wdw ticket increase?

[yitbos96bb]

Wondering the same thing ourselves. We did some humming and hawing before purchasing the AP'S this year. Since we only usually go once a year, but go for 3 or 4 weeks it is worth it to us. When we are in WDW we go to the parks everyday for a little bit. This year we actually tried to figure out how many days we needed/wanted to be in the parks and weather we could do it any other way that would be less costly. I however don't like thinking there are days we are going to be there that we cannot go into a park. DH is just indulging my inner princess

Now imagine for the average Family of 4 where those prices significantly increase. It won't be soon, but if they continue increasing at the pace they have been with 10-15 years there is a really good chance of a complete stagnation in attendance.

 

[gkrykewy]

Now imagine for the average Family of 4 where those prices significantly increase. It won't be soon, but if they continue increasing at the pace they have been with 10-15 years there is a really good chance of a complete stagnation in attendance.

I don't really agree. Ticket prices haven't been increasing much faster than the rate of inflation, if at all, and there's also the smart innovation where extra days on a longer-stay ticket are essentially free, bringing down the average price per day. Keeping single-day tickets expensive makes longer-stay tickets look like even more of a bargain and, paradoxically, may encourage longer visits rather than discouraging visits.

 

[SnackyStacky]

Until the new package prices come out they won't let you book a 2011 package. You could call now and make a room only reservation but they will tell you that once the 2011 prices come out your rate will be adjusted to show that price increase.

If you're certain you want dining, Disney will allow you to book a 2011 basic package. It's essentially a room only reservation, however, you will have package deposit/payment/cancellation policies. To make it a "package", they give you mini-golf passes.

When the 2011 ticket/package offerings and prices are released, they will allow you to add tickets and dining without having to cancel, refund, rebook, and pay new deposit.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I don't really agree. Ticket prices haven't been increasing much faster than the rate of inflation, if at all, and there's also the smart innovation where extra days on a longer-stay ticket are essentially free, bringing down the average price per day. Keeping single-day tickets expensive makes longer-stay tickets look like even more of a bargain and, paradoxically, may encourage longer visits rather than discouraging visits.

Whether or not they price themselves out of the market will take a long time to prove one way or the other. Although I will point out a large flaw in your reasoning... The majority of the money is spent on tickets once you get to 3 days and with more days comes higher outputs of money for Hotels, Food, etc. When determining if something will price out a portion of the population, you also need to take those factors into consideration.

However, you are mistaken when you say that tickets have been increasing at the inflation rate or right around it. I'm not sure where you got your numbers, but Disney tickets have increased WAY larger than the inflation rate.

TO put it into perspective:

THe inflation rate from October 1981 (the start of one day tickets) to Aug 2009 (last price increase) has increased by 131.09%. Based on the original $9.50 ticket price, an ticket adjusted for inflation would be $21.95.

SO obviously the ticket prices have increased above inflation.

Now lets look at select individual raises:

Let's look over the last few years.

We'll start from March 2004, which saw the largest increase in prices since 9-11 decimated Florida's tourism trade for a short term. This was about when things started recovering.

Price - Ticket price after increase
Incr. Prev - Increase in dollars from previous price
Infl% - Inflation % between increases
Act. Incr% - Actual Increase of tickets by Disney in %


Date Price Incr.Prev Infl% Act. Incr%
Jun 2003 to March 2004 54.75 2.75 2% 5.25%
Mar 2004 to Jan 2005 59.75 5.00 1.76% 9.25%
Jan 2005 to Jan 2006 63.00 3.25 4% 5.5%
Jan 2006 to Aug 2006 67.00 4.00 2.82% 6.4%
Aug 2006 to Aug 2007 71 4.00 1.97% 6%
Aug 2007 to Aug 2008 75 4.00 5.37 5.6%
Aug 2008 to Aug 2009 79 4.00 -1.48% 5.4%
Aug 2009 to Aug 2010 83 4.00 1% 5.1%


Jan 2005 saw the introduction of MYW.

Ticket prices were raised twice in 2006 for a total of 7.25 increase, the largest in a single year.

Aug 2008 to Aug 2009 actually saw DEFLATION of -1.48%.

Aug 2009 to Aug 2010 has estimated increase of $4 based on the trend of the last 4 years. Inflation rate is from Aug 2009 to June 2010 as July 2010 data has not been released yet.

So the amounts are well ahead of inflation. Now the percentages have gone down slightly with the $4 per year increase. How long this will last is a question, but the obvious assumption is that Disney will have a minimum of 4% increases per year for the forseeable future and my feeling is it will be a while before inflation hits that rate.

