LendingTree surveyed more than 2,000 Americans in 2024 and found that roughly one in four Disney park visitors had borrowed money to pay for the trip, according to the New Yorker. Among parents of young kids, 45 percent went into debt, with an average debt of nearly $2,000. One couple told a YouTuber they'd taken out a $70,000 loan, with Disneyland among the expenses.
Ashley, a Quinnipiac University freshman, burned through $15,000 in savings, making six trips to Disney World over two years, finishing with $5 to her name. She then enrolled in the Disney College Program, a semester-long gig staffing the parks. After Disney deducted housing from her wages, she cleared roughly $400 a week — most of which went back into the parks — plus around $1,000 more in credit-card charges.
Single-day tickets broke $200 last year. Shuttle buses and line-jumping passes, both previously free, started charging extra fees in 2021. A third Chase co-branded credit card debuted this year. AJ Wolfe, who wrote Disney Adults: Exploring (and Falling in Love with) a Magical Subculture, compares the pull to church, with its hierarchies of devotion and competitive merch collecting. She ran up $17,000 in Disney debt herself in the early 2000s.
Jennifer Davidson, a Columbus high school teacher with over a hundred Disney World visits under her belt, owes $3,000 for booking the next trip. Disney prices, she explained, feel like Monopoly money — a $20 coffee is "a Disney coffee," not a real one. Henry Giroux, who wrote the 1999 book The Mouse That Roared: Disney and the End of Innocence, calls it "the swindle of fulfillment." Fifty-nine percent of the indebted parents in the LendingTree survey said the trip was worth it.
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