A Disneyland Guide
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Hello, and welcome to Slate Money Travel, where we dive into the weird and wonderful financial and other aspects of going around the country and the world. I'm Felix Hammond of Axios. I'm here with Emily Peck of Axios. Hello, hello. And we're joined by Hilary Frey, the editor-in-chief of Slate.

Come on, Felix. There you go. No, she, Hillary is the boss of everything here. Knows everything about everything in Slate, but also knows everything about everything Disneyland. Disneyland, not world. Not world. You've never been to Disney World? I have been to Disney World. There are six Disney theme parks. There's about to be a seventh in Abu Dhabi. I guess if you are a Disney aficionado, it really matters which one you go to and the differences between them are important.

They are.

I have to think about it because I haven't been to all of them. But you've been to Euro Disney. I haven't been to Euro Disney. I've only been to Disney World and Disneyland. Okay. And one of the reasons why I prefer Disneyland is because it's much smaller than Disney World. It's a land, not a world. So it's more manageable. It's in California, which is beautiful and excellent. And you don't need to travel to Florida. I don't need to travel to Florida. What's wrong with traveling to Florida? Because it's a terrible red state full of terrible people.

Wow. Are we keeping that in? This is a joke. We can keep going now. I mean, aren't we all boycotting travel to Florida because it's terrible these days? It just is too hot. It's fine. I like Florida. You like Florida? I don't think you should malign a state, like generally. Because it has different people live there. I'm just saying. Okay. Okay? All right. I will... No. Okay. So in any case, California is... It's not...

It's not like it doesn't get ocean breezes. Anaheim is a long way from the sea. It's true. I didn't totally realize that completely until I really paid attention in the Uber going back from Anaheim to LAX to see when we would nudge closer to the ocean. But yeah, no, it's inland. But basically Walt Disney bought this massive tract of land in the valley and turned it into a theme park and it became a phenomenon. Yeah.

Yeah. And now it's even bigger than it was, right? So there's lots of original Disneyland there. And in fact, I like to stay at the Disneyland Hotel, which is the original OG. What? Okay. So now because this is slate money, what is what is the rack rate? How much do you pay to stay at the Disneyland Hotel? It definitely fluctuates throughout the year. But I can only speak to my own experience. I like to go in February when it's my daughter's school break.

and you want to escape New York, doldrums. And I checked what my last total spend in Disneyland was, and I broke it down. So I was prepared to answer this question for you. Oh my God, I love this. So what I booked for Disneyland, and you usually get a discount in this time of year because it's not the high, high, high season.

But what that discount is, I mean, they say you get a discount, but. I mean, hotel rooms always fluctuate. So I booked four nights at the Disneyland Hotel in a room for myself and my daughter that had a king bed. It's a nice, nice room. It could have had two queens, which I would have preferred, but it didn't.

And when I booked the room, I also booked my four-day Disneyland ticket. And that is important because if you book all these things together, you know, you get the bundle. So supposedly you get something out of that, right? So you do it together. And I booked the park hopper ticket, which means you can go not just to Disneyland, but California Adventure. There's two theme parks at Disneyland. Right.

And I got the Lightning Lane Fast Pass, which I'm sure we'll discuss at some point, because that's how you get priority. I want to get into this Fast Pass situation because it is a tangled dark web. Even if you know how to use it, it's not intuitive. It's a little confusing. So anyway, this portion of the trip cost $5,000. Whoa. Okay, that's a lot of money. So four, yeah, four days in both parks, options,

And the hotel room. Now, some people would have put four people in that hotel room, right? You can, families can maximize a smaller, a hotel room. And I don't even know what the guest limit is, but it's a lot. Like you can just book a regular room and shove a lot of people in there. But that is, this is a thing I do with my daughter. But you're also paying for food for all that time too. That's got to, I mean. Yeah, but the food is,

You don't go to Disneyland for the food. But you have to eat, Hilary. You do have to eat. And most of your meals will come from Alien Pizza Planet. Okay. And I can tell you one slice will get you through a lot of your day. And also, no, you've got to believe me. I'm not saying it's cheap. Like a lunch is like $30 for two people when you get the drink and you get the slices and you get the whatever. In the context of a $5,000 trip, like the $30 lunch really is cheap.

