Jeremy and Rhonda kick off the episode with a very big announcement you do not want to miss, before moving on to break down the cost of a vacation down to the hour for several continental based US destinations and how they compare to see if Disney really is the "Most Expensive Day Ever".
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On this episode, we kick off with a huge announcement and then have our 2024 edition of the cost of a vacation, where we break down popular U.S. events and destinations to see which has the best value. Today's August 30th, 2024, in this episode 698 of The Main Street Magic Podcast. Hello and welcome to another episode of Main Street Magic. I'm your host Jeremy Stein and as always I'm joined by my lovely wife Rhonda. Hey guys, make sure you check us out on the web at mainstmagic.com as well as follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @mainstmagic and on TikTok @msmpodcast. If you want to be part of the community and join the conversation in addition to live streams from the parks and our weekly live show, head to Facebook and search for the Main Street Magic community and ask to join. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you can get brand new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Planning a trip to Disneyland or Walt Disney World can be overwhelming and at times just downright frustrating. But don't worry because Mouse Dining removes the frustration of booking Disney dining reservations alerting you when they spot availability for your desired restaurant, date, meal and time. Visit msmfriends.com to use this free service. So first we have a huge announcement which I'm super excited about. Yeah we've been working behind the scenes for a little while on something and we're finally ready to announce it and make it I guess public knowledge. We are partnering with MEI Travel and Mouse Fan Travel. They will be our trusted source for any vacation destination throughout the world and they will be our preferred travel partner. They offer free vacation planning services over 20 years of experience and they've been creating magical and memorable Disney vacations, universal vacations, vacations on cruise lines, vacations anywhere you can think of in the world. So don't worry don't freak out if you're thinking oh my gosh what happened to our amazing travel advisors which if you have worked with Chuck, Amy or Alicia you will totally be able to still go with them and everything except unfortunately we do have to say goodbye to Chuck. He decided to focus on his teaching and coaching career. But don't worry because Amy and Alicia who many of you have worked with will be taking over any of his clients and they will be working under the MEI Travel and Mouse Fan Travel umbrella and so you will still have access to them as your trusted travel advisors. Everything else will just be within this incredible MEI Travel organization. We're so excited Becky who owns MEI Travel, Mouse Fan Travel is absolutely incredible. It's just been an absolute pleasure to get to know her over the past couple of months and work on all these details. So that's big for us and it's big for you all as listeners. This is going to give an opportunity to grow the show even more. It's going to give an opportunity for Ron and I with the show to do more and access more which is going to be wonderful and yeah we're just you know in the in the seven years that we've been doing this this is the type of thing that we've been working towards. Yes you know overall and so this partnership is just going to be incredible. Yeah. What perfect episode to make this announcement then are updated cost of a vacation because they can book any of these trips we're about to talk about. Yeah as well as anywhere else in the world as we mentioned and with all this you'll be able to go to mainstmagic.com you'll be able to click on the Travel button as well as any of the banners or advertisements that you'll see and you can go ahead and fill out those free quotes free travel everything. But what we like to do with this thing we started back in 2019 actually. Our first one went out in December of 2019. We had another one we updated when June of 2022 was planning to do somewhere around the similar time frame but obviously working through this announcement and working with MEI Travel. We had to hold off a little bit so we're going to date this one we're going to do a trip and the idea of this is to not only compare the cost in general of Walt Disney World Universal Orlando here in Central Florida but compare them to other major US destinations that a family of four might travel to for a certain event or something and so not only will we talk about the overall cost and you can see how the cost of food the actual ticketing and stuff compares hotels and resorts what those prices look like all throughout the United States but then we actually break it down where we look at the value of that trip and which destination and vacation actually offers the best value by breaking it down at cost per hour. Yes and we'll kind of go through a little bit of that more as we go through so what we did is we selected for this one it's going to be a one date one night trip for a family of four which will be two adults two children under the age of 18. We selected September 14th to the 15th and pretty much picked that because that's my birthday. Hey let's look at that one so went for those dates and compared throughout what it looks like for that family of four travel to the destination is not included in our numbers because that varies so much it does if you're coming to Disney for example for us that travel is the cost of gas correct but if you're coming from Maryland that's the cost of that flight but if you're coming from California right that's a very different cost so we didn't want to include that or anything like a rental car once you actually get to your destination right and if some people might not fly they might still do gas driving from Maryland yeah so so everything is just too variable right for that one. We're doing the one day the one night for the hotel we're basically looking at the the rack rate at whatever current promotion is going on as far as like if you're a member or something so if you're a bond boy member you know we looked at with that Marriott price costs and stuff would look like for that we did not include resort parking or any additional parking at all within our pricing because again that varies whether you have a car or not but we'll tell you what it is so again you can get in your mind what that looks like for each of these we included a lunch selected a bar and grill style restaurant sit down restaurant for lunch and we put the time at that at 45 minutes and why does the time matter well it will in the end when we break down the cost per hour right we're going to have the kids split a adult entree meal again just for simplicity we have included the applicable tax okay within that location as well as out of the 20 tip okay so it makes it even across the board then dinner we selected a steakhouse signature style restaurant this is going to be 70 minutes so a longer sit down a little bit of a nicer meal again kids are going to split an adult entree same tax 20 tip yep and then with each of the locations that we chose we tried to keep the menu items pretty similar so like you'll find out most of the time for lunch we went with like some sort of soft pretzel appetizer we went with a salad for one adult a burger for another adult and then for the kids split we went anywhere from like a burger to a pizza to chicken you know again things that line up get the same thing for dinner we do include alcoholic beverages for these because when we first did these we're drinking alcoholic beverages a lot of people still do so i think it's a good way to put the cost in there because if you just put you know water for all of these or soda right i think we find that those those costs are just so much similar or again free for water so we just want to at least put some sort of cost in there and just think if you don't drink then you're actually saving you're going to come out on top you're saving all this money right uh for the event um we are again we're doing a