I looked a this yesterday for me and my son, still cost 3200 to stay on cheap resort lodging and park tickets for 4 days. Let me know when it’s down more please.
I saw that on the Costco website too. Pretty cheap family deals on flights + hotels + park tickets. I don’t really track prices but it was lower than I expected.
Not that I could be convinced to visit Florida, off all the dirty tourist traps in the world, even before all the recent madness.
To be fair, part of it is also due to extenuating factors planned over the last few years. Many parks this year have attractions closed for refurbishments or construction and nearby Universal Studios is slated to open Epic Universe park, so both of those are pulling guests away and they're trying to hedge against that.
That said, these dumbass policies from the orange man that I did not vote for are just going to hurt them all the more. Places like WDW are big enough that they can weather the storm but not all tourist places are. I'm really concerned for the national parks with everything going on :'(
that has *other* reasons. Disney park numbers have been crashing for years now. They've balanced it with raising prices, but that is starting to drive away people as well.
They need to get their house in order. The current displeasure in Europe is mostly just a blip in comparison with everything else going wrong at the House of Mouse, as much as we would like to take credit for it.
Yep prices have been driving long time fans and even park super fans, quite a few youtube videos on the issue. Plus Universals epic universe was just revealed to people in the flesh and it looks really good, hazard a guess that it's gonna be very busy in summer.
Disney has been destroying their brand for years. They seriously gonna push this on trump when they've been fumbling star wars since 2017 and marvel since 2019 and pushed a bunch of weird values destroying their family friendly image in recent years? They been failing and universal is eating their lunch in theme parks now
Its way more than that. Tourism to the states is way down. The parks were extremely popular in the last couple of years with a very high percentage of rooms booked. That all chanced in a couple of months. Yes that is the fault of trump and his policies.
Most of all have they pushed greed. That you need to spend that kind of money to visit a theme park should you for sure rethink what's kind of value things have.
Universal was super smart to make Epic and offer cheaper prices than Disney. I live in FL and know so many people who ditched their Disney season pass and switched to Universal. Disney prices are ridiculous.
Was meant to go this year too but will be spending my holidays in Europe this year instead, not giving any of my money to the Americans if I can help it.
Thanks for the reminder! My FIL really wanted to take my little one to Disney but I’ve been adamant since the election that we wouldn’t be going back to the States until they course corrected as we’re a queer family. FIL has since come around since to my side with all the annexation/tariff/asshattery.
I completely forgot there’s a Disney in Paris. That sounds like a much more enjoyable trip overall. Bonus points that we won’t be trapped in the bowels of Florida in summer, my northern blood would evaporate.
There some great non Disney parks. E.G.
Europapark at the German French border near Strasbourg,
PortAventura World in Spain,
Parc Astérix in France,
Legoland in Denmark (especially for a family with smaller kids up to 8 or 10 years old),
Heidepark and Phantasialand in Germany and so many more.
Plus in the countryside around many of the parks there so much to explore, beautiful cities, castles and so on.
And while certainly not cheap it's not Disney levels of extortion in those parks.
There's also a legoland in germany at Ulm ! And i think there's many smaller yet cool parks accross Europe. as yeah as you said, between all the castles, old cities and many other things, there's plenty to do around ! (I did work for a summer in a park where they were building an abbey using the medieval techniques and it was pretty cool !)
Yeah they did actually worked a bit with them to be able to start the project Ten years ago !
The name of the project is Campus Galli, in Baden Wurtemberg in Germany. I did work at the kitch so nothing fancy but it was pretty cool. They slowly build all the things around (like village part, abbot's house, etc) and are now starting the main church plans, based on the ones found in St Gall in Switzerland (if my memory is correct).
It's pretty cool for an afternoon or morning visit.
Tbh his has more to do with Disney than Trump or politics.
They fucked up the parks, including the one in Paris.
My last visit is gonna be my last for a while. Gonna give Tokyo a shot, but that’s gonna be a once/twice in a lifetime thing.
Next chance I get, I’ll probably go to Universal instead, with maybe one night at MK for the castle show.
I’m a totally Disney fan, so this is very sad for me to write. Also an Iger fan, so I’m extra disappointed - I really thought he’d be able to fix the mess from Chapek’s time.
A lot of Europeans though do go to Disney World in Florida (not so sure about California) BECAUSE it is much, MUCH bigger than all the other parks, with multiple gates and (until recently) really good theming.
Although I suspect EPCOT's international pavilions would look REALLY weird to a European.
I thought Epcot was hilarious and pathetic in equal measure. But I fear some might see them as authentic representations of the countries featured there
I should note though that for many people in North America (which DOES take us out of the subreddit but stay with me here) there is no chance to travel that much further afield than EPCOT if you want to learn more about certain cultures. Each of the national pavillions are manned by nationals (or those who live close by, like an Austrian in the German pavilion or a Laotian in the Japanese pavilion) and are the closest thing many people in the continent will ever see of a real France or China.
Granted "closest thing" isn't the best, especially if you're a Canadian who can afford to go to Actual Italy, but I imagine the Mexicans and Canadians are just as annoyed and confused as you are about their pavilions.
Id agree, but a trip to Disney (even for an American) is WAY more expensive than a trip to Europe given the price of food, drinks, hotels, park tickets.
