Disney World Annual Pass FAQ
This guide to the new Annual Passes at Walt Disney World answers frequently asked questions with info & tips based on past precedent and official details about how the new Incredi-Pass, Sorcerer, Pirate, and Pixie Dust APs will work at Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.
Disney just dropped the bombshell news that a new-look Annual Pass program is coming to Walt Disney World. For the basics of what each AP offers, pricing, and more, we’d recommend consulting that, which covers the major details in broad strokes. Unsurprisingly, there have been a lot of questions, as Walt Disney World hasn’t given ‘on the record’ explanations for how some of this will work.
Our announcement post has ~100 comments, many of which are loyal Walt Disney World fans upset about the price increases, removal of perks, and more. We’ve combed through that to find the most common questions, and are going to answer them here in this work-in-progress FAQ to the new-look Annual Pass program at Walt Disney World…
What are the new Annual Pass tiers?
Disney Pixie Dust Pass – This is the lowest tier pass for Florida residents costs $399 plus tax–or $19 per month with 12 monthly payments after $205 down payment on the Florida Resident Monthly Payment Program.
Disney Pirate Pass – This is the next tier up for Florida residents only, costing $699 plus tax–or $45 per month with 12 monthly payments after $205 down payment on the Florida Resident Monthly Payment Program.
Disney Sorcerer Pass – The next tier up is for Florida residents or eligible Disney Vacation Club members, costing $899 plus tax–or $63 per month with 12 monthly payments after $205 down payment on the Florida Resident Monthly Payment Program.
Disney Incredi-Pass – This is the top tier with no blockout dates, available for anyone to purchase. It costs $1,299 plus tax–or $99 per month with 12 monthly payments after $205 down payment on the Florida Resident Monthly Payment Program.
All tiers offer the following:
- Discounts on dining, merchandise, and more
- Standard theme park parking
- Special Annual Passholder merchandise
- Access to V.I.Passholder Support
- 50th Anniversary “special surprises”
Here’s a comparison chart:
What do each of the new-look APs replace?
None of these comparisons are apples to apples, but generally:
- Disney Pixie Dust Pass replaces -> Weekday Select Annual Pass, Theme Park Select Pass, and Epcot After 4 Pass
- Disney Pirate Pass replaces -> Silver Pass
- Disney Sorcerer Pass replaces -> Gold Pass
- Disney Incredi-Pass replaces -> Platinum Pass & Platinum Plus Pass
What are the blockout dates for each new AP?
Here are the blockout calendars:
If you can’t zoom in on that (or right click to open in new tab), here are links to each individual blockout calendar:
- Disney Pixie Dust Pass Blockout Calendar
- Disney Pirate Pass Blockout Calendar
- Disney Sorcerer Pass Blockout Calendar
I have an “old” AP, do these new blockout dates apply to me starting September 8, 2021?
No.
For the life of your Annual Pass, the current blockout dates apply to you. If/when you upgrade to the new-look APs, that is when the new blockout calendars will apply to you.
How many Disney Park Pass theme park reservations can each AP tier hold at a time?
There are now three types of reservations that passholders can use simultaneously: 1) Park Reservations, 2) Select Hotel Length of Stay Park Reservations, and 3) Bonus Reservations. Here’s how each work in practice:
1) Park Reservation – Starting September 8, 2021, each Walt Disney World Annual Pass provides a different number of Disney Park Pass reservations:
- Disney Incredi-Pass: Up to 5 reservations held at a time
- Disney Sorcerer Pass: Up to 5 reservations held at a time
- Disney Pirate Pass: Up to 4 reservations held at a time
- Disney Pixie Dust Pass: Up to 3 reservations held at a time
- Platinum Plus, Platinum and Gold Annual Passes: Up to 5 reservations held at a time
- Silver AP: Up to 4 reservations held at a time
2) Select Hotels Length of Stay Park Reservations – Annual Passholders staying at official Walt Disney World resorts or other select hotels are eligible to make theme park reservations for each day of their stay, in addition to holding at least 3 days of theme park reservations at a time on a rolling basis
3) Bonus Reservation – Starting September 8, 2021, bonus reservations may be added from time to time, allowing Annual Passholders to make extra reservations on select days at select theme parks. Bonus reservations do not count as a reservation hold.