single event now as you see this will go everything from a single sporting event to concert event to a day at the parks and then we took the allotted time per that event and that's what we're going to factor into our overall costs so when we did this back and we did the version which was basically 2020 because it was we were actually pricing out things that were happening in december of 2019 uh to 2022 that average cost of inflation and but during that time period was 11.7 percent okay uh since we did this in june of 2022 now to september of 2024 it is seven and a half percent so again you'll also get to see how those inflation rates um compare to the increase decrease of cost um over all these different trips so one thing that was very interesting that I looked up especially as we talk about some of these um because you will see some prices fluctuate you know some will go up some will go down surprisingly uh doing some research into nbcnews.com they're talking about concerts specifically okay and that they have seen a decrease in concert attendance which has also caused a lot of concert pricing to go down on some of your average stars uh they have seen you know they think that there's a lot of fatigue with concerts and how much they cost uh you had the black keys and you had j-low both cancel complete 2024 arena-style huge concerts uh the black keys i think saw actually the numbers of ticket sales that didn't like them so they canceled their major arena tour and they went to a smaller venue tour j-low just canceled completely wow you know uh another thing is you know while uh Taylor Swift is still touring the a lot of these mega stars uh Taylor Swift's tour Beyonce um tickets went on sale long before we were doing a lot of this research and so there aren't a lot of these mega star tours that are coming in like 2025 right so there's probably some decrease there and then as you can imagine because we tried to pick uh hotel and resort destinations that were close to whatever you know venue or event that we were doing um you have to assume some of those potentially went down because you know some of these events have gone down now another thing we totally understand that seasons make a difference yeah you know we understand that the first year we did this was a december with the second time we did this was june now we're doing it in september you know if you go from uh summer depending on location obviously um those prices can often be a lot higher compared to going into our mid september when people are back in school right just before all the holidays kick in yes so again we understand that and we're not as concerned with doing this in the way that it compares to the two-year change as much as we are comparing you know almost apples to apples in a sense you know that's what you're really looking at what is the cost of um a soft pretzel if you go to this place compared to this place right so that's what we'll get into all right our very first location uh ronda where is our family of four headed to and what are we going to take in well before i say it this is where i always like to say thank you thank you thank you jeremy for doing all of this amazing and hard work research because i didn't do any i'm just about to read in and um slash conversate with him so i always want to say thank you because y'all wouldn't have this without him so anyways all right we are going to go to new york and we are going to see a Broadway show yeah so uh we're gonna stay and again all these are the same year after year the hotels um the event as we can some of them you'll you'll hear have change and we'll tell you why and all um and then uh we're going to look at the same actual dining location so we're going to the exact same restaurants like i said ordering the same thing we're going to go down to Times Square and stay at the New York Marriott marquee um this is a cool one to pick because ronda and i've actually stayed here we did it was super cool when i when we were dating uh before i moved to florida i was still in maryland ronda came up to visit for a week in um december of it would have been 2004 actually okay and we spent a week together it was going to be the longest we had ever spent together um we were flying back and forth between basically maryland and florida every other weekend or so to see each other so this was our test was was doing this and part of that week long test we went to new york for two years and this is where we stayed so i thought that was pretty cool all right so for a uh deluxe guest room which includes two double beds what is the price all in tax title if there are resort fees we're including them uh to stay here for one evening six hundred and sixty four dollars and forty six cents who uh just again just because we'll talk about it uh pricing there for parking for one night is ninety five dollars per night wow that has not changed in the past two years but it actually has gone up thirty dollars since we first did this wow wow right so what broadway show ronda are we gonna take the kids to see no we're gonna go see the lion king uh this will be an exact cost comparison from 2022 uh the first year we did this we did frozen that is no longer on broadway in new york it is now touring um so we went with lion king uh we're gonna go to the two p.m. show um and we had to adjust things a little bit so this will actually be on september 10th okay is what we're doing this one for uh same as we've done the past two years we're gonna select an orchestra seating section and how much are you looking at for that family of four ronda for those four tickets eight hundred and ninety dollars yeah so it is up a little bit from uh two years ago when it topped out at a thousand and forty dollars wow now your broadway show is gonna take you roughly uh a hundred and forty minutes to sit down and enjoy okay that's gonna factor into our time all right for lunch we are sitting down at lilies a craft and kitchen uh ronda why don't you talk about our appetizer entree and beverages and what those costs look like for each yeah so our appetizer of course is a hot baked pretzel for eleven dollars entree i got an avocado salad for seventeen jermi got a crab cake burger for twenty two and for the kids they did a create your own burger for fifteen drinks our pino grigio i got some wine for fourteen dollars and jermi did a moscow mule for seventeen yes so this totals out at a hundred and twenty five dollars and thirty four cents when you include tax and a twenty percent tip for your lunch let's move on to dinner we were going to go to the world famous galakers steakhouse uh and what are we eating here ronda mmm an appetizer shrimp and lobster dumplings for nineteen dollars filet mignon a ten ounce for fifty eight dollars afaro islands salmon grilled or broiled for thirty nine dollars brussels sprouts for sixteen dollars chopped steak for twenty eight bake potato for ten and with drinks we're going with a pino grigio again for seventeen and a beer for fourteen dollars yes so this totals out to two hundred and sixty two dollars in forty three cents and the reason that you're going to see in some of these the sides when you get to the sit down dinners especially as it comes to a steakhouse like brussels sprouts or bake potato is it was dependent on the steakhouse we selected on if it was a complete entree meal with sides or a more traditional steakhouse where you add them right so again it's just trying to keep them on kind of the same level um all right so by the time you're done when you take the time and again we're talking event only we're not talking about you know you getting there and maybe walking around time square and shopping or because that's not the reason you're technically going right right so this comes up to four hours i'm sorry four point two five hours so that includes both meals time of show uh your grand total for this trip as we've described is one thousand nine hundred and forty two dollars and twenty three cents now that is only a one point six four percentage increase from two years ago and we did this wow if you're wondering what that increase looked like between 2019 in december and june of 2022 it was 16.4 increase wow so much smaller right so when you break