********************************

Now let's look historically:

The highest inflation rate since 1982 was about 5.5% in 1990, although the period between Aug 2007 to 2008 saw a 5.37% increase. If this included the 10%+ rates of the late 70's you have a point, but we have not seen numbers like that since 1981.

http://www.icmarc.org/xp/rc/marketview/chart/2005/20051104inflationinterestrates.html

The closest dates to fit within that time are May 1989 to Feb 1990 and Feb 1990 to Feb 1991.

The 1989-90 increase was $2 from $29 to 31. The actual rate of inflation between those times was 3.39 % which would have resulted in a inflation increase to $29.98. The 5.5% mentioned would have equaled tickets at $30.60. The increase in that time was about 7%.

THe 1990 to 1991 increase was $2.00 from $31 to $33. The inflation rate between that time period was 5.31% about at our highwater mark. The ticket rate adjusted for inflation would be $32.65... fairly close, with an actual increase of 6.5%.

So there are some that are close, but I did not see one that matched or was lower than inflation and the majority were well higher. Just for reference, prices have increased about 700% from the 1982 one day ticket vs the 131% inflation increase. The high mark for the last 6 years was 5.31%... right before the economic meltdown, which we still have several years of recovery left. If the job outlook doesn't improve or takes a long time to improve (much like post 9-11), this will hurt as well in the short term, especially if they drop the promotions. If the new jobs pay less, which has been a trend, then it gets even worse.

Oh, here are the calculators used for many of these figures. Please feel free to run your own numbers to verify.

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Calculators/Inflation_Rate_Calculator.asp#calcresults
http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Calculators/HowMuchWould it costCalculator.asp
http://allears.net/tix/tixincrease.htm

 

[gkrykewy]

stuff

Wow! You put a lot of work into that.

I stand corrected re: inflation in terms of the one-day pass, but my larger point concerning extended stays still holds. I wonder whether the rates of increase for, say, a 7-day park hopper have increased as rapidly over the same timeframe A quick peak at the numbers linked from your allears page (great info!) suggests something more like a 3% annual rate of increase for that particular ticket since the introduction of MYW, so about half the rate of increase you've calculated for single-day passes.

As I said, pricing single-day tickets unattractively is part of the strategy re: making longer-stay tickets look like more of a value.

 

[yitbos96bb]

Wow! You put a lot of work into that.

I stand corrected re: inflation in terms of the one-day pass, but my larger point concerning extended stays still holds. I wonder whether the rates of increase for, say, a 7-day park hopper have increased as rapidly over the same timeframe A quick peak at the numbers linked from your allears page (great info!) suggests something more like a 3% annual rate of increase for that particular ticket since the introduction of MYW, so about half the rate of increase you've calculated for single-day passes.

As I said, pricing single-day tickets unattractively is part of the strategy re: making longer-stay tickets look like more of a value.

Now worries, took longer to type than find the info.

There is probably some truth in that pricing strategy. It still doesn't change the potential of pricing people out, or causing them to spend less. Again, I'm not saying it will happen in the short term... I'm thinking ling term 10-15 years from now. With the food decreasing in quality and increasing in price, with the hotel costs, and ticket increases... not to mention a major cost out of their control in Airfare or gas prices, it will start to add up, especially with a Family of 4 or more.

No way to check out historic raises for 7 day tickets without a LOT more work than I am willing to do. They weren't really offered until 1997 and were discontinued in 2004 with the introduction MYW.

http://allears.net/tix/tixpix90.htm - Here are the historical pricing of the 90's.

The closest you can find with any historical relevance was the Length of Stay pass introduce in various forms starting in 1993. Really, until 1997, the best you could do was a 5 day or a LOS pass. Before 1993, the best was a 5 day pass. (of course this ignores Annual Passes)

For reference, the Single day ticket was 38.50 to 39.75 in 1997 when the 7 day was introduced. The 7 day went for $255 or $36.43 a day. So essentially, they have front loaded the costs instead just giving a small discount over multiple days. Once you buy 3-4 days, its uber cheap to buy the ticket for 9-10 days, and park hopper makes no difference if 1 day or 10 days, nor waterpark/other stuff option. But with those extra days comes additional expenses which budget consious families know they will have to cover.

