Transcription
What's up, fellow overpriced merchandise? Today, we need to talk about Disney, the company, and Disney World, specifically. Because as each day passes, Disney grows in power and becomes more and more of a dystopian nightmare.
Now, I think we all know that Disney is not the most pleasant company morally, and the fact that they are bad may not be any new information. Like, for example, here's a fun, not-so-fun fact about Disney: they refused to allow a grieving father to put Spider-Man on his dead son's tombstone. The kid was four, and he was a huge Spider-Man fan, so his dad wanted to put Spider-Man on it, but he couldn't get permission from Disney because the usage of Spider-Man apparently doesn't preserve the innocence and magic of its characters. Which is complete BS, because in Spider-Man's life, he knows a lot of death. To connect that character to death is not off-brand at all, and Spider-Man would definitely, 100% say yes to the gravestone thing. So, I really don't get this decision by them. Allowing Spider-Man on this kid's tombstone would not cause any negative impact to their profit at all, so this whole thing makes no sense and is just incredibly selfish.
Now, as expected, Disney received a lot of backlash for this, and in turn, they took a very small step forward to correct their mistake. Did they finally let Spider-Man go on the tombstone? No, but they offered to provide a personalized Spider-Man drawing to the family. Like, that does absolutely anything.
Now, I thought we'd just start with that example on what Disney has done to really drive home the point that Disney is a company, they do not care about anyone on a personal level. And as more time passes, they keep doing more things that make them appear more and more like a dystopian company.
Now, I feel it's important for me to also say that there's a really important factor in what makes a company dystopian. See, most companies do not care about people on an individual level. People are numbers to them. What they see first is profit, and as a result, since they do not get personal with people, most consumers do not feel like they must have an unwavering allegiance to the company. The company doesn't get personal with the people, they don't personally value the company, they feel no need to put that company on a pedestal in their lives because they know that that company does not care about them. What really makes Disney dystopian is that this company has a cult-like group of obsessed followers who are pretty much trying to become Disney property themselves. And I'm not talking about Disney adults or just general Disney enjoyers. Disney owns a lot of really good content, and the park experience can offer a bit of fun. Dabbling with Disney content is standard these days, and liking their products isn't an issue, nor are light Disney adults really an issue. No, we're talking about ultra Disney adults, the Disney adult final form. See, Disney adults are simply a guppy, meanwhile, ultra Disney adults are a whale in comparison. From this point forward in the video, we're calling this group Disney worshippers because that's what they do. They worship Disney. How, you may ask? Well, they simply make sure Disney is a part of every facet in their life. They go to the parks constantly. When they get home from the parks, they immerse themselves in their Disney-themed house, eat out of Disney plates, wear Disney clothes, and live in Disney mansions on Disney property. And personally, I like to call these Mickey Mansions for the completely obsessed rich Disney lover. And while they sit in their Mickey Mansion, they plan their weddings, which are also on Disney property, in Disney princess wedding dresses with Mickey Mouse engagement rings.
Now, this is only the surface. We have a lot to cover in this video, so it's going to be divided into two key segments. The first half is where we go over how lackluster and exhausting the experience with Disney Parks has become and how outrageous their pricing is. The second half is where we cover the people who have let Disney consume them, because I feel both of these segments combined together is what truly makes Disney a dystopian nightmare.
Since Disney World has been placed up on a pedestal as one of the best places for vacationing on the planet, I figured the best way to start this dissection of Disney parks would be to start by kicking it off that pedestal. So, let's look at the word "vacation." It's defined as an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one away from home. Now, we of course all know what a vacation is, but to completely avoid confusion, let's just agree that vacations are meant to be relaxing. It's a trip that's meant to put you at ease. Whether you're spending some time at the slopes, going to museums, or suntanning on a beach, you're meant to be spending time relaxing, doing what brings you peace, experiencing a heightened period of stress is the exact opposite of what a vacation is meant to do. Yet, planning a Disney trip can be one of the most stressful things you do. It is absolutely exhausting to create a somewhat decent Disney trip, and often times, a lot of the planning for a Disney trip occurs while you're on the trip. So, it's not just before the trip you're stressed, you're actually stressed on the trip trying to navigate this experience. While going to Disney used to be a more relaxing and spontaneous experience, that is far from the truth these days.
Now, let me explain why. The first reason that we're going to elaborate on later is that planning a Disney trip feels risky due to how you spend your money. Disney is notorious for being outrageously expensive. No one wants to spend thousands of dollars on a lackluster or terrible experience. If a lot of money is on the line, you're going to want to be careful with it. You're going to want to maximize the amount of fun you have while minimizing the amount of dollars you spend. And because of how complex and busy Disney parks are, it is incredibly easy to overspend your money while poorly planning out your time. So, just how easy is it to completely mess up a Disney trip? Well, let's go over all the careful things you need to plan out if you want to have a good experience at Disney Parks. All of these reasons are going to be ignoring cost entirely, as that is another beast to be tackled at this time stamp in the video.