that down and you take the total cost of this trip for your specific Broadway show you divide it by the number of hours your cost per hour comes out to four hundred and fifty six dollars and ninety nine cents so again only a one point six four percent increase since the last time we did this so not too bad so we went to new york two years ago to do this can cost you about the same not bad which is really nice after two years that is very shocking okay where are we headed next uh and we're making this a family trip because of who we're going to see and the reason we're going yes we're headed to vegas and we're gonna see the bloomin group yes we're gonna stay at the mgm grand hotel and casino uh this is a grand two queen strip view and the cost for one night all in five hundred ninety nine dollars and seventy eight cents uh parking shockingly in the heart of vegas on the strip would only be eighteen dollars a night that's not bad pretty good right yeah so we are going to see the blue man group mm-hmm we're gonna sit in that orchestra section the same one we've always priced out and the cost of this will be five hundred and fifty two dollars and forty eight cents for the family of four that is actually down around forty dollars from two years ago wow that's very nice your length of show to see the blue man group have you seen the blue man group mmm we saw it vegas we saw it together yes i couldn't remember if i went with you or matt oh my goodness uh i do remember going to see the bodies exhibit with you because i felt ill the whole time that thing was nuts he did it was super i thought it was super it was amazing but it still made me nauseous while it was amazing if you never i don't know where it was a touring exhibit this has been years oh yeah yeah this has been well over a decade if not 15 years or so yeah yeah the bodies exhibit was super fascinating though it was scientific exhibit it took actual human bodies and cadavers and did things like um uh had an entire layout of all like the veins like actual human veins in the way that they sit through a body like in between two pieces of plexiglass they were like yeah cross hatches of like brand it was crazy it was very cool still made me want to throw up um so your show is going to take you 105 minutes to watch yeah right so lunch we're going to tap inside it's a barn grill inside of mgm ronda let's go through our dining where we appetizer or pretzel and cheese for eighteen dollars entrees we're going to do a cheese steak for twenty two burger and fries for twenty three and chicken fingers and fries for twenty three drinks we're going to go with a pino grigio for twelve dollars and a manhattan for fifteen bring in your grand total to one hundred forty four dollars and eighty nine cents yeah for that meal it's up about twenty bucks from two years ago not too bad for dinner we're going to go to del monego steakhouse at the venetian i believe this is where we went with friends and the four of a split that ridiculously sized steak was it there you know and i think it was a treasure island treasure island okay but it was like it was a massive yes it was all right so what are we here um for the appetizer we are going to get new oilins barbecue shrimp for twenty eight dollars the entrees we're going to get a nine ounce filet mignon for seventy dollars wow sea bass for sixty five dollars and then we're going to add some brussels sprouts for sixteen we're going to get some grilled chicken breast for the kids for forty two i'm going to drink so i'm going to go with pino grigio again for sixteen and a beer for eight bring in your grand total to three hundred and fourteen dollars and fourteen cents who that is a lot that's a lot of money that's an expensive dinner but uh and that is up a pretty good amount that's up about thirty dollars from two years ago okay uh so this breaks down is cost per hour is going to come down to three point six six hours of total time that includes your show and your meals that's going to bring you to one thousand six hundred and eleven dollars and twenty nine cents total uh that's a one point eight one percent decrease from two years from two thousand nineteen to twenty twenty two it was a twenty eight percent increase right it's crazy so that breaks down to four hundred and forty dollars and twenty four cents per hour again one hundred one point eight one percent decrease right so this one's actually going down that's cheaper to go to vegas and see the blue man group than it was in june of twenty twenty two okay but this keeps going down that percentage we can afford to go see them in thirty nine years so that's okay just keep it up well good all right next uh ronda's favorite thing maybe on this trip outside of a Walt Disney World vacation i bet is we're going to go skiing in breckenridge yes uh september not the best time to ski up there at that time so we had to push this out and do a date it's another saturday uh november 10th uh i'm sorry november 9th to 10th in twenty twenty four uh we are going to stay at one ski hill place which we priced out the past two years in a studio condominium uh for only four hundred and fifteen dollars and four cents per night that actually includes parking okay so not bad on the i feel like on the hotel stay all right ronda why don't you talk about the cost of skiing because i don't know what half this stuff is well uh you get a ski ticket and a one day um ski ticket with the lift and everything is three hundred and forty eight dollars per person all four people all four people yes that's all four people because i'm like wait a minute it's expensive to skate it is though um and then you obviously have to get your ski rentals which includes skis boots and a helmet and this is for all four people for eight hundred and thirty four dollars and fifty two cents yeah but this will be six hours of skiing yeah so you have a much longer time period you're getting to enjoy this and that's the reason we wanted to do this to show that cost per hour yeah you know you can enjoy a day of skiing for a longer period of time than a you know two hour show scene the blue man group and if you're wondering why it's only six hours because they usually do night skiing and that is a separate ticket yeah exactly um so and and i will say those ski rentals went up almost four hundred dollars in the two years which is pretty nuts yeah uh for lunch we're gonna head to Robby's Tavern uh i will say one thing is going through all these menus it makes you just want to eat there's a lot of wonderful menus and it's neat to go through them all even though we're looking for these specific items but also every single place has some form of pretzel which is great makes makes this job easier okay so let's talk about food yeah uh our appetizer is pretzel knots for seventeen dollars um a crispy cob for entrees for nineteen spitfire burger for twenty the sunny pizza for eighteen drinks will do a pino grease which is eighteen and a grand meal which is seventeen bring in your grand total to one hundred and forty two dollars and forty cents for this lunch yeah about thirty bucks from the last time we did this uh for dinner we're gonna go get our uh seafood app we're gonna get our steaks and fish we're gonna go to salt creek steakhouse uh run us through our menu items and costs here ronda our appetizer we're gonna do a crab cake for sixteen dollars entrees we've got eight ounce filet mignon for sixty black cod for thirty eight a pesto pasta permavera for thirty two and your drinks we're gonna do with a pino grigio fourteen and a beer for twelve bring in your grand total to two hundred and twenty four dollars and seventy one cents yeah we're up about ten dollars from the last time uh what is crazy from that first time we did it in december 2019 to june of twenty twenty two uh it went up almost sixty dollars for this same meal wow you know so what you'll see throughout this tire thing is that december two thousand nineteen pandemic in between right into june of twenty twenty two it's insane to see the cost differences in the inflation there compared to what it is you know now between june and twenty twenty two so when you do all this your six hour skiing your meals that is seven point nine two hours uh