How Much Disney Can America’s Middle Class Afford in 2025?

Disney theme parks are an aspirational destination for many families, but the rising costs often lead to questions about affordability. As someone focused on saving time and money at theme parks, I’m often quoted in outlets like Bloomberg TV, the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Axios, The Telegraph, Skift, BBC Radio 1, and more in 2024 (If you’re reading this Kai Ryssdal: len@touringplans.com).

Before those interviews happen, it’s often useful to explain how the Disney parks work these days, and how Disney policy puts many families into “spend time or spend money” decisions. 

For example, when talking about hotel options, all reporters understand that staying at a budget off-site hotel is cheaper than staying at a Disney resort. But fewer reporters – and the general public – are familiar with the Early Theme Park Entry perk that Disney resort guests get, allowing entry into Disney’s theme parks 30 minutes before those off-site hotel guests. 

For off-site guests, the impact of Early Theme Park Entry is that once you’re allowed into the parks, you’ll find thousands of Disney hotel guests already ahead of you in line for the rides. That dramatically increases the time off-site hotel guests have to wait in line and reduces the number of rides they can experience in a day. 

Setting aside discussion of hotel quality and convenience, an understandable way to present that on-site/off-site decision is this:

That kind of short summary is helpful to communicate quickly. Another example I use is this:

Disney prices its theme parks for the top 20% of American households by income.

People seem to ‘get’ that sentence, as if it puts in words what they’ve been feeling for years. And it’s specific and easy to understand.

Those fifteen words represent weeks of analysis on over 150 data sources. We built spreadsheets, wrote computer programs, and created dozens of ‘what-if’ scenarios to arrive at that conclusion.

And so, the point of this post is to give you the not-simple version of that one sentence. To walk you through, exactly, why we think Disney prices its theme parks for the top 20-percent of American households by income. 

We think it’s a fun exercise to dive into this data and we know it will be for some readers. But hopefully this can demonstrate the more general way TouringPlans approaches its unique place at the intersection of Disney and data.

This is a long article. Here are links to various sections:

• How much Disney can American families in the lowest 20% of incomes afford?
• How much Disney can American families in the second 20% of incomes afford?
• How much Disney can American middle-class families afford?
• How much Disney can American families in the fourth 20% of incomes afford?
• How much Disney can America’s wealthiest families afford?

Consumer Expenditure Survey Data on America’s Travel Spending

Let’s start by showing how American families are spending their time and money on travel. We’ll also look at how inflation affects travel costs. And we’ll use all of that to show how much of a Disney World vacation those families can afford.

The primary data set for this post is the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey. The Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) is compiled annually and includes data on American consumer household income, demographics, and spending. The most recent CES data was released in September, 2024 and runs through 2023.

Many CES data categories are reported by year and by household income. This makes it straightforward to compare spending on various activities, such as hotels and other lodging, by income segments.

As a bit of foreshadowing, the CES data indicate that the top 20% of American households by income spent more on travel in 2023 than the bottom 80% of households combined:

That’s happened every year since 2010 except 2018. So maybe Disney prices its parks for the richest 20% of Americans for the same reason that Willie Sutton robbed banks: Because that’s where the money is.

The BLS website provides multiple ways to search the consumer expenditure data on your own. I prefer the BLS Data Finder because you can enter category names into the search bar:

Here’s another interesting trend in the data:

Adjusted for inflation, high-income households spent more on travel in 2023 than 2022. Middle-income households spent about the same, and low-income households spent less.

As we’ll discuss below, this might represent a cap on what Disney can charge for food in its restaurants and hotels at its theme parks.

Before we do that, let’s define what we mean by quintile. Then we’ll explain how we know the data we’re using matches the government’s definition of travel.

What’s a Quintile?

Much of the BLS data is segmented into five groups of whatever the data represents. Each of those 5 groups is a quintile that holds around 20% – one-fifth – of the things we’re talking about.

For example, there are 30 teams in Major League Baseball. If we divided them into quintiles based on attendance, there’d be 5 quintiles and 6 teams in each quintile:

• Group 1 (Highest attendance): Los Angeles Dodgers, Philadelphia, San Diego, NY Yankees, Atlanta, and the Chicago Cubs
• Group 2 (2nd-highest attendance): St. Louis, Houston, Toronto, Boston, Texas, San Francisco
• Group 3 (3rd-highest attendance): LA Angels, Seattle, Colorado, Milwaukee, Arizona, NY Mets
• Group 4 (4th-highest attendance): Baltimore, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Washington, Minnesota, Detroit
• Group 5 (Lowest attendance): Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Chicago White Sox, Tampa, Miami, Oakland

The BLS data for 2023 says that there are around 134,556,000 households in the United States.

Let’s say we wanted to split those 134,556,000 households into five groups of about the same size. The first thing we’d do is divide 134,556,000 by 5, which is around 26,911,000.

That means each of our five groups is a quintile that has around 26,911,000 households. And sure enough, the Consumer Expenditure Survey data shows around 26,911,000 households in each quintile (the CES numbers are shown in thousands):

Interpreting and Verifying the BLS Data

The BLS uses CES data from these categories to calculate vacation spending:

• Admission to sports events on out of town trips
• Airline fares
• Aircraft rental on out of town trips
• Alcoholic beverages purchased on trips
• Auto/truck rental on out of town trips
• Boat and trailer rentals on out of town trips
• Food on out of town trips
• Food prepared by consumer unit on out of town trips
• Gasoline on out of town trips
• Intercity bus faresIntercity train fares
• Local transportation on out of town trips
• Lodging on out of town trips
• Motor oil on out of town trips
• Motorcycle rental on out of town trips
• Movie and other admissions on out of town trips
• Other entertainment services on out of town trips (see note below)
• Parking fees on out of town trips
• Participant sports on out of town trips
• Recreation expenses on out of town trips
• Rental of campers on out of town trips
• Rental of other vehicles on out of town trips
• Ship fares
• Taxi fares and limousine services on out of town trips
• Tolls on out of town trips

I verified these categories with the BLS by email. 

Then I double-checked that by downloading the BLS data and comparing the totals to various BLS reports on travel expenses.

