Disney Annual Pass Struture and Pricing Change

[IzzyB]

I guess it goes back to what I said when the 1st price jump happened this year. If you wanna raise prices, then go ahead; but don't cut back on your offerings.

The Annual Pass costs more now with less offerings than 2 years when at least DHS had more attractions and DisneyQuest wasn't closing down in a few months.

Disneyland's price hike... I don't even know what the hell.....

Yeah Disneyland price hike, that was just insane!

The top tier of Disney World got screwed the most for sure. But I don't know anyone that had that pass. Nor do I know anyone that likes to go to DisneyQuest. So I can't really speak to how those people feel. But as an Annual Passholder, my price is not increasing and I am trading benefits. The benefits I am getting are better than the ones I had in my opinion. Now we are actually thinking of lowering, but that is more of a factor that with all our family moving down here we no longer go in the summer/Christmas/Spring Break time frames anymore.

The one thing I wish Disney would do is add some sort of Discount at places you eat. Just 10%, to make it a little better pill to swallow. You get a Merch Discount, but how often do annual passholders buy merch? I buy it normally around the holidays and maybe once in a blue moon buy something for my daughter. I think more people would buy food there vs. bring food (I know passholders that bring lunch) if there was a discount of some kind. I think it is a move that in the end could give them more money.

 

[Brian G.]

Yeah Disneyland price hike, that was just insane!

The top tier of Disney World got screwed the most for sure. But I don't know anyone that had that pass. Nor do I know anyone that likes to go to DisneyQuest. So I can't really speak to how those people feel. But as an Annual Passholder, my price is not increasing and I am trading benefits. The benefits I am getting are better than the ones I had in my opinion. Now we are actually thinking of lowering, but that is more of a factor that with all our family moving down here we no longer go in the summer/Christmas/Spring Break time frames anymore.

The one thing I wish Disney would do is add some sort of Discount at places you eat. Just 10%, to make it a little better pill to swallow. You get a Merch Discount, but how often do annual passholders buy merch? I buy it normally around the holidays and maybe once in a blue moon buy something for my daughter. I think more people would buy food there vs. bring food (I know passholders that bring lunch) if there was a discount of some kind. I think it is a move that in the end could give them more money.

The greatest sin was ditching the 50% off for Mini-Golf.

And yes, if you're spending 600-900 dollars for an AP; there is no reason why Disney can't make all (or at least more than they do now) restaurants 10%-15% off.

 

[MrRoamer]

We had the top tier AP 3-4 years ago, and we love DQ.
We had our Christmas vacation at Disney so it made the most sense to go that way especially with the included water parks and DQ. We used it quite a bit, and I feel like we did get our money out of it but even back then there was some shady stuff in there. Yes you get all those added perks but Wide World of Sports you still have to pay for the games and stuff so why list it as a benefit (not a huge sports fan so didn't matter a whole lot). The AP discount could be pretty spotty too. Honestly Disney in general with discounts is pretty spotty and in my opinion a little dirty. At this point, I would not consider getting the top tier pass after losing DQ with nothing to replace the value but spending extra money at the same time.

By the way you can get discounts on restaurants with your AP, all you have to do is take your AP to a guest service window and buy a Tables in Wonderland card, which anyone can get. By the way they are even nice enough to replace your paper Tables in Wonderland card for you if it gets lost or destroyed. You just go to guest services and give them an additional $50 and you get a brand new replacement!

Ranting aside if these prices stay like this for a few years, we may get a gold AP in a year or two.

 

[Nick]

The greatest sin was ditching the 50% off for Mini-Golf.

And yes, if you're spending 600-900 dollars for an AP; there is no reason why Disney can't make all (or at least more than they do now) restaurants 10%-15% off.

Yeah, I don't get ditching the discount. It entices business that they wouldn't get otherwise, especially with restaurants. A TiW card with the Purchase of the Platinum Plus card sounds pretty damn good actually. Would at least separate it from the rest a little bit as far as benefits.

I do remember in the case of Mini-Golf though, it was pretty much a pure greed move where the mini-golf courses are too populated and AP-ers and their 50% were "dragging down" business.

 

[Brian G.]

Yeah, I don't get ditching the discount. It entices business that they wouldn't get otherwise, especially with restaurants. A TiW card with the Purchase of the Platinum Plus card sounds pretty damn good actually. Would at least separate it from the rest a little bit as far as benefits.

I do remember in the case of Mini-Golf though, it was pretty much a pure greed move where the mini-golf courses are too populated and AP-ers and their 50% were "dragging down" business.

That might have been their "reason", but I spent a lot of time mini-golfing those courses where it was pretty empty.

 

[Nick]

That might have been their "reason", but I spent a lot of time mini-golfing those courses where it was pretty empty.

