Disney / Doc

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

We got out pretty cheap on my wedding all things considered, but it took some doing. Got Spindletop b/c father in law was a member, which was super cheap for a facility of that caliber (around $5K maybe? ). They also did the food (they require it) and that was reasonable. So that saved a ton right there. even with that the other events rentals, the flowers, etc. it was still a bunch more than $25K I'm sure. I can't recall the exact number.

The numbers on a wedding don't scale readily, so 100 versus 25 doesn't really translate. Your fixed costs are big. The reception venue, the church, the flowers, the music, etc. are all basically fixed. Putting 100 in the church versus 25 is the same cost.

The only variable cost item really is the food. So at $25K for 25, it may only be $35 or $40K for 100, or $50 etc. But won't be $100.

And my wedding numbers are 30 years old. And we had an inside track for a very cheap and super nice venue. Now we did have a LOT more people (think 200ish). I won't be shopping I hope for a while for such an event, but I'm thinking $25K base price is pretty reasonable for something at a venue like Disney and all inclusive, and guessing that if you went to 50 or 60 that the cost wouldn't be linear to that $25K number.

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On my daughters, cost for was food and open bar was about $125 per peson, with a min of 80 people. They gave us the ballroom. The prewedding reception was extra. The ceremony was at the Jupiter Lighthouse which was $2500. Overall we were probably around 40K for just over 100 people.

They looked into a Disney Wedding. It was far from inexpensive. I don't recall the exact numbers but it was far more than we spent.

My wedding likely put your in the very expensive range. We flew into Louisville from Auburn (was my freshman year) on Thurs and home on Sunday. Were married in my church so we made a "donation". The minister who officiated took nothing as she was a long time friend. Reception at the VFW or some town hall. I suspect it was well under $5K for the whole thing.

The honeymoon was a night at the Ramada on Hurstbourne road and an early flight back to AL. We have since made up for the lack of a Honeymoon. Think it was one of our trips to Paris.

Ramada Inn Hurstbourne was quite the place in the late 70s and 80s. Ginger Callahan played with her band in the bar on a regular basis. No one could sing Mule Skinner Blues quite like Ginger.

This came up on one the pages I follow on FB and I remembered a Disney wedding discussion.

https://allears.net/2020/11/26/how-m...n5K4&fs=e&s=cl


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My Daughter is a Disney Girl. I have a feeling it will be a small affair with about 20 total people. Likely at the Boardwalk on Crescent Lake gazebo...with a reception in epcot likely by the bridge between France and Great Britain or in front of the Italy PAvillion.....ugh.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

My Daughter is a Disney Girl. I have a feeling it will be a small affair with about 20 total people. Likely at the Boardwalk on Crescent Lake gazebo...with a reception in epcot likely by the bridge between France and Great Britain or in front of the Italy PAvillion.....ugh.... $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Thank you for the invite. I vote for Canada so you can buy me a steak and I can cross that one off my list. :4chsmu1:

Virginia, We will be there in October. Will you be there? I think Oct 10-15th.

WDW is a weird place right now. You can't just pick a park and go there--you have to make a reservation for a park. And they limit the number of reservations for each park, so if you're going during a relatively busy (not slow) time of year, you may not get a reservation for the park you want. For example, we took relatives to WDW in late April. Not an especially busy time of year, but Epcot was the only park available for all of our days but one (we went to Hollywood Studios that day because our guests are big Star Wars fans).

There have been reports of people walking up to a park ticket window, buying a ticket and being upset they can't get in that park that day. They didn't know about the park reservation system and that park was booked up. You can hop to a different park if you bought that feature, but you can't hop until 2 pm.

Then there's the new Genie+, which is basically WDW charging for what used to be free (FastPass+). Lots of people walking around the parks looking at their phones as they try to reserve a Genie+ reservation for a ride. And some rides aren't available on Genie+; for those (e.g. 7 Dwarfs Mine Train, Star Wars Rise of the Resistance) you either do those standby or you buy an Individual Lightning Lane reservation. If you can get one--they're often sold out early in the day. It's just a lot different than it used to be.

The reservations and Genie+ are enough to make me not want to go. Plus having to worry about booking rides at 7:00am. And as you mentioned having to be on your phone all day to schedule rides.

My wife does not deal with this so it does not bother her and she says we are going. So, we are going :)

^Our son works at Disney and we have a place in central FL now, so we bought FL resident APs to hang out with him at the parks. When we do that it's usually just a chance to get together and not try to get a lot done. The current system makes that tougher than it used to be (and should be, IMHO).

Wife & daughter there last week of Sept and leave Oct 1. I’m going to my Disney in Pinehurst!!!