Now, first thing you have to consider when you're in a Disney park: what rides are you going to go on? Seems easy enough, just pick all the ones you want and go wait in line. Except, unless you only have four rides you want to go on over the course of an eight-hour day, you're going to be disappointed. Disney wait times are monstrous. I did some number crunching on the wait times for three of their parks: Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios. I excluded Epcot from this because rides are not the focal point of Epcot at all. It's mainly the food and experience of the World Showcase. And while some wait times are still long at Epcot, not too many people try to plan their trip around going on Epcot rides. We're basically analyzing the wait times people really care about here, because if you're planning a Disney trip and you really want to experience the good stuff everyone has been talking about, you have been warned that it's not going to be easy. So, let's get into how long these wait times are. To get the numbers I provide in this section, I took the wait time for each of the following rides over a 30-day period and then calculated the average. The dates I selected were April 1st of this year all the way to April 30th. So, let's get into what I found. Starting with Magic Kingdom, we're going to look at the most hyped-up rides in this park: Seven Dwarfs' Mine Train, Haunted Mansion, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan's Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space Mountain, and Splash Mountain. On average, here are the following wait times: Seven Dwarfs, 97 minutes; Haunted Mansion, 51 minutes; Jungle Cruise, 79 minutes; Peter Pan's Flight, 76 minutes; Pirates, 46 minutes; Space Mountain, 60 minutes; and Splash Mountain at 70 minutes. Just to make this clear, four of those are over an hour, with Space Mountain being exactly an hour. So, if you wanted to go on all those rides, you should expect to wait in line for 7.9 hours. Clearly, that's not great. You can cut some rides from your schedule, but truth is, it's still an ungodly amount of waiting, and we only looked at seven rides. The ability to go on seven rides in one park at Disney shouldn't be a huge, outrageous goal if you're going to spend your entire day at the park.
Let's look at Animal Kingdom. Kilimanjaro Safaris has a 62-minute wait on average. Na'vi River Journey, 71 minutes. And Flight of Passage is 92 minutes, a whole hour and a half in line is to be expected for that ride. Now, Hollywood Studios is another beast. Let's go. Rise of the Resistance has a 102-minute wait. Slinky Dog Dash has a 108-minute wait. And Tower of Terror averages a 118-minute wait. So, all of those rides are over an hour and a half, with Tower of Terror bordering two hours. Two hours for a drop ride. Needless to say, Disney wait times are a bit excessive. So, simply planning to ride a large number of rides without putting any other work in isn't going to cut it. You're going to have to get a FastPass, spend multiple days at the park, or use another strategy.
So, getting a FastPass may sound easy, right? FastPass is now done using Disney's new Genie+ system, and that's going to cost you $15 a day. Now, the price alone may discourage some people. If you're a solo traveler and you can afford Disney in the first place, $15 a day may not seem that bad. But if you're a family of four, $15 just got multiplied up to $60 a day, which is kind of bad. And using the FastPass system isn't exactly straightforward. So, for most parks, the system is easy. You just buy a FastPass and then hop in the FastPass line. I mean, how hard was that to explain? Well, Disney's Genie+ is apparently so straightforward that it's somehow needed a 14-minute video published by Disney on how it works. What on Earth is this? If you search on YouTube an explanation for how Genie+ works in simple terms, you will always have to sit through a video that's longer than 10 minutes. So, I don't have time to explain the whole thing, but I can mention a couple of annoying features. To hop in the FastPass line, you have to book it in advance because nothing on a Disney trip can be spontaneous. It's called booking a Lightning Lane. You have to reserve a time for the ride you want to go on. But here's the thing: not every ride is included in this system. Disney has excluded the following high-demand rides from it. If you want to go on these using a Lightning Lane, you're going to have to pay an incredibly dumb extra cost per ride. So, what the hell is the point?
