I read today that Disneyland (i.e. the original Disney theme park in Anaheim, California) raised its one-day ticket price to…One Hundred and Thirty Five Friggin’ Dollars.
Holy Shit!! Who can afford that?
I hated it when I was a kid and some old fogie, like my parents or grandparents, would talk about the “olden days” when they were a kid and a loaf of bread cost a penny…blah blah blah. It was vertical stare time, for sure.
Now I am one of those old farts and I’m starting to tell stories about the good old days. Shame on me!
But, listen to me, Grasshopper…
I actually visited Disneyland shortly after Uncle Walt opened it in the mid 1950’s.
Construction of the park wasn’t even totally finished at that time. Accordingly, the rides and attractions were supplemented by a circus starring the Mickey Mouse Club “Mouseketeers”, who were just then becoming a big deal on TV. (Since the Mickey Mouse Club debuted in October, 1955, we had to have visited the park after that point. Anyway, I was almost eight years old at the time, and I had a crush on “Doreen”.)
I remember being quite excited by the Jungle Cruise ride…
…got sick to my stomach on the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ride…
…and was devastated that I couldn’t drive a car on Autopia…
…because I was too short.
But, seeing Doreen made it all worthwhile.
It was a great day, for sure, although, looking back on it, a lot of the stuff that was there at the time was more oriented towards adults. The really cool rides didn’t appear until many years later.
Back in beginning, there was an $1 admission only pass for the park…
…to walk around and explore about nine “free”attractions, and the rest of the place was priced like a carnival (i.e. maybe 30 cents per ride). There was also a deluxe ticket book, which included admission plus 8 ride tickets (A thru E), priced at about $2.50. Here’s a D-ticket:
If a visitor bought the deluxe ticket book, and then purchased tickets for the remaining 30 attractions (at the time), the full cost would have been $6.60.
Six dollars and sixty cents!!!
Of course, that was a good amount of money in those days, particularly if your family was visiting the park. A family of four would be looking at $26.40, plus parking (a couple bucks), food (not cheap!), and gifts for the kids (everyone had to have either Mickey Mouse ears or a Davey Crockett coonskin hat).
So, a family outing at Disneyland, in the 1950’s, would probably have cost something in the vicinity of $50 to $60. Minimum wage was $0.75 per hour at the time, so that might be a week’s pay for an average working stiff.
Our family was too poor to visit the park; only my Dad worked, and there were four kids in our family. My brother Terry and I only lucked into going to Disneyland because my grandparents, who were upper middle-class, pulled the trigger and made us very happy little boys.
Having lived in Southern California all of my life, I’ve subsequently visited Disneyland dozens of times. The place has changed many, many times over the decades. There are many more attractions now (there are actually two theme parks), the rides are much more sophisticated, and crowds have seemingly gotten bigger and bigger. And, of course, costs have skyrocketed.
There’s been a joke among So Cal folks for the past couple of decades that the only folks who can afford to go there are the Asian tourists. (And, that was back when the all-day pass “only” cost about $80 or $90.)
I last visited Disneyland about ten years ago. I took my grandson Craig, and it cost us $89 each, as I recall. The brand-new parking structure had just been opened, and I remember reading that it was the largest parking structure in the world at the time. Craig and I lost our car in there (honestly!); we spent an hour looking for it after a long, hot day of fun in the park. I was convinced that someone had stolen my car, until we searched every frickin’ level of that 5-story structure, a couple of times, and, then…Presto!…the thief had returned it!!
Disneyland parking now costs Twenty Friggin’ Dollars!!
By the way, food has always been very expensive at Disneyland. They’ve got you where they want you, and the visitor basically gets bent over a log.
I suppose they are not any more expensive than the concessionaires at ball parks or at the airport…$3.75 for a bottle of water, $10 for a beer…but, those little costs add up. It’s usually hot at the park, the kids get thirsty, and…the next thing you know…you’v e spent $15 to cool them off…each time. Lunch and dinner (if you stay late to see the ELP, and it would be possible to blow another couple of hundred bucks with a family of four.
As a Disneyland alternative, to save money, Craig and I used to visit every County Fair within driving distance, each year. Some of the bigger fairs, like L.A. County or Del Mar, had many exciting (for a small boy!) rides, like bumper cars, roller coasters, giant slides, scary indoor rides, etc. I would buy an all-day, all-ride “wristband” for $10 or $15, and let Craig go at it…
There were virtually no lines, and the excitement level was at least as high, if not better, than most of the attractions at Disneyland. No whining and crying, either. Plus, they had a lot of great food, like Deep Fried Zucchini, Deep Fried Snicker Bars, Deep Fried Pickles, and other Deep Fried items.
Here…have some Deep Fried Butter.
The biggest problem with Disneyland is that one can no longer enjoy all of it in a day; it’s just too big and crowded.
The lines going in to each “ride” are huge…some as long as 45 minutes. So, think about it…how many of the 40 or 50 attractions can one really see in a day? Maybe ten of the premier attractions before the adults (and, likely, your children or grandchildren) are absolutely pooped out and/or pissed off at each other.
And, each of those rides essentially cost $5 to $10. Not much value there.
I once took four grandchildren to the park and they were determined to experience all of the premier rides. So, we were standing at the gates when the park opened, and we RAN through the park to the highest priority attraction, rode that one, then RAN to the second priority ride, did that one, and so forth for a couple of hours before the crowds really got thick. We eventually rode most of the good stuff before crapping out and fleeing in the late afternoon…before all the parents and their noisy brood arrived for the Electric Light Parade and the evening mayhem.
Nowadays, a visitor can get a FastPass which allows one to, essentially, cut in line. But, one can only do so much of that. There’s is also a app for your mobile phone called RideMax, which helps one maximize their day or two at the park. But, there’s no Magic Silver Bullet…
…no pain, no gain.
In the end, going to Disneyland means standing around a lot, sore feet, jostling crowds, and, if you’re really dumb, having to listen to bitching, moaning, and crying grandchildren for ten hours.
As for me, I’d rather eat green flies.
And, save a thousand bucks!