My next Disney is February.

And yes, both Park reservations and Genie+ SUCK!

Take your news is they don’t suck as bad as the current CEO or Board of Directors

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Originally Posted by KentuckyWildcat

Virginia, We will be there in October. Will you be there? I think Oct 10-15th.

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sounds like a lot more trouble than I care to engage in. I don't mind a business raising prices when they are very popular but raising prices and raising inconvenience seems a bit much. Normally you pay more to have less trouble.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

sounds like a lot more trouble than I care to engage in. I don't mind a business raising prices when they are very popular but raising prices and raising inconvenience seems a bit much. Normally you pay more to have less trouble.

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It is amazing. No one likes the price increases or the changes. Yet the place is still over flowing with people.

Why do I think of Snow White every time I see this thread?

Disney World 'enthusiasts' say theme park has 'lost its magic'

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Originally Posted by dan_bgblue

Disney World 'enthusiasts' say theme park has 'lost its magic'

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I'm of 2 minds on this. On one hand, they're doing what any business does when demand for their product is high: they raise prices. They have an obligation to their shareholders and I understand that.

OTOH, they upsell everything.

--Parking: used to be you could take the closest spot possible. If you showed up early enough, you could park as close as you want (or if you had AAA, they had special AAA reserved parking, which was nice). Now you have to pay extra to park closer. Hotel parking used to be free--now they charge you to park your vehicle there during your stay.

--FastPass: They've gone from paper passes where if you knew how the system worked and were willing to do some extra walking, you could do a lot of attractions with very little wait. Then they went to FastPass+ which limited you to 3 initially, but was still free. Now they have Genie+, which costs $15/day, or Individual Lightning Lane where you have to pay $15 or so for certain attractions that aren't available on Genie+.

--Dining: they've cut options and increased prices so much over the years that table service is not a realistic option for a lot of families. If we eat in the parks, we only eat fast food (Disney calls it Counter Service) or snacks.

--Shuttle: Used to be that Disney had a free shuttle to take you to your resort from the airport and deliver your luggage to your room. That's gone.

IMHO Disney's decided to ignore the old poker adage "You can shear a sheep many times but skin it only once." They're trying to milk as much $ out of the one-time guests, even if it makes it a less welcome environment for those of us who remember how Disney used to do things.

But we still go! We just do it differently, as discussed above.

For what it costs now you can book a heck of a vacation in a lot of other places. I doubt I'll ever be there again in my lifetime. I have been to what was Downtown Disney when I was in Orlando, but that was super easy to get to and you just went and parked and went to your restaurant or bar. I doubt that is the same either.

I'd be curious to see how it has changed since I was there long long ago, but not curious enough to drop $5,000 or more on it. You can book a nice place in peak season in a lot of places for that kind of money. Or I can sit at home and drink better quality booze. This sterno is wearing thin, and takes forever to get through my fish tank filter.

^Yep, we used to do a one-week stay at one of the resorts onsite when they had good deals. We planned that trip like a military operation and got a lot done. It would cost so much more now and we wouldn't get as much done. There's a big world out there and a lot of ways to spend your vacation $.

Florida trips with pre teen and teen age Daughter. We gave her options and showed fer what we could do. She never chose the mouse thing. We would have done that once had she wanted to, or we offered multiple Florida vacations that would include, Sea W0rld, Busch Gardens, Theater of the Sea (dolphin show and swim with dolphins) Mangrove Kayak Tour, and Key West Dolphin/ Shark watching tour, plus 3 days of beach time in Tampa/Clearwater, and or jet skiing/para sailing there or in the Keys.

To this day she has never regretted not contributing to the Mouse, and her family, now 16 year old girl, 13 old son, and 11 year old son, have repeated her vacations 3 times and she always comes home telling me how happy she is that she got good training when she was a child. She says she never missed all the crowds and the terrible attraction lines in the heat. She has lots of friends that make that make the annual trek to pay homage to the Mouse and she listens quietly to all their good and bad experiences. She says that she just listens quietly and does not chime in as she does not want to contribute to overcrowding her favorite Florida vacation spots.

We went to Europe for less than it cost to go to Disney now. Unfortunately demand has them outpriced for those who arent locals and can buy a season pass and go often. We had season passes last year but i think they are about to run out, and it takes 3 trips to get your moneys worth. Its just too busy, too hard to navigate their system, and too costly for out of town repeat guests so we are the ones that got left out in the new Disney. Fine by me, i've had my fill over the years, i bet we've been 20 times because my wife loved it.