Now, does Disney sound exhausting yet? It might, but we've only talked about the rides. We haven't talked about food reservations. So, let's just say you're planning a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disney. You're looking at their restaurant selection, and then you see Be Our Guest. It looks wonderful, it looks amazing, and you think to yourself, "Damn, I want to experience that. If I'm only going to Disney once, I might as well eat there." Now, if you think you're going to get into this restaurant for dinner, you are a fool. You think you stand a chance at getting to eat here? This was never in the cards for you. You should have thought about that 180 days ago at 6:00 in the morning. Reservations for this restaurant open 180 days in advance, and this place is always booked to full capacity. A quote from this website says, "Try booking online before phone. Online reservations for select restaurants open up at 5:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, while the phone lines open up at 7 a.m." So, you have to book online for an hour advantage. Booking a Disney restaurant 180 days in advance should not be like fighting at The Hunger Games Cornucopia. How is this an issue? How absurd is it that you have to wake up at 6:00 a.m. and choose the precise booking method 180 days in advance for your reservation to have a chance? Most restaurants at Disney open the reservation 60 days in advance, and while these places are not as busy as Be Our Guest, because of how much time is given to book a reservation and how busy the parks are, unless you majorly planned in advance, it's very possible you'll be out of luck for a good dinner experience. Your only chance is probably going to be a quick-service location where you'll pretty much be standing around eating your food. But Disney bloggers and travel planners have now started recommending people place mobile orders for quick-service locations, basically pre-planning a pickup time for your quick-service meals, because walking up to a counter to grab a hot dog could not just stay straightforward at Disney. Absolutely everything now requires planning. With the crowd and busyness of the parks going up, the ability to navigate the park and do things you actually want to do has become incredibly difficult.
Now, there's always been times where Disney has been busy. There's a crowd calendar to Disney where there's a busy season and a slow season. At least that's how it used to be. However, nowadays, there is not really anything that could be called a slow season. It's just busy season and insane season. Now, many people add on another layer of complexity to Disney planning because of the crowds. They recommend you get to the park by a specific time, and when you do, go left. If there's an option to go left or right on anything, go left because there will be less people. So, you even have to figure out how you're walking around the park. So, because of how busy and complex these parks are, in order to have a shot at having an enjoyable trip at Disney, you have to spend hours and hours planning. You have to plan while you're in the park. You have to treat planning for Disney like it's a full-time job. And then, after putting all that work in to plan the perfect experience, you also have to keep in mind things will probably not work out perfectly anyway. Now, there's many reasons for this, but one reason I think is pretty important would be the weather. Obviously, Disney can't control the weather, but regardless, it is still part of the Disney experience. And since Disney World is located in Florida, it's known for its really weird rainfall schedule. There's a video I saw on TikTok of this guy and his son sitting at Disney in the rain, and honestly, it made me really sad because I thought of all the time and money that must have went into planning this, and yet you can still be let down. While not the fault of the park, it still sucks. So, going to Disney is starting to sound a whole lot more tiring than it is fun. But remember, in addition to how you spend your time at Disney, we also got to talk about how you spend your money, because when you add in the factor of how much all this costs, stuff goes downhill fast.
I've done a lot to get numbers for this section of the video, but remember, stuff is always changing. This is most likely only going to increase in the future, or things such as resort costs may dip down during some parts of the year, but generally, the info in this section holds true. So, let's divide the cost of going to Disney into the following: resort cost, food cost, and then admissions and FastPass. Let's start with the resorts. All totals here are excluding tax. They were calculated based on a seven-day trip to Disney, and these prices are just the hotel stay with no admissions or extras included. Now, there is a price calculation for both a peak season at Disney and an off-season at Disney. Because the off-season is usually cheaper, the off-season dates are September 12th to 18th, and the on-season price calculation is using April 9th to April 15th. So, because of how the price fluctuates, I thought this was necessary.
Now, there are three main resort tiers at Disney, and in order of least expensive to most, they are known as value resorts, moderate resorts, and deluxe resorts. Spoiler alert: the deluxe have prices fitting the word "deluxe," and the value resorts sure don't seem like value pricing at all. So, let's start with the value resorts. For a single room, not a suite, at Disney's Art of Animation Resort, it costs $1,400 during September and $1,800 in April. And now for a moderate resort, the price is going to increase a decent amount. For example, Disney's Port Orleans Resort costs $1,700 for the off-season and $2,100 for the peak season. Overall, a bit more expensive, but the next jump from moderate to deluxe is crazy. For Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, off-season costs $2,700 and peak season costs $3,500 for six nights. Disney's Grand Floridian costs $4,200 during off-season and $5,700 during peak season. Now, all of these resort prices have been excluding tax. Now, when we look at that $5.7k price tag on the last resort and then look at the tax added on at checkout, we get the price of $6.4k just for the resort for six nights. Now, remember, these may be called deluxe resorts, but these are not all-inclusive. Staying at these resorts do not come with the inclusion of free food or drinks. You still have to pay for all your meals. You can get a week in Cuba, Mexico, or most other North American tropical destinations for much cheaper with everything being all-inclusive. Here's some hotels on screen with their nightly rate, and I've edited the full week cost on top. Since Disney resorts are not all-inclusive, though, I decided I would compare their hotel prices to other hotels located in popular American cities for tourism. I got the prices for three, four, and five-star hotels located in downtown Los Angeles, downtown Manhattan, downtown Miami, and Las Vegas. These prices were calculated for the April dates mentioned earlier. So, Disney's Art of Animation Resort during peak season is $305 a night. It is ranked as a three-star tiered resort on TripAdvisor. Here are all the resort prices on screen. In Las Vegas, you can easily get a three, four, and five-star for much cheaper. A three and four-star in Manhattan, a three and four-star in Miami, and a three-star in Los Angeles. So, again, out of these four destinations, in comparison, in three of them, you can easily find a four-star resort for cheaper than Disney's three-star. When we compare Disney's Grand Floridian, a resort that is considered to be a five-star, to other five-stars in America, stuff gets crazy. During peak season, one night at the Grand Floridian is $950. This Los Angeles five-star is $496. This Manhattan one is $346. This Miami one is $354, and this biggest one is $295. And to show you I'm not cherry-picking the lowest prices I can find here, here are some screenshots of the other surrounding hotels. Basically, Disney's overpriced, we knew, but I do love proof.
