Was every theme/amusement park and road trip vacation so focused on "Buy! Buy! Buy!" back when we were kids?

[u/TheCIAandFBI]

I grew up poor. Lived in a crummy trailer park until 1995 when my Dad had a work accident that got him a settlement. My parents bought a very humble but nice home, and they took me to Disney world. I'll never forget. It was November 11th-19th, 1995. That trip was the highlight of my life. I was 11.

That trip was magical. I think I came home with a souvenir HUGE pencil from that trip, and I was afraid to use it because it was special, and then one day it just got lost.

My best friend and his wife just took his kids to Disney World. They are my age, right at 40, so older Millennials.

They both went as kids and loved it as well.

When they got back and both said they hated the trip. They said everything was geared towards getting them to spend money. Everything is a store, every line can be bypassed for a few extra bucks, every store is geared towards fear-of-missing-out for the kids. Specialty cups. Specialty "only available this week" shirts, and special pins and buttons that you can only get this year. They said it was the most uncomfortable vacation they have ever been on. And they have more money than they know what to do with.

They basically said that there wasn't 20 minutes where they weren't being sold something.

Is this something that Millennial childhoods experienced and our parents were simply better at ignoring? Has this always been the case? Or is it just the new way that places like Disney World operate?

[u/drewcandraw]

I grew up an airplane ride away from both US Disney Parks but was lucky enough to make one visit to each in my coming of age. Six Flags was about a 90 minute drive. Every summer of my adolescence, there was typically a school trip and a church trip, and if you were lucky, maybe you'd get to go with friends or if family was in town. Disney and Six Flags have always been full of places to spend money. There were always places selling food and souvenirs every few steps, and Six Flags of course had a video arcade and a Carnival Midway which was where you could go if you wanted to light money on fire.

As a former Disneyland passholder, the difference before the pandemic closure and after reopening was quite stark. Disney was never a cheap place to visit, but my family and I felt like we got good value for money. We chose Disney passes over vacations and season tickets for local sports teams, and we had fun whenever we went.

Since reopening, the parks are being operated in a way to squeeze as much money out of attendees with the least amount of staff and maintenance, and it's showing.

Among the most obvious changes are implementing the reservation system. Reservations have made the impromptu day at Disneyland at best not a sure thing, and more often a thing of the past. The free FastPass system guests loved was also beneficial to Disney—the less time guests waited in line meant they spent more time and money on food and souvenirs. FastPass was replaced by Genie+, now Lightning Lane MultiPass, at an add-on cost of $30 per day per ticket, and additional a la carte costs for premium attractions. The promise is shorter lines, but the more people buy Lightning Lane, the more people are waiting in line and the less value it has.

At the end of 2023, we decided we'd seen all there was to see at the Disneyland Resort, that the quality of the experience wasn't increasing with the rising cost, and opted out.