Will Disney World passholders be able to pay in monthly installments?
A Mom and The Mouse, Featured, Kristin Ford — By Kristin Ford on February 23, 2010 at 2:15 am
(Walt Disney World photo)
Could it be true? Are Walt Disney World passholders finally going to be offered a payment plan?
Dedicated Disney-goers have been lamenting the inability to finance such a large entertainment purchase ever since neighboring Universal Studios and SeaWorld implemented their monthly options.
The folks at MousePlanet.com say Disney World will announce next week that the plan first offered to Disneyland annual passholders in 2008 will be brought to Orlando this summer, according to their WDW sources.
The Disneyland version requires visitors to make a deposit equal to the cost of a one-day, one-park ticket and the remaining monthly payments then are automatically charged to a credit card that is kept on file. The Disney World version is expected to be open to all Florida residents, MousePlanet.com reports.
Another annual pass option is also in the works, MiceChat.com says. The Domestic Parks Pass, an annual pass good for both Disney World and Disneyland, is expected to be announced next week, too, and will be priced in the $800 range.
Tags: Annual passes, Annual passholders, Disney World, Disneyland, Tickets
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38 Comments
Something very odd going on.Disney has a Florida Residents pass that is so good you quesion why bothering with the anuual pass?
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Florida Resident 4 Day Dream Pass – The Four Day Dream Pass is available through May 25, 2010 and allows admission to all four of the Disney theme parks – Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park – one park per day. Block out dates are between March 27 and April 4, 2010 when the ticket cannot be used. Cost is $99 plus tax ($105.44 with tax) for guests age 10 and up, $84 plus tax ($89.46) for ages 3-9. Park hopper option and water park option are each available for an additional $26 plus tax ($27.69) per option per ticket.
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Even if you bought two sets of these per person it is hundreds of dollars lower then the annual pass.How many of us go 8 times a year?
You left out the part the the ticket is only good until May 25th. So it’s not comparable to the annual pass.
The annual pass offers free parking, which can quickly add up to the price of another ticket after a few visits(unless you try parking at one of the hotels for free and being bussed in). Also, its nice knowing you have as many visits as you want and it doesn’t feel like you’re wasting a day on a limited day pass if you only show up for half a day at Disney. Believe me, you’ll go more often if you feel like you can show up at 3 or 4 pm and still have fun without having to worry about how much you’re paying for just that 5 or 6 hours of fun. Also with the voucher for the free ticket from volunteering you can trade it in to get the value of it put towards an annual pass. $85 off a pass isn’t bad.
Has anyone checked out – the Play 4 days Park Hopper Exchange Ticket – NO EXPIRATION. While it is a little more expensive, but for AAA members an additional discount, you can hop and spread the days when you really want to do and I don’t believe there are any blackouts.
I go way more than eight times a year.
Actually… LAst year if you went on your birthday, you could upgrade your freebie ticket to a Seasonal pass for $170. Then you can go unlimited for a year, not the 4 visits and no park hopping these $99 passes are. You could also use the $80 credit to upgrade to a higher AP. I bought a Seasonal for myself and my daughter. I already volunteered so with my voucher, i’ll let my seasonal expire and get it again after the summer blackout instead of May. If I bought in May, I’d have TWO black out summers for my 15 month pass. Better to wait til September and then the passes will be good through December of the following year.
You can park in the resorts or downtown disney area and through use of buses and transfers, get to one of the parks, to avoid the $14 fee.
I hate the $99 pass because it expires in May. Too quick for my taste or to even get for my wife to come with me and the daughter.
Well as annual pass holders for Disney I can say honestly we got out passes this year as of Feb 5th and already we have been more than 8 times. Second of all with the payment plan makes families like us able to continue visiting Disney all the time. We have a family of 5 with in it are 4 adult purchased passes and one child’s pass that cost is close to $2000.00 a shot. The payment plan would allow us to keep the passes every year instead of every other year as we currently have been doing it with our income tax return. We currently hold Sea World’s pass and have since early 90’s as they had such a offer for some time. It allows the working class with large families to afford the pleasures of the theme parks located in local areas. I give Disney A+ for catching up with the times.
Humm, as a stockholder, I’m not a fan of a payment plan. Why not just have the customer use a credit card and pay the bank over time. Disney isn’t a bank.
Frank
But if you offer some sort of payment plan – even if that is hitting the credit card at intervals – if that results in higher sales of passes, isn’t that good for stockholders?