your grand total for this vacation ended up being one thousand nine hundred and sixty four dollars and sixty seven cents based on those ski rentals specifically this had an almost twenty four percent increase since we did this last time it breaks down to two hundred and forty eight dollars and six cents per hour up almost fifty dollars from the last time and again almost a twenty four percent increase so again this is one of those we got to do a level playing field right if you have your own ski boots and all that stuff you can certainly save a lot of money going here a ridiculous amount again this is only one day that's the other thing you have to think about right is is multiply some of these you know i mean imagine you're going skiing and you're going up there for a week right you're doing three or four days of skiing now with everything you're usually the more you play the less you pay yes you know what i mean so obviously some of these things the more days you buy most likely that cost per day goes down but we want to put this all in the same level all right next still beautiful beautiful in september if not year round we're heading way south southern most point of the united states we're heading to beautiful key west and florida and we are going to go snorkeling okay so this is our main event uh we're going to stay at the southern most beach resort and a deluxe two queen uh the cost for this two years ago was almost 700 a night wow now for this date it is five hundred and sixty three dollars again you can look at going from more peak summer and june coming out in september parking there would be forty two dollars if you got to bring a vehicle per night okay all right for our outing we are going to go to key west reef snorkel uh we're going to do in the afternoon at one p.m this is a three hour tour that's kind of scary you don't get stuck on an island somewhere but if you do hopefully you have a professor with you um and a ginger i would have a ginger with me yes you would uh and this cost for those four people is going to be two hundred and twenty six dollars and seventy nine cents this has gone up almost fifty dollars yeah the past two years that's not bad though for no it's not at all i mean that's a great family of four outing for three hours of time yeah you know and that's the other thing you could go down and you know we'll share these notes if if you've not already you can go to our website and you can join our email list and uh every monday now we're sending out an email which not only includes uh the latest in news but it's it includes our episodes that came out that week as well as usually some behind the scenes stuff so when we send this one out i'll include all these notes in a pdf so if you want to go back into additional math and actually go all right three hours two hundred and twenty six bucks you know that value per hour just for that event is this compared to concert compared to other things uh we're going to stay right there at the resort which is super nice and we're going to eat at southernmost beach cafe uh what are we eating here ronda because so far this is the meal i want to go have both most mostly because we're sitting in the key west button mm-hmm uh well appetizer we're going to do concritors for twenty two dollars we're going to do a classic cesar for sixteen a somo burger for twenty and chicken tenders platter for eighteen drinks we're going to do a pinot grigio for eleven and a mojito for eleven bringing your grand total to one twenty six forty two yeah so uh that's up seven dollars from the past two years about twenty five dollars from the first and second time we did this um one thing i was very shocked to see because i try to keep everything the same when we originally did this i included a pusser's painkiller because it is a very well known uh drink especially here in florida and in the caribbean uh pusser's rum is a actual brand uh i actually i want well i won i know i've told this story i had a buddy give me a trip who works for radio station uh we actually it was sponsored by pusser's um rum and it was sponsored by hose cuervo uh red stripe was like the the major sponsors of this trip and so pusser's painkillers killers were flowing there the reason i call them a painkiller is because uh if anything else you literally one of these will kill that pain okay they are strong uh dinner we are going to go to the a and b lobster house what are we getting ronda i know you're going to enjoy the appetizer yeah some rock oyster rock a feller twenty dollars filay manon sixty six some grilled grouper for fifty two shrimp fettuccine for thirty nine a pino grigio for eleven and a beer for seven bring in your grand total to two fifty one fifty four up about fifteen bucks from our previous incarnation so not not a big increase all right so this ends up breaking down with that three-hour tour unless it turns into a much longer one could you get you know uh shipwrecked on an island um four point nine two hours yeah one thousand one hundred and sixty eight dollars and seventeen cents pretty affordable compared to some of the other stuff so far uh this is a five point six percent decrease since the last time we did it from two thousand nineteen to twenty twenty two that was a twenty one percent increase wow so your final breaks down to two hundred and thirty seven dollars and forty three cents per hour again five point six percent decrease uh that actually went up thirty three percent in price from nineteen to twenty two wow next up we are going to see a concert and we have selected to go to washington d_c oh it seemed like a good place to put on our list right um this year so in the past the first time we did it we went to see the hella megator with weezer fallout boy in green day right we're trying to look at these kind of like equal larger tours you know something that's a little bit equal um the last time we did this we went to the stadium tour saw motley crew death leopard poison and jones yet uh for this year in september we do not have any sort of uh popular bands okay from twenty and thirty and forty years ago touring but you know what we do have we have just in timberlake oh right and i looked at it i looked at a comparison it really would so i look at a comparison between uh timberlake i looked at nicki minaj and i looked at jelly roll uh and based on the years i thought just in timberlake was pretty suitable since he's been around for decades okay to have that same type of thing i found that and i'm not making light of it but i found it interesting that it was called the forgot tomorrow world tour you know uh considering unfortunately his recent you know interaction with the police and d_u_i um is it could have been called forgot forget yesterday because i'm sure he would like to forget that happened yeah but um yeah so anyway let's talk hotel we're going to say the hampton in and suites in the washington d_c_ navy yard uh two queen beds non-smoking this actually went down significantly since last time it is now three hundred and thirty five dollars and ten cents for the night uh if you want to do parking there it is valet only for seventy dollars a night oh wow that is up there not quite new york ninety five dollar night status but yeah uh looking at tickets for this tour and by the way if you would like parking here it is one hundred dollars to park holy crap and this is at the capital one arena so i'd be getting an uber i would be getting an uber but i wonder how much an uber would be if it's but if it's a hundred dollars and they know that yeah i would personally judge like oh i guarantee there's some jacked up jacked up flex prices right coming out of the concert right um now for a lot of these we did select hotels that were potentially within walking distance okay um so you can take your chances they are but uh so for four tickets this show starts at seven thirty picked section one oh four which is comparable to the same sections and areas that we've done in the past the past two year or the past two times we did this it was actually at the um nationals uh park where the nationals play okay the only big concert that was happening there was the hf festival shockingly which is coming back um but it just doesn't fall on