Disney World and Disneyland are experiencing declining attendance despite rising revenue, primarily because the company has been aggressively raising ticket prices, food costs, merchandise prices, and special event fees (such as the $50 increase for the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party in just two years). This strategy of extracting more revenue from each visitor rather than attracting more visitors is a response to economic pressures including high gas prices, cruise ship virus concerns, and general economic uncertainty, which are causing families to choose cheaper local alternatives like Kennywood and Canobyl. Disney's leadership, including CEO Josh D'Amaro, has acknowledged this trend and indicated plans to continue raising prices and implementing cost-cutting measures, including potential layoffs and increased use of AI technology, to maintain profitability despite the attendance decline.
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Disney World Attendance is DOWN! Is Disney Headed for BIG TROUBLE Soon?Added:
So Disney's theme park attendance is down, but they don't seem to be too worried about it yet because they're making more money.
>> Yeah, because the price per sping per guest is up because they keep raising prices and everything.
>> Right. So, we're going to talk about this. We did not talk about Disney's uh earnings call last week. Uh Josh Dearo had his first earnings call and he said some things that are very interesting.
We'll go over that. But uh we were actually out sick for most of last week and we didn't feel like dealing with a daily dose of dismal Disney.
>> He nothing he said was really surprising. It was basically we're just gonna keep doing what we're doing which is we're going to charge the people the few people we have more >> is was is his answer which is what they've already been doing. Um so Halloween the price on the Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween party on Halloween night uh went up 50 bucks in two years.
It's already sold out cuz people are going to pay it. So they could just keep raising it. So next year expect it to go even higher. Yeah, that's the thing.
Like people are like, "Well, what's it going to take for Disney to get a clue?"
I'm like, "For people to not spend money at Disney, >> right? Stop buying it." Yeah.
>> You know, that's that's that's basically it. Now, um to be fair, I do have more faith in Josh tomorrow than I had in Bob Iger or Bob Cheek, but we'll see what he's allowed to do. But I I think with everything going on in the world right now, we're going to see more stories about Disney attendance being down.
we're going to see more stories about their cruise uh line maybe not doing so hot because of the virus and all this stuff going on there. Um you know, so I mean, but then what they'll, like you said, what they'll do is they'll just turn around, gouge the people that go cuz some people are taking out, they're literally taking out second mortgages just to go to Disney World.
>> Yeah. So they'll just, you know, go after those people. Exactly.
>> Yeah. They'll go after those people. And they were for a while. That was actually Bob Iger's thing. And that was when uh we were doing the the Disney blogging full-time. They were putting these like what 700 $800 tents in Tomorrowland because they wanted the whales. They wanted the people that were going to spend >> like little oasis tents and you had to spend like 700 bucks a day to rent them.
Drinks and little fridges in there and air conditioning and you could just rent them and go sit in them and it was a really bad idea and it didn't work. It went nowhere and they got rid of them.
>> Yeah. So, we'll see what happens. We will see what happens here. So, before we get into it any further, please subscribe for more pop culture news, views, and rants guys. You'll get a woohoo if you do.
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This is Neon. I am here with Geeky Sparkles.
>> Hello.
>> And uh, it's time for your daily dose of dismal Disney. Mhm.
>> So, we'll talk about the gas prices and how that's probably going to affect Disney travel. Uh, every time we have a downturn in the economy, Disney vacations are one of the first things that go obviously because they're crazy.
>> Anything like expensive anything any extras, you know, or what people aren't going to have the money for.
>> And gas now is some places what, $6 or $7 a gallon? It's like5 something here in some places. Um, it's I don't see this slowing up anytime soon. Well, it's funny to me because they just did the 2026 Trip Advisor Travelers Choice Awards for the top places to go and uh Canobyl.
>> Yay. Canobyl is a park which was the theme park that that Neon grew up near.
I grew up closer to Kennywood. He grew up by Canobyl. Number one, traditional atmosphere, free admission, award-winning wooden coasters. Number two is Dollywood.