If you’d like to look at the data yourself:

• Here are links to the BLS data for each source, broken out by category and income quintile, plus other data sources
• Here’s the spreadsheet I created that includes all of these numbers by category and income quintile

Data Notes and Considerations

Note #1 The BLS uses “out of town trip” and “travel” interchangeably, so we’ll do the same. But let’s be clear: trips, travel, and vacations are not the same thing.

Plenty of out of town trips are not vacations. Weddings, family reunions, and funerals are examples of out of town trip expenses included in the BLS data. Many people consider those obligations, not vacations.

That means that Americans’ actual vacation spending is probably less than the BLS numbers we’re using.

Note #2 The BLS says data for the category “Other Entertainment Services on out of town trips by income quintile” shouldn’t be used for 2020 to 2023 because the Relative Standard Error is too high. I’m assuming this is because of reduced travel during the pandemic, and this being a small number to begin with. I’ve used 0s for those in the spreadsheet. The most recent values, from 2019, ranged from $1 to $3 across all income quintiles, so I don’t think using zero makes a material difference.

Note #3 Another thing to consider is that the average number of people in each household goes up with income quintile. Keeping everything else equal, you’d expect larger households to spend more on travel just because more people are involved. We’ll see this in detail when we talk about the second-highest income bracket below.

Note #4 The BLS’ travel data comes from detailed surveys and spending diaries completed by thousands of families each year. That’s a large enough sample size to cover almost any behavior you can think of. For example, I verified with the BLS that the data includes families who spent $0 this year on travel because they’re saving up for a big trip in the future.

The CES data also includes the number of people in each consumer unit by income quintile. Here’s the chart:

I’ll reference these numbers in the calculations below.

How Does Inflation Factor Into Travel Spending?

Inflation is an important part of any conversation that compares spending across years. By adjusting for inflation, we’re often able to make better apples-to-apples comparisons. I’m using the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Inflation Calculator as the source of inflation data between 2010 and 2024.

We’ll use those data to see how much things in past years would cost today if their prices increased exactly the same as inflation.

America’s Households by Income Quintiles

The CES data includes data on Americans’ pre-tax household income. This is helpful for showing how much money each household quintile has for vacations.

The average pre-tax income for American households in 2023 by quintile is in this chart:

What is America’s Middle Class?

I’m using the CES group labeled “Third 20 percent” as America’s middle class. The third group is the middle of a group of five so that’s a straightforward approach. 

Alternate definitions are possible, of course. We could say that the second, third, and fourth 20% are the “middle class.” I’m avoiding that because the income ranges are so wide it’s hard to talk specifics. The choices that families face when they earn $40,000 annually are different from families that earn $116,000 – almost three times as much. 

As noted in the chart above, America’s middle class had an average pre-tax income of around $71,057 in 2023.

Americans’ Vacation Spending By Household Income

Here’s how much Americans have spent on travel per year from 2010 through 2023. The data are separated by income quintiles. Dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation.

The average American middle class family spent $1,887 on travel in 2023. And we know there are around 2.5 people per household in that family, which works out to around $755 per person per year for travel. 

We’ll include the amounts spent on transportation in most scenarios below. For example, if we’re assuming our family is going to drive to Walt Disney World, then any money set aside for airline flights can be used for other travel expenses.

Extrapolating Vacation Spending from 2023 to 2025

We won’t have CES data for 2024 until late 2025. We know from the BLS that consumer prices were up around 2.4% from September, 2023 to September 2024. And we know from the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve that $1 in 2023 has the buying power of $1.03 in 2024. We’ll use the Federal Reserve’s number for consistency.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis is projecting 2025 inflation to be around 2.5%, so we’ll use that Federal Reserve number for 2025 too.

We already know that Disney’s ticket and hotel prices for 2025 will be the most expensive in Disney’s history. And we want to project how much of a Disney vacation American families will be able to afford in 2025, since now is the time a lot of that vacation planning happens. Unfortunately, we won’t have CES data for 2024 until late 2025. 

For now we’ll assume people in 2025 will generally take the same kinds of vacations in 2024 and 2025 as they did in 2023, and adjust their spending to match inflation. I’ll explain next why I think that’s a safe bet.

Here are those inflation-adjusted numbers:

For the upper income groups, I think holding increases to something that just matches inflation is probably conservative. Vacation spending in the top 20% of American households increased by 7% from 2022 to 2023 after adjusting for inflation. Travel spending was up an inflation-adjusted 3% for the fourth 20% of American households too. There’s a good chance these quintiles will spend a bit more than we’re predicting.

The middle class’ spending on travel was essentially flat over the same period after accounting for inflation – up just $9 (not a typo – nine dollars) after that adjustment. So holding the increase in travel spend flat to inflation is probably a decent assumption for our middle class.

Travel spending dropped from 2023 to 2024 for the bottom 40% of American households after adjusting for inflation.

What Disney World Costs in 2025

This section forecasts what we think a typical Disney World vacation will cost in 2025. Disney’s already published some of those costs, and we’ll use those where we have them. 

Disney’s website shows its hotel rack rates for 2025. They’re a bit hard to find but once you do it’s easy to compare across months. Here’s an example for Disney’s All-Star Sports Resort:

Similarly, Disney’s website lists day-by-day theme park admission prices:

Disney’s website also has menus with current prices for most of its restaurants, including for virtually all of its fast food-type restaurants. Here’s an example from Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe in the Magic Kingdom:

Fun Fact TouringPlans tracks Disney’s hotel, ticket, and food prices in a historical database going back many years. You can go farther back – sometimes the late 1990s – with websites like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine as well. Here’s Cosmic Ray’s Menu from October 2006 – more than 18 years ago – courtesy of wdwinfo.com:

Hotel and ticket discounts are often available, but these are generally for trips that include multiple days of theme park admission and/or stays at a Disney-owned hotel. Discounts are generally less frequent for one- or two-day visits.

Disney World Sales Taxes and Hotel Taxes

Walt Disney World is so large that it spans two counties: Orange County and Osceola County. Each county has different rates for sales tax and hotel occupancy:

• Orange County has a 6.5% tax rate for sales and 12.5% for hotels
• Osceola County has a 7.5% tax rate for sales and 13.5% for hotels

We’ll do the appropriate tax calculations below.