Yeah, that's interesting. But I think one of the things you can also do is use this Disneyland app and book restaurants. There are restaurants to eat at in Disneyland. But then you realize once you're there, at least if you're there with your child, probably going to a sit-down meal in the middle of the day is not going to be your priority. Is there this idea that time is so valuable now

when you're there that you need to sort of maximize the value of any given hour, which means in practice riding rides rather than just kind of wandering around and enjoying the view of the magic castle.

Well, you can enjoy the view of the Magic Castle for a few minutes and then move on. It's like, I don't know how long you want to stand there and gaze. I think of it differently, which is to once you figure out how to use the app and this lightning lane fast pass whole situation, which I can explain basically very simply.

In the app, you can book a window for a ride you want to go on, right? So we're like Matterhorn bobsleds. Number one, you go into the park, you look at the app, there's a window. It says maybe you're there at 10 a.m., but it's like you can't book it till 2 p.m.

But you book it so you know you can go to Matterhorn Bobsled in the fast lane at 2 o'clock. You have that to look forward to. So then you got to decide, okay, what line am I going to go stand in to ride a different ride, right? And you get better at this the more time you spend in the park because you also develop an intuitive sense of how long lines are for different rides.

Is this all part of like, is this like an optimization mechanism that you're trying to optimize for? I really want to do the Maddenhorn Bob sled. I want to get as many other rides in as possible. I have four days. I have a plan. I want to spend at least one day at California Adventure, you know.

Well, you were right about everything until the end. Oh. Only because the one thing about Disneyland that's very different than Disney World. So Disney World has Epcot. It has Animal Kingdom. I haven't been to either one. I've been to Magic Kingdom in Disney World and one of the water parks. We went when my daughter was almost five. And...

It's much bigger. There are many more options of, and you really do have to commit a day here or a day there. At Disneyland, you can just go back and forth. So like we love this one roller coaster at California Adventure, the Incredicoaster. The Incredicoaster? Yes, it was, it has, I don't remember what the original name was, but it's named for the Incredibles, the Pixar movie. Right.

So California Adventure has a lot of Pixar themed rides. Okay, this is I need to stop you very briefly and just ask you, has Disney film IP just completely eaten Disneyland at this point? Is it all like movies, tie ins? Oh, yeah. Yeah. 100% used to be right.

I don't think there were as many movies to build off of. I mean, and there's still no Aristocats-like themed anything, much to my sadness, right? But no, even like the small world part of Disneyland still has Dumbo. And we went in the Alice in Wonderland ride, which actually is like terrifying. That makes sense. Alice had a rough ride. I know, it's very scary. I mean, think about it. Things blow in the dark.

But you are constantly trying to optimize, but part of that optimization is also figuring out what, like, if you want to go on something at night, how do you plan so that you can make sure you use your lightning lane pass for the ride you want to ride at night? So explain why it's important to book the evening rides in particular.

well so you may want to go on a ride that has a beautiful view at night like the incredicoaster which actually like is yeah i know i like to talk about the incredicoaster um it's just really cool like and there's a world of color light display at night in california adventure and you get kind of the vibes and whatever

But the one we really like to do at night is the Indiana Jones ride, which is an indoor ride. But the line, which is very long, is awesome at night because it's got, you know, you're in this Indiana Jones environment and it's like a little jungly and there's like torches and everything.

There's just kind of like a party vibe in the line. So that's the reason not to try and book that in your lightning pass, right? Because there's value to being in the line. Yeah, but even if you are in the lightning lane, it's not like you walk up and get on the ride. It's just that the line is shorter. So it's more like a...

20 to 30 minute line, depending on where you're going. Sometimes it's much shorter, but it's not like you walk right to the front. But like, no, I feel like this is a bit like you're going to a gig and there's a VIP room and the VIP room is fun, but also like the best place to be is just in front of the stage anyway. I think that's right. I mean, there are definitely times where

You know, maybe you're getting to the end of the day or... And this happens, right? You can't optimize everything. And by the end of the day, everybody's kind of falling apart, including you. All right. Tell me about...

