Date-Based Pricing Coming for Disney World Tickets
Walt Disney World has finally announced a roll-out for the date-based ticket pricing hinted at earlier this year. Beginning October 16, 2018 on DisneyWorld.com, guests will purchase multi-day tickets priced by the first date of visit. In this post, we’ll detail the new ticket-buying process, and speculate about what this means for prices and the future of visiting Walt Disney World.
In terms of logistics, when guests purchase tickets online, they will start by using an interactive online calendar that displays different prices based on the start date guests choose to visit, as well as some conditions and ‘add-ons’ for their ticket, such as the “Flexible Dates Option.” This interactive calendar will also allow guests to see the lowest-priced days each month.
In viewing screenshots of the new system, it looks a lot like some airfare booking engines, albeit with pre-published prices that are date-based rather than dynamic. Irrespective of that, the motivations behind the schemes are similar: demand. Walt Disney World indicated that it’s making the change to date-based tickets and pricing to better distribute attendance throughout the year.
Walt Disney World has posted a quick video from which you can glean quite a bit more about how all of this will work. We’d encourage you to take a couple minutes to watch this:
Okay, so a few things. First, we wouldn’t spend too much time freeze-framing the video trying to gain insight into new ticket prices (even though we may or may not have done exactly that). As the video clearly disclaims in the bottom corner, “prices shown do not reflect actual prices.”
We would anticipate that some dates will decrease in price while the majority increase, similarly to what occurred when Walt Disney World shifted to seasonal pricing on 1-day tickets a few years ago. A Disney spokesperson indicated that this is the continued evolution of that, with date-based pricing rolling out for multi-day tickets and being further segmented for single day tickets.
Disney’s rep also stated that new single day prices would range from $109 to $129 for single day, single park tickets, as compared to current prices ranging from $102 to $129. Additionally, the price distinction between Magic Kingdom and the other parks will be eliminated.
Second, there are a lot of steps to complete the ticket-buying process. As sites like Amazon have aimed to streamline and ease their online checkout process, it’s odd that Disney would be making things more difficult. It’s fair to point out that booking components of a vacation is not akin to buying an inflatable dinosaur pool float. However, numerous studies of online shopping behavior have concluded that each added click (or layer of resistance) leads to abandonment by customers, and a lower conversion rate.
Prior to this being announced, one rumored reason for the delay in it being rolled out was the cumbersome booking process that was “still being perfected.” Even though many of you reading this are doing so as Walt Disney World veterans who have years of experience planning trips and seldom are confused, that’s not the norm for first-timers. Confusion and frustration are pretty common.
As a blog that is popular among people planning once in a lifetime Walt Disney World vacations, we see this confusion countless times per day. People are overwhelmed and perplexed–and those are the people who are doing their homework and trying to plan in the first place. These changes will only compound guest confusion, and further solidify Walt Disney World’s spot as one of the most difficult vacations to plan.
As much as Walt Disney World might want to make this sound simple with phrases like “seamlessly planning,” “simplify the booking experience,” and “easier ways to plan” in their press release about the changes, it’s pretty easy to see through that. This further complicates what was already a complicated vacation planning experience.
Moreover, it’s not as if Walt Disney World is world-renowned for its robust and fail-free IT infrastructure. We can’t help but wonder what kind of service outages and problems will occur come October 16, 2018–and how long they’ll last. To that end, we’d advise booking FastPass+ and Advance Dining Reservations before then, as it could be a frustrating day (or days) for the My Disney Experience app and DisneyWorld.com.
We also wouldn’t be surprised if this process and pricing continues to be tweaked between this October and November 2019. If Disney notices its online conversion rates are dropping, or a surplus of confused guests are showing up to the turnstiles with the incorrect tickets, or feedback surveys reveal dissatisfaction, further refinement is likely. This is being introduced in October 2018, but the goal is probably to have it running smoothly for the Late 2019 debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
In addition to releasing this info on the Disney Parks Blog, a FAQ about these changes has also been sent out. One item of info that we think is interesting concerns modification–Walt Disney World will allow modification prior to the ticket start date: “If the ticket is changed to a higher priced date, guest will be responsible for paying the difference in price. There will be no refunds to changes to lower priced dates.”
