Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party / Mickeys Very Merry Christmas Party Tier Pricing. SAD

[IsThatYouTigger]

Makes sense, they are like gold! I have 11 days remaining and since we usually only do 2-4 night trips, they are going to be sorely missed when gone. I think we're going to have to switch to an AP strategy and pack in several trips instead. I wish they would bring back non-expiring or better DVC discounts. We always did parties but we don't see as much value at $100+ with tax sadly.

My husband and I are in the same boat. We have 12 non-expiring days left plus 20 WPFM entries. We are so incredibly stingy with our park days. We are going in June for 5 nights and only plan to go to the parks once. It has caused us to question whether or not to buy annual passes (both our parents live in Orlando so it's somewhat easy to justify). When we would visit in October the last few years we would use 1 day from our non-expiring ticket and go to the Halloween party on another during a 5 night trip. I would probably still do that but I don't think my husband would pay $90 for the party.

I think we are able to justify a Disney vacation every year because our family lives there so it helps offset costs...we don't have to stay at Disney if we don't want to but we still feel like we're getting value from it. I'm a teacher and my husband is close to finishing residency so we make a decent living, but even for us it's a stretch and a treat planning a trip to Disney. We know that eventually we won't have to worry as much about being able to afford a vacation to Disney once he graduates, BUT I am really getting nervous that one of these decisions Disney announces is going to put such a bad taste in my husbands mouth that he won't want to go anymore. And I don't know that I will blame him :-(...

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Was planning on doing mud October after our cruise but for a family of 6 (only 5 tickets though) the cost is more than the value this year. We have done it a couple times and it seems to get more and more crowded. I'll take our party money and add a whole park day instead.

 

[Lisa F]

Sadly, the AP discounts dont fall on any of the days I was planning to go. So last year's $74.55 tickets turned into $97.98 this year.

the discounts are minimal - $3 per ticket? Hardly worth even considering... for me and my kid it is $190 full price or $184 discounted. Who cares?

 

[tebookie]

As an AP holder can I buy tickets with the AP discount for friends who aren't AP holders?

 

[NancyIL]

Disney doesn't benefit from the fact that people are paying less than they could have been. Disney benefits only by people buying the tickets. Period. The reasoning behind the decision to purchase is meaningless to Disney. It is only fodder for a chat board. As you correctly point out, WDW did not use "bait and switch" as a means of setting prices. So they cannot derive any benefit from something that they neither did nor intended. Disney set the price based on what it thinks its events are worth. And I have no doubt that sales will reflect that. For us, the bar got raised beyond our comfort level at around the $40 mark. So whether the price is $50, $75, $95 or $149 is irrelevant and no amount of "it could have been more" will make me part with what they are now charging.

My last MVMCP ticket cost me $69.18 for December 7, 2012. That was a Friday night, so there probably wasn't an AP discount that night.

I have found both the Halloween and Christmas parties to be very crowded, and the main reason I went to them was for the parade and holiday fireworks.

 

[MinnieDaisy]

I never thought I'd be grateful for infertility, but I've never felt so relieved that we were only able to have one kid! I budgeted $300 for MNSSHP tickets (and paid $245 for $300 worth of giftcards from Sam's Club) and had already offset this day by dropping a day of tickets (and 4pm to midnight is about the amount of time we would spend in a park on a regular day) but geesh -- I can imagine how pricey this would be for larger families.

 

[JimmyV]

My last MVMCP ticket cost me $69.18 for December 7, 2012. That was a Friday night, so there probably wasn't an AP discount that night.

I have found both the Halloween and Christmas parties to be very crowded, and the main reason I went to them was for the parade and holiday fireworks.

The last time our family did a party was October, 2008 and we paid $49 per person and decided that we were probably done. I have gone once since, but not as part of a family trip. Not sure what I paid for the ticket, but under the circumstances, it was irrelevant. Not going was not an option.

 

[monorailrabbit]

The cost can be "softened" by sacrificing other things during your trip.. and Disney may see a hit in other places because of the increased pricing all around.

I suspect a lot of families will still vacation to WDW and still do a party, but just maybe not at the extent they used to:

Stay ONE less day for your trip and these tickets are probably paid for.
Go to a theme park one less day (say the party day)
Don't get hopper passes for your trip this time around ..
Cut out a character meal.
Downgrade to the Quick Service dining plan
Don't get the dining plan at all
Make your souvenir budget smaller.

This. We are still going even though the prices were higher than we were hoping. (I use hoping instead of expecting because we have all seen the prices continue to increase on everything across the board.) As a trade off we went down by one park day. This will be our first and probably only trip for Christmas and the party falls on DH's birthday, so we are still going. I am hoping maybe the higher prices might thin out crowds, I've read these parties can get crazy crowded. We did MNSSHP in 2013 and found the crowds to be very manageable and we really enjoyed it.

