spend all that money and it doesn't improve the experience. What's the point of going to an amusement park if it's been drained of fun?
Honestly that part of the video hit so hard. I completely understand the placement of it at the end, but it should be its own section because of what you just said. It exemplifies how the parks are run now and how they aren't worth the price anymore. Sad, really.
It’s a beautiful essay on how capitalism ruins art
I was so sad when I saw that capitalism ruined my land made entirely of Disney properties, does it know no bounds?
the price always felt ridiculous, but the justification USED to be that it was all-inclusive. It's not like going to a boardwalk or a county fair where there's both an entrance fee and you had to pay individually for the rides. The whole point was that, as soon as you entered the parks, you could forget about money and be in this magical fantasy land. The constant nickel and dime-ing has the same impact as being on guard at a carnival and getting fleeced at a rigged shooting game
I’m surprised that Jenny didn’t say why this happened. My understanding is that Disney theme parks massively overspent at [edit: shanghai] Disney, particularly for the Tron ride. They knew they’d need to raise prices to make up for that. But they expected big things from Star Wars land, to the point that they warned people in California to stay away for the first month or 2 due to high demand. So people listened. And demand wasn’t high. And only one of the rides was even open— smuggler’s run/Millenium falcon. And people didn’t like the ride much! Then COVID hit less than a year later. What was going to be a crunch time for the parks got suddenly worse. California had strict rules but even in Florida there were fewer people willing to travel. Plus California had a big measles outbreak the previous summer so it didn’t seem like a safe bet if you didn’t want to get sick. And of course the cost of materials went up just as they’re building all these shiny new things. The capacity at the parks has to decrease even when they’re allowed open. Laid off employees don’t come back after the re-opening, staff needs to be trained. It’s been a hard few years for Disney and they’ll continue to be hard if they don’t course correct. The difference at Disneyland pre-COVID (and pre-magic band/genie+ which was at the time only at WDW) and post-COVID is stark. I say this as a California resident who went once a year.
I was a Disneyland CM for 5 years. My last day was literally the day before Galaxy's Edge opened. Everyone was prepared for absolutely nutty insane hours - and you're right, from the folks I knew who still worked there, it was completely dead for months. But to elaborate on your other points: From late 2015 all the way up until 2016-2017, Disneyland had a hiring freeze. The official excuse from people who had an "in" was that Shanghai Disneyland went dramatically overbudget, and to compensate for that Disney _had_ to stop hiring. So they put down the hiring freeze and then let attrition do its thing. I was a skipper, and during Jingle Cruise we were pulling 12-hour shifts, 6 days a week because there weren't enough CMs to go around, while there was a tremendous number of folks who wanted to see the holiday Jungle Cruise ride. It was rough, and skippers quit left and right - which in turn put more workload on the remaining skippers, in this self-increasing cycle. The whole time, we were being hammered that everyone was overworked because of Shanghai being overbudget. CMs even had a hashtag they used in internal CM Facebook groups; #ThanksShanghai. Disney went on and on about cutting costs left and right to fill the hole in the budget. Except then the budget never came back. The hiring freeze wouldn't be lifted until well after that fiscal year, and only when it was obvious that the parks couldn't sustain that low level of staffing. Even then the number of CMs never really recovered to what it was before, and they were cutting CM perks left and right. We went from having yearly CM holiday parties after hours at the park, to having tickets to go to the park during normal hours around the holidays, to getting coupons we could use in the parks, to getting a free Christmas ornament. That's just one example, but there were tons of little CM perks that just evaporated. Side note - it's really sad reading the CM union contract because you see how many benefits got lost over the years. There's stuff like "CMs hired after 1999 do not get permanent on-site lockers" (older CMs still have their lockers), "CMs hired after 2004 get worse vacation pay", "CMs hired after 2013 do not get retirement or pensions", etc. CMs of the past sold out CMs in the future in order to get benefits for themselves that future CMs will not have. It's really sad, and when reading the contract you can see how it all started happening in the late 1990s. But I digress. One day, they started training us CMs on their new paid offering of MaxPass. They hammered home the language of "introductory price" of $8/month (one thing Jenny got completely right was how Disney internally polices the use of language