This is unsurprising, and is likely a result of Walt Disney World anticipating problems with guests purchasing the cheapest possible tickets, trying to use them on busy days, and then playing stupid. With this new modification policy, rather than the harsh potential extremes of allowing guests to use this as a money-saving ‘hack’ or forcing them to repurchase tickets entirely, Cast Members at the turnstiles can turn them away and advise them to go ‘upgrade’ their tickets to the correct dates.
Finally, and most importantly to anyone reading this blog as a planning resource: “Will I need to pay more for my ticket if I already purchased it prior to Oct. 16? No. Please be sure to check the specific terms and conditions on your ticket to confirm the expiration policy.”
It should go without saying, but we would strongly encourage you to purchase your multi-day tickets prior to October 16, 2018 if you plan on traveling sometime before December 31, 2019. As we cover in our Tips for Buying Discount Walt Disney World Tickets post, authorized third parties have tickets for sale with a first-use between now and December 31, 2019, and buying those now to lock-in current prices and the flexible price scheme are highly recommended.
While Walt Disney World has emphasized that this change is about offering better value and redistributing crowds throughout the year, we’d caution people about being too enthusiastic about the upsides here. We’ve been down this road before with single day tickets going to seasonal pricing, and at that time the majority of tickets increased in price. We would expect the same here, with fewer than 25% of dates staying the same or decreasing in price.
Walt Disney World wants to be able to pitch this as a price change rather than a price increase, but for most guests, it’ll be a price increase. Moreover, while Disney might present it as a way to redistribute crowds, it’s real aim is undoubtedly to increase per guest spending and decrease operating costs. The increased spending is obvious, coming via the higher prices. The decreased operating costs will occur via Walt Disney World having greater insight into attendance in advance, and adjusting staffing and capacity accordingly.
Expect crowd trends to change slightly, but there’s only so much they can change. Peak seasons are not the most crowded because they’re objectively the best times to visit, but because they’re most convenient. Hotel prices and airfare already reflect this, and act as a means of “discouraging” visits at certain times. Radical price differences on hotels and airfare has already proven mostly ineffective at redistributing crowds, and there’s no reason to believe a less-significant difference in ticket prices will be more persuasive.
Even if you somehow get lucky and your dates don’t increase in price on October 16, you can be 99.999999% sure all prices will increase between now and the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Oh, and you might think we’ve been emphasizing Star Wars land a lot, even in seemingly unrelated posts–almost nothing happening between now and next fall is unrelated to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
What do you think of the new date-based ticket pricing coming to Walt Disney World? Disappointed that planning will become even more complicated and rigid, or pleased with the potential for scoring value-priced multi-day tickets? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Mousesavers has historical WDW discounts (release dates, amounts, duration, etc.) and winter/spring discounts have been released late September early October each year the past 4-5 years. I am looking at dates around Easter (late spring break) and know that this change will likely increase already high Easter prices.
Any thoughts on whether Disney will release its discounts as they have in years past or will they wait until the 10/16 rollout of the new system?
I couldn’t agree more that if you can get your tickets before 10/16, you should!!
Thanks Tom for all the great info…you should consider doing a podcast btw.
I don’t think the room-only discount release depends at all upon this. If anything, spacing the two out would be advantageous for Disney so they don’t have a surplus of calls about two different things on/around the same day.
I still don’t understand how or if they’ll still be implementing a “buy more, save more” promo, currently if you buy a 4 day ticket the 5th is practically free, etc. Is there any chance you’ll get a percentage discount off for longer length tickets, or will you have to pay Xdollars based on start date for each day of your trip?
First, I don’t think they’ve even fixed the MASSIVE IT outage that started about two weeks ago. The MDE has been screwed up big time.
As for too many clicks and frustration, could it possibly be any more hassle than the irritating FPP system in place now?
The most recent MDX outage started about 2 weeks ago (and no, it hasn’t been fixed) but they’ve been having pretty serious issues for about the last 6 months. Even beyond that, MDX has never really been reliable.
The FP+ process is painful, but Disney doesn’t have as much incentive to make sure people follow through…there’s no expensive transaction at the end of it.
And it’s the website too, not the app. I use the web interface because it seems marginally easier to use.
Overall, the fpp system sucks.
So, My 60 day Fast Pass window starts Oct.21, 2018. Guess I should expect a mess?
I’d expect the worst and be “pleasantly surprised” if it works as intended.
Ugh, I’ll be IN the parks on October 16. Here’s to hoping I don’t lose all my Fastpasses and Halloween tickets. That would be a nightmare.
