Disney Raises Ticket Prices

[jeffrey]

Taking a trip to the Magical Kingdom got a bit more expensive - for the second time this year. Walt Disney World is raising their ticket prices to $67 for a basic one-day, one-park admission beginning this Sunday. This follows an increase In January from $59.75 to $63. That makes for a 11% increase this year and a 22% increase in ticket prices since 2004.




Disney is saying the prices are being raised so that they can be included in 2007 Walt Disney travel guides and brochures which are currently being written and produced.

The most likely result of this action is an increase in ticket prices at other theme parks in the coming weeks. The January price increase by Disney was quickly followed by ticket price increases by SeaWorld and Universal Studios in the Orlando area.

[Ima saver]

That is awful. Last time I went it cost about $12 to get in. I had a friend take her kids to a water park, the cost was $35 per person to get in. How can a family afford this? You guys can come over to my creek for free!

[kealina]

that is terrible... i remember going when i was a kid (first we lived there and then we visited for summer vacations) and if you lived in california (my older sister did) you could get an annual pass for $99... sheesh... pretty soon that is what it will cost to get in for one day... what a bummer.... i loved going to disney when i was a kid and wanted to go back for a stay but didn't realize it was getting so expensive... i always rather thought their food was overpriced but not the admission... does anybody remember what it cost in the early 90's??
that's when my parents would have taken me....

[Elgin526]

Is Disney too expensive? Maybe. But you go to a Six Flags, you'll pay almost as much for a heck of a lot less (dirty parks, rude employee's, horible food).

Also, keep in mind that it's a rare person that only goes to Walt Disney World for a single day. Most people who go, go for several days. A multi day pass is a much better value when you divide it into a per-day cost.

Take a look at the cost of concert tickets and sporting events, then compare them to theme park admision. With a concert or sporting event, you're entertained for just a few hours. At least with a theme park you get to stay the whole day if you want.

And a big reason why ticket prices at all theme parks have gone up over the years is that their liability insurance rates have gone up, big time. Everytime someone sues a theme park (rightly or wrongly) for an injury, they take a hit in insurance premiums. Plus, you've got to figure that any theme park located in FL has huricane insurance, and those rates have skyrocketed in the last few years, too.

[marjorie]

The Six Flags park near us is closing early this year, due to financial difficulties with the parent company.

[Jewelsmom]

Just ONE MORE REASON NOT TO GO to Disney. Money grubby lot they are!

My DH and I took our three teen girls this past Christmas. We've never been before.
What a huge mistake. So crowded the "fast passes" came with a 4-hour wait. It was so crammed with people you couldn't even walk. Parking was practically in another state, people shoving to get on the trams, irritable employees, cranky kids in strollers that overtook sidewalks, long-LONG lines, unstocked restrooms, overpriced food, way too commercialized . . . you get the picture.

What I absolutely hated the most was the artful and deceiving way Disney snaked the lines around walls and rooms. You think you are getting to the front of the line after standing for hours, and suddenly you turn a corning to find you are at the END of another long snaking line through yet another room. All for a ride that lasts a matter of minutes.

We will NEVER EVER do that again.

[pearlieq]

I've got to say, I'm a huge Disney fan, and even I think their one day ticket prices are outrageous. If buying one day passes were my only option, I simply wouldn't go.

Luckily, the cost can be made a lot better! DH and I travel there frequenly, so we buy 10-day non expiring passes from an online ticket broker. That cuts our cost in half--down to roughly $34 a day. Much easier to swallow!

At that price, I find WDW to be a tremendous value! Where else can you get a day of world-class entertainment for $34? We travel to Vegas frequenly, and even with coupons we wind up spending close to that for just one attraction that lasts an hour at best.

I feel so sorry for people who just show up at the parks at 10am on a Saturday during Christmas week. You might as well flush your money down the toilet! However, with a little advance research and planning, you can learn to choose the less busy times and learn to navigate around the crowds.

[Elgin526]

Originally Posted by Jewelsmom

Just ONE MORE REASON NOT TO GO to Disney. Money grubby lot they are!

My DH and I took our three teen girls this past Christmas. We've never been before.
What a huge mistake. So crowded the "fast passes" came with a 4-hour wait. It was so crammed with people you couldn't even walk. Parking was practically in another state, people shoving to get on the trams, irritable employees, cranky kids in strollers that overtook sidewalks, long-LONG lines, unstocked restrooms, overpriced food, way too commercialized . . . you get the picture.

What I absolutely hated the most was the artful and deceiving way Disney snaked the lines around walls and rooms. You think you are getting to the front of the line after standing for hours, and suddenly you turn a corning to find you are at the END of another long snaking line through yet another room. All for a ride that lasts a matter of minutes.

We will NEVER EVER do that again.

