{ "archive_path": "archive/1791490516.49753", "base_url": "www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php", "basename": "22457068.php", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-08 20:15", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.sfgate.com", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php.html" }, "domain": "www.sfgate.com", "extension": "php", "hash": "R1A51GSQHMY99P1HV43F", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=www.sfgate.com" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:03.862476+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:02.990336+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:04.733814+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:03.872834+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:14.719859+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:08.944963+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpfbhdhgvs", "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:08.929583+00:00", "index_texts": [ "Throughout the pandemic and the subsequent reopening of Disney\u2019s parks, former Disney CEO Bob Chapek made a series of deeply unpopular decisions. He raised prices and removed previously free perks \u2014 all moves that have resulted in Disneyland being the most expensive and least accessible it\u2019s ever been.\u00a0At the time, Chapek seemed to the public\u2019s eye to be Disney\u2019s latest cartoon villain. Now, in his new book, \u201cBehind the Castle Walls: My Thirty Years at the Happiest Place on Earth,\u201d he fully embraces the caricature.Chapek ascended to the CEO job in February 2020, with Bob Iger stepping down from the position just ahead of the pandemic that shuttered Disneyland for nearly 14 months. Through the most challenging situation imaginable, Chapek steered the company to new financial heights for much of the time between assuming the job and his November 2022 firing. He also left behind a wake of aggressive financial decisions that the company is still trying to recover from\u00a0four years after his firing. Not only is Disneyland still the most expensive it\u2019s ever been, but it\u2019s become the scene of consistently bad guest behavior, a problem the park is struggling to solve.Article continues below this adFILE: Bob\u00a0Chapek, Walt Disney Company CEO, and Bob\u00a0Iger, executive chairman of Walt Disney Company, speak during \u201cThe World\u2019s Most Magical Celebration\u201d at Magic Kingdom on Sept. 30, 2021, in Orlando, Fla.\u00a0Gerardo Mora/Getty ImagesDuring his tenure, Chapek made a string of controversial decisions, like nearly doubling the cost of annual Disneyland passes, implementing a restrictive reservation system, and eliminating free perks, like FastPass, and replacing them with costly add-ons. By narrowing access to the parks, making the experience more expensive and limiting capacity, he claimed to be working on behalf of the guest experience. The people who could still manage to get inside Disneyland or Walt Disney World would inherently have a better time, he argued.\u00a0But, in reality, as Chapek emphasized over and over in his book, the money he earned the company was the most important thing. The result of all those changes was record profits and legions of unhappy fans \u2014 including California\u2019s most ardent park supporters.\u201cBecause of our annual pass program that allowed guests to pay a one-time fee for unlimited visits throughout the year, the people who wanted to show up spontaneously were also paying the least per visit,\u201d Chapek wrote in his book. \u201cSince I was committed to overseeing the parks with a business objectivity and an obligation to maximize shareholder value, I understood I couldn\u2019t abandon the most profitable market of long-distance vacation planners just to not disappoint the local annual passholders who visit dozens or hundreds of times a year.\u201dArticle continues below this adMain street in Disneyland is seen on Aug. 18, 2025, in Anaheim, Calif.Jessie Alcheh/SFGATEWhen Disneyland reopened in April 2021, it did so without annual passes. During the park closure, the company canceled and refunded any passes that had been valid when it shut down in March 2020. Instead, people had to pay full price for day tickets and in very limited quantities. When a new Magic Key annual pass program debuted in August 2021, it was nearly double the cost of the passes available when Chapek took over as head of the parks in 2015.\u00a0They were significantly restricted in number, and not everyone who wanted one was able to get one for several subsequent years.\u00a0That was by design. The annual pass system \u201csuboptimized revenue and unnecessarily constrained the business\u2019s financial performance,\u201d Chapek wrote. He felt that vacationing guests should be prioritized because they were spending more money to be there, and they were less likely to come back if they encountered long lines.Naturally, that thinking made the CEO hugely unpopular among returning Disney fans.Article continues below this adFILE: Bob\u00a0Chapek, former Walt Disney Company CEO, at D23 Expo 2017 in Anaheim, Calif.\u00a0Getty ImagesDescribing every annual passholder as a Disney adult in his book, Chapek wrote: \u201cThe love for Disney is one of the most, if not the most, central parts of their life. They deeply believe in it, cherish it, and protect it. Not everybody who comes to a theme park is a Disney Adult, though. Upon reviewing the numbers, I found the math didn\u2019t lie: as appreciated as they were, local Disney Adults didn\u2019t drive the economics of the park with their annual pass.