You Suck, Disney.

My daughter is six, and she’s all about princesses, so of course, she loves Disney princesses. It’s hard enough being the Mom who has to say no to her pleas of wanting to join the Girl Scouts when a lot of her little 6-year old gal pals are in the Girl Scouts – I can’t say to her, “well, hon, the Girl Scouts have this weird alignment with Planned Parenthood that I’m just not comfortable with, and Planned Parenthood kills babies, sooooo sorry sweetie, but you’re not going to be in Girl Scouts anytime soon.”

Six-year-olds don’t really get that, and I’m not going to traumatize her with politics and the disgusting, horrible ick that is politics just yet. So I just go with the “Hon, you already have gymnastics and soccer and you’re about to take up an instrument, so we don’t have time for another activity” angle.

Parenting. You know.

But then there’s the whole “not going to Disney” thing. She has friends that go to Disney on summer vacation with their parents. After all, it’s the “happiest place on Earth, right? And we went there once. For a day. When we visited my Dad in Jacksonville that time back when she was 18 months old and she gave Tigger and Pooh a hug. We got a few pictures. It was cute.

And don’t get me wrong – she still has Frozen fever and princess fever and all the other fevers associated with Disney. Because it is kind of a sickness, right? You can’t escape it. Especially when you’re six and a little girl in America. And I wouldn’t dream of depriving her of loving Elsa and that snowman-dude and Belle and my personal favorite, Cinderella.

Hello. What red-blooded chick my age didn’t love Cinder-freakin-rella when she was growing up?

But we just haven’t traveled to Disney in many years. And we don’t plan to anytime soon.

The first reason? Well, it’s too dang expensive. I’ll start with that, and it’s reason enough, really. I mean, you practically have to take out a second mortgage to just STAY at Disney these days. And Mr. Daisy and I refuse to do that. There are so many other things we’d rather spend our money on. Food and gas and our mortgage and college for our middle child right now are a few of those things. We’re not going to spend like eight grand on a trip to see people in costumes and a fake castle, to be perfectly blunt. It’s just not a priority for us, anyway. There are no trust funds or grants or handouts in my neck of the woods – we have to save and then write checks for college. And I’ll freely admit – we’ll occasionally take our daughter to see a Disney on Ice production every once in a while to appease her princess madness, but there’s no way on God’s green earth that we’re going to get on a plane and go to Disneyworld. You know, on purpose. For a week.

Because holy mother of screwing me over, Disney. According to the NY Post and common sense, they want regular, everyday folks to fork over $124 for peak days now? Per PERSON, you guys. And that’s up from the insanity of $105. I mean, do I at least get a back rub with that? Or do I just get to wait in lines and be hot all day and watch a bunch of screaming kids at a theme park?

Yeah. That’s what I thought.

“Peak” days are basically the only days that normal, working people are going to GO to Disney, including July 4th weekend, Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break, and summer weekends. Because of course they want to make you pay that much on those days. They know that they CAN. You can get “value” and “regular” tickets, but those are still crazy-expensive. For example, a “regular” price for some lame time in April is going to run you $110 for Magic Kingdom access and $102 for three other Florida parks. What a savings, huh?

And that doesn’t even begin to cover airfare, ground transportation, food on the premises, drinks, souvenirs, and all the other extra “happiness.”

If you’re a kid, or a parent of that kid, or a teacher, or anyone who is going to try to get some benefit out of enjoying Disney at all, you’re going to be inconvenienced by the days that are “value” or “regular”-priced days. So you’re going to have to bend over and pay $124 for the “peak” days.

And while you’re bending over trying to scrounge for that cash, see if you can lift your head up and watch this:

[arve url=”//players.brightcove.net/4137224153001/d715eb01-2a5a-4a09-a6cb-5c960dbe075f_default/index.html?videoId=4775550930001″]

Now, I don’t know about y’all, but that guy doesn’t look like he’s just been exposed to the “happiest place on earth.”

To each his own, but what I did this year is pay a couple hundred bucks for princesses at a local company (not at all affiliated with Disney) to come to my house for my daughter’s birthday party. I’ll do that once a year until she grows out of this phase, save THOUSANDS of dollars, put the money that I would’ve spent on a Disney trip into her college fund and the leftover into a family vacation fund that may help us get to the beach sometime in the next year of so (there are no lines there), and know that all of the foreign workers Disney has given jobs to aren’t benefiting from my hard-earned dollars.

But my local, small businesses, well, they are.

And that makes me smile. Win/win.

But listen – it’s still a free country with free markets and people can do what they want. I respect capitalism, but I also respect common sense. And I respect my ability to say no to someone trying to take advantage of my wallet.

And I respect my right to say that Disney can suck it.