The biggest Walt Disney World news of the week is that Annual Passes will once again be available for purchase! Previously, Disney had suspended sales of all passes except the lowest tier weekday pass which is only available to Florida residents.
The general message from Disney had been that they wanted to prioritize park reservations for non-pass holders, since those visitors tend to generate more revenue for the company. While this makes sense from a pure dollars-and-cents standpoint, it alienated many of Disney’s most ardent fans, particularly Disney Vacation Club members who tend to make multiple trips per year to the parks and have invested a lot of money in their WDW fandom. Therefore, Disney’s decision to reverse course is being (rightly) praised among the fan community. However, the cynic in me wonders if they really are doing it because attendance is down, so they want to get more bodies into the parks, spending money.
Either way, it is a welcome development. Anything that gives people more options is a “good thing”.
WDW Annual Pass Options
Currently, there are four different levels of Annual Passes that you can purchase. However, two of the passes are only available to Florida residents, and one is only available to either FL residents or Disney Vacation Club (DVC) members. Therefore, most people are only eligible for the one level of pass, which also happens to be the most expensive level.
The passes vary based upon the number of reservations you can have at a time and the blackout dates. You can get more information here.
To keep this simple, I will only focus on the Incredi-Pass and the Sorcerer Pass, since those are the passes that will be available to the majority of visitors
Incredi-Pass Quick Facts
Cost for New Passholder = $1,489.94 (including tax)
Blackout Dates = None
Maximum Number of Theme Park Reservations = 5 days
Sorcerer Pass Quick Facts
Cost for New Passholders = $1,031.99 (including tax)
Blackout Dates = Select holiday periods (currently around Thanksgiving, and Christmas/New Years)
Maximum Number of Theme Park Reservations = 5 days
Other Passholder Benefits
- Free Theme Park Parking. This is worth $25/day, although if you are staying on-property you already get free parking
- 10% – 20% discount on select dining locations (generally table service)
- 20% discount on most merchandise
- Periodic AP only on-property hotel discounts
- Ability to enter any Park after 2pm without a reservation to that park (exception: Magic Kingdom on the weekend)
If you aren’t a Florida resident or DVC member, the most expensive Incredi-Pass is the only game in town. However, if you qualify, the other passes may offer better value. If you are a DVC member in particular, and you don’t visit during the holidays, you can save quite a lot of money by going with the Sorcerer Pass over the Incredi-Pass.
Is an Annual Pass Worth It?
This may sound obvious, but an Annual Pass is worth it if it costs less money to purchase a pass versus the equivalent ticket. To do the analysis, we need to compare the price of an AP with the price of a Park Hopper ticket, since this is the closest equivalent.
If you remember from our article on purchasing park tickets, a 10 day Park Hopper ticket (the longest ticket you can purchase) is $860.62 after tax. So clearly if you are going to WDW once a year for 10 days, you are better off not getting an Annual Pass. However, if you are going on multiple trips, then the math starts to shift in favor of getting a pass.
To illustrate this, I put together a table that shows the cost of purchasing park tickets for two separate trips of different lengths. I highlighted in green the combinations where it was cheaper to buy an Annual Pass.
[UPDATE: I realized that the pricing that I used in the examples is based upon the cost of a ticket that is valid starting on June 26, 2023. Since Disney changes the price of a ticket based upon your usage dates, the prices below may not represent the actual ticket prices for your travel days. Therefore, please check the latest ticket prices for your dates and do the math accordingly. That said, generally speaking, you likely will find that an AP is worthwhile only if you plan to visit WDW for around 5 or more days on two separate occasions. But again, your individual mileage may vary depending upon the time of year you visit.]
As you can see, if you are planning to take, for example, a four day trip and a nine day trip, it is cheaper to get an Incredi-Pass. There are other similar combinations of trip lengths where it is cheaper to get the pass.
This, of course, doesn’t take into account the other discounts that you get with an Annual Pass. Probably the biggest benefit is the free Theme Park parking. If you are staying off-property, you can save $25/day on your trip by having a pass. I re-did the analysis to factor this savings into the equation.
If you are getting the savings from the free parking benefit, the Incredi-Pass is more economical for even more combination of twice-a-year visits.
You may also want to take into account for any savings you might get from the dining, merchandise and hotel discounts. If you are close to the breakeven point, it still might be worthwhile to get the Annual Pass.
What About the Sorcerer Pass?
For DVC members who are eligible for the lower priced Sorcerer Pass, I did a similar analysis. Obviously, since the Sorcerer Pass is less expensive, you will break even much more quickly.
If you are a DVC member, you might not get much benefit from the free parking, since you likely are already staying on property at a DVC resort. However, I still included the “with parking benefit” analysis for those who are interested.
One Potential Strategy
Since we generally visit once per year, it might not seem worthwhile for us to purchase an Annual Pass. However, in the past we have adjusted the dates of our vacation slightly so that the end of our next year’s visit happened to be within 365 days of the start of our previous visit. This allowed us to save money by purchasing an annual pass every other year to pay for our once a year trips.
Here is an illustration of how it works
- June 1 2010 – June 10 2010: Purchase an AP that is activated on June 1 2010. This pass is good until May 31 2011.
- Schedule our 2011 trip from May 15 to May 25. Because the AP that we activated on June 1 2010 is still good, it covers our 2011 trip!
- June 1 2012 – June 10 2023. Purchase an AP that is activated on June 1 2012.
- ETC
So instead of renewing our pass after it expires on May 31 2011, we just let it lapse. Then we would purchase a new one in 2012 for our 2012 trip and use it also for our 2013 trip.
That said, I am not sure if I would recommend this strategy anymore. Because Disney has shown that it can and will discontinue the sales of new AP’s at any time, there is no guarantee that it will be available again for your next trip once you let it lapse.
Another Potential Strategy
If it is only worthwhile to purchase a pass for the free parking and/or discounts, then you might be better off if you only have one person purchase an AP. As long as that person is always with your traveling party, everyone can get the same benefits. This, of course, adds some complications regarding making Park Reservations.
If the party has a 10 day ticket, they will be able to make reservations for all 10 days. However, the AP holder will only be able to make up to 5. Therefore, you are banking on being able to make reservations for the AP holder during your trip. If you are traveling during a slow time of year, this might not pose an issue. However, if you are visiting during a time when you expect reservations to run out, the AP holder could be locked out from visiting their park of choice!
Conclusion
With the return of Annual Passes, Disney fans get yet another ticket option that they need to consider. Generally speaking, an Annual Pass isn’t likely to save you anything if you only visit once a year. However, if you come twice a year, then getting an Annual Pass might end up saving you a good bit of money. As always, do the math for yourself and decide what you think works best for you!
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