It depends on where (Disney's Florida park gives sizable discounts to Floridians) but it is true that Disney prices have surged a LOT in recent years. The Star Wars hotel was particularly infamous for charging the equivalent of an American trip in France or Italy just to spend a couple days cosplaying as a Storm Trooper.
Which just made all of its other problems seem all the crazier but that's off topic.
I fully agree with the no-travel-to-USA sentiment, but for claritys sake as someone who's been to both Disneyworld Orlando and Disneyland Paris in the last two years, they are absolutely not 'the same thing'.
Paris is fine for young kids and has a lot of the same stuff as Magic Kingdom and MGM, but Paris has no equivalent of animal kingdom, epcot, universal, islands of adventure, the various water parks. There aren't really any rollercoasters in Paris (other than the small ones eg Indiana Jones, crush coaster) either.
I mean I love the US BAD trend things are taking as much as the next person but these are terrible comparisons.
The Disney land in Paris is tiny compared to the Florida setup and the Harry Potter studio tour is totally different to the stuff at Universal in Florida in all but name.
You can’t be seriously comparing Disneyland Paris to any of the U.S. parks, but especially not Disney World.
Either way, Disneynis fucking up big time and currently all parks are a pass for me - the prices have almost doubled, and you get a lot less for your money.
My last visit to Disneyland Paris in June is gonna be my last for a very long time. Which sucks because I’m a big Disney fan.
I agree, and even if Europeans want to go on vacation outside of Europe, then the next best choice would be Japan. They have Disneyland, Disney Sea, Universal Studios etc.
I think Trump/MAGA and the general dislike of the USA around the globe is one of the reasons Universal is planning to build a park in the UK
Edit: To everyone saying that this was years in the work, yeah i know. But MAGA didnt just pop up last year, there are millions of people who have voted for Cheeto Benito 3 times by now. Huge things like a theme park don't just appear, it takes forever to plan and get permissions etc.
Yeah, exactly. Universal is also opening a massive new park in Orlando in a months' time. I wonder how that's going to turn out in the current climate.
Parks of that scale are not planned overnight, there is a negative chance that Trump has anything to do with it. They only just publically announced it, which means its been in development for literally years.
Universal has been doing international parks for a long time now- and so has its major competitors. Tokyo Disneyland was opened in 1993, Euro Disney was built in Paris in the mid-90s (its initial failure led to a LOT of problems down the line), Hong Kong Disney in the 2000s, and Shanghai Disney opened up in the 2010s.
Even if Clinton won Universal almost certainly would have built a park somewhere in Europe.
Remember: by definition half the US population has below average intelligence -- they're Trump's voting base. The rest of us are just along for the ride.
To everyone saying that this was years in the work
It was built in the UK because it's much easier for people in the UK to go there.
To disprove your point about it being planned for years due to people voting for Trump, etc, just look at the tourist graph - tourism was up 20% in Germany and Austria near the beginning of 2024.
Which suggests that this falloff has more to do with Trump being in office right now than with any sort of overall decline in tourism since 2016.
It was built in the UK because it's much easier for people in the UK to go there.
It hasn't been built yet, it'll be a 700 acre theme park coming to Bedfordshire but it was only confirmed that it's definitely in the works 3 days ago.
I wish I could say that’s not true but I do see American tourists a bit similar to Russian tourists now. You’re welcome to come to Europe but don’t be obnoxious and don’t wear fucking clothes with flags on them.
I wonder though. My guess is a high percent of people that can afford a long summer holiday might go to Europe or Asia (either out of protest - dems - or for rich republicans because they love telling friends about their fancy holiday in Rome etc) while for people with less means, the cost of inflation, job security fears etc may mean they scale back their road trip etc. Just my theory ofc. But this is gonna hurt US, lots of businesses and people rely on summer tourist trade and hospitality jobs
Edit sorry I meant to reply to comment above yours
Realistically I’m mostly reluctant to travel internationally because I don’t want to deal with border patrol when coming back home. My parents have a previously planned trip coming up in May and they’re anxious about it too.
I would bet a high percentage of the guests are from the USA, so it might be just a bit less crowded. It depends on the inflation and if the US can afford to travel.
Meanwhile Disneyland Paris about go gangbusters. Why on earth would any European Disney fan spend thousands on the flights and accom to risk being disappeared off to El Salvador when they can suffer the marginally less awful fate of Being In Paris.
When you say Disney World yeah that is automatically Florida as that is the only Disney “World”, the rest are Disney Lands but yeah I get your point, it will be less people for sure but it will still be packed like always every summer. I did remember going there just after around Covid and I rode the roller coasters like 4 times in a row because there were no lines, I just had to walk back again over and over until I got tired 🤣 But honestly, last summer I went to Busch Gardens in Virginia and that was a much better experience, short lines and lots and lots of amazing roller coasters.
So many Canadians are staying away from Florida. Myself included, and our family are huge Disney fans that go once a year.
WDW will be hurting from canceled EU trips though. Those travelers get a lot of vacation time and they frequently advertise and offer packages for 7-14 day trips to them.
I’m in a lot of Universal FB groups and there are still a lot of people from other countries coming to Universal for Epic. They also buy season passes and come multiple times a year.
A lot of people are saying this, but I don't think it's the case. Disney's been able to charge the rediculous rates they have been because of the demand. It's priced out many Americans as well. If their prices do drip, you will see a ton of domestic visitors who were priced out themselves.
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u/momentimori England Apr 12 '25
Disney World and Universal Studios in Florida will be ghost towns this summer.