Walt Disney World is pausing new sales of some of its annual passes.

[emilymad]

I'm thinking backdoor price raise - they want folks to have to pay for either tickets or an annual pass for each year they come for the holidays - not be strategic and get 2 holiday seasons out of one pass...

This exactly! It makes me even more glad we decided to not buy an AP for the first time in years. We are just done with the games.

 

[1lilspark]

Has anyone heard if they'll allow kids turning 3 to get a pass? We are going next month for his birthday weekend, and had planned to buy his there.

I know one shouldn’t assume but when pass sales were paused due to the earlier days of the pandemic aside from being grandfathered in with renewals one of the only other ways to get a pass was if a child of a current passholder turned three

 

[MICKIMINI]

Presumably AP renewal vouchers/AP vouchers can be activated.

What about all the 'white card" sales that have not been activated? Are they trying to flush those out? (I'm both blue and white).

 

[robinb]

I'm thinking backdoor price raise - they want folks to have to pay for either tickets or an annual pass for each year they come for the holidays - not be strategic and get 2 holiday seasons out of one pass...

Nah. There’s not enough extra revenue from thank kind of stunt, and it would come next year in any case.

 

[lanejudy]

I've stumped her on what to do with my AP hotel rate.

WDW does allow folks to book an AP rate pending purchase of the AP. However, I believe officially they can revert to rack rate if the AP is not obtained within about 24 hours of check-in. If you have an AP voucher already you should be fine, but if you had planned to upgrade and don't yet have an AP, I suggest looking for an alternative rate or at least be ready if they change your rate. Now that I've said that... seems they don't always ask for the AP proof so it could be a non-issue.

 

[peabody58]

Well it's a minor hiccup in my long range plans. Just bought 110 pts at BWV to help with our 160 pts at BLT and thus create multiple AP years thru 2025.

Long range plans have us getting a Sorcerer Passes for May 2022-May 2023, and then using our 2011 DVC AP Voucher for May 2024-May 2025.

If AP sales do not resume by our May trip, I'll just have to use the DVC AP Voucher earlier. I'm confident AP Sales will resume in Jan, but with a higher price. Still have 4 NE+ tics in reserve.

 

[CBMom01]

They may also just be at the maximum number of APs allowed. Since they can’t make enough money if they have too many APs there has to be a limit to how many they sell.

 

[HopperFan]

Just got email from Disney .... sent me to a link where this was ...


We are pausing new sales of select Annual Passes. All current Passholders can continue to renew into any of our four pass types – at their renewal rate – and continue to visit using their pass. We will continue to evaluate the return of new sales for these passes. Please check back here for the latest updates.

I am a Current Annual Passholder. Will the pause of new sales of Annual Passes affect my pass?
Answer
No. All current Passholders can continue to renew into any of our four pass types – at their renewal rate – and continue to visit using their pass. We will continue to evaluate the return of new sales for these passes. Please check back here for the latest updates.

 

[GillianP1301]

I was planning on upgrading our tickets on our upcoming December trip to APs because we also have a trip next August so I figured I'd take advantage. The cost of our 2 x 10 day hoppers works out to about the same as APs, but I was really looking forward to the food & merch discounts. Oh well, not much can be done now.

 

[CP3uhoh]

^THIS

They have never stopped selling tickets to raise prices. They just flip the switch overnight.

Disney said this could happen, Disney parks have been very busy, holiday dates are already closed for some APs and I think they are trying to avoid the bad PR they got in CA when APs couldn't get in parks. This really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I honestly think they'll be for sale after the New Years.

Again, Disney warned of this which is why we straight out bought our APs and never considered the upgrade game.

“How dare you sell me an AP when I can’t get a reservation”

“How dare you stop selling AP’s before people start complaining they can’t find a reservation.”

people will never be happy, combine that with the propensity of people to just complain in general on the Internet and it will always be their fault. As poster says above, shouldn’t be a surprise. They have unbelievable demand now and that’s before international is back. It’s a problem. People are delusional here thinking they are limiting attendance too. They’re not and I think you’re going to see a lot of Issues with crowds/wait times this week and the same for Christmas and they see it coming so “pause” I’d be surprised if they’re not back on sale by the end of January.

 

[boop0524]

As some others have said: I think they saw what happened out in DL with the reservation system and want to avoid that at WDW. Probably doing a lot of analytics and statistics right now

That’s what I hope is the case. I would be pretty ticked if after paying the Incredi pass price (OOS) plus add ons we couldn’t get into the park.

