First: Updates About Disney World Annual Passes
Annual Passholders can now visit the theme parks after 2 PM without a park reservation, except on Saturdays and Sunday’s at Magic Kingdom. Pass blockout dates will continue to apply.
‘Good to Go Days’ for Annual Passholders: Disney offers select days on which Annual Passholders can visit Walt Disney World theme parks without needing a park reservation. This will be in addition to the 2 PM rule above.
Details on Disney World Annual Passes
During the shutdown caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, Walt Disney World took the opportunity to review the ways in which it operates and tickets. This includes annual passes. In October 2021, Walt Disney World launched their new annual pass system in tandem with the 50th Anniversary Celebration.
The previous annual pass system offered guests 8 different options. The current system consists of only 4 types of annual passes.
Also keep in mind that guests may need to use the Disney World Park Pass Reservation system.
Here are some facts at a glance regarding the new Disney World annual passes:
- There are 4 Annual Pass tiers
- Only 1 non-Florida Resident pass is available
- There are blackout dates on all but the most expensive pass
- Photo pass and water parks are added extras to allow guests to customize their passes
- Park reservations are required and limited to between 3 and 5 days at a time (unless you have a hotel reservation)
- Sales can be suspended at any point.
- The quantity of passes will be limited and passes, or a pass type, may become unavailable for purchase at any time.
- For eligible DVC members, they are currently able to buy the DVC Disney Sorcerer Pass online as a part of their Magic Benefits.
The Disney World Annual Pass Tiers
Unlike the previous passes, whose names had some obvious connection to pricing, the new passes have totally unrelated names: Incredi, Sorcerer, Pirate and Pixie Dust. The only pass which is available to everyone is the Incredi-Pass.
We’ll show prices as of this writing but please note that they’re subject to change.
Incredi-Pass (Available to anyone)
This is the top tier pass, which is available for anyone to purchase.
- Price: $1,549 plus tax
- Blackout dates: 0
- Park Reservations allowed at one time: 5 on a rolling basis. Passholders staying at Disney Resort hotels or other select hotels are eligible to make theme park reservations for each day of their Resort stay(s), in addition to holding 5 theme park reservations at a time.
As you might expect from the top tier pass, this is the only pass that does not have blackout dates. It also has the highest number of park reservations allowed at one time.
Sorcerer Pass (Available only for Florida residents and eligible Disney Vacation Club Members)
This second-tier pass is available to Florida Residents and eligible DVC members.
- Price: $1,079 plus tax
- Blackout dates: 18
- Park Reservations allowed at one time: 5 on a rolling basis. Passholders staying at Disney Resort hotels or other select hotels are eligible to make theme park reservations for each day of their Resort stay(s), in addition to holding 5 theme park reservations at a time.
Though the Sorcerer Pass has the same number of reservations as the Incredi-pass, it does come with 18 days blackout days at Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Pirate Pass (Available only for Florida residents)
This is a Florida resident only pass that has a lot of black out days (75), and less park reservations than the Sorcerer pass allowed.
- Price: $829 plus tax
- Blackout dates: 75
- Park Reservations allowed at one time: 4 on a rolling basis. Passholders staying at Disney Resort hotels or other select hotels are eligible to make theme park reservations for each day of their Resort stay(s), in addition to holding 4 theme park reservations at a time.
It has blackout days across most holidays. In prior years it was Christmas, New Years, Martin Luther King Jr Day weekend, President’s Day weekend, the week of St Patrick’s Day, Easter, Memorial Day weekend, 4th July weekend, Labor Day weekend, Columbus Day weekend and Thanksgiving.
Pixie Dust Pass (Available only for Florida residents)
The lowest priced pass available, it also comes with the lowest number of reservation days and the highest number of black out days.
- Price: $469 plus tax
- Blackout dates: 161
- Park Reservations allowed at one time: 3 on a rolling basis. Passholders staying at Disney Resort hotels or other select hotels are eligible to make theme park reservations for each day of their Resort stay(s), in addition to holding 3 theme park reservations at a time.
The Pixie Dust pass has almost all weekends and holidays blacked out. This means almost 45% of the year has the pass blocked out. View blockout dates here.
Disney World Annual Pass Add-on Options
Unlike the previous annual passes the new pass pricing is very much a base price. There are various ways to top up an annual pass. This is a feature which Disney advertises as a way to tailor make passes to individual needs.
The Disney World Annual Pass add-ons include:
— Memory Maker: For $99 plus tax, this gives the pass holder the perks of Memory Maker for the life of the pass (i.e. until the end date or renewal).
PhotoPass includes professional quality photos (and some videos) of you and your party taken by Disney photographers in the parks. It also gives you discounts on prints and physical product purchases.