this same level because it is like all day tons of bands oh yay yay yay yep um but this would cost for those four tickets nine hundred and sixty seven dollars and eighty cents okay um which is not very surprising because you know we're going to see twenty one pilots here in a few weeks at kia center down in orlando and those were around four hundred or so just for the two of us oh my gosh so that makes sense right it's insane um we're going to give a three hour time block for this concert that's given jt about an hour and a half or so to play that's going to give you an opener of about forty five minutes maybe a half hour in between uh stuff like that so we're gonna go to the nearby blue jacket brewery for lunch people mostly know what food we're getting but let's get specific on the the name of the items here and how much they cost uh jumbo everything pretzel for fifteen dollars best pretzel i've seen so far uh-huh we still split this we still eat it no you don't need everything oh i can probably take that off yeah scrape it off i can't believe you don't like every it has everything you like in it right i don't know do you like do you like um onion yeah okay do you like garlic yeah do you like salt no just kidding you like you know i mean do you like uh poppy seeds right like sure everything you like okay i don't know anyways uh a farmstead salad for seventeen dollars a big train burger for twenty fried chicken sandwich for eighteen gonna go with a pinot grease for twelve and a Moscow mule for four fifteen bringing your grand total one twenty eight oh four yeah not far up from the last time we did this this is actually only going up about thirteen bucks so pretty good after two years uh for dinner we are going to dine at charlie palmer steakhouse mmm we're gonna get a marlin crab roll appetizer for thirty dollars we're gonna get filet mignon for fifty eight we're gonna get king salmon for thirty eight cream spinach we're gonna add on for twelve and get the half roasted chicken for thirty drinks i'm gonna do a reselling for twelve dollars and a beer for eight bringing your grand total to two forty eight sixteen uh what's very interesting first of all this is only going up five dollars since the last time we did this but what was interesting about this specific place is that i had to really find comparable items because their menu has changed so much oh wow like the first year or the first time we did this there was a blue crab cocktail right that was gone the second time we did it and they had a shrimp cocktail so it's an okay that's pretty comparable right this time they didn't have either one of them they had this marlin crab roll which is much still like a crab cocktail um for the for the salmon that you know ronda priced out first time we had to use swordfish then it was halibut now it's salmon like even the chicken had changed so it's just interesting to see you know some of these have had the exact same menus for what ends up being the past almost five years and then some of them varied up a little bit yeah okay so cost per hour we have spent a total of four point nine two hours on this specific event concert dining uh that's going to cost you one thousand six hundred and eighty dollars and one little penny that is actually down point seven one percent from the last time we did it which goes along with that nbc news article which has seen live nation specifically uh which is owned by ticket master which is really interesting so not to go off on too much of a sidebar uh first of all ticket master is a monopoly i know they've been fighting this for your pearl jam kit this off when i was in high school yeah and you know for the first time ever really somebody went to battle ticket master and pearl jam did it and they had they basically came up with their own ticketing system this private god this would have been i believe 97 96 or 97 i think i was a senior when this happened um so pearl jam you know back then uh we would go to jc pennies at the local mall at lake forest mall and get pictures just and you could get your glamour shots yeah and afterwards they had a ticket master location inside of their customer service area and that was the only way you could get tickets you know you had to go to a ticket master you couldn't get them online so pearl jam said well we're not going to use ticket master we're going to do an entire tour and we're going to have a phone number and available days times whatever that you're going to call for the specific concert that you want to go to and that's how you'll get them so think of now they say all right um and there weren't all these presales back then like right now if a ticket goes on sale on friday september 13th on september 10th there's presale for fan club and then on september 11th there's presale for live nation members and then there's radio and then there's all this crap there was none of that junk right you just got your dang ticket so i was in uh mr isler's bob isler's class in my senior year which was uh woodshop uh mr isler's was the best favorite teacher i've ever had um and he was nice enough because think about there's no cell phones i'm in high school he let us use his office phone the school phone to call and secure these tickets oh my god i still have it somewhere you know pearl jam took of every care of everything they printed the tickets they mailed the tickets so it's this big ticket it doesn't look like a ticket it's this big special kind of ticket that you got like um for the pearl jam tour and it was just amazing and again you had to go and present this ticket which they ripped off a perforated area like polar express ticket like kind of yeah i mean it was big it was much bigger than a regular ticket and so now though you know most everything has to go through ticket master there are some others that are coming up um but what i find interesting because you know i bought a lot of tickets recently in the past year between going to see blue october uh we're going to see twenty on pilots uh creeds coming up that i'm going to see um even though if you go through live nation it doesn't have all the same costs and fees that ticket master does so but they're not all offered by that like house of blues in orlando is exclusively through most of the time live nation and it comes out cheaper than if they were using ticket master i don't know it's interesting so let's go to our next event um this one's going to be a little bit different we're going to talk a little bit more about the 2019 uh just based on the timing of the way we did these we're going to go to a football game uh we're going to see the Arizona Cardinals versus los angeles rams uh there's going to be on sunday september 15th 2024 the first year that we did this in 2019 because it was football season uh we went ahead and did Arizona Cardinals versus cleveland brown okay uh back in june uh that the ticket pricing and all was not yet available when we did this in june of 2022 um for us to price out football so we did a baseball game yes uh baseball game in Arizona is significantly cheaper so we'll actually talk about this and how it compares more to 2019 but we're going to stay at the renaissance phoenix glendale hotel and spa uh two queen beds three hundred and ninety dollars and forty two cents a night this is actually down almost two hundred dollars wow since 2022 wow right parking would be twenty dollars a night if you needed it all right tickets to state farm stadium where the cardinals play for a 105 pm game we're gonna be in section 239 when we did this in 2019 we priced out section 233 so we're in a general same area um and all of these through the research i pick things that are available okay you know i mean just to really see that actual cost i don't have to guess um and so for those tickets yeah two thousand thirty five dollars okay just for those four tickets well right and this is going to be two hundred minutes so over three hours you do get to enjoy this football game mm-hmm yeah this does include tailgating this doesn't include parking at the stadium like for lunch we're gonna hit the yard house which is actually a chain it's a very good chain okay i would compare yard house if you have one near you they're all over the u.s