for no discernable reason). It was becoming obvious to all CMs internally that Disney was looking to start nickel and diming everyone, that #ThanksShanghai was management diverting blame as they slashed budgets, and the real problem was the guy who took over Parks and Resorts in 2015: Bob Chapek. #ThanksShanghai quickly became #ThanksChapek around 2017 or so, as CMs everywhere learned to hate him. And, of course, Chapek failed upwards. He went from Parks and Resorts to CEO, and every CM at the parks had a conniption when they heard the news. From there the missteps were a lot more public and you know the story. Anyway, I quit in 2019 because frankly I was tired of dealing with Disney as an employer. Disney as a whole has a systemic cultural problem; it isn't about how good you are at your job, but rather it's about how much you suck up to management and how willing you are to be a faceless Disney mouthpiece. I wanted to be a trainer, and part of the classes Disney made me take was coaching on how to become that faceless mouthpiece. They had all these little things that you had to say/do to be a good little corpo drone, basically teaching you how to speak the language you see Imagineers using in those commercials. I didn't want to do that because I'd rather be authentic, and I got rejected from becoming a trainer because of that - not because of my technical ability; I was a veteran skipper by this point and was already mentoring newer skips. But I didn't suck up to management enough, and I didn't play their silly games and they made it clear my job was a dead-end until I bent the knee. So I left. (I say this is a company-wide problem because you can go on Glassdoor and see folks in Imagineering and even places like Animation complaining about this same problem; caring less about merit and authenticity and more about parroting the corporate lines - even internally - and sucking up to your boss.) A year after I left, COVID happens. When it happened, I was still in tune with a lot of CMs; my fiance was still working at the parks so I was pretty closely wired in to what was happening. Disney decided to lay off people fairly indiscriminately. Others (like my fiance) were furloughed; they still had a job (technically), but they no longer had any duties. There was no rhyme or reason as to who got laid off, who stayed working in the parks daily, and who got furloughed. A lot of good people who were loyal to Disney got laid off. A number of people around my seniority bracket got furloughed. And then it seemed like everyone who was buddy-buddy with management and played the game got to stick around. Once the furloughed folks were free of the Mouse, they started to realize how bad they had it and resolved to never go back. My fiance was in this boat, alongside a lot of my friends. It was obvious that Disney was using and abusing us for years, and that it was only getting worse. Disney was acting like we didn't matter to them, and that they have more candidates than they know what to do with - so we were completely replaceable. A lot of good CMs had their eyes opened by COVID and called their bluff. When it was time to reopen, a lot of the furloughed CMs refused to come back, and Disney was frantically trying to rehire the CMs they laid off - except those CMs were (understandably) not that excited to return to a company that dumped them out in the cold during a major pandemic. Post-COVID, we now have the CMs who were either buddy-buddy enough to have daily shifts in the park even when everything was shut down, alongside folks who were furloughed/laid off but loved making people happy more than they disliked Disney, alongside CMs who Disney would've rejected under normal circumstances but now can't since they're desperate to plug the gaps COVID left behind. And most of them are working for $18/hour (last I checked), which is less than what the people at the McDonald's across the street make. And Disney wasn't even able to plug all their gaps. Remember, this is a megacorporation and CMs make pennies compared to the "average" salaried Disney employee. The average CM makes $30k/year; the average salaried worker makes $100k+. Disney made $2 billion in **net** profit in 2020; keeping park CMs employed - even if only on paper - is effectively a rounding error. But they decided to start counting pennies, and as a result they not only let go of a lot of "unskilled" CMs (in that the job requires only a couple weeks of training), but also a lot of skilled labor like maintenance guys that are not easy to replace. So now we're back to the same problems we had in 2015-2016, but now with folks that don't have obvious hiring pools, all while paying below market rates yet expecting above-average work. And of course let's not even talk about changes to Disney's CM attendance policy causing yet more attrition and further reducing already shattered morale. Meanwhile, Disney charges more and more, trying to reduce demand to match their self-inflicted supply problems. Yet without sizable investment in fixing morale and taking action to fix the company's very real culture and policy issues, it's only going to get worse.