>> All right. Number three is the Magic Kingdom. Number four is Hollywood Studios. Number five is Islands of Adventure. Number six is Epcot. Um, seven's Legoland Land. Eight's Universal Studios Florida. So, a lot of the bigger ones that the bigger parks, um, they're farther down the list because they're so effing expensive. And you're going to find people are just going to be like, you know, we're going to go to our local park, Canobyl. Canobyl has been around for years. It's free admission. You just pay to ride what you want to ride.
>> Yep.
>> Um, it is very laidback park. Number one overall. All that Dollywood. Number two, beating out Disney's and and and Universal because they're so [ __ ] expensive. I'm sorry for saying the f- word, but they are.
>> Yeah, it's weird about Canobyl cuz I I bounced back and forth when I was a kid.
I bounced back and forth between coasts because my family situation. So I went to Disneyland and went to Canobyl. Those were my two parks. Like that's where I went all the time. And uh Knberry Farm, I went there too. But uh Canobyl's like well one I love their haunted house, but two like I never realized. is I kept thinking, well, this is just kind of like a locals park. I never realized that people come from all over the world to ride some of the vintage rides that they have because they're the only park that still has some of the stuff in in service.
>> And uh the wooden coasters are some of the best in the world. I guess >> Kennywood also has a lot of the old >> coasters and stuff too, but Canobyl is known for it. And people go to those parks and like for us it was no big deal because even when our kids were little, we just take them there because we lived over there. And you know, for me it was always we went to Kennywood or Disney World.
>> Those are the places we went to when I was a kid. But I just thought that was interesting cuz my mom actually told me today she said Canobyl is number one.
And I'm like, "What?" And she and I looked and she's right. It won number one. Dollywood was number two.
>> Huh.
>> And number three was Magic Kingdom.
>> I I can't say that Disney World is a good value anymore. I mean, it never really was cheap, but at least I never felt like I got ripped off. And now over the last couple years, I would say post pandemic or during the pandemic into current year, this is like peak greed for Disney because they keep taking away >> I say right before the pandemic because that's when they were getting the billion dollar box offices and that's when they start jacking up the ticket prices a lot and then that's when they they hit that huge price hike to the annual passes and stuff was right before the pandemic. So, I would argue was it 2018, 2019, somewhere in there was worse. But it's getting out of hand. And the reason people aren't going is because Disney is too expensive. I think people are fed up with Disney in a lot of ways for other, you know, things. You know, families, their movies of family movies of late have been questionable.
Um, they've made different choices that people don't agree with, which is fine.
You don't have to agree. You can, you can agree, too. It doesn't matter.
People aren't going. And but I think the number one problem is the expense. It is just too expensive. There's no reason in two years the ticket prices for a Halloween party went up mostly between 20 and $35.
>> Yeah. Well, there are reasons because we have to tell the investors that were, you know, maximum maximum profit, maximum revenue.
>> When you have an award and you have investors, you have to answer to and that's we're seeing it across the board.
It's not just it's not just theme parks across the board that it's all about maximum profits no matter who you have to screw. It's not about customer service. It's not about being the best company you can be and being top of your game. It's about how you can give rich people more money.
>> Yeah, that's that's basically that's capitalism in a nutshell, right?
>> Rich people get more money. Okay, this is coming from deadline. Disney br and again this is this is several days old because we were out sick and uh this is >> I can talk now for the most part. I can I can speak again so we're good. Uh Disney Brass says soaring gas prices have not yet hit the parks, but they're mindful of macro uncertainty consumers are facing. They're going to cut vacation.
>> Mindful of crap. You're giving deals, quote unquote, and your deals are basically you're taking prices down to what they were like a year ago. You know what I mean? That's not really a deal.
