WDW ticket price increases coming June 3rd

[potatoheadfan]

but if you buy one of your passes the next level up pass, 60 dollars more you get free parking which i recomend on the annual / seasonal passes. universal season pass as 169 and the reg annual pass is 229. so if say a party of 4 goes 1 person has annual pass and the parking pays for itself after the 4th day.. thats a no brainer.. im looking forward to ditching greedy disney and the always braking down rides, at least universal wont charge a 3 year old FULL ADULT PRICE..

 

[hrcollectibles]

THIS isnt just one issue or one Price hike... they did many things here.... for 1 ... they making a 3 year old that cant even go on half of rides or remember much, THE SAME PRICE AS ADULTS.

I would venture to say that a majority of the rides and attractions at all Walt Disney World theme parks do not have height restrictions. You would be amazed at what children can remember.

but if you buy one of your passes the next level up pass, 60 dollars more you get free parking which i recomend on the annual / seasonal passes. universal season pass as 169 and the reg annual pass is 229. so if say a party of 4 goes 1 person has annual pass and the parking pays for itself after the 4th day.. thats a no brainer.. im looking forward to ditching greedy disney and the always braking down rides, at least universal wont charge a 3 year old FULL ADULT PRICE..

Its funny you mention that, as I have a Premier Annual Pass for Universal Studios. Which I pay a little over $25 a month for, the main reason I have it is for the complimentary valet as well as the ticket to Halloween Horror Nights. To me its worth it as I go to City Walk at least twice a month. So the pass has already paid for itself after one visit.

 

[potatoheadfan]

Actually, until WWOHP opened in 2010, you could purchase a 7-day UO ticket for about $95 or less than $14/day. These were great and we bought several. WWOHP changed everything. Now we've purchased a Universal Preferred AP for $199 (with a discount code). That's less than the price of a 2-day park hopper ticket at WDW. When's the last time WDW offered a $199 AP? 1994

UO has the latest "buzz" with the opening of WWOHP. That's where my children and their friends want to go. UO has the "hot" product and invested a lot of money into WWOHP. (Disney could have had HP but wanted to do it on the cheap and wouldn't give J.K. Rowling creative control so she punted on Disney and transferred to Universal who were willing to do anything to win what they thought was a hot property.) I understand UO's huge price increase. They took the risk and invested big on Harry Potter. When's the last time Disney created a similar buzz at the theme parks? IMHO, it was the opening of DAK in 1998. Everyone was really excited about the opening of a 4th gate. WDW has added or upgraded a few attractions since then but, so far, none have the buzz of WWOHP. I'm a fan of WDW and hope that either FLE or Avatarland are big winners for WDW. I'm excited to see what the buzz is like once these are fully opened.

what is the discount code please share and save us from the evil Disney empire

 

[devoy1701]

Some people seem to get it, others don't (and probably never will because their sculls are to thick to comprehend).

The outrage from ticket prices isn't yet whether the new rates are "too expensive" or not. I don't think that Disney has crossed that threshold yet. It also hasn't been about the $89/day price but mainly about the increases in Passholder rates. The outrage is about perceived value for the price. When we started as Seasonal Passholder 5 years ago, they were $219/person, Annual passes were $325 or $335 or something like that. At those prices we also received perks such as 10% most purchases, 20% many dining locations, and discounts off of room rates as high as 50% for some of the resorts. The value in the pass wasn't so much the price itself, but all of the perks that went along with it.

Since then, both Seasonal Passes and Annual Passes have gone up about 30% for adult prices, or about 45% for childrens prices, while offering fewer perks and not many new experiences.

Can I still afford passes? Sure I can...but I don't see the added value in now paying $908 for 2 annual passes after tax this year when they cost me about $775 last year and only about $715 5 years ago. There isn't anything to warrant the higher price, so I'm not going to pay it.

 

[wdw71fan]

I'm not sure with Six Flags you're referring to. I've been a season pass holder at 2 different Six Flags. One was for $55 for the entire season (April to October), the other was for $65 for the season (March to October).

Six Flags Over Texas... considered to be the top tier SF park..

 

[wdw71fan]

but if you buy one of your passes the next level up pass, 60 dollars more you get free parking which i recomend on the annual / seasonal passes. universal season pass as 169 and the reg annual pass is 229. so if say a party of 4 goes 1 person has annual pass and the parking pays for itself after the 4th day.. thats a no brainer.. im looking forward to ditching greedy disney and the always braking down rides, at least universal wont charge a 3 year old FULL ADULT PRICE..

yeah.. I'll remember that the next time I am stuck on Ripsaw falls for 45 minutes..

Like I was a WEEK ago.. Universal has break downs too.. Fires even.. I truly hope your post was in jest.

