Social Econ Blog

Steve Levitt describes a recent trip to Disneyworld with his family:

It was not cheap. We paid $400 a night for a standard hotel room and a 3 day pass to the park was over $1000 for my family. Renting a double stroller for a day costs $18 just as one example of inflated prices inside the park.

And mostly we just waited in line. For instance, here is one of our days at Disney. We left the hotel room (which was on Disney property) at 8:30 am and returned around 3 pm. Here is what we actually accomplished in those 6.5 hours: (1) we had breakfast, (2) we went on a 20 minute African safari, and (3) we saw a 20 minute 3D movie. Combined these took a little more than an hour. The other 5.5 hours were spent waiting or trying to get from one place to the next.

And then poses the interesting questions that I don't have the answer to:

1) Why is demand for Disneyworld so great?

2) Why do they make you stick your fingers into some machine when entering Disneyworld? What is the point?

I absolutely hate waiting in lines. I guess Disneyland was semi-fun when I was a kid, but revisiting Disneyland (or going to Disneyworld for the first time) is not high on my list of things to do.