As a Disney evangelist, I frequently get friends hooked on theme park vacations. I’m like the pusher who sells happiness like a drug. And a Walt Disney World vacation costs about as much as illicit drugs, so the metaphor holds!
One of the questions that I get asked the most is what kind of ticket a vacationer should buy. Potential park visitors hear about the benefits of annual passes and wonder whether they’re worthwhile. Sometimes, standard admission is fine, though. Which is better? Let’s have a Disney debate about the pros and cons of each kind of ticket.
Standard admission tickets
You need a ticket to enter a Disney theme park. Whether you’re heading to Disneyland or Walt Disney World, you can’t get in without one. In the earliest days at the Happiest Place on Earth, standard admission didn’t entitle guests to ride everything, which is how the E-ticket came to be. Thankfully, for decades now, a regular ticket allows a person to ride anything at the park that day.
Pros
The simplest reason to buy a standard admission ticket is that they’re cheaper. A day at a Disney theme park starts around $100 and can cost more, depending on when you visit and whether you add an upgrade.
In terms of value, Disney tickets are hard to beat in the entire industry. The parks are the gold standard, and the prices have remained relatively steady over time. Yes, Disney increases rates annually, and yes, these costs have escalated percentage-wise in recent years.
Still, a park like Magic Kingdom operates roughly 40 attractions. That’s about $2.50 each for a ticket, although only the most diehard fans could experience most of them during a single trip.
Another pro is flexibility, as Disney sells several kinds of admission tickets. You can decide which option fits your lifestyle and budget the best. Standard admission tickets work on a sliding scale.
The first 2-3 days cost quite a bit, but the daily price flattens over time. It’s an intentional strategy by Disney to price you into vacationing longer. Six days at a total cost of ~$425 seems like a much better value for tickets than three days at $300, right? And it is.
However, you’ll spend a lot more money on food and beverages and merchandise, thereby counteracting your savings. Cheaper tickets are a kind of loss leader for Disney.
Cons
One of the most recent changes to standard admission tickets qualifies as the most significant con. Disney introduced surge pricing a few years ago in an attempt to standardize attendance. The goal here is to increase park traffic on slow times on the crowd calendar while reducing them on the most popular days of the year.
Due to surge pricing, odds are good that you’ll pay more for park admission than you would have five years ago. And I mean an amount beyond standard ticket price inflation.
Certain park periods receive larger crowds since guests have an easier time attending on those days. For example, most government holidays lead to heavy foot traffic at Disney parks. With so many travelers having the day(s) off, crowds swell. Surge pricing punishes guests for attending on those days by charging more admission.
The other important con of a standard admission ticket is that it’s disposable. Once you use all of your park days, your ticket does you no good. For multi-day tickets, you’ll have an expiration window 14 days after the first use, which means that the clock is always ticking. Once you’ve used your allotment, your vacation is over. Then, you must start again with new admission tickets for your next trip.
Also, I’m going to list Park Hopper as a con for one simple reason. Disney really ought to include it as part of the standard admission package at this point. When you buy tickets to Disneyland Resort, they should work at either park, and the same is true for Walt Disney World. Charging more money each day to visit multiple parks irks me, especially in the wake of so many recent ticket price increases. Do the right thing, Disney. It’ll buy you some much-needed positive PR.
Annual passes
With regular admission tickets, you purchase a small number of days that you can access a Disney theme park. I describe the annual pass as buying in bulk. You get 365 admission tickets this way, although I don’t know anyone who has visited a park for 365 consecutive days. Unfortunately, life gets in the way. Even so, the idea of visiting Disney whenever you want throughout a calendar year is quite appealing.
Pros
The most significant advantage for an annual pass is what I just said. You have the run of Disney for an entire year. You pay for 365 days of admission all at once, which works out to less than $3 per day. As I just said, you won’t use all of it, of course. So, let’s presume that you visit Disney once a week. You’re effectively paying $20 per day of admission, a much better value.
Also, the best annual passes, the Platinum ones, negate surge pricing. You can visit the parks on any day, even Christmas and July 4th, the most crowded single dates each year. Disney welcomes you anytime, day or night at any park at the resort where you purchase. You can enter, exit, and re-enter as needed. It’s marvelous. And there’s also an annual pass that’s good for all North American Disney parks!
The other advantages of the annual pass are, perhaps counterintuitively, financial in nature. With your pass, you’ll receive passholder benefits. The ones that you’ll use the most provide discounts at certain restaurants and stores around Disney campuses.
Most of the discounts are for a modest 10 or 20 percent. However, you’ll find that you can maximize the value by doing a bit of research. Disney also offers discounts of this nature for some of its tours and non-park attractions. All annual passholders know to mention that they have one to a cast member. The Disney employee will know whether passholders qualify for a discount, and the answer is often yes.
The other massive passholder benefit involves parking. Disney charges a fortune to park at the various gates. As a passholder, you receive free parking, a savings of up to $45 per visit, no joke. Of course, this advantage only applies when you drive to the parks, a subsection of theme park tourists that has grown smaller in the ride-sharing era.
Cons
Let me be blunt. The annual pass isn’t for most theme park tourists. It only makes sense when you plan to visit the parks multiple times in a single 365-day period. In other words, annual passes are primarily for locals in Florida and California. However, exceptions exist.
I live several hundred miles away from Walt Disney World, yet I own a Platinum Pass. As a Disney Vacation Club member, I’m entitled to a hotel room at a Deluxe Tier resort each visit. And that plays an essential factor in my decision.
This program incentivizes me to vacation at Walt Disney World more, and so an annual pass makes sense for me…sometimes. When my family visits three times in a year, we get a yearly pass. When we’re only visiting once, we buy regular admission tickets.
I would estimate that 14 days is the magic number. When you’re spending less than two weeks at Disney, which describes the overwhelming majority of out-of-state travelers, an annual pass makes little sense.
If you attend the parks more than that, the price is similar for regular admission vs. an annual pass, especially once we factor in meal and merchandise discounts. Ergo, I view annual passes as something to consider only when you plan to visit Disney at least twice in the same year. And you’ll need to spend a full week there each time.
Most people would never do that, but there are some folks like me out there who may need an annual pass. We’re spending at least 21 days at Walt Disney World in eight months. Buying individual admission each time would be crazy for us. Only you can decide which kind of ticket best fits your needs, though. Grab a calendar and a calculator and figure it out!