What are “Bonus Reservations”?
Walt Disney World hasn’t offered details, but our guess is that these are the company’s way of nudging APs to visit parks with lower attendance levels. Sort of like a “Surprise FastPass” for Carousel of Progress.
What are the renewal options for current Annual Passholders?
If you are currently within your renewal window or will be before September 8, you may choose to renew into one of the current Annual Pass options through September 7, 2021.
On September 8, 2021, if you are within your renewal window, you will be able to select from the new passes at the time you wish to renew.
Will current passes change on September 8, 2021?
Just in terms of the simultaneous Disney Park Pass rules explained above. Nothing else will change until it’s time for you to renew. If that’s after September 8, 2021, you’ll be purchasing one of the new-look APs with the odd names.
What about unused/unactivated vouchers purchased for the “old” Annual Passes?
Guests who redeem vouchers between now and September 7, 2021 will receive the “old” Annual Pass reflected on their voucher.
Starting September 8, guests who redeem vouchers will receive a comparable new Annual Pass with corresponding add-ons to make it comparable or equivalent to their voucher.
Are there renewal discounts?
Yes. The renewal discount is 15%.
Renewal prices for each new-look Annual Pass:
- Incredi-Pass: $1,104
- Sorcerer Pass: $764
- Pirate Pass: $594
- Pixie Dust Pass: $339
Do the renewal discounts apply to the PhotoPass and/or water park add-ons?
Yes.
The renewal discount also applies to the PhotoPass and water parks add-ons, meaning that these will each cost ~$85 per year at the renewal rate.
Are there Disney Vacation Club discounts?
No.
It’s particularly noteworthy that there will not be a DVC discount on the Incredi-Pass. Previously, the top-level Platinum Pass offered a $200 discount for Disney Vacation Club members. This amounts to an effective price increase of over 50% for DVC members on that pass.
Of course, this could always change depending upon sales numbers and attendance. A few years ago, Walt Disney World offered some truly aggressive deals to DVC members during a slow period.
Which Annual Passes can DVC members purchase?
Incredi-Pass and Sorcerer Pass (with some exclusions–see next question).
Are only “blue card” DVC members eligible to purchase the Sorcerer Pass?
Probably. That’s how it worked with the Gold Pass.
For those unfamiliar with the term, “blue card” DVC members are those who have a blue membership card. This is obtained either by purchasing Disney Vacation Club directly from Disney, or buying resale under the old rules (before 4/4/16) and being grandfathered in.
Which APs can Florida residents purchase?
Any of them.
Which Annual Passes can out of state visitors buy?
Only the top tier Incredi-Pass.
This is not new. Out of state, non-DVC, guests could previously only purchase the Platinum Passes.
Can regular tickets be upgraded to Annual Passes?
Yes. (Normal Ticket Bridging to Annual Pass Rules for Walt Disney World should apply.)
When the new-look APs first go on sale, you will be able upgrade an eligible ticket only in person. At a later date, Walt Disney World will offer upgrades on eligible tickets in the My Disney Experience app and/or DisneyWorld.com. As with Disneyland’s upgrade system, it’s recommended that the ticket be partially used and upgraded on its last day of use so as to not automatically lose existing Disney Park Pass reservations.
Does everyone in a family need to purchase the PhotoPass add-on if one person does?
Nope.
In fact, we’d recommend only one person buys it if you always or usually visit together. Otherwise, it’s paying extra for what amounts to a redundant benefit.
Will there be a yearly Genie+ add-on for Annual Passholders?
Officially, Walt Disney World has not indicated that they will be such an option.
