Yep. On a lot of days the public restrooms at WDW are cleaner than the ones in my office, the corporate headquarters of a Fortune 500 company. Sad but true.P.S. By the way, guys wearing suits and making a lot of cash also pee on the seat. I guess that's why we have a custodial staff clean the toilets hourly even at our low-traffic restrooms.
Thank you for this post. No one else on these forums has better stated what make Toontown work and Star Wars not.
The thing is, I think that public restrooms generally are much cleaner than they used to be.
Agreed that as the prices went up the service has gone down. I still think WDW bathrooms are better than most public venues, especially the hotel restrooms or ones more off the beaten path.The thing is, I think that public restrooms generally are much cleaner than they used to be.
When I paid a buck for a bleacher seat at a ballpark, my expectations weren't that high. I still remember my Golden Box seats in the late 1980s at the old Comiskey Park for $10.50, about 5 rows behind the dugout. But man, some of the bathrooms were bad.
As prices started increasing, I noticed an appreciable uptick in cleanliness at many venues. For example, the White Sox built an entire new park. Having friends who worked in the front offices, they told me that the thinking among MLB execs was that the entire experience was being upscaled to make customers feel they were getting more for the higher prices. I sometimes joked, "We're charging $10 more for tickets but we're going to spend 10 cents more so you have a clean toilet."
Not at WDW.
The trend at WDW is all about squeezing costs, about what can be cut from the Guest Experience that won't affect revenue flow.
The thing is, I think that public restrooms generally are much cleaner than they used to be.
When I paid a buck for a bleacher seat at a ballpark, my expectations weren't that high. I still remember my Golden Box seats in the late 1980s at the old Comiskey Park for $10.50, about 5 rows behind the dugout. But man, some of the bathrooms were bad.
As prices started increasing, I noticed an appreciable uptick in cleanliness at many venues. For example, the White Sox built an entire new park. Having friends who worked in the front offices, they told me that the thinking among MLB execs was that the entire experience was being upscaled to make customers feel they were getting more for the higher prices. I sometimes joked, "We're charging $10 more for tickets but we're going to spend 10 cents more so you have a clean toilet."
Not at WDW.
The trend at WDW is all about squeezing costs, about what can be cut from the Guest Experience that won't affect revenue flow.
When my brother and friends drove to WDW in May 1983 to get our first look at Epcot, we stayed offsite at a campsite.
Our 3-day hopper ticket was $35 (with tax). With minimum wage at $3.35, that was less than 11 hours of work for someone earning at the bottom of the pay scale. And both theme parks were spotless!
Today, a 3-day hopper ticket costs $367.43. With minimum wage at $7.25/hour, that's over 50 hours of work.
Currently, the most progressive attempts to increase minimum wage target $15/hour by 2022. Yet Disney will tack on 6 more years of price increases by then. Over the last 6 years, WDW tickets have increased an average of 35%. At that pace, it's still going to cost about 33 hours of work even if the minimum wage is more than doubled by 2022!
There once was a time when WDW really was much more affordable.
And, if anyone asks, heck yes, I'd take 3 days at the 1983 versions of the Magic Kingdom and Epcot over 3 days at today's versions of those same parks in a nanosecond.
This year's price increases are the biggest since 2006.
At WDW, what's really "awakened" are price increases.
I wonder if they highlighted that during last week's media event.
You might be on to something. Upcharge restrooms that are actually clean
This may seem like a stupid question, but how do you know how long the stuff has been there? I'm not sure I ever hung around a WDW bathroom long enough to find out. I usually have a pretty specific "plan of action" when I go in and when I'm done I'm outa there.
