>
A British family has been blown away after they spent more than $1,000 for just one day at Universal Studios Orlando due to the park’s sky-high prices.
Miranda Pearce, a British marketing expert, took to TikTok to document just how much she and her husband spent on themselves and their two sons at the Florida resort for just admission tickets, food and parking.
In the now viral video, she explains they spent $438.66 for tickets, plus an additional $396 for Fast Passes, which allow guests to skip the lines.
‘I ain’t waiting in any queue with a six-year old,’ she explained.
They then spent $62.79 for lunch; $42.60 on just one souvenir — a Harry Potter notebook with a pen; and $36.29 for dinner at the Burger King in the park.
Additionally, Pearce said, she and her husband had to shell out $27 to park; $19.76 for ice cream; $19.16 for drinks and $4.25 for a cup of coffee.
And in an apparent attempt to save money, they bought breakfast on their way to the park, spending $21.79 at a nearby Wendy’s.
‘That’s not even including tips,’ Pearce captioned her video, which has now been viewed more than 1.5 million times, with Paul Leroy commenting that it’s a ‘rip off’ and that they will ‘pass’ on going.
Miranda Pearce, a British marketing expert, took to TikTok to document just how much she and her husband spent on themselves and their two sons in just one day at Universal Orlando Studios in Florida
In total, the family of four spent more than $1,000 due to the high ticket and Fast Pass prices
One TikTok user, Paul Leroy commented that the theme park is a ‘rip off’ and he will ‘pass’ on going
Many on TikTok did not seem too shocked by the exorbitant prices, with one user commenting that the park ‘absolutely fleece[s] their guests.’
Others suggested ways the family could have saved money, including by bringing their own food or some reusable bottles.
Some also questioned why the family didn’t just stay in the UK where one user said ‘you can buy 14 days, three park Universal tickets for £200 or less, giving you full access to all three parks for 14 days.’
Another person said the family of four ‘could have gone away to Portugal for a week and rented a villa’ with that kind of money, and a third TikTok user commented that it would be much cheaper to fly to Turkey and stay at an all-inclusive hotel for three nights.
But the prices at the Florida theme park have seemed to scare away at least some prospective guests, with one woman saying that she and her partner are ‘starting an Orlando fund to take our two kids, but I fear no matter how much we save, we just won’t be able to afford it.’
‘Thanks for clarifying, we will never go,’ another user added, and one person bemoaned: ‘And people wonder why families don’t bother going.’
Just one Harry Potter notebook with a pen set the family back $42.60
Some online have said the theme park is now just too expensive for them
Still, Universal Orlando Studios remains the cheaper Orlando theme park when compared to Disney World, which was ranked as the most expensive theme park in the United States by home rental firm HomeToGo.
The firm took into account the total cost of all of the theme parks in the US including tickets, parking and accommodations.
It found that an average adult would have to pay over $129 for admission to Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, $25 for parking and $126.80 for a nightly stay.
Prices at Disney World — once thought to be an affordable getaway for the middle class — have been skyrocketing in recent years as executives continue to raise the price of food and try to cater to higher-paying clientele.
They have risen at double the rate of inflation since 2010, and in February, the entertainment conglomerate announced they were increasing ticket prices once again.
Now, a four-day standard ticket costing a minimum of $447.70, according to Disney World blog Inside the Magic. The cheapest four-day ticket used to be $434.83.
A four-day Park Hopper Ticket – which lets park goers travel from one section of the amusement park empire to another – costs a minimum of $540.89, up from $525.35.
And a four-day Park Hopper Plus ticket – which allows Disney enthusiasts to visit every park in one day – jumped from a low of $546.65 to a low of $559.53.
On average, Inside the Magic reports, the ticket prices are about $20 or 2 to 6 percent higher than they were just the year before.
At the same time, Disney World is phasing out some of its cost-saving features at the theme parks, like a free shuttle from the airport and free parking for those staying on the premises, reports Frommers.
Without that fee bus service from Orlando’s main airport, the average person now has to spend between $30 to $60 to get to a Disney World resort, and parking fees that now apply on the resort-owned land could add $15 to $25 per day.