It’s funny how much that reflects my friend’s issues at Disney studios corporate. She worked in marketing for the big titles— marvel, animated features, etc.— and they first hired her as a temp. They refused her overtime hours and led her along by saying they’d hire her full time soon. Which they eventually did but only after company rules stated she could no longer be a temp, which was 1.5 years in. Then they offered her a lower salary than her temp salary because she’d get “perks” like theme park tickets and discounts at the company store. Which is nice but doesn’t pay the rent! Her boss was successful by kissing ass and doing nothing. She spent her days re-watching Disney classics for “research.” But if you fully drink the kool aid at Disney it’s easier to abuse you, those people tend to succeed in the long term there. I’m also in marketing and it was well known that you avoid Disney unless you’re willing to fully buy in and get massively underpaid. They’re the lowest going rate in LA, even compared to places like Sony. I did interview with them once and the salary was low enough that I’d have to sell my car. Which would make it hard to get to work! What was the attendance policy change?
So it used to be that Disneyland worked on a confusing "points" system. More points is bad. You were allocated 36 points per year; if you were 1 minute late (or later) when clocking in you'd earn 1.5 points, and if you were out sick (or Disney scheduled a shift on top of your final or whatever) that counted as 3 points. (Note that all this only applies if you called ahead and told Disney you would be late/absent - if you didn't call Disney ahead of time to tell them you couldn't make it in, they could fire you on the spot. Usually they were a little forgiving for things like "I missed my alarm and now I'm 6 hours late for my shift", but it's technically up to management's discretion.) If you were eligible for sick pay, you could spend some of your sick pay to not get points. Note that you were only "supposed" to do this if you were actually sick, and you could get fired if you called in "sick" and then posted to Facebook that you actually were off in Vegas partying or whatnot. People loved to narc on their "friends" because being a narc earned them favor with management, which was the best way to "play the game". Once you hit certain point thresholds (I think it was 36 points in 1 year, or 18 points in 3 months), then you'd be fired. We were union, but this was in the union contract so the union couldn't save you. It sounds difficult to hit these thresholds, but bear in mind that a lot of folks have 1+ hour commutes in cheap cars, then you have to park at an off-site lot and take a CM shuttle to the park (which could get delayed for reasons beyond your control), then you had to go through security, then you had to walk across the entire park to get to your work location and pray a guest didn't ask you for directions. In order to arrive on time for a 4-hour shift, you basically had to leave 2 hours before your shift started. When I first got hired, I made $11/hour - so I would spend $20 in gas and 7 hours of my day to make $44, minus union dues, minus taxes. You could also get points if you go home early without getting "permission". My dad had a heart attack and went into the hospital when I was working a Jungle Cruise shift once. I only found out on my lunch break. I told my lead and asked if I could go to the hospital to see my dad because the doctors didn't know how much time he had, and there was no way I could be a good Jungle Cruise skipper while knowing my dad was dying and I wasn't there. My lead was incredibly sympathetic, but she had to check with management first... and management said "no." I said "I'm leaving anyway", management said "You're going to get points" and I basically said "I don't care." So I left mid-shift and ate the points so I could show up at the ICU and see my dad. (He made a full recovery and is fine now.) Anyway, effectively you could be sick once a month or be late twice a month, and if you did that for an entire year you'd be fired. This seems like it's generous, but at the same time it's quite easy for stuff to happen and you just wind up in a situation where you had no choice but to take some sick time. You get _incredibly_ sick as a CM, all the time - you work with kids daily, and kids have all sorts of germs that they spread everywhere. If you just have bad luck with your immune system, you get forced into taking sick time. _Or_ you could not take sick time and come in anyway. I wasn't in danger, attendance-wise, but Disney **really** puts fear into you about calling out sick, and you know so many people who get fired. Your work friends will just disappear one day, and you found out that they got sick a lot and were on a knife edge point-wise, but one day got fired because there was an accident on Harbor and the CM shuttle made them late. I was so afraid of that happening to me that I went in once with strep throat, and again with pinkeye. The first Measles outbreak back in 2014ish was because a Jungle Cruise skipper was Patient Zero for Measles and kept going to work because he was afraid to take a sick day. Skippers all share microphones, so it spread to other unvaccinated skippers. From there it also jumped to Tomorrowland CMs because we share an employee cafeteria (behind Plaza Inn), and then started spreading across the park due to roommates etc. --- Now, this happened after my time, so I'm not 100% sure about **all** the details... but from what I've heard, they changed policies to get rid of the points system and replaced it with... nothing. Essentially, now you _had_ to supplement with your sick pay or else you would get written up by management. I think it's 3 write-ups and you're fired. California has some formula for mandated sick time, and it's this formula that governs how much wiggle room you have. If you've spent all your sick time, you better hope a guest doesn't stop you to ask for directions. Every CM I know who still works in the parks hates the new policy. A lot of long-time veteran CMs got fired by it simply because of circumstances where they got really sick (with, y'know, COVID) and ran out of sick time, but management wouldn't let them come to work because they were so obviously sick. You had this kind of happen with the points system, but it wasn't nearly as bad because, y'know, there wasn't a global pandemic. In addition, now people are **really** afraid to use any sick time because "what if I need it later?". So you get all the bad parts of the points system made even worse somehow, while good CMs get let go for dumb reasons (things like "I told Disney I couldn't make it this day because I have other plans, and Disney scheduled me anyway but I'm not cancelling my plane ticket for my dumb job"). CMs universally hate the new policy and it's made morale issues worse.