The repetition here because I feel like this is a key underappreciated part. It's not like you're taking things off a list It's that you're not only going back to the park time and time again because it has that kind of familiarity You know how to do it, but even within one four-day trip, you're like I want to do the same ride multiple times Yeah, yeah. Well everybody has their favorites I'm sure it's different

It's definitely different if you're with a small child or an adult group. I'm sure everybody has a different way that they think about this. But for my daughter and I, we have our favorites.

We never get tired of them. Part of what, yeah, I mean, I'm a ride, we love roller coasters. I've always loved roller coasters since I was little. So we share this and the fun thing is you get to a point where you're like, okay, like on our last day, every time we got to the point where we were gonna get on a ride, I just asked if we could be in the front car and it's Disneyland. So you know what? They make your dreams come true. If you ask, no, it's true. People are nice there. This is what you pay for.

You pay for it to be super clean. Nobody is mad. Seriously. It's like, this is why my daughter loves to go there. And this is why Disneyland is better than Coney Island. That's different from a lot of amusement parks, I would say. And listen, we are also Coney Island people. Like, I love the zipper. Cyclone RIP, too dangerous. I rode it one time. It was a nightmare. But it's... I like the cyclone. I've ridden it several times. Yeah.

Several times. You're like my hero. I wrote it once and was like never again. It rattles your brain, but it's not extreme. I don't like an extreme coaster where it's a really long... The cyclone was about to fall apart every time you wrote it. I mean, it seemed fine. It's just like everything in New York. You're like, this looks dodgy, but everyone's doing it and no one's... It's cool. And then you go on and it's fine. Okay. I'm going to bring more of that energy the next time I'm encountering a death trap.

But like if it's like a roller coaster that goes, you know, upside down or really big drop. No, thank you. I'd rather like risk my brain rolling around in like a chill 1900 roller coaster. No Space Mountain for you. No, no. I like the old thing. What about a log flume?

I don't want to be in the front of the log flume. It's too much water in my face. I don't like to sit in water. Who likes to sit in water? So one of the new rides at Disneyland and Disney World was they updated the old Splash Mountain to be Tiana's Bayou Adventure based on Princess and the Frog, one of my favorite Disney movies of the modern era. And when we were waiting in the very long line, this was like an hour and a half long line to ride this ride,

I could see people coming off and they were just head to toe. No, thank you. And then there were all these people in line. This is like another hack thing, right? Like people had ponchos. I was like, what is happening here? And I was like, somewhere they're selling ponchos near here. And I was with, a friend was with us too. So I ducked out of the line. I went to the closest little gift shop. I was like, do you have those ponchos? They did. They were behind the desk. They were $25. Wow.

Um, I bought one. I bought one for my daughter. And then our friend was like, I'm just, she, she's from California. So she's like, I've got this. I don't care. And, um, we were really glad we had the ponchos. And then we gifted them after we had done our, our ride. We did. We, and there actually, everybody was doing that. There was like a beautiful stack of, of ponchos and people handing them off. So, um,

But that was, yeah, you know, expenses. There are these secret things. You're like, oh, $25 for the thing I could have gotten at Duane Reade for two. Or for free if you'd know where to go. That's the thing about traveling, right? You're stuck in a certain way and the price you'll pay goes up, right? Yep. We'll talk about that in a future episode of Slate Money Travel.

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The best part is you'll still earn the card rewards, points and cash back you love. Easy setup now, easier travels later with Apple Pay. Terms of life. The big picture here is that Disney makes, I believe the technical word is a gazillion dollars from these theme parks. The price of admission only ever goes up. They are dissuading people from taking out annual passes because that on a sort of

person hour basis is just not as profitable for them. And on some level, they don't want it to be too crowded, right? Like, no, they don't want people to stand in two hour lines. And so they are just minting cash from this more Disney, according to what I read on the internet, Disney is making more money from its amusement amusement category than Netflix makes.