 

[wdw71fan]

Some people seem to get it, others don't (and probably never will because their sculls are to thick to comprehend).

The outrage from ticket prices isn't yet whether the new rates are "too expensive" or not. I don't think that Disney has crossed that threshold yet. It also hasn't been about the $89/day price but mainly about the increases in Passholder rates. The outrage is about perceived value for the price. When we started as Seasonal Passholder 5 years ago, they were $219/person, Annual passes were $325 or $335 or something like that. At those prices we also received perks such as 10% most purchases, 20% many dining locations, and discounts off of room rates as high as 50% for some of the resorts. The value in the pass wasn't so much the price itself, but all of the perks that went along with it.

Since then, both Seasonal Passes and Annual Passes have gone up about 30% for adult prices, or about 45% for childrens prices, while offering fewer perks and not many new experiences.

Can I still afford passes? Sure I can...but I don't see the added value in now paying $908 for 2 annual passes after tax this year when they cost me about $775 last year and only about $715 5 years ago. There isn't anything to warrant the higher price, so I'm not going to pay it.

Sure there is.. more cast members, more things built, expanded on, and generating higher over head.. Oil/Fuel costs increase the cost of EVERYTHING down the 'food chain' of guest service..

Your argument is 'offering fewer perks and not many new experiences. ' ... But there ARE new experiences.. The price increase is in anticipation of the increase in operating costs because of the Fantasyland Expansion.. is it your opinion that Disney should absorb those costs and keep ticketing at 1995 levels? That would be insane and the entire company would come crashing to the ground.. You want more for your money, and I get that, but to expect them to deliver giant new areas without ticketing adjustments is ignorant at best.

There is no 'uproar' about ticket prices increasing.. There is a mouse fart's worth of complaining from this forum (as there always is for price changes) and it'll be gone in 30 days, and all of you "I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" Whiners will be in line for your tickets as usual..

The product is superior to anywhere else, the price increase is warranted.. If you don't like it, don't buy into it.. It's that simple.

 

[devoy1701]

Sure there is.. more cast members, more things built, expanded on, and generating higher over head.. Oil/Fuel costs increase the cost of EVERYTHING down the 'food chain' of guest service..

Your argument is 'offering fewer perks and not many new experiences. ' ... But there ARE new experiences.. The price increase is in anticipation of the increase in operating costs because of the Fantasyland Expansion.. is it your opinion that Disney should absorb those costs and keep ticketing at 1995 levels? That would be insane and the entire company would come crashing to the ground.. You want more for your money, and I get that, but to expect them to deliver giant new areas without ticketing adjustments is ignorant at best.

There is no 'uproar' about ticket prices increasing.. There is a mouse fart's worth of complaining from this forum (as there always is for price changes) and it'll be gone in 30 days, and all of you "I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" Whiners will be in line for your tickets as usual..

The product is superior to anywhere else, the price increase is warranted.. If you don't like it, don't buy into it.. It's that simple.

5 years ago would be 2007, not 1995. Nobody said that APs should be $200.
Rising Operating costs do not warrant a 12-15% YoY increase at this time. You want to raise the prices to compensate for FLE...fine, but do so when the place is open and the increase is somewhat justified, not 3 years before had.

The biggest problem with price increases like this is the army represented by people like you who think that just because it has the name "Disney" it will always be a superior product and worth the price.

As to your comment about "Whiners being back in line for tickets as usual"... I stopped lining up a year an a half ago. While $5,000 I spent annually on property annual doesn't seem to mean a thing to The Mouse...it sure means a lot to us.

 

[jakeman]

Some people seem to get it, others don't (and probably never will because their sculls are to thick to comprehend).

The outrage from ticket prices isn't yet whether the new rates are "too expensive" or not. I don't think that Disney has crossed that threshold yet. It also hasn't been about the $89/day price but mainly about the increases in Passholder rates. The outrage is about perceived value for the price. When we started as Seasonal Passholder 5 years ago, they were $219/person, Annual passes were $325 or $335 or something like that. At those prices we also received perks such as 10% most purchases, 20% many dining locations, and discounts off of room rates as high as 50% for some of the resorts. The value in the pass wasn't so much the price itself, but all of the perks that went along with it.

Annual passes in 2007 were $448 for regular and $579 for premium in 2007.

Additionally:

Premium Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 20% discount and all other Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 10% discount on select merchandise purchases at Walt Disney World Resort owned and operated merchandise locations.

And while the food discount is now 10%, it does allow you to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card which is 20% off and allows access to additional events.

There are also various miscellanious discounts across property still in effect: 15% off tours, 50% off mini golf, 30% off regular golf and others.

