When Will Disney Sell Annual Passes Again 2022?
Will Disney reinstate the annual pass?
We have Annual Passholder Magnets on the refrigerator. (picture by Bayley Clark courtesy of magicalguides.com) On June 28, 2022, Disney unintentionally started selling yearly passes to DVC owners and Florida residents for around 30 minutes. The Sorcerer Pass cost $899, while the Pirate Pass cost $699.
- In addition to the Incredi Pass, no additional passes were offered.
- Currently, no passes are available.
- We recently renewed our yearly passes, and you can read here why I renewed mine.
- Before we speculate about when Disney will begin selling annual passes again, we need recall when and why they stopped selling them in the first place.
On November 21, 2021, Disney ceased sales of all four of its yearly passes. That was after they ceased selling merchandise in March of 2020, when the Disney World parks closed. Since then, the parks have been bustling with activity, with some parks hitting capacity after forcing all customers to have a park reservation prior to admission and park hopping at 2:00 p.m.
- Why would someone want to get a Disney annual pass? They began at around $400 for Florida residents, and $1,299 for out-of-state tourists.
- Even then, if you want access to the water parks or photopass choices that have been available in previous years, you will have to pay an additional $99 per option.
If you have many family members, just one of you has to purchase the $99 photopass option and download the photos taken at the parks. Previously, the four yearly passes featured the following benefits: Standard parking at a theme park Hopper option Select restaurant discounts After-hours activities and dessert parties are discounted.
Why are most Disney annual passes unavailable?
Why Disney Has Stopped Selling Annual Passes – Disney World will certainly restart the selling of Annual Passes in the future, but not while demand for theme parks is so strong. Given the availability of park passes, it was a rather logical move to suspend sales.
Disney has been waiting for demand to decrease before reselling yearly passes, but this has not yet occurred. Disney’s shortage of availability in theme parks and hotels is still a result of pent-up demand owing to the epidemic. They wish to avoid introducing additional strain on the reservation system.
The Pixie Dust Pass is shut out on many weekdays and all weekends, so it is clear that Disney would see no harm in continuing to sell it, given there is no expectation that individuals who purchase it will be allowed to enter the park on sold-out days.
It is able to release additional slots when demand is low. Disney also noted that the limited Pixie Pass is an additional lever it can utilize if attendance patterns begin to decline, since it can simply release certain blockout days. Up to half of Disney’s customers are paying $15 for the Genie+ system, which offers access to faster-moving lines at select attractions, according to back-to-back earnings calls.
The system can only function if there are passengers in the standby queues, and here is where manipulating the levers of thrifty passholders comes into play. Clearly, everything is subject to change. Disney will need to be more aggressive in attracting yearly passholders and increase its promotional activity if the economy deteriorates to a level that compels it to do so.
Nonetheless, this does not appear to be in the near future plans of the entertainment stock benchmark. Disney is now making too much money to fix what it does not believe to be broken. Rick Munarriz is employed at Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has stakes in Walt Disney and recommends the stock.
Why are annual Disney passes on hold?
Those With Annual Passes Are “Less Valuable” – The “value” yearly passholders contribute to the Walt Disney Company may have a direct correlation with park capacity constraints and annual pass sales. In their Q1 Profitability Call, Disney said that its Parks, Experiences, and Products revenues for the quarter had increased from $3.6 billion to $7.2 billion, a doubling from the same period previous year.
- However, their earnings are still not at or above pre-pandemic levels.
- Therefore, Disney is currently in the process of fully recovering from the financial damage caused by COVID-19.
- Animal Kingdom entry for Annual Passholders Therefore, Disney has prioritized customers who are likely to spend more money in the parks, which does not include yearly passholders.
Chapek stated in a 2020 earnings call that “different guests depending on where they’re coming from have different relative values in terms of their contribution as a guest to the park,” and that “typically, someone who travels and stays for five to seven days is marginally more valuable to the business than someone who comes in on an annual pass and stays for two days and consumes less merchandise and food.” Annual Passholders are not often five- to seven-day vacationers, therefore they are generally less financially useful to Disney than those who are staying longer and purchasing park tickets.
Magnet for Passholders Each Year Disney may be delaying the resumption of yearly pass sales until they have maximized possible revenue from conventional customers or until they are prepared to manage potentially less favorable income outcomes from an increase of annual passholders visiting the theme parks.
Or, they may be waiting for the parks to restore to full capacity so that they have additional space for “more valued” visitors in addition to yearly passholders. MagicBand for Annual Passengers Overall, it is difficult to determine why Disney launched a new yearly pass scheme just to suspend sales a few months later. 