Now, the hotel costs alone are a lot, but I didn't even add on the actual park admissions and FastPasses to the cost. I'm adding FastPasses in because using them is pretty much essential given the wait times mentioned earlier on in the video. So, let's calculate how much these stays will cost once we factor in admissions. I'm running with the assumption that only four days out of the seven-day trip will be park days. This is because the majority of people would want to use their park admission on a full day in the park instead of a small amount of the day. Because of this, day one and day seven can't be used because they're check-in and checkout days. There are four parks, one day per park, and the fifth day can be used for Disney Springs or some other thing. Here's the price of admissions: around $100. It goes down a little bit when you buy for four days. And then here's the price of a FastPass per park per day. Let's add these two things together, and to go to the parks and get to go on an enjoyable amount of rides, the price is an additional $484 without tax. Add that on to their supposedly cheap value resort's stay, and you're looking at an expected minimum of $2,300. And if you're a rich person staying at the Floridian, that brings your total to $6.2k. And these calculations aren't for families either. Remember, that $484 is the admission for one person, and that room calculation is for one to two people to fit in. If you're a family of four going, you're probably going to pay $1,900 in admissions and have to upgrade your room. At Art of Animation, a bigger room designed for families costs about $639 a night instead of the $305. So, your stages went from $2,300 to $5,775. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor with that Hunger Games reference.
I think it's time we talk about hunger, because you're a human being, you need to eat. You can't just walk around Disney all day for a week and not eat anything. The food is not complimentary, so you got to pay for that. Let's look at how Disney prices the food in their park. Spoiler alert: it's saddening. Here are some food products at Disney and the price you can expect to pay for them: This hot dog, $10 to $14. This cookie, $6. This Dole Whip, $6. These two spring rolls, $9.50. This incredibly small-looking cupcake, $5.49. A glass of blue or green milk from Galaxy's Edge, $8.49 for one with no alcohol. And with alcohol, this simple little cup is $15. This one broke me. I don't know, it's just so underwhelming. Like the hot dog, it's massive, I kind of get it. The cupcake, you know, it looks kind of cute. Dole Whip, I don't know. But I really like stuff like this. But this standard glass of liquid with no decoration, with nothing adding to it but its color, this absolutely averagely sized colored drink with nothing else going on being $8 to $15, that broke me. All the drinks at Disney pretty much disappoint me. Actually, for a tiny little Dan water bottle, it's $3.50. For chocolate milk, $4.19. For apple juice, $4. And for a single glass of any fountain drink, it's $4.49. These prices are all taken from Casey's Corner in Magic Kingdom. It's not like a gourmet drink place, it's the hot dog place. So, something interesting about these prices is that it seems the more simple the item is, the more outrageous the price is. The Cheshire Cat Tail, for example, I don't know if I said that right, but it's $5.79. It seems way more reasonable than buying an apple juice for $4 or a water bottle for $3.50. And not to turn this into a completely different rant video, but the water bottle is Dan. It's a Dan water bottle. They should be paying you to drink it. Why is this three times more expensive than any actually good water you can get anywhere else? I feel like I need to sell my organs to afford drinks here.
Now, after our breakdown on how much Disney necessitates these costs, it may shock you for me to say that things are about to get worse. That's pretty much what this whole video is. It's like, it's going to get worse, and you know how people usually say it gets worse before it gets better? That's not happening. We're just going to, it's going to keep going downhill. So, I hope you're prepared.
