My family is from New England, which meant none of us could ever relax unless we were in the state of Florida. So it was that every so often as a child, my parents would fly us down to Disney World for a summer vacation. Even back then, the place was a tourist trap—my uncle used to compare it to a vacuum cleaner sucking money out of your back pocket—and we cut costs where we could, shouldering around water bottles and coolers of sandwiches. Yet I also made many fond memories at those parks: braving the Tower of Terror for the first time, watching the SpectroMagic parade twinkle past.
Disney World was what it was, a campy hunk of plastic Americana proofed of all irony that after too long could start to feel creepy and compulsory (“you’re having fun at the happiest place on earth, right???“). But it was also something else: distinctly middle-class, the preferred vacation getaway for the family with three kids. Today, those same middle-class families are being priced out of the fun. During the 2010s, Disney World ticket prices soared at twice the rate of inflation. When the Magic Kingdom, the resort’s most popular park, opened in 1971, a one-day adult ticket cost $3.50; by 2004, it was $54.75; today it’s $109.
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