Our first few trips were great. Kids were small and we did not know what to expect with them, but they loved it and it really made vacationing easy. It did not break the bank and it was easy to plan. It some ways it was easier and more relaxing than the beach with kids. Now it cost more, harder to plan, less relaxing, and it has certainly lost some magic.

My in-laws are helping with the next trip. Or I'm not sure we could afford to go back. Especially now with my wife's hours at work cut back to virtually zero and her looking at a career change to teach. I'm not sure we will get to go back. Our last beach trip was not exactly cheap either. We did book it late so maybe that was part of the cost. Vacationing may look very different for us the next few years.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

For what it costs now you can book a heck of a vacation in a lot of other places. I doubt I'll ever be there again in my lifetime. I have been to what was Downtown Disney when I was in Orlando, but that was super easy to get to and you just went and parked and went to your restaurant or bar. I doubt that is the same either.

I'd be curious to see how it has changed since I was there long long ago, but not curious enough to drop $5,000 or more on it. You can book a nice place in peak season in a lot of places for that kind of money. Or I can sit at home and drink better quality booze. This sterno is wearing thin, and takes forever to get through my fish tank filter.

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I have not desire to see the mouse ever again. Ditto for all of Orlando.

We have opted to never buy Disney passes again, unless we are blessed with grandchildren. For us, it is Universal due to their current reasonable policies. Add the new Disney woke policies, which have turned many former Disney die hands into thanks but no thinkers, Disney is feeling a bit of a financial pinch

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Originally Posted by Doc

Disney is feeling a bit of a financial pinch

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I keep seeing people say this, but I'm not sure they really are. Until recently the parks have been crowded and despite their woke movies being a bust, I think they recently passed Netflix for Subscribers for Disney Plus.

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Originally Posted by KentuckyWildcat

I keep seeing people say this, but I'm not sure they really are. Until recently the parks have been crowded and despite their woke movies being a bust, I think they recently passed Netflix for Subscribers for Disney Plus.

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Disney + success IMO is because they have such a huge library, but not b/c of their newer releases. That will catch up to them.

What has happened to Marvel and Star Wars ought to be illegal.

I have Disney + but only b/c it's part of a bundle so I can have Hulu and ESPN+ so I can watch UK sports. Cheaper to add it than just the other 2. That's not really an endorsement of their programming, and they probably need to figure that out if they want long term success.

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Originally Posted by CitizenBBN

Disney + success IMO is because they have such a huge library, but not b/c of their newer releases. That will catch up to them.

What has happened to Marvel and Star Wars ought to be illegal.

I have Disney + but only b/c it's part of a bundle so I can have Hulu and ESPN+ so I can watch UK sports. Cheaper to add it than just the other 2. That's not really an endorsement of their programming, and they probably need to figure that out if they want long term success.

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It should catch up with them. It seems to be. Even the non woke movies have not been good. Surely people will get tired of this at some point. But this is one area I'm hopeful Chapek fixes. He is all about the dollar, so once that takes a hit, I hope he cuts out the woke BS.

Round 2 of Star Wars turned me away and I was already getting Marvel fatigue before they went completely woke.

*edit to add* The Supergirl (I know DC) series really soured me on the superhero shows/movies. That series turned into one big lecture.

Probably good news for Disney fans. Not everyone loved Iger, but I'm not sure anyone loves Chapek :)

I suspect they will use this to correct some changes fans do not like. But for those thinking Disney will become "affordable" again...I doubt the prices will go down. Not all of that was on Chapek.

https://allears.net/2022/11/20/break...6gEyspYqS1l1jM

Disney+ actually has some good quality programming right now. Andor is excellent. Willow looks promising and I am looking forward to watching Tim Allen in the Santa Clause Series. We watched DisEnchanted last night and I enjoyed... But they have to find a way to cut costs.

My guess is ESPN is going to be sold off .

Now, saying all that I want you to compare the C level positions and titles at Disney to Apple:

https://craft.co/the-walt-disney/executives

https://www.apple.com/leadership/


Notice anything there?

Apple has people on line 1 and 2 that are experts about their products they sell and develop.

Disney has Diversity, Compliance and Corporate Social Responsibility.


Does anyone doubt that Apple is a Socially aware and forward company? I don't think so. But they fully understand their primary goal is to develop and sell their product first.

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Originally Posted by VirginiaCat

We watched DisEnchanted last night and I enjoyed...

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Doubt I take time to watch it but the girls really enjoyed it.

The Mouse P'oed the wrong guy this time.

DeSantis is protecting the regular citizens from the potential of having to pay the Mouse's 700 million in debt thru the Reedy Creek Corporation

There will be untold years of litigation on this before any changes go into effect. My WAG is it will be settled between Disney and the state long before that.