Disney World Theme Park Admission Prices in 2025

The least expensive Disney theme park tickets allow guests to visit exactly one of Disney’s four theme parks per day. We’ll call these “base tickets” and use them as our standard for many scenarios. 

Base ticket prices are not constant – they vary in a way similar to airline tickets and change based on the day you travel and the park you want to see.

Here’s the current range of Disney World’s one-day base tickets in 2025, by park, including 6.5% sales tax and rounded to the nearest dollar. Remember that kids ages 3 to 9 count as “children” here, and kids under 3 are admitted for free:

• Magic Kingdom admission costs $153 to $212 for adults and $148 to $207 for children
• EPCOT admission costs $137 to $194 for adults and $132 to $201 for children
• Hollywood Studios admission costs $148 to $207 for adults and $143 to $189 for children
• Animal Kingdom admission costs $127 to $185 for adults and $121 to $180 for children

Disney’s website says the days with cheapest admission are in August and September 2025.

The least expensive two-day base tickets for Disney World in 2025 cost $264 for adults and $254 for children.

Disney World Theme Park Food Prices in 2025

Disney refers to its fast food restaurants as “Quick Service” and its sit-down restaurants as “Table Service.” We’ll use the same names.

As noted above, TouringPlans keeps track of virtually every menu item served at every Disney restaurant, food cart, kiosk, and stand. That’s over 180 menus just for Walt Disney World. 

We’ll use the average or median price for menu items unless otherwise noted. We’ll use prices from the kids’ menus where they’re available, too.

Quick Service Breakfast Costs in Walt Disney World

If our family is staying at an off-site hotel, we’ll assume that hotel has a free breakfast that the family will use to save money. 

When considering costs at a Disney hotel, a Quick Service breakfast for adults is something like Disney’s Bounty Platter, which includes eggs, homestyle potatoes, a small Mickey-shaped waffle, bacon or sausage, and a small biscuit:

We’ll also include a regular, refillable coffee for adults, for a total breakfast cost of $16.94 per adult. Disney’s standard scrambled egg breakfast combo for children costs $6.17 with tax.

Quick Service Lunch and Dinner Costs in Walt Disney World

Quick Service lunch and dinner for adults will be something like a hamburger or sandwich, side, and a fountain drink. Dessert won’t be included unless it’s part of the meal. 

We’ll estimate costs using Disney’s current menu prices at the Magic Kingdom’s Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, one of the largest fast-food restaurants in Walt Disney World. A cheeseburger, fries, and fountain drink costs $19.33 there. A “Kids’ Disney Check Meals” lunch costs $8.30 and includes two sides and a drink.

We’ll assume $19.33 for adults and $8.30 for children at Disney’s Quick Service locations for lunch and dinner.

Snack and Beverage Costs in Walt Disney World

We’ll assume these costs for snacks and beverages, including tax, based on Disney’s current menu prices:

• A 20 ounce bottle of soda costs $5.60 in the parks
• A 20 ounce bottle of water costs $4.26
• Snacks such as popcorn cost $5.86
  

Fun Fact Disney charges more for a Mickey-shaped pretzel sold in front of the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella Castle than for the exact same pretzel sold elsewhere in the park. This is an example of how Disney uses its unparalleled data analytics capabilities to increase park revenue. 

Disney Character Meal Costs

A Disney character meal is one where Disney characters visit your table for autographs and photos. These are popular with families who want to meet characters without enduring long waits in line.

The average Disney character meal costs $77.74 for adults with tax and 18% gratuity in late 2024. The average Disney character meal in late 2024 costs $50.17 per child with tax and 18% gratuity. 

Doing the math, a character meal with one adult and one child costs $128; it’s $206 for two adults and one child; and $256 for two adults and two children.

Here’s a spreadsheet with these costs as of November 2024.

Table Service Meal Costs in Walt Disney World

Disney’s Food & Bev team has worked for years to simplify, standardize, and consolidate their sit-down menus. One result of that effort is that many restaurants offer a single menu for both lunch and dinner. For this discussion on prices we’ll assume:

• A shared menu for both lunch and dinner
• Non-alcoholic drinks with meals
• Each adults will have an appetizer, entree, and dessert
• One adult and one child will share a single appetizer and dessert 
• Children ages 3-9 order from the kid’s menu if one is offered
• Sales tax of 6.5% and an 18% gratuity will be added

As I said above, TouringPlans tracks the price of virtually all items served across all menus in every Disney World dining location. Here are the average prices for different adult courses at Disney World’s table service restaurants as of mid-November 2024:

• Appetizer: $14.93 
• Entree: $32.07 
• Dessert: $12.34 
• Non-alcoholic beverage: $4.50

The average price for a child’s entree is $12.90. 

The Magic Kingdom’s Jungle Navigation Co Skipper Canteen is a good example of an average theme park table service meal. At $15 the Cachapas (corn pancakes) appetizer isn’t the most expensive; the $32 Char Sui Pork is the median entree by cost; and the desserts top out at $9.50. The median child’s entree of crispy or grilled chicken is $12.50.

Using those numbers, here are the table service meal costs for different family sizes, including tax and gratuity:

• The average sit-down meal costs $101 for one adult and one child
• It’s $181 for two adults and one child
• And it’s $202 for two adults and two children

Disney World and Orlando-Area Hotel Prices in 2025

Disney World’s hotels fall into five categories. Disney refers to its least expensive lodging options as Value resorts. Next is the Moderate category, followed by Deluxe hotels, the most expensive. Other options include Disney’s Vacation Club timeshare, and third-party hotels located within Walt Disney World.

For all of the Disney resorts below, we’re quoting the cheapest rooms available. These are typically labeled “Resort View” or “Standard View”. Disney describes them as having views of things like parking lots, courtyards, gardens, or rooftops. Many of them are fine. Some are not great.

Because Disney charges a premium for its hotel rooms, we built a free Disney Hotel Room View tool. Its floor-by-floor maps and 35,000 photos show the view from every Walt Disney World hotel room.