it is like the bar and grill cheesecake factory okay it's on that same kind of level yeah um the menu is absurd everything like cheesecake factory yeah okay absolutely absurd uh let's talk about food there we're yeah we're gonna get a barbarian jumbo pretzel for 1399 i'm gonna get a cob salad for 1699 pepper jack burger for 1649 and a cheese pizza for 1599 drinks we're gonna do pino grease for 12 dollars and a moscow mule for 1129 bringing your grain total to 114 dollars and 72 cents yeah up about 15 bucks no not bad since last time not too bad for dinner we're gonna head to Flemming's prime steakhouse and wine bar what are we ordering here around some sweet chilam chili calamari for 23 dollars yes it does and eight ounce filet mignon for 56 glazed sea bass for 53 dollars we're going to add on some cream spinach for 17 and a double breasted breasted chicken for 39 drinks we're going to do a pino grigio for 15 and a beer for 8 bring in your grain total to 279.02 yep we're up about 30 bucks now this comes out to 5.25 total hours your overall cost is two thousand eight hundred and nineteen dollars and eighty four cents to go see a football game jeez i mean and you know again you're you you factored in a hotel here right but even if you're local and you still said you know what we're gonna grab something to eat before we're not gonna you know we're not gonna tailgate we're gonna go to the game and then afterwards we're gonna grab dinner even if you minus that hotel this is like 2,500 bucks it's crazy but even if you minus the hotel but then you factor in the tailgating or getting anything in the and parking and parking and then getting stuff in the stadium it's nuts so what we'll talk about is that since 2019 when we did this because it is more apples to apples than comparing to a baseball game there was a 12.3 increase since 2019 on your total cost now if you break it down per hour this comes down to five hundred and thirty seven dollars and eleven cents per hour of enjoyment of those meals in that game wow that is which again 12.3 percent increase only from 2019 right so but if you look at it from going to a baseball game two years ago it would be up 42 percent wow so that's a lot like it really is significantly more expensive to go to a football game than a baseball game yeah okay we've gone over eight wonderful I think locations do out the United States that you and your family could visit right we've priced all those out what really is interesting to see is what that would look like if you decided to take your day day and night family trip to either universal Orlando resort or Walt Disney World so let's talk about those two right let's break those down all right let's do it we're going to head to universal Orlando Resort first we're going to stay at Lowe's Royal Pacific Resort standard two queen room is going to cost you five hundred and forty four dollars and fifty cents which is shockingly down uh over a hundred dollars from the last time we priced this out in June of 2022 okay and you're talking a summer season starting to you know in between the holidays right now parking at universal for their now what they call signature collection hotels is thirty one dollars a night self parking okay so remember that yeah tickets now you would never normally do this but if you were to get a two park one day park to park ticket at universal Orlando there's normally you're going to go more probably for a day but this is a great comparison for folks that are staying at Disney and you want to tack on that one day right correct again our advisors our partners with uh MMI uh travel can do this for you yes um it's going to cost you eight hundred and sixty nine dollars and four cents now you got to remember because we're staying at a signature hotel at Royal Pacific you are going to have express pass included it is a huge huge cost benefit huge and highly recommend you stay at those resorts of course we're going to spend eight hours total in the park which is on a shorter end to be honest okay why because you really think about it well because i still want to make these as equal as possible you know i didn't want to put like well you're only going to spend three hours in a park just like a football game but eight hours you know let's just say that you had to travel down that morning but technically you could stay a lot longer you could be there from nine a.m. to nine p.m you could do 12 hours okay you know but let's say eight you know let's just say that you're getting in you're not going to have a chance by the time you uh get into universal Orlando you check into your hotel you get over to the park around 12 or so you stay till about eight you know so that's kind of where we're going with this uh for lunch we're going to dine at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville right there in city walk what are we eating what are we paying we're getting some pretzel sticks for 1395 we're going to get a chicken Caesar salad for 1995 we're going to get a cheeseburger and paradise for 1895 we're going to get a grilled chicken sandwich for 1895 we're going to do drinks and we're going to get a who's to blame Margarita for 1475 and a pino grease for 1250 bring in your grand total to 126.59 up about 16 bucks since the last time we did it not too bad one thing i didn't realize going through all these is that um eating and living and stuff it's pretty expensive yes i mean it's crazy to think you know most of these are arranging between 100 to 125 dollars for a sit-down lunch i mean it really is nuts i mean we went for coffee this morning new Dutch brothers opened which we never had and because we just joined we got it was great we got a free coffee but a large coffee a medium coffee and then a muffin top not even the whole muffin right just the top of it was going to be like 18 bucks like that is crazy to think about yeah but it was only 10 a lot yeah because we had the we had the free drinks so if you have a Dutch brothers you have never been sign up for their app immediately get a free medium drink let's move on to dinner we got to do a good steakhouse in the universal orlando resort and i can tell you right now if uh we finally go to this steakhouse we've not been to it this might be the meal exactly as we order it potentially yes what are we eating here um crispy calamari fruit for 23 dollars an eight ounce filet mignon for 58 a sea bass filet for 51 we're going to add on some screem spinach for 1350 we're going to get chicken parmesan for 40 we're going to do a reselling for a drink for 15 beer for 13 bring in your grand total to 272 86 seven dollar difference from two years ago right i could do we could totally kind of do this well about the sea bass right yeah we'll swap out that i don't know about the cream spinach we wouldn't have to do the chicken and we wouldn't be getting alcoholic drinks true so we could save a lot on this um yeah and and if you're if you're me and you grew up on the movies i grew up watching you can't hear sea bass without laughing because you think of a certain movie jim care yeah you can't say those words ronda i said but family show but then it doesn't sound as funny it doesn't rhyme okay we're spinning a total of 9.92 hours because we got that eight hour day in the parks right yeah your grand total for this trip the universal orlando resort will be one thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars and eighty nine cents now this is only a four point two two percent increase from june of 2022 that's pretty dang good that is under the normal inflation rate yes it is right uh this is going to bring your per hour cost to a hundred and eighty two dollars and seventy five cents so again only four point two three percent increase from the last time we did it nice let's end it off with uh i think your favorite place on earth my favorite place on earth yeah right it's the most magical place on earth it's good it is yes it is we're going to stay because it is comparable uh by level and theme to royal pacific we're going to go to the pollination village resort we're going to stay in a standard view two queen room uh this is going to come out to eight hundred and seventy five twenty five at night oh wait this is another reason to use our