Credit: DisneyWe all know that Disney vacations can be costly when you add together the airfare, hotel, theme park tickets, food, souvenirs, and extras like Lightning Lane or special dining packages. Out of all the Disney resorts, Disneyland Resort is the most expensive. The Southern California theme park is so expensive that it is actually cheaper for California residents to fly to France and vacation at Disneyland Paris.
Visiting The Happiest Place on Earth on a peak day — like a weekend in the summer or a holiday — can cost as much as $206 for one day in one park. Add the Park Hopper option onto that, and it could cost nearly $300 for a one-day ticket. The hotels on property are also costly, as there are only three of them — Disneyland Hotel, Pixar Place Hotel, and Disney’s Grand Californian.
Related: Yikes. Disney Just Increased Another Cost by 30%
One thing that we can give Disneyland a little bit of credit for is its portion size. The food prices can get high if you dine at nicer sit-down restaurants, but guests will typically be able to get a meal that will keep them full for a while for a relatively reasonable price.
Disneyland is currently celebrating the spookiest time of the year, and there are a ton of amazing limited-time food and drinks. Guests can indulge in treats like pumpkin-spiced breadsticks, apple cider donuts, a chili pepper cheeseburger, cherry cobbler funnel cake fries, chili cheese corn dogs, butternut squash flatbread pizza, pumpkin cheesecake cold-brew coffee, and so much more.
However, there is one snack that has fans doing a double-take and wondering if Disney has finally taken things too far.
Related: Budget Bests: Top Cheap Eats at Disneyland Park
Popular Disney Instagram account foodatdisneyland recently shared an image of the Straw-batty churro they purchased at the churro cart near the Haunted Mansion in New Orleans Square. The churro is a strawberry-filled churro coated in cookie dust, drizzled with cream cheese, and topped with a chocolate bat.
Churros are a very popular snack at Disneyland Resort, and the Straw-batty churro is just one of several specialty churros the resort is currently selling. But what has guests picking their jaws up off the floor isn’t the flavor or the presentation, but the price tag.
Guests pay $7.50 for this Halloween churro, but they only get HALF a churro.
Strawberry-filled churro rolled in chocolate cookie dust and drizzled with cream cheese sauce, topped with a chocolate bat. What the Disney foodie guide for Halloween left out is that this churro comds served as a 1/2 of a churro cut in half. I couldn’t believe it when they handed me half of a churro for $7.50. It tasted pretty good at least, but there is no world where I would ever recommend half of a churro for $7.50 ($15 if you want a whole churro). Disneyland has gotten fairly outlandish with some of their price points, but this is easily the most ludicrous in my opinion. 8/10 for taste; negative 20 for value. Am I overreacting?
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Many commenters said that foodatdisneyland actually received a full-size churro, but it was cut in half. He then clarified that it was indeed half a churro. Cast members reportedly took a full-size churro, cut it into four pieces, and then served half of the churro for the same price they typically sell the full-size churro for.
I’m not going to be snarky. I was served half of a churro cut in half. What you see in the photo is 1/2 of a churro cut in half into 1/4s. I’m not an idiot. I come to the parks all the time and get churros all the time. I know what half of a churro is and is not.
Just a few days before posting the offensively small Straw-batty churro, foodatdisneyland posted a video of the Celestial Chocolate Churro from Terran Treats in Disney California Adventure.
The difference in size is striking, as the Celestial Churro is bigger than the container it comes in, and is very clearly a regular-sized churro cut in half. The Celestial Churro is similar to nearly every other specialty churro in the parks.
A Churro rolled in cocoa sugar, topped with pistachio cream, chocolate sauce, crispy phyllo dough crumbles, and crushed pistachios. I liked this Dubai style churro. Rich chocolate taste with that nutty, earthy, and those slightly sweet notes with a creamy, buttery texture from the pistachio cream. It worked for me! 9/10 rating
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The Straw-batty Churro and the Celestial Chocolate Churro cost the same price, but for some reason, the Straw-batty Churro is half the size. Then, there’s the Pumpkin Pie Churro at the Cozy Cone Motel, which is a larger churro and comes in at $6.99, so it’s cheaper than the smaller strawberry one.
Other videos of the Straw-batty Churro that we found online seemed to confirm that foodatdisneyland’s serving size was not a mistake. The Straw-batty Churro is half the size of other churros and costs the same.
Disney has received a lot of criticism for its frequent price increases, especially surrounding food. However, this seems to be an egregious change that we can only hope is not a sign of things to come.
What do you think of Disneyland charging the same price while cutting the size of the specialty Straw-batty Churro in half? Do you think Disney needs to change things up immediately and make the churro the same size as the other ones? Do you think Disney’s food prices are starting to get out of control? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!