The cheapest Disney hotel rooms are usually found at Disney’s All-Star Resorts, in the Value category. Rates at Disney’s All-Star Resorts range from $133 to $305 per night in 2025 including tax and excluding discounts. 

Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort has the cheapest rates for 2025 in Disney’s Moderate resort category. Standard rooms at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort range from $260 to $470 per night including tax.

The least expensive hotel in Disney’s Deluxe category is the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Standard rooms at the Animal Kingdom Lodge start at $506 per night, including tax, and top out at $915.

A fourth category, Deluxe Villa, refers to Disney’s Vacation Club timeshare program. While it’s possible for the general public to stay at one of these timeshares and save money, the booking process and details are different enough from a standard hotel that many families won’t consider it. I won’t include it here.

The fifth category of Disney hotels includes the third-party brands located inside Walt Disney World. One of these is the Four Seasons Resort Orlando. The Four Seasons is the best hotel on Disney property. But its cheapest rooms start at around $1,250 per night in 2025, or more than 60% of American households will spend on travel in 2025. The Four Seasons Orlando is a fantastic hotel with outstanding service, but it’s not part of this discussion.

Likewise, the other third-party hotels in Walt Disney World have their own issues, mainly around price, hidden fees, dining, and inconvenient transportation. These issues make those hotels unattractive options even for budget travel. 

The largest concentration of non-Disney hotels inside Walt Disney World is the Disney Springs Resort Area. Here’s a table from the 2025 Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World showing these hotels rack rates and extra fees:

Using the Unofficial Guide’s numbers, the Doubletree Suites is the cheapest option in the Disney Springs Resort Area. But the Doubletree Suites cheapest rate of $124 per night becomes $178 with parking and resort fees. That’s $35 more per night than Disney’s All-Star Resort, which has better transportation, pools, and dining, so for less money, families would be better off with a Disney hotel.

Finally, I’m not going to consider motels that cost under $50 per night. I’ve stayed at over 100 hotels in the Orlando area. Many of them are the places you’ll find on Expedia and other sites. My experience is that you risk giving up safety, cleanliness, comfort, or working plumbing to save that money. 

I’m telling you as someone who woke up covered in bugs in a hotel room: Don’t skimp on lodging.

The absolute cheapest off-site Disney World-area hotel that I’ve stayed at and would recommend – and again, this is only if you’re budgeting down to the penny – is the Rodeway Inn Maingate on US 192. It’s averaging around $66 per night for dates I’ve checked in 2025 and includes a free breakfast. Rooms are essentially a couple of well-used beds, thin towels, and a shower. But it’s clean and I didn’t feel unsafe staying there. We’re going to assume this $66 is the cost for off-site Orlando hotels and hotels needed while driving.

Other Travel Costs and Assumptions

Airfare to Orlando According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Average Domestic Airline Itinerary Fares website, a round-trip flight to Orlando costs $273.31 per person in 2024. That forecasts out to $280 per person with inflation in 2025.

Gasoline Cost and Miles Per Gallon Here are the numbers I’m using use to calculate driving costs on vacation:

• A gallon of gas in Florida averages $3.099 according to AAA as of mid-November 2024
• The US Department of Energy says the average car on the road gets 24.4 miles per gallon

Gas prices vary so much that I’m not going to forecast what might happen with them in 2025.

We’ll also assume that a family that’s driving on vacation will average a maximum of 10 hours per day on the road. That’s the same limit that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sets for passenger-carrying drivers. I’ve driven more than that in a single day and I’m sure you have, too. And yes, it’s possible for two or more drivers to switch off for round-the-clock coverage. 

Remember this is an average maximum. Lots of families won’t want or be able to drive that long every day of their trip. Assuming the maximum here allows us to reduce the cost of road trip hotels and food – it’s a best-case scenario.

With those same stops for gas, meals, and breaks, and a moderate level of traffic, we’ll assume our family that drives can average around 60 miles per hour on the road. That means our family can drive a maximum of 600 miles per day (10 hours of driving x 60 miles per hour of driving) before stopping for the night. Again, this is a maximum that some families won’t want or be able to achieve, and represents the best-case scenario.

How many Americans live within 600 and 1200 miles of Walt Disney World?

To calculate the cost of getting to Disney World, we need to know how far away the average American family lives.

Indiana’s state government website has a population estimation app called the Large Area Radius Tool. It uses data from the US Census Bureau to estimate how many people live within a certain distance of any point in the United States. It works for Florida too – thanks Indiana!

Indiana’s Large Area Radius Tool estimates around 64 million Americans lived within a 600-mile radius of Orlando, Florida in 2023:

Over 237 million Americans live within 1,200 miles of Orlando. (An additional 53 million Americans live within 600 miles of Disneyland; 91 million live within 1200 miles of Disneyland.)

The US Census Bureau estimates there are around 337 million Americans as I write this. 

Since there are 237 million Americans within a two-day drive of Walt Disney World and 64 million of those are within a one-day trip, that means there are roughly 173 million people – just over half of American’s total population – that live in that “two-day trip” radius. Remember, those are one-way drives, so it’s four days of round-trip driving. 

Completing the math, there are 273 million Americans (337 million minus the 64 million that live within 600 miles), or roughly 80% of the country, that live outside of that one-day trip distance of Walt Disney World.

Adding in Disneyland, 117 million Americans live within 600 miles of a Disney theme park, so 220 million Americans – about 65% of the country – live over 600 miles from a Disney theme park. 

So we can safely say that the average American family has to drive for at least two days each way to get to a Disney theme park. 

That’s important because it means our families who have spent the day in a theme park will need to sleep for the night before starting a day of driving. Likewise, we’re not going to make our families drive 10 hours overnight to arrive at Walt Disney World as it opens in order to save money on hotels and food. 

On that note, I know we’ve all done things to save money on travel. But let’s assume that our families are approaching this as a vacation and not a deprivation challenge or Survivor television try-out. Here are some basic rules:

• No sleeping in cars
• No sleeping on floors
• No walking to EPCOT to save money on parking
• Everyone’s getting a full night’s sleep before visiting the parks

How Much Disney World Can the Lowest 20% Incomes of American Households Afford?