And you're given free dining. We used to do free dining all the time. And usually free dining is indicative of oh [ __ ] we're not booking parks. So, and you guys are deliberately I know you like you like block out hotels and stuff and then try to be like, oh, you create false demand. Like the the parks, they're filling up. They're filling up even when they aren't. We know the food prices, the merchandise have crept up more and more and more and more. You're constantly raising prices on everything else. Even if you drop the tickets somewhat, you raise everything else up for, you know, we have different price points for affordability. Like hell you do, you can't even get free fast passes anymore. You want people to come back to your parks, bring back free fastass. But you're not going to do that because you're going to be like, you can still do paid lightning lane if you want to, you know, have extras. You get your three free fast passes. If you want to do Lightning Lane on top of that, you can pay for that and get more, but bring back the free fast passes, but they won't.
>> So Disney CF CFO Hugh Johnston said, "We haven't seen any change in consumer behavior from elevated gas prices thus far and aren't seeing a material impact on the remainder of the fiscal year."
Thus far, the gas prices have only been up for a couple of months. I I call total [ __ ] on this. I mean, yeah, it's only about for a couple months, but we've already known that people keep reporting that the park the attendance is down and and what they're doing is like, oh, the lines are still wait time.
Yeah, because you're selling all the lightning lanes.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean, it it's going to impact it. I'm sorry. There's no way people can't It's already been impacted because it was it was the inflation on food and stuff first. Now, it's the gas prices. I mean, how much more money do you think people are going to have? Because you're looking at the prices on Disney trip like 5 years ago compared to now thousands more.
>> Yeah. The price of gasoline at the pump is over 40% and there's a shortage of jet fuel. We'll talk about that. Um because there's a bigger issue going on with planes which has doubled in price since the war with Iran started in February. So again, they would not know this early into it how much the gas is impacted.
>> Well, that's true because this would have been the quarter that went from January to March.
>> Yes. So, >> and we didn't have the problem with Iran until like was it late February? Yeah.
So, it wouldn't it wouldn't have impacted that much.
>> And the gas prices didn't start rising really noticeably until like last month.
>> It got really bad like Yeah.
>> Uh so, here we'll stop there with the jet fuel. So, there's a couple things.
One, Spirit Airlines went out of business.
>> Yeah. I guess the fuel price has pushed them over.
>> The fuel price has pushed them over. So, that means the airline tickets are going to go up. A lot of people fly um Spirit Airlines. I know a lot of people fly Spirit to go to Disney. In fact, here in Western Pennsylvania, the Latroe airport, that's where we used to fly out. And most of the time, we go to Latroe. And uh for the longest time, it was like taking a bus. You could hop a Spirit Flight down, go down in the morning, come back at night, or just stay overnight or whatever. And uh my understanding talking to cast members is that Pennsylvania and New York are like the two biggest states for Disney visitors.
>> PA, one of their top. Yeah.
>> Yeah. One of their top. I think it's because it was easy to get down there and now it's not going to be so easy to get down there.
>> No. And driving depending on where you live in PA it could take hours like because when you talk you figure you stop for gas, you stop to go to the bathroom or whatever. It could take 18 hours easy from where we're at and there and we're like in the like middle of the range to go down like you know people are going to be up higher. It's going to take even longer.
>> Yeah. And it's it's a hell of a drive, right? So beyond that, uh this is another another thing they're going to have to contend with. The cruise ship virus, >> the neural virus and Hannah virus.
>> Nora virus. Yes. The other one it it was a it's it's a it's been around for a long time, but it's not something that happens very often and it's not as easy to contract as, you know, some people are reporting, but you know, it's not like a a cruise ship. It happened on a cruise ship, but I don't think it's like something that cruise ships need to watch out for so much.
>> Well, I think I think though just the >> Norirus for sure. Yes.
>> Oh, Noravirus is horrible. I I've had that is is the worst is the sickest I have ever been in my entire life was norirus and I thought I was going to die. It was awful. You you didn't get it. So >> I was pregnant, didn't know?
>> Yeah, she was pregnant with our daughter, but I got it and Squidkin got it and we literally camped out in the living room with an inflatable air mattress because we were vomiting like every 10 minutes.
