The benefits of a Disney Parks annual pass are fairly straightforward. No matter the tier you select, you’re guaranteed admission to all available parks on a set number of days throughout the year. If you plan enough visits—either as a local blessed with quick access to the Happiest Place on Earth or an out-of-state Disney fan with the resources to plan multiple vacations in a calendar year—the cost of your pass will be far, far less than the hypothetical cash you would have otherwise shelled out for multi-day park hoppers.
As each year rolls over, bringing with it a plethora of new attractions, special events, and dining options, it becomes easier and easier to justify the decision to renew a pass. But Disney isn’t in the business of saving its guests money, particularly when it comes to their own brand of parsimonious passholders. Case in point: Starting in 2019, Disneyland and Disney California Adventure will no longer be bundled together on the blockout calendar, meaning that there will be several times throughout the year when passholders are only permitted to visit one of the two parks.
So before you cross your t’s and dot your i’s on that Disneyland passholder renewal contract, here are a few key things to consider in the new year…
Annual passes are more expensive than ever before.
Image: Aaron Anderer, Flickr (license)
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to even the newest Disney Park guests. Every year, usually sometime around January or February, Disney announces an incremental price increase on all tickets and passes for the year. In fact, some years they’ve even done it twice.
The bottom line here: Disney knows customers will pay for the product it’s selling, no matter how astronomical the ticket prices may appear at the outset. They have a guaranteed money-maker in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and any decrease they see in returning passholders will only free up room for additional (and significantly more spendthrift) tourists and first-timers. If it seems like a shameless money grab… well, it is.
Of course, it’s one thing to anticipate the annual sticker shock and quite another to prepare to absorb it. The Southern California Select Passport is still the cheapest option by far, as it saw only a $30 increase from $369 per adult in 2018 to $399 per adult in 2019. For those living outside the nearest bracket of SoCal zip codes, however, the prices became exponentially higher. The next-cheapest option is the Deluxe Passport, which clocks in at $799 per adult after a $70 price hike this year. Those with no shortage of disposable income might spring for one of the three passes with the fewest blockout dates (an important perk given the newly-implemented restrictions): the Signature Passport ($1,149 per adult, up from $999), Signature Plus Passport ($1,399 per adult, up from $1,149), or bicoastal Premier Passport ($1,949 per adult, up from $1,579).
Factoring out the cost of an annual pass isn’t something that should be taken lightly; at least, not if you’re looking to cut corners on your next family vacation. Even solo travelers will need to spend a substantial amount of time in the parks in order to maximize the value of their passes, and that’s not accounting for the fact that out-of-state passholders are currently not permitted to make payments in more manageable monthly installations.
Diehard Star Wars fans will get left out in the cold.
Image: Disney
Once you’ve figured out whether or not a pass makes financial sense for you in the new year, the next thing to consider is how you spend your time at the parks. As we mentioned earlier, 2019 will usher in a new era at the Disneyland Resort, one in which passholders are no longer guaranteed park-hopping privileges on every day that their passes are activated.
What that means, basically, is that all SoCal passholders will be unable to use their passes to access Disneyland—and, by extension, Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge—during the months of June, July, and August. Deluxe passholders will be blocked out entirely during the month of July and limited to about a two-week stretch in both June and August, while neither tier of Signature passholders will feel any effects from summer blockout dates. So, if you have your heart set on exploring the newest corner of Disneyland Park this summer, prepare to not only shell out the cost of an annual pass, but the several hundred dollars it’ll cost to get a multi-day pass in June or July, too.
This is undoubtedly a disappointing change for anyone hoping to slurp down some blue milk at Oga’s Cantina or test-drive the Millennium Falcon, but it would also be disingenuous to paint it as a purely selfish move on Disney’s part. Yes, that Venn Diagrammed-subset of Disneyland passholders and Star Wars aficionados will be forced to purchase daily admission at peak prices along with the rest of the Star Wars-loving public, but chances are, many will also be put off by the extra costs. This, in turn, should help thin out what Disney expects to be an unprecedented number of park guests once Black Spire Outpost officially opens for business, and hopefully, keep guests just a little saner and happier in the process.
