Over the last ten years, wage growth has been stagnant, barely keeping up with inflation, and total inflation has been about 20%, e.g., indicating the average cost of something that was $100 in 2009 is now $120. Disney's practice during those ten years was to never lower prices but instead keep raising them on almost everything more and more, apparently trying to determine when, if ever, people would stop going because it costs too much. Examples include that the price of a 7-day park hopper has increased close to 90% since 2009 ($286 to about $540), a bottle of water at the parks 75% ($2 to $3.50), a dinner at Hollywood & Vine more than 100% ($25 to $52), an annual pass using the DVC discount 130% ($389 to $899 – to $699 if you include the limited-use Gold Pass now offered), the per point price of Bay Lake Tower 100% ($112 to $225), and the annual dues for AKV 71% ($4.85 to $7.44).
The issue many can face has likely become not just losing a desire to go because of price increases, but also being unable to afford to go anymore. We go and probably will continue to own and go for a while, but increased prices along with other changes are becoming more and more disconcerting, which changes include the development in the last ten years of DVC’s anti-member attitude, including its elimination of perks for resale purchasers, its willingness to ignore express provisions it included in the prior POS’s relating to resale purchasers having a right to reserve at any DVC Resort, and its defending its decision to ignore prior written representations in documents given to purchasers, which limited re-allocations of points to those needed to correct changes in seasonal (not room size) demand, by simply declaring DVC is not bound by its prior representations.