>> He was He was only like three or four.
It was awful. I I thought I was getting sick, but here I was just pregnant.
Yeah, but uh it yeah, it was uh not pleasant. I don't recommend it, but that might scare people off too. So there's you know what I'm saying? Like >> just the thought just that the thought of you might get it not understanding it, it would definitely scare people away. Yes, 100%.
>> That's what people don't understand. So the economy is based on feelings, right?
The economy really is based on feelings.
How people feel about things, how they feel about spending, that pretty much determines >> how they feel. Yes.
>> How secure they feel. And at this point right now, especially with layoffs and Okay, so you got to look at I mean, this could be the perfect storm for Disney because we have um a bunch of white collar workers, tech workers, office workers losing their jobs. You know, AI is being blamed, but we know it's probably something else. They probably just want cheaper employees or, you know, overseas or whatever. But regardless, that is the demographic that went to Disney the most because they had the the disposable income. and they had the job security. You know, you very seldom have somebody working at, you know, retail that's going to drop $10,000 on a a Disney trip, but somebody that's a, you know, middle manager or something. Yeah.
>> You save for a long time to go. That's what I feel bad about. People save for a long time to go and they're like once in a lifetime we're going to take your kids. It's going to be excite and then they keep jacking the prices up. So, you know, people are they finally got enough money to go and then they don't they still don't have enough money to go because they raised the prices again.
It's ridiculous. Amid strong numbers for the March quarter, the experiences division posted 7% higher revenue at 9.5 billion while operating income rose 5% to 2.6 billion. The thing is they're not they're kept bearing this.
>> The attendance is down.
>> Yeah. Like it's been down. Everybody I mean anybody who's been paying attention can tell you that.
>> So they said um domestic international park attendance along with passenger crews grew 2% compared to prior year.
However, attendance at the domestic parks declined 1% when compared to the prior year quarter. And this is before the gas prices really kick in.
>> And what was going on too, you have to remember like they have their overseas parks as well. And the overseas parks, the attendance has been pretty steady at those places, but it's downstate side.
And then you they're they were banking on people coming over from other countries. Like they bank on foreign travel, but they're it's too expensive now.
>> Yeah. and um with the uh the airline situation now and you know what I'm saying? It's like this is kind of the the perfect storm for them and every time the economy takes a hit. Now the the good news is every time the economy takes a hit, you can get some really good deals if you got the money to go to Disney because they're always like >> just throwing free dining.
>> Deals right now, guys. A bunch.
>> And that tells you where they're at.
that tells you where they're at right now because they would not be giving you all kinds of deals if the attendance that the projections were good because they know months >> they've done this a long time guys and this is what always happens when like you said they know months ahead when the projections are are not looking great.
These are when these big big deals roll out and um and and then there's the the amount of them right now also to me is indicative of their oops we got to do something oh crap you know this is we've been doing this a long time. They're also saying that they they've got increased competition from Epic Universe. Oh my god.
>> Well, that's true. Also, is a shocker there. A lot of people are just going to both.
>> Yeah, that's true. But they're saying, "Yeah, we got some levers we can pull if things get really bad or whatever."
>> We got levers we can pull. We can we can charge more.
>> We can charge more. Yeah.
>> We'll raise Disney Plus again. We will, you know, start raising the prices of all our merchandise. We'll start jacking up food. We're going to raise ticket prices again. We're going to roll out Disney Plus Plus, which is a more expensive Disney Plus.
>> That's right. You know, Lightning Lane, and then we're gonna do something else to make it even more expensive or some other perk that rich people will pay for.
>> So, let's um let's just go through real quick what Josh Tomorrow said. Again, you know, we're kind of late to this, but uh this is coming from Puck News and they broke down what he was saying. He had a manifesto and they said this is Disney's Josh Dearo manifesto translator. So, these are the key things that he said. uh said number one, investing in IP and creativity that breaks through, builds connections, and endures. Puck says the translation is franchises, baby.
