A former Disney resort designer has claimed the world-famous theme parks are ‘highway robbery’ where fun is now replaced with a ‘poor experience’ because tickets are ‘expensive’ and rides are booked in advance.
Ryan Harmon said that his own recent experiences have proved that the days of spontaneously taking your kids to Disney are over.
The former Disney ‘Imagineer’ – whose job was to create, design and build the theme parks – said it has reached a point that no matter how high the company hike their prices, people will continue to come in their droves – which sparks chaos.
Harmon, now the owner of Zeitgeist Design & Production – whose clients include Disney – claimed that unless you plan ahead and reserve rides, shows and restaurants, you are left walking away disappointed.
Also criticizing Disney’s decision to scrap the free fast pass, Harmon told Fox Business: ‘To be charging up to $170 a person to walk through the gate and then $30 a person for a ride. I mean, that’s just highway robbery.’
His negative experiences, both a few years ago and more recently, may well be shared by others as recent data showed that crowds at Disney theme parks have been noticeably thinner this summer with the Fourth of July weekend the slowest in nearly a decade.
A former Disney resort designer has claimed the world-famous theme parks are ‘highway robbery’ where fun is now replaced with a ‘poor experience’ because tickets are ‘expensive’ and rides are booked in advance. Pictured: The Walt Disney ‘Partners’ statue at Magic Kingdom
Harmon said: ‘We bought our very expensive tickets and went in and watched as all these people walked in front of us in the queues because they made an online reservation. So we got stuck waiting and waiting and waiting.’
He added that Disney – who are also at war with 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis over LGBTQ+ rights – have added more experiences to cope with large crowds and then try to raise the prices higher.
He continued: ‘That maybe weeds out some people, but that doesn’t seem to work, and so they’ve come up with a system using your mobile phone…the problem is that unless you plan ahead – which a lot of people do not – you end up going there and having a pretty poor experience because people have reserved rides and shows and restaurants.’
Harmon recalled taking his team on a last-minute trip to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, a few years ago but was left unsatisfied after being unable to access several rides and restaurants because they were booked up.
After getting fed up of watching swathes of people walk past them on rides and at restaurants, they decided to leave after just two hours.
In a more recent trip, Harmon found himself desperately checking his phone to try and secure reservations.
The former Disney Imagineer has called on Disney to cap the number of reservations to allow room for walk-in guests to have an equal experience without the stress.
Harmon recalled taking his team on a last-minute trip to the Magic Kingdom (pictured) but lasted just two hours in the park because they had not made reservations
It comes after travel experts claimed the park’s recent price hikes and changed to operations contributed to the number of people visiting the Most Magical Place on Earth.
While Magic Kingdom and Epcot cost the same this year as last, single-day tickets for Disney’s Hollywood Studios are up $184 and Animal Kingdom have increased to $164.
At Disneyland on the West Coast, the cost of multiday tickets increased by 9 percent or more in October, with the price of a two-day ticket rising from $255 per adult to $285.
Summertime – especially Fourth of July – at Walt Disney World in Florida – is normally one of the busiest times.
But the holiday weekend one of the slowest compared to past years in nearly a decade, according to data from Touring Plans, a travel company that tracks wait times at amusement parks.
Park visitors have seen significantly shorter wait times for rides and industry analysts say this generally correlates with smaller crowds.
At Disney’s Magic Kingdom theme park in Florida, the average posted wait time was 27 minutes this year for the Fourth of July holiday, down from 31 minutes in 2022 and 47 minutes in 2019, according to the Touring Plans data.
It comes after travel experts claimed the park’s recent price hikes and changed to operations contributed to dwindling visitor numbers
It follows a tumultuous year for Disney which has been engaged in a massive legal dispute with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (pictured) over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law passed in 2022
This is despite a special fireworks show produced in the park on July 4th every year.
It follows a tumultuous year for Disney which has been engaged in a massive legal dispute with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law passed in 2022.
At the time, former CEO Bob Chapek spoke out against the Parental Rights in Education Bill which bans classroom instruction on gender identity or sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade.
On Monday, DeSantis claimed there had been a quiet boycott of Disney – both in its theme parks and movies. He said that parents ‘don’t want an agenda shoved down their throat’.
Speaking on The Clay and Buck Show, the Republican said: ‘Well, I’ll tell you, as parents of 6, 5 and 3-year-old kids, my wife and I really believe that parents should be able to send their kids to school and watch cartoons without having an agenda shoved down their throat.
‘That’s why we stood up to Disney with respect to our parents rights and education bill. And I think that it is impacting parents willingness to want to take their kids to the Disney stuff.’
