bama_ed
It's kind of fun to do the impossible-Walt Disney
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2004
Folks,
For the third year in a row, I have compiled the newly released next year's FW campsite rates (2018 in this case) and have run a comparison against the previous year's rates. Some interesting changes and a few new rate periods have been created (which made some year-over-year comparisons challenging). These rates come courtesy of the good people at Mousesavers:
https://www.mousesavers.com/2018-fort-wilderness-campsites-rates-season-dates/
and the rates shown include the 12.5% tax and are rounded to the nearest dollar.
Let's get the data on the table then I'll lay out some comments:
My observations:
1. The January secret is out. The Marathon, MLK, and Value (more on Value coming up) rate periods all had the biggest increases.
2. The Value rate period used to occur in January & February then later again the fall (mostly in September). For 2018 there is a Value-2 period in the fall which appears to take the prior Value rates and just increases them. But the January Value period kept the old name but got a massive price increase. So for 2018 the Value period is only in January and February and Value-2 takes the place of Value in the fall.
3. The Spring rate period in 2018 is only 4 days long in March with fixed rates all days. In 2017 that period was rated Peak with different rates for weekdays and weekends which makes the Spring percentages vary widely. Most of what had been Spring in the past now carries the Spring-2 rate period which is more comparable (with a healthy rate increase).
4. The Regular rate period is mostly the time now after President's day weekend. It was listed as Peak last year and with the price reductions for that time of year, it appears to be a rare admission by Disney that they overdid past price increases for that time period and are correcting them this coming year. Like Spring and Value periods, Disney created a Regular-2 rate period for later in the spring and into summer which appear to carry on the past Regular rates with, again, healthy increases.
There are also tweaks to the dates associated with rate periods: for example the Value-2 rate period expires September 22 but in the past went out to September 30. The time around spring break and Easter saw name changes but the rates are still high.
Personally I thought we would get our first $200-a-night campsite in 2018 at either Easter or Holiday times but we came up JUST short (which means it's coming in 2019 for sure).
Finally, for 2018 in the WDW resort hotels, Disney has expanded yet again. Instead of the weekday/weekend rates in the past, there is now a third tier of rates in some rate periods that will apply to Thursday and Sunday nights (priced between the weekday and weekend rates). So the 3-day weekend stay which used to have two expensive nights and one cheaper night just got a little more expensive. (FW campsites still only have the two rates - weekdays and weekends. (for now....)
I've got only three nights planned in 2018 for the Fort (during that more expensive Marathon rate period). 2018 might see my first WDW hotel stay later in the year possibly. We'll see.
Bama Ed
PS - as I said with the new rate periods (-2's) it made YoY comparisons a little tougher so if you think you see a mistake I made (and DW says I make them all the time) please PM me and I will check it out.
PPS - here are the 2017 rates for comparison: https://www.disboards.com/threads/for-reference-concise-2017-fort-wilderness-campsite-rates.3559276/
For the third year in a row, I have compiled the newly released next year's FW campsite rates (2018 in this case) and have run a comparison against the previous year's rates. Some interesting changes and a few new rate periods have been created (which made some year-over-year comparisons challenging). These rates come courtesy of the good people at Mousesavers:
https://www.mousesavers.com/2018-fort-wilderness-campsites-rates-season-dates/
and the rates shown include the 12.5% tax and are rounded to the nearest dollar.
Let's get the data on the table then I'll lay out some comments:
My observations:
1. The January secret is out. The Marathon, MLK, and Value (more on Value coming up) rate periods all had the biggest increases.
2. The Value rate period used to occur in January & February then later again the fall (mostly in September). For 2018 there is a Value-2 period in the fall which appears to take the prior Value rates and just increases them. But the January Value period kept the old name but got a massive price increase. So for 2018 the Value period is only in January and February and Value-2 takes the place of Value in the fall.
3. The Spring rate period in 2018 is only 4 days long in March with fixed rates all days. In 2017 that period was rated Peak with different rates for weekdays and weekends which makes the Spring percentages vary widely. Most of what had been Spring in the past now carries the Spring-2 rate period which is more comparable (with a healthy rate increase).
4. The Regular rate period is mostly the time now after President's day weekend. It was listed as Peak last year and with the price reductions for that time of year, it appears to be a rare admission by Disney that they overdid past price increases for that time period and are correcting them this coming year. Like Spring and Value periods, Disney created a Regular-2 rate period for later in the spring and into summer which appear to carry on the past Regular rates with, again, healthy increases.
There are also tweaks to the dates associated with rate periods: for example the Value-2 rate period expires September 22 but in the past went out to September 30. The time around spring break and Easter saw name changes but the rates are still high.
Personally I thought we would get our first $200-a-night campsite in 2018 at either Easter or Holiday times but we came up JUST short (which means it's coming in 2019 for sure).
Finally, for 2018 in the WDW resort hotels, Disney has expanded yet again. Instead of the weekday/weekend rates in the past, there is now a third tier of rates in some rate periods that will apply to Thursday and Sunday nights (priced between the weekday and weekend rates). So the 3-day weekend stay which used to have two expensive nights and one cheaper night just got a little more expensive. (FW campsites still only have the two rates - weekdays and weekends. (for now....)
I've got only three nights planned in 2018 for the Fort (during that more expensive Marathon rate period). 2018 might see my first WDW hotel stay later in the year possibly. We'll see.
Bama Ed
PS - as I said with the new rate periods (-2's) it made YoY comparisons a little tougher so if you think you see a mistake I made (and DW says I make them all the time) please PM me and I will check it out.
PPS - here are the 2017 rates for comparison: https://www.disboards.com/threads/for-reference-concise-2017-fort-wilderness-campsite-rates.3559276/
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