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Spontaneity dead at Disney World
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Beth Kassab Local News Columnist Recent Columns
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Related Content After raising prices, Disney launches new ticket discount
7:28 pm, February 26, 2014
I feel a lot like Mr. Toad.
Pushed aside by Disney for bigger and better things.
The Mouse has made a tactical decision that local residents are expendable.
And I can't say I blame him.
Why keep something around that consumes time and resources but offers so little in return?
First 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was shuttered. Then Mr. Toad's Wild Ride closed to make room for Winnie the Pooh. Pleasure Island will soon be the site of a new development.
And now people who live close enough to drive to Walt Disney World and back home in the same day are going the way of the toad.
Disney bean counters won't miss locals at the parks any more than Captain Nemo's old and often broken-down submarine, which is to say we won't be missed at all.
We can't say we didn't see this coming.
It's been building for years now. Single-day ticket price increases have been elbowing out locals for some time.
The increase this week to $99 per person for the Magic Kingdom slams the castle gate in our faces.
Nobody's going to pay that price of admission. At least, nobody with a tiara-clad head screwed on straight.
Don't bother looking for a Florida resident discount on a single-day ticket. There isn't one.
It used to be that those of us who live here were part of a little club.
We could decide on a whim to go to Walt Disney World. Hold our nose while we paid for a single day ticket (it's always been expensive, though the cusp of triple digits is a new level of obnoxiousness). And we had a fighting chance at hitting the attractions and restaurants we wanted.
Those days are over. Spontaneity is dead at Disney World. Cruella de Vil has been put in charge of the local guest experience.
Here are your evil choices: Pay $99 per Magic Kingdom ticket ($93 for kids 3-9) and walk into a park where the good FastPass times for the rides and restaurant reservations already have been spoken for by people who planned their vacation six months in advance.
Or you could pay $485 per person for an annual pass ($319 per person for a seasonal pass good only on select dates).
The annual pass is only a good deal if you go to the parks at least five times a year. And I would rather get poked in the eye by Captain Hook.
The options for the casual, once-a-year local Disney visitor are slim.
If you happen to be a tourist from New Jersey who is staying at the Polynesian (or any other Disney hotel) then you get the red carpet. You get a wristband mailed to you in advance that lets you reserve up to three FastPasses per day before you even board your flight.
Same goes for restaurant reservations, which can be booked up to 180 days in advance.
Locals might want to call a popular Disney restaurant and simply ask for the first available table.
But it doesn't work that way. I tried. I asked the reservation agent to tell me the first open table at Be Our Guest and was told that was impossible.
You have to ask date by date until you hit on an available table. That can take forever.
You're better off just picking a date in six months and planning your entire life around that dinner.
The best ticket deal for locals remains the Florida resident three-day package, which went up by $10 this year to $129 per person. At $43 a day, it's a steal compared to the single-day ticket.
But there are restrictions, including that it can only be used on certain dates between January and June and not at all on days surrounding Easter. And there's nothing spontaneous about planning three days at the parks.
There's a big upside for Disney that way.
When you and I drop in for the day at the spur of the moment we sleep at home and don't eat all our meals at Disney.
We don't spend enough money while we take up space in the lines and complain about how we should have just gone to Fun Spot because the kids don't know the difference anyway and, well, it's huuuge.
Disney treats us accordingly.
At least Mr. Toad is memorialized with a statue in a cemetery outside the Haunted Mansion. It's time the local resident gets a headstone, too.
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