AP prices increased [6/18/2019]

[cakebaker]

Thanks! I wonder if the membership will be available right away.

Yes. I just bought mine the other day and within minutes I had my gift card and access to shopping.

 

[LabMouse]

Spending in the parks is probably down. I think People got fed up with paying $4.50 for a 20oz bottle of water or soda so they started bring their own,
They got sick of paying $250 for a subpar character buffet for a family of 4 so they started eating quick service or eating a nice sit down meal off property.

This is where it becomes a vicious cycle. Disney hikes ticket prices, or AP prices, or drops room discounts, and people swallow what they need to in order to still take their trip, but they cut back in other ways. Disney then sees more vacant rooms as people stay offsite, or fewer ADRs, or possibly a drop in merch sales. They come back with reduced EMH hours (remember when it used to be 3 hours in the evening?), new resort parking fees, increases in theme park parking fees, etc. And so it goes.

We personally have done more offsite trips where we would've preferred onsite, only bought APs in 2 of the 5 years we've lived close enough to make good use of them, and started buying Disney tees from places like redbubble. Going forward, we may try to do APs every other year, timing our usual annual weeklong trip for the start and end of the pass, and take a year off entirely from the parks in between.

I saw a TTC parking ticket from 1971, where it cost $0.25 to park. Run through an inflation calculator, that's less than $2 today. And yet today's price is $25! Really says it all about how far Disney will push things to eke out ever more revenue.

 

[bgula]

I haven't looked thru all the pages of this thread, but does anyone know what the new price is for Platinum AP renewals (please specify with or without tax)?

 

[Rick195275]

I haven't looked thru all the pages of this thread, but does anyone know what the new price is for Platinum AP renewals (please specify with or without tax)?

I saw it reported as $1012.82 including tax but mine isn’t eligible for renewal so I can’t confirm that for you. Currently cheaper to buy from Sam’s and you get the added bonus of picking the start date of your new AP.

 

[Traveling on cc points]

This is where it becomes a vicious cycle. Disney hikes ticket prices, or AP prices, or drops room discounts, and people swallow what they need to in order to still take their trip, but they cut back in other ways. Disney then sees more vacant rooms as people stay offsite, or fewer ADRs, or possibly a drop in merch sales. They come back with reduced EMH hours (remember when it used to be 3 hours in the evening?), new resort parking fees, increases in theme park parking fees, etc. And so it goes.

We personally have done more offsite trips where we would've preferred onsite, only bought APs in 2 of the 5 years we've lived close enough to make good use of them, and started buying Disney tees from places like redbubble. Going forward, we may try to do APs every other year, timing our usual annual weeklong trip for the start and end of the pass, and take a year off entirely from the parks in between.

I saw a TTC parking ticket from 1971, where it cost $0.25 to park. Run through an inflation calculator, that's less than $2 today. And yet today's price is $25! Really says it all about how far Disney will push things to eke out ever more revenue.

You are absolutely right, it is a vicious cycle and the inflation rate Disney uses is beyond ridiculous.
Yes! I do remember and miss the awesome extra magic hours that is now a distant memory.
To me, Disney has always been expensive but before this past year with the huge increase in food and ticket prices I never thought that a Disney trip wasn’t worth it. As much as I love Disney world it has really gotten to the price point where I’m questioning if the value is still there for me.
Because I’m one of those people who sees thing clearer on paper I did the math out. For the purposes of the calculations I split what we paid (not the new AP price) for our passes between our 4 week long trips. Each trip cost us roughly $3,500 not including flights. (We fly free + taxes with SW points) That is exactly $500 per day at Disney for 2 adults. I didn’t think that number was that bad. We do stay in nicer hotels but don’t spend much on souvenirs and on average do 2 middle of the road table service meals a day. Not the cheapest way to travel to Disney but certainly not extravagant either.
Our AP’s expire in December and will be taking at least a year off. I have really contemplated purchasing a set of AP’s from AAA at the old price for 2021/2022 but with the rumor of paid FastPass, minimal extra magic hours, 1 good FastPass in 2 out of the 4 parks and constant price increases I’m just not sure I want to commit to a years worth of trips with so many unknowns.
In 2 years will that $500 per day cost be $700 or $800 when committing to 4 trips? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

 

[randumb0]

Sam’s sells platinum and platinum plus and also the Florida resident aps, gold, silver, select days etc.