Menu prices have also increased across the board – with a single cup of coffee costing $3.49 and a single churro $6.39.
And the cheapest resorts on the premises now cost more than $200 a day.
The cost of a one-day ticket at Disney World has increased more than 3,000 percent since it first opened in 1971
As a result of these price hikes, Disney’s profits have surged — even though visitor numbers at the park have plunged 17 percent.
The profit Disney now makes on each guest has increased by 17 percent in a year, with the media conglomerate earning a whopping $7.4 billion from its parks in the most recent quarter of the 2022 financial year.
That is up 70 percent from a year earlier, when it was recovering from COVID shutdowns.
Profits also surged to an impressive $2.2 billion for that quarter – a huge leap from the $356 million recorded for the same quarter 12 months previously, the Wall Street Journal reported.
One of the most profitable changes is the implementation of a $15-a-day Genie+ pass, which was previously free. It serves as an app on guests’ phones, and lets them skip some lines on rides.
Genie+ also flags up promotions on merchandise, helping shift the parks’ famously pricey souvenirs. It is used by half of all guests – with 70 per cent who downloaded it saying they’d do the same on a future visit.
But the Genie+ pass does not grant all guest’s rude wishes, with visitors required to fork over an extra $10 to $17 to get access to some of the parks’ most popular attractions – despite having already paid around $100 per admission ticket.
The surcharge is applied to rides in Disneyland and Disney World’s popular Star Wars Galaxy Kingdom Area and Guardians of the Galaxy rides.
Disney’s $15-a-day Genie+ app has been credited with helping drive a surge in profits. It helps guests skip lines
Meanwhile, parking and Magic Wristbands, which double as room keys and park passes and used to be free, will now run guests a whopping $35 – just one example of the company implementing a charge on previously complementary perk.
The firm’s Magic Bands – which serve as hotel keys and park admission tickets – have gone from being free to costing $34.99 each
And extra evening hours after the parks are closed to the general public are now only offered to guests staying at the pricier hotels.
Also affected by the price hikes – which have been, for the most part, implemented over the past year – are park hotel rooms, food, and merchandise, which have all soared well beyond the record 9 percent rate of inflation.
At Disney World – by far the company’s most popular park, with 18 million annual visitor prior to the pandemic – a room at the park’s value hotel, Pop Century, today costs roughly $168 – up more than $70 from 2013, when a room at the resort would cost you $95. That’s an increase of more than 77 percent.
Prices are also up at the luxe Animal Kingdom Lodge, from $486 for standard room in 2012 to $790 in 2022, a 63 percent increase in a decade.
Snack prices have also increased, with Dole Whip, a popular pineapple-flavored soft-serve desert sold only at Disney properties up from $5.99 to $6.99 – an increase of 16 percent in the span of a year.
The park’s iconic Mickey Mouse ears headbands, meanwhile have increased by more than a third from 2021, from $29.99 to $39.99.
A stay at the Pop Century hotel has risen in price by 77 per cent in the last nine years. The cheapest room cost $70 in 2013, but now comes in at $168
Disney’s deluxe Animal Kingdom Lodge hotel has also seen a huge price spike – rooms which cost about $470 a decade ago now come in at an eye watering $790-a-night
Fans have since started posting pictures of themselves at the both Disneyland – dubbed ‘the happiest place on earth’ by the company – and Disney World, donning T-shirts that read ‘Unfavorable’ on social media in protest.
They believe that Disney is trying to sideline them in favor of big-spending visitors on a blow-out vacation, or people on a once-in-a-lifetime trip who are happy to blow thousands on rides, food and souvenirs to have the best possible time.
When asked about the reasoning behind the litany of price hike, a rep said that Disney’s theme-park pricing is determined by the current economic climate and ‘pure supply and demand… no different than airplanes, hotels or cruise ships.’
Josh D’Amaro, the chairman of Disney’s parks, experiences and products division, meanwhile, attests that the changes have given visitors more choice about how to spend their time and money at the parks, while making the parks ‘extremely commercially successful.’