Well, Christmas (I assume you mean the week of Christmas) is the most busy time of the whole year to go to Disney, often the parks (espcially Magic Kingdom) are so crowded that the actually close to new admitence (sp?) in the early afternoon. And high crowds mean long lines for everything. There are much less crowded times to go, notably between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, and then after T-day until the week before Christmas break. January until mid-February are also lower crowd times to go. Then end of August (right before but not including Labor Day) can also be lower attendance, but it's HOT!

As with any other destination, you should always read a few good guide books and do plenty of research to get the most out of your vacation. For Disney, I recomend "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World". It gives you stratagies to beat the crowds, including detailed park itinearies, telling you what rides to do in what order to wait in line the least amount of time, often less than 20 minutes. And these park stratgies are developed with peak crowd conditions (like those at Christmas) in mind. It gives a ton of other money and time saving info as well.

I'm sorry you didn't have a better time, hopefully you'll be willing to give it another try someday, at a less crowded season.

[miclason]

I love WDW...used to go there with ex-hubby anytime we couldn't get into our desired flights (he worked for an airline, we traveled space-available, which meant A LOT of missed flights!) we would just rent a car (no way to fly to Orlando on space available passes!) and spend 2 or 3 days there...stayed in Kissimmee instead of in Orlando (saved a ton and was just as close -- if not closer!)...food is expensive, but we used to split them (portions seemed big for us anyway, so it made sense)...we only had lunch at the parks and, used to have breakfast (cold cereal) and dinner (sandwiches) at the place where we stayed, with stuff bought from the supermarket.

[Tree0164]

I just booked my June 2007 trip to Disney this week! I haven't been there in years and it will be dh and the kids first time. We are staying on property at one of the value suites, ticket and airfare and dinning plan are costing us $5,000.

It has been something that we have been saving up for.

There are good places to find money saving tips for disney at

www.mousesavers.com

www.disboards.com

[gotalkmoney]

Amusement park prices are getting crazy. I'm not sure if any of you guys are familiar iwth Cedar Point in Ohio but they lowered their ticket price this season. They always seem pretty busy and I don't think they've been in any financial troubles like six flags.

[rob62521]

I had a conference in Orlando last February and it was in the Disney resort. Besides the costly ticket prices, the meal prices were outrageous. I wondered how some of the families could afford staying there, tickets to the parks, and meals. Unless you drove or rented a car, getting off the Disney campus was super expensive if you took a taxi.

[LuckyRobin]

We've been to Disneyland about 7 times I think in the last 11 years. I would never dream of going during anytime that kids are out of school. This includes spring break, summer break, the entire Christmas holiday, Thanksgiving 5 day weekend. Never, ever even think about going there on New Year's Eve. You may as well just shoot yourself in the head as go then.

The absolute best time to go is January 2 or 3 and stay for a week. If you go then you get to see all the Christmas decorations without any of the Christmas crowds. You get to see the Christmas parade, too. We try to time it so our first day there is a Sunday so that our last day will be Saturday and we will get to see the regular parade, also. At this time of year we have been able to simply walk onto rides like Indiana Jones or Splash Mountain. We spend more time walking the line than we do waiting in it. It tends to rain a lot that week so we always bring rain gear. Rain thins the little crowds there might be.

The next best time to go is February and then after that last two weeks of March, or October. We've gone in May once but the lines were around 30 minutes to an hour then. We'll stick with fall and winter. We get more than our money's worth.

At least at Disneyland there are a myriad of restaurants just outside the main gates. Reasonably priced ones like Ihop's, McDonalds, Captain Kid's, and my all time favorite, Millie's (which is down home American food, huge portions that can be easily divided into more than one meal). You can google for a list of restaurants around Disneyland and alot of them have websites with menus posted so you can see prices. We always get a suite so we can have a fridge and microwave so we can eat leftovers in the room when we come back for a mid-day rest.

Not all Disney food is too badly priced. If you look at Mouseplanet you can get to the menus, I believe from restaurant reviews, and they list prices so you can plan to go to the less expensive ones if you want to eat in the park. We found the River Belle Terrace and the French Market to not be badly priced and the Bengal Barbecue is well priced but I'm not sure they are keeping that one. You can get a great chili in a breadbowl from the Golden Horseshoe that is really filling and not badly priced. Everything on mainstreet is ridiculously priced though.

We bought Mickey Mouse water bottles the first day on our first trip and they have let us take them back into the park for years, since you can get cheaper soda refills with them at certain restauraunts. They originally came with coke but we just refilled them with water. Having water keeps us from buying the $3 or $4 cokes which is where they really get you. Most of the restaurants would fill our water bottles from their filtered water taps when we explained about the prediabetes Rose has and how we don't like to drink soda in front of her because it makes it hard for her. They were very gracious. If nothing else, there are water fountains to fill them from.

If you really plan well for it, you can beat the costs. But that means more than a one day visit with a ridiculously priced ticket.

[tamip]

I love, love, love Disneyland! I know, it's very expensive, but if you can make it there at less crowded times, as explained in the previous post, I think it's totally worth it.

~Tami