Unofficially, we’ve heard from a credible source that one will be offered for $149-$199 with timing TBD–likely a few months after the initial rollout of the Genie+ service. Our bet is January 2022.
What’s the likely impact to September crowds at Walt Disney World?
Our expectation is that the first and second weekend after the new-look APs go on sale, the parks will see a spike in crowd levels due to pent-up demand among locals. It’s also likely weeknights after 5 pm will see a slight uptick.
Overall attendance levels throughout September should still be low as compared to July or October, just probably not as shockingly uncrowded as Walt Disney World is right now. This week is probably the biggest sweet spot.
I’m looking for something–anything–positive about this, any help?
Water park fans now can purchase a lower level pass and add that. Same goes for golfers of the miniature or full-sized variety.
Not to be snarky, but this will also push some Walt Disney World fans out of their comfort zones and towards Universal Orlando, which they previously might’ve dismissed out of hand. In the long run, that will benefit both the fans (Universal’s parks and resorts are great!) and hopefully force Disney to be more competitive at some point.
Why did Disney retire the intuitive Silver/Gold/Platinum AP naming convention?
Extensive market research shows that the kids these days with their Bitcoins, cellular telephones, and social medias don’t appreciate the traditional things in life, like collecting precious metals or watching Olympic medal ceremonies.
Whereas everyone on the TikTok knows that fairies < piracy < sorcery. Everyone.
Why is this all so convoluted and complicated–is a FAQ really going to be necessary for every change Walt Disney World makes going forward?
It would seem so.
Another thing everyone knows is that “vacations” are meant to be as stress-inducing and complicated as possible, requiring a cryptex and advanced degree in codebreaking. Just wait until Magic Kingdom installs the “upcharge troll” under the bridge to Cinderella Castle and doesn’t let you pass until you answer the riddle (standard per-riddle rate, taxes, and other fees apply).
How can we provide feedback to Walt Disney World about this and other recent changes and cutbacks?
As always, we recommend respectfully expressing your opinions as to how this change will impact your vacations or business with Walt Disney World by email [email protected].
This is far superior to complaining in comments, social media, forums, etc. (Although Disney sees all of that, too.) Rather than starting petitions, which are largely ineffectual, share feedback in guest satisfaction surveys, bring it up if you speak with managers or others in park leadership, or even contact Guest Relations.
While it might feel satisfying to vent in a sarcastic or angry way, we’d advise communicating in a professional manner. Don’t type in a way that you wouldn’t speak to someone’s face. Not just because that’s polite (the person reading your email will absolutely not be the one who made this decision, so “taking it out on them” accomplishes literally nothing), but because it’s more likely to be taken seriously. Insane ramblings are much easier to disregard than thoughtful and reasoned letters.
This should answer most of the questions that readers have been asking about the new-look Annual Passes that are coming to Walt Disney World. Keep in mind that these new APs were just announced, and there’s still a lot of uncertainty and unknowns.
There have been a lot of questions, so if we didn’t address yours, we apologize. Please post in the comments below and we’ll answer more as they’re asked!
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
Have any questions we didn’t answer with the above FAQ? Still confused by anything to do with the new Annual Passes at Walt Disney World? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Other thoughts or concerns? 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!
What will happen to free parking.?
Do any of this questions ever get answered? I see lots of questions and a reply button but I am not able to reply
We renewed our AP in July because we were anticipating our kids and grandkids would go with us. Now we aren’t sure, so when ours expires, we won’t be renewing. It’s just way too expensive and Disney is taking away perks but then charging to replace them with things that are similar to try and entice us to spend even more money. We dearly love Disney but their greed is getting to be too much for us. So, for the next year, we will go as much as possible then turn our attention to other vacation destinations.
Sadly, Disney is pricing us out of the game.
Walt intended for it to change and grow but I don’t believe his intention was to price families out of being able to enjoy it. He wanted families to have a place to go, to get away from the normal worries of the world. The powers that be at Disney have done nothing but make it more stressful to try to figure out how to afford to go with family.