I know the article mentioned if you bought your tickets before October 16, 2018, you’d be able to lock in the current pricing. I have a hotel/ticket package booked through Disney for our visit in December 2018. I’ve only paid the deposit as full payment is not due until 30 days prior. Would my ticket pricing be locked even if I haven’t specifally paid for my tickets in full until early November? Would I need to pay my balance (including tickets) before October 16 to lock in the current ticket rates?
Typically, your pricing is locked in *unless* you were to apply a newly-released promotion. I suppose they could find a way to treat this differently, but I highly doubt it.
I don’t plan on adding anything new or making changes before our trip, so I hope the pricing sticks. Thanks Tom!!
How annoying. Not anger inducing, just irritating, like sand in my shoe. Disney isn’t inexpensive, and when I go, I don’t want to hassle. I feel like I pay a premium price to just enjoy my vacation as it is…when I feel like bargain hunting, I definitely choose other destinations than Disney properties.
They are basically pricing certain income levels with these price increases.
It sounds like it’s yet to be clarified how validity dates will affect people booking on the threshold – eg the last four days of off peak (presumably they’d have a ticket only valid for contiguous days). Overlapping off-peak and peak dates is another interesting one, would it charge a pro-rated averaged rate and force usage into contiguous days, or just dump the entire ticket into the higher price category.
I’m sure this will all become apparent, but these are two complications right off the top of my head and perhaps explain why Disney are rolling out a new booking system to avoid having end users think about it too much (a bit like how nobody thinks about fare classes on airlines). The next step, I expect, will be removing published ticket prices entirely, which would eliminate the bad press Disney get from price hikes and make the whole arrangement more fluid.
I’m not sure I totally understand what you’re saying, but maybe this will ‘answer’ it: every single start date has a specific price, and each ticket duration (e.g. 7-day ticket) has a specific amount of time for which it can be used (e.g. any 7 days within 10 days beginning on the start date). Does that clarify?
The way I read Cdd89’s post was a question about pricing of multi-day tickets when the dates straddle two seasons. For example, we are due to arrive for a week on the Saturday of the Princess Half Marathon which is Regular season (for 1-day tickets). On the Monday following, it becomes Value season. If I buy a 7 day ticket with a first date of use of the Saturday, am I going to get Regular season pricing for the entire ticket, or is it going to base the price off the seasons included in the 10 day window afterwards? Obviously we can only speculate at this point, but it hurts to think about paying “Regular” when the bulk of the stay is in “Value”.
Value, Regular, and Peak seasons for 1-day tickets are being eliminated. The new system will have set prices for each start-date (and that includes 1-day tickets).
As such, it’ll be possible to ‘hack’ this a bit, choosing an earlier start date that’s cheaper–so long as your last day is still within your end-date window. (Does that make sense?)
We already have our tickets for our trip in December but were considering upgrading to AP when we were there – any idea if AP will be impacted at all? Or how they will value our 9-day tickets when converting?
Thanks!
Agree! I have the same question.
No idea yet–it’s really too early to say how that will change.
On a tangentially-related note, I’d expect AP prices to increase in October. Don’t be surprised if more changes occur than just a price increase.
Any idea how this will impact Florida resident tickets? Right now we can go to the grocery store and buy a ticket (and trade it in at Guest Services for the actual pass). Usually three or four day tickets.
I assume they’ll pretty much stay the same, but going forward those tickets might be subject to more blockout dates. That’s just a guess at this point, though.
I know I’m going to be in the minority here, but I don’t see how this is really a big deal. I admittedly don’t go to any theme parks a lot, but most of the things I do go to are date specific purchases. I think this provides good value to those who are flexible and are willing to schedule a vacation around a cheaper time. I know not everyone can do that, but now I know if I plan my trip around this week I can save some money over another week. Also, I went to Disney World for the first time this past January and was disappointed the water rides in MK and AK were closed as I would have liked to have ridden those (all the ones at Universal were open fwiw). I know rides have to close for maintenance, repair, etc., but if Disney does it right and schedules these extended downtimes during an offseason “value day” it will help with people not being as disappointed as paying the same for people going when most things are running. Additionally, the hours the parks are open during the “offseason” are shorter than during “peak season.” Charging less when the park is open a shorter amount of time also would make me feel better about the time I decided to go. I know some of that can be offset with lesser wait times, etc., but personally I feel it is wrong to charge people the same price for shorter hours.