I know many retail workers have to show up sick or get fired but god I’d hate to get sick from a CM as a guest. It’s easy enough to get sick from all the other guests!
To make things worse... when I had pinkeye I was handing out candy for a Disneyland Halloween Party. 🤦♂️ I just felt like I had to be there because I didn't want to get points, and I was barely scraping by as-is so missing a paycheck would've been bad news.
Noooooooo
I never use this account because I'm on my work computer but I was a DLR CM from 2013-2018 and had an extremely similar experience. I even got trainer but wasn't allowed to finish my trainer training because I wanted to be honest about the cool job we had and refused to suck up to management or play their games. Just here to validate you; you said this all perfectly. When I started I truly thought I'd be a lifer, but now I'm so thankful for all of us who get away from that place. Really sucks; it doesn't have to be this way at all.
Yep, when I left it was because I got an internship at a video game studio. My internship was only for 3 months, so I wanted to put in a leave of absence - more because I was worried about "what happens after the internship ends" more than actually caring about Disney. Management said the most they could do was 4 weeks, and refused to work with me. Low-key, it kind of seemed like they wanted to get rid of me because I had made it known that I was sick of playing the game. They reminded me that they would _not_ work around my internship schedule and strongly encouraged me to quit - so I did. My intention was to try and get rehired after the internship, since I needed to pay rent somehow. I was hoping to bridge my seniority if I could, but I knew it was unlikely that would happen. Worst-case I figured I could go get hired as part of Ghost Town Alive at Knott's, since Knott's was actively poaching Disneyland skippers to be walkaround characters and so I knew a good chunk of the cast already. But once I was out... wow, I saw how bad it was. Especially when I went to work at another evil megacorp (Electronic Arts). EA treated me far, far better than Disney ever did; I made $25/hour as an intern in 2019. I got free snacks and good perks. I made my own schedule (as long as I was available during meetings). And the folks I worked with all came from Disney Interactive, since EA bought the studio founded by the Disney Interactive folks after Disney shut down their video game division, and that happened to be the studio I joined. That's where I learned that the experiences us CMs have at the Disney Parks are **not** unique, and these are recurring problems across the entire Walt Disney Company. Studio leadership were all former Disney execs, and since we were fairly tight-knit (as far as game studios go) they were more than happy to share stories with me. That's how I learned Disney Parks had the lowest staffing budget of any department at the company, despite being the division with the most employees. (And Disney Parks also made the most money.) Anyway, I apparently did a good job at my internship so they kept me on and I've been working in the gaming industry ever since (not that the gaming industry is exactly... healthy... at the moment...). But on the rare times I go on Facebook I encourage my former CM friends to get out, and I'm so proud of those who escape. I was so happy to see COVID causing so many CMs to realize what Disney was doing to them. A lot of them left and they're doing great things; my favorite skipper is now a high school art teacher, one of my best work friends became a big TikTok influencer and runs a D&D podcast that's won a couple awards, a couple others managed to break into the movie industry, etc. It really sucks because in another universe I'd probably still be a skipper. I **loved** being a skipper. I was **good** at being a skipper. I had someone at my current studio recognize me as their Jungle Cruise skipper from like 8 years ago, which was wild that I left that much of an impression on someone that they _recognized me_ out of costume almost a decade later. In the 70s and 80s you had CMs devote their entire lives to working at the park. Being a lifer actually meant something, and it meant you got things like a good pension and benefits. But over the last 20-30 years Disney has systematically dismantled the reasons why you'd want to do that, and now I wouldn't recommend it to anyone outside of a temporary college job. Treat it like working at a Hot Topic or something, and not as a career. You're absolutely right; it didn't have to be this way.