End of story. Like, that's incredible. And apparently Netflix is trying now to get into the amusement game, like by having like more like not amusement parks per se, but little experiences. They have like the squid game experience. Yeah, all these different experiences. And like instead of something like Hillary has to go through like five days,

like all of that, you go for a day and, but maybe you do like three, four experiences in a year. And I think this is really smart because experiences are now like the experience economy is kind of doing really well. Like there's all this stuff you hate Felix, like art, it's like Monet experience and this and that. Meow Wolf. Yeah. And people pay for it. They like it. It's expensive. And there's this whole like chain now. People will pay so much more money to experience an interactive experience

Van Gogh than they will like to stand in front of a real one. Yeah. People, it seems like, I mean, in the U S anyway, there's like this move away from like investing in our public free experiences that we can have like parks and libraries and things like that. And to fill the gap is like Netflix squid game experience or like Van Gogh. Did I say it right? Experience. If you're Dutch, which I am not.

But it's interesting, but Disney still owns the big amusement park category, while other amusement park companies are struggling, I think, because it is so unpleasant. I know Disney, you're saying, is a happy place, but most of the other experiences at amusement parks can be quite unhappy.

I think a lot of it has to do with also your mindset, right? So one thing my daughter and I always talk about is like Disneyland is a full immersion experience. So like I save for this trip. I will do it as long as she wants to because the hang time with my 13 year old in a line playing games, everybody plays that heads up game. It's like a trivia game on your phone. Like

It's really a community experience, I have to say. And it is people from everywhere. So you're playing games with the other people in the line. Sometimes with little kids. More like groups of people are playing with each other. But like little kids, like I was playing a Disney themed one with my daughter and the little kid next to me just started playing with us, which is...

it's Disneyland. So you're like, okay, this is cute. Not like being in a line in New York where you're like, why are you talking to me? Yeah. Why are you touching me? You know, last night when I went to the theater, somebody kept pushing me and I was like, what is this? It was Ralph Fiennes. I wanted to tell you guys that earlier, but I was just like, oh, and then my, I was with my ex-husband and he was like, um, that was Ralph Fiennes pushing you. So it was okay. So it was okay to be pushed. Well,

No, I mean, I didn't know until he was long past. He was trying to get to his seat. It was okay. But I don't know. I think you embrace all of this. And I've been to a number of amusement parks too. I went to Harry Potter Land at Universal in LA. Some of these are just much, they're less cohesive. I mean, the Harry Potter experience is, and the theme park is great, but the rides are really short.

- Unlike at Disneyland. - So how long is a ride? - That's a great question. - Oh my gosh. So, well there's a really interactive ride at Harry Potter that's a couple minutes long. It's like one of these projection rides. It's actually not my favorite kind of thing. They have a roller coaster, I think it was 45 seconds and the wait time was two hours. - No thank you. - How long is a Disneyland ride? - Couple minutes. You don't really wanna be on a roller coaster that much longer than a few minutes. - I don't, no.

But, you know, then they have this, like, Star Wars interactive experience, which actually we had to be dismissed from early because they interrogate you. Like, you're part of the resistance. And you get interrogated by stormtroopers. And I was triggered because I find stormtroopers so scary from my childhood. And...

My daughter's just like, I'm not into Star Wars. So they had to escort us out of the, well, we asked and they snuck us out. The stormtroopers escorted you out? That would be amazing. I asked a stormtrooper for help and then they got me to the Disney person. Because at Disneyland, you don't have to stay if you don't want to be there. They will help move you on to your next destination. Wow, it sounds great. I'm not convinced I want to spend $5,000 to go.

