An Analysis of Disney Theme Park Ticket Prices

when it comes to the history of the disney parks we've covered virtually every aspect imaginable from defunct animatronics abandoned attractions unbuilt expansions and even past restaurants but one thing we haven't covered is the evolution of the disney theme park ticket system and over the years the drastic changes in pricing so get ready for a different kind of episode with a ton of numbers inflation percentages and the feeling of astonishment to the corporate greed and price gouging of disney but all in good fun of course [Music] [Music] the story begins as you might expect in july of 1955 with the grand opening of disneyland you see when the happiest place on earth first opened entry into the park and experiencing its attractions required separate ticket purchases first was the admission ticket which cost a reasonable 1 or just over ten dollars today although an exception to this were the very first children to enter disneyland at least on opening day christine vest and michael schwarter these lucky rascals were given free lifetime passes to the brand new theme park but their parents presumably were not another free lifetime pass was given to dave mcpherson who had technically purchased the very first public admission ticket although he received far less publicity anyway once inside the park visitors then had to purchase tickets for the individual attractions and rides ranging from 25 cents to 75 cents or just over two to seven dollars today now initially the only way to get these tickets were by way of ticket booths all throughout the park the kind you'd see at a local carnival in general there was one central booth in each land which sold tickets for all the attractions within said land although some attractions like the jungle cruise had their own ticket booth and others like it with higher capacity fantasyland was a bit of a hybrid as its high number of attractions within such a small area meant traffic congestion was inevitable this is why in addition to the multiple central booths every single attraction no matter its popularity had its own ticket booth which was done to disperse crowds a bit more evenly across the land walt you've made a bum out of barnum today but we've got to go i know but i just want to say a word of thanks to all the artists the workers and everybody that helped make this dream come true let's go into fantasyland and have some fun goodbye folks now it wasn't long after disneyland made its grand debut that the initial ticket system was given a major overhaul the person responsible for this was public relations director ed inninger as he came to the realization that the system in place was a bit of a hassle for visitors for instance let's say you wanted to ride mr toad the pack mules and rocket to the moon well have fun spending your precious time in three separate ticket booths across each of the three lands and that's not even counting having to wait for the rides themselves so three months after the park opened ticket books were introduced which were technically a coupon books with these visitors gained admission into the park along with coupons for eight separate experiences which were initially divided into a b and c ticket attractions with d-ticket attractions arriving the next year and what was the price for this day at disneyland package two dollars and fifty cents for adults two dollars for juniors ages 12 to 17 and a dollar fifty for children ages three to eleven or with inflation just over twenty five dollars for adults twenty dollars for juniors and fifteen dollars for children and just for the sake of transparency my source for these inflation prices is the consumer price index by way of the u.s bureau of labor statistics and shows the date september of 2021 just to keep it all consistent so if you're watching this a month from now six months from now or even a year just keep that in mind anyway the next major evolution to the parks ticket system came in 1959 with the introduction of the e-ticket attraction on the gala celebration of the completion of the project the richard nixon family were on hand to snip the ribbon here we were with harmana rail the forerunner of rapid transit of the future all checked out and ready to go but somebody forgot to check out the city you see it's no secret that during its creation disneyland suffered from numerous budget constraints and forced walt disney to make quite a few compromises so once the park turned out to be a massive success he wasted no time in developing new and even better experiences many of which became part of disneyland's first major expansion in 1959 there was the matterhorn submarine voyage and of course the monorail and with these more thrilling attractions it seemed fitting to add a new category or letter to the ticket system the e-ticket although to be fair a few less than thrilling attractions were grandfathered into this category such as the pack mules mark twain riverboat and the disneyland railroad however despite the new attractions and expansion coming with the hefty price tag of 6 million dollars or just over 55 million dollars today ticket prices remained incredibly modest oh and you want to guess how much parking cost just 25 cents or a bank breaking 2.36 cents today now by and large the ticket system itself remained mostly unchanged throughout the 1960s as far as the pricing despite millions