We’re looking into heading down to Disneyland in a couple of months, and the first thing I looked into was the cost to get into Disney.
OMG, for 2 adults and a child under 10, it was almost $700US. We’re Canadians and that would put the cost in Canadian bucks at almost $900 Cdn. That’s for a 3 day pass.
I was there many years ago, but have absolutely no clue as to what I paid.
And all over the sites are warnings not to buy tickets from unofficial sites.
So what’s the scoop? Is there any other way to get in a little cheaper other than climbing over the fence? I did see a site that sold the passes for about a 5% discount. But that was the best I could find.
To some extent you can blame Universal. Apparently when they raise their prices, Disney follows their lead.
That said, you apparently already have discount tickets if you’re “only” paying $700US. The official price for three day passes for two adults and a child under ten is $806US.
Not really. They offer cheaper passes to us SoCal residents, but it’s ludicrously pricey nomatter how you slice it. You can look on Craigslist and social media - some people will sell two or three day passes with one or two days left on them for steep discounts, but you’re taking a risk of being scammed.
IMHO, a 3-day pass is overkill anyway. One day is plenty to do all the best stuff at Disneyland, assuming you’re not going on a busy day, and California Adventure is largely a waste of time and money.
ETA: Nemo, you’re posting prices for Disney* World*, in Florida. OP is asking about Disneyland, in Southern California.
Supply and demand. People keep going in droves, so the prices rise to match to avoid leaving money on the table.
It’s also the 60th Anniversary this year, so that might be part of it. I think another part is that the generation which grew up with a renewed interest in Disney (due to the Disney Renaissance films of the 90s) are now old enough to be taking their young kids to Disneyland.
Did you check a local Disney Store? IIRC the passes were close to half price in the Canadian Disney Stores at one time, or some pretty good deal… just for that reason, they want to encourage remote visitors to come to Disney for as long as possible.
One legitimate place to get discounted tickets is from an authorized ticket reseller such as Undercover Tourist. I have used them many times for WDW and Universal tickets. Apparently they don’t sell Disneyland tickets, though…however, Mousesavers.com lists some authorized ticket resellers for Disneyland tickets, as well as general advice to avoid being scammed. See here.
P.S. I have no connection to any of the websites listed here.
Excellent point. And it’s possible that the organization’s strategy of selling annual passes at several different levels has created conditions where reaching capacity is more likely, simply because there are so many people who can just decide to drop in for a few hours without having to shell out 99 bucks.
Just glancing, it looks like the prices have gone up more, year over year, from 2009-2014 then any other period (it’s about $4/yr during that time and 1-3 during previously). I wonder if they were trying to make up for the stock market crash.
I’d like to offer a different perspective; I don’t get what the complaint is. $700 for a three day pass for four people is $58 per person per day, which strikes me as being a perfectly fair price to visit a giant amusement park of the highest quality. What would be a fair price to visit such a place? $40? $27? I think $58 sound about right.
To visit Canada’s Wonderland, the amusement park north of Toronto, you pay $42 online (about $30 US) or $60 at the gate, and CW is fun but it isn’t anywhere near as great as Disney and the lines for the good rides are worse.
bb49, if you are in fact visiting Disneyland in Anaheim (people do confuse them) you might want to consider not going for three full days. If you’re going to Disney World in Florida, you’ll get your money’s worth, especially if your kids are young.
It is definitely not a “seen it once” experience at least compared to other parks, many of which have a special for “buy one day, get the rest of the year free” or get the rest of the year at a huge discount. Disney doesn’t have that because people like to go back several times a year. Not to mention the special events at Epcot. Now, I’ve never been to Disneyland but if it’s pretty much like the Magic Kingdom, I’d still want to go once a year.
When we went that’s what my mom said when my dad was balking at the prices (this was about 20 years ago) ‘we’ll probably never do this again, we might as well go all out’.
Disney has always charged the absolute bleeding edge of acceptable admission prices. The entire facility is designed to separate you from your money in as enjoyable manner as possible.
I also feel it is very expensive but I recognize that there is truly nothing exactly comparable to the immersion experience. It has been at least twenty years since we visited.
Immersion is definitely mentioned a lot but one shining contrasting example is at Universal’s Seuss train. The first 75% take place on top of buildings, with maybe a character here and there, but with exposed A/C units and building tar everywhere. Then at the last moment there’s this splendid array of Seuss characters and I’m like “great! now the ride is finally going to begin!” But no, then the ride ended. Immersion fail.
When my kids were Disney-age I discussed it with them. Fly to Florida and do Disney vs skip Disney and instead do two trips to Kennywood and one to Geauga Lake. They overwhelmingly turned down Disney, year after year.