It’s getting to the point of serving the upper class more than anyone. It’s sad.
As of tomorrow, canceled passes cannot be renewed. One must purchase a new pass at the prevailing rates. We renewed a canceled pass two weeks ago but could not get the renewal rate.
Hi Tom, first of all, thank you for all of your thoughtful posts about WDW. You do an amazing job keeping us informed.
Since you seem to know a bit about rumors I’m hoping you can answer my question. I had a Platinum Pass and cancelled it due to COVID. I plan to renew my pass and I’m wondering if I can get the renewal rate or will I have to pay the full price?
I have a question that was asked before. When dies the annual pass use date start? The day pf purchase or first use? And if at first use is there an expiration period? Thanks for your help!
Does our current AP which does not expire until June of 2022 still include the photo pass option?
Hi Tom,
My current Weekday Select Pass does not include PhotoPass and I won’t be in the 60 day renewal window until 1/17/2022. Will I be eligible to purchase the new annual PhotoPass prior to my renewal date?
Thanks!
Okay, so how does this work in terms of days visiting per year? i.e. if I have a 5-day pass and I upgrade on the last day, how many more days do I need to intend to go to DW to break even? Are we assuming now it’s about $100 per day?
The day the are first used. does anyone know when the renewal period is? Is it a year after first use or year after purchase?
I have a question- If I purchase an Annual Pass is the expiration date the day I purchase or the first day I go to a park?
If I rent a DVC timeshare and hold an AP even if my admission period based on my AP is a black out period, my understanding is I can still have access to the parks on the days I’m lodging at the DVC timeshare? Is this a correct interpretation?
Our annual passes expire October 17 but we already paid in full for the following year. We have reservations for December and January but could not make park reservations because our annual pass would expire before then. They created a voucher and we paid in full. We have platinum passes and renewed our platinum passes which includes unlimited PhotoPass. How will this new system affect us and PhotoPass?
I have a question in light of all the comments about the potential to add Genie+ for a flat rate later. How do these add-ons work in terms of timing? Like if you buy and activate a new AP in September 2021, and then in January 2022 Disney announces APs can add Genie+ for $199. But you’re already several months into your AP, so really you’ve already lost part of the time you could’ve been using Genie+ (and possibly have even been paying the $15 per day for it). I very highly doubt Disney is going to prorate the fee, so are you paying $199 to get not a full year’s use, or if you renew your pass in September 2022, will they not charge you the $199 until the next January when your Genie+ year is up? Same with the other perks. Do you have to decide when you buy the AP if you want to add PhotoPass or water parks, or can you add it on later if you decide you’ll actually use them? It’s more forgiving for Disney to not give you the benefit of the full year in that circumstance since it’s the guest’s “fault” for not adding it when they could get a full year out of it, but with Genie+ we’re all at the mercy of whenever Disney makes the add-on an option.
@MrNico and Tom
I may be working on incorrect/incomplete Genie+ info – my understanding is that G+ opens up for booking at 7am if you’re on property, otherwise when you ticket in for everyone else. Is it 7am for everyone with a reservation for that day? If that’s the case I guess it would maybe suck microscopically less?
Also, is the “level playing field” just a matter of only being able to book one G+ LL at a time on the same day, so even off-property folks would be able to grab something later in the day? I’m not sure I find that argument super persuasive – outside the busiest of busy times, the 30 vs 60 day FP+ booking window didn’t really matter. Sure folks could book things 30 days earlier than I could, which meant that as an AP I’d never get a Mine Train or FoP FP – but I can’t get that in G+ either. All those top-end items went from “can’t get a FP” to “pay to play” which for when we’re talking about value for money is a distinction without a difference. At the 30 day mark there’d almost always be a Big Thunder/Space Mountain/Everest/Test Track FP available. In fact, not being able to have a plan of attack for the day strikes me as an additional negative to the G+ situation.
