ticket price increases for next year

[cmash95]

ticket prices increased an average of five percent for next year effective august 3. I know 75 bucks is alot of money, but I frankly am surprised the tickets didn't go up more. Disney is very energy and labor intensive. Energy prices have soared this past year and what many people don't know is that the florida minimum wage is indexed to inflation. that means that the base wage for disney cps will go up in january. Health care costs in florida have increased more than the anual rate of inflation. all this and more are figured into the price of admission to the parks.
as far as parking increases go, Disney is responsible for maintaining all roads and parking on it's property and of course asphault is oil based and the cost has increased along with other petroleum products. Is 75 dollars alot of money for a day at one park? but as long as prices of everything else is going up, ticket prices will go up as well.

 

[WaltD4Me]

What you say is true, but you have to factor in perception. If too many people percieve $75 as just too much money or worse, that Disney doesn't care that they are already stuggling because of the economy as it is, that increase isn't going to do them a bit of good if they lose business because of it. I've seen quite a bit of media coverage about the price increase and I bet there are are ALOT of possible Disney vacationers out there saying..."$75!!!!! Are they crazy? No Disney trip for us." Now of course WE know this is just a one day ticket and that 5,6,7, ect... day tickets are much more reasonable per day, but most people just read the article or saw the blurb on the news and crossed Disney off their vacation list.

Disney makes money by getting people into the parks and while I understand prices are going up for Disney too, I don't think this was the best time to do a price increase. I think they should have held off just to avoid the perception of people thinking "Geez, I'm struggling to figure out if I can afford to take my family on any kind of vacation and Disney raises it's prices now?!"

 

[Disneybridein2k3]

We have a different situation regarding the one day park passes. We have family that lives 45 min away so whenever we go to visit, we try to do a day in a Disney park. Until we bought the 10 day no expiration tickets, we were buying one day tickets. So, there ya go. It's people like us who would still buy those silly one days tickets.

The 10 day no expiration passes without park hopping is cheaper by far, but quite costly up front and we aren't always ready to put up the cash for a 10 day no exp for the whole family (4 people) - we have 3 "adults" and 1 child - the current base price is $420.75 per 10 day adult pass and $388.00 per child pass so for our family, it would cost us $1650.25 up front for us to all get a 10 day no expiration pass. Granted, that is a signifigant savings off the gate price but still a huge pill to swallow when your intent is just to do one day visits.

Darn, this Disney OCD!

 

[cmash95]

I used to buy the 6 day passes when they didn't expire. when they added expireation dates it made more sense to get an anual pass. as far as perception goes, universal just raised their price and I am sure that sea world will be going up as well. now I know that both parks are getting new attractions next year but the choice is going to be either pay for the parks or cut back on how many days you go.my personal opinion is that park hopping should be included in any ticket more than 3 days in length.

 

[figment1986]

...as far as perception goes, universal just raised their price and I am sure that sea world will be going up as well.

The Busch Entertainment parks were the first to increase their prices around the middle of summer, followed by disney then universal.

 

[WaltD4Me]

as far as perception goes, universal just raised their price and I am sure that sea world will be going up as well.

Yes, but I didn't see anything about their price increase on CNN or my local news
or on the front page of AOL news like I did when Disney did it.

 

[ADP]

Yes, but I didn't see anything about their price increase on CNN or my local news
or on the front page of AOL news like I did when Disney did it.

Actually, our local news in Indy covered the Universal ticket increase. They had a 30 second segment with highlights from the park discussing the increase. Of course, the spin was Universal was keeping pace with Disney with ticket price increases.

I will agree with you though that perception is reality in most cases. What people believe; whether right or wrong, is what wins over. If the perception is $75 is too much then some folks will turn down their Disney vacation. The real question is will it be enough people for Disney to react wtih discounts to try and change the perception. I'm doubting it.

 

[cmash95]

well considering that disney has a rather large"captive" audience in their dvc they can fall back on, I doubt they will be offering too many more breaks in price. it's the dvc and europeans that keep WDW afloat right now.

 

[WaltD4Me]

well considering that disney has a rather large"captive" audience in their dvc they can fall back on, I doubt they will be offering too many more breaks in price. it's the dvc and europeans that keep WDW afloat right now.

I don't know...I think Disney is a bit worried. I have gotten three emails at two different email addresses with discount pin codes in the last 2 weeks. The last pin code I got was a postcard in the mail one in Feburary and before that the last pin code I got was in 2005! To get 3 email ones in 2 weeks is a sort of amazing.

DVC guests are captive, but they are paying higher prices like the rest of us, so maybe their 3 trips a year turn into 2 or just one and they and Europeans aren't enough to keep Disney in the black, I think we will see more discounts,
especially after the first of the year. Unless the economy takes a major upswing.