..... The clientele has changed largely at WDW resorts and folks who are Walmart shoppers never could afford the CBR (back when it was $64 a night), so how those folks can now (in an era where I just paid $4.32 a gallon to fill up -- so distasteful that I just put $40 in and left the tank a quarter empty) afford to stay at the Disney Deluxe resorts can't be they all won PowerBall.
And government assistance checks only go so far. ... But since 9/11, the military industrial complex has grown hugely, as has spying on Americans. Those jobs are very well paying. So, many folks who may have been making $30K at best 15 years ago, may well be making $230,000 now ... I know this can be hot button and all. But Americans are not doing well and this idea that folks who look like they just climbed off the Honey Boo Boo express suddenly affording $500 a night accommodations or even $250 a night just isn't rational by any other way I can think of........
These are how people are paying for those $500/night rooms who don't have a lot of money to begin with and are vacationing at WDW.
There is no "saving" or "putting aside" or "vacation funding" for anyone who is middle-lower class (can we get a new name for this? I really hate the term "poor", even if it's so suiting for a great deal of us) and people are doing what they can to live, and trying to "live a little" with a vacation. Sad fact, but true. Unfortunately there is an all-American mindset of keeping up with the Joneses and making sure their young children get to WDW every year because they want their kids to have a happy childhood, nevermind Mom and Dad never being home because they're always at work and there's a lot of stress and tension in the household because of bills and lack of money. People want the best for their kids. It's become ingrained and beaten into our heads that above all else, the kids have to have everything they want. Including vacations, money and affording it be damned.
Sometimes it's very hard to read this forums and see the same groups of people going to WDW -who don't live in Florida- every couple of months, several times a year. What kind of jobs do you guys have where you can afford this? Or, as I suspect in several cases, what kind of job does your husband have?
And of course, this is all IMHO. But FWIW, that's my take on your statement,
@WDW1974
Nah, we still have some upper middle class folks left. The closer to the bottom you are, the further you fell after the 2008 collapse.
And there are thriving middle classes in Europe as well ... and a growing one in China.
Here ... well, there's a reason FOX loves to yell about Class Warfare ... because we are becoming a nation of elites and slaves.
A truer statement couldn't be made. There is such a huge divide and a great deal of denial ("I'm not lower class! Look, I can afford vacations too!!") that one day will break this country in half. But that's politics, and we shouldn't talk politics, because The Mom will yell at us and put us in time out, and I don't like time out. It smells weird in that corner.
Circling this back to Disney- Disney used to appeal to the upper-middle class but have since changed their sightlines to the middle-lower class, yet still charge the prices as if catering to a higher, richer caliber. Is it right? No. Will it ever stop? Probably not.
Will we all be priced out some day? Considering Disney has raised their prices once, sometimes twice a year (
@ParentsOf4 do you have any figures on how many times Disney has raised prices since 2001?) but the last time I personally got a raise was (correction) four years ago and not a penny since... yeah, I could see pricing out of the lower class happening soon.
Then what you're left with is a low quality park that is catering to a lower class but at upper class rates that only the real money makers can afford.
I'll get off my soapbox now and hope this isn't modded out of existence.