>> Yes, that's exactly what that means. Is that not that you've you've not, you know, misused franchises you already had.
>> Yeah. Uh it's an obvious goal for any Hollywood studio, but tomorrow's articulating a renewed focus on what makes Disney special. Content that could become overcrowded theme parks in Shanghai, a backpack at Target.
>> Monetize. So, this might be why they they made the change to uh Hex, right?
Because they they've got a female character because they're looking at the merchandise and the the which princess is going to merchandise better than a boy.
>> It could it could be.
>> I have no idea. I just said they keep doing this like they and I was doing it too where it was what can we take IP and shove it into attractions, more merchandise, more meet and greets, that kind of stuff, >> right? Um, the subway is not saying though is the cost of all this endurance and connectivity. Disney routinely spends more than rivals on its IP films.
A challenge that tomorrow needs to address headon if the new box office normal as Marvel movies gross 400 million to 500 million worldwide versus a billion. Like every Marvel movie was like a billion dollars and Pixar originals ek out 350 million. Hoppers is at 370 worldwide and Tomorrow name checked it as a strong example of our focus on original IP. But then you look at >> Yeah. You look at Inside Out, too, and it was like 1.5 billion.
>> Yeah. No, that's I think Toy Story 5 is going to do really well, but it's a Toy Story movie, you know what I mean? And I mean, they tried that with with uh Sure.
Lightyear, and that movie did [ __ ] because they didn't make it like the IP that people knew.
>> It's interesting, though. I I didn't I didn't realize this. The Good Dinosaur was considered a major flop. It was >> for Pixar and it still did 472 million in 2015 >> adjusted for inflation >> but still it did better than Hoppers and I think maybe Elemental too. So the new normal is Disney movies are going to make about half of what they used to make >> and they're going to have to do >> Exactly. Yeah.
>> Um they said the cost burden is more uh the cost burden is more pronounced in sports. Um so they're sticking with linear TV yada yada. Okay. Number two, reaching more consumers in more seamless, engaging ways around the world. The translation, one Disney people, it's everywhere. The tomorrow messaging. So much so that Disney veteran half, one Disney veteran half jokingly asked if Josh would soon have it in blazing next to Mickey on the Burbank water tower. He wants a single cohesive and digitally integrated ecosystem as he emailed staff back in March both on the Disney Plus interface and in how the company operates. Sounds nice.
>> That was the Iger thing too before.
Iger's been saying this since last year.
So it was Iger before it was tomorrow.
But yes, >> they said, but Disney already promotes its own projects pretty aggressively across platforms. Have you watched Sports Center lately? They're promoting Marvel, Star Wars, and The Devil Wears Prada, too, because that is totally the audience.
>> They devil Prada too >> for at least Star Wars. They they are like spending a [ __ ] ton of money to promote Star Wars, The Mandalorian, and Grou because I think they're so desperate. This has to stick. This has to make money. They are just over the top promoting on this. I I've seen it seems to be like be much more aggressive than I've seen with other Star Wars films.
>> Subway is not saying one Disney is also a justification for further layoffs as it was when streamlining the various marketing units. Yeah.
>> So they're going to use that as a reason to get rid of people. Like yeah, we don't need like a 100 different marketing people. But the problem is Disney is such a large company and a lot of the uh appendages that they bought like Marvel and Star Wars don't fit neatly into the Disney ecosystem.
>> Mhm.
>> And the problem is they're trying to disnify this stuff and it's not it's not working very well.
>> Well, what's interesting too is one Disney you have him in charge of CEO and you have Dana Walden in charge of TV and movies. How's that going to work?
>> Yeah. Right.
>> One Disney I mean she's that she's have to be making sure she's under him. Is that the way to keep her at her place?
>> I Or it could be the other way around.
Who knows? Maybe she's the Phantom Menace. Who knows?