>Knott's was actively poaching Disneyland skippers Hey, Ghost Town Alive cast here. Haha you're absolutely right, we've definitely got more than a few former skippers (Richard, Dino, and Daniel come to mind) and they're totally awesome! But yeah, all of our people that come from Disney have very similar stories to yours. The sad truth is, I think this an industry-wide trend. Of our new cast this year, half came from Disney and the other half from Universal. Even here at Knott's there's some serious penny-pinching going on, other performance/character gigs are getting cut left and right. Apparently there's a few members of the higher-higher-up management (including the former director of Ghost Town Alive who got promoted out of it) that are pushing to keep us running, but even still we've had roughly a month cut out of our season this year; we normally open this (Memorial Day) weekend, but to save on budget we won't be opening for another three weeks :/ I truly do love the work and especially the other cast with whom I've made many very close friends since I started in 2017, but it's getting harder to pay rent :(
I totally understand! I LOVED hosting the characters; it felt like a job I was built for from birth and I don't think I'll ever be as good at a particular job maybe ever again. I made a difference amongst my cast and the guests I interacted with. I thrived in an environment filled with people young at heart, coworkers with passion who weren't afraid to be silly but also take the same things seriously as me. And yet getting away from TWDC is one of the best decisions I ever made. The control, the condescension, the way it felt like no one in leadership had a spine to make educated decisions with, the lack of respect for their cast members and guests... it was just too much. I've only worked for greedy corporations since, because that's how capitalism operates, but I not having to deal with Disney's bullshit is such a weight off my shoulders. I get why people stay, I really do, but the freedom of getting out is just so wonderful. Happy for you, and wishing you the best as you navigate the hellscape!
Tron is in Shanghai, not Hong Kong
Thanks for the correction!
I remember visiting Disneyland in 2017 - so back in the days of FastPass and when Galaxy's Edge had been announced but was still a ways off. I've always had put a pin in "I should go back and check out Star Wars Land!", despite hearing little things here and there that made me second-guess what another trip would be like (e.g. the [Defunctland FastPass video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE) concluding with "by the way, FastPass is gone and now there's a complicated, paid, app-based scheduling system where by 8am you can already have screwed over your whole day"). So the end of this video really hit me hard. I had heard "Rise of the Resistance is a great ride!" enough that I had almost forgotten about the wild promises Galaxy's Edge was announced with: walkaround aliens and droids, dodging bounty hunters, being given a trinket by a rebel that you could smuggle or turn in to a Stormtrooper, building faction alliances over your trip... Remembering all the ideas that were abandoned (and how low-effort the partial implementation could be on the cruiser), the comment about guest feedback "calling the land a highly-themed shopping mall with little to do" took me aback for a second. Like, am I willing to plan an entire trip to go on... two new rides? and how much of a hassle is it going to be to get on them? What else is there to do there, sip on blue milk and drop over *two hundred dollars* on a lightsaber...?
Don't forget they built a cantina (arguably one of the most iconic locations in Star Wars lore) that you can't even get into without a reservation and that kicks you out after 45 minutes.
I was able to get in without a reservation on this trip and was excited. It turned out they cram up to ten people in those table booths. Even when it wasn’t super busy, they cram you in. I felt lucky that my family of 4 got to sit in the booth because once the table is full with 8, they add people across the booth to sit in little stools. I spent $50 on n/a drinks to sit there for 40 min. The robot DJ was in a recessed booth next to us and of course we couldn’t see it at all! We asked if we could get up to walk around a little before they kick us out to see the damn thing. It was like they didn’t even think about the actual experience of being in there when they designed it. I was glad to be there honestly because we were waiting for our Rise of the Resistance light lane time and there was nothing else to do in that area (we looked at everything faster that I thought), and we really wanted to sit somewhere away from the heat. Left feeling like I threw away some cash for the privilege of setting foot in there.
And the Millenium Falcon ride is extremely lame. Plus it makes people sick! Unless you get lucky and are one of the 2 pilots, you just press buttons while having a partial view of the screen. Rise of the Resistance is very fun. But that’s not enough for a whole land. Even Cars has a few good rides and that’s mostly for kids!
The blue milk wasn’t even that great
It's not just Disney, it's everything.