Lastly, I saved approximately 50% off my room at the Yacht Club last year during the Food and Wine festival.

So perhaps before you rant, you should look into what the pass continues to offer. If you don't feel that these perks justify the increase, then that's fine, but you shouldn't act like they are no longer available when they clearly are.

 

[wdw71fan]

Annual passes in 2007 were $448 for regular and $579 for premium in 2007.

Additionally:

Premium Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 20% discount and all other Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 10% discount on select merchandise purchases at Walt Disney World Resort owned and operated merchandise locations.

And while the food discount is now 10%, it does allow you to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card which is 20% off and allows access to additional events.

There are also various miscellanious discounts across property still in effect: 15% off tours, 50% off mini golf, 30% off regular golf and others.

Lastly, I saved approximately 50% off my room at the Yacht Club last year during the Food and Wine festival.

So perhaps before you rant, you should look into what the pass continues to offer. If you don't feel that these perks justify the increase, then that's fine, but you shouldn't act like they are no longer available when they clearly are.

Amen.

 

[jakeman]

Amen.

Just to be clear, I don't care whether anyone else finds value in an annual pass or a one day ticket or anything of that nature. That's personal opinion.

The additional discounts and past cost (but strangely not the percentage increase) were misrepresented and being greater and lower, respectively, in the past.

 

[fosse76]

We got off easy compared to Disneyland's Passholder gouging. Instead of increasing revenue by gouging current customers, they should be investing in the parks to increase attendance which in turn would bring more money. At a certain point, people are going to just stop coming.

 

[devoy1701]

Annual passes in 2007 were $448 for regular and $579 for premium in 2007.

Additionally:

Premium Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 20% discount and all other Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 10% discount on select merchandise purchases at Walt Disney World Resort owned and operated merchandise locations.

And while the food discount is now 10%, it does allow you to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card which is 20% off and allows access to additional events.

There are also various miscellanious discounts across property still in effect: 15% off tours, 50% off mini golf, 30% off regular golf and others.

Lastly, I saved approximately 50% off my room at the Yacht Club last year during the Food and Wine festival.

So perhaps before you rant, you should look into what the pass continues to offer. If you don't feel that these perks justify the increase, then that's fine, but you shouldn't act like they are no longer available when they clearly are.

I'm talking FL rates, not out of state rates. FL Resident rates for an AP was not $448 in 2007.

The food discount used to include atleast one counter service location per park and multiple sit down locations during both lunch and dinner. Now it mostly just includes Lunch locations, and the options in the parks themselves are few and far between.

Yes it still includes discounts on tours, and golf, but room discounts are by any large nothing compared to what they used to be outside of Saratoga Springs and OKW. I wouldn't expect you to still be able to get that 50% off for YBC this year during F&W. I believe the discount was about 5% for the late spring season this year for Moderate resorts? Those discounts used to run about 30-35% pretty much all year and upwards of 50-55% during Value Seasons.

You really don't have to look very far to see the downward trend of perks the AP has offered over the past 5 years.

 

[captainkidd]

yeah.. I'll remember that the next time I am stuck on Ripsaw falls for 45 minutes..

Like I was a WEEK ago.. Universal has break downs too.. Fires even.. I truly hope your post was in jest.

In the poster's defense, I go to Universal for a few days first then head to Disney. I've been doing this for the past 5 years or so, with additional weekend trips to Universal. In all that time, I've only seen 3 rides ever down at Universal - Hulk, Spider-Man and HRRR. At Disney, I've seen Splash, Thunder, Space Mountain, TTA, Pirates, Everest, Dinosaur, Primeval Whirl, Tower of Terror, Rock n' Roller Coaster, Great Movie Ride, Spaceship Earth, Test Track, Living With The Land, Maelstrom all down on the same trip.

Not trying to say Universal is better than Disney, but it is my experience, that Disney rides tend to break down more often than Universal's. Again, just my experience, and I could be unlucky at Disney, but that's the way it's been.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

Annual passes in 2007 were $448 for regular and $579 for premium in 2007.

Additionally:

Premium Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 20% discount and all other Annual Passholders are eligible to receive a 10% discount on select merchandise purchases at Walt Disney World Resort owned and operated merchandise locations.

And while the food discount is now 10%, it does allow you to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card which is 20% off and allows access to additional events.

There are also various miscellanious discounts across property still in effect: 15% off tours, 50% off mini golf, 30% off regular golf and others.

Lastly, I saved approximately 50% off my room at the Yacht Club last year during the Food and Wine festival.

So perhaps before you rant, you should look into what the pass continues to offer. If you don't feel that these perks justify the increase, then that's fine, but you shouldn't act like they are no longer available when they clearly are.

