I'm sorry that I inadvertently cut out the first part of your post. The thing that has changed is the attitude, access, and the level of service that you get for the money. How hard is it to make sure that the resort room is clean upon check in and maintained through out your stay? It's hard because the money that Disney has charged into the room rates for housekeeping is being funneled away and is being used to pump up the profit statements. Charge the guest MORE but spend less delivering the service. This is the new Disney mantra under the current management.
Certainly all the costs are considered in the rates. What has changed is that you are not getting what you paid for. You're paying for bus transportation to the resorts but now fewer buses are doing the transporting and, at times, bus driver are literally screaming at people and refusing to leave until more people are crowded onto a fully packed bus. That was my experience in Dec 2017. That happened multiple times during that trip.
What happened to late night park hours, especially in the summer? Your ticket prices went way up and park hours have been cut and replaced in some instances with the up-sell events. I know you really want to believe that Disney can't offer all that they do without increasing the rates and cutting service but they managed to do just that for years.
What changed is that the profits now come first before every other consideration, to the point that the entire focus is on charging more and giving less. Disney never used to be like that and they are depending on people to fall for the false narrative that they can't "afford" to give you the experience that you paid for and have come to expect from a Disney parks experience... But they sure are marketing that they still do that and they are hoping that you can't tell the difference... only people can, and not just the fan base. Ask your friends and neighbors that have been to Disney whether they felt like they were getting ripped off with the prices and what they got for the money. Chances are I would bet they felt ripped off.
Remember, for years, Disney delivered a stellar vacation experience for the money that you paid. Now they are failing to deliver and depending on people to be gaslighted as to the reasons why. The reason is very clear. The demand for ever increasing stock profits are sucking the life out of a Disney parks vacation experience. Please also see that in order to prop up these stock prices the guests are being charged more and more. There are profits and then there are exorbitant profits on the backs of your customers. This is what Disney is doing.
~NM
Okay, that's something I can't really speak to, because we haven't been in a few years, so service may very well have declined since then. If one is comparing past Disney to current Disney as opposed to other resorts, then they might have a problem. My posts were just comparing them to other luxury resorts at any given point in time.
And yes, it's definitely about making money. I wonder how much of that has to do with WDW directly, though. I think that a lot of it springs directly or indirectly from the movie division. The thing that made them famous in the first place, and which they just don't seem to be able to do much with aside from buying up other companies that still can.
I don't think Disney has done stupendously well with its movie division lately (aside from Black Panther & Incredibles). They paid FOUR BILLION DOLLARS
for SW. But- The Last Jedi faltered and Solo was a flop, so they're cutting out a lot of the SW spinoffs they had planned. This SWGE expansion has also got to be costing billions. I really think they mishandled that part of their business, but that's a story for another day. Right now they are in the process of pouring money into the franchise hoping it's going to pay off and that has taken longer than they thought it would, IMHO. I'm not saying they're losing money on SW, but are they making what they had planned? You pay billions, you had better make billions more than that. I don't think that they are, not yet.
And many of the smaller films have not done well recently- A Wrinkle In TIme did poorly, and the recent Nutcracker had one of the worst opening weekends ever for a Disney film. Really, really
bad.
I have no idea how they do their books, but if one part of a company is underperforming, then it hits all parts of the company. I don't really keep up with my stocks (that's what mutual funds are for!) but I do know that when I look at my mix, Disney went from being in the top 10 or 15 of my holdings to way down the list. That means the money managers are dumping Disney stock. So the cost cutting is hitting all parts of their business, all the way down to the resorts where you and I are going to be feeling the pain.