upon millions of dollars being invested into new attractions and ride updates from 1960 to 1970 the price of a 10 ticket attraction book only rose by 32 although parking was raised from 25 cents to the outrageous price of 50 cents but when the ticket system did finally have its first drastic change in almost a decade it was actually for an entirely new theme park [Music] on october 1st 1971 the magic kingdom opened for business and with it came a rather convoluted alteration to the ticket system you see upon arriving to the magic kingdom's ticketing center after having already paid 50 cents for parking visitors then had to purchase a separate ticket to get to the magic kingdom this was due to the separation between the ticketing center and the park itself so transportation was offered and required via ferry boat or monorail once a cross bay lake and at the park's entrance he then had to make another purchase to get into the magic kingdom but disney counted on this being a major hassle and conveniently offered the adventure ticket book which included transportation park admission as well as coupons for attractions and rides that said the prices for these adventure books were still incredibly reasonable with the day at the magic kingdom costing around four to six dollars or 30 to 40 dollars today now before going forward i need to briefly mention what at first might seem unrelated to all this and that was the magic kingdom club oddly enough the magic kingdom club did not begin with the magic kingdom it was disneyland in 1957 and was essentially a discount program you see major businesses and companies would give disney free publicity and in exchange they were able to offer their employees free membership into the program which served as an incentive to join said company members would then receive discounts on transportation to both the california disney park and florida park and eventually parks as well as most of disney's hotels and resorts it also offered free park admission but members still had to pay for ticket books in the form of specially discounted magic keybooks however there's a more specific reason i bring up the magic kingdom club as in 1977 they were a test group of sorts for an experimental brand new ticket system you're a very special part of our family we don't want you to miss out on any of the special activities and events planned for the family reunion year presentation of your membership card at disneyland's main entrance by any member of your family will enable you to purchase special value magic kingdom club tickets during the summer time and fall winter and spring as well you see the idea was to scrap separate admission tickets and attraction coupons altogether and instead provide all-inclusive passports of course this also meant getting rid of the a3e attraction classes so going forward each experience would be seen as equal in the eyes of the mouse but while these particular passports were initially exclusive to the magic kingdom club beginning in 1981 they were offered year round to the public as well beginning with disneyland for a single day it was 10 25 for adults nine dollars for juniors and eight dollars and fifty cents for children even adjusting for inflation these prices are still shockingly affordable oh yeah and parking was now a staggering one to two dollars depending on the season or three to five dollars today when it came to disney world's implementation of the all-inclusive passport it wasn't until the opening of epcot that it was fully embraced i say that because they also began offering new attraction books alongside the passports but these contained coupons that worked for any rider show regardless of the a3e designation however within a year or so these coupon books were abandoned and passports became the primary ticket system across all parks that said a single day passport for epcot or the magic kingdom was 13 for adults 12 for juniors and 11 for children today they'd be just under 40 for adults thirty six dollars for juniors and thirty three dollars for children as far as the multi-day passport well this is when things start to get incredibly tedious as disney also introduced two three four and six day options as well as world passports aka park hoppers so to keep things simple-ish we'll be focusing on adult single-day ticket pricing from here on out but as you can see even a top-tier 6-day world passport cost a reasonable 60 or 167 today although keep in mind disney world only had two parks at this point but still that's pretty insane whenever there's a fast breaking news story in the magic kingdom you'll find journalists of real character trump everything to get the news out especially when it's good news today's good news the unlimited use passport is here year round with the implementation of the disney passport came a new sense of freedom for visitors and also alleviated families of the often confusing and convoluted a3 attraction system another bonus was the newfound ability for park goers to experience an attraction as many times as they wanted as without having to worry about individual tickets their ride choices were allowed to be far more spontaneous because let's face it having to pay to ride your favorite attractions is a bit ridiculous but hey at least it's all in the past as disney would have to be crazy to revive such an incredibly outdated business model i mean can you imagine the outrage