If you wish upon a bank card.
Even with the fee of a visit to Walt Disney World and Disneyland soaring so high CEO Bob Iger can’t stomach the costs, a privileged few are shelling out still extra money to avoid having to cope with post-pandemic crowds.
The House of Mouse has never been shy about laying on the additional magic for those with the additional fairy dust to sprinkle around.
From behind-the-scenes tours costing lots of of dollars to the elites-only Club 33 where those lucky enough to be offered a spot pay $50,000 to access private spaces on the Orlando, Florida, and Anaheim, California, parks, the extremely wealthy have at all times been a wad of money away from the final word, hassle-free, luxury Disney trip.
But with the patience of merely loaded mothers and dads wearing thin with the increasing challenges of creating their offspring’s dreams come true, there appears to be a growing variety of highly trained Fairy Godmothers lined as much as say “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” to the array of problems that plague the Disney trips mere mortals are forced to endure.
“We are saying Disney is exciting for youths, however it’s exhausting for fogeys. So families will hire us to make their trip feel like an actual VIP vacation. They’re going to push your stroller, they’ll assist at meals and keep your child entertained,” said Shannon Albrecht, owner of Nanny Land, a baby care agency that dispatches red-shirt-wearing Mickey-eared nannies to Disney parks in Orlando and Anaheim.
For no less than $180 ($45 an hour for a four-hour minimum), a Gold Crown Nanny — the best tier the service provides — will show up wanting to provide an array of services, from helping parents navigate the confusing, seemingly ever-changing line-jumping services to acting as a family’s own personal paparazzi, and even just as an additional pair of hands to serve Dole Whips to the children while mom and pa drink their way world wide at Epcot.
In actual fact, Albrecht said, her employees can swing nearly about every little thing considered one of Disney’s in-house VIP tour guides — which charge a whopping $450 to $900 per hour – might do, except go behind the scenes of rides and get into exclusive firework and parade viewing areas.
Alison FitzGibbon, founding father of Theme Park Nannies, one other Orlando child care service, said she personally charges $100 an hour, and that loads of that point is spent keeping the children engaged while mom gets a massage on the hotel or dad lounges on the pool, working on his tan.
She’s seen and done all of it, from wrangling a presidential suite at a family’s desired resort to cleansing up a luxury hotel room covered in diarrhea while her 2-year-old charge’s parents went out drinking.
“These are individuals who probably work and don’t need to observe their very own children 24/7,” FitzGibbon said. “They’ve kids at day care or multiple nannies or a weekend baby sitter. Once they’re around their very own child in a confined space all week, they’re not going to have an excellent time.”
But simply because they don’t wish to be saddled with mommy and daddy duty during their entire Disney trip doesn’t mean wealthy parents don’t want the perfect for his or her littles.
Some have shelled out greater than $1,000 for personal character makeovers, a stylist at A Touch of Glam Princess & Character Makeovers told The Post, noting parents will often frantically call in begging for an assist after discovering the Magic Kingdom’s sought-after princess makeover services are solidly booked — a standard problem.
“They simply have the desire to make their child’s experience as magical as possible — they’re sparing no expense since it’s a more personal service where someone is coming to you,” the stylist told The Post, asking to stay anonymous in order to remain under the radar while lugging her glam bag of glitter, colourful hair extensions and tiaras out and in of Disney’s many resorts.
Probably the most in-demand looks are Rapunzel, Elsa, and Belle and, for just a little added magic, she’ll add rhinestones and ribbons to a Cinderella updo and ice-blue hair extensions for an Elsa look.
The starting price for services is $280 without tip, the stylist said, noting that she’s currently been summoned to create a custom Darth Vader look with red hair extensions for a pint-size client.
Parents throwing money at an inconvenience with Mickey ears is nothing latest.
“Regular people wait on lines. Individuals who can afford it hire other people to attend on lines for them,” Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., a cultural critic specializing in anthropology and creator of “Primates of Park Avenue,” told The Post.
“Name nearly any activity of every day living that would leave you feeling drained and aggravated — being on the phone waiting for a customer support rep, booking your travel, talking to your utility company, attempting to land a reservation on the restaurant of the moment — and wealthy people have a hack for that,” Martin continued, noting the “lifestyle concierges” whom 1-percenters call on command to rearrange Disney itineraries.
Atlanta attorney Leslie Dunn, 54, spared no expense on her recent trip to Disney World to have fun her son’s twenty first birthday, laying out the money for considered one of Disney’s own VIP guides.
“I’m an enormous Disney super fan — it was price every penny,” Dunn told The Post of hiring a fixer to bring her party to the front of the lines on rides like Avatar Flight of Passage, Expedition Everest, and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and wait on her and her family hand and foot.
If anyone dared query her cutting to the front, she’d simply say: “I’m with the one that has the plaid vest on. I can do anything. That’s right.”
