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Why Disneyland got expensive on purpose · Best of: Features

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  Why Disneyland Got Expensive on Purpose. Written by Julie Tremaine.
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  This article is being read by an automated voice generated by Everlet.
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  Throughout the pandemic and the subsequent reopening of Disney's parks, former Disney
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  CEO Bob Chapek made a series of deeply unpopular decisions. He raised
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  prices and removed previously free perks, all moves that have resulted in
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  Disneyland being the most expensive and least accessible it's ever been. At
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  the time, Chopic seemed to
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  the public's eye to be Disney's least cartoon villain. Now, in his
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  new book, Behind the Castle Walls, My Thirty Years at the Happiest
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  Place on Earth, he fully embraces the caricature. Chopheck ascended to the
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  CEO job in february twenty twenty, with Bob Iger stepping down from
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  the position just ahead of the pandemic that shuddered Disneyland for nearly
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  fourteen months. Through the most challenging situation imaginable, Chopheck steered the company
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  to new financial heights for much of the time between assuming the
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  job and his November 2022 firing. He also left behind a wake
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  of aggressive financial decisions that the company is still trying to recover
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  from four years after his firing. Not only is Disneyland still the
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  most expensive it's ever been, but it's become the scene of consistently
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  bad guest behavior, a problem the parks, is struggling to solve. During
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  his tenure, Chepec made a string of controversial decisions, like nearly doubling
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  The cost of annual Disneyland passes, implementing a restrictive reservation system, and
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  eliminating free perks, like FastPass and replacing them with costly add-ons. By
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  narrowing access to the parks, making the experience more expensive and limiting
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  capacity, he claimed to be working on behalf of The guest experience.
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  The people who could still manage to get inside Disneyland or Walt
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  Disney World would inherently have a better time, he argued. But in
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  reality, as Chopek emphasized over and over in his book, the money
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  he earned the company was the most important thing. The result of
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  all those changes was record profits and legions of unhappy fans, including
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  California's most ardent park supporters. Because of our annual pass programme that
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  allowed guests to pay a one time fee for unlimited visits throughout
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  the year, the people who wanted to show up spontaneously were also
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  paying the least per visit, Chopek wrote in his book. Since I
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  was committed to overseeing the park with a business objectivity and an
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  obligation to maximize shareholder value, I understood I couldn't abandon the most
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  profitable market of long distance vacation planners just to not disappoint the
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  local annual pass holders who visit dozens or hundreds of times a
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  year. When Disneyland reopened in april twenty twenty one, it did so
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  without annual passes. During the park closure, the company cancelled and refunded
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  any passes that had been valid when it shut down in march
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  twenty twenty. Instead, people had to pay full price for day tickets
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  and in very limited quantities. When a new Magic Key annual pass
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  program debuted in august twenty twenty one, it was nearly double the
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  cost of they passes available when Chopek took over as head of
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  the Parkas in twenty fifteen. The were significantly restricted in number, and
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  not everyone who wanted one was able to get one for several
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  subsequent years. That was by design. The annual pass system suboptimized revenue
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  and unnecessarily constrained the business's financial performance, Chopek wrote. He felt that
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  vacationing guests should be prioritized because they were spending more money to
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  be there, and they were less likely to come back if the
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  encountered long lines. Naturally, that thinking made the CEO hugely unpopular among
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  returning Disney fans. Describing every annual pass.
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  Holder as a Disney adult in his book, Schapek wrote The love
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  for Disney is one of the most, if not the most, central
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  parts of their life. They deeply believe in it, cherish it, and
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  protect it. Not everybody who comes to a theme park is a
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  Disney adult, though. Upon reviewing the numbers I found the math didn't
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  lie. As appreciated as they were, local Disney adults didn't drive the
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  economics of the park with their annual pass. It actually could have
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  been worse. Schopek wrote that his first instinct was to cancel passes
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  permanently. We understood we would get blasted if I attempted to eliminate
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  annual passes altogether, so we moved to shift the math, he wrote.
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  The profits bore out. Many people who loved Disney still loved it
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  enough to pay hundreds more to hold a pass, and to shell
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  out an average of forty percent more money per visit from increases
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  to in parks costs. To Chepeck's credit, many guests who could afford
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  to absorb the extra costs did report a better experience. Buying a
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  thirty dollar pass to skip most lines seems like a drop in
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  the bucket for the chance to double what you can do in
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  A
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  park day, especially if you've paid over two hundred dollars for a
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  single day ticket. And it wasn't just about park guests. One of
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  Chapik's main justifications for they price hikes is that he was able
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  to give cast members, Disney's term for employees, in the park's arrays.
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  The cast members are the magic of Disney Parks, and, as feasible,
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  should be compensated handsomely for the magic they imprint on those guest
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  memories, he wrote. The raise he touted himself for executing was an
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  increase to a living wage of twenty dollars per hour. A twenty
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  eighteen study by Occidental College and the Economic Roundtable found that eleven
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  percent of Disneyland employees reported experiencing homelessness in the previous TU years,
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  sixty eight percent were food insecure, and seventy three percent said they
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  did not earn enough for basic living expenses. According to the MIT
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  Living Wage Calculator, the current living wage in California is 30.48.48 for
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  a single adult with no children and 53.54 for an adult with
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  one child. In Florida, it's 24.09 for a single adult and 39.87
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  for one with a child. The more children, the more those estimates
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  rise exponentially. What Chopek omitted was that despite the modest pay increase,
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  the years since the park's pandemic closures have been plagued with widespread
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  company layoffs, reductions in benefits and cuts to in park entertainment emptying
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  the stages at Disneyland's once vibrant performance spaces like the Golden Horseshoe,
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  largely because of staff costs. Cutbacks in maintenance led to worsening quality
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  of ride experiences. In 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that ride
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  stoppages and breakdowns had increased almost sixty percent at Disneyland since 2018.
