The upcoming multi-day ticket tiering

[mshanson3121]

Does anyone have any ideas or insights as to how/when this will happen?

I know in February when he announced it, Iger just said "later this year". Considering that next year's packages should be released in the next 4-6 weeks, I'm wondering, will we see the tiered pricing announced then?

Or do you think that it will be later in the fall, done as a second price increase, and that the 2019 packages will be released "as is" for now, and then amended when the new tiering comes into place?

 

[mom2rtk]

You know as much as anybody (outside of Disney) right now.

 

[Planogirl]

I'd like to know when this tiering will start too. I'd like to plan around it if possible.

What do people know about this so far?

 

[mshanson3121]

I'd like to know when this tiering will start too. I'd like to plan around it if possible.

What do people know about this so far?

Basically that it will be in place before the end of this year... I'm with you. Whether we return to Disney or not in 2019, largely depends on the tiering, how and when it happens etc...

 

[mshanson3121]

You know as much as anybody (outside of Disney) right now.

Yes, but sometimes walls have ears...

 

[Planogirl]

There are at least bound to be rumors that we can all fuss about.

 

[DisneyPrincess1984]

Can someone tell me what this all means. We are planning a late 2019/early 2020 trip and this is the first I'm hearing about different ticket packages. We always just purchase a park hopper option when we go. Is this going to replace park hopper and totally screw up what I thought I was budgeting for?

 

[ArwenMarie]

I would guess that the price tiers they have already have on their site for the one-day tickets are a good starting point to see which weeks will be which

If they are going to come, I think it could start at any time

 

[mom2rtk]

I would guess that the price tiers they have already have on their site for the one-day tickets are a good starting point to see which weeks will be which

That's a good point. The differential is pretty small right now. I imagine tiering on multi day tickets will be small to start as well. They have to get the frog into the pot before they start turning up the heat.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Can someone tell me what this all means. We are planning a late 2019/early 2020 trip and this is the first I'm hearing about different ticket packages. We always just purchase a park hopper option when we go. Is this going to replace park hopper and totally screw up what I thought I was budgeting for?

The idea is that the ticket prices will be different based on when you want to go - so more crowded /popular times the tickets will be more expensive vs slower periods

They already do this for single day tickets - they change is rolling it out to multi-day tickets

Not a lot of details though. For example, what if your vacation spans two different “levels”? Is the price change per day or based on your first day and then carries through?

Seems like a potential confusing mess to people who start on a “low” and then move into a “medium” and are told their tickets aren’t valid or have to pay a surcharge or what

 

[Firebird060]

The teiring will be much like the current single day tiering which is based on a percentage up charge per historical park occupancy rates. I would suspect this will lead to a 5-20 dollar per ticket increase, with longer stays seeing less of a increase. Disney is doing this because it has worked so well for increasing spending per head for the 1 or 2 day visitors who dont stay on property. Effectively Disney wants you to be in the parks at least 4 or 5 days before they will want to give you a better discount on tickets. For people who stay at least 5 days I wouldnt expect to see much of a increase in ticket prices unless you come durring the holidays or peak season.

Because of the confusion this causes, I wont be suprised if Disney eventually stops allowing you to buy tickets months in advance, but will instead force your tickets to be locked into a specific date, which means if you buy a 5 day hopper for may 20th -25th those tickets would only be valid those days so if you had to change plans, those tickets would have to be changed like you would any disney reservations. This would prob cause more a issue with people who dont stay on property

 

[tlmadden73]

One guess is they will just take the dates they do with the 1-day tickets and just up multi-day tickets by around the same amount per day.
So right now .. The difference between a value ticket and a peak ticket is $20.
So I would guess that, say, a 4-day peak ticket would be $70-80 more than a value ticket.

The downside to tiering, of course, is those dates can (and will) change . .and is just another way to raise ticket prices without "officially" raising ticket prices by simply (year over year) offering less and less and less "Value" days (just like they've done with the hotel price tiering). I mean . .what there are maybe 3-4 weeks TOTAL out of the whole year that are considering "value" pricing for the hotels now?

I just wonder what they are going to do for vacations that will inevitably cross over seasons? Doesn't seem like any elegant solution and Disney pricing is already complex enough.

I wonder if they will just get rid of the Magic Your Way concept and just have you pay for tickets per day, like you do with a hotel (where your rate is different each day (like if you stay on a weekend or holiday), and maybe just offer a multi-day discount.

