The Sneakiest Place On Earth!

Brittany and I are taking Trey to Walt Disney World in January, and I couldn’t be more excited about the trip if I were jumping around in stacks of cash with bells on and a naked Eliza Dushku cheering from the sidelines. He’s at the perfect age for his first trip to the “Happiest place on Earth” (note: Yes, I know that’s Disneyland’s tag line, but Disney World is better. Deal with it.). Everything will be truly real and amazing to his wide and eager eyes, and there’s no end to the childhood magic that Walt Disney World (WDW) can evoke. It’s no secret that I love WDW, but my excitement for the trip has been slightly spoiled by the unsavory realization that Disney is greedy, vicious, and manipulative bunch of bastards. Well no, I knew that already – but this time, they’ve gone too far.

The Disney company may be family-friendly and it might bring joy and happiness to millions of people across the globe, but there’s no doubting that it is, in fact, a corporation – and therefore, it exists as a parasite to the populace, latching onto the wallets and bank accounts of its victims before sucking every last nickel, dime and penny from their unfortunate coffers. This, of course, is not news and it’s not even an indictment against Disney itself. It’s simply a fact of life when living in the brave new world of corporate greed and omnipresence.

I’m going to skip the usual anti-corporate sentiments today, in favor of straining my brevity muscles to keep things short and to the point. Regular readers will know that charting a course through the brief and the concise is unnatural territory for me, so I beg pardon for any missteps I may take along the way. Now, with that handy disclaimer out of the way, let’s cut through the wet meat and sloppy tissue, and grind straight down to the crunch of milky bone and the tender mush of the soft and squishy marrow that lies beneath. It is time to rip the ears off the mouse and expose its demon horns. It is time, my friends, to talk of money.

To those unfamiliar with WDW, allow me to illuminate the inner workings of the 47 square mile monument to consumerism and the corporate sanitation of reality. It’s a great place to escape to, as the Disney “Imagineers” have created an oasis of peace and happiness in the middle of otherwise miserable Floridian swampland. You arrive, park your car, and shut out the outside world for the duration of your stay. You check in to you hotel, and check out from reality for a few days. It’s a nice arrangement, and it’s one of the primary reasons I love the place so much. However, WDW doesn’t exist as a public service, but is simply a means to an end, by which the Disney company can realize their goal of making more money than both God and the Devil combined. We’re talking lots of money. Oodles, even. This is where the ugliness comes in.

Mickey will fleece your wallet from the moment you arrive on property, to the last second before you leave – and the longer he can keep you on his land, the more moolah he stands to make. Think of the 30,500+ acre monstrosity as one giant casino: the longer you’re there, the more money you’re losing. Just like in Vegas, the house always wins – even the Mouse House. Especially the Mouse House.

Disney couches their looting of your bank account through offering various services that seem enticing and beneficial, but that are actually designed to wring as much blood from your stones as possible. For instance, Disney implemented a new service recently called Disney’s Magical Express Transportation. With this service, Disney will pick up both you and your baggage from the airport and provide transportation to the Disney resort – but what makes it special is that Disney will claim your luggage and deliver it to your room while you’re enjoying your first day in the parks. When you’re done at the end of the day, you simply hop onboard the Disney transportation system of buses, boats, and monorails and travel back to your hotel, where you’re already checked in and where your bags have been delivered directly to your room. It’s a nice, convenient and free service – but it’s designed to trap you on Disney property. Without the need to rent a car, you find yourself ensnared in Disney’s World and unable to leave. And, once you’re there, you are entirely enslaved to the WDW Economy, where a can of cola costs three bucks and dubious cafeteria food can easily set you back a cool fifty clams. Everything is more expensive at WDW than in the outside world, but once you’ve become acclimated to it, the costs start seeming normal and – amazingly – sometimes even reasonable.