it would cause oh now in a way this is really when the for lack of a better word corporate greed and money grubbing of the disney parks became far more aggressive a specific and rather blatant example was in 1984 as they essentially threw the median price junior ticket category out the window and then adjusted the age range for the child ticket from 3 to 11 to 3 to 12. this meant that if a child was 13 years or older congratulations your kid was now seen as a full-priced adult in the eyes of disney and a way to get a little more money from your wallets but not all these ticketing changes are bad such as the official debut of the annual passport for walt disney world in 1983. these year-long passports without any blockout dates could be purchased for a hundred dollars or 269 today disneyland's annual passports came out the next year at the cost of a very reasonable 85 for adults or about 228 today but the real price gouging of the disney parks began with a certain someone circa 1984 and i'll give you one guess as to who [Music] hello i'm michael eisner and welcome to the disney sunday movie now much like the upcoming two-part series how michael eisner saved and then almost completely destroyed the disney parks his presence was bittersweet when it came to theme park tickets you see alongside frank wells he was the primary driving force behind a slew of innovative experiences such as star tours captain eo and eventually the indiana jones adventure this increased park attendance tremendously and at a time when disneyland was seen as only for kids and families gave it the edge and cool factor it desperately needed but with this revitalization came a pretty staggering jump in ticket pricing you see from the implementation of the passport system to 1985 there was a modest 46 increase in pricing however from 1985 to 1990 there was a whopping 83 increase with the day at disneyland going from an even 15 to costing 27.50 or 56 dollars today heck parking alone jumped the same amount in five years as it did in the almost 30 years prior walt disney world saw a similar spike in pricing with a hefty increase of 72 or 134 from the debut of the day passports in 1982. as far as the year-long annual passports from 1985 to 1990 disney worlds increased by 33 which obviously wasn't all that drastic disneyland on the other hand rose by a staggering 112 percent from 85 in 1985 to nearly 180 by 1990 or 221 dollars to almost 400 today to add insult to injury disney also adjusted the cutoff range for the child ticket as it went from three to twelve to three to ten which i'm sorry but categorizing an 11 year old as an adult simply to charge more further entry is pretty absurd we can charge anything we want two thousand a day ten thousand a day and people will pay it now just to play devil's advocate before i come across as too cynical the price increases weren't without justification after all disney was creating experiences far more advanced and expensive to produce than anything they'd ever done in the past 1989 also saw the addition of disney mgm studios so the major hikes and prices were for the most part understandable anyway when it came to non-pricing changes to the disney theme park ticket system the 90s saw quite a few one of them was in 1992 in which ticket stamping and processing was done by turnstiles instead of cast members which granted isn't the most exciting but i'm trying to be thorough here the next major change was the result of a problem disney had been trying to solve for literal decades at all their parks ticket scalpers hey hey are you selling oh yeah i'm selling you see the resale market for tickets was growing into quite the source of frustration for the company it screwed up maintaining a proper maximum capacity getting accurate guest attendance numbers keeping track of who was using the tickets or even in the disney parks etc so in 1994 they began requiring photographs to be taken of each and every visitor which was then assigned and printed on each ticket also notice the not so subtle resale of this ticket as a crime warning this was actually met with a bit of resistance as some people weren't all too happy with disney keeping a visual record of each and every guest but let's be honest they were already doing that with on-ride photos and attractions like splash mountain however two years later this identification system was abandoned in favor of an automated ticketing system by way of a magnetic strip disney was able to store and track guest information and the number of days used on a ticket via computer to the company's relief this once and for all put an end to the troublesome disney ticket sale black market we bought the five day super duper pass ticket because we could use this any time in our lifetime now to be honest that pretty much does it for the evolution of the ticket system itself but we still have quite a bit more to cover when it comes to the insane price changes so get ready for a lot of numbers and bar graphs as far as disneyland compared to the massive price increase of the mid 80s 1990 to the year 2000 was surprisingly modest at just 22 with each five-year period as far as walt disney world despite the opening of disney's fourth florida theme park with animal kingdom the price increases were also pretty minimal when it came to the annual passports aside from giving the designs of the cards a bit more personality disneyland's premium