Example: using current prices
4 days at MK
Day 1 (value) - $109
Day 2 (value) - $109
Day 3 (regular) - $119
Day 4 (regular) - $119
TOTAL: $456
Multi-day discount: 5% off!
TOTAL= $433
Your "average" price per day/per person: $108!

This concept will "feel" good the guest because they see a "discount" .. but in reality the price would be more than a 4-day MYW ticket is.

If there goal is to reduce/balance crowds with price tiering . .that should do it, but I think that also eliminating the "practically free" tickets they give you for days 5+ could do that as well. Either way I don't see them offering as much of a discount .. for staying 5 or 6 days. With soon (after 2021) to have four FULL parks, a lot of guests may need 2+ days in some of the parks to do it "all"

I mean . .I wouldn't wan that, but I can see them ending the HUGE discounts they give to ticket prices for stays longer than 4 days.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

One guess is they will just take the dates they do with the 1-day tickets and just up multi-day tickets by around the same amount per day.
So right now .. The difference between a value ticket and a peak ticket is $20.
So I would guess that, say, a 4-day peak ticket would be $70-80 more than a value ticket.

The downside to tiering, of course, is those dates can (and will) change . .and is just another way to raise ticket prices without "officially" raising ticket prices by simply (year over year) offering less and less and less "Value" days (just like they've done with the hotel price tiering). I mean . .what there are maybe 3-4 weeks TOTAL out of the whole year that are considering "value" pricing for the hotels now?

I just wonder what they are going to do for vacations that will inevitably cross over seasons? Doesn't seem like any elegant solution and Disney pricing is already complex enough.

I wonder if they will just get rid of the Magic Your Way concept and just have you pay for tickets per day, like you do with a hotel (where your rate is different each day (like if you stay on a weekend or holiday), and maybe just offer a multi-day discount.

Example: using current prices
4 days at MK
Day 1 (value) - $109
Day 2 (value) - $109
Day 3 (regular) - $119
Day 4 (regular) - $119
TOTAL: $456
Multi-day discount: 5% off!
TOTAL= $433
Your "average" price per day/per person: $108!

This concept will "feel" good the guest because they see a "discount" .. but in reality the price would be more than a 4-day MYW ticket is.

If there goal is to reduce/balance crowds with price tiering . .that should do it, but I think that also eliminating the "practically free" tickets they give you for days 5+ could do that as well. Either way I don't see them offering as much of a discount .. for staying 5 or 6 days. With soon (after 2021) to have four FULL parks, a lot of guests may need 2+ days in some of the parks to do it "all"

I mean . .I wouldn't wan that, but I can see them ending the HUGE discounts they give to ticket prices for stays longer than 4 days.

The challenge you lay out is the one I am most interested in how it will work as you have 14 days to use your tickets once you activate the first day, right? So now in your proposal people would have to determine on day one what days they would go to the park and can't change off that?

Just feels like potential for things to get really messy

 

[tlmadden73]

The challenge you lay out is the one I am most interested in how it will work as you have 14 days to use your tickets once you activate the first day, right? So now in your proposal people would have to determine on day one what days they would go to the park and can't change off that?

Just feels like potential for things to get really messy

But with 180 days ADRs and 60 day Fast passes they are already training the guests to determine which days they are going to which parks months in advance.

I mean .. I know what my park days are going to be for my next trip .. I would have no issues buying my tickets right now and saying I am going to the parks on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and locking that in. With my ADRs in place, I can't easily change that without missing out on an ADR I was looking forward to.

I mean . .Maybe Disney is going .. "We don't need to appeal to the long-term 7+ day vacationers" .. we will have enough NEW traffic because of our new attractions. *shrug* or maybe they just sell "cruise-like" packages for those long stays where everything is included.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

But with 180 days ADRs and 60 day Fast passes they are already training the guests to determine which days they are going to which parks months in advance.

I mean .. I know what my park days are going to be for my next trip .. I would have no issues buying my tickets right now and saying I am going to the parks on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday and locking that in. With my ADRs in place, I can't easily change that without missing out on an ADR I was looking forward to.

I mean . .Maybe Disney is going .. "We don't need to appeal to the long-term 7+ day vacationers" .. we will have enough NEW traffic because of our new attractions. *shrug* or maybe they just sell "cruise-like" packages for those long stays where everything is included.

certainly possible - but we definitely will sometimes adjust on the fly if we find we need a day off - we almost never have tickets for every day of our vacation

And people that aren't super planners who already complain about how far out you have to plan things will not be happy

Maybe you will have to do like you say and if you change and it results in moving from a "low" to a "medium" you would have to pay the difference at that time or something

Other thing I am wondering if if they will move to the parks costing different prices than the others (MK is already more than the others for a single day ticket ... will they move to wanting to charge more for DHS once Galaxy's Edge opens?)

