Where Are You Spending Your Disney Dollars?

With the announcement of Josh D’Amaro as Disney’s next CEO, we decided to sit down with TouringPlans founder, Len Testa, to ask what he sees for the future of Walt Disney World under new leadership. Len talked to us about Mr. D’Amaro’s past achievements and what that might mean for Disney World. Some things Len brought up during our discussion:

1. Mr. D’Amaro has been running Disney’s most profitable division for years. He has shown that he can turn a significant profit while making decisions that are unpopular with Guests. Taking away MCO airport transportation, Magical Express, and charging for FastPasses, to name just two. One can only assume his focus on profits for shareholders will remain as he assumes the title of CEO this March.
2. International travel to the U.S. Disney Parks is down. We can assume this is the reason for the new Florida Resident Annual Pass deposit decrease introduced recently. Hopefully this will mean additional Annual Pass discounts on the horizon.
3. Disney Dining is “soft” and has been for some time. Len has mentioned this many times on The Disney Dish with Jim Hill, and a search on the My Disney Experience app will show there are lots of open reservations for Table Service locations that used to be difficult to get. The image below shows a few open reservations we were able to find for spots like GEO-82, California Grill, Space 220, and The Beak and Barrel.

One offering that is still in very high demand – even under increasing prices – remains Lightning Lanes in all forms. You’ll see from the image below that Magic Kingdom Premier Pass is $456.89 per person after tax for February 12th. At the time of this post, Premier Pass for the Magic Kingdom is sold out on February 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th. Premier Pass for Hollywood Studios is sold out on February 15th.

Lightning Lane Multi Pass is showing $35, or $37.28 per person after tax, for February 12th. The price on February 14th is $42, or $44.73 per person after tax.

Our conversation with Len and a review of dining and Lightning Lane stats prompted us to poll our Instagram followers to find out if they were foregoing table service dining in favor of Lightning Lane purchases.

We asked our followers “Are you spending your Disney vacation budget on Lightning Lanes instead of dining” and got the responses shown in the image above. Even more interesting than the poll results were some of the comments we received in the post.

So we have to ask, where is your Disney vacation budget going? Have you cut back on table service dining to free up money for Lightning Lanes? If you have cut back on your food budget, is the change unrelated to Lightning Lanes and related more to quality of dining options? Or something else? Finally, the fact that such expensive Premier Passes are selling out shows that the prices aren’t unreasonable for some of the Disney Guest population. Have you purchased Premier Pass in the past? If so, would you please leave a comment letting us know if you thought it was a good value and if you’d do it again? We welcome all comments on this topic!