Now, if you thought the parks have been bad with pricing so far, you haven't seen anything yet. Let's talk about Disney's newest and shiniest immersive guest experience: the Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser Hotel. Tired of this reality? No need to learn how to reality shift, just go spend two nights in this completely immersive guest experience. It'll only cost you your soul. Two nights at this Disney hotel costs $4,800 for two guests, which works out to $1,200 a night per guest. Most people are calling it the $6,000 Experience because a lot of people are going to this experience as a family, which is often a group of four, and that cost $6,000 for, once again, two nights. If I'm paying $6,000 for a two-night stay, I better be getting a free seminar on how to become a god thrown in there. I better be walking away from that with immortal divine knowledge. But sadly, I don't think that's possible. But let's take a look at what guests do get for this price tag. At Disney's official website, it says the following is included in the Galactic Starcruiser vacation package: a two-night stay, ongoing immersive and interactive entertainment where choices determine your experience. I think we got that, Disney, that's kind of the whole point of an interactive experience. Like, they just restated it, it's just redundant. Food and beverages are also included, but not alcoholic or specialty beverages. Look, you can get an all-inclusive four-star vacation in Mexico that lasts a week with free limited food and alcohol all trip, but of course, Disney can't be bothered to provide that. Included in the package is also an admission to Hollywood Studios, valet parking, and a MagicBand. And a MagicBand costs like $20 to $30 max, so it's really not a steal. As for how the rooms, shows, and the hotel as a whole look, we'll cover that. The rooms, like the rest of the hotel, are very thematic. The beds are all right. I do like the bunk bed feature. But the star feature of this room that the media comments on is the display port. It's the window on this room. It's so that way you're supposed to feel like you're looking out into space and you're on a galactic cruiser. However, many people have commented that the viewport isn't that immersive or doesn't look convincing when viewed from different angles. It's got this weird, there's this weird glare thing to it, which I don't know if it's to hide the edges of the screen. If that's the idea, I don't know. I'm not blown away by this. It definitely feels like a screen. And this is a pretty big deal because if you're paying such an extreme price for an immersive experience where you're supposed to feel like you're in space, the viewport being inadequate is a complete slap in the face. It has been hyped up as a star feature of the room and it completely underdelivers. What's the point in just looking at a galaxy screen that is very obviously a screen?
Now, I'll have to hand it to Disney here. I can't say the shows on the Galactic Starcruiser are terrible. Disney is usually pretty good at offering up fun on-site shows for their guests. Are these ones perfect? No. Are they bad? No. Are they fun? Probably. Are they worth the insane price? Absolutely not. If you're rich and out of touch with reality, this wouldn't matter to you. If spending $2 to $6,000 to you is like spending $5 to $10 for anyone else, then yeah, I guess it doesn't matter. But this is ridiculous for the vast majority of people. So, to recap this experience: it looks fine, it looks cool, fun even, but it's just nowhere near justifiable for the price that they're asking for. If you were going as a group of two, it would cost $4,800 to stay here for two nights. Meanwhile, if you went to Disney's Art of Animation Resort for a week, bought two MagicBands, and bought two admissions to Hollywood Studios, the price would still be cheaper despite going for a week. It would actually be less than half the cost. And when you add the cost of eight admissions, four admissions for each person so they can go to each park and stay at Art of Animation for a week, this package is still way cheaper than the Galactic Starcruiser Hotel. So, it's really funny that even though Disney is known for being expensive, this hotel makes everything else look cheap. It truly has outdone itself. Commenters on the YouTube videos about it frequently say things similar to, "Wow, that sure does look cool, but for two nights, I might as well go on a nice cruise." You should know you messed up when people start using cruises as an example of something that's cheap.
All right, now let's talk about something interesting about Disney Parks. As we said earlier, the experience can be quite a letdown and very exhausting, but what I find most fascinating about Disney Parks is how much Disney tries to control your perception while you're in the park. How many psychological tactics they employ to extract every little last drop of money out of you while making you believe you're having the time of your life. The first most blatant thing Disney does is that they often redirect you through a gift shop once you get off an attraction. A gift shop after a ride is the perfect recipe for impulse buying when emotions are running high. Though I'm not a fan of this idea, this is pretty standard for most attractions anywhere. If a place is labeled an attraction, odds are there will be a gift shop at the exit. This is not just a Disney thing, but I thought it was still worth mentioning since we just need to talk about the reality of spending time at the parks.
Another tactic Disney uses is the wait time lie. The wait time lie is where every attraction at Disney Parks will most likely have a misleading wait time posted, an overinflated one. You'll go line up for Splash Mountain, see the wait time is 110 minutes, but then you'll actually only end up being in line for 90 minutes. You will rarely ever wait the time listed on the sign. Now, the point of this tactic isn't to get you to spend money like the one we just mentioned, at least not directly. This one is purely for your emotions. It's to make you feel like Disney is over-delivering on their promises. It's to make you feel relieved that the day is going much better than you expected. You think you have free will by being relieved at how short the wait was? No, sorry, your emotions become Disney property when you're in the park.
Another thing Disney does is redirection. The colors of the paint around the park is very deliberate. When Disney wants you to go to an area, you'll often see bold, bright paint colors. Around boring areas of the park that aren't attractions or shops, will have a lot of blues and colors that don't pop as much. Now, when Disney wants you to completely ignore something in your vision, they use two paint colors: "go away green" and "blending blue." These colors are designed to be so comparatively boring to everything else in your vision, you won't look at anything covered in it, such as immersion-breaking devices or any unpolished areas of the park.