Lastly, one thing I saw some talk about after the last price increase was how it wasn't such a huge jump from the 7 day ticket to the annual pass and is Disney trying to push more people to getting annual passes ... this would be something else that would make having an annual pass even more attractive

 

[Firebird060]

Again this is all conjecture but if this goes into a effect I wouldnt be suprised to see another 100 jump in prices for APs due to the increase in prices. I love my AP because I dont worry when I can go and cant go. As long as Im on property I am able to walk into the parks. With the multi day tiered it will push the savings value of APs higher unless Disney does a major increase in their prices as well

 

[HuskieJohn]

I am expecting an 18% increase for peak season ticket prices. This was the increase for the peak ticket when they introduced the single day ticket tiers.

I would expect that the current price will be the value price. However I wonder if to counter the complaints they are going to make the current pricing as the mid level ticket price so that Disney can go on the PR march that they are offering the "value" ticket by $5 or $8 lower than current prices so they can say they are being more inclusive. Never mind its in the slowest season when kids are in school, WDW is working on something major with walls and scrims everywhere and the weather is less than ideal.

 

[tlmadden73]

Lastly, one thing I saw some talk about after the last price increase was how it wasn't such a huge jump from the 7 day ticket to the annual pass and is Disney trying to push more people to getting annual passes ... this would be something else that would make having an annual pass even more attractive

Isn't a huge jump? Am I missing something? There is about a $300 difference between a 7-day hopper ticket to an AP. Or are you talking about the Florida/DVC pass prices?

I would think that Disney would want to discourage annual passes (except for maybe the DVC guests) .. as they don't have the knowledge of who is coming when often and it is less money they get in ticket sales. The more APs that are out there, the more people can just "show up" on a whim and make things busier than expected. It seems they are moving the way of trying to steer people to schedule when to go (FP+ scheduling, discounts, ticket tiering).

Besides Annual passes are a "money saver" to those long-staying or frequent guests and they've already gotten rid of the other money-saving tickets (NO Expiration and non-expiring), so wouldn't be surprising if they upped the AP price to require more days before the price "breaks even".

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Isn't a huge jump? Am I missing something? There is about a $300 difference between a 7-day hopper ticket to an AP. Or are you talking about the Florida/DVC pass prices?

I would think that Disney would want to discourage annual passes (except for maybe the DVC guests) .. as they don't have the knowledge of who is coming when often and it is less money they get in ticket sales. The more APs that are out there, the more people can just "show up" on a whim and make things busier than expected. It seems they are moving the way of trying to steer people to schedule when to go (FP+ scheduling, discounts, ticket tiering).

Besides Annual passes are a "money saver" to those long-staying or frequent guests and they've already gotten rid of the other money-saving tickets (NO Expiration and non-expiring), so wouldn't be surprising if they upped the AP price to require more days before the price "breaks even".

But the price increase was less, so %-wise it is getting closer ... and if that continues it might push people to think, well, maybe we get the APs and come twice instead of only once which Disney would love ... and it sets them up for longer stays as well (more $ to the resorts), etc.

It might be way off and wrong, I just remember that discussion during the price increase time - and just thinking this could be another thing to push people to APs rather than dealing with different pricing and adjusting, etc.

 

[rteetz]

Isn't a huge jump? Am I missing something? There is about a $300 difference between a 7-day hopper ticket to an AP. Or are you talking about the Florida/DVC pass prices?

I would think that Disney would want to discourage annual passes (except for maybe the DVC guests) .. as they don't have the knowledge of who is coming when often and it is less money they get in ticket sales. The more APs that are out there, the more people can just "show up" on a whim and make things busier than expected. It seems they are moving the way of trying to steer people to schedule when to go (FP+ scheduling, discounts, ticket tiering).

Besides Annual passes are a "money saver" to those long-staying or frequent guests and they've already gotten rid of the other money-saving tickets (NO Expiration and non-expiring), so wouldn't be surprising if they upped the AP price to require more days before the price "breaks even".

For me I’ve found an AP to work well as I have three trips this year. My question come expiration time is do I want to renew. I’m not sure how often I’ll be going in 2019. If I don’t renew I would lose the grandfathered in pricing that I have and have to pay any increases if I buy one in the future. I’m tempted just to renew because of that.