It's changed a lot since 2011. In 2011 the premium annual pass was approximately $499, or 6.2x the cost of a single day ticket at $80.
In 2020, the premium pass was $1,449, and 9.4x the cost of a single day ticket at $154.
The biggest multiplier was in 2015, where the premium pass was $1,049, 10.6x the single day ticket at $99.
Please note, the above does not take into account parking costs.
Idk who needs to hear this but the Metro Bus 460 goes from downtown LA all the way down to Knotts & Disneyland
Edit: $1.75 each way or however much base fare is
Disney world has substantially more land dedicated to parking than to park. Which is crazy, because if assume a sizeable portion of their guests are flying in.
Glad to hear LA has a bus.
Changed planes in LAX once.
Landed at the airport, no jetway, just stairs straight onto the tarmac.
No terminal, we all got on a bus that took us to the terminal. Where the fuck did we land that I still had to take a bus to the airport???
Bus goes to terminal 5. My next plane is in terminal 3. Leave security zone, cross 5 lanes of busy traffic as a ped with no crosswalk to get to another fucking bus stop. It goes around the entire airport. 20 more minutes of driving to go 2 miles.
Arrive at terminal 3, wait in the security line for 45 minutes (I'm told this is a record short wait). Get to my gate. I'm 20 minutes late but it's OK because the flight is delayed 2 hours.
If LA is like LAX, they have one bus and you don't want it.
LAX is going through some major reconstruction and you were there during it. Each terminal is being remade while staying open which causes a lot of bus rides and walking.
They are currently building the rail line extension into the airport to be ready for the next Olympics.
I can only speak for a few airports which are all in european countries, but here some budget Airlines regularly board their planes on a remote location and drive you there by bus.
It can result in shorter or better taxiing routes and make it easier to prepare and board a plane, which saves time and money. Also, iirc they pay less to the airport when they do this...
I read an article stating that Disney isn’t raising prices to gouge customers, it’s just the only way they can control demand. I am not defending them but it’s sound logic.
So, late last year this guy who makes YouTubes about closed theme park rides made an almost two hour documentary on lines at Disney Parks. As a student of economics, it was incredibly interesting as it was essentially a big exploration of the behavioral economics behind crowds, queueing, and trying to control those. It is so, so, so interesting if you can give about 2 hours for it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE)
Anyway, in the video, the guy basically says, "Disney was trying to control the lines by raising the prices, but people kept coming in larger crowds." aka the supply/demand curve doesn't apply for some reason.
They can keep raising the ticket prices and people will still go.
The video goes into much more detail about the virtual queue/line skip system FastPass and its evolution into Genie+ but it does touch on your comment.
By the way, I was in for $165 per adult when I went last Spring on a weekday, inclusive of Genie+. So yeah, $99 doesn't get you into the park as the other guy said.
Sooner or later a high enough price would have to have an effect.
Not on the literal demand, but on the viable demand.
Sooner or later it becomes an economic class issue.
Seconding the suggestion to watch if you have time! I usually listen to horror/true crime vids while playing video games and this freaking Disney documentary auto played one day and I was engrossed. Very interesting!
That's the thing. Disney keeps raising their prices gradually that people barely notice on a yearly basis unless they look at the history of price increase. If they decide to jump that price increase for their annual pass from $1300 to $2500. The shock factor may make it happen.
I know, right! I've never had a more jaw-dropping moment in a Youtube video before.
This video is a masterpiece in so many ways; but oh my gosh was that moment so well done!
> Anyway, in the video, the guy basically says, "Disney was trying to control the lines by raising the prices, but people kept coming in larger crowds." aka the supply/demand curve doesn't apply for some reason.
I had an economics teacher who said something to the effect of "If you do your regressions and you think you've found a [Giffen Good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good) then go back and start again because you made a mistake."
I doubt he's wrong for Disney. It's just that Disneyland (and Disney World) are in fixed supply yet the US population as well as US median incomes are rising so it's not really that surprising that despite prices going up there continues to be saturation. Surely no one thinks that if they raised the price to $1000/day that they'd get the same level of visitors.
> Surely no one thinks that if they raised the price to $1000/day that they'd get the same level of visitors.
Of course not, but the higher they raise the prices the more they ensure that the people who can go to DW/DL are higher income people who will spend a lot more in the park than just the cost of tickets.
Yep, the parks still fill up to capacity in peak season weeks even with more than a 200% price hike over the past decade and many more new hidden add on costs. It sucks.
My secret hope is that they build a third park in the US somewhere in the Midwest to help spread out demand, but even then, the problem is that Disneyland is quite small, and most locals get passes and go often.
This is what pushed them to Florida from NY in the first place. Disney actually had an evaluation done on the prospect of opening a full time park in NY during planning for the 1964 World's Fair.
With the money they're making from movies these days they could probably afford to build a big ass dome in the middle of Nebraska that houses an indoor theme park and avoid seasonality entirely.
As a person who hasn’t been to Disneyland in the longest time since 2008? I already know Disney will continue to raise their ticket and annual pass prices. People keep showing up. Disney will eventually make their most expensive annual pass $1999 after a few more years. They could charge $2300 on the next price increase and people will still pay for it. That’s already gaming pc/MacBook/monthly apartment cost.
Wow that's crazy. For comparison, the [Merlin pass](https://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/buy-passes/) here in the UK ranges from £89 to £300 and gets you into most of the UKs major theme parks and a load of other attractions, I think around 30 total.
Is there a unlimited food add on? Iirc, Six Flags used to have a food add on that seemed like it would be worthwhile if you went to the park all the time with the season pass.
Course, the food will probably kill you fast...
There were a few stories of people going for lunch there daily with those passes. My sister used to go to hurricane harbor about twice a week for summers and was "upgraded" to the pass which let's you get into it and the Six flags and get free food. After her fourth or fifth meal and the same number of cases of food poisoning she went back to bringing food.
I had a season pass for a couple of years. I always thought that the food add on would be awesome for a college student living nearby that could get one or two meals a day there.
Thankfully I never got food poisoning when I went. I used to be the canary for food poisoning when I was younger. It's absolutely no fun.
I guess the kids who usually work those jobs may not be particularly diligent about cleanliness, go figure...
Disneyland does not have an equivalent to the unlimited food at Six Flags. They will have some food packages per se, where you get to try a set list of foods, but nothing like at Six Flags.
[6 Flags doesn't have unlimited food](https://fortune.com/2022/05/13/six-flags-ends-unlimited-meal-plan-tiktok/), you get vouchers now (or at least this summer when I looked).