Yeah, I know they can get to be pretty empty. Which just kind of makes it more mind boggling as to why they would get rid of people who will in many cases bring large groups/families. Disney loses out on the majority of that money now.

 

[Brian G.]

Yeah, I know they can get to be pretty empty. Which just kind of makes it more mind boggling as to why they would get rid of people who will in many cases bring large groups/families. Disney loses out on the majority of that money now.

I can honestly say when we have more "Disney" focused trips, we used to do one night of mini-golfing. Now, I've probably done it once since they cut the benefit.

 

[MrRoamer]

We didn't go to the golf courses as often as we would have liked but it always was a good time and a good value.

One thing with TiW you do have to be a little careful using it since it always adds a 20% tip for gratuity, which if you are just buying a beer somewhere it can actually make it more expensive.

 

[Ultranel]

I guess it goes back to what I said when the 1st price jump happened this year. If you wanna raise prices, then go ahead; but don't cut back on your offerings.

The Annual Pass costs more now with less offerings than 2 years when at least DHS had more attractions and DisneyQuest wasn't closing down in a few months.

Disneyland's price hike... I don't even know what the hell.....

Agree! The sad part of all this is.... "monkey see, monkey do". So Uni will raise prices as well, even though unlike Disney, they have reason for it. I just think it's getting out of hand.

 

[Brian G.]

Agree! The sad part of all this is.... "monkey see, monkey do". So Uni will raise prices as well, even though unlike Disney, they have reason for it. I just think it's getting out of hand.

I don't think they will, honestly. Disney PR is taking a bigger hit than usual with this price jump. If I were Universal, I'd wait for the hike until the next "routine" spike.

 

[Ultranel]

I don't think they will, honestly. Disney PR is taking a bigger hit than usual with this price jump. If I were Universal, I'd wait for the hike until the next "routine" spike.

I totally agree with you. Although Screamscape posted today Parking fee at UOR went up to $20. So I hope that's not the appetizer for something coming in the near future.

 

[martymcflyy85]

Price raising twice in one year is where the problem lies for me.

 

[Miketheboss]

So universal makes roughly $27,000 per floor in their parking garage x 2.

 

[deathcab4cutie]

just heard a rumor that Disney is gonna raise ticket prices so much over the next few years so they cut the annul pass holders in half but make the same amount of money or at least that's what their trying to do so this is just the beginning

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

just heard a rumor that Disney is gonna raise ticket prices so much over the next few years so they cut the annul pass holders in half but make the same amount of money or at least that's what their trying to do so this is just the beginning

#BlessingOfSize

 

[deathcab4cutie]

and another rumor just popped up as well that they are gonna put number limit on them as well don't know what it is but now you gonna have a waiting list just to have the ability to buy an annual pass

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

and another rumor just popped up as well that they are gonna put number limit on them as well don't know what it is but now you gonna have a waiting list just to have the ability to buy an annual pass

Link?

 

[IzzyB]

Yeah I don't believe these rumors. They want AP passholders, they just want more during the off season and not making crowds larger when they already have crowd issues. They know APers spend money on dinner and other things. They just want them there when they want them. That is why they did what they did. Most AP holders will drop down to Gold to spend the same money they were before. They have photopass for gold so you trade off 4 weeks for photopass and spend the same money. By adding parking to Silver (which was the seasonal pass) they will get those people to go MORE often during the off season because now they don't have to pay $20 every time they go. If they wanted people to go less all year round they would not have added parking.

I imagine they were not making much money on photos with AP holders, so adding photopass download was not a huge loss for them, but getting those AP holders to stop going their 4 busiest weeks is a huge win for them. And don't say they already didn't go, because I went many times during those 4 weeks in the past. Dinner and Candlelight show during those 2 weeks was something we did a lot. We even did the other parks especially when we had guests in town. Or when my son was alive we didn't care about crowd levels so we went whenever.

 

[deathcab4cutie]

its a jim hill audio thing hes usually pretty on the ball so ya expect to see another increase come feburary although to be truthful its prob gonna be alot worse for disneyland as their pass already cost over 1k for a top tier pass

 

[IzzyB]

Don't price increases normally happen at the beginning of the year? This was two for Disney this year. I wouldn't expect that now increases would happen at the end of the year, so I agree I expect some kind of increase of all their tickets (not just AP) to happen when it normally does.

But some of the passes didn't really increase, but change benefits. So they don't really count this one as an increase. I have no clue what seasonal pass cost before this to know if that one increased or not. I imagine it went up a little, but now they are no longer paying for parking, so in the end that one may even out.

The top tier got screwed the most and they added another tier. The additional one is for people that don't want to trade 4 weeks for photopass. They can have both, but are going to pay for it.

But they are not going to jump up a ton and will be packaged with ticket increases. I don't ever see them limiting the number of passholders or creating a wait list. That sounds just dumb on all accounts.