wonderful travel advisors right yes because this is a rack rate yeah uh right now during the same time you're looking at florida resident rates you're looking at certain fall rates you're looking at you know package deals uh which we did not include we're pricing these separate but this is why you use a travel advisor hundred percent because they will take that eight hundred and seventy five dollars per night it's not going to cost that by the time they figure out what is best for you right another great reason to use a travel advisor is when you say i would like to stay at poly and they tell you the price per night it might change your idea of saying you know what that really isn't in our budget right what else can we do right they're going to give you all those comparison absolutely uh make sure you do that all right of course no parking now at disney when we did this before both times we did this before we had to say there was twenty five dollars a night parking wow the only cost i think disney's ever gone back on yeah it's kind of amazing it is four tickets we are going to do a one day park hopper for each of our our folks and our family to try and get a little bit on par with getting that free express pass or included express pass over at universal we are going to add the lightning lane multi pass for each person and we're going to go ahead and do the two paid um uh single passes right we're going to do one for rise of resistance we're going to say you go to hollywood we're going to do one for seven dollars mind train at magic kingdom kind right so you're going to add that cost in there um the ticket only cost comes out to nine hundred and eighty four dollars and eight cents that's not bad because at as a comparison with universal you know you're looking at eight hundred and sixty nine for a one day hopper which only includes two parks this includes all four correct you know if you're not staying at royal pacific if you're if you're not staying at a signature collection you're not getting express pass right the actual ticket cost is very very similar to disney so if everybody acts like disney is so much more expensive in that realm per ticket right it's not now what takes disney unfortunately to the next level is adding that multi pass and those single passes because those are two hundred and fifty nine dollars and eighty six cents per day for all four folks in your family but that's not cannot be as bad as buying express pass if you were staying at a dark side at university oh it would be a lot more expensive yes of course another thing it could be that per person yes now another thing you know because we're only doing one day of ticketing if you were doing two days of tickets over at that universal staying at a signature you will get that express pass unlimited not only for the day you check in but the day you check out so get something to think about whereas disney if you were to do that two day ticket you got to pay that whole two fifty nine eighty six again the next day right if you want multi pass and single pass right right again we're gonna spend eight hours total in the parks you could certainly spend longer for lunch because we want to keep it comparable to that bar and grille style when we did this in 2019 we included espn club which sadly is no more no eventually in its place will be bake house yes which was to set to open early 2024 anybody's keeping track of their calendar it is late 2020 not quite open but blue ribbon corn dogs is now open yeah and ron is going to eat the pickle corn dog okay i'm not okay i'm the dragon dog okay so what are we eating at city works eatery and pore house which is what we selected and we do love it over here so what are we yes uh pretzel bites for eleven ninety five the chopped salad for 2045 a smoke house burger for 21 95 a fried chicken breast sandwich for 1995 drinks pino grigio for 12 and a kentucky mule for 14 bring in your grand total to one twenty eight eighteen we did compare it to city works when we did this in june of 2022 and this has only gone up uh nine dollars not overall pretty good apples and apples for dinner the first time we did this in December 2019 we did california grille yes when we were going to do this in june of 2022 they had moved to that prefix menu so it was not comparable um so because it is one of our favorite places and has my favorite steak we decided to price out flying fish for uh june 2022 and now here in 2024 and what are we eating here i want to go back uh a shrimp cocktail for eighteen dollars filet mignon for 59 salmon for 48 organic chicken for 38 pino gris for 18 and a beer for 10 50 bring in your grand total to 244 74 what i think is absolutely shocking and the only restaurant to really do this two years ago filet mignon exact same price two years ago the salmon exact same price two years ago the chicken was the exact same price wow the only food item that went up apples to apples was the shrimp cocktail by one dollar wow which is pretty amazing actually so this only went up a total of four dollars in two years that's crazy that is we're spending nine point nine two hours here at disney world the same we did over at universal certainly could spend more your grand total is going to be two thousand two hundred and thirty two dollars and twenty five cents now that's only a seven point zero six percent increase from the last time we did this okay right your cost per hour comes down to two hundred and twenty five dollars and three cents again that is a seven point zero three percent increase the increase at disney between december of 2019 and june of 2022 was almost 16 percent now it's down to seven okay all right that's all of it all of it we're done are we done should we be done or should we do a little more math for the folks the nice the nice fine folks listening right yep okay here's how we're going to break it down if you're talking about the most expensive single cost that is the amount you're paying for this trip it doesn't matter how much time you're spending on the event none of that's coming into play the most expensive coming in at number ten is going to see that football game in arizona at two thousand eight hundred and nineteen dollars mmm second most expensive coming in at number nine total is we're counting down to the cheapest obviously everybody knows i don't know how to go up or down when yes they do that's true or fixing the air that's why i'm not allowed to touch the thermostat i installed the thermostat because it's a fancy one that you can control by your phone not a lot of touch it it would be ninety seven degrees in here if you told me to um turn the air down or up uh you would say up i still can't get it right okay yeah two thousand two hundred and thirty two dollars and twenty five cents to go to disney for this day mmm hmm bracken ridge you're going skiing would cost you one thousand nine hundred sixty four dollars and sixty seven cents the next cheapest new york let's see that lion king broadway show one thousand nine hundred and forty two dollars and twenty three cents going to orlando to universal orlando resort one thousand eight hundred and twelve dollars in eighty nine cents next lowest going to see that concert in d_c_ going to see just in timber lake himself which yes i would love to say yeah uh that would cost you one thousand six hundred and eighty dollars and a single lucky penny going to vegas you're going to see the blue man group that would cost you one thousand six hundred and eleven dollars and twenty nine cents the very cheapest thing to do is far a single vacation cost is to go snorkeling in key west but one thousand one hundred and sixty eight dollars and seventeen cents okay that's not bad next up let's talk about the increases right time the greatest increase since we did this in june of twenty twenty two was skiing and bracken ridge which went up twenty three point nine nine five percent mmm that's a lot next we're comparing it to two thousand nineteen because we're doing that football game to football game uh in phoenix went up twelve point three percent okay we're still not at the average cost of inflation right now which is seven and a half okay now we're going to go under that by going to disney world only seven point