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"All magic has a price" — Disney parks now cater to rich visitors with premium passes and perks [1]
['Mark Frauenfelder']
Date: 2025-09-10
"For most of the park's history, Disney was priced to welcome people across the income spectrum, embracing the motto 'Everyone is a V.I.P.,'" writes Daniel Currell in the New York Times. Not anymore. Middle-class families save for years to afford a Disney park vacation, and when they go, they learn that they are at "the bottom of a pecking order in which, on many days, thousands of spots for the park's premier rides are reserved for the big spenders."
Pricing tiers have been healthy for Disney's bottom line. Last year a hacker got access to the company's internal Slack channels. The exposed data indicated that Disney made $724 million from skip-the-line products from late 2021 to June 2024. Since then, Disney has introduced a highly popular Lightning Lane Premier Pass; pricing varies but can easily be over $400 on a given day.
According to Len Testa, whose website offers Disney planning advice, "Disney positions itself as the all-American vacation. The irony is that most Americans can't afford it."
Previously:
• The horror of the Disney adult
• Watch this cosplaying critic's epic takedown of Disney's catastrophic Star Wars Hotel
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[1] Url:
https://boingboing.net/2025/09/10/all-magic-has-a-price-disney-parks-now-cater-to-rich-visitors-with-premium-passes-and-perks.html
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