Another method of redirection that is heavily speculated to be in use is Disney's hot pavement. I mean, it is heavily speculated by a lot of people, but it's not really confirmed by Disney or easily provable, so I don't want to say anything for sure about this, but I thought I'd just talk about it since other people seem to think this is a thing. The idea goes that painting in some area of the parks, like Main Street, is deliberately heat absorbent so that way people go inside more to cool off. Once they're inside, they're more likely to spend money. I mean, how awkward is it to walk into a store, walk around, then come out with nothing? It feels weird, and people don't like feeling weird. Obviously, they buy something. Problem solved. The Main Street road is dark pavement, so I get where the theory comes from, since this road could have easily be painted any other way to look even more fitting for its setting. But since a lot of areas of Disney don't have this pavement color, I'm unsure about this one. So, what do you guys think? I mean, I think it could be a stretch, but at the same time, it seems like way less of a stretch than the next tactic I'm talking about.
This next tactic is literally proven to be a thing and is heavily talked about. Let's talk about smellitizers. Smellitizers are Disney's little hand-held smell-creating devices. Food areas like bakeries and Magic Kingdom and other parks use these smellitizers to pump out perfect food smells. So, basically, when you walk into a place and the stuff smells really good, it's not real, it's an illusion. Smellitizers aren't everywhere, but some pretty iconic ones are located on Main Street food places, the Pirates ride, and the Haunted Mansion. Tons of places have them, but it's really hard to get a comprehensive list since Disney doesn't like to publish too many magic-ruining documents.
Now, what's the significance of these devices? Well, they're pretty cool. They add another layer of sensory immersion, and they also, as stated before, most likely play a factor in people buying food. And a speculated use of the smellitizer is to create strong positive feelings with the use of pleasant smells and have these last in your memory. Aromatherapy and smells being used as a mood booster is well-documented. So, a popular takeaway with smellitizers is the memory association. The use of smell in olfactory memory is able to imprint Disney rides and the experience as positive in the mind and let it stand out strongly within memory as nostalgic and easily recallable. So, with all of these psychological, emotional influencing strategies in place, it's no wonder they can get away with the intense prices and still have people fall in love with the whole experience. It's incredibly well-crafted.
So, we've talked about the parks. It is now time to talk about Disney worshippers, because once again, a company just being outrageous is not enough to say it's dystopian. Do the prices make it look like the end times are near? Yes. And does the park experience declining while these prices are rising make things look even worse? Absolutely. But it truly becomes dystopian when you see there's a mass group of people who roll up to Disney parks at rope drop many days of the week, eat all the Disney Mickey-themed food, wear Disney clothes, go home and lay on their Disney bed in their Disney Mansion. It becomes a situation you would only expect to see in a movie.
Now, remember, these Disney worshippers are not just Disney adults. Disney adults overall are not nearly as extreme as this group here. Here's a diagram that sums up how we classify this group. All Disney worshippers are Disney adults, but not all Disney adults are Disney worshippers. This group is a committed following who makes everything in their life about Disney. So, let's start off by looking at what I like to call Mickey Mansions: housing for the Uber-rich Disney fanatic. Mickey Mansions are a little nickname I've given to the houses on Disney's community Golden Oak. Golden Oak is a private community built by Disney on Disney property that contains a lot of mansions. Homes over there range from $2 million to over $10 million, and one listed on their site right now is $9 million. And in fact, only one is listed on their site because out of all the homes they offer, there are somehow enough rich people interested to buy them all. And Golden Oak is massive. There are a lot of homes. There are eight neighborhoods within this prestigious community, and overall, the size of Golden Oak is massive. Its size is currently 980 acres. To compare this to other Disney properties: Magic Kingdom is 142, Hollywood Studios is 154, Epcot 300, and Animal Kingdom 500. Golden Oak is just under the size of all of those combined.
So, now you know what Golden Oak is and how it is somehow actually getting used. It's time to show you what these houses look like. When looking at these mansions, they look like standard rich stuff. Yes, they vary in architectural style, and if you are an architect or engineer, you may notice some interesting things about them. But let's be real for a second. To the undiscerning eye, it is just a bunch of big, fancy houses. You might almost forget this is even Disney property. But don't worry, Mickey is lurking in the shadows. He always is. He never leaves. He always comes back. Because this experience would not be complete for the Disney fanatic without the inclusion of subliminal lurking hidden Mickey. Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey, Mickey.