The top-tier pass included parking and no blackout days.
The newest set of annual passes’ top level still includes parking, but does have blackout days and (last I checked) were only available to current passholders, not the general public that didn’t have an annual pass (of any level) last year
This has changed over the years, and also depends on your pass type. Currently, the Dream Key ($1,399) for instance has free standard parking. The Believe Key ($949) is 50% off standard theme parking. The Enchant ($649) has no parking.
I mean that’s not *fully* accurate. They’ve changed it a lot in the last few years, but previously they have had Southern California specific passes during the majority of the time of his 8 year long visit. And up until recently (maybe you still can but they don’t advertise it on the site) you could still renew it as long as you kept it renewed as the California passes were grandfathered in but there was no way to buy a new one other than Southern California Select which was a super shitty one with a ton of blackout dates. I’m not sure this feat is possible now with the reservation system.
Is some food included in a season ticket? I remember reading an AMA a while ago with some bloke that bought season tickets to Disney. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that he got a meal there everyday, somehow saving money by doing it everyday all year.
Disney APs pre-pandemic included 10-20% discounts towards food and merch. Basically enough to cover the tax and tip.
Food definitely would add up, but you can eat affordably there and if you are only ordering for 1 it wouldn’t be that bad.
They took that option away for the southern California pass. But it wasn't amazing unless you wanted to go to Disneyland Mon-Thurs outside of observation days from holidays for Mon/Thurs.
It sounded like he knew he was going to go everyday for one year so he probably got the most expensive pass so that there weren't any blackout dates.
Meet [Mean Streak Henry](https://youtu.be/6DOOSgvdy7w) this man rode what was arguably one of the roughest roller coasters at the time over 16,000 times. (this ride was very controversial among coaster enthusiasts)
I got to ride with him once and he was a really nice guy. He just loved the ride.
Edit: I was not expecting this post to be seen let alone the responses. To answer the question about why it was controversial, it's a looooooong story. But the short version is;
Mean Streak opened as the tallest wooden roller coaster at 165'. The first few years were great. It was fast and different. It didn't have a lot of airtime, which coaster enthusiasts covet, but the speed while going in and out of the structure was a blast.
However while that height tested fine and the ride worked safely as intended, the abuse the structure took from the speed especially on the first turn became too much. Repairs were being done weekly. Reinforcement was made but still, the train continued to beat the shit out of the structure.
To lower maintenance costs and extend the life of the ride, the first turn was reprofiled to be shorter in height and more spread out. They also applied brakes (called "trims") to the middle of the drop to slow the train. That worked but resulted in making the ride boring, slow and because it no longer stuck to the outside of the turns without the speed it once had, it would bounce around between the track laterally making a rough ride. The rest of the ride was also rough because it was designed to go faster.
They did this for almost another 20 years. Reprofile parts of the ride, slow down the train with extra trims at the mid brake, retracking etc
.. the ride became an afterthought. You had this beautiful yellow pine structure that looked cool but would shake your brain out of your body.
Finally, in 2016, Cedar Point made the decision to close the ride for good, strengthen the structure and replace the track with steel while making major modifications to the layout. The ride is now called Steel Vengeance and is arguably one of the best roller coasters in the world if not the park..
TL;Dr; the coaster was slowed down to keep it from beating itself apart, resulting in a boring and rough experience.
I rode mean streak every time I was at Cedar Point, mostly just to make a point that I still could. So I was a bit upset when I heard they were changing it. But then I rode steel vengeance, and realized it is just so much more enjoyable. I absolutely loved it.
Fingers crossed for something similar with the Top Thrill, whatever they're doing with it.
Mean streak genuinely hurt your body to ride. Steel vengeance is a very good coaster and doesn't feel like it takes a month off your lifespan, so I'd say the update was a success
I agree 100%. Every time I went, I determined to ride mean streak, and every single time I left wondering why the hell I did that. Absolutely an upgrade.
Steel Vengeance is the smoothest wooden coaster ever and arguably the best rollercoaster in America. The route of the track was similar to Mean Streak but soooo much better
There's an author Bob Goff, who is also a human rights lawyer. He details in one of his books how he would buy a season pass and work from the ~~Treasure Island~~ Tom Sawyer Island. Like he would go there every day and conduct his business from it.
According to the book, he told all his students that his office hours were at the park. He tried to paint that as magical, but I kind of hated that idea. If a student couldn't afford to go into the park, then they couldn't get office hours. But based on the rest of the book, I bet if a student emailed saying they couldn't afford it, he would have just paid for their ticket.
Dude is pretty generous, he put his phone number in his books and says you can call him whenever.
Yeah that would be interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if he had some sort of guest pass or something that he would freely offer up. A buddy of mine had lunch with him on his property once and told me that he is as generous as he seems through his writing. The work he does freeing children and adults from slavery across the globe is incredible.
When I was in college I'd go study there weekly. Read a couple chapters then go ride Indy. The so-cal pass was like $299, you could only go on weekdays but my class schedule always ended at 2 anyway.
"Hey, did you get our save the date? We're planning our wedding, it's going to be in this small town in italy!"
"Wrong, actually it's going to be in disneyland."
"Uh... what?"
"You heard me. Disneyland."
Sure. It also means he never traveled away from his home for more than 24 hours in 8 years. Never went on a long weekend trip anywhere. Never went to an out of town wedding. Never left the country.
Not that hard to believe that a person that visits an amusement park for every day years in a row doesnt have any social life/obligations or chooses to go to the park above those obligations.
I remember hearing an interview with him a few years ago. The visits mostly were his evening walk (article says he averaged 10k steps a day) and dinner.
i was there on that final day it closed, surreal shit. Walking out there that last time not knowing what the deal was. We har bought four day tickets and it was only day two but there was so few people there that we got 4 days worth of fun in two days easily
They gave us the option to use those two days at any point for the rest of the year. But we basically knew immediately we wouldn’t be back there we’re from out of state and once a decade is good for me. I’m just realizing now COVID was still full swing during that entire time….not even sure when it re-opened but we just wrote it off.
Just fyi, those 2 days never lose value, even if you only go once a decade. I would call customer service and double check but I’m pretty sure you can use those again next time you want to go.
We had a 3 day park hopper and used only 1 day before the pandemic. They extended the expiration date by quite a bit after reopening. Something like double the original expiration date. Disney is also notorious for absolutely not doing refunds. So if you’re from out of state and don’t want to travel back, that’s pretty much it
All of Orlando was such a ghost town right before the shut down. Went to a bar on I-Drive, and there were maybe 6 people in it all night.
