4 Ways To Skirt Disney’s Latest Theme Park Ticket Price Hikes

16.10.2023 - 21:31 / forbes.com / Robert Niles

It’s that time of year again for Disney theme park fans. Last week, the company announced that it is raising some prices at both Disney World Resort in Orlando and Disneyland Resort in Anaheim.

Park-goers in California got hit harder. For both of its two theme parks, Disneyland’s tickets are on a tiered system. Single-day tickets are now costlier for all but Tier 0, the most off-peak, lowest-attendance days—think the dead of January or right after the start of the school year. During other times, one-day ticket prices are higher, from $119 a day in Tier 1 (up $5 from last year) to $194 a day in Tier 6 (a jump of $15).

Then there’s some expected incremental nickel-and-diming. It’ll cost $30 per person, per day ($5 more than before) to buy the Disney Genie+ line-skipping add-on, as long as you book it before you arrive. (Wait until you get there and the price can be higher, depending on wait times.) Parking will also cost $5 more—either $35 for standard parking or $55 for preferred parking.

The price hike comes on the heels of Disney’s announcement last month that it intends to invest $60 billion into its theme parks and cruise business over the next decade. The company said in a regulatory filing last week that this investment is nearly twice what it spent over the previous 10-year period.

This year’s third-quarter revenue for Disney’s parks, experiences and products division rose by nearly $1 billion to $8.3 billion compared to the same period in 2022. Notably, the 13% increase was driven primarily by its international parks, while income at Walt Disney World Resort dropped and Disneyland Resort was “up only modestly to the prior-year quarter,” according to financial reports.

One silver lining for Florida park-goers is that Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando—a much bigger resort than in Anaheim with four theme parks and two waterparks—is not raising prices on base tickets for ages 10 and up, which will start at $109 per person and max out at $189for a one-park, one-day ticket.

“Disney has long shown that it will be as aggressive with price hikes as the market will bear,” says Robert Niles, founder of Theme Park Insider. “I think the clear message is that Disney is a lot more worried about price sensitivity in Florida than in California at the moment.”

Keep in mind that last year, Disney World raised single-day ticket prices significantly and, for the first time, made them park-specific. That particular policy turned out to be so unpopular that Disney has decided to reverse it. Beginning on January 9, park-goers will no longer have to reserve a specific theme park when purchasing standard, date-based tickets.

And two other policies at Disney World are also being reversed. Since 2021, park hopper