Now, my video is arguing that Disney is a dystopian nightmare, and I think that video alone proves my point. Only in a dystopian, decaying society would Mickey Mouse being plastered everywhere in the house add to the house's real estate value instead of taking away from it. So, I went on a binge watch of looking at Golden Oak homes on YouTube to see what I can find, and I found something hilarious. I found a "moving into Golden Oak" vlog, and in this video, the woman who moved in has the boldness, the pure ignorance, to suggest that she is cheap and loves being frugal. "So excited, so we got that set from the Disney Store. So, anyways, I'm going to show you the top of what would have been the elevator, but I wanted you know that there was supposed to be an elevator. We opted it out of it because we are, we're not those people. We aren't those people. Good. And I love the brass details, I love the the lights. A lot of the stuff that I have in here is actually from the Teen collection at Restoration Hardware. So, fun fact, if you're trying to save some money, I love being frugal. I love being frugal." She lives in a Mickey Mansion. She is in the top 1%. Yet, she says she loves to be frugal. Does she know what that word means? Let's look at Google: "sparing or economical with regard to money or food." What the hell does she think it means? There's no way she honestly thinks she's frugal. She must think "frugal" is like an aesthetic or something. "A cardboard box. Oh my God, so frugal. It's giving poverty core. I feel cleansed. Please shut up." If there's one thing these Disney worshippers do well, it's being sheltered and out of touch with reality, just like a lot of the royalty in Disney films, oddly enough. Maybe it's deliberate, and they're just hardcore role-playing.
Speaking of role-playing, are you super immensely rich and want to have your own lavish fairy tale wedding? Well, Disney's got you covered. Let's look at the completely unnecessary yet actually used service that is Disney weddings. Weddings are typically regarded as expensive in general, but Disney weddings take this to a whole new level. If you want to get married on Disney property, here are the prices for just reserving the space for the ceremony. Disney's cheapest options are their spaces that don't look related to Disney at all, and those start at $3.5k. Various Epcot Pavilions cost $5.5k, and to marry at either Pandora, the Tree of Life, or Tower of Terror, it costs $7.5k. To marry at Magic Kingdom's train station, $15,000. Personally, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic to pay $15,000 to have a train station Disney-themed wedding, but hey, that's just me. Now, Magic Kingdom After Hours, the ceremony by the castle costs $330,000 for the ceremony. $30,000 for this one event, just to reserve the venue. If you want to get food services, it has a per-person cost starting at $140 per person with brunch and $210 per person for dinner. So, if you're going to have a Disney wedding, try not to make it a big one. And if you want Disney characters to show up to your wedding, that's going to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, one couple on Reddit recently had a Disney wedding and made a great sacrifice to have Mickey and Minnie show up. Instead of giving food to their guests, you know, the people who show up and give them gifts, instead of going through with one of the most basic parts of wedding planning and giving the guests food, they decided to use their funds to book a couple sessions with Mickey and Minnie. Let's read this post because it's golden, and by golden, I mean deeply sad, but still fascinating.
"Am I the a-hole for not having catering at my wedding? My female 28 and my fiancé male 30 just got married 2 months ago and we had our dream wedding. Everything was perfect, and I mean everything. My parents and his parents helped us pay for a great chunk of the wedding so we would be debt-free, and we are so eternally grateful for that. The issue arose about a month and a half ago when my aunt started posting on Facebook about how disappointed she was with the whole ordeal, and a few guests sided with her. Background: My fiancé and I are huge Disney fans and we travel to Disney World as much as we can throughout the year. Disney is such an important part not only to us but also our marriage. The issue was with our decision to not offer catering services/bar services at our wedding due to routing the money towards having a wedding Minnie and Mickey make appearances at on our special day. The cost to have both Minnie and Mickey for a good chunk of time, 30 minutes, was almost exactly what our parents allotted for our catering budget. So we scheduled an appearance during our first dance and our wedding photos. Forgoing served food, though there were plenty of facilities at the venue where people could eat, my parents were still very supportive of us, but everyone else is being passive-aggressive about it on Facebook. Am I the a-hole? Edits to those asking if the guests were warned: We clearly outlined in the invitations that there was food available at the venue. We didn't exactly spell out every restaurant's menu, but it was certainly mentioned. There were also vending machines available throughout. Edit two: For everyone saying that it's too much for 30 minutes, I want to clarify that it was two 30-minute sessions on different days. $2,750 was the cost for one session."