Non-Star Wars fans may benefit from the hype around Star War: Galaxy’s Edge.
Image: Patrick Pelletier, Flickr (license)
On the flip side, the addition of Galaxy’s Edge promises to be a boon for those who don’t count themselves among the space opera-obsessed (or those who have enough patience to wait until the crowds become more manageable, assuming they ever do). There is, after all, a pretty clear benefit to splitting up blockout dates by park. Disneyland will remain shut to many passholders during the summer of 2019, but Disney California Adventure will be wide open… with more available dates than ever before.
SoCal passholders will be limited to just three days of DCA access in June and eight in August, while July remains completely off-limits for either park. For Deluxe passholders, however, the deal is a little sweeter. They’ll have full and unlimited access to Disneyland’s sister park for the entire stretch of June, July, and August (with the exception of Saturday, August 31), without any of the Saturday summer blockouts that normally go hand-in-hand with that passholder subscription level.
Over the past two decades, Disney California Adventure has generally been the less-popular of the two parks, but the recent re-theming of Paradise Pier and a full slate of upcoming attractions should keep visitors plenty busy this year. Although ‘Marvel Land’ is still a year away from its anticipated debut, Pixar Pier is slated to get two more attractions sometime in 2019: the Incredicoaster-adjacent Jessie’s Critter Carousel and the Inside Out Emotional Whirlwind, the latter of which has come under mild scrutiny as an underwhelming, albeit colorful redesign of the now-shuttered Flik’s Flyers.
Just as Disney’s decision to block out passholder access to Disneyland wasn’t a purely selfish move, their decision to open up DCA isn’t entirely selfless. There’s no doubt the company will be raking in boatloads—er, freighters full of cash once Galaxy’s Edge premieres, but that doesn’t necessarily signal subsequent revenue losses in non-Star Wars sectors of their parks. On the contrary: While most tourists will likely flock to the Falcon this summer, Disney California Adventure should see a healthy spike in attendance from seasonal guests and passholders alike, enabling Disney to turn a profit at every opportunity.
Disney may roll back—or eliminate—annual pass tiers in future years.
Image: Loren Javier, Flickr (license)
Look, the fear of losing an annual pass should never be the motivating factor behind your next AP purchase or renewal. It is worth noting, though, that Disney has started experimenting with alternatives to the standard park hopper access normally afforded its passholders. That, coupled with rising prices across the board, may have more significant ramifications for the current AP system in the years to come.
It’s no secret, for example, that Disney has previously and periodically revoked access to Southern California Select passes for new passholders, in what appears to be a transparent effort to drive more people to the parks (especially those visitors who, unlike locals, are more inclined to stay late, book expensive dining reservations, and splurge on concessions and souvenirs). So far, there’s nothing to suggest that Disney won’t pull the same stunt again in the future, either.
That said, purchasing an annual pass doesn’t grant you immunity from future changes to the system. If Disney decides to pare down their AP tiers in the future, they’re far more likely to excise the Deluxe pass, their most affordable out-of-state option, rather than eliminating either of the top-tier Signature passes. Even if they were to keep the current system intact, the annual or biannual price increases may soon become so outrageous that they no longer make sound financial sense for most guests.
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So, should you purchase or renew your Disneyland annual pass in 2019? Unfortunately, we can’t answer that question for you, but rather encourage you to take a look at the fine print and weigh its implications against your current budget and upcoming travel plans.
If you’re a devoted Han Solo cosplayer with “Visit Batuu” scrawled in Aurebesh on your theme park bucket list… maybe a Southern California Select pass isn’t written in the stars for you this year. If, on the other hand, your only goal is to go where the crowds aren’t (or are less)—perhaps by relaxing at Lamplight Lounge and taking in the scenic sprawl of Pixar Pier over lobster nachos and a swirling, frothy Infinity Fizz—a Deluxe pass should continue to fit your style just fine.
