Don't Look Now, But Disney World And Disneyland Tickets May Become More Complex (And Expensive) To Buy

There’s nothing I love more than visiting theme parks like Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but there’s nothing I like less than buying tickets. Not only are Disney tickets getting more expensive every year, but they’re also fairly complicated to buy. The price of a ticket depends on what day of the year you want to go, and Disneyland still institutes a reservation system on top of the ticket that needs to be navigated. It’s just not a very magical experience, and it may be about to get worse.

A new rumor indicates that Disney World and Disneyland may be on the verge of a significant change to the way the parks charge for tickets. Which, if true, will add a new item to the checklist of things to consider when planning a trip, and will likely lead to tickets ultimately being more expensive.

Disney World And Disneyland May Start Charging Like The Airlines

Currently, Disneyland and Disney World both have a tiered pricing structure. The price for a ticket on any given day is based on where it falls on the calendar, with days that are expected to be more crowded, like the summer or holiday season months, being more expensive than tickets early in the year or post-summer, which tend to be slower.

According to Blog Mickey, Disney Parks in North America are considering a shift to a pricing system comparable to what airlines do, where ticket prices could fluctuate on a daily, or even hourly, basis based on demand. While this is officially only a rumor, there is reason to give it validity, as Disneyland Paris already has pricing like this, and the European Disney park has seemed to act as a sort of test bed for new, we’ll call them revenue enhancements, in the past. The recently-introduced Lightning Lane Premiere Pass, which charges a significant premium to skip lines over the standard Lighting Lane system, was also first introduced in Paris.

Disneyland And Walt Disney World Tickets Won’t Be As Simple To Buy

I can’t say I’m thrilled with this idea if it happens. If there was a benefit to the old system, it was that once you knew what days you wanted to visit, you knew what tickets would cost. A Disneyland Tier 0 ticket costs you $104 whether you buy it now or on the day you want to use it. Disneyland hasn’t raised the price of its cheapest tickets for several years, but under this sort of program, it seems unlikely that the cheapest tickets will stay that cheap throughout their life.

Buying airline tickets is already a strange and mystical art form. It at least makes some sense that the closer you are to the dates you want to buy tickets, the more expensive they are. However, it’s also possible, for reasons that are never entirely clear, for airline tickets to go down in price.

If that’s an option here, we could see guests going back to check prices, for both airline tickets and Disney World tickets, again and again in hopes of saving some money. Maybe they’ll be able to, but it will take concerted time and effort.

Planning a Disney World trip is already a fairly complicated matter. It's not something one does on a whim. But it's also quite expensive, and people are always looking for ways to save money. Under the current system that simply means choosing to go on days that are cheaper, but if this concept moves forward things won't be so simple.

There is the possibility, however slight, that this move could make more tickets to Disney World or Disneyland cheaper, at least at some point. Perhaps the tickets that are the most expensive today could start out cheaper when they’re first made available until the eventual demand drives the price up. That might help balance out the fact that the cheapest tickets may become more expensive over time. It will all depend on the details of the program, which at this point is still only a rumor.