While I’ve known all this for years, (as does anyone who understands that a company exists to make money), I didn’t quite understand just how far Disney would go to extract the contents of your wallet. Earlier in the week, I discovered that Disney is no longer content to merely suckle at the teat of your bank account via symbiotically beneficial programs and feel-good family entertainment. No, in this desolate economic climate, it appears that Disney has sunk to new lows in their efforts to separate its customers from their money, and has simply started lying to them. Lying and deceiving and attempting to trick people into paying for something that they neither want nor need, simply because Disney can. It’s disheartening, but it’s true. Here’s what happened:

I went online to book our vacation package at disneyworld.com, like I’ve done countless times before. This time, however, I was acquiescing to Brittany’s request that we not stay at a luxury resort, because Trey would have more fun at one of the more whimsical and kid-approved value resorts – plus, it would save us money. I gave in, and decided to book a room at Disney’s Pop Century Resort. However, when I attempted to do so, I was greeted with the following message: “The Resort or Resort Category you requested is unavailable for the dates and party size selected. An alternate has been provided.” I then tried other value resorts before electing to search the entire value class itself, but each time I received the same message. The value resorts, it appeared, were not available for the four nights that I was looking at. I decided to try another week…

And that’s when I figured out what was going on. When I attempted to change the dates of my stay, I accidentally forgot to change the arrival date. Instead, I merely changed the departure date and extended my stay by an additional eleven days. The surprising thing was that the value resorts were suddenly available. All of them. Every single one. I had not altered my arrival date, so I didn’t understand how the resorts that were previously booked solid for the four nights I wanted were suddenly available simply because I’d added more nights to my stay. Those same four nights were still there, although now there were rooms available. It didn’t make sense. Not, at least, until I searched again.

I went back to my travel dates and simply added one more night. Suddenly, one of the value resorts opened up: the All-Star Movies Resort. I added another night. Amazingly, another value resort became available, this time the All-Star Sports Resort. Finally, after adding three more nights to my original stay, Disney’s Pop Century Resort opened up for booking. Keep in mind that none of these hotels have a minimum night stay, or at least they don’t indicate it in any way. In fact, when Brittany and I evacuated to WDW during Hurricane Ike, we paid for our room at Pop Century on a night-by-night basis, since we never knew when exactly we’d be coming home. Clearly, something else was at play here.

When I first tried to book my stay and Pop Century wasn’t available, the website offered me three alternate choices: Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort for $2,874.06, Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort and Spa for $2,941.62, and Disney’s Wilderness Lodge Resort for $2,176.60. I can’t help but suspect that the last choice was intended to be most attractive to me, since I’d searched for value resorts and probably didn’t want to spend a lot of money. The strategy seems simple: tell me that my choice of inexpensive resort is unavailable, then provide three counter-offers, of which only one is close to what I originally wanted to pay. The same strategy held for my other searches. Apparently, Disney has calculated their calculations and decided that a family staying at a value resort for only four nights is not worth it for their bottom line. The family simply isn’t paying enough for their hotel to make up for the fact that they’re only there for four nights. If they were to stay longer, Disney could get more money from them and offset the inexpensive price of the hotel by the amount of money they’d spend in the parks on food and souvenirs. Either pony up for a pricer hotel than you originally wanted, Disney seems to be saying, or add more days and you can stay in the cheap places.

The insidious part of this whole scheme is that the website outright lies to its users by telling them that the resort of their choice is unavailable. It’s a complete fabrication. The rooms are there, they’re vacant, and you can pay for them on a night-by-night basis, if needs be. It’s just not as economically sound of an investment, as far as the Disney company is concerned. If you call a representative, you might be able to schedule a four night vacation package at one of the value resorts over the phone with some wrangling, but it’s clear that the Disney company is loathe to provide such an option to its customers. However, instead of simply enacting a minimum length of stay mandate, it chooses to mislead and deceive its customers into paying for something that they don’t want or can’t afford. It’s sad and it’s ugly, and I lost a little of my misplaced faith in the company after I first clicked the Find Prices button on their website.

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NOTE:  I know times are hard and yeah, I need to make a living too, but if you want to read any of my books but can't afford to buy them right now, hit me up.

I'll take care of it.

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