When you buy PhotoPass, you’re allowed to download all the Disney PhotoPass photos and videos you get during your trips.
Consider that the pre-purchase price for Memory Maker for one day is $69 and $169 for all the days of one vacation. If you want the features of Memory Maker on more than one trip across the year, the add-on price of $99 for the year makes it worth adding it to your annual pass.
— Water Parks and Sports option: This is also $99 plus tax. This option offers access to:
- Disney’s Blizzard Beach Water Park (seasonal closures will apply).
- Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park (seasonal closures will apply).
- The golf courses at Oak Trail
- FootGolf at Disney’s Oak Trail
- Miniature Golf at Fantasia Gardens and Winter Summerland (you’re entitled to one round before 4pm)
- ESPN World Wide of Sports Complex.
A standard Water Park ticket costs around $69 so if you plan for more than one Water Park visit in the year, this add-on is a sound choice. Be sure to check for availability of these options before purchasing.
Benefits that come with your Disney World Annual Pass
All of the passes offer some benefits not available with standard tickets.
DISCOUNTS AND PERKS THAT ARE USUALLY OFFERED TO ANNUAL PASSHOLDERS INCLUDE:
- Room rate discounts: Offered at various times in various resorts, usually for up to 30% off rack room rates.
- Dining Discounts: Many Disney World restaurants (10-20% off)
- Disney dinner show discounts (usually 10%)
- Merchandise discounts: Available in some Disney stores (usually 10% and sometimes 20%)
- Disney tours discounts (usually 10-15% discount)
- Movie theater discount: Available at the theater in Disney Springs (currently $2 off)
- Bowling discount: Available at Splitsville in Disney Springs (currently %10)
- Disney’s special ticketed party discounts: Available for special events on select nights.
- Ferrytale Fireworks Cruise discount (10%)
- Water Park admission discounts (up to $16)
- Entertainment discounts: Includes discounts on entertainment like Mini Golf, bike rentals, fitness club/salon/massage, surry bikes, boat rentals, horse drawn carriages, fishing.
- Free parking: Free standard parking in the Disney World parks (at this writing saving you $25 a day)
- Park entry when near capacity: Should parks start to reach “capacity” (the point at which Disney implements a phased closure policy) annual pass holders are one of the last groups to be denied entry, just before resort guests.
- Dedicated annual pass holder lines to enter the parks. These may or may not be shorter/quicker than regular lines.
- Special annual passholder events: Occasionally, throughout the year, Walt Disney World may hold passholder events.
- Special passholder merchandise: At most festivals, parties and/or events they tend to have passholder specific merchandise, which is only available with a current annual pass. In the past there have also been free merchandise giveaways (such as magnets, a glass or coasters) to commemorate events.
- Run Disney Registration: Annual pass holders can benefit from early registration at Run Disney events.
- Park Hopping: With all passes you can park hop (subject to hopping rules at the time) as long as you have a reservation to your first park, and capacity allows.
More About Park Reservations at Disney World
Park Pass reservations were introduced to control the crowd levels in a post pandemic park. This system has now been removed for all guests with the exception of annual passholders, who still need to make reservations.
With the new annual passes, holders are able to book their allotted amount of passes (either 5, 4 or 3 days) at a time. The exception to this is if the pass holder has a resort reservation which exceeds the number of days permitted by the pass. i.e. if a pass holder were to book a 6 night stay at a Disney hotel, they would be able to book 6 park passes.
For details on how to use the Park Reservation System visit here.
At the time of writing, park hopping is permitted, providing there is park capacity and a reservation has been used for a different park on the same day.
Park Reservation Limitations for Disney World Passholders
With the new annual passes, holders are able to book their allotted amount of passes (either 5, 4 or 3 days) at a time. The exception to this is if the pass holder has a resort reservation which exceeds the number of days permitted by the pass. i.e. if a pass holder were to book a 6 night stay at a Disney hotel, they would be able to book 6 park passes.
Suspension of Annual Pass Sales at Disney World
One of the restrictions post covid is that Disney is still limiting the number of people entering the parks on a daily basis. The Reservation system is one way in which Disney is able to do this. The other is to limit the amount of Annual Passes for sale. At any time, Disney reserves the right to suspend sales of any or all Annual Passes for any period of time. At the end of November 2021, less than two months after sales began, Disney temporarily suspended all sales of all passes, with the exception of the Pixie Dust Pass.
How to upgrade from a standard ticket to an Annual Pass
It is possible to use your existing park tickets in an exchange towards the cost of an annual pass. In effect you trade in your standard tickets, and the price is deducted from the price of the annual pass you opt to buy. The value of doing so is reviewed below, but the process is fairly simple. You must make sure that you upgrade before you leave the parks on the last day of your standard ticket, and you can do this at any Guest Relations location. Your annual pass will start on the first day you used your initial tickets, so you will want to make sure this is worthwhile (i.e. when you have more than one trip in a short space of time).
