I hit my "tipping point" three years ago. The prior year I had done the "magical" (and EXPENSIVE) Disney trip for my milestone birthday - stayed on-site at Wilderness Lodge, made the coveted ADRs and FPs, etc. But at the beginning of the trip, we had also done two days at Universal where, to be honest, we had a better (and definitely more relaxing) time.
So the next year (2016), we did a more Universal centered trip, but I still wanted to do something at Disney so we stayed one night on-property (originally Wilderness Lodge, but switched to Grand Floridian for $20 more once discounts came out) and went to a Halloween party. But the numbers and experience was the straw that broke the camel's back for me:
- One night at the GF cost as much as 3 nights at Universal (a suite at Cabana Bay, which is a different class of hotel, but still!)
- My party ticket cost 1/3 of my Universal annual pass - one night versus an entire year. Plus the party had more lines/people/crowds than I expected.
- On our previous trip, we had some Disney transportation issues (I am the queen of the catastrophic Disney transportation failures!) so I wanted to stay at a MK resort to try to minimize the potential for problems. Yet on one of our two (only TWO) monorails rides, there was an issue. The issue wasn't Disney's fault (it was a rider that caused the problem), but leaving an entire train full of riders at the Contemporary at midnight and not making accommodations to get them on another train is Disney's fault.
I realized that I could go once every couple of years (maybe) to Disney or I could go a couple of times a year to Universal and the decision was simple. I still do Disney from time to time (I've done the Halloween party twice and did/am planning on doing a couple of runDisney events). I would like to see Star Wars at some point, but will probably do it as a day trip from Universal or as part of a tentative 2020 trip to
Disneyland. Unless I win the lottery (and maybe not even then), I can't see a large scale Disney World trip in my future.