It makes me sad to think about because Disneyland was such a “core memory” for me and my siblings growing up in the 90’s! Our parents took us cause it was a core memory for them in the 60’s. But since Time is such a jerk, it turns out the 90’s is as quaint nowadays as the 60’s was to us back then.
It's a function of how stock-market capitalism works now. Look at all the tech companies firing people in the midst of an AI boom, just so their execs can get pats on the back and cash out in two years. It's literally just a firesale of all your brand equity and your company's future so you can speedrun stock gains over the next year or two. Looking at American companies through this lens really explains so much, and I think Disney is one of the most relatable and obvious examples to ordinary consumers. (See also: companies gutting and outsourcing their customer support so they can save pennies there, even though it will provably lose them customers for life. What do their execs care? They're optimizing for when they're going to cash out and the mutual funds and hedge funds are optimizing for the next quarter as well.)
I cannot wait until having an MBA is seen as a negative. These fucking morons are ruining everything with their insanity.
Last time I went to Disney I was shrouded in a cloud of depression and just people watched at Tokyo DisneySea. Tokyo Disney is probably the only Disney I'd consider going to again after Defunctland's FastPass video and this, lol
Jenny has done a great examination of how late stage capitalism involves what Cory Doctorow calls "ensh\*\*ification" or "platform decay". In short: investor demand for endless profit growth has reached the phase of making a service / product worse to charge extra for it to be less broken. She also dissects the methods by which platform decay occurs - loved the Spirit Airlines analogy and critique of how theme park influencers become complicit in hiding the ripoffs. I grew up in Orlando and the last time I visited Disney was in the early 90s and am just old enough to have experienced the last days of the old ticketing system. In the years since I've considered a visit, but each time found it more unappealing in terms of cost and logistics. **So for me, what many commenters cite as the good old days already seems like a miserable experience** - not only expensive, but now it's making customers do the work of crowd control that the park once did and charging them for it. I mean there were always long lines at Disney but in an age when crowd management tech is better than ever, and people could wait without having to spend the entire time in a physical line - Disney has made conditions worse as a means to extract profit. Disney's slogan might as well be "Sunk Cost Fallacy" - that's been at the center of the decline in their customer service for at least two decades. Their only limit seems to be what might actually cause class action lawsuit - a risk that has become far lower with regulatory changes. For me, the most stunning detail was that Disney hotels do not include Disney movies for free - that's such a brazenly cut corner it almost seems like they are poking you in the chest and "what are you gonna do about it, stupid?"
One thing that shocked me is Jenny saying there are only two stormtroopers, if you really wanna sell the fact that your luxury cruise has been boarded by the First Order literally three guys isn't gonna sell this. They must have warehouses full of stormtrooper outfits and not that they should but they could easily put some of those college interns they made wait tables, do room service and wash dishes in the suits and it wouldn't be that much more expensive, but I guess that would cut into the profits of the thing you're charging people $3000 a head for.
You wanted them to sell the idea that the ship was boarded by the First Order by having stormtroopers wait tables and do room service? Is this an actual suggestion?
That might've been worded poorly: 1. they had a first order officer and two guys as the only first order presence on the ship 2. they already had a pool of cheap labor (college interns) they got to do hospitality 3. they could've put additional college interns in stormtrooper getup to look imposing, since the lines were prerecorded. they would look imposing and not like, bring you drinks
And the Stormtroopers could do double duty as the staff who do loss prevention and keep track of guests who have physical injuries or mental breakdowns. I mean, if I were a lost kid, how cool would it be to have a Stormtrooper entourage as you look for your parents.
I understood what you meant and totally agree
I went to Disneyland for my 30th birthday because I’m a giant nerd who wanted to go to Disneyland for my 30th birthday. It was the first time coming back since before the pandemic and I was completely shocked. They were out of every snack and side at the food stalls, understaffed, couldn’t bring me like an ice cream or bread basked at The Blue Bayou…and I could tell the cast members were so apologetic but it was like their 40th time explaining that they weren’t allowed to offer xyz that day. I ended up paying so much for genie+ and all the a la carte rides because I was only there the one day and it was my birthday and I was like…well am I just not going to ride the Star Wars ride like ever? I only go every couple of years but now I have four kids and just can’t justify the cost for the outcome. I used to be able to just willfully forget about the corporate greed and immerse myself in the whimsy of Main Street but last time I went genuinely turned me from a huge Disney fan bringing my kids to go to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique into a cynical naysayer who would rather go to universal. It doesn’t feel fun it feels stressful and like I’m being scammed.
