Ticket Price Increase

[George]

Thanks for clearing up the dates.

I am shocked that the tickets went up a whole $2.00 that year while adding unlimited rides and shows.

Actually, Krack picked the 82 prices after the disappearance of the ride books. I think it was $8.50 admission for an adult for one day before that. You can look at all the info right here -

http://allears.net/tix/tickethistory.htm

Thats exactly it. As much as we cry about it, until people stop going, nothing will ever change. Who knows that ceiling could be another $50 a ticket.

This increase will cost us an extra $67 for our tickets. While not a huge deal for us this year or most likely next, but 2yrs from now, HUGE deal. Why? At that point we will have to buy and extra ticket for my son and all this nickel and dime garbage over the years adds up to a lot of extra cash. That means at the rate its going, on top of the 1 extra ticket, we will have over $200 in ticket increases. So who knows, since we have the DVC, we may still go and not go to the parks but for a few days and spend more time off Disney property. We are already thinking of going one less day this year and saving $25 bucks and pool hopping instead of the park. Im not sure if this is what Disney really wants but I could be in the minority and they just wont care.

What we're going to do, is rent our points from time to time and use that money for dues and Disney vacations. Still the overall attendance doesn't ever seem to be impacted by price increases.

 

[George]

Another thing that has an impact if you have kids, is Disney changing the definition of kid over the years. It's gotten younger. Plus, the old junior rates (for kids in the 11-17 range) have disappeared completely. Since this applies to dining plans and not just tickets if you're paying for family it has a huge impact on the vacation budget.

 

[Scuttle]

Its really a joke. The FLE expansion better be damn good. I find it such a ripoff that Disney charges the same for admission to AK and MK. Really? they think it's ok to charge someone 85 dollars to visit a park that is open 9-5 half the year and has a fourth of as many attractions as the MK. That's my biggest beef.

 

[erasure fan1]

Still the overall attendance doesn't ever seem to be impacted by price increases.

There has to be a ceiling, I just wonder what it is.

 

[Pioneer Hall]

Another thing that has an impact if you have kids, is Disney changing the definition of kid over the years. It's gotten younger. Plus, the old junior rates (for kids in the 11-17 range) have disappeared completely. Since this applies to dining plans and not just tickets if you're paying for family it has a huge impact on the vacation budget.

I agree. I personally think that a child should be up to 11 at a minimum. While I don't have to worry about Children yet, I would never even consider paying for a meal plan if I had a 10-13 year old child. Seems like a lot of wasted food and money.

 

[Mr.Skunkape]

To me the $20.00 per AP is not that bad when you compair it to how much more it costs to fuel up at the gas station then it did a year ago. With all the busses Disney runs how much more do you think it costs them in fuel cost per week than it did a year ago?

 

[matt_taylor1985]

The thing is, everyone's situation is completely different so it'll always be based on an individual basis. In my case, I've been going since 1989 to WDW (I'm now 25). Myself and my wife have a daughter that is 2 years old and therefore we haven't really had to pay for her before. In fairness nowadays even though we didn't have to pay for her we still found the ticket prices pretty steep (coming from the UK factor in spending money, flights, hire car etc).

We have found the parks getting increasingly busier over the years (I know this is not really something that Disney can control) and we were talking about doing less days next time (probably in a year and a half when we can go back) but we kind of feel that there should be a cut somewhere (free parking maybe?) but we're now looking at maybe cutting out Disney altogether and just doing Seaworld and Busch Gardens instead as we did it this year and our daughter really enjoyed it. It's not that we don't want to Disney it's just realistically there comes a point where you kind of hit that wall and say maybe that is a bit too much this time.

 

[cheezbat]

It's not just this three dollar one day ticket increase that angers me. It's this continual increase year after year, and this year three bucks? I remember paying $30 to go to a park...now almost $100...and that's not even in 20 years! They have not done much to merit these increases. My visits have become less and less thanks to the price increases, and I'm sure the same can be said for many others. As a local Floridian, I think their AP prices are truly a slap in the face. To a population much smaller than SoCal, you would figure they would be more affordable for Florida residents.