Disney doesn’t have to be a bank, they just schedule automatic payment processing at set times. You aren’t getting a Disney credit card. Its easier to budget $15 or so a month and send it in, than getting hit with $250 at once. Not only do you have to deal with the interest you accrue from the $250 initial hit, but also each month you haven’t paid it off, which keeps compounding.
i’m surprised that as a stockholder, you haven’t thought this out. Busch Garden’s passes here in Tampa are EXTREMELY popular in the local market due to the monthly payment plan. Heck, for the price of a one day ticket, you get unlimited entry all year long. Same with the waterpark. You should see how packed the parks get in summer and weekends and school holidays from the families going there. Disney would make a killing in the local market for those families that cannot and won’t shell out close to $1000 fro a family of four. I swear, you should sell your stock with a mindset you have.
ps. If someone’s charge gets bounced at the bank, Disney can cancel the passes until the person shows up and pays the past balance due then and there, or the entire balance due. That will help combat fraud.
My wife works for a company that sells on TV/online, and when someone has their bank bounce a scheduled Easy/Flex payment for an item, they cannot order anything else until it gets resolved. Frequent abusers get a block on their account and normal CS/Sales cannot unblock them. They get routed to another department who handles that.
As a stockholder, can you shake things up regarding their reaction time to making improvements? It seems they only do it when they have to, i.e. another park is doing it.
Regarding the monthly payment plan, they already do it with the DVC. You don’t like to think of them as a bank, but we also don’t like to think of them as a heartless corporation primarily concerned with making money.
Frank, you sound like a jerk stock holder. wont they still be getting the money, plus getting more people to use this method will benefit you stock holders wont it?
Well Frank,
Some of us don’t have credit cards and are not independently weathy
So the payment plan would allow people like us to enjoy taking
their children to Disney when they would otherwise never be
able to afford to go.
As FL residents, my family definitely goes more than 8 times a year. We have annual passes and go (on average) every other weekend–sometimes more and sometime less. The thing with the 4 day resident pass is it expires and has blackout dates. But, you’re right, if you are only going a handful of times, before it expires, it’s an awesome deal!
Enjoy.
I was very happy to hear that Disney is going to do a payment plan. As for Frank’s comment not everyone wants to tie up $1600. if you have a family on their credit card. I can’t wait until it is available.
Finally. I have had Sea World and Universal passes forever because of this option. They automatically renew and I never have to think about it. On the other hand, we have only sporatically had Disney passes when all the funds have been available (for a family of four paying admission, it runs over $1,000). Even then, mostly only seasonal passes. Most people will probably buy an upgraded pass if monthly payments are an option. I had no idea they were already offering this in California.
I totally agree. Not everyone uses credit cards. We’ve been Disney pass holders for 6 years, but were not able to renew our family’s passes in January when they expired. On the other hand, our Sea World and Universal passes have been on a payment plan for years without interruption.
When we go to Sea World or Universal, they get our food money, our money for merchandise and we take our out of town friends with us. If Disney World offered the same type of monthly payment plan, we’d not only reinstate our annual passes, but spend our food money, merchandise money and our guests money there instead!
Bring on the payment plan!
I don’t mind blackout dates, since they’re usually for times of the year when it’s too hot/crowded to go to Disney anyway.
Exactly…. Any floridian knows summer and Disney are a big no-no… I prefer to take a day off and go during the week with my kids. Less people and better experience.
This is awesome news and as a stockholder I fully approve. Disneyland has to raise prices of their annual passes more than once a year due to the demand that this pricing structure has with their customer base. I believe more families will take advantage of this offer and boost WDW attendance. Also the Disney Dream Pass is a great offer but one that will expire when the economy improves but the option to pay over time for your annual pass will never go away and will simply become a standard pricing structure. My family will definately go more than eight times a year to enjoy the Holiday offerings and festivals on top of just enjoying the parks.
Its about time….
I’ve been a Florida resident since 1998 and purchased seasonal tickets up until 3 yrs ago, then it just got too expensive. This first year we moved here we went to the parks in excess of 60 times. (Didn’t know Disney had ways of keeping track)
I knew that Disneyland had the payment option, I would definitly take advantage of that.
Wow… this is great. Everyone will buy AP’s, not spend a lot initially, but still pay for the AP’s eventually, trek on down to WDW and buy food and souvies with money they didn’t have to start with and still don’t have, but will then put the food and souvies on a Disney Visa card they didn’t want to overload with AP costs.