So, there's a lot to cover here. I mean, this is a lot. First of all, this couple thought paying a total of $5,500 on two people in mascot costumes for 60 minutes total was a good thing. They thought this was fantastic. I mean, Mickey and Minnie weren't ripped through a tear in the multiverse and summoned to this dimension. No, these are grown-ass humans in smelly mouse costumes, and you blew $5,000, you blew $5,500 on it. Now, what makes this particularly strange is that the wife is 28 and the husband is 30. Now, in my opinion, there shouldn't really be an age limit on interest, but we have to acknowledge that if they are around 30 years old, the other guests must be around that same age and older. And let's face it, they may be different, but most 30-plus year olds don't want to hug smelly mouse people. Like, these guests were probably not obsessed with fictional mice. Another issue I have with this post is that this budget wasn't even paid for by the couple. It was lent to them by their parents. They literally said they took the budget allotted for catering and used it on this instead. If you're inviting people to your wedding, you should give them food, especially if they had to pay to travel to your wedding. Because again, this is a Disney wedding, this is a destination wedding. These people probably had to pay to get there. The least you could do is thank them with food. So, if this couple truly just wanted the night to be about their needs and priorities first, they should have had a private ceremony and invited no one. They also said they outlined on the invitation that there would be food at the venue, but that's just misleading because if I read that there was food at the venue, I would assume it is provided as part of the wedding service. Instead, they recommended that their wedding guests use vending machines or hop over to a Magic Kingdom restaurant like Casey's Corner. How extravagant is this? A wedding or is it a Chuck-E-Cheese birthday party? Who knows. All that we do know is that we live in a society where people think this is a good way to spend their money.
In addition to getting married on Disney property, people can and do also purchase Disney wedding dresses and rings. Here's the current catalog of Disney wedding dresses. To be honest, I was expecting something more. They're inspired after Disney Princesses, but given how elaborate and unique Disney Princesses look versus how generic these look, it's just not giving what it needs to give for me. Now, I need to show you their wedding bands. They are something else entirely. Look at this. Look at this. This looks like something I'd cash in at an arcade when I didn't have enough tickets to get anything good. I just slowly crawl up to the counter, balling my eyes out, because all I could afford was a single army guy, glow worm, clappy hand, and Mickey ring. But instead of this thing costing 25 tickets at an arcade, it costs $900. This is the price people pay to immerse themselves in Disney culture for every waking moment of their lives, even their commitment.
And relationships must have a gold Mickey stamp placed on it. Now I thought I'd close off this section of the video by talking about a couple of niche areas of Disney worshiping culture that didn't necessarily fit elsewhere in the video. So, number one, the amount these people go to the parks is crazy. It is impossible to get stats for just how often some people go to Disney Parks, but it is everywhere online. All you have to do is look on YouTube or TikTok for Disney World Vlogs, and you will inevitably find channels that visit the park multiple times a week, all year round. Golden Oak is actually pretty much designed for this type of person because residence at Golden Oak gives you a bunch of perks in regards to early park access and ease with going to the parks often. A lot of people go to Disney Parks way more often than you'd think. Now, I'm not going to crunch numbers on the cost of this since this has way too many variables, but reflecting back on the cost of Disney in this video, needless to say, this is a dangerously expensive lifestyle.
Now, with the words "dangerously expensive," it is time to talk about Disney's latest project for the Uber Rich, the Storyliving project. The long and short of this Storyliving project is that Disney is trying to create communities around America that are whimsical little utopian communities. Since it's a utopia, is it going to be affordable to live there? Well, they haven't released the prices, but I think we can all agree, hell no. Based on Golden Oak, this is going to be for the top 1%, especially because compared to these communities, Golden Oak looks basic and boring. While these communities may not be built yet, Disney has released concept art for what they want them to look like. What the hell is that? That is an otherworldly tree. Okay, this thing is designed right to conceptually look like a tree. We can tell that that's meant to be a tree-like plant, but it looks nothing like what we have here on Earth. So, this whole stick is to make you feel like you're in a completely different society and not in the reality that Earth offers. So, it's time for me to put on the tin foil hat. Now, you see Disney's communities. What if they're just a test run for the rich elite? What if these communities are just designed to have them test out life on a different planet ahead of time before they all get in their spaceships and leave us on the planet? You never know.
Now, I think it's time to bring this video to a conclusion. Let me try to make a short, concise summary because, you know what, this video certainly wasn't short. Okay, so Disney Parks have been placed on this huge pedestal as the most magical place on Earth, but really, going to Disney Parks these days is hardly fitting for the title of vacation, given how stressful planning a trip here can be, especially for people who only have a shot to experience Disney once or maybe twice in their lives. The parks are busy, it's hard to do stuff, the parks are expensive. The Galactic Starcruiser is somehow charging families $6,000 to stay there for two nights. And despite this company holding up a giant sign that says, "I am a company, I do not care about you, I do not personally know you, give me money, please," people still love these parks as if it is their best friend. They love them so much that they move to be close to these parks and live in the mansions in Golden Oak, and some somehow have the boldness to believe that they live frugally. Some have Disney weddings in which they use so much money for sweaty mascots to show up that they forget to feed their guests. And now Disney is building Storyliving communities because the parks are not enough. Disney must become its own little independent nation for people to come live in, and people will. The rich will flock to these spots. Disney will not be happy until there is a micro-society of Disney-worshiping rich people. So, let's revisit the question: Is Disney a dystopian nightmare? Yes, it is. I rest my case.
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