Disney World Annual Passes: When Are They Worth It?
If you visit Disney World often, you may have considered getting an annual pass to save on the price of admission to the theme parks. But when is it more worthwhile to have an annual pass over a regular theme park ticket? It all comes down to how many days you’ll use the pass.
What Do You Get With an Annual Pass?
At its core, an annual pass grants you access to the Disney World theme parks for a one-year period. Depending on the tier chosen, there may be blockout dates. Since most of the annual pass tiers are only for Florida residents or eligible DVC members, let’s focus on the top tier Incredi-Pass since that is available to anyone. The Incredi-pass is $1,399 and does not have any blockout dates. Besides having access to the theme parks for a year, you’ll have discounts on dining and merchandise and complimentary standard theme park parking. With the Incredi-Pass, you can hold up to 5 park reservations at once (in addition to any dates for which you have a Disney resort reservation linked in My Disney Experience).
How Many Days Is the Tipping Point?
With date-based pricing for tickets, prices can vary depending on the time of year. In other words, the math will be dependent on when you travel. The best way to see if a pass is worthwhile is to run a comparison. Since annual passes allow for park hopping, we’ll price out park hoppers for the examples below to keep the comparisons parallel.
Let’s say you were visiting Disney World twice this year with five days in June and another five days in December. A park hopper for June 4-8, 2023 would cost $677.02 while a park hopper for December 3-7, 2023 would cost $744.33. That’s a total of $1,421.35 for the year, which is slightly more than the cost of the Incredi-Pass. So for 2 five-day trips in the parks, you can start to see a small benefit to an annual pass. Clearly, the more that you plan to visit within a year, the more you will get out of your pass.
The benefit of an annual pass will also depend on how long your trips are. This is because the price per day for multi-day tickets is slightly cheaper as you add more days. For example, if you were only to do a ten-day trip from December 3 to 12, 2023, a park hopper would cost $856.29. In this case, the Incredi-Pass would not be worth it for those ten days.
What Are Other Ways to Save on Tickets?
If an annual pass is not worthwhile for you, there are still other ways to save on tickets. For instance, you can purchase discounted theme park tickets through the DVC Rental Store! They offer theme park tickets, park hoppers, and water park tickets. Using the December 3-12, 2023 example above, a park hopper through the DVC Rental Store would save you $59.94!
To save even more, consider joining their Unlocked Magic Community! The best ticket discounts are available exclusively to Members. For that same December 3-12 trip, you would save $72.96 on your park hopper as an Unlocked Magic Community Member!
The bottomline is that annual passes can save you money on park admission. However, it’s smart to price out your trips for the year and compare them against park hopper pricing due to variables with dates and length of stay.