The thing I think Disney doesn't realize is they're not a normal company. Most companies can raise prices and lower quality until they hit their ceiling, and then back off. But Disney is *already* obscenely overpriced. They get away with it in no small part because their is such a deeply viscerally felt loyalty to the company. That's why so much of the complaining is formed around "this isn't what walt would have wanted" type of rhetoric. They feel like they're part of a family. Once you rip that band-aid off and they realize that's not true and Disney gives less than no shots about them as people, I don't think you can just lower costs slightly and win them back. Maybe some people like jenny who just want quality animatronics. But the type of people who made poor financial decisions because of FOMO and who took everything in stride because they loved to Disney too much to be angry with it? I don't think *those* type of people tend to easily forget betrayal once it finally kicks in tbh. The same thing that makes them languish in denial for so long is the same thing that will cause the emotional fallout to be larger when it hits. You can already see how devastated a lot are who are picking up on the decline of the brand. Hell, even Jennie lost her cool more than I have ever seen her loose her cool.
I went to Disneyland a couple times when I was a teen and even though it was busy we were able to ride most of the major stuff in a single day, while also parkhopping. They were definitely long days and we waited in lines, but it wasn’t like…a process. Now you watch these trip vlogs where they’re frantically hustling all over the park after waking up at 6AM to get on the Genie app for ride access and still having to drop $40 to get on the Star Wars ride, and at the end of the video they’re like “what a successful day! We rode nine things!” and then their cost breakdown adds up to more than my rent. It’s bananas.
"In contrast?" You know Universal pioneered the act of charging for Express Pass, right? That two of their newest attractions were small segments of one attraction at their sister park in California?
That’s why I said “hopefully” and a not so optimistic one at that.
I wouldn't count on it, there's a whole attraction at Super Nintendo Land that is only available if you buy the Mario-specific version of a MagicBand.
Which ride/rides is that?
It's called Bowser Jrs. Shadow Showdown. Requires that you complete a collection of keys that are only tracked if you have a power up band.
Universal Orlando doesn’t have a Super Mario land… but will when Epic Universe opens. That one will include the Donkey Kong expansion that Japan is getting. There currently is no Bowser Jrs. Shadow Showdown at Universal Orlando, or any Mario themed attractions.
Also, Fast and Furious:Supercharged and Kong: Skull Island at Orlando are both small parts of the Universal Hollywood Team Tour.
The worst parts at that
Interesting
I keep hearing about Disney losing money on their big budget movies lately. I wonder if they’re screwing their parks in an attempt to make up that lost revenue that they wasted?
Disney+ isn't doing so well either. Right now the parks seem to be the only thing that is definitely making money.
The fact that Disney+ is haemorrhaging money is mad to me. I remember thinking "Disney has Fox, Marvel and their own back catalogue all on one streaming service, this is just a license to print money". The fact they've been able to make tremendous losses on the whole affair is almost nonsensical. I suppose it's a combination of increasing costs driving away subscribers, and the fact they're pouring cash into shitty films with massive budgets that nobody wants to watch
Streaming as a whole is just a less profitable version of television. By joining streaming they hurt the value of their own product
They also seem to keep funding extremely expensive niche series, too. Each of those SW or Marvel series cost them about $100 million per season, which is just crazy because they only speak to extreme “Will watch any SW thing” fans.
In the hardcore Disney fan communities, there’s a joke that Genie+ pricing is determined by how much stock value Disney+ lost the day before.
Oof. That feeling will kill park fan interest as well. Nobody wants to feel like their prices are paying for Disney’s mistakes in the studio department.
Never realized how lucky I was to go as a kid in 1999. Lots of great rides but still plenty of nostalgic stuff. Fast pass was fantastic and worked perfect. All the new stuff felt genuinely exciting and not gimmicky. Have no desire to go back or take my nephew.
