On April 2nd, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that he would be imposing tariffs on imported goods from other countries in the hopes of reviving manufacturing and generating revenue in the United States.
Grand Floridian Lobby
The initial tariffs were officially imposed on April 5th, a few days later, and more tariffs were imposed today, April 9th. The CEO of The Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger, expressed his concerns about Trump’s tariff plan and the impact it could have on the company as a whole. Could these changes mean that your Disney World vacation, like hotel stays, could become cheaper?
According to Oliver Darcy’s Status newsletter, Iger recently attended a daily editorial meeting with ABC News staff, where he discussed ABC Newsroom’s coverage of the tariffs. Iger said that relocating manufacturing from overseas locations to the U.S. “speedily” was impossible, and he went on to say that he believed most people “don’t really understand how tariffs work.”
CEO Bob Iger ©Disney
As we mentioned, these tariffs can affect all parts of the company, including Disney Cruise Line, which Iger also expressed concern about, mainly because its two new ships require steel for their construction. He even mentioned that the company might have to cut back on spending if the company’s costs get too high. There are currently a ton of projects in the works for Disney’s theme parks worldwide, and these tariffs could potentially put these projects on pause, but nothing has been confirmed.
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Disney Treasure Cruise Ship
So, what exactly is a tariff? It is a government surcharge on products imported from other countries, paid by the companies that import goods into a country. The costs of these tariffs can be passed around depending on how countries and companies react.
These tariffs are expected to affect food prices and have the potential to increase the prices of Disney souvenirs, especially those manufactured in China.
Disney Merchandise
With so much uncertainty about what tomorrow could bring, there is a chance tourism and travel will drop like they did a few years ago during the COVID-19 pandemic. This could mean the demand for travel will be less as Americans may worry about relocating the money they may have put aside for “fun”, like a vacation to Disney World.
If prices on essentials like groceries start to rise, there will be less money in a person’s budget to travel. While nothing is confirmed, these tariffs, followed by Americans’ cautious spending, could soften the demand for travel to Disney World, which could result in cheaper hotel rates.
Pop Century
Each year, Disney announces several hotel promotions for Annual Passholders, Florida residents, Disney+ subscribers, and more. Could these promotions be discounted even more and opened up to a broader audience? Time will only tell, but we have a feeling that just like it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, travel and vacations may have to take a seat on the back burner, resulting in discounted rates to encourage people to come out to Disney World.
Current Disney Discounts and Deals
Caribbean Beach
We will continue to monitor how these tariffs could affect your vacation to Disney World, so make sure to continue to follow along with us at the Disney Food Blog.
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Actually, tariffs aren’t charged when a product is made or sold. They’re only applied when the goods physically enter the importing country. So the tariff doesn’t kick in until the moment of import. Even if a U.S. company buys something from China months in advance, they don’t pay the tariff until it lands at a U.S. port and goes through customs. That’s when it’s assessed, based on what the product is, how much it’s worth, and where it’s coming from.
So when people talk about potential tariffs during these trade negotiations and claim it’ll “raise prices immediately,” it’s often just fear-mongering or strategic messaging. A lot of that noise comes from businesses that want to keep relying on cheap, borderline slave labor, often in China. It’s less about immediate price hikes and more about companies lobbying to protect their supply chains and margins.
Take Disney building its cruise ships in Germany, for example. The raw materials used in construction, like steel, wiring, electronics, are subject to Germany’s or the EU’s import tariffs, not U.S. ones, because the ship is being built there. The U.S. steel tariffs don’t touch that process.
So when that finished ship sails to the U.S. and docks, there typically isn’t an import tariff applied to the vessel itself. Since it’s not being ‘imported for resale’ like a consumer product, but rather entering U.S. waters as a transportation asset to begin cruise operations, standard import tariffs don’t apply. However, there may be other costs such as registration fees, port dues, or expenses related to regulatory compliance (e.g., U.S. Coast Guard inspections). But yeah, unlike goods like cars or electronics, the ship isn’t subject to a traditional tariff.
So yeah
« Cheap » is never a word you can use for Disney. Maybe « lower price. »
Tom R is correct concerning when a tariff is imposed. He’s also correct that most prices won’t increase “immediately.” He, however, is dead wrong that concern about price hikes is “fear-mongering or strategic messaging.” If enacted per the administration’s plan, prices will rise and maybe by a lot. Consumers need to understand that businesses will not absorb the higher cost imposed by tariffs. Businesses will pass that financial burden on to their customers.
Simple fact. Tariffs are loaded on to the consumer. So disregard the long post above. The problem is that this administration doesn’t give out full information. And the little chart he showed a couple of weeks ago were based on trade deficits not tariffs that the countries impose on just about any other country that imports to them. Every country has tariffs on imported goods. These current actions just escalated things for no reason other than to crash the market and make the current administration rich due to insider trading.
Now, the hope that increased cost of goods for Disney helping to reduce room rates would be awesome. Fingers crossed. Travel is down a lot right now so that could help too.
I don’t remember hotel prices being all that low during the pandemic. In fact Disney in particular seemed to raising prices a lot during that time. They could do it then because Florida was one of the few places you could travel without restrictions and hotel prices seems to reflect that at the time, along with the prices of other Disney products – such as the introduction of paid skip the line and the reduction of Disney perks. I think you’ll see prices go down for hotel owned by Disney simply because staying at one is no longer a big benefit. I just left PO-R and every other room in our building was empty.