\u201dIt actually could have been worse. Chapek wrote that his first instinct was to cancel passes permanently. \u201cWe understood we would get blasted if I attempted to eliminate annual passes altogether, so we moved to shift the math,\u201d he wrote.The profits bore out. Many people who love Disney still loved it enough to pay hundreds more to hold a pass, and to shell out an average of 40% more money per visit\u00a0from increases to in-park costs. To Chapek\u2019s credit, many guests who could afford to absorb the extra costs did report a better experience; buying a $30 pass to skip most lines seems like a drop in the bucket for the chance to double what you can do in a park day, especially if you\u2019ve paid over $200 for a single-day ticket.Article continues below this adAnd it wasn\u2019t just about park guests. One of Chapek\u2019s main justifications for the price hikes is that he was able to give cast members (Disney\u2019s term for employees) in the parks a raise. \u201cThe cast members are the magic of Disney Parks and, as feasible, should be compensated handsomely for the magic they imprint on those guest memories,\u201d he wrote. The raise he touted himself for executing was an increase to a \u201cliving wage\u201d of $20 per hour.\u00a0A 2018 study by Occidental College and the Economic Roundtable found that 11% of Disneyland employees reported experiencing homelessness in the previous two years, 68% were food insecure, and 73% said they did not earn enough for basic living expenses. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, the current living wage in California is $30.48 for a single adult with no children, and $53.54 for an adult with one child. In Florida, it\u2019s $24.09 for a single adult and $39.87 for one with a child. The more children, the more those estimates rise exponentially.\u00a0FILE: Disney employees rally outside the main entrance of Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, Calif., on July 17, 2024, ahead of a planned strike authorization vote.\u00a0Frederic J. Brown/AFP via GettyWhat Chapek omitted was that despite the modest pay increase, the years since the parks\u2019 pandemic closures have been plagued with widespread company layoffs, reductions in benefits\u00a0and cuts to in-park entertainment, emptying the stages at Disneyland\u2019s once-vibrant performance spaces like the Golden Horseshoe, largely because of staff costs. Cutbacks in maintenance led to worsening quality of ride experiences. In 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that ride stoppages and breakdowns had increased almost 60% at Disneyland since 2018.Article continues below this adBut the money flowed in. During his years running Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, Chapek reported an 18% overall revenue growth. In the first fiscal quarter of 2022, Chapek reported that the parks division \u201cachieved all-time revenue and operating income records\u201d during that time period. As of May 2022, per capita spending among Disneyland guests was up 40% from the same quarter in 2019. \u201cThe 18 percent growth rate during my tenure in parks was another win-win,\u201d he wrote. \u201c[Then-CEO Bob Iger\u2019s] only concern was that we might raise prices too high, hurting demand, but that never materialized.\u201d\u00a0While attendance has stayed relatively stable at Disneyland, the overwhelming consensus is that the prices are far too high, especially in a time when guests are getting less for their money. The once-free FastPass, which allowed guests to skip long lines on select rides a few times a day, is now the Lightning Lane Multi Pass, a paid service that can cost nearly $40 for the exact same benefit. (Not all rides fall under the Multi Pass. Some rides require Individual Lightning Lane, like Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, which costs upward of $30 per ride per person on busy days.) Disneyland has also replaced early park entry for hotel guests, formerly a daily benefit, with one single Lightning Lane per person per hotel stay. The cuts weren\u2019t just at Disneyland. At Walt Disney World, the company ended Magical Express, a free shuttle to WDW resorts from Orlando International Airport, in January 2022, and also implemented paid line skipping.FILE: Visitors cue beneath the Lightning Lane sign at Space Mountain in\u00a0Tomorrowland at Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.\u00a0Jeff\u00a0Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via GettyIn addition to the changes being costly, they were also difficult to navigate. New complicated systems for how to make park reservations and how to utilize Lightning Lane Multi\u00a0Pass (formerly Genie+)\u00a0added frustration and confusion for many guests.Article continues below this adWhen Chapek was fired in November 2022, former CEO Bob Iger reclaimed control of the company and publicly started walking back the price hikes. \u201cIn our zeal to grow profits, we may have been a little bit too aggressive about some of our pricing,\u201d he said at the March 2023 Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference. \u201cI think there\u2019s a way to continue to grow that business, but be smarter about how we price so that we maintain that brand value of accessibility.\u201d\u00a0But the precedent had been set, and the profits were too enticing. Disney may have softened some of its aggression on price hikes \u2014 its annual ticket increase, rolled out on Oct. 6, didn\u2019t include raising Magic Key prices for the first time in years \u2014 but costs within the parks continued to grow in everything from ticket prices to the cost of food within the parks, which has led to adults ordering kids meals to save money. Many of those scaled-back offerings, like cutting early entry, happened during Iger\u2019s second tenure as CEO.In 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that even within the company, employees expressed concerns that Disney \u201chas become addicted to price hikes and has reached the limits of what middle-class Americans can afford.\u201d\u00a0The Walt Disney Company Chairman Robert Iger speaks onstage during Vox Media\u2019s 2022 Code Conference on Sept. 7, 2022, in Beverly Hills, Calif.