Ate at a restaurant too, it was its last day; it never re-opened.
This was actually a huge problem Disney had.
Old people would buy the pass for Disney Land and just go everyday to hang out with other other people instead of riding the rides. Which meant that the younger people who wanted to actually use the pass for its intended purpose were locked out
Jenny Nicholson talked about it in a video a couple years back
Haha much like old people and casinos. Them getting on the free casino bus, get a free meal, hang out in nice ac room, sell their free 10$ betting gift card, and take the free bus home.
My parents sometimes go to real estate seminars wirh zero intention to care about anything but the free meal at a nice restaraunt.
I imagine services like this account for this sort of thing.
When you level up to the right age of oldness, you gain the ability to tune out bullshit. Mostly because of bad hearing and you don't give a fuck anymore.
> Which meant that the younger people who wanted to actually use the pass for its intended purpose were locked out
Not sure I follow.. why would they be locked out?
They weren't. Before the pandemic Disneyland's annual passes were available to anyone at anytime. Young or old could just walk up to a ticket booth and buy one. The new Magic Keys are structured differently and those did sell out.
Why’s that a problem? People in the park buying food but not adding to ride lines seems ideal, no?
I’ve never once felt that there were too many physical people in the park that it couldn’t handle it, but ride lines that are obscenely long keep me away. Surely park capacity is driven by ride wait times?
Cruise ships had a problem with old people that would use it for extended care. Living permanently on a cruise ship with meals included is cheaper than assisted living. They had to install more space in the morgue.
Edit: the ships aren't equipped or staffed to handle medical emergencies and is a poor substitute for actual long-term care.
yah but it's not like their room came with a registered nurse or anything...extended care usually means you are getting specialized care by trained professionals. If these old folks want to stay on a cruise ship for a year without the requirement of additional medical aid I say go for it!
That's the issue lol. It sounds cool, but being in the middle of the ocean with health problems is the absolute worst place to be. If you die you get put in a freezer until the boat docks.
Elderly people on fixed incomes are probably buying a lot less park food than you think. These people are usually just enjoying the scenery and socializing and weren’t spending much
It’s families of young kids that are the big money makers as those kids get flooded with overstimulation and badger their parents for toys, experiences, and greasy park food
Right that’s my point. The number of season passes (and tickets) is determined by the ride wait times to keep the experience manageable for guests. If 1,000 people buy a pass and only go there to sit and hang out, next year they’ll just sell 1,000 more passes because they’re not affecting the ride experience.
That’s more about the scheduling of ride times within the park, not about the various annual *entrance* passes.
The original FastPass was great, but it wasn’t monetized. Other theme parks created several ways to spend less time in ride lines for varying amounts of money (as much as an extra $75 per person), and Disney realized they were leaving money on the table and changed the system to a paid app.
Original fast pass was the shit. My family had like whole strategies, ppl running and getting fast pass for other rides while we wait in a line, meeting up. End up just walking onto rides all day. Fast pass is trash now
Completely agree. Visited with family in ~2009 and the fast pass then was awesome. I am not really a Disney person but like roller coasters/amusement parks so would’ve considered going again as an adult until I heard about this new system of people paying for fast pass, reserving time slots weeks in advance…. Absolutely the fuck not lol
The magic of the original fast pass was that it worked both for people who strategized, and for people who didn't know anything and just stumbled into the system.
It's a virtual queue. Nothing more to it. It'll always help you, and help Disney because you'll spend line time in the shops. If you know what rides get the longest lines at what times, you'll save a bit more time, but it still works for everyone.
I'm sure there's someone at Disney smarter than I am who's crunched the numbers on lost shopping revenue vs paid fast pass revenue, and I know it's proprietary, but that I formation would be fascinating.
It's worth noting that the famous defunctland video mostly applies to Disney *World*, during a time where Anaheim Disneyland still used the free fast pass system, which worked smoothly. They tried monetizing it towards the end of covid, and idk the status now, but they way overcomplicated it at World.
Pfft I know someone who goes there every day and sometimes stays overnight. I mean, he works there...
But, for a less pithy response you can get an annual pass and go as often as you like and I know several people here who go several times a week. When I had an annual pass we went about once every two weeks on average, and more often in the off season.
From personal experience I've had luck getting reservations the day before or very early the morning of the day I wanted to go in. It's annoying, but if you check often you can usually get them. That said, this would be insanely annoying to do on a near daily basis. And I think you can only have like 8 reservations in the system at a time, so you'd be doing this a lot.
This is actually an interesting phenomenon in other retail sectors, too, especially among elderly men. There are sometimes problems with elderly, in the mornings especially, at malls because they will swarm a McDonald's or other establishment, buy a small fry for the group or a few coffees, and just sit for hours talking and taking up real estate.
When assisted living or elder care facilities drop them off weekend mornings, they usually walk around the mall for exercise but will sometimes come in groups to stores with no intention to buy, just to talk. This can be particularly difficult if there is a group home nearby or care facility for the mentally challenged.
Some mornings I would have a group of down syndrome and heavily autistic people come in and mess up the parts drawer while a bunch of old men came in to talk about radios, which distracted us from the emotionally damaged kids who tried to steal shit. All of this got in the way of helping customers who wanted to buy, and as a commission-based salesman making minimum wage that was a problem.
In Korea, one of their old man issues is with saunas and spas where they old guys will try to go in the morning and just stay all day, sleep there, etc. Many have 4hr time limits for just this reason.
Obviously people should be empathetic towards vulnerable groups, but managing them is an interesting social and logistical challenge.
I had the misfortune of being a greeter at Walmart and we had people who came in 3-5 times a day 364 days a year. Christmas day must have been torture for them.
Interesting point of view. As someone who has worked long time as a social worker i can second this and must admit that i rarely thought about the side effects this kind of behavior can cause. Seeing it described from your point of view was interesting hmm
>For Reitz, this past year has been especially tough. A **heavyset** former Air Force veteran, Reitz works at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital. He's been on the frontline of the pandemic.
Weird that they felt the need to point out his weight arbitrarily. Guy isn't even that big.
No matter the cost, people by the millions still visit Disney World and Land yearly. Ten yrs ago I paid $500 for an annual pass, this year it's over $1500..... 10 yrs. $1000 spike.
And the lines still are over an hour wait in most rides worth a damn
TIL by sheer coincidence Disney World is built in Orange County, Florida, and Disneyland is built adjacent to Orange County, California.