Disney MYW and ME strategy is a simple one... get you on property and keep you trapped. Barring that, you've paid the front loaded ticket cost so even if you venture off property, Disney has made a pretty penny and other stuff like merchandise and snacks are gravy. Once they are onsite, it is a winning strategy. However, if the pricing reaches a certain threshhold, many people will not be find the value in a shorter trip vs the cost. Essentially, they may not want to drive 8-12 hours to go for 4 days. But to stay longer will cost a significant amount in food and restaurant. What this threshhold is, I don't know.

 

[doconeill]

THe inflation rate from October 1981 (the start of one day tickets) to Aug 2009 (last price increase) has increased by 131.09%. Based on the original $9.50 ticket price, an ticket adjusted for inflation would be $21.95.http://allears.net/tix/tixincrease.htm

I think the price might be a bit off on a 1-day ticket that got you unlimited attraction access. The $9.50 I think was just the admission to the MK, when they were still selling the coupon books (what was previously called General Admission).

It was later in the year that they switched to the "1-Day Unlimited Passports", which started at $11.50 and then went up to $13.25. Still, it was only a minor increase. At the higher value, today it would still be $30.62. But then again, today's tickets offer a lot more options than they did at the time.

I'm also not sure if compounding interest needs to be taken into account...my brain isn't ready for that though exercise...

 

[gkrykewy]

More importantly in the near term: when is this press release on the alleged Thursday price changes going to be released so that we can all adjust our conniving accordingly?

I'm personally holding out to buy an AP at today's rate until I know there isn't going to be a 15-month AP if I buy on Friday.

 

[yitbos96bb]

More importantly in the near term: when is this press release on the alleged Thursday price changes going to be released so that we can all adjust our conniving accordingly?

I'm personally holding out to buy an AP at today's rate until I know there isn't going to be a 15-month AP if I buy on Friday.

Hmm... I didn't think about that. I bought mine on Sunday... That will anger me if so.

 

[doconeill]

I don't think there is any expectations of an extended-length AP offer at this point. Heck, people aren't sure if they are going to get the 15-month renewal offer if they pre-purchase the renewal but don't get there before 9/1.

 

[yitbos96bb]

I think the price might be a bit off on a 1-day ticket that got you unlimited attraction access. The $9.50 I think was just the admission to the MK, when they were still selling the coupon books (what was previously called General Admission).

It was later in the year that they switched to the "1-Day Unlimited Passports", which started at $11.50 and then went up to $13.25. Still, it was only a minor increase. At the higher value, today it would still be $30.62. But then again, today's tickets offer a lot more options than they did at the time.

I'm also not sure if compounding interest needs to be taken into account...my brain isn't ready for that though exercise...

I can't tell with the tickets... it's kind of an unorganized mess over there. But the passport was 11.50, so we can call that the first ticket comparable to today.

In this case it's not interest, it's inflation. In other words, it's how much something back then would cost in today's money based on the inflation rate. So a 9.50 ticket in 1981 would be 20 something dollars in today's dollars. However, the more accurate portrayal is a year to year comparison as Disney has increased beyond inflation. I'm not going to calculate every year and increase to see. In that case, it would be compounded much like interest... which may be what you were saying and I just didn't pick up on. I don't care enough to actually calculate out 29 years worth of increases.

I don't fault them for increasing prices, especially as new parks and attractions are added. I take issue with some of the increases today because Disney has taken more away than added it seems like, especially over the last 5 years or so. That will change with the FLE completion, but then again, if you look at it, there isn't a WHOLE lot of new stuff in terms of rides and such. There is a reconfigured ride with Dumbo and a new playground area. There is a new Little Mermaid ride... and as far as I know, that's it. There is a new restaurant, and then, from what I can tell, its all meet and greets.... Essentially Mickey and gang are traded for the Princesses. Maybe I'm wrong, but if this is how it ends up, while it will be cool, no way it holds a candle to Harry Potter.

It just seems like some of the added attractions have been kind of lazy. I know TSM is a big deal to some people, but really Potato Head in the queue is way more impressive than actually ride/game. Really, its a light gun game with a mobile car and Toy Story. If you have the skills, its not that hard to make... not in comparison to Buzz Lightyear which required a lot of build up and out.

American Idol not all that hard to make... I understand WHY they added it, but it seems like it was a cheap option more than anything. Really, I can't think of the last new thing to truly impress me since Soarin and Mission Space. I guess the Nemo Seas... not exciting but a definite upgrade over the previous incarnation that was left to rot.


