Ticket Prices Have (Mostly) Increased at Disney World
Overnight, Walt Disney World rolled out its new date-based ticket system, which was previously announced a few weeks ago. In addition to most single and multi-day ticket prices increasing, so too have Annual Passes and parking.
The new date-based ticket system utilizes a new interactive calendar, which is now accessible when you go to the ‘tickets’ section of DisneyWorld.com. This calendar allows you to select whether you want one park per day, Park Hopper, and displays per day prices in calendar format (think flexible airfare calendars) based on the ticket duration you select.
The good news, if you’re looking for something, is that this new interactive calendar is pretty snappy and Stitch didn’t once eat our page while testing it out. (Hey, it’s the small victories.) The bad news is that you’re almost certainly going to be paying more for park tickets unless you travel between late January and early February or late August and September.
We ran a number of sample scenarios, and it looks like ticket prices have mostly increased. For example, the advance purchase price of a 4-day base ticket (after tax) was previously $404 for adults. Under the new system, that means you’d have to find a date with the price starting at $95/day or less to come out ahead.
For the remainder of 2018, there are no such days. You can find some $93-95/day tickets in late January 2019 and early February 2019, but that only represents a handful of dates in the next 4-plus months. After that, you can again find a scattering of $95 days in August and September 2019.
All told, this is roughly 5 weeks out of the next year that have decreased in price. Since roughly 4 of those weeks are $95/day dates, you’re looking at a price decrease (for those tickets) of $2.88 per ticket. (This is all assuming my math is correct, and I just had my morning coffee, so no promises there.)
Keep in mind that this is the best case scenario. If you’re planning to travel around the holidays, expect to pay more. The worst case scenarios are Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks, when many start dates will yield 4-day ticket costs of $461, which is a price increase of over $50 per ticket.
In between, you’ll find more modest price increases of around $15-20 per ticket on average, but it’s worth keeping in mind that this is the second price increase of 2018, with the last having occurred in February.
Somewhat surprisingly, there appears to be a bit better potential savings on 3-day tickets, with 2-day tickets having opportunities for savings spread out across the calendar a bit more. With this ‘silver lining’ we should still offer the caveat that the vast majority of 2 and 3-day ticket prices increased.
We’ve yet to comb through all of the ticket options and compare them to previous offerings, but we’d hazard a guess that there are examples of both better savings and bigger increases. So if you want to cherry pick examples to illustrate that the date-based ticket system is “good” or “bad,” have at it. The fact is that the majority of dates have increased in price for the majority of ticket types. The exact amount of the increase varies widely.
If you don’t want to be locked into a set date window, you’ll find a “Flexible Dates Option” as you continue to the next step of the checkout process. This price varies based upon the initial cost of your ticket. For example, Christmas travel dates that have peak season pricing will incur a minimal fee for this, whereas February low season prices will have a high ($50+) fee.
Basically, you’re paying the difference between whatever tickets you purchase and the most expensive tickets here, so there isn’t a loophole allowing people to buy the cheapest travel dates and upgrade to flexible tickets to use during peak season dates. Savvy move on Disney’s part.
In addition to the increases on single and multi-day tickets, Annual Pass prices have also increased. The increases ranged from around $20 for the lower tier Florida resident passes to $45 for the Platinum Passes. On the plus side (I guess?), the coast-to-coast Premier Pass didn’t increase in price.
Parking at the theme parks is also up by $3 per vehicle, to $25. (Oversized and preferred parking increased as well.)
It didn’t take a crystal ball to see any of this coming, so we’re not exactly surprised at this point. We implored readers to purchase before this new system went live; despite Disney’s marketing stressing that this would be easier and allow more flexibility, I think most people saw through that and anticipated this would be a price increase by a different name.
As for what this will do in terms of redistributing crowds, we aren’t holding our breath. As we noted in the last post on this topic, not everyone has flexible travel dates. It’s not as if people are thinking, “June and July when Florida is like walking around the surface of Mars? Sign me up.” Walt Disney World is largely a family travel destination, and many families are handcuffed by school schedules.
With that said, it’s now abundantly clear to “bargain” (air quotes) hunters just when the low season is at Walt Disney World, something that wasn’t quite as transparent with hotel rates (the prices for which track similarly to this date-based ticket system). We would thus not be surprised if those January, February, and September travel dates become more popular, with a negligible decrease in visitors from the rest of the calendar.
If you didn’t heed our advice to buy before this ticket “change” because you thought you’d take a wait and see approach since Walt Disney World was promising it’d be more flexible, easier, and offer value options–and are now feeling burnt because your prices increased dramatically–you’re in luck. Undercover Tourist has a limited supply of their “old” inventory of discounted Walt Disney World tickets, which don’t require a start date. If you’re traveling between now and December 31, 2019, we’d again strongly encourage you to buy now because (spoiler alert) Walt Disney World tickets will only increase in price again between now and the debut of 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 at Walt Disney World? Are you disappointed about another (for the most part) price increase, or excited that if you plan during a handful of weeks per year, you can save a few dollars? 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!