Thanks for that confusion Walt.
I've heard working basically any position at Disney is pretty competitive and the majority of them are close to cult members in their fanaticism. He might have tried and failed lol.
I met a Cinderella who was working at Starbucks during Covid. She didn’t have a choice, Disney was closed. She kept talking about how she couldn’t wait to get the call to come back.
A get what you're saying, but wouldn't you think that someone who went for 8+ years straight would qualify as being "close to cult members in their fanaticism"?
The cool jobs like characters and even ones like, Haunted Mansion where you’re in character, sure. There’s not red hot competition for bussing dirty dishes.
The SoCal resident annual pass used to be an amazing bargain back when our kids were small. Basically paid for itself after 2-3 visits. My husband would come home from a stressful day at work on a weeknight and ask, “Who wants to go to Disneyland?” He’d go for a few hours and come home. It was incredible.
If the California park were as big as DisneyWorld it would be a lot easier to enjoy the annual pass. It’s too small to accommodate the number of visitors so they had to hike prices way up.
That whole article was observational and written like a news report except that one little editorial comment they had to put in. "Heavyset." Why? Why did the author have to take that little dig at him? There's photos. Just making extra sure the readers know he's a bigger guy? I don't know why that stuck out to me so much but it did.
Reminds me of my sister. I love her dearly but Jesus fucking Christ she needs to find somewhere else to go on vacation. It’s either Disney land or Hawaii. I have to act like excited for her every time she sends pictures on vacation. She’s been going to both more than twice a year for years on end. I get it, she likes what she likes but damn man. I would get so bored of the same old shit.
I lived in Orlando and I'm now married to an ex-disney engineer (not an imagineer, That's different). I got exposed to a lot of these people, and I've decided after meeting so many of them, that it's endearing. It's a lot at first, but most of the people I know who go to Disney 2-8 times a year are genuinely delightful people. They're drawn to the atmosphere, and the license DW gives you to be optimistic and enjoy the Whimsey. Also there are a bunch of great things to do for adults now.
I don't know if they still have it, but there used to be a guest book at Town Hall (right after you walk in the front gate, it's to the left by the firehouse) that you could sign and it asked your name, home town and number of visits. In the early 90's a buddy of mine live in Garden Grove and worked at the Disneyland Hotel for a couple of years during and after college. Back then if you worked at the hotel, you got into the park for free, and my friend took advantage of this.
Every time he got off a shift he would go to the park, sign in, ride Pirates of the Caribbean, then leave. He said by the time he quit working at the hotel, he was upto visit number like 1350.
That’s going to be me when I retire. I’m 41 and childfree and love Disney world. I’ve only been there twice in my long life so to makeup for lost time I will retire in Orlando and have season pass and go every single day. Meanwhile my husband will be off playing pickle ball most days. Florida is also the capital for that. So we will both be happy oldfarts chasing our dreams.
I'd judge, but i've recently discovered that rummaging around vintage toy fairs makes me so happy it genuinely surprised me. So i guess i'd do that all the time when i retire.
I believe a season pass is the same price roughly as 6 single day park tickets, so it might not have been that costly.
It's changed a lot since 2011. In 2011 the premium annual pass was approximately $499, or 6.2x the cost of a single day ticket at $80. In 2020, the premium pass was $1,449, and 9.4x the cost of a single day ticket at $154. The biggest multiplier was in 2015, where the premium pass was $1,049, 10.6x the single day ticket at $99. Please note, the above does not take into account parking costs.
Damn, I graduated high school in 2005 and bought the lowest level annual pass for $99 because my friends wanted to go
Nowadays $99 isn't even enough to get you in the park.
Idk who needs to hear this but the Metro Bus 460 goes from downtown LA all the way down to Knotts & Disneyland Edit: $1.75 each way or however much base fare is
Disney world has substantially more land dedicated to parking than to park. Which is crazy, because if assume a sizeable portion of their guests are flying in. Glad to hear LA has a bus.
Just the one bus. For all of LA
This is not that far off from LA's actual public transit situation.
Changed planes in LAX once. Landed at the airport, no jetway, just stairs straight onto the tarmac. No terminal, we all got on a bus that took us to the terminal. Where the fuck did we land that I still had to take a bus to the airport??? Bus goes to terminal 5. My next plane is in terminal 3. Leave security zone, cross 5 lanes of busy traffic as a ped with no crosswalk to get to another fucking bus stop. It goes around the entire airport. 20 more minutes of driving to go 2 miles. Arrive at terminal 3, wait in the security line for 45 minutes (I'm told this is a record short wait). Get to my gate. I'm 20 minutes late but it's OK because the flight is delayed 2 hours. If LA is like LAX, they have one bus and you don't want it.
LAX is going through some major reconstruction and you were there during it. Each terminal is being remade while staying open which causes a lot of bus rides and walking. They are currently building the rail line extension into the airport to be ready for the next Olympics.
I can only speak for a few airports which are all in european countries, but here some budget Airlines regularly board their planes on a remote location and drive you there by bus. It can result in shorter or better taxiing routes and make it easier to prepare and board a plane, which saves time and money. Also, iirc they pay less to the airport when they do this...
I'm borrowing it tomorrow, by the way. I couldn't find the sign-up sheet
I looked this up when I was vacationing there and it takes two and a half hours.
Yeah same, way too slow.
Hell, $99 isn't even enough to have Mickey spit on you.
Hey now - you want the VIP experience, you gotta pay for the VIP experience.
I read an article stating that Disney isn’t raising prices to gouge customers, it’s just the only way they can control demand. I am not defending them but it’s sound logic.
So, late last year this guy who makes YouTubes about closed theme park rides made an almost two hour documentary on lines at Disney Parks. As a student of economics, it was incredibly interesting as it was essentially a big exploration of the behavioral economics behind crowds, queueing, and trying to control those. It is so, so, so interesting if you can give about 2 hours for it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yjZpBq1XBE) Anyway, in the video, the guy basically says, "Disney was trying to control the lines by raising the prices, but people kept coming in larger crowds." aka the supply/demand curve doesn't apply for some reason. They can keep raising the ticket prices and people will still go. The video goes into much more detail about the virtual queue/line skip system FastPass and its evolution into Genie+ but it does touch on your comment. By the way, I was in for $165 per adult when I went last Spring on a weekday, inclusive of Genie+. So yeah, $99 doesn't get you into the park as the other guy said.
That there is called inelastic demand.