Determining if it’s worth it to upgrade to an Annual Pass – Value for the money – US Dollars
Calculating whether an annual pass is value for money will depend on that ever so tricky thing – “Disney Math”. This can be quite a complex calculation. There are so many different factors to consider when trying to calculate the true value, and therefore any cost savings. There are lots of changeable factors to take into account as well. It comes down to which Annual Pass benefits you plan to use, and how many days you plan to be in the parks. So, the reasoning below is a guide giving simple examples without the use of the annual pass benefits such as room discounts.
(For more details on how to determine if it’s worth it for you, check out the article called Why an Annual Pass Can Save You Money (Even On One Trip!))
The easiest way to work out value for money is to look at the cost of a standard park hopper ticket and deduct the cost from the cost of an annual pass. The reason we use the park hopper is because the Annual passes allow park hopping and we want to compare like for like where possible. Due to the seasonal fluctuations within pricing, we will use the most expensive options.
Let’s look at some simple samples.
Remember, non-Florida residents and non-DVC owners can only purchase the Incredi-Pass at this time. The cost is $1,549 plus tax. So, for example, suppose a top price 4 day ticket would cost $687. If you are planning two 4 day trips or less, the Incredi-Pass annual pass may not be a good option. For reference, the 10 day ticket is $795, so any one trip of 10 days or less is still cheaper to buy as park hopper as opposed to the Incredi-Pass.
If you are staying off site (and driving) for 10 days or more, then the annual pass becomes the cheaper option due to the free parking.
If you are a Florida resident, or DVC member, then the Sorcerer pass may be a good option. First of all you need to consider the blackout days. If you wish to travel during Christmas and/or Thanksgiving then the Incredi-Pass is the only option for you. If you are happy with these dates being blacked out, then you could make a saving with the Sorcerer Pass.
If you plan to spend more than two three day trips in a year, this pass is better value. If you are staying off site and driving, then a trip of 8 days or more would be cheaper with a Sorcerer pass.
The Pirate pass has one less reservation day and an additional 75 black out days which means you couldn’t visit on most holidays. This pass is a lot cheaper (less than a 7 day park hopper) BUT you would need to ensure that the 7 plus days you plan to visit fit within the admission days for this pass.
You might think that the cheapest pass might work in favour of locals who like to visit at weekends, but actually all weekends and holidays are blocked out on this pass. It is cheaper than a 3 day pass, but your three days will need to be outside the 45% of the year that is isn’t blocked out.
Value for money – for UK residents
For UK guests the old Platinum Plus pass offered all the features of the UK “Ultimate tickets” (which also no longer exist). UK tickets have always been extremely good value, compared to the US tickets – with a 7 day Ultimate ticket costing around the same as a 2 day hopper with memory maker and water sports (all of which are included in the UK 7 day ticket for “free”). The new annual pass options, plus the new UK options makes this a very complicated calculation.
Below we outline the breakdown of how/why we have come to the answer we have. But if you find this a little confusing or simply aren’t interested in the workings, our conclusion is that the new annual pass is not better value than the new UK tickets.
In order to start the comparison, the first thing to do is to work out if you want the same perks you get on the UK ticket. In order to compare like for like, we will assume that this is the case, and this adds $198 plus tax to the cost of the Incredi-Pass. This brings your Incredi pass total to about $1,847. With an exchange rate of $1.3 to the pound (the exchange rate at the time of writing) this equates to around £1423.
Now the next part gets a little tricky, because the UK tickets now have 3 tiers of pricing. We will base our calculations on the highest rate (£609 for 14 days). If this was the only factor, you would need to visit Walt Disney World 3 times (or 31 days) in 12 months to get the benefit of the pass, based on ticket price only. If you are going at a mid or low season (which is most of the year except Christmas and Thanksgiving) you would need to stay even longer to see a saving.
Lastly, if you stay off site, you may be interested in the free parking you gain with an annual pass. To break even on parking, you would need to stay for more than 27 days to pay less for your annual pass than a UK ticket with Parking.
Ultimately, what this all means is that unless you are likely to make more than 3 trips, or a total of 34 days plus, in a 12 month period, it is unlikely that an annual pass will save you money. This may be sad news for those who like the perk of not having to factor in parking money into spending money, the dedicated entrance line or the free gifts, but you would need to do a lot of shopping to break even (bearing in mind the customs limits on returning to the UK!)
If we have learned anything over the past 2 years it is that things can change very quickly, and Disney is no exception to this. Things may change in the future, but for now a UK ticket seems to be the best option for the majority of UK guests.
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