Do you have any idea how many years it's been since I've been able to go to WDW with my entire immediate family? Nearly a decade. The fam can't afford the prices, and so I have to live off the memories of years past. Disney is supposed to be a family place...of all races, ages, backgrounds, economic classes, etc...and yet it's become basically only an upper middle class/ high class family establishment. I'm sure Walt would be very upset.

 

[matt_taylor1985]

I'm sure Walt would be very upset.

My wife said the exact same thing to me yesterday.

 

[armyfamilyof5]

But he did say, "& My Family". It should be, "My family and I..."

And it's "grammar", BTW.

Normally I would not point these errors out, but since the person I was replying to was so obviously out of line with his comments about his financial superiority, I thought it was appropriate. In short, he asked for it.


As to $3/person, I was replying to a specific poster who said he was going to buy a couple of day tickets and now won't. So $6 or $9 is keeping him from going to WDW during his trip to Orlando, he was very agitated about it and seemed overly angry, which is why I asked. It seemed like a bit of an overreaction.


Any other "corrections" I can correct you on, please let me know.

I stated to remove the ME & MY KIDS portion to make it easier for you to understand how me and is are correct and you are wrong. Also you cannot use NOR by itself as you did in the second sentence but personally being rude to others and picking apart their use of English is not my style, it is yours. I just think you don't understand stating someone has no class and cannot use proper English and then proceeding to do exactly that is...well... low class....obviously you did not get the point. And no, you needn't instruct me in any way, I've been well educated by means other than posters on this board. :hammer:

 

[WaltDis4Life]

Not too surprisingly, us Disney fans continue to insult each other. I love you guys. :sohappy:

 

[George]

Do you have any idea how many years it's been since I've been able to go to WDW with my entire immediate family? Nearly a decade. The fam can't afford the prices, and so I have to live off the memories of years past. Disney is supposed to be a family place...of all races, ages, backgrounds, economic classes, etc...and yet it's become basically only an upper middle class/ high class family establishment. I'm sure Walt would be very upset.

The family is an issue with us as well. They can't afford to go unless we pay for part and then there's issues of pride, etc.

As for the Walt part, we have no way of knowing for sure, but my parents always said the same thing (we moved to Tampa in 1972, I was 3 and I grew up going to Disney from time to time during my childhood) as prices went up. However, you're doing your part by going less. It just doesn't seen enough people are ticked by the prices yet.

Another thing that really stinks is the premium charged for no expiration date, an idea I wish had never reached fruition. Not everyone can get a huge chunk of time off all at once to go to WDW and the massive no expiration date surcharge really makes the 7-10 day tickets less reasonable. What I should have done is bought a crapload of tickets in the 80's.

 

[PirateFrank]

I wrote this a year ago, but it still applies ...

1982 ... EPCOT Center Opens. The cost of a three day WDW Park Hopper was $32. Compare that to the price of an average movie theater ticket = $3.

Let's look at 2010. From Oct 1982 to August 2010, inflation increased approximately 122%. The average cost of a movie ticket is $7.50 - that's a 115% increase in cost over 30 years. Now let's look at Disney - A three day WDW Park Hopper is $296. That's an 825% markup over the same period of time.

1-Day Admission to Magic Kingdom:
1982 = $15
2010 = $82 (446% increase)

3-Day Park Hopper:
1982 = $32
2010 = $296 (825% increase)

6-Day Park Hopper - no expiration + water park(s):
1982 = $43
2010 = $419 (874% increase)

Annual Pass:
1982 = $100
2010 = $629 (529% increase)

In addition to the aforementioned issue relating to ticket prices in 82' not being a good barometer, due to the change of ticketing policy midstream in 82, there's another factor here.