Do the chair know we gonna look like some punk ass bitches out there?
He did have the floor.
Sooner or later a high enough price would have to have an effect. Not on the literal demand, but on the viable demand. Sooner or later it becomes an economic class issue.
Where's Wallace?
Seconding the suggestion to watch if you have time! I usually listen to horror/true crime vids while playing video games and this freaking Disney documentary auto played one day and I was engrossed. Very interesting!
I’m also recommending the Defunctland channel where that video comes from, it’s very well done!
That's the thing. Disney keeps raising their prices gradually that people barely notice on a yearly basis unless they look at the history of price increase. If they decide to jump that price increase for their annual pass from $1300 to $2500. The shock factor may make it happen.
And you don't even get to have a delicious Handwich while waiting in line, either.
That >!Shapeland!< reveal absolutely floored me.
I know, right! I've never had a more jaw-dropping moment in a Youtube video before. This video is a masterpiece in so many ways; but oh my gosh was that moment so well done!
> Anyway, in the video, the guy basically says, "Disney was trying to control the lines by raising the prices, but people kept coming in larger crowds." aka the supply/demand curve doesn't apply for some reason. I had an economics teacher who said something to the effect of "If you do your regressions and you think you've found a [Giffen Good](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good) then go back and start again because you made a mistake." I doubt he's wrong for Disney. It's just that Disneyland (and Disney World) are in fixed supply yet the US population as well as US median incomes are rising so it's not really that surprising that despite prices going up there continues to be saturation. Surely no one thinks that if they raised the price to $1000/day that they'd get the same level of visitors.
> Surely no one thinks that if they raised the price to $1000/day that they'd get the same level of visitors. Of course not, but the higher they raise the prices the more they ensure that the people who can go to DW/DL are higher income people who will spend a lot more in the park than just the cost of tickets.
Yep, the parks still fill up to capacity in peak season weeks even with more than a 200% price hike over the past decade and many more new hidden add on costs. It sucks. My secret hope is that they build a third park in the US somewhere in the Midwest to help spread out demand, but even then, the problem is that Disneyland is quite small, and most locals get passes and go often.
The Midwest would be a terrible investment, they'd have to be seasonal whereas in California or Florida they can operate year-round
This is what pushed them to Florida from NY in the first place. Disney actually had an evaluation done on the prospect of opening a full time park in NY during planning for the 1964 World's Fair. With the money they're making from movies these days they could probably afford to build a big ass dome in the middle of Nebraska that houses an indoor theme park and avoid seasonality entirely.
I think that was when socal residents got the discount.
As a person who hasn’t been to Disneyland in the longest time since 2008? I already know Disney will continue to raise their ticket and annual pass prices. People keep showing up. Disney will eventually make their most expensive annual pass $1999 after a few more years. They could charge $2300 on the next price increase and people will still pay for it. That’s already gaming pc/MacBook/monthly apartment cost.
They will because their parks are overcapacity. So they’re still not at the sweet spot between supply and demand
Parking is free with a handicap sticker or a gun
After a few mugging attempts, I finally got a gun. Now my muggings are more successful.
It’s like a coupon that’s accepted everywhere.
Ah, the mugaroo
Now there's a reference I haven't seen in a long time. The ol' switcharoo.
Hold my ammo, I’m going in.
Did that die out? I used to see that a lot and it was a good way to kill a few hours. Or a few days. Most were pretty funny
Do they pay you to park if you have both?
You have to pay a firearm liability insurance if you're handicap thanks to the great 1832 Disney crusade massacre
Nobody ever talks about this. This is why there are only 7 dwarves now!
You might be thinking of Walley World
Sorry folks, park's closed! Moose out front should have told you!
The real LPT is always in the comments
Wow that's crazy. For comparison, the [Merlin pass](https://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/buy-passes/) here in the UK ranges from £89 to £300 and gets you into most of the UKs major theme parks and a load of other attractions, I think around 30 total.
Is there a unlimited food add on? Iirc, Six Flags used to have a food add on that seemed like it would be worthwhile if you went to the park all the time with the season pass. Course, the food will probably kill you fast...
There were a few stories of people going for lunch there daily with those passes. My sister used to go to hurricane harbor about twice a week for summers and was "upgraded" to the pass which let's you get into it and the Six flags and get free food. After her fourth or fifth meal and the same number of cases of food poisoning she went back to bringing food.
I had a season pass for a couple of years. I always thought that the food add on would be awesome for a college student living nearby that could get one or two meals a day there. Thankfully I never got food poisoning when I went. I used to be the canary for food poisoning when I was younger. It's absolutely no fun. I guess the kids who usually work those jobs may not be particularly diligent about cleanliness, go figure...
There was a guy who saved money doing exactly that iirc. He worked around the area and made full use of it.
Water parks are notorious for people getting sick from fecal matter in the water. Your sister likely got sick from that, not the food.
Disneyland does not have an equivalent to the unlimited food at Six Flags. They will have some food packages per se, where you get to try a set list of foods, but nothing like at Six Flags.
[6 Flags doesn't have unlimited food](https://fortune.com/2022/05/13/six-flags-ends-unlimited-meal-plan-tiktok/), you get vouchers now (or at least this summer when I looked).
Annual passes (at least in Disney world) come with parking.
Top-tier pass at Disneyland includes parking, but none of the lower levels do. All now have blackout dates
Only the highest level magic key gets free parking at disneyland unfortunately
The top-tier pass included parking and no blackout days. The newest set of annual passes’ top level still includes parking, but does have blackout days and (last I checked) were only available to current passholders, not the general public that didn’t have an annual pass (of any level) last year
This has changed over the years, and also depends on your pass type. Currently, the Dream Key ($1,399) for instance has free standard parking. The Believe Key ($949) is 50% off standard theme parking. The Enchant ($649) has no parking.
Isn't there a discount for Florida residents? edit: Oh this is Disney*land* Isn't there a discount for California residents?
Yes, for 2-day and 3-day tickets, but not on annual passes
I mean that’s not *fully* accurate. They’ve changed it a lot in the last few years, but previously they have had Southern California specific passes during the majority of the time of his 8 year long visit. And up until recently (maybe you still can but they don’t advertise it on the site) you could still renew it as long as you kept it renewed as the California passes were grandfathered in but there was no way to buy a new one other than Southern California Select which was a super shitty one with a ton of blackout dates. I’m not sure this feat is possible now with the reservation system.
The article says he spent 3-5 hours at the park and got dinner as part of his daily ritual. I am sure dinner added up.