Do you have a link to the Florida Resident AP's? I can't find it.

Nevermind it comes up when I search on my computer. Just not on my phone. It looks like they've adjusted the price for Florida resident AP's although for some reason the Platinum is only $718

 

[Nick6300]

To me, Disney has always been expensive but before this past year with the huge increase in food and ticket prices I never thought that a Disney trip wasn’t worth it. As much as I love Disney world it has really gotten to the price point where I’m questioning if the value is still there for me.
Because I’m one of those people who sees thing clearer on paper I did the math out. For the purposes of the calculations I split what we paid (not the new AP price) for our passes between our 4 week long trips. Each trip cost us roughly $3,500 not including flights. (We fly free + taxes with SW points) That is exactly $500 per day at Disney for 2 adults. I didn’t think that number was that bad. We do stay in nicer hotels but don’t spend much on souvenirs and on average do 2 middle of the road
Our AP’s expire in December and will be taking at least a year off.

I have really contemplated purchasing a set of AP’s from AAA at the old price for 2021/2022 but with the rumor of paid FastPass, minimal extra magic hours, 1 good FastPass in 2 out of the 4 parks and constant price increases I’m just not sure I want to commit to a years worth of trips with so many unknowns.
In 2 years will that $500 per day cost be $700 or $800 when committing to 4 trips? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Paid FPs and large increases in hotel/food costs would mess up our plans and make me start to regret stockpiling APs. Paid FPs would infuriate many of us. But they’re able to see how it works or doesn’t via DL and Shanghai. Just my opinion but it seems like FPs coming with a hotel and/or ticket package seems more favorable to them. Similar to Club level, but you’d get tiered amount of included FPs for booking a deluxe thru value ticket package, say 3 per night booked for deluxe, 2 for moderate, 1 per night for value per person or maybe higher tiered multiples. That way you book on site hotel and tickets through Disney. They could run it without tickets by giving you paper FPs for booking onsite hotels if they didn’t want to require tickets. Our last month package in TDL received tiered amounts of paper FPs depending how expensive your package was, still could get free ones though.

 

[Rick195275]

Do you have a link to the Florida Resident AP's? I can't find it.

Nevermind it comes up when I search on my computer. Just not on my phone. It looks like they've adjusted the price for Florida resident AP's although for some reason the Platinum is only $718

I’m thinking maybe they ran out of stock on that one? Not sure I’m out of state so have only been checking the regular platinums. I’m actually really surprised they still have stock on both of those based on the numerous threads I’ve seen of people buying them up.

 

[robinb]

We’ve bounced around all the levels. We recently upgraded to plat for the chance at Galaxys edge preview. And my husband and I really enjoy NYE at Epcot. Won’t make financial sense in the future, though.

We went last NYE on a park hopper during the blackout dates and upgraded to a gold AP in January when the blackout dates were lifted. Our gold pass start date was retroactively set to the date of our first use (12/31 in our case) of our PH.

We have done this for many years.

(edited) You don't have to wait until the the blackout date is lifted to upgrade, but if the blackout dates are still in progress you can't return to the parks once you've upgraded until they are done. I know a DVC member who upgraded on his way out of his last park visit in the middle of the blackout dates but he didn't return until months later.

 

[NickC]

We considered APs this year because, with our dates, it would save us about $500. We decided against it since it would sort of lock us in to going to WDW on our vacations.
The thing is, I don't mind spending more money on WDW. I just have a problem with what I am paying for. A price increase to make the parks spotless again? Sure. A price increase to hire more CMs to make the lines move faster? No problem. Raises for everyone? Why not. But I don't want to pay for attractions that I'm not interested in that are going to make the parks more crowded.

 

[Traveling on cc points]

I

Paid FPs and large increases in hotel/food costs would mess up our plans and make me start to regret stockpiling APs. Paid FPs would infuriate many of us. But they’re able to see how it works or doesn’t via DL and Shanghai. Just my opinion but it seems like FPs coming with a hotel and/or ticket package seems more favorable to them. Similar to Club level, but you’d get tiered amount of included FPs for booking a deluxe thru value ticket package, say 3 per night booked for deluxe, 2 for moderate, 1 per night for value per person or maybe higher tiered multiples. That way you book on site hotel and tickets through Disney. They could run it without tickets by giving you paper FPs for booking onsite hotels if they didn’t want to require tickets. Our last month package in TDL received tiered amounts of paper FPs depending how expensive your package was, still could get free ones though.