From the charts above, we know that the average household in the lowest 20% of American households by income has 1.6 people. We’re projecting that that family will spend $646 on travel in 2025, including $239 on transportation expenses.

There’s obviously no such thing as a household with exactly 1.6 people. And for the average reader, it’s easier to understand discussions that talk about “a family of 2” or “a family of 3.” So for these scenarios we’re going to use whole numbers of people – one adult and one child in this case – and scale up the family’s budget accordingly. 

Adjusting for a two-person household, our family in the lowest 20% income bracket has a budget of $808 for travel in 2025. That works out to $512 for food, lodging, tickets, and other expenses, and $296 for travel expenses. And our family can mix and match those dollars however they want.

Two-Day Trips Aren’t In The Budget A two-day trip to Walt Disney World in 2025 costs more than the bottom 20% of American households by income will spend on travel in 2025. Why?

The least expensive two-day base tickets for Walt Disney World cost $519 for one adult and one child in 2025. That’s more than our family’s entire budget for everything except transportation. Our family would have just $289 to pay for several days of food and lodging, plus theme park parking and the cost of getting to Orlando and back. And remember that $289 includes money spent on food prepared at home for out-of-town trips.

Here’s the math for a two-day trip:

So a two-day trip to Walt Disney World is beyond the budget for the average family in the bottom 20% of American households by income.

Surprisingly, a one-day visit to Walt Disney World’s cheapest park is also more than our family’s budget. Here’s the start of the math for a one-day Disney World visit:

The Animal Kingdom is the least expensive Disney World theme park to visit. It would cost $53 more to visit the Magic Kingdom – the park most people imagine when they think of Walt Disney World. And the math still doesn’t work when visiting the Animal Kingdom.

As a quick note, the $560 we have left after paying for our one-day theme park ticket is exactly the $560 average cost of airfare for two people to Orlando. That leaves no money in the budget for food, among other things. The most affordable transportation for our family is driving, and driving means higher hotel and food costs.

Here’s the rest of the math.

We said earlier that most Americans live two or more days’ drive away from Orlando. We’ve estimated $66 per night for our budget hotel. The typical family driving to Walt Disney World will need four nights’ accommodation for a total of $264. That leaves us $266 for food and gasoline for the drive.

Assuming a free hotel breakfast for every day of the trip, fast food for the remaining two meals of the day, and no snacks on our five-day road trip, we still fall $10 short of feeding our family every day on the trip. And that’s before we buy gasoline.

It’s true that tens of millions of Americans – around 19% of the population – live within a shorter driving distance of Orlando and would only need one or two nights in a hotel. But most Americans don’t live that close, and we’re talking about the typical American family. And remember, we’re assuming our family can drive 600 miles per day, a number that many families can’t or won’t want to achieve.

That means a one-day trip to the cheapest Disney World theme park on the least expensive day of the year is beyond the typical budget for the average American family in the lowest 20% of household incomes.

How Much Disney World Can the Second 20% of American Households Afford?

The average household in the second 20% of income quintiles consists of 2.1 people. We’ll round that down to a family of two – one adult and one child – for the purposes of this discussion.

Our second quintile family is projected to spend around $1,180 on travel in 2025. That amount includes $422 in transportation. As before we’ll assume the family can move that $1,180 into any travel category they want.

A two-day trip to Walt Disney World doesn’t fit within our family’s budget:

With just $271 left to cover six days of food, plus gasoline, the average American family in this income quintile doesn’t have the travel budget for two days in Walt Disney World. The math also doesn’t work if our family flies to Walt Disney World, since the $560 average cost of round-trip tickets would leave the family with just $101 for two days of food and lodging.

The good news is that our family can definitely afford a one-day trip to Walt Disney World, including a visit to the Magic Kingdom.

In fact, our family has enough money left over to buy Disney’s Lightning Lane Single Pass and Lightning Lane Multi Pass line-reduction service for their one day in the Magic Kingdom. The highest price we’ve seen to date for the Multi Pass is $41.54 per person. That’s enough for our family to budget for the Single Pass for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ($12.78 each) leaving around $2 in our family’s vacation budget for the rest of the year. 

How Much Disney World Can America’s Middle Class Afford?

The average family in the middle 20% of household income quintiles spends $1,992 on travel per year including transportation. That’s $812 – about 70% more – than the second 20% of household income quintiles.

Part of that extra spending is because the average family size in the middle class is 2.5 people, making it larger than families in the first or second quintiles. For this discussion we’ll assume 3 people in our family, consisting of two adults and one child.

The good news is that America’s middle class travel budget can accommodate a two-day trip to Walt Disney World:

Interestingly, the cost of our family’s three two-day theme park tickets would rise by $220 – from $783 to $1,003 – if they started their visit on August 1, 2025. That would blow our family’s budget. So our family still has to visit during the less busy times of the year.

Our family staying at an off-site hotel and paying for two days of parking will have $103 left after expenses. That might be just enough to cover the cost of one day of Disney’s Lightning Lane Multi Pass line-skipping service.

I also ran this same two-day trip scenario with our family flying instead of driving. This checks the assumption that the cost of the flights would outweigh the cost of lodging and food required when driving.

But flying into Orlando doesn’t seem to fit in the budget. Even reducing road trip expenses, our family is left with just $69 in the budget for transportation to and from the airport at home and in Orlando, plus the cost of transportation to get to and from the theme parks each day:

When it comes to a one-day trip to Walt Disney World, our middle class family has the budget room to drive or fly and still have money left over to stay at a Disney World hotel during their time in Orlando:

In fact, our family could budget to stay in a Walt Disney World hotel while in Orlando, visit one day during the week of Christmas, typically the week with the highest theme park admission costs, and still have money left over for Lightning Lane Multi Pass and Lightning Lane Single Pass:

Granted, that one-day visit to Walt Disney World on Christmas would take 5 days of our family’s vacation time and 87% of our family’s vacation budget for the entire year. But it’s doable.

How Much Disney World Can the Fourth 20% of American Household Incomes Afford?

With more money for travel, our two-adult, one-child family in the fourth quintile of household incomes has many options for their Walt Disney World trip. To keep things simple for the rest of this discussion, we’re going to limit ourselves to just a few scenarios. 