annual pass rose by just 11 percent and after raising the price to 199 that's where it stayed for nearly a decade but and this is a big but that's due to the implementation of tiered passes which introduced among other things the oh so lovely blackout dates now as far as walt disney world's annual passports they also began offering tiered pricing however their premium passes also included pleasure island river country and the water parks oh and oddly specific annual passes like the epcot after 4 pm option so we'll just focus on disney world's standard no blockout dates annual pass to the main parks which had a pretty hefty increase from 1990 to the year 2000 but think about that in the year 2000 you could still get a premium disneyland annual passport for 1.99 or just over 300 today and access to the four florida disney theme parks all year round for 269 or just over 400 today but now we get to the true corporate greed and soul-crushing price increases which really began with disney's california adventure welcome to the disneyland resort southern california's newest and biggest vacation destination in this disneyland resort video guide we'll take you through all the magic and excitement the resort has to offer you see the opening of disney's california adventure along with downtown disney and the nearby hotels solidified disneyland as a true resort destination but as most of you already know the new theme park really struggled in the beginning and at its worst was only able to maintain 30 to 45 percent of its maximum visitor capacity there were also the ramifications of 911 on tourism in general the cost-cutting practices of disneyland president paul pressler the downfall of michael eisner so yeah the early 2000s was quite the dark spot in the disney timeline but then you have the let's call it early bob iger era who after becoming disney's ceo in 2005 made getting the parks back on the right track a top priority part of this of course was the 1.1 billion expansion and transformation of the floundering california adventure he also repaired the infamously troubled disney pixar relationship and played a part of the reimagining and reopening of submarine voyage as well as the development of cars land just to name a few examples so with all that being said in beginning with disneyland signal day tickets it's interesting to see how the two halves of the decades back up as the early eiger era saw price jumps that harken back to the early michael eisner era walt disney world saw a similar pattern and within the 10 years between 2000 and 2010 ticket prices rose by a tad less than disneyland's when it came to the annual passes walt disney world had a minor difference in pricing between the two halves of the decade with the higher increase of course being in the latter eiger era disneyland on the other hand rose by a massive 75 percent than a substantial 32 percent or 440 total from its initial debut so to put that all into perspective in 2010 disneyland's premium annual passes were still just 459 or 574 dollars today and disney world's annual passes were just 4.99 or 624 today as far as single day tickets disneyland was 76 or 95 dollars today and disney world's was 82 or 102 today okay i would imagine you're just as mentally exhausted as i am so instead of recapping the years 2010 to the present let's just cut to the chase of the final decade of price increases but just keep in mind that beginning in 2017 for single day tickets disney also began using a tiered system so we'll be basing this off the highest price due to this new price structure in just a decade disneyland ticket sales increased by 30 percent and then a staggering 56 percent or 1 402 from the introduction of the day passports and was also the highest 10-year price increase within the original park's entire history but the california park wasn't alone as the florida park's price increases were also quite shocking and unsurprisingly the largest jump in ticket pricing in walt disney world's entire history and one thousand one hundred one percent total last but not least we have the annual passes in which disneyland's premium annual passports increased by mines melting 129 percent and then another hefty price jump of 43 with an increase of 1664 total since 1984. disney world's annual passport saw a pretty modest increase of 31 percent but then a whopping 83 percent increase or 1095 total since their original debut now as tempting as it is to dive into the upcoming disney ticket price changes with my luck they'll change by the time i finally get this video out so i think that just about does it for now and for those that have stuck around this long i hope you enjoyed the episode and that your brain doesn't hurt too much [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Yesterworld Entertainment

Views: 288,526

Keywords: Yesterworld, Yesterworld: The History of Disney’s Theme Park Ticket System & Price Changes, Disney theme park tickets, disney theme park history, disney fastpass history, disneyland ticket price changes, disney world ticket price changes, walt disney world ticket changes, disney ticket prices history, disney history price changes, disney tickets, disney price changes, walt disney world ticket prices history, defunctland fast pass campanion, defunctland fastpass campanion piece

Id: VlQhebXqNXM

Length: 22min 12sec (1332 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 15 2021