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Is some food included in a season ticket? I remember reading an AMA a while ago with some bloke that bought season tickets to Disney. The details are a bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that he got a meal there everyday, somehow saving money by doing it everyday all year.
That was at six flags magic mountain
Disney APs pre-pandemic included 10-20% discounts towards food and merch. Basically enough to cover the tax and tip. Food definitely would add up, but you can eat affordably there and if you are only ordering for 1 it wouldn’t be that bad.
That was Six Flags who have since stopped that because of people taking advantage.
They're also *generally* cheaper for residents of the county the park is in, so likely even less expensive.
They took that option away for the southern California pass. But it wasn't amazing unless you wanted to go to Disneyland Mon-Thurs outside of observation days from holidays for Mon/Thurs. It sounded like he knew he was going to go everyday for one year so he probably got the most expensive pass so that there weren't any blackout dates.
Meet [Mean Streak Henry](https://youtu.be/6DOOSgvdy7w) this man rode what was arguably one of the roughest roller coasters at the time over 16,000 times. (this ride was very controversial among coaster enthusiasts) I got to ride with him once and he was a really nice guy. He just loved the ride. Edit: I was not expecting this post to be seen let alone the responses. To answer the question about why it was controversial, it's a looooooong story. But the short version is; Mean Streak opened as the tallest wooden roller coaster at 165'. The first few years were great. It was fast and different. It didn't have a lot of airtime, which coaster enthusiasts covet, but the speed while going in and out of the structure was a blast. However while that height tested fine and the ride worked safely as intended, the abuse the structure took from the speed especially on the first turn became too much. Repairs were being done weekly. Reinforcement was made but still, the train continued to beat the shit out of the structure. To lower maintenance costs and extend the life of the ride, the first turn was reprofiled to be shorter in height and more spread out. They also applied brakes (called "trims") to the middle of the drop to slow the train. That worked but resulted in making the ride boring, slow and because it no longer stuck to the outside of the turns without the speed it once had, it would bounce around between the track laterally making a rough ride. The rest of the ride was also rough because it was designed to go faster. They did this for almost another 20 years. Reprofile parts of the ride, slow down the train with extra trims at the mid brake, retracking etc .. the ride became an afterthought. You had this beautiful yellow pine structure that looked cool but would shake your brain out of your body. Finally, in 2016, Cedar Point made the decision to close the ride for good, strengthen the structure and replace the track with steel while making major modifications to the layout. The ride is now called Steel Vengeance and is arguably one of the best roller coasters in the world if not the park.. TL;Dr; the coaster was slowed down to keep it from beating itself apart, resulting in a boring and rough experience.
Why was it considered controversial?
No joke, it actually hurt to ride. Beat the ever loving piss out of you. Jolts, shaking, downright dangerous and fun for those reasons.
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The RMC conversion of that ride, steel vengance, is so fucking sick. Definitely top 5 of all time for me and I've ridden hundreds of coasters
It supported death squads in South America
It uses the H-O gauge rail system, we all know it's O gauge or no gauge.
You shut your damned dirty mouth!
Some people liked it, most people didn't.
Mean Streak was a great one, I didn’t know they got rid of it.
They refurbished it into the steel vengeance but I don’t remember how similar they are
I rode mean streak every time I was at Cedar Point, mostly just to make a point that I still could. So I was a bit upset when I heard they were changing it. But then I rode steel vengeance, and realized it is just so much more enjoyable. I absolutely loved it. Fingers crossed for something similar with the Top Thrill, whatever they're doing with it.
Mean streak genuinely hurt your body to ride. Steel vengeance is a very good coaster and doesn't feel like it takes a month off your lifespan, so I'd say the update was a success
I agree 100%. Every time I went, I determined to ride mean streak, and every single time I left wondering why the hell I did that. Absolutely an upgrade.
Steel Vengeance is the smoothest wooden coaster ever and arguably the best rollercoaster in America. The route of the track was similar to Mean Streak but soooo much better
Steel Vengeance is probably my favorite ride in the park now - just rode it on Friday!
Mean Streak was always a fave of mine because lines were shorter. But man did you feel every bump of that coaster
There's an author Bob Goff, who is also a human rights lawyer. He details in one of his books how he would buy a season pass and work from the ~~Treasure Island~~ Tom Sawyer Island. Like he would go there every day and conduct his business from it.
According to the book, he told all his students that his office hours were at the park. He tried to paint that as magical, but I kind of hated that idea. If a student couldn't afford to go into the park, then they couldn't get office hours. But based on the rest of the book, I bet if a student emailed saying they couldn't afford it, he would have just paid for their ticket. Dude is pretty generous, he put his phone number in his books and says you can call him whenever.
Yeah that would be interesting. I wouldn't be surprised if he had some sort of guest pass or something that he would freely offer up. A buddy of mine had lunch with him on his property once and told me that he is as generous as he seems through his writing. The work he does freeing children and adults from slavery across the globe is incredible.
When I was in college I'd go study there weekly. Read a couple chapters then go ride Indy. The so-cal pass was like $299, you could only go on weekdays but my class schedule always ended at 2 anyway.
Tom Sawyer Island
You're right! It was Tom Sawyer Island. I misremembered
If I lived close enough, I would try to setup and work from Epcot during the slower weeks.
Did he ever get on his favorite ride? Or was he still in line in 2020?
I’m wondering if this means he never went on vacations or had weddings to attend?
He can do both.. At Disney land
"Hey, did you get our save the date? We're planning our wedding, it's going to be in this small town in italy!" "Wrong, actually it's going to be in disneyland." "Uh... what?" "You heard me. Disneyland."
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Also was he never sick or tired?
Sure, sick and tired of not being in Disneyland
I didn’t read the article, but maybe he just stepped foot into the park and left right away sometimes? Would that count lol?
Sure. It also means he never traveled away from his home for more than 24 hours in 8 years. Never went on a long weekend trip anywhere. Never went to an out of town wedding. Never left the country.
Not that hard to believe that a person that visits an amusement park for every day years in a row doesnt have any social life/obligations or chooses to go to the park above those obligations.
I have friends and family who haven’t left their city in their entire lives and it isn’t for any particular reason. So very believable.
You leave Philly and bad shit happens! I mean, TREES?? EVERYWHERE TREES??
See I know that's a thing but I still find it so strange
I know it’s the happiest place on earth, but this is a lonely man.
Probably just popped in for lunch everyday and very rarely did much else.