The first thing we’ll compare is how many days our family has in Disney’s theme parks when staying in an off-site budget hotel versus a Disney-owned hotel. 

As we go up the income ladder, we’ll also look at options like flying to Orlando, eating at Disney’s sit-down restaurants or character meals, and using Disney’s Lightning Lane line-skipping services.

Staying at our off-site hotel, our family in the fourth quintile of incomes has the budget for four full days in Walt Disney World, visiting each Disney World theme park exactly once:

We’ll include two days of Disney’s Lightning Lane Multi Pass for the Magic Kingdom (MK) and Hollywood Studios (DHS). We’ll also purchase Disney’s Lightning Lane Single Pass for the Magic Kingdom’s Seven Dwarfs Mine Train (7DMT) and Hollywood Studios’ Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance (ROTR) attractions.

I think that’s a fair use of money. Rise of the Resistance is the best ride Disney’s built in decades. But Rise of the Resistance also breaks down more than any other ride in Walt Disney World, averaging around 2 breakdowns per day for around 60 minutes each time in 2023. We don’t want our family wasting time in line for a ride that might break down. So purchasing the Lightning Lane Single Pass here is like buying insurance that you’ll be able to ride eventually.

Let’s also look at a scenario where our family wants to stay at a Disney hotel and maximize their time in the parks. Disney’s Value resorts are their least expensive hotels, so we’ll choose those in order to put more money towards park admission, which is going to be the biggest line item in our budget. Here’s the math:

We’ll also purchase Lightning Lane Single Pass and Lightning Lane Multi Pass to avoid some long waits in line. The third Lightning Lane Single Pass is for EPCOT’s Guardians of the Galaxy (GOTG) roller coaster.

This is objectively a good Disney World vacation. Disney’s Value hotels are better in quality and value than most off-site options. Visiting three of the four theme parks is a lot of entertainment. If the trip went any longer I’d probably want to add a no-park rest day. But Starbucks sells double espressos for a reason and there’s enough left over in the budget for a bunch of them.

How Much Disney World Can the Top 20% of American Households Afford?

We’re projecting that a family in the top 20% of American household incomes will spend an average of $7,516 on travel in 2025. 

It’s clear from the last set of calculations that families in this quintile, with an average pre-tax income of $264,518, has the budget at least four days and nights at Disney’s parks and hotels, plus airline flights to and from Orlando.

I was interested in knowing whether this family’s budget could fit in flights to Orlando, a stay at Disney’s top-of-the-line Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, and still have room for upscale meals instead of fast food dinners. 

The math works but takes 96% of the whole year’s travel budget:

Four nights at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort during one of the slowest times of year still costs over $3,200. That’s 43% of our family’s budget. But there’s enough left in the budget for two table service meals, two character meals, plus both of Disney’s Lightning Lane services for each day in the parks. 

How Much Disney Cruise Line Can American Households Afford?

I thought I’d also look at the cost of a Disney Cruise Line vacation. There’s a lot to like with a Disney Cruise. If you’ve got kids, want to cruise, and have the budget for it, Disney Cruise Line should be your first choice. The ships are beautiful and the service is excellent. And their adult lounges are generally little islands of themed perfection – some of the best bars at sea.

The lowest cost Disney Cruise Line itinerary I could find for 2025 is a 4-Night Western Caribbean cruise departing Galveston, Texas on January 15, 2025. That’s an inside stateroom with no windows, and approximately 170 square feet in size.

With taxes and fees but excluding gratuities, that cruise costs $1,586 for one adult and one child. The same cruise costs $2,161 for two adults and one child under age 10, and $2,736 for two adults and two children under age 10. 

Disney recommends a gratuity of $14.50 per person per night for its cruises. That adds $116 to the cost of a cruise for a two-person household, $174 for a three-person household, and $232 for four people. Not counting transportation,the all-in costs of the cheapest Disney cruise in 2025 for these families are:

• $1,702 for one adult and one child
• $2,335 for two adults and one child
• $2,968 for two adults and two children

Cruise staterooms are famously small, and Disney’s are larger and better-designed than most. Still, 170 square feet for three people is not a lot – about 57 feet per person. And that’s the total room size, not counting the area taken by beds, storage, and furniture. (Disney World’s smallest four-person hotel room is around 260 square feet.) 

For reference, a queen bed mattress is approximately 34 square feet in area. A hotel-grade convertible sofa is around 17 square feet. Both of these are found in Disney’s smallest cruise ship staterooms, meaning there’s around 119 square feet left for storage, other furniture, and free space.

Fun Fact The American Correctional Association recommends 85 square feet of unencumbered space for a jail cell that holds three people. The European Union recommends around 43 square feet of personal space per prisoner in a multi-person cell. So a stateroom with 119 square feet of free space for 3 people meets the space requirements for a U.S. prison cell but is smaller than the recommended prison cell in the EU.

The Lowest Three Household Income Quintiles Focusing on just the cost of the cruise, it’s clear that the least expensive Disney cruise in 2025 costs more than the entire vacation budget for the lowest-earning 60% of American households. 

The Fourth-Highest Household Income Quintile We noted above that families in the fourth quintile are projected to spend around $3,247 on travel in 2025 including transportation. Let’s see if they can have the budget room for the cheapest Disney cruise in 2025.

We’re assuming those families include two adults and one child. After paying for the cruise our typical family in the fourth income quintile has approximately $912 left in their budget to pay for transportation to and from Galveston, Texas.

Houston Intercontinental (IAH) is the closest major airport to Galveston, Texas, and the one I’ve used to get to Galveston. The average airfare to Houston is $398 per person, so our family of three can’t stay within budget while flying to their cruise. But can they drive?

According to the Large Radius Tool, around 60 million Americans live within 600 miles of Galveston and 208 million Americans live within 1,200 miles of Galveston. So just like our visit to Walt Disney World, the typical drive to Galveston is going to require multiple nights in a hotel. 