Sorry, end rant. After having done three college programs from 98 to 2000 and seeing how the world has changed and not for the better, I'm a bit disappointed as of late...I hate seeing them go away from ways that were talked about with pride on my college programs... things like the homogenization of the dining menus and merchandising. When I was there, different dining experiences and merchandise that could only be found at a specific theme park shop were a big deal in showcasing the magic and Disney difference. Heck I remember when Disney store merchandise was ONLY sold at the Disney Store... they didn't cross streams with Park items. I just feel there is a lot of failure to practice what is preached by a lot of the upper WDW management.

After next years trip, I think we're taking a break from Orlando for a little while... 2 or 3 years. I'm DVC so maybe I'll go to Disneyland and CA or head to Hawaii (which is designed by my favorite Imagineer, Joe Rhode) or maybe even Disneyland Paris! I guess we'll see if I can actually stay away....

 

[yitbos96bb]

I don't think there is any expectations of an extended-length AP offer at this point. Heck, people aren't sure if they are going to get the 15-month renewal offer if they pre-purchase the renewal but don't get there before 9/1.

It's not a big deal actually now that I think about it. We are going in December this year and then October 2011, so even if it did, it wouldn't really change anything.

 

[doconeill]

Ticket prices ARE going up Thursday...$3 for a one-day, $19 for a 10-day adult base MYW, PH and WPFM options up $2, No Expire up as well...

Up $10 on tourist APs...

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/magic-your-way-facts-on-walt-disney-world-prices/

 

[Sweetpeamd]

This may be a dumb question, but we haven't booked a package for the fall before. I booked the pkg for our October, 2010 trip months ago. Will the cost of our package go up once the ticket prices increase or are we locked into the current rate? We have a vacation package plus dining plan. Thanks.

 

[doconeill]

This may be a dumb question, but we haven't booked a package for the fall before. I booked the pkg for our October, 2010 trip months ago. Will the cost of our package go up once the ticket prices increase or are we locked into the current rate? We have a vacation package plus dining plan. Thanks.

Your package price will not go up.

 

[ADP]

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the ticket increase discussion. I feel complelled to do so this morning for some reason.

The timing of this increase stinks! I understand ticket prices need to go up because operational costs are going up as well. I get it! But, why raise prices now? Why couldn't the suits at Disney have postponed this ticket increase 6 to 9 months from now? It would have shown good will and good faith to wait until later this year or early next year. It would have gone a long way in showing guests who frequent the parks, and even those guests who don't go often that Disney cares about people in this economy.

In my opinion Disney missed a huge opportunity to show people they care and are trying to help. I think sometimes management at Disney are like robots...They raise ticket prices every August, and it just seems to me they were going to do it again this August no matter what because it's a yearly occurrance and park goers expect it.

Think out of the box Disney....You missed a golden opportunity. And now that you've raised ticket prices....Again....Please fix the Yeti.

Okay...I'm done. Have a magical day!

 

[WaltD4Me]

I totally agree Aaron. Think of the shock and good will Disney could have generated if Disney had held off on the increases until after the holidays. Would it have killed them to wait until Feburary? I suppose it would have thrown their whole "schedule" off, but it would have created alot of buzz and a much better news story.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents into the ticket increase discussion. I feel complelled to do so this morning for some reason.

The timing of this increase stinks! I understand ticket prices need to go up because operational costs are going up as well. I get it! But, why raise prices now? Why couldn't the suits at Disney have postponed this ticket increase 6 to 9 months from now? It would have shown good will and good faith to wait until later this year or early next year. It would have gone a long way in showing guests who frequent the parks, and even those guests who don't go often that Disney cares about people in this economy.

In my opinion Disney missed a huge opportunity to show people they care and are trying to help. I think sometimes management at Disney are like robots...They raise ticket prices every August, and it just seems to me they were going to do it again this August no matter what because it's a yearly occurrance and park goers expect it.

Think out of the box Disney....You missed a golden opportunity. And now that you've raised ticket prices....Again....Please fix the Yeti.

Okay...I'm done. Have a magical day!

I totally agree Aaron. Think of the shock and good will Disney could have generated if Disney had held off on the increases until after the holidays. Would it have killed them to wait until Feburary? I suppose it would have thrown their whole "schedule" off, but it would have created alot of buzz and a much better news story.

Disney is not letting people book 2011 packages until the ticket prices are raised though. If they really plan on reducing hotel discounts, then I think they could have handled this better. I don't mind a 3-4% increase on ticket prices, but some of the children's tickets were raised over 10% They keep quoting guest satisfaction surveys to justify their increases, but at some point there has to be a tipping point.