\u00a0Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Vox MediaWith wallets stretched so tight for so many people trying to give their families a magical day at Disneyland, it\u2019s no wonder guest behavior seems to have reached a nadir. If people are scraping their pennies together and going into debt to afford a park visit, every single element of the experience had better be perfect \u2014 and some people\u2019s fuses have become a lot shorter if it\u2019s not. The shifted focus toward out-of-town guests has also eroded the park\u2019s historic connection with those who care about the place, especially its traditions and culture, the most.Article continues below this adReports of adults acting badly often appear on social media and seem to be getting more and more frequent. In 2023, two families at Walt Disney World came to punches over who had a claim to a photo spot first. On Dec. 30, 2025, when a dad tried to stop a large group of guests at Disneyland\u2019s Indiana Jones Adventure ride from cutting in front of his family, a man in that group punched him, sending him to the hospital for stitches.In an effort to course-correct on guest dissatisfaction with rising costs, Disneyland has recently offered some enticing incentives. This summer, the company sold limited evening-only tickets for $59. (The tiered pricing system means single-day tickets for one park range from $104 to $224, depending on the day.) Since May, renewals of Magic Key annual passes have also come with a Disney dining card, good for food purchases in the parks.FILE: Visitors ascend the Magic Key Terrace at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, Calif., on Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021.\u00a0Jeff\u00a0Gritchen/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via GettyOn Oct. 6, when Disneyland announced its annual price hikes, they were the mildest increases in years. None of the Magic Key prices went up, and a few ticket tiers went up by just $5 per day.\u00a0The company also scrapped no-show penalties for its much-maligned reservation system, which Chapek explained in his book was a measure implemented to restrict the number of annual passholders who could attend in a day, preserving a better experience for higher-paying guests.Article continues below this adIn March 2026, just after Josh D\u2019Amaro took over as CEO of Disney following Iger\u2019s second time stepping down from the role, an attendee of a Disney shareholder meeting asked him how he planned to balance earnings with guest satisfaction at the parks. \u201cThat is an important question,\u201d he said, per Deadline. \u201cI guess I\u2019d start with the fact that I know that a Disney park visit is a meaningful investment for families that visit us, and our goal is for every single guest to feel that their experience is worth it.\u201d\u00a0Chapek\u2019s price hikes aren\u2019t going away anytime soon, but it does seem like Disney has backed off from that level of aggressive increases. Still, though he claimed Iger and the company attempted to erase his legacy after his termination, his leadership lingers at the parks \u2014 and fans haven\u2019t forgotten how Disneyland got to its most expensive point. But the former Disney CEO doesn\u2019t see things that way.\u201cMy abrupt dismissal hurt my reputation, leaving those close to me, outsiders, and some within the kingdom trying to figure out what I did wrong,\u201d Chapek wrote. \u201cThe answer, again, is nothing.\u201dArticle continues below this adOct 8, 2026Contributing Travel EditorJulie Tremaine is a contributing editor for SFGATE covering travel." ], "output": "readability", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:06.352414+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "screenshot": [], "singlefile": [], "title": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:06.344493+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "Why Disneyland got expensive on purpose", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:06.288794+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "wget": [ { "cmd": [ "wget", "--no-verbose", "--adjust-extension", "--convert-links", "--force-directories", "--span-hosts", "--no-parent", "-e", "robots=off", "--reject=js,mjs,woff,woff2,ttf,otf,eot,mp4,m4v,mov,webm,ogv,mkv,avi,flv", "--timeout=120", "--restrict-file-names=windows", "--page-requisites", "--user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) wget/GNU Wget 1.21.3", "--compression=auto", "--timestamping", "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" ], "cmd_version": "GNU Wget 1.21.3", "end_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:06.279080+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php.html", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-09T04:28:04.743512+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ] }, "icons": null, "is_archived": true, "is_static": false, "latest": { "archive_org": null, "dom": null, "favicon": "favicon.ico", "git": null, "media": null, "pdf": null, "screenshot": null, "singlefile": null, "title": "Why Disneyland got expensive on purpose", "warc": null, "wget": "www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php.html" }, "link_dir": "/data/archive/1791490516.49753", "newest_archive_date": "2026-10-09T04:28:08.944963+00:00", "num_failures": 0, "num_outputs": 6, "oldest_archive_date": "2026-10-09T04:28:02.990336+00:00", "path": "/article/22457068.php", "schema": "Link", "scheme": "https", "snapshot_id": "9049fb6f-0490-4df8-98ba-04f6a9c32b63", "sources": [ "/data/sources/1791490516-import.txt" ], "tags": ",pool,drudge,war-wiki", "tags_str": "pool,drudge,war-wiki", "timestamp": "1791490516.49753", "title": "Why Disneyland got expensive on purpose", "updated": "2026-10-09T04:28:02.990134+00:00", "updated_date": "2026-10-09 04:28", "url": "https://www.sfgate.com/article/22457068.php" }