We’re going to assume a minimum of three nights in a hotel for this road trip. Two of those nights will be before the cruise, and one after. Typical boarding times for cruise departures start around 11 a.m. Sure, it’s possible for our family to drive 600 miles on their first day of travel, sleep for a few hours until just after midnight and hit the road again, saving one night in a hotel. But we’re assuming a well-rested family. Staying in a 170-square foot room with a kid who’s been up since midnight in a car is not a great way to save $66 on lodging.

The good news is that by driving, our typical family in the fourth household income quintile – earning an average of $116,717 per year – has enough in their travel budget to cover this cruise:

Since families in the fourth income quintile can afford a Disney cruise, families in the highest quintile can as well.

What’s Driving Disney World’s Price Increases?

I compared the same Disney vacation costs in 2025 versus those from 2018 and 2011. I used the same hotel, ticket, and food assumptions we’ve been working with all along. (Menu prices didn’t list coffee or table service drink prices back then, so those estimates might be off by a few cents. I don’t think the difference matters.)

After adjusting for inflation, the total price of our family’s vacation has increased 58% since 2011. The vacation cost has increased 32% since 2018 after adjusting for inflation. 

What’s interesting is where prices seem to have hit their limits, because that constrains where Disney can find additional growth in revenue.

Tickets Our sample ticket prices have risen 33% since 2011 after inflation, and 24% since 2018. That’s not surprising, because Disney management has pursued a strategy of fewer guests at higher prices for years.

Hotel Our family’s hotel prices have risen 29% more than inflation since 2011. The really surprising thing here is that a two-night stay at Disney’s All-Star Resort is slightly cheaper in 2025 versus 2018 after adjusting for inflation. That might indicate that Disney’s hit the price limit on the “value for money” decisions that families make. Pricing that Value resort any higher would push more families to stay at non-Disney hotels.

Food Similarly, the cost of theme park food for our family has risen 39% beyond inflation since 2011. And like hotel costs, those increases seem to have hit a limit by 2018, because food prices are down 3% in inflation-adjusted terms since then. 

We noticed a slowdown in Walt Disney World’s table service occupancy earlier in 2024, including dinner-time photos of entirely empty sections of what used to be some of Disney’s most popular restaurants. I spoke to some of Disney’s food & beverage staff who estimated that many restaurants were running at 50% capacity or less during the summer of 2024.

Some background context: Many Disney restaurants, including the Magic Kingdom’s popular Be Our Guest Restaurant, have the same fixed-price menus for both lunch and dinner. Adults will pay $72 for their meal and children $43 no matter what they order or how much they eat.

Disney does this to maximize the revenue it earns at each table. And this worked for a long time because Be Our Guest was so popular it would turn people without reservations away every day. So instead of families spending 90 minutes at a table while ordering just appetizers and drinks – for a total bill that might be around $35 per person – Disney was able to charge double that.

But every price has its limits. Be Our Guest’s fixed-cost menu led to high consumer expectations with unforeseen consequences:

• People expect a full meal because nobody wants to pay $72 for food and leave hungry
• People expect to be served expensive ingredients like steak for that $72

And that led to multiple problems. The first, for the kitchen, is that it’s hard to be creative with a menu that has to feature expensive, tummy-filling ingredients. I’ve seen survey comments along the lines of “why does everything have to be a protein and a mashed potato?” And the answer is that’s what people expect for that kind of money. Most guests won’t consider it a good value to pay $72 for roasted chicken and vegetables in a theme park, no matter how well they’re prepared.

The second problem is that it’s uncomfortable to walk around Orlando in the heat of summer after a lunch of appetizer, steak, mashed potatoes, and dessert. Disney food portions are large by any standard, and have to be at these prices. But the only thing I’d want to do after that kind of meal is take a nap.

The third problem with these meal costs is our family’s budget. There’s not enough in the budget for sit-down meals and Disney’s Lightning Lane program. That forces a lot of families to choose between standing in long lines and those expensive sit-down meals. It seems like many families are reallocating money from those meals to pay for Lightning Lanes.

That’s not all bad news for Disney. In fact, Disney might prefer it. Disney’s revenue off its digital Lightning Lane product is likely approaching 100% profit. But Disney’s restaurant revenue comes with expenses like food, utilities, staff, insurance, and maintenance, even if they already own the building they’re in. 

Like others in the restaurant industry, Disney’s trying to manage price increases by reducing the labor costs, size, and ingredients in the food they server. Here’s an example of the same roasted lamb chop from the Australia booth during EPCOT’s annual Food & Wine event, in 2021, 2022, and 2023 – 2024’s looked identical to 2023:

In 2021 this lamb chop dish came with a sweet potato purée, “bush berry pea salad”, and “pistachio-pomegranate gremolata.”

The 2022 and 2023 versions’ additional ingredients were simplified to “mint pesto and potato crunchies”, while 2024’s version was described as having “mint pesto and crushed salt and vinegar potato chips”. The price remained $8.75. 

On the surface, holding prices seems like a good thing. But the price of lamb was higher in summer 2021 and 2022 than in 2023 or 2024, even before adjusting for inflation:

Along with lower costs for lamb, reducing the number of ingredients also reduces the labor involved in making the dish. That helps Disney maintain its restaurant margins.

Even if Disney’s restaurant margins are 65% – impressive by restaurant standards – the margins on Lightning Lane are better. So I don’t think Disney minds this switch from food to digital purchases, because it’s better for their bottom line. 

It Was Lightning Lane All Along

Disney’s previous ride reservation system, FastPass+, was free with park admission for more than 20 years, until the parks closed in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. 

FastPass+ ride reservations worked a lot like restaurant reservations: You told FastPass+ which ride you wanted to ride and when. If there was availability for your group at that time, you got a reservation. And when you showed up for that reservation, just like at a restaurant, you were put ahead of everyone who didn’t have a reservation for that ride. 

FastPass+ did not return when the parks reopened, primarily because Disney needed all the line space it had to accommodate social distancing.

Disney switched to a paid ride reservation system in 2021, going through different names before settling on the current “Lightning Lane.” 

Like Disney’s theme park tickets, Lightning Lane’s costs vary by day and for the attractions you want to see. We’re projecting that our family will need to spend $306 in 2025 to replicate that free line-skipping experience of 2011 and 2018 for their two-day trip. 