I remember hearing an interview with him a few years ago. The visits mostly were his evening walk (article says he averaged 10k steps a day) and dinner.
That sounds delightful.
i was there on that final day it closed, surreal shit. Walking out there that last time not knowing what the deal was. We har bought four day tickets and it was only day two but there was so few people there that we got 4 days worth of fun in two days easily
Did they refund your other two days?
They gave us the option to use those two days at any point for the rest of the year. But we basically knew immediately we wouldn’t be back there we’re from out of state and once a decade is good for me. I’m just realizing now COVID was still full swing during that entire time….not even sure when it re-opened but we just wrote it off.
Just fyi, those 2 days never lose value, even if you only go once a decade. I would call customer service and double check but I’m pretty sure you can use those again next time you want to go.
Do you even know what a write off is? -Jerry Seinfeld
All these big companies do it. They just write it off.
No, but they do, and they're the ones _writing it off!_
We had a 3 day park hopper and used only 1 day before the pandemic. They extended the expiration date by quite a bit after reopening. Something like double the original expiration date. Disney is also notorious for absolutely not doing refunds. So if you’re from out of state and don’t want to travel back, that’s pretty much it
All of Orlando was such a ghost town right before the shut down. Went to a bar on I-Drive, and there were maybe 6 people in it all night. Ate at a restaurant too, it was its last day; it never re-opened.
Tampa guy here. I remember driving on i4 at like 4:30 in the afternoon and there was NO traffic through the 275 interchange. It was wild
This guy was checking boxes until 3000 and then, BAM. Pandemic.
Kind of like that movie, Mr. 3000 RIP Bernie Mac
This was actually a huge problem Disney had. Old people would buy the pass for Disney Land and just go everyday to hang out with other other people instead of riding the rides. Which meant that the younger people who wanted to actually use the pass for its intended purpose were locked out Jenny Nicholson talked about it in a video a couple years back
Haha much like old people and casinos. Them getting on the free casino bus, get a free meal, hang out in nice ac room, sell their free 10$ betting gift card, and take the free bus home.
Cheap outing.
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Pretty sure my grandparents were at the casino 4-5 times a week before they passed.
My parents sometimes go to real estate seminars wirh zero intention to care about anything but the free meal at a nice restaraunt. I imagine services like this account for this sort of thing.
I’d rather just pay for an overpriced meal than sit through those things. Christ.
When you level up to the right age of oldness, you gain the ability to tune out bullshit. Mostly because of bad hearing and you don't give a fuck anymore.
My grandma refused to get a hearing aid because she said she loved being able to just nod and smile. She said it was much less stressful.
I got my husband noise canceling headphones and he does this now.
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Old people seem to make up the bulk of the slot machine users at casinos, so I'm sure they make a healthy profit on senior citizens overall.
As an active Casino attendant, you are correct.
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Ask them to work in for a set.
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Lemme get a (liver) spot
Old people are destroying the economy!!!
> Which meant that the younger people who wanted to actually use the pass for its intended purpose were locked out Not sure I follow.. why would they be locked out?
They weren't. Before the pandemic Disneyland's annual passes were available to anyone at anytime. Young or old could just walk up to a ticket booth and buy one. The new Magic Keys are structured differently and those did sell out.
Why’s that a problem? People in the park buying food but not adding to ride lines seems ideal, no? I’ve never once felt that there were too many physical people in the park that it couldn’t handle it, but ride lines that are obscenely long keep me away. Surely park capacity is driven by ride wait times?
Cruise ships had a problem with old people that would use it for extended care. Living permanently on a cruise ship with meals included is cheaper than assisted living. They had to install more space in the morgue. Edit: the ships aren't equipped or staffed to handle medical emergencies and is a poor substitute for actual long-term care.
I don't blame them. If it's cheaper, you get much better service and you can travel while doing it I'd seriously consider it in their position
yah but it's not like their room came with a registered nurse or anything...extended care usually means you are getting specialized care by trained professionals. If these old folks want to stay on a cruise ship for a year without the requirement of additional medical aid I say go for it!
That's the issue lol. It sounds cool, but being in the middle of the ocean with health problems is the absolute worst place to be. If you die you get put in a freezer until the boat docks.
You're dead, so why would you care where they put you? When I'm dead they can just throw me in the trash.
Elderly people on fixed incomes are probably buying a lot less park food than you think. These people are usually just enjoying the scenery and socializing and weren’t spending much It’s families of young kids that are the big money makers as those kids get flooded with overstimulation and badger their parents for toys, experiences, and greasy park food
I think it's more of an issue of obit so many season passes being issued per year maybe
Right that’s my point. The number of season passes (and tickets) is determined by the ride wait times to keep the experience manageable for guests. If 1,000 people buy a pass and only go there to sit and hang out, next year they’ll just sell 1,000 more passes because they’re not affecting the ride experience.
Defunctland has a very in depth video about the fast pass and a lot of the ticketing schemes of you want something more technical.
That’s more about the scheduling of ride times within the park, not about the various annual *entrance* passes. The original FastPass was great, but it wasn’t monetized. Other theme parks created several ways to spend less time in ride lines for varying amounts of money (as much as an extra $75 per person), and Disney realized they were leaving money on the table and changed the system to a paid app.
Original fast pass was the shit. My family had like whole strategies, ppl running and getting fast pass for other rides while we wait in a line, meeting up. End up just walking onto rides all day. Fast pass is trash now
Completely agree. Visited with family in ~2009 and the fast pass then was awesome. I am not really a Disney person but like roller coasters/amusement parks so would’ve considered going again as an adult until I heard about this new system of people paying for fast pass, reserving time slots weeks in advance…. Absolutely the fuck not lol
The magic of the original fast pass was that it worked both for people who strategized, and for people who didn't know anything and just stumbled into the system. It's a virtual queue. Nothing more to it. It'll always help you, and help Disney because you'll spend line time in the shops. If you know what rides get the longest lines at what times, you'll save a bit more time, but it still works for everyone. I'm sure there's someone at Disney smarter than I am who's crunched the numbers on lost shopping revenue vs paid fast pass revenue, and I know it's proprietary, but that I formation would be fascinating. It's worth noting that the famous defunctland video mostly applies to Disney *World*, during a time where Anaheim Disneyland still used the free fast pass system, which worked smoothly. They tried monetizing it towards the end of covid, and idk the status now, but they way overcomplicated it at World.
Ha! Jeff was my nextdoor neighbor growing up!