I would actually love that idea as we do always stay in deluxe resorts but can already hear the backlash from people who book value’s. It does make sense though, instead or the outright selling fast passes, they would be rewarding people who booked a more expensive room.

I see this one from both sides. My selfish thought is that’s awesome, I get 3 fastpasses loaded on to my Magic band every morning and I don’t have to plan my what parks I want to go to 2 months in advance!l

The compassionate thought is that this would royally suck to pay a huge sum of money to vacation in Disney to get 1 guaranteed ride a day without standing in line for hours on end.

 

[robinb]

We considered APs this year because, with our dates, it would save us about $500. We decided against it since it would sort of lock us in to going to WDW on our vacations.
The thing is, I don't mind spending more money on WDW. I just have a problem with what I am paying for. A price increase to make the parks spotless again? Sure. A price increase to hire more CMs to make the lines move faster? No problem. Raises for everyone? Why not. But I don't want to pay for attractions that I'm not interested in that are going to make the parks more crowded.

I do know that APs can burn a hole in your pocket, but $500 is $500!

 

[Nick6300]

We considered APs this year because, with our dates, it would save us about $500. We decided against it since it would sort of lock us in to going to WDW on our vacations.
The thing is, I don't mind spending more money on WDW. I just have a problem with what I am paying for. A price increase to make the parks spotless again? Sure. A price increase to hire more CMs to make the lines move faster? No problem. Raises for everyone? Why not. But I don't want to pay for attractions that I'm not interested in that are going to make the parks more crowded.

I can relate to your thought process... like paying more taxes not to improve your roads or education, but instead for gov't pensions. I am interested in GE, but half our party is not. But we're probably all interested in some of the new attractions for the 50th. A little less excited about Tron, having been on it many times.

There were the recent wages negotiations, but also several rounds of layoffs related to the Fox merger. Dis. seems to be rolling on all cylinders with its media, movies, parks, merchandise. Think Disney+, with its low pricing, and the Marvel/Star Wars material, eventually its entire showcase of films, is going to really bump up their revenues and eventually compete with Netflix. It sure would be nice if they would either open a 5th gate or increase park capacity significantly with all of its success. Yes they are adding attractions, but I don't know if these 2 attractions for GE is worth a 40% or whatever it was (over the 2 increases this yr) to the APs. And they will probably feel justified for some further large hikes in 2021. I'd love for an out of state blackout date AP for a few hundred less.

If it wasn't for international flights being so darn expensive, we'd frequent the other Disney parks more. TDL and TDS is so incredibly clean, you never see gum on the ground. I saw CMs rushing to clean up a single popcorn piece on the ground. The service is essentially at the standard WDW used to have in the 80's in 90's. But it's also incredibly busy there and getting too busy in Shanghai.

 

[Nick6300]

I

I would actually love that idea as we do always stay in deluxe resorts but can already hear the backlash from people who book value’s. It does make sense though, instead or the outright selling fast passes, they would be rewarding people who booked a more expensive room.

I see this one from both sides. My selfish thought is that’s awesome, I get 3 fastpasses loaded on to my Magic band every morning and I don’t have to plan my what parks I want to go to 2 months in advance!l

The compassionate thought is that this would royally suck to pay a huge sum of money to vacation in Disney to get 1 guaranteed ride a day without standing in line for hours on end.

I'm mostly too frugal to book Deluxe, but I'd be ok with the tiered FPs and getting less for Value, as long as they filled up their resorts and were willing to curb some of the price increases. Guests staying at the pricey Tokyo DisneySea MiraCosta can have 8 FPs (good for any attraction & shows) for a 2 night package vs our 5 FPs at a cheap resort. Our FPs were good at everything except 2 rides & the shows and nice to be able to not plan their use, just walk up to a 150 min wait attraction with a paper FP.

 

[Traveling on cc points]

I'm mostly too frugal to book Deluxe, but I'd be ok with the tiered FPs and getting less for Value, as long as they filled up their resorts and were willing to curb some of the price increases. Guests staying at the pricey Tokyo DisneySea MiraCosta can have 8 FPs (good for any attraction & shows) for a 2 night package vs our 5 FPs at a cheap resort. Our FPs were good at everything except 2 rides & the shows and nice to be able to not plan their use, just walk up to a 150 min wait attraction with a paper FP.