Tom,
Are you suggesting a 3rd price hike in the 2018 Calendar year???
I had booked a vacation package for November 2-9 of next year with 7 days of park passes included at Port Orleans French Quarter. I don’t have a breakdown of the individual fees, but I just built the same package today and it was $54 more expensive for the week. So, I suspect the cost increase is from ticket prices.
Not bad at all. But most are still going to blow this way out of proportion to the actual increases. And nobody is going to cancel a planned trip over $54.
Very true, I was just curious if the ticket prices for the vacation packages were changing as well since the post was focused on the individual ticket sales. And now makes me feel like I now have an extra $54 to spend on food and wine at Epcot.
1 day child tickets on peak dates in US dollars:
California – $127
Florida – $124
Paris – $83
Shanghai – $63
Hong Kong – $59
Tokyo – $43
And airfare, $10,000… so not cheaper to go there.
$10,000 airfare?! What airline are you taking???
Must be flying 1st class
More that wasn’t a quote or exact figure, just comment that it’s very expensive to fly across the big pond, far, far more than to Florida. Especially for a family. Airfare alone might be more than a whole trip to WDW.
Already had a trip booked the first week of February for the sole reason of low crowds. My first thought in reading this is that crowds will increase for January and February. Hope that isn’t the case for this first year.
Last year we went in early Feb and although crowds were quite low, wait times were horrific! Disney has most definitely reduced operating capacity and it was rough.
Erin, I was there at the same time and had the same experience. My understanding is they chose to reduce capacity by design. Overall very frustrating and a totally different experience than the year before. Came away from that trip with a bad taste in my mouth.
We were there the same week in February of this year and thought the same thing. We’re going to try it one more time to see if it was just an experimental thing with Disney. Fingers crossed
At this point I honestly don’t understand why anyone living on the US west coast would visit WDW over any of the Asian parks. They’re better by quality, cheaper, and so much less a chore to plan out….
I’m just gonna be that person to point out that Mars is cold compared to Earth. I wish Florida in June-July was the same temperature as Mars at its hottest….
A trip to Mars is quickly becoming the cheaper vacation option for my family.
Anyone Have a SpaceX brochure?
We are looking to save money next vacation!
The widening gap between the Gold pass and the Platinum pass makes DVC look more and more appealing. Which is probably intentional…
Btw, article suggestion for you – the recently announced Fastpass packages made available for sale by DLP. I’d love to hear your take on what you believe the future of the Fastpass program to be at various Disney parks bearing in mind they all have slightly different strategies (but only Tokyo without an explicit way to acquire more, as far as I know).
Florida Residents will be discouraged by this new structure. Yes they are still discounted for Florida Residents, but they must be used within a week. The attraction for Florida Residents was the ability to spread a 4 day ticket over multiple weekends over a 6 month period. I definitely predict a significant decrease in the number of days Florida Residents visit Disney this year with this structure, especially with the other parks offerinincreaed incentives for Florida Residents.
Going on a Disney lite trip in November. Bought 2-day tickets before today’s roll out and the price jumped $160.
It sucks that there is now 1 more thing to plan with a Disney World vacation. I understand the price increases but now it is based on when you go, on top of figuring airfare and room rates, you need a calculus course to make sure you are getting the best deal/price, or at least determining the price of your vacation.
Disney goes all in on their cash grabs, dont they? I counted 24 days of the year that have an increase in ticket price. If I would have waited til now to buy our 6 day single park tickets, I would have paid $97 +tax more for our trip the first week of Nov 2018. I looked a little closer at the same time frame: 4 day pass for same time is an increase of $15 /day, 5 day is an increase of $14.60 /day (going in the right direction), 6 day is an increase of $16 /day, wait what? Glad I am all set to go prior to this change. Also, seeing all the individual price hikes for snacks was enough for us to try out the Quick Service Dining Plan.
It will be interesting to see if this new site design has any effect on website drop off rates. Not sure if its my laptop or server activity, but the site has been slow, but from what I can tell early on it is a little more intuitive with the process.
A good friend of mine works for Disney and was told in a meeting, in no uncertain terms, that the goal was to price out the middle class and become a vacation destination for the rich. Very sad. Everything is going up in price, yet the quality of many experiences is going down.
I highly doubt that. If a supervisor said that, they’d be fired.
Agreed Nick. The middle class will never be “priced out” of Disney. But, the once a year family will turn to a once an every two or three year family to compensate for the out-of-control increases. Anecdotal evidence is already showing this to be the case. Worst of all, I don’t think Disney minds as they have enough other families to fill in for those dropping out. This is all well and good until (as Tom keeps reminding us) the economy drops off as it always does. Then we’ll see what happens.
That reminds me, I have a friend who is a CM, and their supervisor said that next year Disney is opening a fifth gate, extending the monorail, and reopening DisneyQuest. Prove me wrong 😉
You act like Disney trying to cater to wealthier guests and discourage middle class guests is ridiculous, but then essentially prove her point. If families that used to come every year can now only afford to visit once every 3 years, what happens when prices increase again for Star Wars? Can they come at all? I agree this is not sustainable. Eventually the economy will fail. Until then, Disney will continue raising prices.