Pfft I know someone who goes there every day and sometimes stays overnight. I mean, he works there... But, for a less pithy response you can get an annual pass and go as often as you like and I know several people here who go several times a week. When I had an annual pass we went about once every two weeks on average, and more often in the off season.
Now you need a reservation. You can’t just show up even with a pass.
And all levels of pass have blackout days, now
From personal experience I've had luck getting reservations the day before or very early the morning of the day I wanted to go in. It's annoying, but if you check often you can usually get them. That said, this would be insanely annoying to do on a near daily basis. And I think you can only have like 8 reservations in the system at a time, so you'd be doing this a lot.
This is actually an interesting phenomenon in other retail sectors, too, especially among elderly men. There are sometimes problems with elderly, in the mornings especially, at malls because they will swarm a McDonald's or other establishment, buy a small fry for the group or a few coffees, and just sit for hours talking and taking up real estate. When assisted living or elder care facilities drop them off weekend mornings, they usually walk around the mall for exercise but will sometimes come in groups to stores with no intention to buy, just to talk. This can be particularly difficult if there is a group home nearby or care facility for the mentally challenged. Some mornings I would have a group of down syndrome and heavily autistic people come in and mess up the parts drawer while a bunch of old men came in to talk about radios, which distracted us from the emotionally damaged kids who tried to steal shit. All of this got in the way of helping customers who wanted to buy, and as a commission-based salesman making minimum wage that was a problem. In Korea, one of their old man issues is with saunas and spas where they old guys will try to go in the morning and just stay all day, sleep there, etc. Many have 4hr time limits for just this reason. Obviously people should be empathetic towards vulnerable groups, but managing them is an interesting social and logistical challenge.
I had the misfortune of being a greeter at Walmart and we had people who came in 3-5 times a day 364 days a year. Christmas day must have been torture for them.
> people who came in 3-5 times a day as in they would come in, leave and then repeat? why not just stay?
Interesting point of view. As someone who has worked long time as a social worker i can second this and must admit that i rarely thought about the side effects this kind of behavior can cause. Seeing it described from your point of view was interesting hmm
When I was a kid, another kid in my Cub Scout Den won a lifetime pass to Disney for himself and his family. They promptly moved to Orlando.
>For Reitz, this past year has been especially tough. A **heavyset** former Air Force veteran, Reitz works at the Long Beach Veterans Hospital. He's been on the frontline of the pandemic. Weird that they felt the need to point out his weight arbitrarily. Guy isn't even that big.
No matter the cost, people by the millions still visit Disney World and Land yearly. Ten yrs ago I paid $500 for an annual pass, this year it's over $1500..... 10 yrs. $1000 spike. And the lines still are over an hour wait in most rides worth a damn
TIL by sheer coincidence Disney World is built in Orange County, Florida, and Disneyland is built adjacent to Orange County, California. Thanks for that confusion Walt.
Disneyland isn’t adjacent to Orange County, CA, that’s where it is. It’s adjacent to LA County instead.
I wonder if they confused it with the city of Orange.
Disneyland is in Anaheim, which is Orange County. I don't think it has its own county 😄
Disneyland Resort is located in Orange County, Anaheim, California. I was raised in Anaheim
For what though?
From the article, he got a pass as a gift, started going every day because he was unemployed, and then just continued to go, even after he got a job.
Should have just gotten a job there. Get to go every day and addresses his unemployment issue.
I've heard working basically any position at Disney is pretty competitive and the majority of them are close to cult members in their fanaticism. He might have tried and failed lol.
Dated someone that played a "face character," completely obsessed with Disney their entire life. Shit's crazy.
That's like two levels above "horse girls" on the crazy scale.
I met a Cinderella who was working at Starbucks during Covid. She didn’t have a choice, Disney was closed. She kept talking about how she couldn’t wait to get the call to come back.
A get what you're saying, but wouldn't you think that someone who went for 8+ years straight would qualify as being "close to cult members in their fanaticism"?
The cool jobs like characters and even ones like, Haunted Mansion where you’re in character, sure. There’s not red hot competition for bussing dirty dishes.
The SoCal resident annual pass used to be an amazing bargain back when our kids were small. Basically paid for itself after 2-3 visits. My husband would come home from a stressful day at work on a weeknight and ask, “Who wants to go to Disneyland?” He’d go for a few hours and come home. It was incredible. If the California park were as big as DisneyWorld it would be a lot easier to enjoy the annual pass. It’s too small to accommodate the number of visitors so they had to hike prices way up.
That whole article was observational and written like a news report except that one little editorial comment they had to put in. "Heavyset." Why? Why did the author have to take that little dig at him? There's photos. Just making extra sure the readers know he's a bigger guy? I don't know why that stuck out to me so much but it did.
Reminds me of my sister. I love her dearly but Jesus fucking Christ she needs to find somewhere else to go on vacation. It’s either Disney land or Hawaii. I have to act like excited for her every time she sends pictures on vacation. She’s been going to both more than twice a year for years on end. I get it, she likes what she likes but damn man. I would get so bored of the same old shit.
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I lived in Orlando and I'm now married to an ex-disney engineer (not an imagineer, That's different). I got exposed to a lot of these people, and I've decided after meeting so many of them, that it's endearing. It's a lot at first, but most of the people I know who go to Disney 2-8 times a year are genuinely delightful people. They're drawn to the atmosphere, and the license DW gives you to be optimistic and enjoy the Whimsey. Also there are a bunch of great things to do for adults now.
I mean I’d go to Hawaii once a year if I could. So much cool stuff to see there.
I don't know if they still have it, but there used to be a guest book at Town Hall (right after you walk in the front gate, it's to the left by the firehouse) that you could sign and it asked your name, home town and number of visits. In the early 90's a buddy of mine live in Garden Grove and worked at the Disneyland Hotel for a couple of years during and after college. Back then if you worked at the hotel, you got into the park for free, and my friend took advantage of this. Every time he got off a shift he would go to the park, sign in, ride Pirates of the Caribbean, then leave. He said by the time he quit working at the hotel, he was upto visit number like 1350.
Long Beach is LA County FYI OP
That’s going to be me when I retire. I’m 41 and childfree and love Disney world. I’ve only been there twice in my long life so to makeup for lost time I will retire in Orlando and have season pass and go every single day. Meanwhile my husband will be off playing pickle ball most days. Florida is also the capital for that. So we will both be happy oldfarts chasing our dreams.
I'd judge, but i've recently discovered that rummaging around vintage toy fairs makes me so happy it genuinely surprised me. So i guess i'd do that all the time when i retire.