By nature a lot of us on these boards are cheap. This is why we ended up here. We are all trying to figure out how to get over on the systems. Disney is smarter than us and got rid of a lot of the loopholes. Like others, I leveraged the heck out of the 10 day non-expire with the park hopper. We would get three vacations out of that, Orlando is an easy trade and flights from DC are low. I figured that since our kids are now out of the house (mostly) we could go in the fall when it's slow, but what people don't understand about their new model is that it's designed to make every time of the year "busy". Even if the parks aren't as packed as during peak times they stagger opening of some rides forcing you to use up more hours. They want you to come back tomorrow just to finish. The last loophole was the annual passes. If you can do three weeks in the same 365 days it was a good deal at about $450 per ticket. Do the math on the new prices and guess what.....it's almost $60 per day per person. Not a good deal any more.
The only good deal is when you go during a shoulder season, stay in the park, and buy the meal plan, but that forces you to buy everything there. Not for everyone. The real key is to own Disney points. That gives you a discount off of the season passes and food. Plus you get extra magic hours.
Go compare what a top end pass to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg gets you. Free admission and parking at all 11 parks (Busch Gardens Tampa/Williamsburg, all the Seaworld parks, the associated water parks, and Sesame Place), 15% food and shopping discounts, three free passes, ride again privileges. Price is: $350 bucks.
By the way for the folks who talked about how much it cost in 1972, that was 47 years ago. You could buy a good car for $3000 and a 4 bedroom house for about $35,000. Gas was 36 cents per gallon. 23 Skiddoo! I was nine.