I get that. I am very frugal too but to us, the resort is not just a place to sleep. because we go to Disney pretty often we do not spend hours on end in the parks. we enjoy the hotel pools & amenities probably as much as the parks.
From what I’ve read, I am in the minority about preferring the old paper fastpass system and would love to have a version of it back again. Thanks for the info on how Tokyo works, I’ve never looked into it before It seems very interesting.

 

[NickC]

I do know that APs can burn a hole in your pocket, but $500 is $500!

Oh, the savings were there...If we were going to use it. The issue was if we got the AP, that would force us to do WDW for two more years (Nov 19 and Aug 20), instead of keeping our options open to trying other places. Truth be told, last year, WDW was different. We weren't sure we would be back in 2019, but after some back and forth, we ended up deciding on a short cruise and a few days in the park. We are going to wait and see how that goes before we decide if we will do a 2020 trip. We will most likely look for something else.

 

[Nick6300]

I get that. I am very frugal too but to us, the resort is not just a place to sleep. because we go to Disney pretty often we do not spend hours on end in the parks. we enjoy the hotel pools & amenities probably as much as the parks.
From what I’ve read, I am in the minority about preferring the old paper fastpass system and would love to have a version of it back again. Thanks for the info on how Tokyo works, I’ve never looked into it before It seems very interesting.

I have friends who prefer the paper FPs, and we do too. Less planning, less chaos with ADRs and other events. They've invested too much though in MDX/MBs, can't see it ever going back. But they could still offer paper FPs for booking on site resorts and modify the free ones to one at a time, available only when you're in the park. If they wanted to. I'm not sure I'd like that, but it doesn't really matter right now.

 

[Nick6300]

Buying APs to hold for a few yrs... I'm not worried about the price of the platinum APs going down, because they won't. But I'm somewhat worried that they will come out with a different pass or special packages that are a better deal. Looking at new offers they just came out with such as the fam of 3, 2 adults, 1 child, 2 nights at Sports, 2 day PHs, stroller rental for $999... seems like short term, I don't have anything to worry about. I'm probably just worried because this is large sum of money to commit and who knows how my health or situation will be in a few yrs. But do you think it's possible they will offer some sort of cheaper, seasonal AP with blackouts for out of staters, or better deal on tickets?

 

[JoJoGirl]

Buying APs to hold for a few yrs... I'm not worried about the price of the platinum APs going down, because they won't. But I'm somewhat worried that they will come out with a different pass or special packages that are a better deal. Looking at new offers they just came out with such as the fam of 3, 2 adults, 1 child, 2 nights at Sports, 2 day PHs, stroller rental for $999... seems like short term, I don't have anything to worry about. I'm probably just worried because this is large sum of money to commit and who knows how my health or situation will be in a few yrs. But do you think it's possible they will offer some sort of cheaper, seasonal AP with blackouts for out of staters, or better deal on tickets?

This definitely crossed my mind before buying my extra Platinum voucher from Sam’s. An off peak AP like the Gold Pass for Florida Residents would work perfectly for me. And if the price were $866 or less (what I paid for my voucher, $253 less than the current price), it would be a better deal.

However the current FR Gold Pass (which I would want) is discounted only $200 from the FR Platinum. The FR Silver Pass that excludes the summer months offers a $370 discount, and I suppose we could make that work if we had to. For me that would be a hypothetical ~$100 savings on a not yet existing, reduced benefit pass.

Based on that analysis, I decided that “a bird in the hand beats two in the bush.” I truly hope, though, that you are right and better options will exist in the future. Things are always changing so it is a definite possibility!

 

[StacyStrong]

Disney is absolutely expensive, don't get me wrong.

Maybe it's because I grew up in a large city, but a lot of the things complained about don't seem that outrageous to me. Frustrating? Yes. Unexpected or outrageous? No. Paying to park sucks. But, I went to the Rolling Stones concert in Chicago last night. Event parking at Soldier Field was anywhere from $55-$70. Water was $6.25. I parked in a lot a mile away using a discounted app and paid $16. To me, it's "normal."

The only issue I have with price hikes other than it severely hurting my wallet is that they don't seem to care about their employees wages. Few companies do, sadly.