I totally feel for anyone who was hoping to upgrade soon though

 

[wilkydelts]

People are delusional here thinking they are limiting attendance too. They’re not and I think you’re going to see a lot of Issues with crowds/wait times this week and the same for Christmas and they see it coming so “pause” I’d be surprised if they’re not back on sale by the end of January.

This is flat wrong. Please check your information before providing incorrect information especially so emphatically.

During the last sales call it was stated that they are in fact not back to capacity due to worker limits.

 

[DisneyMike2019]

Well I'm screwed for my trip in March. We were waiting on buying a AP for my youngest till it got closer to the trip because we don't know if we are going to be able to go before then so we didn't want to spend the money yet. Now that all the passes are gone save for Pixie, I'm screwed because two of the days are blacked out under the Pixie pass.

Thanks Disney. Thanks A lot. Now I am going to have to cancel the trip (and not like Disney cares).

All the more reason to not renew my current passes next month and go with UOAP instead.

 

[igrsod]

Well I'm screwed for my trip in March. We were waiting in buying a AP for my youngest till it got closer to the trip because we don't know if we are going to be able to go before then so we didn't want to spend the money yet. Now that all the passes are gone save for Pixie, I'm screwed because two of the days are blacked out under the Pixie pass.

Thanks Disney. Thanks A lot. Now I am going to have to cancel the trip.

They might be back before that. I wouldn't cancel just yet.

 

[CBMom01]

Well I'm screwed for my trip in March. We were waiting in buying a AP for my youngest till it got closer to the trip because we don't know if we are going to be able to go before then so we didn't want to spend the money yet. Now that all the passes are gone save for Pixie, I'm screwed because two of the days are blacked out under the Pixie pass.

Thanks Disney. Thanks A lot. Now I am going to have to cancel the trip.

Cant you just buy regular tickets now, make your park pass reservation, then upgrade when they open up APs again? I don’t understand why you have to cancel

 

[bathman123]

We are leaving in 4 hours to go to WDW. The plan was to upgrade our current tickets to DVC AP on our last day as we are going back in March. That would have saved us around 200-300 per person. I am guessing Disney wants to stop that as well (Paying for tickets during the holidays which are blacked out, and then upgrading to an AP). I think this may be the last straw for us.

 

[igrsod]

We are leaving in 4 hours to go to WDW. The plan was to upgrade our current tickets to DVC AP on our last day as we are going back in March. That would have saved us around 200-300 per person. I am guessing Disney wants to stop that as well (Paying for tickets during the holidays which are blacked out, and then upgrading to an AP). I think this may be the last straw for us.

From what I understand, they wouldn't allow this anyways, as you went to the park on blackout dates. We were thinking of doing the same for our Christmas vacation, but were told that if you used the tickets on blackout days then they couldn't be upgraded to the sorcerers pass only the incredipass.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

This is flat wrong. Please check your information before providing incorrect information especially so emphatically.

During the last sales call it was stated that they are in fact not back to capacity due to worker limits.

They are definitely still limiting attendance, significantly. Park passes were sold out yesterday and per touring plans they only hit crowd level 5's and 6's. I watched some livestreamers. The parks were crowded, but they weren't "thanksgiving walls of people" crowded. Wait times weren't that insane. I don't know what the limit is right now but its definitely substantially below a pre-covid park level 10.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

We are leaving in 4 hours to go to WDW. The plan was to upgrade our current tickets to DVC AP on our last day as we are going back in March. That would have saved us around 200-300 per person. I am guessing Disney wants to stop that as well (Paying for tickets during the holidays which are blacked out, and then upgrading to an AP). I think this may be the last straw for us.

I'm surprised Disney hasn't ended this hack years ago. It was basically a way to skirt the blackout dates.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

They are definitely still limiting attendance, significantly. Park passes were sold out yesterday and per touring plans they only hit crowd level 5's and 6's. I watched some livestreamers. The parks were crowded, but they weren't "thanksgiving walls of people" crowded. Wait times weren't that insane. I don't know what the limit is right now but its definitely substantially below a pre-covid park level 10.

All parks are sold out today as well. At 11:25 AM in Magic Kingdom, there is nothing with a wait time greater then 60 minutes (7dmt is down). Those are not crowd level 10 wait times.