See The $300 Sushi Boat That Has Sparked A Lot Of Hashtag ‘Thoughts’ From Disney Fans

I’m not sure if anybody has told you this, but going to Walt Disney World is kind of expensive. Tickets are expensive, hotels are expensive, and food is expensive. And that’s just the stuff you absolutely need to spend money on. Of course, if you have the money, there are some pretty incredible things to spend it on, including a $300 sushi boat at Epcot’s new restaurant.

Shiki-Sai: Sushi Izakaya, is one of the new Disney World attractions being added this year. It's a sushi restaurant at Epcot’s Japan Pavilion that isn’t set to open officially until the end of August. But the new location is doing a soft opening, and it has already made headlines due to its most expensive menu item: a sushi boat that costs $300. A few of the local Disney blogs made a point to give it a try so that people could actually see what they’re getting.

Sushi can certainly be an expensive meal, but certainly, for this amount of sushi, $300 is a bit on the high side. Of course, that’s not exactly a shock. Food at Walt Disney World is always more expensive than elsewhere. Still, it should not be overlooked that the item is designed to feed four to six people. So just like in the case of Dollywood's expensive apple pie or the massive Avengers Campus sandwich at DCA, while the price tag is high, the per person implies that’s enough sushi for as many as six people. The problem is there is that for some of us, myself included, that’s not enough sushi. 

There are potential reasons that one could argue that this amount of sushi could be worth $300. The cost of sushi is largely determined by the quality of the fish being used, and if this is top-of-the-line stuff, then of course it will cost more. On top of that, you are obviously paying for the presentation, and that’s not anything. But for some, there is simply no reason good enough to spend that much for this.

Part of vacation is (when you can afford it) splurging on things that you know you don’t need, and you just want. There’s certainly a lot of that happening at Walt Disney World. Shiki-Sai will almost certainly sell a lot of these boats to people who love sushi and decide this is the place they’re going to spend extra money. But for others, even those fans who might consider this item “worth it,” in an absolute sense, that doesn’t mean they can justify spending that money when it can be used elsewhere. 

At the end of the day, for this boat to pencil out it means that your group of four to six people would need to be looking to spend $50-$75 per person on food. Based on the prices on the rest of the menu, that’s far from impossible. But it’s certainly a lot more than most people are used to spending. And for the record, no, you don’t get to keep the boat. 

I love sushi, and I love Epcot, and maybe if I had a few other people to share the cost of this with, I’d give it a try, but it is a lot of money. But it’s also the sort of experience that you just can’t get elsewhere, which is part of why Epcot is so great anyway.