When Michael Eisner took over in 84, there were significant intra-complany discussions about the cost of tickets being too low. Some executives felt that the price of tickets should remain as low as humanly possible, to keep the parks accessible. However, some executives (including Eisner) felt that the ticket prices should be brought to a more realistic level...as they had been kept suppressed during the period of 71-84. Obviously, Eisner won out...and thankfully, as the company really exploded between 84-94. Having said that, I82 as a baseline might not be the best year to use.

I'm not sure the above analysis does this discussion much service, unless the analysis also addresses both DLP ticket prices during the range of 55-84...and in connection with that, an analysis of the ticket prices vs. CPI for the the entire time periods mentioned...so that there's some basis for comparison.

If that were done, we might still find that ticket prices rose abnormally throughout the period of 82-2010. However, it would be a far better measure with both previous periods considered and a baseline vs. cpi to give some weight to the discussion....and we'd be able to rest easy knowing we're measuring against a valid baseline.

just my $0.02. Not looking to stir the pot, just feel that my added comments might make for a better comparison.

 

[Computer Magic]

I think Disney is trying to play the discount game. Raise the "sticker" price and then discount. Yes, we have heard Disney stated the discount weren't being offered, but as you can tell that is not the case. Disney wants to stop the discount but bookings must be low as they have revised and released new discounts through Sept.

Having said that, I won't return w/o an discount. I don't agree with their price increases doubling inflaction or my wage increase.

However there are enough first time visitors that don't know what we know over the last 10 years (increase pricing, lessor quality and unfair treatment of CM which makes CM unhappy at work).

 

[KDM31091]

I can understand the need to increase, but when I visited in 2004, I believe a one day one park ticket was (around) $48 or 50. They've really improved that much in seven years to merit an increase of $35+ on that? Seems a bit much. Shouldn't it be around maybe $60?

 

[erasure fan1]

I can understand the need to increase, but when I visited in 2004, I believe a one day one park ticket was (around) $48 or 50. They've really improved that much in seven years to merit an increase of $35+ on that? Seems a bit much. Shouldn't it be around maybe $60?

While I agree with you, it wont stop until the people stop coming. The more my wife and I talk about it, the more we are planning to cut back from our trip this year. If we shave a couple days off and skip the water park we can use that money to do a lot of other things. Part of me wishes Universal would lower ticket prices by a few dollars and start advertising something to the effect of

"While others raise their prices, Our prices are lower. Its a great time to take some time to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter!"

Or something to that effect. If they put a dent in Disneys pocket book, it might help turn a few heads. I doubt it, but its wishfull thinking.

 

[twodisneyfans]

Prices

simple...if you don't like the prices or can't afford them...don't go and move on!

 

[misterID]

I can understand the need to increase, but when I visited in 2004, I believe a one day one park ticket was (around) $48 or 50. They've really improved that much in seven years to merit an increase of $35+ on that? Seems a bit much. Shouldn't it be around maybe $60?

I understand price increases, but not when there's nothing to justify it. I was already planning my next vacation for DL, there's basically nothing new at WDW outside the Seven Dwarves mine car ride that I can't ride at DL. Plus they're going to be getting even more additions... And they have RSR coming.

There's nothing outside nostalgia that really makes me want to see The World. But considering the abomination that is Imagination, my favorite parks (AK and EPCOT) aren't getting anything new, and are pretty much ignored... I love WDW, but man, nostalgia isn't enough to bring me back anymore.

 

[wolf359]

AllEars' historical ticket price chart is really cool, especially for all of the armchair economists out there.

http://allears.net/tix/tixincrease.htm

Based on the comments this year's price change is getting, I'm betting if the internet had existed in 1982 when the ticket price jumped from $9.50 to $15.00 there would have been some really lively discussion.

 

[matt_taylor1985]

simple...if you don't like the prices or can't afford them...don't go and move on!

So true. Why have we wasted so much time on this discussion? :shrug: