Price Increases on Park Tickets

[missymouseworld]

After discussing the price increase of the park tickets for 2009, a family member mailed me the following information from 1979.....it is unbelievable!!!

1979

Ticket prices were increased on April 8, 1979.

Adult:
$6.50-$7.00
General Admission

Junior (12-17):
$5.50-$6.00
General Admission

Child (3-11):
$3.50-$4.00
General Admission

[Sunshine1010]

WHOA!!!!!....that's about a gallon of gas!

[g0189a]

Weren't the tickets per ride still in effect then? Or is this the first all day admission rates?

[KathyMO]

If I remember correctly that was just the price to ride the monorail and enter the park. You then had to buy a ticket to ride each attraction. Each ticket would only let you ride a ride one time. The E tickets were the highest price and would let you ride attractions like the HM, PC, PP, SM, SW, etc.

Kathy

[Mickey91]

We were looking at the prices and found that when we went in 1991 we spent 33.00 a day. Amazing how much they have gone up.

[bicker]

You had to pay for each ride, in addition to the general admission fee missymouseworld posted, through 1982.

In 1979, a typical day (just at the Magic Kingdom, of course -- the other parks were not open yet) would cost $11 for adults, $10 for juniors and $9 for young children. That's the special Magic Kingdom Club price.

Adjusted for inflation, that's about $35, which not surprisingly is the average price per day for admission to all four WDW theme parks today, using a seven day pass.

[Mousemates]

WHOA!!!!!....that's about a gallon of gas!

Yeah, but gas then (in EAst Tennessee) was around .85 cents a gallon. (those were the days )

So given that a real day (with rides) in the parks ended up running about $11(per Bicker)

71 dollar tickets /11= 6.45

4.00 a gallon gas /.85 = 4.71

And given that you don't get much more per gallon of gas today than you did back then, (my Suburaru Forrester gets roughly the same mileage as my old 74 MustangII)...and that there is much more to Disney than there used to be....maybe its not as big a jump (relatively speaking) as it might first seem.

[Imagineer1981]

wow, very cool info. But with the rising inflation and such, I can believe that we at 73 bucks a day

[bicker]

Well the $73 per day isn't really comparable to anything they had back then. Disney doesn't want folks visiting WDW these days for just one day... just look at their pricing schedule and you can see that they're basically punishing guests for staying less than four days at a time. Back then, though, one day was a legit visit, as far as they were concerned.

[starflyer59]

We celebrate our 20 year wedding anniversary on Aug 13th and we spent our honeymoon at Disney 20 years ago this week.

in 1988 we took $500 dollars cash with us. We spent 5 days at Disney and went to Magic kingdom and Epcot. We came back home with money left over.

We recently booked our 20th anniversary trip to disney and for 2 nights and 1 park it is over $1000 for a moderate resort, tickets and dining plan.

Disney has gotten so stingy you cannot get a florida resident rate and the dining plan together. If you want the dining plan then you have to pay full price for the room.

Just to make it afforable we are getting a florida resident rate at Port or'leans riverside, buying our tickets at the Navy base and No dining plan this time. We will eat mostly counter service and go out to irlo bronson highway to eat a really nice meal.

I just cannot justify or afford over $1000 dollars for two nights.

[MississippiDisneyFreak]

DW is still worth it to me

[Mousemates]

We recently booked our 20th anniversary trip to disney and for 2 nights and 1 park it is over $1000 for a moderate resort, tickets and dining plan.

We must do disney at another time of year or without some of the bells and whistles you enjoy....but if its just my wife and I, we can have a great time for two nights for something considerably less than $500 a day.

[Ian]

If I remember correctly that was just the price to ride the monorail and enter the park. You then had to buy a ticket to ride each attraction.

That's correct. Up until Epcot opened in 1982, Magic Kingdom required monorail/admission be purchased (for the quoted prices) and then ticket books needed to be bought inside to allow you on each of the attractions.

When you think about it, given the fact that tickets probably cost you at least another $10 or so, that's not so bad almost 30 years later.

Also, that $70+ a day is kind of a bogus figure anyway. No one actually pays that much. The average stay is probably 7 days and a 7 day hopper now goes for about $300, which works out to around 42 bucks a day ... and that's for four different theme parks, not just one. If you divide that number by 4 you're at $10.50 a day ... effectively less than what you paid in 1979.

[Ian]

We recently booked our 20th anniversary trip to disney and for 2 nights and 1 park it is over $1000 for a moderate resort, tickets and dining plan.

I don't have any problem believing this. Disney World has really priced things to encourage longer stays. If you stay short-term you do get kinda squeezed.

We're staying 3 nights at the GF next month and even with free dining and only one day hopper passes I think it's gonna set us back like $1,500. Now we have AP's, so we'll be able to get a credit towards our renewals by "upgrading" our one-day hoppers. But even so that's only going to save us around $200 maybe. Tops.

[Maleficent's Dad]

You had to pay for each ride, in addition to the general admission fee missymouseworld posted, through 1982.

Very true.
However, when you could purchase a "One Day Ticket" in June of 1982, the cost was a mere $13.25 for adults, $12.25 for juniors, and $11.25 for kids.

[bicker]

DW is still worth it to me

And to millions others. That's really why the prices are as they are -- because it is worth it to so many.

[GreenB]

Hi Everybody!

I made some easy calculations and, surprisingly, came up with the following figures.

-Considering an initial price of $7.00 dollars for one adult for general admission back in 1979 and a final price of $73.00 dollars for the 2008-2009 season, the compounded increase rate is only 6.512% per year.

-If you start increasing the interest rate by 6.512% per year starting in 1979, by 1982 the price should have been $13.29 which is totally in line with the price of $13.25 that you had to pay when they introduced the “One Day Ticket”.

The 6.512% a year increase is not bad at all considering how much WDW has grown in the past 30 years, and the amount of parks, perks, attractions, resorts they now offer. Just think about it.

Amazing how they manage their company.

Cheers!

[RPHX2NC]

[QUOTE=Ian;1712387]
Also, that $70+ a day is kind of a bogus figure anyway. No one actually pays that much. QUOTE]

We are paying that much for 2 adults and 3 children. We are going in September and staying 3 nights post a cruise. We are doing MNSSHP one night and 1 day passes to MK. The party was a cheaper option than 2 day tickets for MK.

[missymouseworld]

All this really says is.....no matter what the price, we still go because we love it!

[Fantasmic]

Isn't $6 worth a lot less than $6 was worth in 1979 though.... it's called inflation, it's happend to everything. I don't think you can really compare unless you know how much 1979 $6 is in todays terms.