Category: Finance

Is Disneyland Worth It?

Published on by TimmyLeave a comment

DisneylandFriends, with the very recent announcement that the prices to have your next magical experience have increased upwards of 25%, I want to have a bit of a conversation with you about whether Disneyland is “worth it”.

First, I want to give you my take on why the prices have gone up. I saw a stat that said the single-day, one park ticket price for Disneyland has increased threefold since 2000. Most of the pain is in the prices of the highest Annual Passes. My take on this is fairly straight-forward. Disney needs to control the crowds somehow. Galaxy’s Edge was just confirmed to open in California in June. This alone is going to drop an atomic bomb on both parks for many months. I’m not saying that Disney is completely innocent here, as far as some calling them greedy. Certainly added profits and revenue are great side-effects. However, Disney also recently announced some price increases across the Nation at Walt Disney World. The difference is that while WDW also has Galaxy’s Edge opening this year, their increases were very small in comparison to Disneyland’s. This cements to me that it’s not at all a greedy move. It’s crowd-control, period.

I will say that it’s unfortunate that it happens. It’s sad that there are many families that will effectively be priced-out of a magical experience. But for some, the challenge is just to work harder to save up and wait a little longer to make it happen. Conveniently, those folks might have just avoided the massive crowds by being patient and saving up.

Some will go no matter the price. We are not what I consider financially well-off. My wife and I both work full time to make things work. We have two kids that normally make the trips with us. We are not currently Annual Passholders but we had been in the past. Because of our feelings about Disneyland and how much we adore the place, we would likely find a way to make it happen, no matter the price. This gets me to answering the title of this article.

Is Disneyland worth it? Let me pull this apart a little to help me illustrate my point. The phrase “worth it” means different things to different people. What does it mean to you? I like cars. I enjoy car shopping. I love watching YouTube videos reviewing cars from A to Z, typical econo-boxes to Ferraris and Bugattis. I love cars! If you were to ask me if owning a $300,000 Lamborghini was worth it, I’d proudly exclaim, YES! But, would I ever buy one? Heck no! Why? While it would be an absolute dream car to own and to drive and to show off, ownership would not make any sense. I certainly could not afford it. The loan payments, the ridiculous insurance, gas, tires, maintenance/repair, and speeding tickets would completely break us financially. Would it be worth it? Yes. Would it make any sense? No. The question about a trip to Disneyland shouldn’t be, “Is it worth it?” Because that answer would always be YES. The question should rather be, “Does it make sense?”. Because we all are in different financial situations, I can’t tell you that Disneyland makes sense. It wouldn’t be fair to tell you that. But, if you could dig in, make a plan, save your money, and dream big, you will discover that it will ALWAYS be worth it!

In an earlier article, HERE, I discussed the idea of separating the financial aspects from the magical experience itself. I won’t re-hash that here, but it does fit here nicely. The bottom-line here is to save up the money, make a smart plan and budget it all accordingly, and make it happen. Once you experience it (again, if it’s been a while), you will never have to approach the topic of the worth of a Disneyland trip. Because, duh!

Disneyland Is Expensive!

Published on by Timmy1 Comment

money

Friends, let’s be real… Disneyland is expensive. The undeniable fact is that you will need to figure out a budget. If it takes a couple of years or even five years, it will be worth it. One of the things I tell people when I explain how To Disney is that yes, it’s expensive and you can’t dismiss it or ignore it. The cost is real. However, you need to figure out a way to somehow detach that fact in your mind so you can make it happen and have the experience of a lifetime. We’ll share some ideas how to do this here.

For some perspective, my younger brother took his family of seven just this summer. It was their first trip to Disneyland. For three days with access to both parks (Park Hopper), and a home rental, they spent $3,500. They added on MaxPass to each ticket and two of their five children are under 10 so those tickets were slightly less expensive. This did not include food or travel expenses like gas, etc. Again, Disneyland is expensive.

Here are some things to be aware of that may cost you money. We might take some of these and write full articles for them so this will be more of a quick summary.

  • Parking: Disneyland property parking is currently $20 per vehicle/day, or $25 for RVs. (more info)
    • Some hotels also charge for parking
  • Park Tickets: Click this link to see current pricing
  • Lodging: You gotta sleep
  • Food: You gotta eat
  • Travel: Driving or Flying
  • Transportation: Uber/Lyft or shuttle services
  • Souvenirs/Gifts
  • Supplies/Toiletries

Over our many years of planning and making trips to Disneyland, we’ve come up with some great strategies and tricks to try and keep that dollar sign out of the front of your minds. One thing we started doing is getting money cards from our bank and preloading them with a set amount of money. We had three total. In the ideal world, we would use them for either each person (when it was the three of us), or one for food, one for souvenirs, and one for “other stuff”. Usually we’d just use them until they were gone and move on to the next one. The real benefit of this strategy is that instead of using a debit or credit card, where the amount goes up, the money card’s amount goes down. It’s a controlled amount. You can’t overdraft. Plan your budget to include these money cards and your in-park experience will feel more comfortable and you won’t be nervous or anxious about spending too much money. With banks and their mobile apps you can easily make a visual check on their balances if you feel like you need to. Also, be sure they have a major credit card logo on them, like Visa or Mastercard, otherwise they may not work.

Other ideas we’ve used is looking for deals. Disney has really tightened up in the past several years on other parties selling discounted tickets. It mostly doesn’t happen and if you do find one, the discount is usually fairly minimal. We like getawaytoday.com. They do a great job of bundling hotels and park tickets. The park tickets may be lightly discounted but their agreements with hotels let them package deals at a decent discount and your overall costs are lower. When I say look for deals, don’t be tempted to look at places like eBay or craigslist. Most of those are partially used tickets and while they may work, Disney has protections in place and may reject the tickets. Also, those places are hotbeds for scammers and creeps. I would just avoid them.

The bottom line here is that while Disneyland is not a cheap vacation, it is so, so, so worth it! The experiences you’ll have will be unmatched. The memories you make will be indelible. Your children and friends and family members will have these times to think on for years to come. Even if you only ever make it once or twice, it will be worth it. You can’t really put a price on magic. Disney has magic in spades!