By itself, the cost of Lightning Lane accounts for 43% of the price increase since 2011 and 64% of the price increase since 2018.

Comparing Disney World Costs to an NFL Game

I’ve heard folks rationalize a Disney trip by comparing its cost to other entertainment experiences. Two of the most common comparators are Broadway shows and NFL games. I’m more of an NFL fan, so let’s do a deep dive on that cost versus a Disney theme park.

The first thing I want to point out is that television is a perfectly acceptable and free way to see NFL games. I’ve been to many NFL contests over the years, including Super Bowl XLIII. Television can’t replicate the feel of an in-stadium crowd, especially during the greatest play in Super Bowl history. But television has advantages like replays, and your living room has heating and air conditioning. Plus the bathrooms are more convenient. TV is an absolutely acceptable alternative to live NFL games. 

There’s no television experience comparable to being in a theme park.

Two other things I’d like to point out: NFL tickets are relatively cheap, and it’s easier to get to an NFL game than to a Disney theme park.

Other people have noticed this: Here’s a Planet Money episode on declining prices for sporting events.

Let’s start with tickets. NFL tickets are available at substantial discounts on the secondary market. For example, season ticket holders might use tickets to some games and resell others online. 

But you can’t buy partially-used Disney World tickets; it’s against Disney policy and a misdemeanor under Florida law.

Those NFL tickets are often deeply discounted online. Disney’s ESPN website helpfully lists the NFL’s upcoming schedule with ticket prices through VividSeats. Here’s the prices for games during Week 14 of the NFL season:

Fans of Jacksonville, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Dallas, New Orleans, and the New York Giants can get tickets for around $30 each or less, including taxes and fees. Virtually all of these tickets cost substantially less than the $116 minimum cost for one day’s admission to a Disney theme park.

The other thing to note is that most Americans live within a 150-mile radius of just a dozen of the NFL’s 32 teams: The surrounding populations of teams who play in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Dallas, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, and Washington, DC is around 184 million people

There’s a bit of overlap in that 150-mile radius, e.g., between New York and Washington, DC, but Philadelphia sits between them and we’re not counting Philly’s fans to the west of that radius, let alone the populations of Houston, Phoenix, Charlotte, Indianapolis, or San Francisco. I wouldn’t be surprised if something like two-thirds of the country lived within a three-hour drive of an NFL team.

So it’s a one-day trip to see an NFL game for the majority of Americans, and admission to one NFL game is cheaper than admission to one day in a Disney theme park for the average family.

Wrapping Up

A natural reaction to this analysis of Disney prices is “So what?” And that’s understandable. Porsche makes wonderful cars, but the base 911 Carrera costs $122,000. The Hermès Birkin is an aspirational handbag for plenty of people but probably costs at least $10,000. There are many nice things whose prices are out of reach for most Americans. What’s the big deal if Disney theme parks are another luxury good or aspirational trip?

Fun Fact: From groceries to cell phones to retail stores, many markets are separating into “value” and “premium” segments, leaving a gap in what used to be mid-priced products.

The Risks for Disney Pricing Out the Middle Class

I think relying on wealthy American families to visit its parks has both short- and long-term risks for Disney.

Global Competition: Families with vacation budgets of $5,000 or more have travel options around the world. I’ve heard from plenty of people who pointed out that the costs are roughly comparable to take their family to EPCOT’s Italy pavilion or to go to Rome, and that their kids will probably remember Rome more. It seems hard for Disney to win a long-term competition against every other travel destination in the world.

High Expectations For Innovation: To satisfy families used to top-of-the-line global experiences, Disney will need to continue to invest in expensive, cutting-edge attractions, hotels, and restaurants. Those investments require high returns, which means higher prices for consumers. But as we’ve seen with food and hotels, there seems to be an upper limit as to what even the wealthiest families will pay for things at theme parks.

Disney’s Profits Depend On Parks: Disney’s “Experiences” business unit, which includes the parks, the cruise line and other smaller operations, earned 70% of Disney’s profits in fiscal year 2024. What happens when every part of the theme park experience hits that ceiling? 

Complicated Balance of Price and Experience: Moderating theme park prices might seem like a solution, since lower prices means the parks are more affordable to more people. But larger crowds bring higher operating costs and capacity problems, among other issues. Even at today’s prices, crowds at Disney World are large enough that there are nine different ways you can get in line in a Disney theme park. The complexity in planning a Disney vacation is already beyond that found for most other travel destinations. Adding more hoops to jump through would turn off a lot of people.

Wall Street’s Short-Term Focus: Building more ride capacity seems like an obvious solution. And Disney’s started a $60 billion spending program for its parks and experiences. But that’s going to take ten years to complete, at least, if Disney follows through on all of it. And because Disney’s a publicly traded company, Disney has to show positive results every three months for its stockholders, not just in ten years. Quarterly earnings calls are an unforgiving treadmill that investors want to speed up every 90 days.

That’s especially true now: Disney’s stock is up 26% over the past year, which sounds great and is better than a lot of companies. But the S&P 500 is up 33% and the NASDAQ is up 38%, so Disney shareholders would’ve been better off with an index fund in those markets. If those shareholders sell Disney for other stocks or funds, Disney’s stock price would drop. 

Disney’s management has their own stock incentives, which aligns their interests with shareholders. That puts an incredible amount of pressure on Disney’s management to raise prices in the short term, increasing the risks just outlined.

Climate Change: Florida’s projected to have temperatures above 95ºF for two to three months per year by 2050. Remember that temperatures are measured in the shade, so it’ll be hotter if you’re walking around in the sun, and heat reflecting from the ground will be much warmer. 

We measured pavement temperatures of 145ºF in Disney’s Magic Kingdom in summer 2024, so imagine what it’s going to be like 25 years from now. Getting people to pay top dollar for Orlando in July might be impossible.

I’m sure there are more risks that I haven’t considered.

Thanks very much for reading this far. Thanks very much to everyone who helped edit this article. You are true professionals. I appreciate you. Any mistakes left are entirely my own.

I’d love to hear from you, either with suggestions, comments, or corrections. Post those below and I’ll do my best to respond.