Oct 6, 2015

The Cost of Happiness


With the internet uproar over the recent price increase at Disneyland, I thought it would be interesting to figure out how much it actually would have cost to do a day at the park opening year.

It's actually pretty easy, just find images of the old ticket books and add up the values for all the rides. There were 38 attractions that were either free or required an A, B, or C ticket. A tickets were 10 cents. B tickets cost 20 cents. C tickets were 30 cents. So I made a list of all the rides listed on the tickets added up the values and voila, $6.60 worth of tickets would get you 1 ride on every thing in the park. Plus the $1.00 admission fee and your day at Disneyland set your back $7.60. Of course that is 1955 money. Adjusting for inflation and that comes to $67.58.

Now, you might be tempted to think that this is significantly cheaper than the $99 1 park 1 day pass is now, but this doesn't take in to account the different rides at the park now vs then. The only way I could think of to fairly adjust for this was to set all the ticket prices for today's rides to 1955 ticket values and then adjust for inflation. There are actually 7 more attractions at the resort now, plus two new ticket levels that were introduced in 1959. D tickets at 35 cents and E tickets at 50 cents. Adding all of this up gives you $12.25, and adjusting for inflation gives you $109. So Disney is actually charging $10 less than the actual ride value of the park. Plus, today's park tickets allow you unlimited rides on all rides. You could ride nothing but E tickets all day long and rack up a huge ride value bill easily. The freedom alone carries value on top of the ride value. There are also far more shows now than in 1955 including two parades, fireworks, and Fantasmic!. Those carry value also. Many more food options and higher quality souvenirs as well as better themeing across much of the park and additional acreage and lands. In other words, the single day value of Disneyland today is far higher than what they are actually charging for it making Disneyland cheaper to visit today than it was on opening day.

But, what about DCA and park hopping? Well, if you add DCA in to the mix, there are 66 total attractions today compared the the 38 of 1955. Add up the values and adjust for inflation and you get a single day value of $159. The present day 1 day park hopper ticket is priced at $139. The same intangibles and shows adding value on top of the attractions apply to DCA as well, so you're getting a really great deal.

"But," you are probably saying, "the price increases were heaviest on the annual passports, not the single day tickets! So It isn't cheaper today than it was in 1955 for them!" Let's take a quick look at that. Disney doesn't do some weird math and divide the number of times you visit in a year into the cost of your AP to figure out how much they are making per visit off of you. It's much simpler than that. You take the cost of your AP and divide it by the 1 day park hopper price. That's how many days you need to go to the park to pay for your AP. Any additional visits are free. Here's how that breaks down for each of the new AP levels:

$1,049 needs to go 8 days to pay for itself.
$849 needs to go for 7 days.
$599 must visit 5 days.

If you go more than that minimum number of days on your level of AP, then you are getting in for free all of those days. To word it a little differently, if you paid $1,049 for an AP, then you gave Disney enough money to cover 8 days of you being in the park. Let's say you go once a week, an amount that is completely reasonable for many who hold the high end APs. That's 52 times a year, minus the 8 paid days and you're getting in for free 44 times. If you had to pay for those days in the park, it would cost you $6,116. So instead of having to pay $7,165 dollars to go one time every week, you only have to pay $1,049. You are paying a mere 14.6% of the value of what you are actually getting. By raising the AP price, Disney is basically asking you to cover more of that $6,116 they are losing on letting you in for free. Seems a reasonable request.

So remember, even though it sounds like a massive price increase, the park has significantly more value today than it did when it opened, and the price, adjusted for inflation and accounting for new attractions, is cheaper than it should be. And if you are lucky enough to be an Annual Pass holder, remember, it pays for itself very quickly, and from then on, you technically don't have to spend a dime to enjoy any and all attractions that Disney has to offer. Count your blessings, it could cost you far, far, far more.

(For those interested, here's the raw data charts I compiled to figure this out: Google Sheets)

15 comments:

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    1. I didn't factor in parking as it isn't required to park entrance.

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  2. Thank you! Locals and most APHs forget that they dont have to pay for hotels, gas, plane fare. Im sure there are other people out there that are APH that live far but we are talking about the majority here.

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    2. I totally understand and respect that. It's a lot of money. That's a decision that has to be made be each person, to either do it, not do it or save up for it. My post wasn't trying to convince people that it isn't expensive, but to show that it could be far worse had Disney not held the price far lower than market value. $1,049 per person to go as often as we wanted seems an incredible deal to us.

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  3. Still unacceptable for our whole family we just bought knotts and universal for the price of 1 pass

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    1. Good for you. That was your decision. Disneyland is not a necessity. Andas a pass holder to those parks and Six Flags.... you get what you pay for.

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  4. You didn't add in that the minimum wage stayed exactly the same throughout many of those years. So, though you adjusted for numerical value through inflation, is that really the same as affordability value when compared to average minimum wage (or even just average wage of the average Disney go-er) throughout the years? Just curious of your thoughts!

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    1. Actually, if you click the link at the bottom to the spreadsheets you'll see that median family income for each year is included and that was broken down to a per paycheck value and then the entry medium divided into that to get a percentage. And while the pay has not kept pace quite with inflation, the median has gone up quite a bit. The percentage of a paycheck went from 3.6% to 4.7%

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    2. Ah interesting! I should learn to click the links to provided information haha

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    3. No worries, I do the same thing. :D In fairness to you, I didn't mention that aspect in the post at all as it was more my own curiosity and outside of the scope. It is slightly less affordable these days, but not terribly much. If anything Disney has taken that in to account by keeping the price below inflation alone as wages haven't risen as fast as inflation has.

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  5. Your numbers assume that you ride every ride at the park each visit. Anyone who has been to Disneyland in the last decade would realize that it is virtually impossible due to the long wait times in most lines.

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    1. I don't assume that people can ride everything. What I'm doing is calculating the value of what is there for people to ride. It doesn't matter if you use the full 100% of a thing you purchase or not, you are charged the price for the full value. Like say a banana, if you're only going to eat half of it, they still charge you for the full banana. And you can see that that's what's actually happening as the value of all the rides today is actually pretty darn close to the price today. But, even if you can't ride all of the rides, there are a lot of other factors contributing to the price. The ticket isn't just a one use per ride ticket any more. It now allows you the convenience of riding anything, any amount. It also allows you access to numerous shows and streetmosphere acts. You also get two large scale parades, a fireworks show, a night time spectacular show. On top of all of that, nearly every single aspect of the park has been plussed since opening in terms of theme or show. And despite all of this, Disney has held the price below the inflated value of the rides alone, giving you a lot of stuff for free. They could be charging a heck of a lot more than they are, just for the value of the park alone.

      Don't get hung up on how many rides you can ride, because it's not about that. It's about how valuable what they are offering to you is.

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