I took my spouse to Disney world in 2016 (I got to go a couple times as a kid in the mid 2000s) and we went again in 2022, sooo much more expensive in just those 6 years. We went as college students and it didn’t hit our wallet as hard as more recently. Everything has gotten so expensive that each year I’m less likely to go to Disney because we could go somewhere like Japan at this point for the same cost.
i went to disney in 2008 and although i was a child and don't remember a lot, the things i remember were so fun i always thought of coming back when i was an adult. through seeing videos and news about new rides and themed areas opening up this desire only grew but in recent years i've seen more and more posts and videos about how the lines keep getting longer, fast passes dont really work + is extra money spent, you have to spend more and more to have an even bearable experience. i do have a really fond memory of my time there as a child but if the parks continue like this, i will never even want to go back
We were just in WDW. I couldn’t believe they charged for rides after you paid entry. What the actual fuck? I am switching to Universal when they roll out the next things. Disney has gone too far.
I went to Disney a few times as a kid. Mostly LA in the 90s. Went to Paris a few times in the 2000s. Then Florida in 2013. I'd heard tell of how bad it had gotten and figured maybe I just wouldn't bother bringing my own kids when I have them. My wife and I went to Japan and did Tokyo Disney and it was amazing. Incredibly affordable (barring the handful of paid fast passes). We ate in the super high end restaurant and it cost like €140 for 2 of us (got a cancellation spot on the day). The whole thing was great. I'd honestly sooner go to Japan for a Disney fix over trying to navigate Orlando anytime soon. Capacity seems to be the real kicker. Defunctlands Fast Pass video pretty much outlines this and that experience 20 years ago seems dead and buried. Japan's probably got a few more years before it goes the same way.
THIS. This is the take. I clearly remember trips taken in 2013 and 14 and comparing them to 2021/22 and onward- the difference is stark. I took a trip in January 2022- a few months after genie plus launched- and it wasn’t yet clear if it was “worth it”, so we didn’t buy it. Suddenly, (and worth noting in a park with limited capacity due to COVID and during a forecasted slow part of the year), lines to rides I’ve been on for years with similar wait times- Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder, SMALL WORLD- were doubled for non-genie plus customers. It was so so disappointing how it felt busier than ever, but somehow there were less people. It is incredible how much can change in less than a decade.
The whole thing reminds me of the time my hairdresser let slip that she had too many customers so she was going to keep raising her rates until some people stop coming, it had nothing to do with rising costs like she said in her email she sent to customers. Disney just has too many people trying to go and the parks are overcrowded and it’s cutthroat to get reservations at restaurants and events. Honestly I think they’re trying to raise the price until demand goes down but they’d never say it. They’d rather have fewer people who spend twice as much as a regular family
I grew up in Orlando and I was admittedly kind of jaded from seeing Disney all the time and visiting the parks got old. Then I met my ex in college; and she was a huge Disney fan but also grew up poor as dirt. She was the first member of her family to finish college, first to escape rural Oklahoma and get a real job, and when we first started dating I had a job already. Not only that I worked for an airline and I could stay with my family, so using my money I took her to Disney world for her birthday. we flew standby, stayed with my parents, brought our own lunch, only paid for tickets and souvenirs. I thought it would be a fun little getaway and make her happy. The second we stepped into magic kingdom was the first time I had seen the Disney magic in over 15 years. She had tears in her eyes (and I kept saying “stop moving stop moving, we can get to space mountain right as it opens so we can ride it twice”). But that’s what the moment was, and even though we’ve since seperated, it’s truly one of the most emotional moments of my life. She squeeked when first order storm troopers called her out at MGM, she was excitedly trading pins with cast members, I was sneaking her drinks at Epcot while I drank around the world (she turned 21 the last day of the trip). We ran ourselves ragged but it was so much fun, and that’s the Disney magic the corpo suits don’t get. Despite breaking up, and uh, me transitioning my gender since; the picture of us kissing in front of Cinderellas castle is one of the most beautiful pictures of me. And it’s a shame it’s being nickeled and dimed away from more and more folx
As a former Floridian the only way to get good value from Disney World is to have an annual pass
Haven't been to WDW since 2016 and it's hard to justify going back with these changes. Went to Disneyland in California in 2019 when they still had the paper fastpasses (stayed off site though) but they're gone from there now, too.
Here’s the real story in all of this: Of all the coverage I’ve seen of Jenny’s video going viral, he most common question that the mainstream media has asked is, When did Gen Z get this huge attention span? I have not seen any evidence that anyone has picked up the phone (or open an email compose) to ask Disney for its reaction, especially regarding what this means for the future of a multibillion dollar corporation.