No, I’m saying that anyone smart enough to be a supervisor in the parks would never say something like that even if it were explicitly true from higher up the chain, or risk losing their job. And disney has zero intention of pricing anyone out specifically. That’s absurd. They are, however, trying to raise profits continuously, which hurts us all. I’m really thinking I need to buy disney stock to help offset the price increases!
It would appear that observing the daily prices provides insight into Disney’s version of a crowd calendar.
That was true for a while with the Magic Kingdom 1-day prices. What’s not clear, though, is if Disney will continue to understaff at what they perceive as slow times.
Here is my experience purchasing tickets before the latest enhancemen… I mean price hike.
On 10/15 I purchased four adult 2 day PH+ tickets at a cost of $1273 (inc. tax). This if for an April 2019 WDW vacation. Specifically, the week after Easter (4/22-4/26).
Today… those same tickets would cost $1394, plus an extra $30 ($7.50 per ticket) if I wanted the Flexible Date option. So within twelve hours, my tickets went from $1273 to $1427; an increase of $154 for four tickets.
Granted, this is spring break for many schools, so I would expect tickets prices during this popular time to climb significantly. But I will admit, ticket increases, parking costs, increase food costs, larger crowds… I no longer feel guilty that this will probably be my last WDW vacation for a long time.
Looks like it’s a good thing I purchased 3 four day tickets a week and a half ago, and beat the hikes.
Here we go again!!!!!! It is going up at such a rate that I just don’t see this being sustainable.
Star Wars or not!!!
At this point with all the fees and price hikes (4.50 Bottle coke) I will be very interested to see
the discount list when the next recession hits. Since they will not drop the prices they will have to give a long list of free or Heavy discounted items in addition to lower room costs.
The Question is Disney going to do another adjustment HIGHER on the Multi Day and Daily rates 1st Quarter next year???
Stinks, but as long as the parks stay full they can basically do whatever they want. I’m sure we will see several more price increases over the next few years until they reach the consumer’s tipping point. We are basically locked into the busier times of the year, so I will just have to grin and bear it. I have not reached my tipping point…yet.
I think its wrong how they only allow you 5 days(used to be 14) to use your 3-day pass and if you want to have it longer you have to pay $48(to get it for 14 days) for flex dates. For example I’m going the first week of december and would be going to the parks monday-wednesday-saturday but because of the 5-day limit the ticket expires on friday unless I pay the extra $50 for the flex dates. i would actually save $30 if i bought a 1-day ticket for monday and then a 2-day ticket for wednesday and saturday rather than the 3-day with flex date. They are just stealing money from their visitors
I agree. The Old tickets were good for fourteen days after first use. I can deal with the increase in ticket price, but Disney is brow beating us by the shorter time to use them. If I buy a 5 day ticket with park hopper plus, I get five days in the theme parks, and five days in the water parks. Now how am I supposed to use that to the max in the 8 days Disney is allowing me to use the tickets? Increased ticket prices, decreased benefits! Not cool Disney!!
Tweaked our August 2019 package last week to make sure it was perfect and could stay locked in at old rates, thanks for the heads up!!
Question for this year’s trip–
We have FD for our package that starts on 11/24. We booked 2 nights room only ahead of the package with the intention of activating the tickets the 3 days in advance–which has always been allowed, but now???? We put 7 days of tickets on the package specifically to start them early!
Thoughts?
Bought my tickets last week through Undercover Tourist for our late January date. Pretty sure our tickets were one of two weeks that decreased by $2 Oh well! Still don’t want to be a guinea pig for that new system, and I like the flexibility of the old ticket.
Oof. I’m really having a hard time picturing Star Wars land is going to overcome these last years of price hikes. Can’t help but wonder if the parks will be empty (by disney standards) next year…
I think they’ll be busier than ever, and probably stay that way for years and years to come. People who love Star Wars and people who love Disney are not always the same, so they’re going to get massive influxes of people on both coasts just to see the Star Wars areas – and then, once they’re there, why not check it all out? Pandora has been open for ~18 months and has shown no sign of slowing down yet – and it doesn’t have the popularity or 41-year legacy of Star Wars. And two years after Star Wars opens, WDW will celebrate it’s 50th Anniversary, add in Tron, Ratatouille, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc, etc… there won’t be an attraction with a “short” line for the next 10 years, I’d bet.
I hate to say it but I think it will get a lot busier when Star Wars Land opens. People will pay what Disney asks.
What will be interesting is what comes after Star Wars Land I’m not sure The Epcot redo will drive nearly as much new business as Star Wars will.
This seems similar to how Disneyland prices their tickets. When I bought a 2 day DL ticket in August for September, the price was based on which days I had selected. But, I think they had to be used by the end of the year.
I do wonder though – maybe I missed something in all the information I’ve read about this, but will the passes per day be less the more days you add on like before? If not, then there is no scenario that would make this a deal for week-long vacationers, no matter what time of year they go.