Disney Prices

I agree with you all that prices are getting crazy and yet the parks are packed. I have been here this week, January 3-7, and there is no shortage of people willing to pay what WDW corporate is asking.

The increase and newer charge that irks me the most is the parking fees. We are staying at the Beach Club, my vehicle has sat in a half empty lot and not moved, yet I will be charged $25 a day for it to sit there!:mad: My wife says I let this bother me too much, but I say it’s flat out greed. No new service is being provided, the cost in providing the parking lot has not increased, Disney can’t blame it on the supply chain, on inflation, or on any factor other than sheer greed.

Jeff;2532814 wrote: I agree with you all that prices are getting crazy and yet the parks are packed. I have been here this week, January 3-7, and there is no shortage of people willing to pay what WDW corporate is asking.

The increase and newer charge that irks me the most is the parking fees. We are staying at the Beach Club, my vehicle has sat in a half empty lot and not moved, yet I will be charged $25 a day for it to sit there!:mad: My wife says I let this bother me too much, but I say it’s flat out greed. No new service is being provided, the cost in providing the parking lot has not increased, Disney can’t blame it on the supply chain, on inflation, or on any factor other than sheer greed.

I completely agree. When making reservations anywhere, in any city, at any hotel, I pull up the rates and then immediately look at the additional fees to see if there is a parking fee. I try to avoid paying them at all but in some cities they pretty much all have them so I then just play the numbers game and calculate my total cost per night to find the best value. I really wish the government would step in with some regulations where they have to give us an actual total rate per night instead of trying to disguise or hide these additional parking or "resort" fees. It is a shady practice in the hotel business these days.

On another note, I got a Pin Code for room discount a couple of days ago. I haven't even gotten to see how outrageous the rate would be even after the pin code is applied because I have tried twice to pull up rates on their website but when I do it goes to a virtual que with a wait time of around 30 minutes that I have to wait through to get the rates. Why in the world is there a que to wait on rates now? I have never even heard of that before. Have they gone so cheap on their server bandwidth, they are throttling access to their reservation servers? This has gotten to the point it is just insane.

1DisneyNut;2532815 wrote: On another note, I got a Pin Code for room discount a couple of days ago. I haven't even gotten to see how outrageous the rate would be even after the pin code is applied because I have tried twice to pull up rates on their website but when I do it goes to a virtual que with a wait time of around 30 minutes that I have to wait through to get the rates. Why in the world is there a que to wait on rates now? I have never even heard of that before. Have they gone so cheap on their server bandwidth, they are throttling access to their reservation servers? This has gotten to the point it is just insane.

It is always a madhouse when Disney announces 'big' discounts on rooms and/or packages. I have never heard of the queue for rate quotes, but it's not a bad idea to give people an understanding of how busy they are.

PopPhan;2532819 wrote: It is always a madhouse when Disney announces 'big' discounts on rooms and/or packages. I have never heard of the queue for rate quotes, but it's not a bad idea to give people an understanding of how busy they are.

I’m a bit unclear of why the website has a wait time when you are simply looking to book a room. Expedia doesn’t do that. Hotels.com doesn’t do that. No major hotel chain does that.

Is Disney’s infrastructure so bad that this was needed?

John;2532821 wrote: I’m a bit unclear of why the website has a wait time when you are simply looking to book a room. Expedia doesn’t do that. Hotels.com doesn’t do that. No major hotel chain does that.

Is Disney’s infrastructure so bad that this was needed?

You make a good point. I still don't think it is an infrastructure problem, per se, but more of how they use the infrastructure they have. The other sites you mentioned are primarily hotel booking sites, but Disney is not a hotelier and, as such, do not put their emphasis on hotel bookings. Is this wrong? Yeah, it probably is, especially when they are announcing discounts at such regular intervals. Should they 'beef up' their reservation server farm? Most definitely. BUT, from what 1disneynut's comment stated, at least you are not getting the old 404 Page Not Found (or Stitch ate this page) message and are getting in a virtual queue.

PopPhan;2532823 wrote: You make a good point. I still don't think it is an infrastructure problem, per se, but more of how they use the infrastructure they have. The other sites you mentioned are primarily hotel booking sites, but Disney is not a hotelier and, as such, do not put their emphasis on hotel bookings. Is this wrong? Yeah, it probably is, especially when they are announcing discounts at such regular intervals. Should they 'beef up' their reservation server farm? Most definitely. BUT, from what 1disneynut's comment stated, at least you are not getting the old 404 Page Not Found (or Stitch ate this page) message and are getting in a virtual queue.