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  But the money flowed in During his years running Disney Parks, Experiences
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  and Products, Chopic reported an eighteen percent overall revenue growth. In the
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  first fiscal quarter of twenty twenty two, Chopic reported that the Parks
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  Division achieved all time revenue and operating income records during that time
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  period. As of May twenty twenty two per capita spending among Disneyland
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  guests was up forty percent from the same quarter in twenty nineteen.
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  The eighteen percent growth rate during my tenure in Parks was another
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  win win, he wrote. Then CO Bob Iger's only concern was that
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  we might raise prices too high, hurting demand, but that never materialized.
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  While attendance has stayed relatively stable At Disneyland, the overwhelming consensus is
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  that the prices are far too high, especially in a time when
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  guests are getting less for their money. The once free FastPass, which
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  allowed guests to skip long lines on select rides a few times
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  a day, is now the Lightning Lane Multi Pass a paid service that
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  can cost nearly forty dollars for the exact same benefit. Not all
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  rides fall under the multipass. Some rides require individual lightning lane, like
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  Star Wars, Rise of the Resistance, which costs upward of thirty dollars
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  per ride per person on busy days. Disneyland has also replaced early
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  park entry for hotel guests, formerly a daily benefit, with one single
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  lightning lane per person per hotel stay. The cuts weren't just at
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  Disneyland. At Walt Disney World the company ended Magical Express, a free
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  shuttle to WDW Resorts from Orlando International Airport, in january twenty twenty
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  two, and also implemented paid line skipping. In addition to the changes
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  being costly, they were also difficult to navigate. New complicated systems for
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  how to make park reservations, and how to utilize Lightning Lane Multipass,
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  formerly Genie Plus, added frustration and confusion for many guests. When Chopic
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  was fired in november twenty twenty two, former CEO Bob Eager reclaimed
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  control of the company and publicly started walking back the price hikes.
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  In our zeal to grow profits, we may have been a little
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  bit too aggressive about some of our pricing, he said, at the
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  march twenty twenty three Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. I
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  think there's a way to continue to grow that business, but be
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  smarter about how we price, so that we maintain that brand value
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  of accessibility. But the precedent had been set, and the profits were
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  too enticing. Disney may have softened some of its aggression on price
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  hikes col its annual ticket increase, rolled out on October 6th, didn't
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  include raising magic key prices for the first time in years, but
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  costs within the parks continued to grow in everything from ticket prices
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  to the cost of food within the parks, which has led to
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  adults ordering kids meals to save money. Many of those scaled back
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  offerings, like cutting early entry, happened during Eiger's second tenure as CEO.
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  In 2023, The Walt Street Journal reported that even within the company,
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  employees expressed concerns that Disney has become addicted to price hikes and
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  has reached the limits of what middle class Americans can afford. With
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  wallets stretched so tight for so many people trying to give their
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  families a magical day at Disneyland, it's no wonder guest behavior seems
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  to have reached a nadir. If people are scraping their pennies together
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  and going into debt to afford a park visit, every single element
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  of the experience had better be perfect, and some people's fuses have
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  become a lot shorter if it's not. The shifted focus toward out
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  of town guests has also eroded the park's historic connection with those
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  who card, about the place, especially its traditions and culture the most.
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  Reports of adults acting badly often appear on social media, and seem
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  to be getting more and more frequent. In twenty twenty three, two
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  families at Walt Disney World came to punch us over who had
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  a claim to a photo spot first. On december thirtieth, twenty twenty
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  five, when a dad tried to stop a large group of guests
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  at Disneyland's Indiana Jones Adventure Ride from cutting in front of his
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  family, a man in that group punched him, sending him to the
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  hospital for stitches. In an effort to course correct on guest dissatisfaction
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  with rising costs, Disneyland has recently offered some enticing incentives. This summer
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  the company sold limited evening only tickets for fifty nine dollars. The
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  tiered pricing system means single day tickets for one park range from
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  one hundred and four to two hundred twenty four dollars depending on
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  the day. Since May, renewals of Magic Key annual passes have also
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  come with a Disney dining card, good for food purchases in the
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  parks. On october sixth, when Disneyland announced its annual price hikes, they
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  were the mildest increases in years. None of the magic key prices
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  went up, and a few ticket tiers went up by just five
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  dollars per day. The company also scrapped no how penalties for its
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  much maligned reservation system, which Chopek explained in his book, was a
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  measure implemented to restrict the number of annual pass holders who could
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  attend in a day, preserving a better experience for higher paying guests.
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  In march twenty twenty six, just after Josh Demaro took over as
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  CEO of Disney following Eager's second time stepping down from the role,
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  an attendee of a Disney shareholder meeting asked him how he planned
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  to balance earnings was with guest satisfaction at the parks. That is
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  an important question, he said, per deadline. I guess I'd start with
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  the fact that I know that a Disney Park visit is a
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  meaningful investment for families that visit us, and our goal is for
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  every single guest to feel that their experience is worth it. Chapek's
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  price hikes aren't going away any time soon, but it does seem
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  like Disney has backed off from that level of aggressive increases. Still,
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  though he claimed Igor and the company attempted to erase his legacy
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  after his termination, his leadership lingers at the parks, and fans haven't
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  forgotten how Disneyland got to its most expensive point. But the former
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  Disney CEO doesn't see things that way. My abrupt dismissal hurt my
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  reputation, leaving those close to me, outsiders, and some within the kingdom
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  trying to figure out what I did wrong. Chapek wrote. The answer
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  again is nothing.