Good way to look at it. That’s about 25 very nice vacations for me.
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And that’s per person. 
Throw in the roommate’s $4.5K, and that gets a week at a pricy hotel in Hawaii plus a few nice dinners.
The original owner of our house was a well traveled person. We still get some glossy brochures in the mail with offers of safaris and other first class adventures addressed to her. The kinds that cost $70-100k for 3 weeks! 
And no, this place is not a mansion. Obviously, real estate was not her priority. 
We would do National Geographic tours at World Heritage sites.
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Oh I just realized that I did sort of win the lottery for vacation money! I got laid off at the start of covid, around October 2020. I slid seamlessly into another job so I told W that my entire severance money was earmarked for first-class vacations.
We haven’t really been able to follow through very well with covid dragging on, but we’ve included W on 2 of my work trips to San Francisco where we’ve basically hit super nice restaurants every night and over-indulged on excessively expensive pastries and treats.
Currently planning a week at a beachfront Airbnb in San Diego / La Jolla area in August, bringing our dog along so we can all kick back and relax.
And then later in the year joining the extended family in Costa Rica for a week; we’ll be flying ourselves plus D business class.
We do want to spend a solid 2-3 weeks somewhere in Europe (Prague or Greece probably) once the current craziness settles down, and that’ll probably be the biggest and last chunk of the “lottery money”.
And a funny coda to the story, the company that laid me off brought me back 8 months later with a significant raise and stock RSUs. So it really was like winning a small lottery.
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It could be for really wealthy people who can afford to take all sorts of vacations and have kind of “been everywhere” or “done everything.”
I’ve got nothing against Disney, but there are other trips I’d like instead if I had this kind of money. But then again, if I had this kind of money I could take all sorts of trips!
I have a co-worker whose daughter is a travel agent. Maybe she can do this as a FAM trip and let us know how it was?
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Presumably the person/couple/family going on the Disney adventure isn’t operating on a vacation budget. They presumably take whatever trips they want/whenever they want without any thought being given to costs. And in terms of other trips they would want to take instead, they take those trips too.
Exactly! We can afford to take nice vacations, but we still need to budget for that and save up. This kind of trip is for people who have tons of money and can do any trip they want.
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BUT if you won the lottery where would you go? Would this appeal to you?
LOL. Can hardly get H to go to DW every 10 years or so. I doubt this trip is on his (or mine) bucket list. But I’d love to travel to some of those places in style–just not the Disney parks.
That’s a lot of beer money…
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If I won the lottery, I’d rather do a different type of trip. If I was super wealthy and could take all sorts of trips, then I would maybe take this trip…
I like the idea of the private jet, especially right now with all the flight delays and such, bleh on the theme park part ; )
If I won the lottery I would love to have a private jet but my dream would be to spend a month at a time in one location to really get the feel of the country/city.
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I took an Adventures by Disney trip 14 years ago. It was 11 days in China. They same trip now costs almost 3X what I paid. They seem to have found a market for people who are willing to spend $30K+ for a family trip.
National Geographic has a very similar trip to the one in the OP, for a very similar price. They’ve been running this trip for years. It’s not Disney-themed. Luxury Private Jet Around The World Tour | National Geographic Expeditions
The 9 month Royal Caribbean world cruise is even more expensive. It sold very quickly. There are people taking their family of 4 or 5 on that one.
If I posted what I thought about a society where there are people who could afford such luxuries and people who can’t afford food, my post would get deleted.
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At that price I would design my own itinerary. Nothing wrong with Disney, but I would skip that.
I would start with all of the places on my US bucket list and then do my international bucket list. And I would definitely stay in luxury hotels.
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I guess they have! I certainly don’t have that kind of money.
I like the sound of the National Geographic tour and the Royal Caribbean world cruise much better than the Disney trip. I feel the same way, it’s a shame how so many people can’t afford food.
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Disney, ahhh no. I suffered through two trips with the kids when they were tiny and many business/conferences there. Not my cup of tea at all.
If I won the lottery, I’d go to all the places I have left on my bucket list: Japan in the mountains, the Seychelles and all the US national parks we haven’t been to yet. I’d fly business class and set up a make a wish type thing with the leftover money.
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Had to look up the National Geographic tours. If you sign up for their newsletter–you get Disney news too. Probably both types tours run by Disney.
We live near Disneyland in Southern California and we’ve taken our kids plenty. I went to Disneyworld back in the 80’s when I was in Orlando for a conference and I was there again with my H in the early 90’s when he had a trade show in Orlando. Nothing against Disney, but don’t feel the need to spend a ton of money to do a Disney themed vacation.
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I wonder who this is for. Even someone in the 1% (but not the 0.1%) shouldn’t spend over half-a-million on a vacation for a family of four. Which means it really should be for the 0.1%. But no one from the 0.1% would do this group tour – they can use true private planes, pay for VIP experiences at each of these places, etc., rather than slumming it with 75 people. There may be a narrow band of people who are very rich but not 0.1% (say net worths >$50M+ but <$200M) who are the audience for this. But my concern is that this will end up appealing to truly die hard Disney fans who really shouldn’t spend this much of their savings on this trip but will anyway. Certainly their right to do so, but it’s kind of like offering a hit to an addict.
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8 years ago we did a family trip to Italy. I considered Adventures by Disney but the premium was just crazy versus other group tours. In the end, since they conveniently published very detailed itineraries I was able to appropriate all the best parts of their tour but then enhance it for about 1/3 of the cost. We covered almost every attraction their tour did and even saw their group a couple times. But where they had big group tours, I was able to hire private local guides just for my family who helped us see so much more, and customize it to my family’s preferences in real time. I got a better VIP experience to the Vatican. Instead of staying in a hotel in Tuscany, I rented an 1,000 year-old castle with its own vineyard, pool and spectacular views. Instead of a bus down to Pompeii, we took one of the super fast luxury trains. In Venice I contacted the exact same company that did the private venetian mask workshop for Disney’s group and got them to do a private session just for my immediate family a day sooner. Etc. Seriously, 70% of Adventures by Disney’s cost is pure profit for them. (As a shareholder, that’s cool, but as a consumer they are a terrible option.)
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People buy more car than they really can afford. And there are a fair number of house-rich, cash poor people. Not sure this is much different. They are looking at 75 people. Maybe 20-35 family units. Don’t need many people to find value for it to work.
You can often put together similar (in some ways better, more tailored) trips on your own for less. But it takes time for you to do that. Benefit of this trip (and other preplanned trips) is that legwork is done for you. Some people place more value on that than others.
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