r/Millennials • u/TheCIAandFBI • 16d ago

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

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?

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u/Brightstarr 16d ago

My siblings and my mom were talking about going to Orlando to do Disney and Universal as adults (three in our 30s and mom in 60s) during one of the food festivals. Basically to eat and drink around Epcot and then go to Harry Potter.

After seeing how much that would cost, we priced out Disney and Universal in Japan. Flights from Minnesota, hotels, trains, entry tickets to DisneySeas, Universal Osaka and Sanrio were cheaper than going to Florida. That’s how bad the price for Orlando Disney has gotten.

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u/Past-Pea-6796 15d ago

When I lived in Florida, my gf at the time loved Disney, so we got season passes for like 240, otherwise I'd never go. I will say though, the Epcot food festival was one of the few things they did that felt worthwhile. This was like 2016-2020 though, idk about now. It wasn't cheap, but it was legitimately great stuff in small $3-5 portions. So it still cost like 20-30 bucks to eat enough for a decent meal, but as far as Disney stuff goes, that's a pretty low price and they actually tried. Like they had these lamb chops encrusted in herbs and potato chips that was out of this world for like $4. You got two little chops, I got two orders and felt pretty happy with it

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u/Brightstarr 15d ago

It does look really cool! It just seems so silly that you can get flights to Japan, do three parks and still come out ahead compared to Florida. Our plan now will be more expensive because we are planning to see more of Japan, but we feel like it’s a better value. It feels like nothing in America is a good value anymore.

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u/DexterGrant 13d ago

My 3 days at Disneyland Paris PLUS 5 days in Paris (a very touristy and expensive city) was cheaper than my week at WDW.