Was this a passholder discount? Last September we got a room at the Yacht Club for 40% off but that was a pin code. I don't think I've seen passholders getting the best discounts in some time. Just curious if I missed seeing a good one which is entirely possible. Once I scored 40% I wasn't really looking all that closely. :wave:

 

[flynnibus]

We got off easy compared to Disneyland's Passholder gouging. Instead of increasing revenue by gouging current customers, they should be investing in the parks to increase attendance which in turn would bring more money. At a certain point, people are going to just stop coming.

Except what good does increased attendance do you if you have no place to put those people? Or if that attendance is so high it ruins it for those that are there?

You can't just endlessly stuff people into the park nor expect your potential attendance to be infinite. You have a 'capacity'.. and in DL's case.. a capacity that is very difficult to expand.

In WDW's case.. they already at like 90% utilization of hotels, etc. How much more growth do you think there is within the existing capacity?

And lets be clear.. the price hikes at DL are significantly mainly for the premium APs... and those moves are to thin the herd at the top level because that group's impact on the park can't be controlled because it has no blackouts.

 

[jakeman]

I'm talking FL rates, not out of state rates. FL Resident rates for an AP was not $448 in 2007.

The food discount used to include atleast one counter service location per park and multiple sit down locations during both lunch and dinner. Now it mostly just includes Lunch locations, and the options in the parks themselves are few and far between.

Yes it still includes discounts on tours, and golf, but room discounts are by any large nothing compared to what they used to be outside of Saratoga Springs and OKW. I wouldn't expect you to still be able to get that 50% off for YBC this year during F&W. I believe the discount was about 5% for the late spring season this year for Moderate resorts?

You really don't have to look very far to see the downward trend of perks the AP has offered over the past 5 years.

Current discounts for summer rates range from 20%-30% on hotel rooms, that is across the board for every category of room.

I'll be honest, I don't ever remember using a Passholder discount on anything other than table service.

It's a matter of personal opinion, but I would rather have a discounted Tables in Wonderland card and be able to potential take advantage of their special events on top of the additional discounts they provide.

At the end of the day though, when making a moderate financial decisions such as an annual pass that could reach into the thousands for a typical family, why would you look at anything other than "Will my days in the parks be greater than the aggregate cost of separate single or multi-day tickets per year"?

Not to bring DVC into the conversation, but that is one of the things they repeat over and over again. You have to look at the base value of the product and determine it's value, not perks that fluctuate every year.

 

[Californian Elitist]

We got off easy compared to Disneyland's Passholder gouging. Instead of increasing revenue by gouging current customers, they should be investing in the parks to increase attendance which in turn would bring more money. At a certain point, people are going to just stop coming.

The Disneyland Resort is doing just that; investing in the parks for more visitors. Disneyland's price increase can be justified because of all the new stuff we're getting. Not just including the 1.5 billion dollar expansion at DCA, which includes loads of new shows, attractions, shops, eateries, a new Club 33 status club, etc., but all those rehabs at Disneyland, including the Carnation Cafe, the Matterhorn, which has been down for six months, the gun shooting range in Frontierland, and some other places. Not to mention we've got a new show in Frontierland, a new eatery on Main Street, and we'll have Fantasy Faire next year. We've even got a new slogan for the year: "The Happiest Place on Earth Just Got Happier". Have you seen the commercials? Buzz Lightyear has been detecting high levels of happiness at the Disneyland Resort.

In case you haven't: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eq2JLy9jk0
Another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZlTfhUT-js&feature=relmfu
Another: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqkGs60mkmM

As you can see, the DLR is about to get crazy this summer. Now compare this to WDW. That's why everyone is so upset about the ticket price there. The Disneyland guests are getting more bang for their buck.

 

[jakeman]

Was this a passholder discount? Last September we got a room at the Yacht Club for 40% off but that was a pin code. I don't think I've seen passholders getting the best discounts in some time. Just curious if I missed seeing a good one which is entirely possible. Once I scored 40% I wasn't really looking all that closely. :wave:

It was. That was the only thing we had going for us last year as we are normally DVC folks but our points are on cool down for an upcoming Hawaii trip. :lol:

Kingdom Konsultants were on top of it for us.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Question on the Premier Pass (California and Florida). It's listed price is $849 on both the Disneyland site (which seems to have tax built into the price) and the Disney World site (which seems to add tax afterwards for MYW tickets, but not AP's). Does the $849 include tax?

Either way, it seems that a regular AP is worth it for Florida if you are planning on two trips using park hopper of 3 days or more or two trips without using park hopper of 7 days or more.

Additionally, if you are going to Disneyland and already have the Regular Disney World AP, it's worth getting the Premier Pass if your Disneyland trip is 3 days or more (assuming park hopper).