It's not about Disney. It's about how else do you get the opportunity to spend four days of uninterrupted time with your surly teen who otherwise wouldn't talk to you? That's fair. I mean, trust me, she would still talk to me, but it is something really... There's something about the environment that really does work. And, you know, we...

you can say, and people do say, right? Well, for that amount of money, I can, I could go to Europe or I can do this. All of that is true. Absolutely. But it's just not the same. It's like comparing bananas and oranges, if you know what I'm saying. And like,

They just aren't the same thing. Like what you want to do there is very different. And because at Disney, you just enter this kind of contained world where actually there are a lot of options, but they're limited too. Like no one wants too many options. No one wants too many options. And that's why when you pick your favorites and, and I, I can't go to Disneyland every other weekend. I live in New York. So once a year, four days doesn't get, it doesn't get boring. If you lived in Orange County, how often would you go?

a couple times a year. It's not, I'm not, I'm not going to become a, a, I'm not, I'm not in the, in the echelon of folks. So I don't qualify. I don't think to be a Disney adult because I'm not committed enough to being

The whole thing. I don't wear the ears. You know, I'm not in cosplay. I'm not. And neither is my daughter. We're just regular people. But there is a lot. But I think there's more I would need to embrace to really be a Disney adult. So when you are doing this and you're spending your $5,000, do you feel like.

Because you have the wherewithal to spend $5,000, you get a better experience and probably the median part goer doesn't have that much money and isn't getting quite as fabulous of an experience as you. Or do you think everyone is just kind of going there and spending $5,000 and getting what you get?

Well, I think so a lot of that expense is the hotel and all around it. Every Disney park, there are a million options for where to stay. I, I did this cause it's the thing I do every year with my daughter and it's how I plan for it. And I, this is how I decide to spend my $5,000 that I have that I save up for. But there are like lots of ways to stay at different, like non, there's only like three or four actual Disney hotels there and,

A lot of options for staying. Once you're in the park, I think it's pretty much the same for everybody. It's like I'm eating the same churro as everybody else. The churros, the churros, the churros are so breakfast, lunch and dinner churros, just churros. You know, I think everybody probably has different priorities when it comes to spending money. But I think once you once you commit to that ticket,

Once you're inside, I am. And you know what? I'm not sure. I think when you buy the ticket, you just get the fast pass lightning lane. I'm not, I don't think that's a thing you like opt out of it. Now it's just baked in there. So everybody has that same sort of ability to book things. There are a couple of things that are like extra, like the cars ride. If you want to take the lightning lane, it's another $22. Yeah.

Because the Cars ride is so popular. But I really do feel like once you're in the park, it is like a very, it's like a democratized experience. Disney theme parks, surprisingly egalitarian. So will you be going soon, Felix? Yeah. Felix is coming with us next year on our teen holiday. I want to join on the teen holiday. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like maybe I should. I think it would be hard to go just one day. I have to be honest with you. But that, you know what I mean? Like,

But I guess also because I live so far away, it's like it one day, one day wouldn't be enough. That's how they that's how they get the families, right? Like you got to go and really make it the holiday of your year.

I feel like Shanghai. I want to go to the one in Shanghai. The Tokyo one sounds great too. That'd be cool, right? Yeah. Did you ever go, you haven't been to Euro Disney. I have not. I haven't been to Legoland. I'm just terrible at, this is not my thing. I would be the person taking that $5,000 and going to Spain. I mean, sure. That sounds great too. Felix, do you ride roller coasters? No.

No. When was the last, have you ever ridden a roller coaster? Teacups? People want to know. I did the teacups. I did the teacups and I did the teacups with my friend Vin, who was a mathematics professor at Pomona College. And he had to go to the Disneyland infirmary and lie down for a couple of hours because it was so intense. And I have to say I didn't

super enjoy them but I at least I was I could still walk still walk afterwards so that was a win for me excellent yeah I can't see you doing you don't seem like a roller coaster person unless the roller coaster unless it's an emotional roller coaster in the opera

Only metaphoric roller coasters. Only metaphoric roller coasters here. I think that's it for Slate Money Travel. Hilary, thanks so much for coming on the show. And now I know everything about Disneyland. And thanks to literally the cast of thousands who recorded this, which there's Shana Roth and Jessamyn Molly is somewhere and Merritt Jacobs is here. And I don't even know how many people are doing this. We have four cameras on this. Yeah.

One, two, three, four. Are we supposed to look at them? I don't know. I looked at them. Never look at the cameras. But they do. What about The Office? You know, the TV show? Do I have to explain that to you? No. All right. Are we done here?