three percent increase okay universal orlando resort down to four point two three percent increase broadway show in new york one point six four percent increase not bad this is what's amazing is going to that concert d_c negative point seven percent so an actual decrease mmm right i like this blue man group is down one point eight one percent and finally snorkeling key west is down five point six percent so what does all this mean well if you are running off of an individual number if you say all right we listen to the main street magic podcast right mm-hmm we are trying to decide on where to go for our family vacation next year right we're gonna do it on a weekend we got one day we got one night it's in september it's during the school year we just want to get away for that weekend we have a budget of x that's where this would factor in right so you said i have a budget of two thousand dollars well everything but a football game would be within your budget if you say i have a budget of fifteen hundred dollars right you're still going to have to look at what those overall costs look like so you're going to have to go all right for fifteen hundred dollars we can do key west snorkeling mmm that's it now if you're not as worried about the overall cost but you're thinking which one of these has the absolute best value per hour mm-hmm so the amount that you're spinning spending and what you actually get out of it is what we're going to talk about the worst bang for your buck the highest priced per hour cost is going to that football game because it breaks down to five hundred and thirty seven dollars and eleven cents per hour for your family of four now you can always make that longer by doing the tailgating of course and then if it's a one o'clock game it's crazy to me because i'm like i mean people have tailgated before and then they tailgate after oh after for sure so you could broaden this and i feel like quote unquote break it down because you could spend longer hours there you certainly could and you're right with all the just that one for example we won't do this with everyone but let's just say you you know you're spending five point two five is what we broke it down to let's just saying you're spending eight total um you break it down to a much smaller right amount right but then you have to factor in what money are you spending on that tailgating or in the oh absolutely um are you going to that dinner or not correct you know so really you could vary all of these but we're trying to give you that broad idea of what it really costs and the value associated okay number nine Broadway show in New York your cost per hour is going to come out to four hundred and fifty six dollars and ninety nine cents it's a lot it is right vegas to see the blue man group that's going to break down per hour to four hundred and forty dollars and twenty four cents okay next up Washington D.C. J.T. concert three forty one forty eight cents following that is skiing and brekkin brekkin ridge your per cost hour is going to come out to two hundred and forty eight dollars and six cents that's worth it well for you it is we can cut down on cost there because i would be sitting in the ski box all the time sipping hot chocolate meeting uh jumbo soft pretzels with cheese okay okay next up we're snorkeling at key west break down per hour 237 dollars and forty three cents people are listening they're going okay that's cool Jeremy you named um all the ones that don't have to do with central florida or theme parks right so that's pretty convenient where do those fall i'm going to tell you because i'm going in order everybody thinks that first everything's a disney world is the most expensive place on earth yes that's what they say it's very sad they often don't really make the comparisons to the cost at universal a lot of people don't say that universal is expensive is disney well when you break this down per hour you're correct universal technically is not as expensive as disney but disney is the second lowest cost per hour the second lowest best value that you get at two hundred and twenty five dollars and three cents for all four parks yeah that's including all four parks four people and again we capped this at eight hours for one day in the parks universal comes out as the best value for your vacation to any of these locations at one hundred and eighty two dollars and seventy five cents not far off from disney this is only two parks yes only two parks so again when you really break that value we could include that in there and somebody who's much better at math would need to do that breakdown because what you really could do technically is cut disney in half my brain hurts right you could take that two hundred and twenty five and cut it down to only in theory the cost of two parks that would cut it in half oh yeah so good mm-hmm and in theory the tickets wouldn't cost as much so it actually would come down to less if disney only had two parks here in Orlando yeah so the whole the whole point of this maybe you should add a disney land well and you know one thing i've thought about doing in the future is doing maybe an offset where we start to look at some um international locations we include something like a disney land right we could include a universal hollywood um we could certainly do if people are interested in an episode that simply breaks down theme parks you know both domestically and internationally you know i mean we've had people that have told us and again if you're looking to to travel internationally sometimes it could be cheaper to go to paris yeah the city not necessarily disney land paris it could be cheaper to go to paris than it is to go to the paris and world showcase at Walt Disney World sometimes that is true right it's crazy but the whole thing is to kind of break down that myth and debunk that disney is so much more expensive than anywhere else right and even if you don't want to talk about ticket pricing for theme parks ticket pricing for a football game ticket pricing for a concert for ski lift all of that stuff simply go back look at these notes go back listen to the episode and look at the cost of food mm-hmm look at the cost of the hotel or resort right right those are truly comparable right you know everybody can argue well you can't really be fair with saying you spend eight hours in disney but you only spend three hours at a concert that's fair look at the other pricing yeah you can't say that disney is either comparable cheaper or barely more expensive than most other places that you can go within the United States okay hopefully this is shed light for people again if you want to go to fun yeah if you want to go to any of these destinations if you want to go on a cruise if you want to travel anywhere in the world you can go to mainst magic.com you can click on the travel button uh Amy Alicia uh you know MEI travel mouse fan travel they will take very very good care of you yes we're so excited about this partnership we're so excited about all the incredible things that are to come from main street magic for travel for our listeners for everybody in our social media communities yeah if you're not on there you can go to any of the socials and you want to follow @mainst magic of course you can look at our facebook group and join the main street magic community if you want more episodes including food and wine review opening weekend and our seven hundredth show extravaganza make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can get the brand new episodes every Tuesday and Friday and of course myself and ronda would be so very thankful if you could please leave us a rating and review because it helps our show grow that's all we've got we'll see you real soon Jeremy and ronda are more than a little bond of disney world so they made this podcast to share it all with you reports and resorts top ten lists of all sorts main street magic springing at home yeah [BLANK_AUDIO]
Jeremy and Rhonda kick off the episode with a very big announcement you do not want to miss, before moving on to break down the cost of a vacation down to the hour for several continental based US destinations and how they compare to see if Disney really is the "Most Expensive Day Ever".