I would almost rather get the 404 or Stitch ate the page than be smacked with a virtual que telling me I have to wait 25 minutes just to see pricing. I still haven't seen the pricing because after getting the virtual que on two days with a day in between them, I haven't even tried again. Maybe I am in the minority but I simply do not have the patience to wait 25 minutes just to look at rates. I especially do not have the patience for it when my degree is in this field and I know it is just them being cheap on their systems. If they have everything running on the same servers and do not have enough bandwidth to properly serve the reservation system that is just poor IT infrastructure and they should have dedicated servers for reservations. I mean seriously, an inefficient reservation system turns people off before they even get going on planning a trip there and eventually need the other services on the system.

I'm sorry, but as an old computer systems guy dating back to the 70's, this is utter BS. With a properly designed system, there should be minimal delays, but nothing at the levels that are being reported. Disney has designed this in a way to pull people's chains and they should be ashamed.

1DisneyNut;2532836 wrote: I would almost rather get the 404 or Stitch ate the page than be smacked with a virtual que telling me I have to wait 25 minutes just to see pricing. I still haven't seen the pricing because after getting the virtual que on two days with a day in between them, I haven't even tried again. Maybe I am in the minority but I simply do not have the patience to wait 25 minutes just to look at rates. I especially do not have the patience for it when my degree is in this field and I know it is just them being cheap on their systems. If they have everything running on the same servers and do not have enough bandwidth to properly serve the reservation system that is just poor IT infrastructure and they should have dedicated servers for reservations. I mean seriously, an inefficient reservation system turns people off before they even get going on planning a trip there and eventually need the other services on the system.

It doesn't get any better after you have your reservations either. Look at the debacle with reservations opening for Space 220 and the "virtual queue" not even working when I was there a couple of months ago. I still don't understand why they thought putting up a paper code for you to use on your phone was a good idea. Created a very potentially dangerous situation and what of those who don't have/can't use that type of tech. It would have been better to just use an old fashioned line.
Disney's tech has been a problem for quite a while. With it being such a giant company, they shouldn't have many problems at all, much less on the scale that they do.

Jeff;2532814 wrote: I agree with you all that prices are getting crazy and yet the parks are packed. I have been here this week, January 3-7, and there is no shortage of people willing to pay what WDW corporate is asking.

I was there with you Jeff! Friday was the only day that standby wait times didn't get unreasonable (at least at MK and Epcot). Weather was incredible though. Stinks on the parking.

I've personally heard from a few Disney fans that echo what I've read here that feel their days of frequent Disney trips are behind them. The kicker is going to be the DVC members who are somewhat tied to the place. We inherited a timeshare near Disney World (Westgate Lakes) and my wife, a devoted fan, said that next year we should just enjoy the resort amenities and some of the other area attractions and maybe not go to Disney except for perhaps a day. I was thinking it but she said it!

But as Jeff said, if they continue to fill the park, they may not worry about the fans cutting back.

We're just now starting to plan our trip and the prices definitely made my eyes pop! I can't say I was entirely surprised with all that was going on, but it was still a little bit of a shock. I am hoping that this is not here to stay though. In the past there have been steady increases in price, but there have been periods where you get much better special offers. I'm hoping the pendulum swings back the other way soon.

We would sometimes go twice a year, because of these prices we are going to universal one week instead. Much cheaper (minus the park tickets are about the same)

We were just there from the 16th-23rd of January. The cost increases that bother me the most are the parking fees and the Genie+. I really felt like I was forced to purchase Genie+ just because I didn't know how crowded it would be and how many other people had purchased it. The worst part of Genie+ is that 2 rides at each park aren't even included. Now that's greed!

And an added problem with these BIG increases is that little price gouging is irksome too, or maybe it's just me. Disney wants us to Mobile Order, so I did at a resort QS (resort QS usually accepts in person orders). Well, they charged me but then, when I went to pick up my order, the CM said they were all out of a particular item I'd ordered, and they offered me one of 3 substitutions-all a dollar or so LESS than the item I was charged for. Yes, there were other substitutions in that category (dessert item) that were 50 cents or a dollar more that they didn't offer, only offered me the less expensive items. Small amount, but I checked-they never did reimburse me the small difference. Just another example of the ways of Disney's prices right now.

Simba's Mom;2533047 wrote: And an added problem with these BIG increases is that little price gouging is irksome too, or maybe it's just me. Disney wants us to Mobile Order, so I did at a resort QS (resort QS usually accepts in person orders). Well, they charged me but then, when I went to pick up my order, the CM said they were all out of a particular item I'd ordered, and they offered me one of 3 substitutions-all a dollar or so LESS than the item I was charged for. Yes, there were other substitutions in that category (dessert item) that were 50 cents or a dollar more that they didn't offer, only offered me the less expensive items. Small amount, but I checked-they never did reimburse me the small difference. Just another example of the ways of Disney's prices right now.

Dont get me started on mobile order.

Going to show my age and time on this particular Disney site. Years ago these posts would come up and individuals would defend the increases. Basically someone would post and then others would say “but look at the value of the trip when compared to other trips”. Not seeing much of that anymore. To me that’s a good indication that Disney is pricing out a lot of families.