>> Uh, number three. Using advanced technology to power our storytelling and increase monetization and returns.
>> AI, you're fired.
>> Yep. Translation. AI is coming in fast.
This is going to be the most disruptive aspect of the tomorrow agenda.
developing and deploying AI across the company's platforms into animation and effects heavy studio divisions will be as unpopular as it is necessary to compete with aggressive competitors like Amazon and Netflix. It's funny because they were talking to to Favro about the upcoming Oswald the Lucky Rabbit show for Disney Plus. And while they are doing some elements of it in LA, they're doing a lot of the animation in Spain.
>> And they're doing some in LA and some in in their Canadian studio, but a lot of it seems to be heading to Spain.
>> Yeah, of course.
>> In a lot of ways, they don't have to deal with the unions. They don't have to deal with the ecosystem in Glendale, which is pretty toxic right now. So, yeah. Yeah. Of course they are. Of course they are. Eventually, what's going to happen is they're going to make the stuff wherever it's the cheapest to make the stuff and we'll have the Disney animation studio, but it's just going to be kind of a name only. Like, we're not going to be having a lot of the day-to-day, I don't think.
>> I mean, it'll probably be like story boards and things like that, you know.
>> Oh, yeah. Yeah. The decision-m will be there, but it's it's not going to be, you know, like back in Walt's day where you had, you know, rooms full of animators just hunched over a desk and Yeah. That's not going to happen.
>> Yeah.
So what he's not saying, nobody knows how AI and interactivity is going to play out. Of course, Tech Golias changed their goals and agendas quickly as Disney has learned with Open AI and Sora. Yeah, >> I would not put my money I would not put my money all in on AI or one unified anything.
>> No, I think this could be a huge disaster for them and they need to watch it because what they got lucky. They got lucky during the pandemic that they had Disney Plus. If they didn't have Disney Plus, >> right, >> they would have been screwed. Completely screwed.
>> That's the only thing that saved them.
And here's the thing, like, okay, so one unified everything, everything's together on one app, one place. Okay, so before if if your Disney Plus went down, you could still book a trip. You could still shop on Disney Plus. You could still do all those things. And you know, and if your Disney, you know, my Disney experience went down, no big deal. You could still watch Disney Plus. You can still, if you're all connected into one thing, it goes down. It takes down everything at once.
Now, it's interesting going back to the Deadline article. They're talking about, you know, oh, the Disney Cruise Line, they just launched the uh Disney Adventure. Well, they kicked uh they kicked passengers off of the the Disney Adventure. And I guess I don't think they went into details as to what was going on. They said >> they didn't say what. They just said there was an issue, technical issue or something. And they basically gave everybody a refund and then 50% off of another rebooking, >> a mechanical issue and uh engineering that the engineering team could not fix.
So, well, you didn't want another Titanic, right? So, I guess that's a good thing, right? But, um, yeah. So, that's I don't know. Um, I I just think they're potentially with the economy being the way that it is and everything Disney does being contingent on people having extra money and people are tightening their belts with streaming and stuff, too. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen. thinking how mad these people would probably be in the cruise ship cuz they got boarded and everything and then they had to be but you some of these people probably flew the whole way over there >> or flew from other places, you know, to come in and that's great. You get your money back for your the cruise and then 50% off the next one. But you don't get your money back for your plane trip, your plane tickets and then you have to reschedule everything to get back home.
>> Yeah. Um and that's a risk you always take though, right? I mean every time you travel I mean you never know what's going to happen, what's going to be open. I know people get pissed. They would go they would plan a trip to Disney World or Disneyland and like their favorite ride would be down and they only >> happens all the time.
>> Yeah. I mean it's it's just it goes with the territory. So be prepared for disappointment. Doesn't matter where you go. It's not even a Disney thing. It's like wherever you go things happen. But uh that's why you get travel insurance.
Are we going to wrap this up?
>> Yes.
>> All right. So please subscribe for more pop culture news views and rants. We'll talk later.
>> Bye.
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