Makes sense…. I guess…
I do have to chuckle. I see families at Disney using their food tickets thinking they got a deal, but still walk away with a big bill for extras. I’m actually smiling, not chuckling. And I stand corrected…. what a great deal this AP installment payment is!!!
Frank
yep your still a jerk!
Well. You don’t get extra food nor parking from me with my Seasonal passes, so there..
Ok Frank, you go ahead and enjoy your own humor…
As for me, I had season passes for years and took my kids
all the time, until it got out of reach financially.
This will put it back within reach and I can enjoy taking my
now preteens to Disney while they are still interested in
going!
Sounds like you should be on the board for them, all they have
ever been interested in is their bottom line also…
I have never been able to afford disney world, I took my daughter there when she was 5 and she just turned 9 today. I have had seaworld busch gardens, universal and kennedy space center passes….whos missing there? DISNEY of course! I did all of them on the FLEX PAY. With the exception of Kennedy space center. Just goes to show, my daughter and I may only be 2 out of a millon visitors, but on food and merchandise, its no sweat to spend a few hundred bucks even with passes. Disney has never been able to get my business because of no Flex Pay option. I love disney but just could never afford to fork out 150 a day and try to cram everything in that day, just not worth it, it takes the magic away to rush rush rush. So I personally think the payment option will be wonderful idea, not only for me a mother of 1, but a blessing to bigger families too!
My famiy’s annual passes expire in April, I am glad to know that we can volunteer get passes and upgrade them. If there were a payment plan, I would be more inclined to get payment plan season passes for my young neices and nephews so they could go with us, otherwise we cannot afford the sum of paying for them to accompany us. Also, tying up a credit card on something that is a luxury does not make sense. We have Universal and Sea World and we Love them. Concert series and Mardi Gras are fantastic. Therefore, in this area we have choices and Disney is not a value for a family of 5.
Great! Disney is not crowded enough… let’s come up with a plan to make it more crowded and more miserable! That way, those of us that pay for our annual passes up front can’t enjoy anything because the people who are going and can’t afford to go in the first place are taking up space in the lines, etc.
Man, some of you people are so selfish!!
Try taking the silver spoon out of your mouth and give a care
for someone else.
Why is it that the Seaworld/Busch Gardens park paas is good at all of their parks, but Disney wants to charge more for the same deal? Not only more, but almost the same as the 2 passes combined?
If I read this article correctly, the payment plan only would apply to Florida residents. What about all the other AP holders from the rest of the nation? There are quite a few, especially in the southeast, that also would benefit from a payment plan.
I hope Disney gives some consideration to expanding this offer to the entire nation, not just Florida.
Disneyland does offer the agreement to pay monthly on annual passes; however, it is only offered to Southern California residents, I believe. Folks north of Santa Barbara or so are out of luck. I think they offer the passes only semi-locally because they believe that “locals” are more likely to utilize the parks enough to not default on their pass payments. If they offered them nationwide, then folks would pay the one-day fee, leave a card number and potentially visit the park for four or five days, return to a home a thousand miles away, change credit cards and default on Disney’s plan.
Wow this is great news! As a family, we can’t afford for all of us to have an AP, so usually we just get one to get the discounts on rooms and food, but then not everyone can park hop and we still have to plan out our days according to the limited tickets. Fabulous!
I agree with DisneyDaddy. We live in PA and are AP holders also. And DVC members who frequent at least 2 times a year. Why can’t we also get the payment plan? I think Disney needs to reconsider.
I have to say KennySoCal is right. Like in Disneyland, this plan would only be offered to FL residents. The reason stated was correct too. Residents often visit the parks much more often than non-residents, and just as KennySoCal stated, people would buy the pass, go once or twice then default not having full paid up for their use.
The only way an National AP payment plan would work is if it was overseen by a financial institution with credit penalties for not paying up.
And as for Frank, I too am a shareholder and I think that you clearly do not get the concept of Disney at all. While you are entitled to your own opinion, making comments like that really set a bad tone for other shareholders and make us look bad. While we value that the company should indeed be profitable, I do not see this plan as anything that is going to effect our value.
If you are going to represent yourself as a shareholder, then don’t leave comments like that for the public.
I’ve lived in Orlando for about 12 years now and i only been to disney once, we are a family of four two adults two kids we really cannot afford to be going to disney. Now with this payment plan i am hoping we now can afford to go and it wont break my pocket. So lets see what the deal is…