Dear Disney,
I love visiting your parks for the magic and the memories that I always experience upon stepping through your gilded gates. There is nothing like the feeling of walking down Main Street USA, closing my eyes and smelling the perfectly scented air inconspicuously pumped through the parks while listening to the tinkling voices of guests filling that sacred space with laughter and joy. You evoke feelings in me that I will cherish for my whole life, except now I have a new feeling; the feeling of certain dread.
With two recent price increases in less than a year, I fear that 2020 will be my last time proudly holding an annual pass; a tradition I have kept active for the better part of my 34 years of life. I used to have the pass that allowed me to visit frequently with no block out dates, it’s what you now call the “Platinum” pass, but then you upped the prices, created a tier system, and I knew I couldn’t afford all that luxury, so I settled for a “Silver” which better fit my busy lifestyle. Yes, the Silver blocked me out in the sweet summer (which is actually a blessing), and I must rely on friends with the higher tiered passes to sneak me my PhotoPass memories, but still I am a proud passholder none the less; I hoard the magnets to prove it.
As I read about your price increase and find out more about guest experiences decreasing (like the loss of some beloved character meet and greets), I feel my willingness to shell out a little over half a grand a year for my Silver pass decreasing as well. I can also hear my heart breaking, because if we are going to be honest here, the last several times I have visited the park, the magic has been lackluster. I can go into a whole other letter about how thrilling it was to arrive at the brand new Coronado for my wedding anniversary only to find that my husband and I would be sleeping in separate beds at the old quarters yet paying the price for a king suite at the Destino Tower. It wasn’t really the magical Disney anniversary we had grown accustomed to, neither was the price tag, but staying on property has frankly become a racket (*cough* on-property parking rates, shampoo/conditioner/body wash nailed to the wall *cough*).
You may argue that it’s just an additional increase of $20. What’s $20 over the course of the year, right? Wrong. What you don’t realize is that the cost of living, nay the cost of life itself, has not been adjusted in the paychecks of the childless millennials that are so frequently visiting the parks. I am one of those childless millennials, and let me tell you, a $20 increase for the second time in a year is a big deal to us, because so many of us are suffering from the rising cost of paying our student loans, the pressure of owning a home, getting married, staying married, and those of us that remain childless despite wanting to become parents, realize we don’t have kids because we can’t hack the cost of bringing a life into this world. So, we remain childless but make it a point to go to Disney because it feels like the one place we can escape the crushing pressures of life and get a bomb ass churro. But even in the park, we are faced with the rising costs of the comforts we enjoyed “growing up Disney”. Paying over $5 for a Mickey Premium Bar you can’t even savor because it melts so quickly in the Florida heat (thanks global warming) or a vicious seagull steals it straight out of your hands while walking around EPCOT (how rude!) feels like a crime; I have literally been robbed. So now, with the current trend of Disney prices on the rise, I have the sad realization that even if I wanted to hang up my Childless Millennial hat, and share my love of Disney with my future kids, I won’t be able to do so because by the time they will have the cognitive memory to enjoy the park, we simply won’t be able to afford it.
Let’s also address the other factors making my decision to not renew despite my eagerness to celebrate WDW’s 50th; Number 1 – The constant construction and Number 2: the things NO ONE asked for. I talk to a lot of Disney people (for crying out loud, I blogged for a Disney fan site, and I run my own Disney podcast) and not ONCE did someone say to me “you know what Disney needs?…. A SKYLINER”. Literally no one I know wanted that, they also didn’t want you ripping up their piece of Disney by removing the bricks in front of Magic Kingdom. Some people are still mourning that memory, and rightfully so. I do however, applaud your efforts to push the envelope and provide guests with unforgettable ride experiences by building state of the art roller coasters like the TRON ride, but again, you missed the mark on that (just like you did with Pandora) – the TRON movie was years ago, and it feels like my annual pass over the last 3 years has single handedly paid for at least one rivet used to nail the track on that ride, but I won’t even get to experience it because by the time it opens, I won’t have a pass to go when I please.
So Disney, gone are the days where I anticipate magic when I visit your parks, or opt to stay on property for your “amenities”. I second guess every single purchase at the Emporium, and haven’t eaten a Mickey Premium Bar in 5 years. For now, I plan to spend the next several months getting in every trip I can when my pass is not blocked out right up to the day my pass expires, and when it does, so will a piece of my heart. I will no longer be able to frequently visit the spot in front of the Haunted Mansion where my husband asked me to marry him, nor will I be able to hold my niece’s hand down Main Street and remind her how I carried her around during her first trip to meet Mickey. I will not be able to feel the breeze on the balcony of the Rose and Crown pub overlooking the lake while sipping my Guinness and reminiscing about the time a good friend ate sunscreen thinking it was tarter sauce from the fish and chips he ordered. All these places that trigger all these memories, and because I can’t justify the cost of renewing my pass, I have to give them up.
I guess this is what it feels like to “grow up”; to have to make choices to sacrifice the things you enjoy because you simply cannot afford it. I just never thought Disney would force my hand to grow up and out of the parks because it feels like increasing the cost of an annual pass twice in less than a year is worth more to the company than allowing guests to make affordable memories. So I will let my pass expire, but I will choose to indulge in the lowest price special ticketed events because that cost is justifiable, or I will just hang around and wait for a Florida Resident ticket deal so I can once again experience the parks that have brought me so much happiness. I guess we aren’t breaking up, but we are definitely on an AP break come November 2020; and I know you may find this hard to believe, but it’s really not me; it’s you and your ridiculous prices.
xoxo,
Erika