I also do not like the fact if I don’t buy the special event tickets for the Halloween or Christmas party I get kicked out of the park early unless I carefully plan a trip around it. Now I know those times will probably be the more expensive times still as Disney isn’t requiring you to choose which day you are going to which park, but my point is I do not feel it is right to pay the same price if going to a park on a day it has shorter hours than at other times. As someone who has only been once and will probably be going again soon, I do not find this to be a big deal and if implemented correctly see it being a great way to squeeze a little extra savings out of a trip, while also helping Disney better plan for staffing and potentially when to take down rides for maintenance.
I think you’re really giving Walt Disney World the benefit of the doubt when suggesting it’ll offer a way to save money. When a similar system was rolled out for 1-day tickets, prices were immediately increased for most dates and decreased for maybe ~25%. By the next year, all prices had increased (some very significantly). Just because it’s marketed as being a way to save money does not mean that’ll end up being the case.
Walt Disney World’s systems are incredibly buggy, and adding another layer of complication is another opportunity for something to go wrong. If you got lucky and had no problems with the My Disney Experience app or your Magic Band on your trip, it might’ve seemed like a flawless system…it’s not.
As you point out, extra clicks carry costs in online shopping, but I wonder if Disney is expecting to offset that by steering people toward packages of hotel plus tickets together. I’d think the great majority of guests (outside of us dedicated fans who hang around on blogs like this one) buy their park tickets at the same time as they make their hotel reservations, and fixed-date tickets would be easily set up to automatically pop up on the same screen as booking the hotel– “Click here to add park tickets to your hotel reservation.” Since that already requires you to work through a calendar anyway, few guests would actually encounter the extra steps for their park tickets.
Not saying it would actually work out that way, but Disney might be expecting it to, so they expect the benefit to them of dynamic pricing to come without much cost for the added complexity.
I don’t recall what the precise number is, but I believe Walt Disney World hotels account for around 25-30% of the theoretical capacity of the theme parks. So that does take care of that ~25-30%, and another set percentage of that is Annual Passholders (I have no clue as to that number; I’d guess 10%).
That still leaves over half of all guests who would have to use the new system.
Thank you for the information.
Tom (& others),
How do you think this will impact ticket upgrading? I will arrive at Walt Disney World on Thanksgiving this year. I have already purchased and linked 7-day Park Hoppers to MDE. I was planning to upgrade (bridge) to an AP once I arrive. Can I estimate how much I’ll be charged for the upgrade?
Thanks for any thoughts!
I was recently playing around with Disneyland tickets and saw that if you got a one day park hopper for a family of four during peak times, it was only a hundred dollars more to get two single day tickets. As fond as I am of park hoppers, I tend to stay in one park a day. Oddly the tiered pricing is only for single day tickets.
Disneyland also?
As someone always pricing out cost differences from week to week, this will give me a headache and probably cause me to do exactly what you said – leave the website and come back at a later time. Now we have to price ticket differences, airfair differences, AND hotel differences over different days and spans of time. Sounds exhausting. I wonder if certain peak times could actually be more expensive than an annual pass? Just speculating.
I wonder if people will wait till arriving at Disney to buy tickets? At least for regulars. Sometimes I would come in a day early or wait 1-2 days before going to the park when staying a week. I have bought tickets threw customer service at Disney springs many times the day I drove in to town and go to the parks the next day. Plus if I end up canceling for any reason I am not stuck with tickets.
I am curious how this will impact ticket resellers? It seems like it could severely limit their business or put them out completely. Which would be a bummer- because along with the likely price increase that comes from this change- it will eliminate extra savings I used to take advantage of buying resale tickets.
Great article Tom! I am planning on going January 2019 so I will buy my tickets now! How do you think this will affect third party ticket sellers?
Ohp, I see you answered this question already!
Do you think this will truly affect consumer behavior and distribute crowds throughout the year, or do you think this is just a way to jack up prices on weekends and holidays?
I’d say the later. Most people go during the peak season because that’s when they can go with their schedules. I would go during less crowded times if I didn’t have family that were teachers and therefore restricted us to the busiest time.
Good analysis. It seems like this would make things more difficult for ticket resellers such as Undercover Tourist, etc., assuming that the “flexible start date” tickets are more expensive than the date-certain tickets.
I assume that will be the case at the beginning since there’s no way third parties will be able to introduce complex systems this quickly, and perhaps that’s one of the goals.
At least in the video, the flexible start date tickets are $50/ticket more, which would totally undercut the value of buying from a ticket reseller.