I know I’m sounding pretty negative here, but honestly, I’m just looking for any ray of hope that the Passholder program is still worth participating in. I understand “worth” is relative to each person, but a 50-to-100% increase in AP costs just to get an option for what’s likely a somewhat lesser version of the thing as you had before strikes me as…well, not worth it in the extreme.
@S C not semantics, words matter! In my business of civil/structural design, especially now that I work in healthcare, a typo, especially a factor of 2, means someone dies or cost goes up exponentially depending on the direction. Not always, but often. Remember the KC Hyatt Regency incident? Okay that was mostly the contractor’s fault, but an engineer did review and approve the shop drawings. I just hope I’ve caught all those types of mistakes before my final sealed documents!
But I digress, and to answer your question, I see it as a positive only because it levels the playing field better than Fastpass Minus which unfairly benefited onsite guests over AP or normies with regular tickets. Unfortunately it does benefit those of us with more discretionary income than young families. On our motor home trips to WDW in the 80s, we’d go out to the parking lot and eat sammiches for lunch because as young school teachers our parents needed to pinch some costs out where they could. I’m still amazed Mom found the money to go at all! I think they were each under $20k back then. At least starting teachers make more these days. For us, FP- was a hindrance, not a benefit, especially compared to the old paper FP system, which we enjoyed using at DLP last March just prior to the hysteria. Far from perfect, but this sounds like an improvement for us over FP-.
Wait, do AP not get to play the 7am scramble? Is it not based on theme park ressies for the day? For me it just sucks being at 7am, when humans are supposed to be sleeping.
I’m not happy they are making the Photopass a paid add-on, but also glad they aren’t going to start charging the lower tier passholders for parking like they do at DL and at the resorts. That’s still a head scratcher and poorly thought out. Why not just bump all room rates quietly instead? There must be a tax reason, like deducting it as a maintenance cost… I’m sure you’ve heard grousing that they’d probably even start charging for parking lot trams, which I never put any probability into but let’s not give them any ideas.
@MrNico – semantics on the 2X vs doubling, but point taken. 🙂
I’m super-curious though on your logic that Genie+ ends up being a net-win for passholders. My view on it is that:
1) I’m now paying additional money for something that was included previously
2) I’m screwed because as a local I’m off-property, which means I get to miss the 7am booking rush.
3) I can only book day-of vs being able to book at least 30 days in advance.
4) It still doesn’t include everything and there’s an additional pay-to-play LL fee for the big items.
Don’t get me wrong, I get that FP+ had it’s issues, but as a Passholder, I don’t see a single value-added benefit to the Genie+ changes. I’m curious what I might be missing if you’re seeing a net-positive for passholders.
Not Mr. Nico, but I also see Genie+ being a huge improvement for Annual Passholders. Anyone off-site was at a huge disadvantage with FastPass+ because of the advance booking window, which often resulted in headliners being fully booked at 30+ days out.
Genie+ will open same-day for everyone. Even if I don’t go to the parks first thing in the morning, I can strategically book reservations mid-morning (or so) for popular attractions later in the day.
That’s only Genie+, though. The individual attraction purchases will be a definite step backwards/downgrade.
Tom,
At some point in time I would love to see you write an article comparing what you get at Disney for the money versus what you get at Universal. With the addition of the third park Universal should become even more competitive for the theme park dollar.
Thank you for the useful commentary.
@S C that’s only a 1x increase, or doubling of cost. And that’s not quite right, as only one person in the family needs to pay for Photopass (although that means split parties could miss some ride pics, etc.) and the Genie Plus or whatever it ends up being called (probably Flowery Kerfuffle or similar) for the AP is actually far better than Fastpass Minus was. Probably. But I understand your frustration!
@Maggie if you don’t have FL driver license, take copies of utility and mortgage or property tax bills, bank statements, check book, etc with you to show residency. They haven’t asked for these for renewals in the past, but they might now with the new pass tiers. There are many folks who own property in FL but do not live there full time. Or some who travel far and wide for work for months at a time.