 

[kshark1958]

Last party we went to was MNSCHP in 2011. Crowd wasn't too bad but I'm reading posts now where the crowds are a lot worse. I thought there was a limit to the amount of tickets to be sold at these events. Also how much worse have the crowds gotten. Because if they have gotten a lot worse then I may so no to attending the MVMCP on Tuesday 11/8/16. I would be putting out 455.00 may not be worth it

 

[MakiraMarlena]

"bait and switch" gets used a lot on these boards when it doesn't actually apply. You can see the prices. You have the option of not paying them. If you still want to go badly enough, you'll pay them. If you really really want to go on Halloween night, you'll pay the maximum...but you will know what the price was before you paid it.

It doesn't apply that well to "I thought the price would be higher, so I'm relieved it isn't THAT high, and I still choose to buy a ticket."

I haven't been to the parties in years (I'm pretty sure the last time I went to one was in 2010), but they are very much in demand, even more so on certain days of the year. It will come to Disney's attention if sales fall off because the prices have reached saturation level with a majority of guests.

 

[taintedtea]

i was planning to go to mnsshp this year for the first time but my travel-mate has now vetoed me because of the crazy prices though, to be honest i've never gone before so i'm not sure how much higher these rates are now from previous years... but i'd be willing to pay them.. way better than the $150 for the after hours events.

 

[k8Davies]

I might have been baited, I might have been switched I even might have been hoodwinked lol..

All I know is I really wanted to go to this event, so if I feel I lucked out by getting it cheaper than the $150 The price I thought it might be, I'm thinking yay me.

Far better than spending the money and feeling cheated or overcharged which could sourer my night.

I don't come to Disney as often as I'd like, being from the UK it's far and in no way cheap and events like this are rare for me.

So I am choosing to stay blissfully unaware of corporate marketing ploys and eat my cookies, drink my hot chocolate and rave about getting this at the bargain price of around £62.

 

[EricInPA]

Suggesting that Disney made the prices lower than the internet speculation by design is Peak Disboards. Wildly speculating a ludicrous price increase (some were guaranteeing $150+), and then it not reaching that is not Disney's fault. These events are crowded and popular, prices went up. As they always do.

 

[BizmoFunyuns]

i was planning to go to mnsshp this year for the first time but my travel-mate has now vetoed me because of the crazy prices though, to be honest i've never gone before so i'm not sure how much higher these rates are now from previous years... but i'd be willing to pay them.. way better than the $150 for the after hours events.

The price increase is causing my wife to say no to the Halloween party as well. We went back and forth between park hoppers or mnsshp for weeks. Finally agreed on the party and now this has thrown a wrench in the plans. Might just buy them anyway and ask forgiveness later. Kids were really looking forward to it.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

A discussion board in the current climate is probably the place I'd expect to see it postulated that Disney is pulling a fast one by not charging as much for something as everybody thought they were going to charge.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

I wonder how many DISers are employed by Disney marketing.

 

[dp911]

sad news? I thought it would have been a lot higher this year. Not so bad.

 

[dp911]

This is simple economics:

1) Dates CLOSER to the actual holidays are more popular, thus they SHOULD be more expensive.

2) If last year's prices were selling out parties, it only makes sense to raise prices. As a 'bonus' --- Higher prices could mean less people go to the parties, which means less crowds that people complain about. Which means the price may be more worth it than last year's lower price.

this 100%

 

[disneyshan]

The price increase for October takes it off the table for my family as well. We have young children who won't make it past 9:30 or so.. so the 377$ (add the difference of our Canadian $ - it's nearly 500$) is just not worth it. We're gonna spend a day over at Universal for not that much extra instead.

 

[redsbe]

Disney doesn't benefit from the fact that people are paying less than they could have been. Disney benefits only by people buying the tickets. Period. The reasoning behind the decision to purchase is meaningless to Disney. It is only fodder for a chat board. As you correctly point out, WDW did not use "bait and switch" as a means of setting prices. So they cannot derive any benefit from something that they neither did nor intended. Disney set the price based on what it thinks its events are worth. And I have no doubt that sales will reflect that. For us, the bar got raised beyond our comfort level at around the $40 mark. So whether the price is $50, $75, $95 or $149 is irrelevant and no amount of "it could have been more" will make me part with what they are now charging.

Yet you just know Disney was well aware that the party prices would be viewed by many through the lens of the special event prices, and have to be smiling all the way to the bank with people willing to pay more compared to last year, for some seeing as a comparative bargain to the extra hour events.